Extensive research has been conducted on the growth and the biological behaviours which both require the measurement of the fish samples. However, the existing measurement methods were time-consuming ...and laborintensive. In this research, we developed a faster method based on machine vision and artificial intelligence to measure the fish size and length automatically to support future ecological research.
A wideband coplanar waveguide fed asymmetric slot antenna is proposed. By attaching an open-ended and a short-ended slotlines separately to the two slot-ends of a coplanar waveguide, the composite ...antenna would resonate as a quarter and a half guided wavelength slot monopoles, which correspond to the lower and upper slotline resonances, respectively. Moreover, by embedding an open-ended slotline section in the original open-ended slotline, an additional resonant frequency between the two resonant bands can be excited and the wideband design can be achieved. Measured and simulated characteristics of the antenna are discussed and analyzed.
Many inflammatory diseases are growing increasing common in the aging society of Taiwan. Inflammation cascades can cause diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, chronic asthma, ...multiple sclerosis, and so on. The clinically used anti-inflammatory drugs have many side effects and are expensive. Therefore, it is imperative that we find alternatives to these drugs. Marine natural compounds offer great hope in the development of drugs for treating inflammatory diseases. In the present study, we found that Chao-10, which is a marine-derived compound isolated from Formosan soft coral, significantly inhibited the expression of the pro-inflammatory protein, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), in the lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophage cell line. We suggest that Chao-10 may serve as a potential new anti-inflammatory agent. However, the mechanism by which the anti-inflammatory effects of Chao-10 are mediated is yet unclear. Therefore, we performed two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) to investigate the regulatory mechanism for the anti-inflammatory effect of Chao-10. We isolated some proteins that may be involved in the anti-inflammatory mechanism of Chao-10. In addition, we used immunoprecipitation to find that nucleophosmin (NPM) could interact with nuclear factor kappa B (NF-£eB). Therefore, we hypothesize that nucleophosminmay be involved in the regulation of NF-£eB to enhance the down-regulation of iNOS proteins. In summary, the anti-inflammatory effects of Chao-10 are probably mediated through the some other signaling pathway. Importantly, Chao-10 not only offers some new biomarkers of inflammation but also provides an encouraging outlook on therapeutic approaches.
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