To elucidate pathways in bladder inflammation, we employed our physiologically relevant LL-37 induced cystitis model. Based on inflammatory studies involving other organ systems implicating the receptor for advanced g...To elucidate pathways in bladder inflammation, we employed our physiologically relevant LL-37 induced cystitis model. Based on inflammatory studies involving other organ systems implicating the receptor for advanced glycation end-products (RAGE), we first hypothesized that RAGE is critically involved in LL-37 induced cystitis. We further hypothesized that?a common RAGE ligand high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is up-regulated in bladders challenged with LL-37. Finally, we hypothesized that NF-κB dependent inflammatory genes are activated in LL-37 induced cystitis. Testing our first hypothesis, C57Bl/6 mice were challenged with either saline (control) or 320 μM of LL-37 intravesically for 1 hr. After 12 or 24 hours, tissues were examined with immunohistochemistry (IHC) for RAGE, and both mRNA and protein isolation for respective qRT-PCR and Western Blot analysis. Our second hypothesis was tested by employing HMGB1 IHC. Testing our final hypothesis, qRT-PCR was performed investigating five genes: TNFα, IL-6, IL-1β, GM-CSF, COX-2. In control and LL-37 challenged tissues, IHC for RAGE revealed similar qualitative expression. Evaluation with qRT-PCR and Western Blot for RAGE revealed diminished expression at the mRNA and protein level within LL-37 challenged bladders. IHC for HMGB1 revealed a moderate qualitative increase within LL-37 challenged tissues. Finally, with the exception of TNFα, all NF-κB dependent inflammatory genes yielded substantial up-regulation. We have employed our LL-37 induced cystitis model to gain insight to wards a possible mechanistic pathway involved in bladder inflammation. This work provides data for future studies involving the inflammatory ligand HMGB1, RAGE, and receptor pathways that activate NF-κB.展开更多
Starch/polyvinyl alcohol （PVA） blended materials for using as a solid carbon source （SCS） were prepared by blending PVA and gelatinized starch in an aqueous solution system, in which PVA served as framework materi...Starch/polyvinyl alcohol （PVA） blended materials for using as a solid carbon source （SCS） were prepared by blending PVA and gelatinized starch in an aqueous solution system, in which PVA served as framework material and starch as carbon source. The optimization of starch content and temperature effects were investigated. It was indicated that higher denitrification efficiency could be achieved with more starch in the materials. The average specific denitrification rates were 0.93, 0.66, 0.37 and 0.36 mg/（g·day） corresponding to starch content of 70%, 60%, 40% and 30% respectively at 37℃. The denitrification rates increased when operating temperature was raised from 23℃ to 30℃ and then 37℃. The mechanism of carbon release was analyzed incorporating the experimental results of abiotic release in deionized water. The organic carbon was mainly hydrolyzed by microbes, and the biological release efficiencies were at the range of 89.2% to 96.0%. A long-term experiment with a continuous flow reactor with SCS material containing 70% starch was conducted to gain some experience for practical application. When the influent nitrate concentration was in the range of 35.2 to 39.1 mg/L, hydraulic retention time of 4 hr, and operating temperature of 30℃, a nitrogen removal efficiency up to 94.6% and denitrification rate of 0.217 kg/（m3.day） was achieved. The starch-based materials developed in this study can be used as a solid carbon source for tertiary nitrogen removal from secondary effluent.展开更多
Closed circuit television(CCTV)systems are widely used to inspect sewer pipe conditions.During the diagnosis process,the manual diagnosis of defects is time consuming,labor intensive and error prone.To assist inspecto...Closed circuit television(CCTV)systems are widely used to inspect sewer pipe conditions.During the diagnosis process,the manual diagnosis of defects is time consuming,labor intensive and error prone.To assist inspectors in diagnosing sewer pipe defects on CCTV inspection images,this paper presents an image recognition algorithm that applies features extraction and machine learning approaches.An algorithm of image recognition techniques,including Hu invariant moment,texture features,lateral Fourier transform and Daubechies(DBn)wavelet