Emerging Nanoparticle Strategies for Modulating Tumor-Associated Macrophage Polarization

Immunotherapy has made great progress in recent years, yet the efficacy of solid tumors remains far less than expected. One of the main hurdles is to overcome the immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). Among all cells in TME, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) play pivotal roles because of their abundance, multifaceted interactions to adaptive and host immune systems, as well as their context-dependent plasticity. Underlying the highly plastic characteristic, lots of research interests are focused on repolarizing TAMs from M2-like pro-tumor phenotype towards M1-like antitumoral ones. Nanotechnology offers great opportunities for targeting and modulating TAM polarization to mount the therapeutic efficacy in cancer immunotherapy. Here, this mini-review highlights those emerging nano-approaches for TAM repolarization in the last three years.

Karakteristik Umbi Plasma Nutfah Tanaman Talas (Colocasia esculenta)

<p>Taro have been cultivated and consumed as a food supplement in Indonesia. Beside it used as a food, it is also as source of industrial purposes, such as a part of raw material of cosmetic or plastic. Characteristic of tuber (corm) of taro determine their usage. Utilization of germplasm collection of taro could be done more intensively by studying their morphological characters. Experiment was conducted in 2005 consisted of 170 accessions of taro. Morphological characters of tuber have been observed at harvest time. Result of the study show that variability of morphological characters were exist within areas or among areas. There are several interesting varieties which have long umbi or high tuber yield and specific tuber flesh color.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstrak</strong></p><p>Tanaman talas telah lama dibudidayakan dan dimanfaatkan sebagai sumber pangan tambahan di Indonesia. Di samping sebagai sumber pangan, talas juga dapat dimanfaatkan untuk keperluan industri, misalnya sebagai bahan baku kosmetik dan plastik. Karateristik umbi talas menentukan penggunaannya. Pemanfaatan talas dapat ditingkatkan dengan mempelajari sifat-sifat morfologi yang dimiliki plasma nutfah yang telah dikoleksi. Percobaan dilaksanakan pada tahun 2005 terdiri atas 170 aksesi plasma nutfah talas. Karakter morfologi umbi diamati setelah panen. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat keragaman karakter morfologi dalam daerah atau antar daerah asal plasma nutfah. Dari koleksi plasma nutfah yang telah dimiliki diperoleh aksesi yang menarik seperti umbi talas yang panjang dengan warna daging umbi yang khas.</p>

Method for Estimating Maximum Response for Seismic Design of Multiple Supported Elastic-Plastic Piping Systems

This study describes a simple method to estimate the maximum response in the seismic response analysis of multi-input nonlinear system. There are many studies on the response analysis of a system having nonlinear properties, such as elasto-plastic characteristic, but they are intended for the one input system because they cannot be applied to multi-input system. On the other hand, a simple method for estimating the multi-input response analysis can also be proposed, which is applied to a linear system, but they cannot be applied to a nonlinear system. However, the importance of seismic design in consideration of both nonlinear and multi-input problems has been increasing in recent years. Therefore, we propose a simple method for estimating the maximum response of multi-input system with elasto-plastic characteristic in the present study.

The Analysis on Failure Characteristic of Piled Wharf System

In order to effectively ascertain the failure mechanism of piled wharf affected by slope deformation in earthquake, numerical analysis is conducted by Finite Element Method in this paper. In the computational model, elastic plastic characteristic of subsoil, discontinuous behavior of pile soil interface, and nonlinearity of structure material are considered to conduct seismic computation in time domain. Numerical results show the possible locations of wharf structure which generate cracks and plastic hinges. Some conclusions are drawn and can be reference for engineering design and practical project.

Seismic Control of Structure Using Energy Absorption by Elasto-Plastic Hysteresis Loop Characteristics

Reduction of seismic response is one of the most important problems of aseismic design of the structures. When the structures are subjected to excess seismic load, force-displacement relation has hysteresis loop characteristic. In this paper, seismic control of structure using energy absorption by elasto-plastic characteristic is examined by analytical method. As elasto-plastic characteristic, bilinear hysteresis loop is used. The equation of motion is equivalently linearized. The maximum value of the mean square value and absorbed energy are obtained for some values of the damping ratio, the natural period, the yield displacement and the stiffness ratio. It is found that the maximum value of the mean square value of the response decreases with the decrease of the yield displacement and the stiffness ratio. It is also found that the maximum value of the mean square value decreases with the increase of absorbed energy. The proposed method is applied to the secondary system and the same results are obtained.

NUMERICAL MODELLING AND MEASUREMENT IN A TEST SECONDARY SETTLING TANK

A numerical model and measurements of flow and settling in activated sludge suspension is presented. The numerical model is an attempt to describe the complex and interrelated hydraulic and sedimentation phenomena by describing the turbulent flow field and the transport/dispersion of suspended sludge. Phenomena such as free and hindered settling and the Bingham plastic characteristic of activated sludge suspensions are included in the numerical model. Further characterisation and test tank experiments are described. The characterisation experiments were designed to measure calibration parameters for model description of settling and density differences. In the test tank experiments, flow velocities and suspended sludge concentrations were measured with different tank inlet geometry and hydraulic and sludge loads. The test tank experiments provided results for the calibration of the numerical model and for comparing measured and calculated results. The numerical model could, fairly accurately, predict the measured results and both the measured and calculated results showed a flow field pattern identical to the flow fields in full-scale secondary settling tanks. A specific calibration of the Bingham plastic characteristic was needed and further knowledge of activated sludge suspension rheology will be necessary to improve the numerical model.