Therapeutic Effects of Fibroblast Growth Factor-21 on Diabetic Nephropathy and the Possible Mechanism in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Mice

Weng Wenya,Ge Tingwen,Wang Yi,He Lulu,Liu Tinghao,Wang Wanning,Zheng Zongyu,Yu Lechu,Zhang Chi,Lu Xuemian 대한당뇨병학회 2020 Diabetes and Metabolism Journal Vol.44 No.4

Background: Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) has been only reported to prevent type 1 diabetic nephropathy (DN) in the streptozotocin-induced type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) mouse model. However, the FVB (Cg)-Tg (Cryaa-Tag, Ins2-CALM1) 26OVE/PneJ (OVE26) transgenic mouse is a widely recommended mouse model to recapture the most important features of T1DM nephropathy that often occurs in diabetic patients. In addition, most previous studies focused on exploring the preventive effect of FGF21 on the development of DN. However, in clinic, development of therapeutic strategy has much more realistic value compared with preventive strategy since the onset time of DN is difficult to be accurately predicted. Therefore, in the present study OVE26 mice were used to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of FGF21 on DN. Methods: Four-month-old female OVE26 mice were intraperitoneally treated with recombinant FGF21 at a dose of 100 μg/kg/day for 3 months. The diabetic and non-diabetic control mice were treated with phosphate-buffered saline at the same volume. Renal functions, pathological changes, inflammation, apoptosis, oxidative stress and fibrosis were examined in mice of all groups. Results: The results showed that severe renal dysfunction, morphological changes, inflammation, apoptosis, and fibrosis were observed in OVE26 mice. However, all the renal abnormalities above in OVE26 mice were significantly attenuated by 3-month FGF21 treatment associated with improvement of renal adenosine 5´-monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity and sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) expression. Conclusion: Therefore, this study demonstrated that FGF21 might exert therapeutic effects on DN through AMPK-SIRT1 pathway.

A Multi-Domain Web Text Feature Extraction Model for e-Science Environment

Weng Yu 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Signal Processing, Image Vol.8 No.11

The traditional information extraction methods based on specific domain usually depend on the domain dictionaries to discover the text feature. It is inconvenient for reproducing and difficult to transplant in multi-domain environment. The application scope is limited seriously. Oriented to the deficiencies above, a multi-domain web text feature extraction model for e-Science is proposed (named e-FTM). This model adopts the Chinese split words technology without dictionary into the process of multi-domain text feature discovery and avoids the dependency of domain dictionaries effectively. With the help of classification of common and individual features, the model tracks the generation and the development trend of domain events dynamically, and forms a couple of local data centers eventually. Through cooperative scheduling the domain knowledge between different local data centers, the knowledge utilization efficiency of the domain information in the global scope is improved sharply. To validate the performance, the experiments on the multi-domain text feature extraction, topic features dynamical tracking and the domain knowledge cooperative scheduling demonstrate that the model has higher application validity and practicality in e-Science environment.

Variations in the body surface temperature of sows during the post weaning period and its relation to subsequent reproductive performance

Weng Ruey-Chee 아세아·태평양축산학회 2020 Animal Bioscience Vol.33 No.7

Objective: A study was made investigate factors affecting body surface temperature changes after weaning in sows, whether these can be used to aid detection of natural estrus and how they relate to subsequent reproductive performance. Methods: A total of 132 sows were selected during summer from a breeding farm, with mean parity of 3.6±2.3 and 28.5±0.9 days lactation length. Four daily measurements (6:00, 8:00, 16:00, and 18:00) of vulva (VST), udder (UST), ear base and central back skin temperatures for individual sows were taken by an infrared thermometer, continuing up to 8 days post weaning. Results: The VST obtained from sows showing estrus at 4 days post-weaning (4DPW), 5DPW, and 6DPW showed a peak at the fourth day post-weaning, but then started to decrease. The VST of sows not detected in standing heat (NDPW) remained at a lower level during the experiment, but UST was increased soon after weaning. The VST-UST temperature differences during daytime of sows that were showing behavioural standing heat on 4DPW, 5DPW, 6DPW, and 7DPW were 0.46°C±0.123°C, 0.71°C±0.124°C, 0.66°C ±0.171°C, and 0.58°C±0.223°C, respectively. The NDPW sows had the highest UST observed, but also the lowest VST so that a more negative value of temperature difference (–0.31°C) was seen during first few days post-weaning. A total of 119 sows were observed to show standing heat and were bred. The later the estrus, the smaller the litter size (p = 0.005). Conclusion: Sows which did not show behavior indicative of stable standing heat after weaning had a VST which remained at a lower level, but the UST increased soon after weaning. Therefore, for sow heat detection under field conditions, the changes of VST and UST and difference between the two should be considered together to increase the accuracy of detection.