transform,was used to describe the features of defects,and support vector machines were used to classify sewer pipe defects.According to the inspection results,seven defects were defined;the diagnostic system was applied to a sewer pipe system in a southern city of China,and 28,760 m of sewer pipes were inspected.The results revealed that the classification accuracies of the different defects ranged from 51.6% to 99.3%.The overall accuracy reached 84.1%.The diagnosing accuracy depended on the number of the training samples,and four fitting curves were applied to fit the data.According to this paper,the logarithmic fitting curve presents the highest coefficient of determination of 0.882,and more than 200 images need to be used for training samples to guarantee the accuracy higher than 85%.展开更多
Solar absorption-subcooled compression hybrid refrigeration system is a new type of efficient and economical solar refrigeration device which always meets the demand of cooling load with the change of solar irradiance...Solar absorption-subcooled compression hybrid refrigeration system is a new type of efficient and economical solar refrigeration device which always meets the demand of cooling load with the change of solar irradiance.The perfonnance of the hybrid system is higher due to the improvement of evaporator temperature of absorption subsystem.But simultaneously,the variation of working process as well as performance is complicated since the absorption and compression subsystems are coupled strongly.Based on the measured meteorological data of Guangzhou,a subtropical city in south China,a corresponding parametric model has been developed for the hybrid refrigeration system,and a program written by Fortran has been used to analyze the performance of the hybrid system under different external conditions.As the condensation temperature ranges from 38°C to 50°C,the working time fraction of the absorption subsystem increases from 75%to 85%.Besides,the energy saving fraction also increases from 5.31%to 6.02%.The average COP of the absorption subsystem is improved from 0.366 to 0.407.However,when the temperature of the absorption increases from 36°C to 48°C,the average COP of hybrid system decreases from 2.703 to 2.312.Moreover,the working time fraction of the absorption subsystem decreases from 80%to 71.7%.The energy saving fraction falls from 5.67%to 5.08%.In addition,when the evaporate temperature increases from 4°C to 14°C,the average COP of the absorption subsystem decreases from 0.384 to 0.365.The work of the compressor decreases from 48.2 kW to 32.8 kW and the corresponding average COP of the absorption subsystem is improved from 2.591 to 3.082.展开更多
文摘To elucidate pathways in bladder inflammation, we employed our physiologically relevant LL-37 induced cystitis model. Based on inflammatory studies involving other organ systems implicating the receptor for advanced glycation end-products (RAGE), we first hypothesized that RAGE is critically involved in LL-37 induced cystitis. We further hypothesized that?a common RAGE ligand high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is up-regulated in bladders challenged with LL-37. Finally, we hypothesized that NF-κB dependent inflammatory genes are activated in LL-37 induced cystitis. Testing our first hypothesis, C57Bl/6 mice were challenged with either saline (control) or 320 μM of LL-37 intravesically for 1 hr. After 12 or 24 hours, tissues were examined with immunohistochemistry (IHC) for RAGE, and both mRNA and protein isolation for respective qRT-PCR and Western Blot analysis. Our second hypothesis was tested by employing HMGB1 IHC. Testing our final hypothesis, qRT-PCR was performed investigating five genes: TNFα, IL-6, IL-1β, GM-CSF, COX-2. In control and LL-37 challenged tissues, IHC for RAGE revealed similar qualitative expression. Evaluation with qRT-PCR and Western Blot for RAGE revealed diminished expression at the mRNA and protein level within LL-37 challenged bladders. IHC for HMGB1 revealed a moderate qualitative increase within LL-37 challenged tissues. Finally, with the exception of TNFα, all NF-κB dependent inflammatory genes yielded substantial up-regulation. We have employed our LL-37 induced cystitis model to gain insight to wards a possible mechanistic pathway involved in bladder inflammation. This work provides data for future studies involving the inflammatory ligand HMGB1, RAGE, and receptor pathways that activate NF-κB.
