Blocking of Cell Proliferation, Cytokines Production and Genes Expression Following Administration of Cordyceps Sinensis in the Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluids Cells

Kuo, Yuh-Chi,Wu, Chia-Lin,Tasi, Wei-Jern,Wang, Jir-Yenn,Chang, Shi-Chung,Lin, Ching-Yuang,Shiao, Ming-Shi 경희대학교 동서의학연구소 1999 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON EAST-WEST MEDICINE Vol.1999 No.1

Yuh-Chi Kuo¹,Chia-Lin Wn¹,Wei-jern Tasi¹,Jir-Yenn Wang²,Shi-Chung Chang₃,Ching-Yung Lin⁴,and Ming-Shi Shiao⁴¹National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, ²Department of Biology,Fu Jen University, ³Department of Chest, ⁴Department of Pediatrics, □De[art,amt of Medical Research and Education. Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Yuh-Chi Kuo¹,Chia-Lin Wn¹,Wei-jern Tasi¹,Jir-Yenn Wang²,Shi-Chung Chang²,Ching-Yung Lin³,and Ming-Shi Shiao⁴.¹National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, ²Department of Biology,Fu Jen University, ³Department of Chest, ⁴Department of Pediatrics, □De[art,amt of Medical Research and Education. Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. Blocking of Cell Proliferation, Cytokines Production and Genes Expression Following Administration of Cordyceps sinensis in the Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluids Cells. Proceedings of international Symposium on East-West Medicine, Seoul. 44-64, 1999.-Cordyceps sinensis is a major parasitic fungus on larva of Lepidoptera. It is one of the well know fungi used in traditional Chinese medicine for treatment asthma, lung and kideney diseases. Many fungi belonging to the genus Cordyceps have been demonstrated to produce natural products with various biological activities. Reported biological activities of genus cordyceps include:(a)inhibition of DNA and RNA synthesis;(b)enhancement of cell differentiation;(c)restruction of cytoskeleton;(d)inhibition of protein kinase activity;(e)antitumor activity on bladder, colon, lung carcinoma as well as fibroblastoma;(f)inhibition of the infection and revers transciptase activity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1; and(g) inhibition of methylation of nucleic acid. Thus, it is suggested that the extracts of Cordyceps sp. Contain antitumor, antiviral, and many other biological activities. In our previous studies, we proved that C. sinensis contains the antitumor and immunomodulatory agents. In the present studies, effects of C. sinensis on bronchoalveolar lavage fluids(BAL)cells were demonstrated. The crude methanolic extracts of C. sinensis were fractionated into 15 fractions by silica gel column chromatography. Effects of various fraction on BAL cells proliferation and lipopolysaccharide(LPS) stimulated interleukin-1β(IL-8),platelet activating factor(PAF), interleukin-6(IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α),and interleukin-8(IL-8) production on BAL cells were determined. The result indicated that the CS-19-22 fraction suppressed BAL cells proliferation activated by LPS. The median inhibitory concentration(IC50) was 6㎍/ml. The CS-19-22 fraction also decreased IL-1β,PAF,IL-6, TNF-αand IL-8 production.The results of revers transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) demonstrated that the CS-19-22 fraction did not affect IL-1β,PAF,IL-6, TNF-α,and IL-8 mRNAs expression in BAL cells activated by LPS. By contrast, it inhibited the IL-10 mRNA expression but enhanced IFN-γand IL-12 mRNAs expression in activated BAL cells. Moreover, the CS-19-22 fraction blocked PAF-induced platelet aggregation. It is unlikely that cytotoxicity was involved. Because no cell deths were observable. We hypothesize that inhibitory mechanisms of CS-19-22 on BAL cells proliferation may be related to the impairments of gene expression and production of cytokines in BAL cells. The explanation of C. sinensis antiasthma function may involved the following(1)C.sinenesis contained immunomodulatory agents that stimulated IFN-γand IL-12 expression in TH1cells.(2)Enhanced secretion of IFN-γand IL-12 will inhibit the Tγcells immune responses Ex. Decreasing of IL-6 and IL-10 production.(3) The impairments of cytokines production in TH2 cells suppressed th BAL cells proliferation then more cytokines production Ex.IL-1β,PAF,IL-6,TNF-αand IL-8 in activated BAL cells were decreased. (4)The suppression of TH2cells immune responses will inhibit the growth and differentiation of B cells then IgE production will be decreased. (5)Reduced production of IgE will decreased asthma attack occurring in individuals. However, the results of the present study suggested that C. sinensis may also have acted to treat asthma in part by inhibiting BAL cells proliferation and cytokine gene expression and production. Future, experiments with treatment of animals with asthma with C. sinensis will be necessary to defined whether C. sinensis can reduce asthma injury. Plans are underway for the isolation of pure principal growth inhibitors and their mechanisms of action are subjected for further study.

