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Curved displays can adjust their shape to accommodate different objects and are used in electronics and decorative lighting. Due to the immutable pixel spacing, existing commercial curved displays are flexible but not compatible with undevelopable surfaces. Inspired by kirigami and auxetic structures, we propose an approach that combines luminescent elements and rotating square tessellations to create a stretchable, arbitrary curve adaptive display. We connect square islands by vertical interconnects to relieve the stress concentration and provide extra deformation patterns. The vertical interconnects are patterned on a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) using laser cutting and folded up via specially designed molds. Further, the freed-up space by folded interconnects allows the structure to be compressed. A prototype stretchable display is demonstrated that it can maintain electrical performance under biaxial strain and adapt to different Gaussian curvature surfaces, including cylindrical, spherical, saddle and arbitrary surfaces. Theoretical models and finite element calculations are established to describe the tensile behavior of the structures under different boundary conditions and agree with the experimental results. This proposed technology paves a feasible solution of mass production of adaptive curved displays and sets the trend for the next-generation display. © 2024, The Author(s).

This paper reports a novel high aspect ratio (height/width) vertical serpentine conductor with superior performance. The conductor was developed and manufactured through silicon-based MEMS fabrication technology. For the first time, the serpentine structure can be fully stretched into straight status while maintaining structural integrity and electrical performance. The experiment results show the vertical serpentine conductors possess up to 4000% stretchability, and the relative resistance varies within 1.3% under 3500% applied strain. In addition, the superior durability and stability of the conductor have been verified after 20,000 cyclic stretching and releasing at 3000% applied strain, where the relative resistance only changes within 4.6%.

Geometric graph is a special kind of graph with geometric features, which is vital to model many scientific problems. Unlike generic graphs, geometric graphs often exhibit physical symmetries of translations, rotations, and reflections, making them ineffectively processed by current Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). To tackle this issue, researchers proposed a variety of Geometric Graph Neural Networks equipped with invariant/equivariant properties to better characterize the geometry and topology of geometric graphs. Given the current progress in this field, it is imperative to conduct a comprehensive survey of data structures, models, and applications related to geometric GNNs. In this paper, based on the necessary but concise mathematical preliminaries, we provide a unified view of existing models from the geometric message passing perspective. Additionally, we summarize the applications as well as the related datasets to facilitate later research for methodology development and experimental evaluation. We also discuss the challenges and future potential directions of Geometric GNNs at the end of this survey.

Pretraining on a large number of unlabeled 3D molecules has showcased superiority in various scientific applications. However, prior efforts typically focus on pretraining models on a specific domain, either proteins or small molecules, missing the opportunity to leverage the cross-domain knowledge. To mitigate this gap, we introduce Equivariant Pretrained Transformer (EPT), a novel pretraining framework designed to harmonize the geometric learning of small molecules and proteins. To be specific, EPT unifies the geometric modeling of multi-domain molecules via the block-enhanced representation that can attend a broader context of each atom. Upon transformer framework, EPT is further enhanced with E(3) equivariance to facilitate the accurate representation of 3D structures. Another key innovation of EPT is its block-level pretraining task, which allows for joint pretraining on datasets comprising both small molecules and proteins. Experimental evaluations on a diverse group of benchmarks, including ligand binding affinity prediction, molecular property prediction, and protein property prediction, show that EPT significantly outperforms previous SOTA methods for affinity prediction, and achieves the best or comparable performance with existing domain-specific pretraining models for other tasks.

Crystals are the foundation of numerous scientific and industrial applications. While various learning-based approaches have been proposed for crystal generation, existing methods seldom consider the space group constraint which is crucial in describing the geometry of crystals and closely relevant to many desirable properties. However, considering space group constraint is challenging owing to its diverse and nontrivial forms. In this paper, we reduce the space group constraint into an equivalent formulation that is more tractable to be handcrafted into the generation process. In particular, we translate the space group constraint into two parts: the basis constraint of the invariant logarithmic space of the lattice matrix and the Wyckoff position constraint of the fractional coordinates. Upon the derived constraints, we then propose DiffCSP++, a novel diffusion model that has enhanced a previous work DiffCSP by further taking space group constraint into account. Experiments on several popular datasets verify the benefit of the involvement of the space group constraint, and show that our DiffCSP++ achieves promising performance on crystal structure prediction, ab initio crystal generation and controllable generation with customized space groups., Comment: ICLR 2024 poster