基金supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No.2009AA063805)
文摘Starch/polyvinyl alcohol （PVA） blended materials for using as a solid carbon source （SCS） were prepared by blending PVA and gelatinized starch in an aqueous solution system, in which PVA served as framework material and starch as carbon source. The optimization of starch content and temperature effects were investigated. It was indicated that higher denitrification efficiency could be achieved with more starch in the materials. The average specific denitrification rates were 0.93, 0.66, 0.37 and 0.36 mg/（g·day） corresponding to starch content of 70%, 60%, 40% and 30% respectively at 37℃. The denitrification rates increased when operating temperature was raised from 23℃ to 30℃ and then 37℃. The mechanism of carbon release was analyzed incorporating the experimental results of abiotic release in deionized water. The organic carbon was mainly hydrolyzed by microbes, and the biological release efficiencies were at the range of 89.2% to 96.0%. A long-term experiment with a continuous flow reactor with SCS material containing 70% starch was conducted to gain some experience for practical application. When the influent nitrate concentration was in the range of 35.2 to 39.1 mg/L, hydraulic retention time of 4 hr, and operating temperature of 30℃, a nitrogen removal efficiency up to 94.6% and denitrification rate of 0.217 kg/（m3.day） was achieved. The starch-based materials developed in this study can be used as a solid carbon source for tertiary nitrogen removal from secondary effluent.
文摘Closed circuit television(CCTV)systems are widely used to inspect sewer pipe conditions.During the diagnosis process,the manual diagnosis of defects is time consuming,labor intensive and error prone.To assist inspectors in diagnosing sewer pipe defects on CCTV inspection images,this paper presents an image recognition algorithm that applies features extraction and machine learning approaches.An algorithm of image recognition techniques,including Hu invariant moment,texture features,lateral Fourier transform and Daubechies(DBn)wavelet transform,was used to describe the features of defects,and support vector machines were used to classify sewer pipe defects.According to the inspection results,seven defects were defined;the diagnostic system was applied to a sewer pipe system in a southern city of China,and 28,760 m of sewer pipes were inspected.The results revealed that the classification accuracies of the different defects ranged from 51.6% to 99.3%.The overall accuracy reached 84.1%.The diagnosing accuracy depended on the number of the training samples,and four fitting curves were applied to fit the data.According to this paper,the logarithmic fitting curve presents the highest coefficient of determination of 0.882,and more than 200 images need to be used for training samples to guarantee the accuracy higher than 85%.
文摘Solar absorption-subcooled compression hybrid refrigeration system is a new type of efficient and economical solar refrigeration device which always meets the demand of cooling load with the change of solar irradiance.The perfonnance of the hybrid system is higher due to the improvement of evaporator temperature of absorption subsystem.But simultaneously,the variation of working process as well as performance is complicated since the absorption and compression subsystems are coupled strongly.Based on the measured meteorological data of Guangzhou,a subtropical city in south China,a corresponding parametric model has been developed for the hybrid refrigeration system,and a program written by Fortran has been used to analyze the performance of the hybrid system under different external conditions.As the condensation temperature ranges from 38°C to 50°C,the working time fraction of the absorption subsystem increases from 75%to 85%.Besides,the energy saving fraction also increases from 5.31%to 6.02%.The average COP of the absorption subsystem is improved from 0.366 to 0.407.However,when the temperature of the absorption increases from 36°C to 48°C,the average COP of hybrid system decreases from 2.703 to 2.312.Moreover,the working time fraction of the absorption subsystem decreases from 80%to 71.7%.The energy saving fraction falls from 5.67%to 5.08%.In addition,when the evaporate temperature increases from 4°C to 14°C,the average COP of the absorption subsystem decreases from 0.384 to 0.365.The work of the compressor decreases from 48.2 kW to 32.8 kW and the corresponding average COP of the absorption subsystem is improved from 2.591 to 3.082.
