Design and analysis of plate-type eddy-current damper with high energy-dissipation capability

Jiazeng Shan,Jie Liu,Cheng Ning Loong,Weichao Wu 국제구조공학회 2021 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.27 No.5

A plate-type eddy-current damper with high energy-dissipation capability is designed and analyzed. The damper is configured in a dimension of 270 mm × 500 mm × 80 mm by employing 16 pairs of rectangular magnets and a rectangular copper plate. The paired magnets are arranged as two rows of 4-by-4 arrays with polarities alternating along the moving direction, while the copper plate is embedded inside two rows of magnets. A finite-element model is developed to investigate eddy-current force. The damping coefficient of damper under a constant velocity of 0.2 m/s is 24.44 kN-s/m. The eddy-current force under harmonic motion can be fitted as a sum of a linear elastic force and a linear damping force. The stiffness coefficient is increased by 77 times and the damping coefficient is reduced relatively by 19%, for vibration frequency increased from 0.5 to 10.0 Hz. The sensitivity of stiffness and damping coefficients on the physical dimensions of magnet and copper plate are discussed. The phase lag is sensitive to copper-plate thickness but insensitive to clear gap between two rows of magnets. The damper is implemented on a based-isolated structure. It is shown that the damper could reduce the peak of base drift and absolute acceleration response spectra by 71.9% and 73.1%, respectively.

Feature-based image stitching for panorama construction and visual inspection of structures

Kai Cheng,Jiazeng Shan,Yuwen Liu 국제구조공학회 2021 Smart Structures and Systems, An International Jou Vol.28 No.5

This study presents a feature-based image stitching method with multi-level constraint criterion for panorama construction and visual inspection of building structures. The comparison of global view and local resolution over building exterior is discussed regarding practical implementation. An inspection-oriented methodology framework with optimized inlier distribution is designed for generating a feasible and reliable building panorama by using ordinary optic images. Two illustrative examples, including an earthquake-damaged masonry wall and a high-rise building with stone curtain walls, are experimentally investigated. The severely developed structural crack is fully mapped with stitched image and extracted in preparation for further quality evaluation. The curtain wall of the high-rise building is successfully constructed by using UAV-based images. The panorama quality is further compared with commercial stitching software and several improvements are illustrated in the particular case. In addition, the reliability of the proposed feature-based stitching approach is parametrically studied with different setups of input images.

Equipment and Worker Recognition of Construction Site with Vision Feature Detection

Qi, Shaowen,Shan, Jiazeng,Xu, Lei Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat Korea 2020 International journal of high-rise buildings Vol.9 No.4

This article comes up with a new method which is based on the visual characteristic of the objects and machine learning technology to achieve semi-automated recognition of the personnel, machine & materials of the construction sites. Balancing the real-time performance and accuracy, using Faster RCNN (Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Networks) with transfer learning method appears to be a rational choice. After fine-tuning an ImageNet pre-trained Faster RCNN and testing with it, the result shows that the precision ratio (mAP) has so far reached 67.62%, while the recall ratio (AR) has reached 56.23%. In other word, this recognizing method has achieved rational performance. Further inference with the video of the construction of Huoshenshan Hospital also indicates preliminary success.

Optimal design of bio-inspired isolation systems using performance and fragility objectives

Hu, Fan,Shi, Zhiguo,Shan, Jiazeng Techno-Press 2018 Structural monitoring and maintenance Vol.5 No.3

This study aims to propose a performance-based design method of a novel passive base isolation system, BIO isolation system, which is inspired by an energy dissipation mechanism called 'sacrificial bonds and hidden length'. Fragility functions utilized in this study are derived, indicating the probability that a component, element, or system will be damaged as a function of a single predictive demand parameter. Based on PEER framework methodology for Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE), a systematic design procedure using performance and fragility objectives is presented. Base displacement, superstructure absolute acceleration and story drift ratio are selected as engineering demand parameters. The new design method is then performed on a general two degree-of-freedom (2DOF) structure model and the optimal design under different seismic intensities is obtained through numerical analysis. Seismic performances of the biologically inspired (BIO) isolation system are compared with that of the linear isolation system. To further demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this method, the BIO isolation system of a 4-storey reinforced concrete building is designed and investigated. The newly designed BIO isolators effectively decrease the superstructure responses and base displacement under selected earthquake excitations, showing good seismic performance.

