Autocrine expression of hepatocyte growth factor and its cytoprotective effect on hepatocyte poisoning

AIM: To construct pEGFP-hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) expression vector, the to detect its expression in transfected human hepatocytes, and to investigate the influence of autocrine HGF expression on the proliferative potential and cytoprotective effects in human hepatocytes.METHODS: Human HGF cDNA was ligated to the pEGFP vector. Recombinant plasmid was transfected into human hepatocyte line QZG with liposome. Expression of HGF protein was observed by fluorescence microscopy and immunohistochemistry. Hepatic cells were collected 24, 48, and 72 h after transfection to detect the number of [^3H]-TdR uptake in DNA. DNA synthesis was observed by using PCNA stain immunohistochemistry.Acute liver cell damage was induced by carbon tetrachloride. Cytoprotective effect was observed by examining the survival rate of hepatocytes and leakage of intracellular alanine transaminase (ALT) and potassium ions.RESULTS: HGF identification of pEGFP-HGF by enzyme digestion showed that HGF fragment was cloned into BamH I and SalI sites of pEGFP-N3. Expression of GFP in transfected hepatocytes was observed with fluorescence microscopy. The [^3H]-TdR uptake became 7 times as many as in thecontrol group 96 h after transfection. After HGF transfection, the survival rate of hepatocytes poisoned by CCI4 significantly increased (83% vs 61%, P<0.05), and the leakage of intracellular alanine transaminase and potassium ions decreased (586 nkat/L vs 1089 nkat/L, P<0.01; and 5.59 mmol/L vs 6.02 mmol/L, P<0.01 respectively). Culture of transfected hepatic cells promoted the proliferation of other nontransfected cells.CONCLUSION: Transfected HGF is expressed in hepatic cells and has the activity of promoting cell division and protecting hepatic cells against poisoning.

Delay-dependent criteria for the robust stability of systems with time-varying delay

The problem of delay-dependent robust stability for systems with time-varying delay has been considered. By using the S-procedure and the Park's inequality in the recent issue, a delay-dependent robust stability criterion which is less conservative than the previous results has been derived for time-delay systems with time-varying structured uncertainties. The same idea has also been easily extended to the systems with nonlinear perturbations. Numerical examples illustrated the effectiveness and the improvement of the proposed approach. Keywords Delay-dependent criteria - Robust stability - Time-varying structured uncertainties - Nonlinear perturbations - Linear matrix inequality This work was supported by the Doctor Subject Foundation of China (No. 2000053303).

Parameter-dependent Lyapunov functional for systems with multiple time delays

The separation of the Lyapunov matrices and system matrices plays an important role when one uses parameter-dependent Lyapunov functional handling systems with polytopic type uncertainties. The delay-dependent robust stability problem for systems with polytopic type uncertainties is discussed by using parameter-dependent Lyapunov functional. The derivative term in the derivative of Lyapunov functional is reserved and the free weighting matrices are employed to express the relationship between die terms in the system equation such that the Lyapunov matrices are not involved in any product terms with the system matrices. In addition, the relationships between the terms in the Leibniz Newton formula are also described by some free weighting matrices and some delay-dependent stability conditions are derived. Numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed criteria are more effective than the previous results.

Delay-dependent robust stability for neutral systems with mixed discrete-and-neutral delays

This paper focuses on the problem of delay-dependent robust stability of neutral systems with different discrete-and-neutral delays and time-varying structured uncertainties. Some new criteria are presented, in which some free weighting matrices are used to express the relationships between the terms in the Leibniz-Newton formula. The criteria include the information on the size of both neutral-and-discrete delays. It is shown that the present results also include the results for identical discrete-and-neutral delays as special cases. A numerical example illustrates the improvement of the proposed methods over the previous methods and the influences between the discrete and neutral delays.

On absolute stability of Lur'e control systems with multiple non-linearities using linear matrix inequalities

Necessary and suffcient conditions for the existence of a Lyapunov function in the Lur ’ e form to guarantee the absolute stability of Lur’ e control systems with multiple non-linearities are discussed in this paper. It simplifies the existence problem to one of solving a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). If those LMIs are feasible, free parameters in the Lyapunov function, such as the positive definite matrix and the coefficients of the integral terms, are given by the solution of the LMIs. Otherwise, this Lyapunov function does not exist. Some sufficient conditions are also obtained for the robust absolute stability of uncertain systems. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Preemptive Semi-Online Scheduling with Tightly-Grouped Processing Times

This paper investigates a preemptive semi-online scheduling problem onm identical parallel machines wherem=2,3. It is assumed that all jobs have their processing times in betweenp andrp (p > 0,r ≥1). The goal is to minimize the makespan. Best possible algorithms are designed for anyr≥1 whenm=2,3. Keywords semi-online - scheduling - preemption - competitive ratio Regular PaperThis research is supported by the Teaching and Research Award Program for Outstanding Young Teachers in Higher Education Institutions of MOE. China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10271110 and 60021201).Yong He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees all from Zhejiang University in 1989, 1992, 1996, respectively. He is currently a professor and Ph.D. supervisor at Department of Mathematics, Zhejiang University. His current research interests include combinatorial and network optimization, scheduling theory, computational biology, mathematical modeling, etc.Yi-Wei Jiang received his B.S. degree from Zhejiang University in 2002. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate of Zhejiang University. His current interests include scheduling theory and online algorithms.

工件加工时间在某一区间的可中断半在线排序

排序(又称为调度)问题是组合优化领域中的一类重要问题，在计算机系统控制、机器加工制造业、生产计划调度管理等方面有着广泛的实际应用背景。在理论上，它又和算法设计与分析、计算复杂性理论密切相关。在经典排序理论中，根据在确定排序时了解的工件信息的多少，常将排序问题分为“在线”和“离线”两种。在在线问题中，工件一个个地到达。