Jiao Ma,1,* Zhuoxiao Han,1,* Rui Jiao,1 Guanli Yuan,1 Cuiqing Ma,2 Xixin Yan,1 Aihong Meng1 1Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, People’s Republic of China; 2Key Laboratory of Immune Mechanism and Intervention on Serious Disease in Hebei Province, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Aihong Meng, Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, No. 215, Heping West Road, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, People’s Republic of China, Email mengaihong_med@126.comBackground: PM2.5 exposure is one of the major inducements of various respiratory diseases and related mortality. Meanwhile, irisin, a metabolism and thermogenesis-related hormone, is found to be protective against acute lung injury induced by LPS, which indicates its therapeutic function in lung injury. However, the function and underlying mechanism of irisin in PM2.5-induced acute lung injury (ALI) are still unclear. This study is aimed to discover the potential mechanisms of irisin in PM2.5-induced acute lung injury.Methods: Atg5 deficient mice and cells were established to clarify the relationship between irisin and autophagy in PM2.5-induced ALI. We also used Ad-mCherry-GFP-LC3B as a monitor of autophagy flux to claim the effects of irisin on autophagy. Western blotting and qPCR were used to reveal the molecular mechanism.Results: As a result, PM2.5 exposure induced lung injury whereas mitigated by irisin. Moreover, PM2.5 hampered autophagy flux, characterized by accumulation of p62, and autophagosomes, as well as blocked autolysosomes. Irisin improved the disturbed autophagy flux, which was abrogated by deficiency of Atg5. Additionally, we demonstrated that irisin activated AMPK and inhibited mTOR, which indicated the enhanced autophagy. Moreover, blocka

Stretchable and curved electronic devices are a promising technology trend due to their remarkable advantages. Many approaches have been developed to manufacture stretchable and curved electronics. Here, to allow such electronics to better serve practical applications, ranging from wearable devices to soft robotics, we propose a novel vertical serpentine conductor (VSC) with superior electrical stability to interconnect functional devices through a silicon-based microfabrication process. Conformal vacuum transfer printing (CVTP) technology was developed to transfer the networked platform onto complex curved surfaces to demonstrate feasibility. The mechanical and electrical performance were investigated numerically and experimentally. The VSC interconnected network provides a new approach for stretchable and curved electronics with high stretchability and reliability.

Flexible pressure sensor is a major type of device used for human health monitoring. Here we present a novel design using Miura-ori microstructure to enhance the sensitivity of flexible pressure sensors. A spray-spin coating process suitable for mass production was used to form a CNTs-doped flexible active layer on the surface of the microstructures. Compared with commonly used pyramid, cone, and hemisphere microstructures, the Miura-ori microstructure can improve 38.2%, 147.4%, and 235.7% of sensitivity in the sensing range 100-700kPa, respectively. The presented sensor also showed good durability (1000 cycles under 300kPa pressure), rapid response time (75ms), and recovery time (75ms). Moreover, the sensor was used to monitor the human wrist pulse signal and swallowing signals to show the capability of physiological signal monitoring. With excellent performance, the presented sensor has broad application potential in intelligent human health and motion monitoring. IEEE

Herein, we present a novel microstructured capacitive pressure sensor, integrating photolithography techniques and advanced materials, such as vertically aligned multiwall carbon nanotubes (VA-MWCNTs) and ion gel. The introduction of micropyramidal electrodes and microhemispheric electrolyte with poly(vinyl alcohol)/phosphoric acid (H 3 PO 4 ) ion gel demonstrates a significant improvement in sensitivity (124.9 kPa −1 ) and response time (125 ms). Furthermore, the application of VA-MWCNTs coated with parylene-C improves the electrode's durability and confers remarkable repeatability on the entire system under various pressure conditions. This superior performance in both static and dynamic measurements positions the sensor as a promising candidate for health monitoring applications.