Tristetraprolin Overexpression in Gastric Cancer Cells Suppresses PD-L1 Expression and Inhibits Tumor Progression by Enhancing Antitumor Immunity

Guo, Jian,Qu, Huiheng,Shan, Ting,Chen, Yigang,Chen, Ye,Xia, Jiazeng Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology 2018 Molecules and cells Vol.41 No.7

The RNA-binding protein tristetraprolin (TTP) binds to adenosine-uridine AU-rich elements in the 3'-untranslated region of messenger RNAs and facilitates rapid degradation of the target mRNAs. Therefore, it regulates the expression of multiple cancer and immunity-associated transcripts. Furthermore, a lack of TTP in cancer cells influences cancer progression and predicts poor survival. Although the functions of TTP on cancer cells have previously been researched, the mechanism of TTP on the interaction between cancer cells with their micro-environment remains undiscovered. In this study, we admed to determine the role of cancer cell TTP during the interaction between tumor and immune cells, specifically regulatory T cells (Tregs). We evaluate the capability of TTP to modulate the antitumor immunity of GC and explored the underlying mechanism. The overexpression of TTP in GC cells dramatically increased peripheral blood mononuclear lymphocyte (PBML) -mediated cytotoxicity against GC cells. Increased cytotoxicity against TTP-overexpressed GC cells by PBMLs was determined by Treg development and infiltration. Surprisingly, we found the stabilization of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) mRNA was declining while TTP was elevated. The PD-L1 protein level was reduced in TTP-abundant GC cells. PD-L1 gas been found to play a pivotal role in Treg development and functional maintenance in immune system. Taken together, our results suggest the overexpression of TTP in GC cells not only affects cell survival and apoptosis but also increases PBMLs -mediated cytotoxicity against GC cells to decelerate tumor progression. Moreover, we identified PD-L1 as a critical TTP-regulated factor that contributes to inhibiting antitumor immunity.

MicroRNA-148a Can Regulate Runt-Related Transcription Factor 3 Gene Expression via Modulation of DNA Methyltransferase 1 in Gastric Cancer

Junbo Zuo,Hong Zhou,Jiazeng Xia,Feng Ju,Jiang Yan,Akao Zhu,Shimao Jin,Ting Shan 한국분자세포생물학회 2013 Molecules and cells Vol.35 No.4

Underexpression of the gene runt-related transcription fac-tor 3 (RUNX3), an important tumor suppressor, is known to contribute to gastric cancer progression. However, the mechanism underlying aberrant RUNX3 expression has not been fully elucidated. We investigated the role of microRNA-148a (miR-148a) and DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) in RUNX3 promoter methylation and gene expression. RUNX3 mRNA, RUNX3 protein, and methylation levels were assayed in human gastric cancer tissues and matched normal tissues, and AGS and BGC-823 cells by real-time reverse transcription PCR, Western blot, and methylation-specific PCR, respectively. A correlation between RUNX3 mRNA levels and that of miR-148a was also investigated in gastric cancer tissues. We found that RUNX3 mRNA levels were significantly downregulated in gastric cancer tissues compared with their matched normal tissues, and were closely associated with miR-148a expression. After treatment of human gastric cancer AGS and BGC-823 cells with the DNA methylation inhibitor 5-aza-2’-deoxycytidine, a significant increase in RUNX3 mRNA, RUNX3 protein, and the non-methylated form of the RUNX3 promoter were observed relative to untreated cells. Enforced expression of miR-148a, which can modulate DNMT1 and DNMT3B, also increased the expression of RUNX3 in gastric cancer cells. Knockdown of DNMT1 was associated with increased levels of RUNX3 mRNA and RUNX3 protein, while knockdown of DNMT3B did not have any effect on these in BGC-823 cells. Our results show that miR-148a may regulate RUNX3 expression through modulation of DNMT1-dependent DNA methylation in gastric cancer and highlight a miRNA-epigenetics regulation mechanism of gene expression.

Tristetraprolin Overexpression in Gastric Cancer Cells Suppresses PD-L1 Expression and Inhibits Tumor Progression by Enhancing Antitumor Immunity

Jian Guo,Huiheng Qu,Ting Shan,Yigang Chen,Ye Chen,Jiazeng Xia 한국분자세포생물학회 2018 Molecules and cells Vol.41 No.7

The RNA-binding protein tristetraprolin (TTP) binds to adenosine- uridine AU-rich elements in the 3’-untranslated region of messenger RNAs and facilitates rapid degradation of the target mRNAs. Therefore, it regulates the expression of multiple cancer and immunity-associated transcripts. Furthermore, a lack of TTP in cancer cells influences cancer progression and predicts poor survival. Although the functions of TTP on cancer cells have previously been researched, the mechanism of TTP on the interaction between cancer cells with their microenvironment remains undiscovered. In this study, we admed to determine the role of cancer cell TTP during the interaction between tumor and immune cells, specifically regulatory T cells (Tregs). We evaluate the capability of TTP to modulate the antitumor immunity of GC and explored the underlying mechanism. The overexpression of TTP in GC cells dramatically increased peripheral blood mononuclear lymphocyte (PBML) -mediated cytotoxicity against GC cells. Increased cytotoxicity against TTP-overexpressed GC cells by PBMLs was determined by Treg development and infiltration. Surprisingly, we found the stabilization of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) mRNA was declining while TTP was elevated. The PDL1 protein level was reduced in TTP-abundant GC cells. PD-L1 gas been found to play a pivotal role in Treg development and functional maintenance in immune system. Taken together, our results suggest the overexpression of TTP in GC cells not only affects cell survival and apoptosis but also increases PBMLs -mediated cytotoxicity against GC cells to decelerate tumor progression. Moreover, we identified PD-L1 as a critical TTP-regulated factor that contributes to inhibiting antitumor immunity.