Impacts of label quality on performance of steel fatigue crack recognition using deep learning-based image segmentation

Chia-Ming Chang,Shun-Hsiang Hsu,Ting-Wei Chang 국제구조공학회 2022 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.29 No.1

Structural health monitoring (SHM) plays a vital role in the maintenance and operation of constructions. In recent years, autonomous inspection has received considerable attention because conventional monitoring methods are inefficient and expensive to some extent. To develop autonomous inspection, a potential approach of crack identification is needed to locate defects. Therefore, this study exploits two deep learning-based segmentation models, DeepLabv3+ and Mask R-CNN, for crack segmentation because these two segmentation models can outperform other similar models on public datasets. Additionally, impacts of label quality on model performance are explored to obtain an empirical guideline on the preparation of image datasets. The influence of image cropping and label refining are also investigated, and different strategies are applied to the dataset, resulting in six alternated datasets. By conducting experiments with these datasets, the highest mean Intersection-over-Union (mIoU), 75%, is achieved by Mask R-CNN. The rise in the percentage of annotations by image cropping improves model performance while the label refining has opposite effects on the two models. As the label refining results in fewer error annotations of cracks, this modification enhances the performance of DeepLabv3+. Instead, the performance of Mask R-CNN decreases because fragmented annotations may mistake an instance as multiple instances. To sum up, both DeepLabv3+ and Mask R-CNN are capable of crack identification, and an empirical guideline on the data preparation is presented to strengthen identification successfulness via image cropping and label refining.

Semi-active damped outriggers for seismic protection of high-rise buildings

Chang, Chia-Ming,Wang, Zhihao,Spencer, Billie F. Jr.,Chen, Zhengqing Techno-Press 2013 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.11 No.5

High-rise buildings are a common feature of urban cities around the world. These flexible structures frequently exhibit large vibration due to strong winds and earthquakes. Structural control has been employed as an effective means to mitigate excessive responses; however, structural control mechanisms that can be used in tall buildings are limited primarily to mass and liquid dampers. An attractive alternative can be found in outrigger damping systems, where the bending deformation of the building is transformed into shear deformation across dampers placed between the outrigger and the perimeter columns. The outrigger system provides additional damping that can reduce structural responses, such as the floor displacements and accelerations. This paper investigates the potential of using smart dampers, specifically magnetorheological (MR) fluid dampers, in the outrigger system. First, a high-rise building is modeled to portray the St. Francis Shangri-La Place in Philippines. The optimal performance of the outrigger damping system for mitigation of seismic responses in terms of damper size and location also is subsequently evaluated. The efficacy of the semi-active damped outrigger system is finally verified through numerical simulation.