For the first time, a CMOS compatible calorimetric flow sensor with a dual-heater (DH) structure is proposed instead of using the traditional single-heater (SH) design. CFD simulation results demonstrated that the DH design can enhance the performance of the device with high sensitivity. Thereof, the DH sensor was fabricated with four suspended bridges and tested under three configuration modes: parallel-heater (PH) mode, full-bridge (FB) mode, and half-bridge (HB) mode. Experimental results demonstrated that the PH mode can achieve a high sensitivity of 403.25 mV/(m/s)/W, which is over 4 times that of the HB mode (83.7mV/(m/s)/W). This DH flow sensor under its PH mode can also provide an ultra large measurement range (±40 m/s) and fast response time (1.8 ms @16.7 m/s). The good performance of this novel flow sensor demonstrated its potential applications in respiration monitoring in medical areas and airflow control in HVAC systems for smart buildings.

Metal halide perovskites have been ubiquitously utilized in both rigid and flexible optoelectronics with high performance. However, developing perovskites-based stretchable optoelectronics is highly challenging because perovskites are intrinsically not stretchable unlike some organic semiconductors. Here, for the first time, we devised a novel metal seeding growth method to obtain three-dimensional (3D) perovskite nanowire forests (NWFs) with excellent mechanical stretchability, akin to the seeding growth of grass in nature. Benefiting from their intrinsic stretchability, perovskite NWFs-based stretchable photodetectors have been demonstrated with excellent photodetection performance. Under 0% strain, the device dark current is as low as 0.18 nA cm-2 at − 2 V bias, contributing to an ultrahigh light-to-dark current ratio (Ilight/Idark) of 1.1 × 105 under 5.5 mW cm-2 illumination. The device also exhibits a high responsivity of 455.3 mA W-1 and specific detectivity of 8.69 × 1012 Jones. Meanwhile, under 80% strain conditions, the device have shown negligible performance drop, especially in the aspect of Ilight/Idark. Our work reports a novel growth process that leads to intriguing 3D perovskite nanostructures with unique mechanical flexibility and stretchability, in addition to high optoelectronic sensing performance. These appealing properties can find applications in high-performance stretchable and wearable optoelectronics in the future. © 2023

Crystal Structure Prediction (CSP) is crucial in various scientific disciplines. While CSP can be addressed by employing currently-prevailing generative models (e.g. diffusion models), this task encounters unique challenges owing to the symmetric geometry of crystal structures -- the invariance of translation, rotation, and periodicity. To incorporate the above symmetries, this paper proposes DiffCSP, a novel diffusion model to learn the structure distribution from stable crystals. To be specific, DiffCSP jointly generates the lattice and atom coordinates for each crystal by employing a periodic-E(3)-equivariant denoising model, to better model the crystal geometry. Notably, different from related equivariant generative approaches, DiffCSP leverages fractional coordinates other than Cartesian coordinates to represent crystals, remarkably promoting the diffusion and the generation process of atom positions. Extensive experiments verify that our DiffCSP significantly outperforms existing CSP methods, with a much lower computation cost in contrast to DFT-based methods. Moreover, the superiority of DiffCSP is also observed when it is extended for ab initio crystal generation., Comment: NeurIPS 2023

Pretraining molecular representation models without labels is fundamental to various applications. Conventional methods mainly process 2D molecular graphs and focus solely on 2D tasks, making their pretrained models incapable of characterizing 3D geometry and thus defective for downstream 3D tasks. In this work, we tackle 3D molecular pretraining in a complete and novel sense. In particular, we first propose to adopt an equivariant energy-based model as the backbone for pretraining, which enjoys the merits of fulfilling the symmetry of 3D space. Then we develop a node-level pretraining loss for force prediction, where we further exploit the Riemann-Gaussian distribution to ensure the loss to be E(3)-invariant, enabling more robustness. Moreover, a graph-level noise scale prediction task is also leveraged to further promote the eventual performance. We evaluate our model pretrained from a large-scale 3D dataset GEOM-QM9 on two challenging 3D benchmarks: MD17 and QM9. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of our method against current state-of-the-art pretraining approaches, and verify the validity of our design for each proposed component., Comment: AAAI 2023

An international panel including patients, clinicians, researchers, acupuncture and surgery trialists, statisticians, and experts in clinical epidemiology and methodology have developed new guidance for randomised controlled trials in acupuncture. It addresses the most prevalent and critical concerns of current acupuncture trials and will help funding agencies, trial registers, and journal editors to evaluate the relevance, importance, and quality of submitted trial proposals and completed trials

