Chung Yuan Christian University

About: Chung Yuan Christian University is a education organization based out in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Membrane & Fuzzy logic. The organization has 9819 authors who have published 11623 publications receiving 213139 citations. The organization is also known as: Tiong-gôan-tāi-ha̍k & CYCU.

Highly specific in vivo gene delivery for p53-mediated apoptosis and genetic photodynamic therapies of tumour

Abstract: Anticancer therapies are often compromised by nonspecific effects and challenged by tumour environments' inherent physicochemical and biological characteristics. Often, therapeutic effect can be increased by addressing multiple parameters simultaneously. Here we report on exploiting extravasation due to inherent vascular leakiness for the delivery of a pH-sensitive polymer carrier. Tumours' acidic microenvironment instigates a charge reversal that promotes cellular internalization where endosomes destabilize and gene delivery is achieved. We assess our carrier with an aggressive non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) in vivo model and achieve >30% transfection efficiency via systemic delivery. Rejuvenation of the p53 apoptotic pathway as well as expression of KillerRed protein for sensitization in photodynamic therapy (PDT) is accomplished. A single administration greatly suppresses tumour growth and extends median animal survival from 28 days in control subjects to 68 days. The carrier has capacity for multiple payloads for greater therapeutic response where inter-individual variability can compromise efficacy.

Charmless hadronic B decays into a tensor meson

Abstract: Two-body charmless hadronic $B$ decays involving a tensor meson in the final state are studied within the framework of QCD factorization (QCDF). Because of the $G$-parity of the tensor meson, both the chiral-even and chiral-odd two-parton light-cone distribution amplitudes of the tensor meson are antisymmetric under the interchange of momentum fractions of the quark and antiquark in the SU(3) limit. Our main results are: (i) In the na\"{\i}ve factorization approach, the decays such as ${B}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\overline{K}}_{2}^{*0}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\overline{B}}^{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ with a tensor meson emitted are prohibited because a tensor meson cannot be created from the local $V\ensuremath{-}A$ or tensor current. Nevertheless, the decays receive nonfactorizable contributions in QCDF from vertex, penguin and hard spectator corrections. The experimental observation of ${B}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\overline{K}}_{2}^{*0}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ indicates the importance of nonfactorizable effects. (ii) For penguin-dominated $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}TP$ and $TV$ decays, the predicted rates in na\"{\i}ve factorization are usually too small by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. In QCDF, they are enhanced by power corrections from penguin annihilation and nonfactorizable contributions. (iii) The dominant penguin contributions to $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*}{\ensuremath{\eta}}^{{(}^{\ensuremath{'}})}$ arise from the processes: (a) $b\ensuremath{\rightarrow}ss\overline{s}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}s{\ensuremath{\eta}}_{s}$ and (b) $b\ensuremath{\rightarrow}sq\overline{q}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}q{\overline{K}}_{2}^{*}$ with ${\ensuremath{\eta}}_{q}=(u\overline{u}+d\overline{d})/\sqrt{2}$ and ${\ensuremath{\eta}}_{s}=s\overline{s}$. The interference, constructive for ${K}_{2}^{*}{\ensuremath{\eta}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ and destructive for ${K}_{2}^{*}\ensuremath{\eta}$, explains why $\ensuremath{\Gamma}(B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*}{\ensuremath{\eta}}^{\ensuremath{'}})\ensuremath{\gg}\ensuremath{\Gamma}(B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*}\ensuremath{\eta})$. (iv) We use the measured rates of $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*}(\ensuremath{\omega},\ensuremath{\phi})$ to extract the penguin-annihilation parameters ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{A}^{TV}$ and ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{A}^{VT}$ and the observed longitudinal polarization fractions ${f}_{L}({K}_{2}^{*}\ensuremath{\omega})$ and ${f}_{L}({K}_{2}^{*}\ensuremath{\phi})$ to fix the phases ${\ensuremath{\phi}}_{A}^{VT}$ and ${\ensuremath{\phi}}_{A}^{TV}$. (v) The experimental observation that ${f}_{T}/{f}_{L}\ensuremath{\ll}1$ for $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*}(1430)\ensuremath{\phi}$, whereas ${f}_{T}/{f}_{L}\ensuremath{\sim}1$ for $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}_{2}^{*}(1430)\ensuremath{\omega}$ with ${f}_{T}$ being the transverse polarization fraction, can be accommodated in QCDF, but it cannot be dynamically explained at first place. For penguin-dominated $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}TV$ decays, we find ${f}_{L}({K}_{2}^{*}\ensuremath{\rho})\ensuremath{\sim}{f}_{L}({K}_{2}^{*}\ensuremath{\omega})\ensuremath{\sim}0.65$, whereas ${f}_{L}({K}^{*}{f}_{2})\ensuremath{\sim}0.93$. It will be of great interest to measure ${f}_{L}$ for these modes to test QCDF. Theoretically, transverse polarization is expected to be small in tree-dominated $\overline{B}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}TV$ decays except for the ${a}_{2}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{0}$, ${a}_{2}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{+}$, ${K}_{2}^{*0}{K}^{*\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${K}_{2}^{*0}{\overline{K}}^{*0}$ modes. (vi) For tree-dominated decays, their rates are usually very small except for the ${a}_{2}^{0}({\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}},{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{\ensuremath{-}})$, ${a}_{2}^{+}({\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}},{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{\ensuremath{-}})$ and ${f}_{2}({\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}},{\ensuremath{\rho}}^{\ensuremath{-}})$ modes with branching fractions of order ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}$ or even larger.