Semi-active damped outriggers for seismic protection of high-rise buildings

Chia-Ming Chang,Billie F. Spencer, Jr.,Zhihao Wang,Zhengqing Chen 국제구조공학회 2013 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.11 No.5

High-rise buildings are a common feature of urban cities around the world. These flexible structures frequently exhibit large vibration due to strong winds and earthquakes. Structural control has been employed as an effective means to mitigate excessive responses; however, structural control mechanisms that can be used in tall buildings are limited primarily to mass and liquid dampers. An attractive alternative can be found in outrigger damping systems, where the bending deformation of the building is transformed into shear deformation across dampers placed between the outrigger and the perimeter columns. The outrigger system provides additional damping that can reduce structural responses, such as the floor displacements and accelerations. This paper investigates the potential of using smart dampers, specifically magnetorheological (MR) fluid dampers, in the outrigger system. First, a high-rise building is modeled to portray the St. Francis Shangri-La Place in Philippines. The optimal performance of the outrigger damping system for mitigation of seismic responses in terms of damper size and location also is subsequently evaluated. The efficacy of the semi-active damped outrigger system is finally verified through numerical simulation.

Modal tracking of seismically-excited buildings using stochastic system identification

Chia-Ming Chang,Jau-Yu Chou 국제구조공학회 2020 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.26 No.4

Investigation of structural integrity has been a critical issue in the field of civil engineering for years. Visual inspection is one of the most available methods to explore deteriorative components in structures. Still, this method is not applicable to invisible damage of structures. Alternatively, system identification methods are capable of tracking modal properties of structures over time. The deviation of these dynamic properties can serve as indicators to access structural integrity. In this study, a modal tracking technique using frequency-domain system identification from seismic responses of structures is proposed. The method first segments the measured signals into overlapped sequential portions and then establishes multiple Hankel matrices. Each Hankel matrix is then converted to the frequency domain, and a temporal-average frequency-domain Hankel matrix can be calculated. This study also proposes the frequency band selection that can divide the frequency-domain Hankel matrix into several portions in accordance with referenced natural frequencies. Once these referenced natural frequencies are unavailable, the first few right singular vectors by the singular value decomposition can offer these references. Finally, the frequency-domain stochastic subspace identification tracks the natural frequencies and mode shapes of structures through quick stabilization diagrams. To evaluate performance of the proposed method, a numerical study is carried out. Moreover, the long-term monitoring strong motion records at a specific site are exploited to assess the tracking performance. As seen in results, the proposed method is capable of tracking modal properties through seismic responses of structures.

Deformation estimation of truss bridges using two-stage optimization from cameras

Chia-Ming Chang,Jau-Yu Chou 국제구조공학회 2023 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.31 No.4

Structural integrity can be accessed from dynamic deformations of structures. Moreover, dynamic deformations can be acquired from non-contact sensors such as video cameras. Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi (KLT) algorithm is one of the commonly used methods for motion tracking. However, averaging throughout the extracted features would induce bias in the measurement. In addition, pixel-wise measurements can be converted to physical units through camera intrinsic. Still, the depth information is unreachable without prior knowledge of the space information. The assigned homogeneous coordinates would then mismatch manually selected feature points, resulting in measurement errors during coordinate transformation. In this study, a two-stage optimization method for video-based measurements is proposed. The manually selected feature points are first optimized by minimizing the errors compared with the homogeneous coordinate. Then, the optimized points are utilized for the KLT algorithm to extract displacements through inverse projection. Two additional criteria are employed to eliminate outliers from KLT, resulting in more reliable displacement responses. The second-stage optimization subsequently fine-tunes the geometry of the selected coordinates. The optimization process also considers the number of interpolation points at different depths of an image to reduce the effect of out-of-plane motions. As a result, the proposed method is numerically investigated by using a truss bridge as a physics-based graphic model (PBGM) to extract high-accuracy displacements from recorded videos under various capturing angles and structural conditions.