Effect of Individual, Group or ESF Housing in Pregnancy and Individual or Group Housing in Lactation on the Performance of Sows and Their Piglets

Weng, R.C.,Edwards, S.A.,Hsia, L.C. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2009 Animal Bioscience Vol.22 No.9

To evaluate different housing systems, 80 gilts were randomly allocated at puberty to four treatments: i) sow stall in gestation followed by farrowing crate (SC), ii) group housing with individual feeding in gestation followed by farrowing crate (GC), iii) ESF (Electronic Sow Feeding) system in gestation followed by farrowing crate (EC), and iv) ESF system followed by group farrowing pen (EG). The results showed that stalled sows had a longer interval between puberty and second estrus (p<0.001). The sows kept in the ESF system gained more body weight (p<0.01) and backfat (p<0.05) prior to service, and more backfat during gestation (p<0.05), but also had greater backfat losses in the subsequent lactation (p<0.01). Sows changing from loose housing to confinement at farrowing had longer gestation length (p<0.001). Total litter size did not differ significantly between gestation treatments, but the number of stillborn piglets was significantly higher in the SC treatment (p<0.01). After weaning, SC sows had the longest interval for rebreeding (p<0.001). Some EG sows came into heat before weaning, giving this treatment the shortest interval. These results indicate that gestation confinement in sow stalls had several detrimental effects on sow performance relative to group housing.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ZINC DIFFUSED NORMALLY ON GaAs AND InP JUNCTION FETs

Weng, Tung H. 대한전자공학회 1989 ICVC : International Conference on VLSI and CAD Vol.1 No.1

In this paper, a new technique using semi-sealed quartz bottle for zinc diffusion in GaAs and InP was employed. The basic requirement for zinc diffusion in these materials is to provide an overpressure ambient 50 that decomposition at the diffusion temperature can be avoided. This was done for the case of InP by placing InP wafer with diffusion charge which contained pure zinc and a small amount of InP powder in a semi-sealed bottle. This small amount of InP powder seemed to have provided the needed overpressure ambient to avoid decomposition. TA e surface showed no degradation after diffusion and maintained its original smooth surface. However, the surface was decomposed if no InP powder was added in the diffusion charge. For the case of GaAs, no GaAs powder was needed in the diffusion charge. Only pure zinc was required for producing heavily doped P-layer. The vapor produced by GaAs in the semi-sealed bottle during diffusion seemed to be sufficient to avoid decomposition. This is in sharp contrast to the behavior of zinc diffusion in InP using the same technique The detailed characteristics of the diffused layer of InP are presented. Similar characteristics for GaAs were also obtained. Junction field effect transistors were fabricated using the P layer formed by semi-sealed diffusion for both InP and GaAs. For InP junction FETs the measured transconductance varies from 80 to 100 ms/mm gate length. GaAs junction FETs show similar results with well behaved I-V characteristics.

A Customized Web Service Constructing Model Based On Private Cloud

Weng Yu,Peng Guo 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of u- and e- Service, Scienc Vol.8 No.11

A Distributed WebGIS Platform based on SaaS Architecture

Weng Yu,Xiaodong Jia,Yuan Jie 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of u- and e- Service, Scienc Vol.8 No.12

The emergence of cloud computing has changed the software development and deployment, providing users with great convenience. But even in the cloud computing environment, software development efficiency is particularly low. In order to improve the efficiency of software development, and make software release easier, we designed a layered service computing platform. With the help of basic services, the platform makes software development and publishing simple and efficient. To demonstrate our platform, we described the process of building a simple WebGIS system in this paper. This process represents the software development process in our platform. Experiment shows that our work is not only available but also simplifies the process of software development.