Induction of NRF2-mediated gene expression by dietary phytochemical flavones apigenin and luteolin

Abstract: Apigenin (API) and luteolin (LUT) have been used as therapeutic agents in folk medicine for thousands of years. These compounds exert a variety of biological activities, including anticancer, antioxidant and antiinflammatory activities. This study investigated whether API and LUT could activate Nrf2-antioxidant response element (ARE)-mediated gene expression and induce antiinflammatory activities in human hepatoma HepG2 cells. The compounds did not exhibit any substantial toxicity at low doses (1.56-6.25 µm). The induction of ARE activity was assessed in HepG2-C8 cells after treatment with low doses of API and LUT for 6 and 12 h. It was found that the induction of ARE activity by these compounds at the higher doses was comparable to the effects of the positive control, SFN at a dose of 6.25 µm. Exposure to the PI3K inhibitor LY294002 abolished ARE activation by both API and LUT, whereas the ERK-1/2 inhibitor PD98059 only decreased ARE activity induced by API. Both compounds significantly increased the endogenous mRNA and protein levels of Nrf2 and Nrf2 target genes with important effects on heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression. API and LUT significantly and dose-dependently decreased the production of nitric oxide (NO), nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2), which were induced by the treatment of HepG2 cells with 1 µg/ml of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for 24 h. The results indicate that API and LUT significantly activate the PI3K/Nrf2/ARE system, and this activation may be responsible for their antiinflammatory effects, as demonstrated by the suppression of LPS-induced NO, iNOS and cPLA2.

Electricity consumption prediction using a neural-network-based grey forecasting approach

Abstract: Electricity consumption is an important economic index and plays a significant role in drawing up an energy development policy for each country. Multivariate techniques and time-series analysis have been proposed to deal with electricity consumption forecasting, but a large amount of historical data is required to obtain accurate predictions. The grey forecasting model attracted researchers by its ability to characterize an uncertain system effectively with a limited number of samples. GM(1,1) is the most frequently used grey forecasting model, but its developing coefficient and control variable were dependent on the background value that is not easy to be determined, whereas a neural-network-based GM(1,1) model called NNGM(1,1) has been presented to resolve this troublesome problem. This study has applied NNGM(1,1) to electricity consumption and has examined its forecasting ability on electricity consumption using sample data from the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation energy database. Experimental results demonstrate that NNGM(1,1) performs well.