Origins of Kerr phase and orientational phase in polymer-dispersed liquid crystals

Chang, Chia-Ming,Lin, Yi-Hsin,Reshetnyak, Victor,Park, Chui Ho,Manda, Ramesh,Lee, Seung Hee The Optical Society 2017 Optics express Vol.25 No.17

Determining Genome Size and Ploidy in Morus by Flow Cytometry

Lan-Yen Chang,Jer-Chia Chang,Mei-Chu Chung,Wen-Ju Yang,Kuo-Tan Li,Ming-Wen Chang 한국원예학회 2008 한국원예학회 기타간행물 Vol.- No.-

Induction of Forkhead Class box O3a and apoptosis by a standardized ginsenoside formulation, KG-135, is potentiated by autophagy blockade in A549 human lung cancer cells

Chih-Jung Yao,Jyh-Ming Chow,Shuang-En Chuang,Chia-Lun Chang,Ming-De Yan,Hsin-Lun Lee,I-Chun Lai,Pei-Chun Lin,Gi-Ming Lai 고려인삼학회 2017 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.41 No.3

Background: KG-135, a standardized formulation enriched with Rk1, Rg3, and Rg5 ginsenosides, has been shown to inhibit various types of cancer cells; however, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. In this study, we explored its effects in A549 human lung cancer cells to investigate the induction of Forkhead Class box O3a (FOXO3a) and autophagy. Methods: Cell viability was determined by sulforhodamine B staining. Apoptosis and cell cycle distribution were analyzed using flow cytometry. The changes of protein levels were determined using Western blot analysis. Autophagy induction was monitored by the formation of acidic vesicular organelles stained with acridine orange. Results: KG-135 effectively arrested the cells in G1 phase with limited apoptosis. Accordingly, a decrease of cyclin-dependent kinase-4, cyclin-dependent kinase-6, cyclin D1, and phospho-retinoblastoma protein, and an increase of p27 and p18 proteins were observed. Intriguingly, KG-135 increased the tumor suppressor FOXO3a and induced the accumulation of autophagy hallmark LC3-II and acidic vesicular organelles without an increase of the upstream marker Beclin-1. Unconventionally, the autophagy adaptor protein p62 (sequestosome 1) was increased rather than decreased. Blockade of autophagy by hydroxychloroquine dramatically potentiated KG-135-induced FOXO3a and its downstream (FasL) ligand accompanied by the cleavage of caspase-8. Meanwhile, the decrease of Bcl-2 and survivin, as well as the cleavage of caspase-9, were also drastically enhanced, resulting in massive apoptosis. Conclusion: Besides arresting the cells in G1 phase, KG-135 increased FOXO3a and induced an unconventional autophagy in A549 cells. Both the KG-135-activated extrinsic FOXO3a/FasL/caspase-8 and intrinsic caspase-9 apoptotic pathways were potentiated by blockade of autophagy. Combination of KG- 135 and autophagy inhibitor may be a novel strategy as an integrative treatment for cancers.

Prediction of the Duration to Next Admission for an Acute Affective Episode in Patients with Bipolar I Disorder

Pao-Huan Chen(Pao-Huan Chen),Chun-Ming Shih(Chun-Ming Shih),Chi-Kang Chang(Chi-Kang Chang),Chia-Pei Lin(Chia-Pei Lin),Yung-Han Chang(Yung-Han Chang),Hsin-Chien Lee(Hsin-Chien Lee),El-Wui Loh(El-Wui Lo 대한정신약물학회 2023 CLINICAL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE Vol.21 No.2

Objective: Predicting disease relapse and early intervention could reduce symptom severity. We attempted to identify potential indicators that predict the duration to next admission for an acute affective episode in patients with bipolar I disorder. Methods: We mathematically defined the duration to next psychiatric admission and performed single-variate regressions using historical data of 101 patients with bipolar I disorder to screen for potential variables for further multivariate regressions. Results: Age of onset, total psychiatric admissions, length of lithium use, and carbamazepine use during the psychiatric hospitalization contributed to the next psychiatric admission duration positively. The all-in-one found that hyperlipidemia during the psychiatric hospitalization demonstrated a negative contribution to the duration to next psychiatric admission; the last duration to psychiatric admission, lithium and carbamazepine uses during the psychiatric hospitalization, and heart rate on the discharge day positively contributed to the duration to next admission. Conclusion: We identified essential variables that may predict the duration of bipolar I patients’ next psychiatric admission. The correlation of a faster heartbeat and a normal lipid profile in delaying the next onset highlights the importance of managing these parameters when treating bipolar I disorder.