A simplified design procedure for seismic retrofit of earthquake-damaged RC frames with viscous dampers

Weng, D.G.,Zhang, C.,Lu, X.L.,Zeng, S.,Zhang, S.M. Techno-Press 2012 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.44 No.5

The passive energy dissipation technology has been proven to be reliable and robust for recent practical applications. Various dampers or energy dissipation devices have been widely used in building structures for enhancing their performances during earthquakes, windstorm and other severe loading scenarios. This paper presents a simplified seismic design procedure for retrofitting earthquake-damaged frames with viscous dampers. With the scheme of designing the main frame and the supplemental viscous dampers respectively, the seismic analysis model of damped structure with viscous dampers and braces was studied. The specific analysis process was described and approach to parameter design of energy dissipation components was also proposed. The expected damping forces for damped frame were first obtained based on storey shear forces; and then they were optimized to meet different storey drift requirements. A retrofit project of a RC frame school building damaged in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was introduced as a case study. This building was retrofitted by using viscous dampers designed through the simplified design procedure proposed in this paper. Based on the case study, it is concluded that this simplified design procedure can be effectively used to make seismic retrofit design of earthquake-damaged RC frames with viscous dampers, so as to achieve structural performance objectives under different earthquake risk levels.

Solubility of N-ethylcarbazole in ethanol+petroleum ether mixtures at various temperatures

Wenge Yang,Keyi Wu,Yong-Hong Hu,Tuan Zhang,Qirun Guo,Shouhai Yang,Ying Shi 한국화학공학회 2015 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.32 No.6

The solubility of N-ethylcarbazole in (ethanol+petroleum ether) binary solvent mixtures was measured with the temperature changing from 280.15 K to 316.15 K. The experimental data matched the solvent/Redlich-Kister (CNIBS/R-K) equation and the Jouyban-Acree equation. Computational results showed the CNIBS/R-K equation was more suitable than the Jouyban-Acree equation. The solution process in the thermodynamic properties, including the Gibbs energy, enthalpy, and entropy, was calculated by the van’t Hoff analysis.

Effect of Individual, Group or ESF Housing in Pregnancy and Individual or Group Housing in Lactation on Sow Behavior

Weng, R.C.,Edwards, S.A.,Hsia, L.C. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2009 Animal Bioscience Vol.22 No.11

To evaluate the effect of different housing systems on sow behavior, 80 gilts were randomly allocated at puberty to four treatments: i) sow stall in gestation followed by farrowing crate (SC), ii) group housing with individual feeding in gestation followed by farrowing crate (GC), iii) ESF (Electronic Sow Feeding) system in gestation followed by farrowing crate (EC), and iv) ESF system followed by group farrowing pen (EG). Behavioral observations were carried out on a total of 16 animals per treatment at the following stages: first day of allocation to housing treatment, day of service, 80 days after service, 109 days after service on entry to farrowing accommodation, 24 h before farrowing, day of farrowing, 14, 27 and 28 days after farrowing, at weaning. On each occasion, individual animals were observed for a 24 period with one minute time sampling. There were significant differences (p<0.001) between stages of the reproductive cycle for all the behavior patterns in all treatments. On the first day in experimental housing treatments, sows spent more time rooting and dog-sitting. Activity and investigatory behavior decreased as pregnancy progressed. An activity peak was apparent just before farrowing, followed by a high level of inactivity on the day of farrowing. Time spent active, eating and drinking increased as lactation progressed, and greatest activity and locomotion was seen immediately following weaning. There were significant differences between housing treatments (p<0.01) for standing, moving, eating, drinking, dog-sitting and lying. During pregnancy SC sows spent more time standing, rooting, drinking and dog sitting, while EC sows spent less time rooting and drinking and more time lying. During lactation, GC sows spent more time standing, moving and eating, less time dog sitting and lateral lying. Nursing frequency was reduced in GC sows (p<0.001). The maternal and piglet behaviors were influenced strongly by environment during lactation. However, it was also shown that previous housing history can influence the maternal behavior in the pre-farrowing stage and during early lactation.