The recent development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology has provided new methods for researchers to design and fabricate seismometers and geophones in small scale which will enable seismic sensors achieve higher sensitivity with a larger frequency band when compared with traditional instruments. In this paper, we review the development of various types of MEMS based geophones and seismometers by dividing them into two types according to the state of inertial mass (liquid or solid type). Within all types of seismic sensors, emphasis has been put on the highly sensitive electrochemical sensors and the frequently used capacitive seismic sensors. The working principles, detailed fabrication processes, as well as the advantages or limitations are also summarized. Moreover, the levelling system assembled with the seismic sensors is also included in this review. They are added to help seismometers work properly when tilted. Since MEMS fabrication technology with small mass also brings magnified intrinsic noise to the seismic sensors, self-noise issues and some possible modifications on structures or signal processing circuits to reduce this noise are discussed.

The recent development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology has provided new methods for researchers to design and fabricate seismometers and geophones in small scale which will enable seismic sensors achieve higher sensitivity with a larger frequency band when compared with traditional instruments. In this paper, we review the development of various types of MEMS based geophones and seismometers by dividing them into two types according to the state of inertial mass (liquid or solid type). Within all types of seismic sensors, emphasis has been put on the highly sensitive electrochemical sensors and the frequently used capacitive seismic sensors. The working principles, detailed fabrication processes, as well as the advantages or limitations are also summarized. Moreover, the levelling system assembled with the seismic sensors is also included in this review. They are added to help seismometers work properly when tilted. Since MEMS fabrication technology with small mass also brings magnified intrinsic noise to the seismic sensors, self-noise issues and some possible modifications on structures or signal processing circuits to reduce this noise are discussed.

The recent development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology has provided new methods for researchers to design and fabricate seismometers and geophones in small scale which will enable seismic sensors achieve higher sensitivity with a larger frequency band when compared with traditional instruments. In this paper, we review the development of various types of MEMS based geophones and seismometers by dividing them into two types according to the state of inertial mass (liquid or solid type). Within all types of seismic sensors, emphasis has been put on the highly sensitive electrochemical sensors and the frequently used capacitive seismic sensors. The working principles, detailed fabrication processes, as well as the advantages or limitations are also summarized. Moreover, the levelling system assembled with the seismic sensors is also included in this review. They are added to help seismometers work properly when tilted. Since MEMS fabrication technology with small mass also brings magnified intrinsic noise to the seismic sensors, self-noise issues and some possible modifications on structures or signal processing circuits to reduce this noise are discussed.

While synthetic bilingual corpora have demonstrated their effectiveness in low-resource neural machine translation (NMT), adding more synthetic data often deteriorates translation performance. In this work, we propose alternated training with synthetic and authentic data for NMT. The basic idea is to alternate synthetic and authentic corpora iteratively during training. Compared with previous work, we introduce authentic data as guidance to prevent the training of NMT models from being disturbed by noisy synthetic data. Experiments on Chinese-English and German-English translation tasks show that our approach improves the performance over several strong baselines. We visualize the BLEU landscape to further investigate the role of authentic and synthetic data during alternated training. From the visualization, we find that authentic data helps to direct the NMT model parameters towards points with higher BLEU scores and leads to consistent translation performance improvement., Comment: ACL 2021, Short Findings

Pericyclic reactions are powerful transformations for the construction of carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds in organic synthesis. Their role in biosynthesis is increasingly apparent, and mechanisms by which pericyclases can catalyse reactions are of major interest1. [4+2] cycloadditions (Diels-Alder reactions) have been widely used in organic synthesis2 for the formation of six-membered rings and are now well-established in biosynthesis3-6. [6+4] and other 'higher-order' cycloadditions were predicted7 in 1965, and are now increasingly common in the laboratory despite challenges arising from the generation of a highly strained ten-membered ring system8,9. However, although enzyme-catalysed [6+4] cycloadditions have been proposed10-12, they have not been proven to occur. Here we demonstrate a group of enzymes that catalyse a pericyclic [6+4] cycloaddition, which is a crucial step in the biosynthesis of streptoseomycin-type natural products. This type of pericyclase catalyses [6+4] and [4+2] cycloadditions through a single ambimodal transition state, which is consistent with previous proposals11,12. The [6+4] product is transformed to a less stable [4+2] adduct via a facile Cope rearrangement, and the [4+2] adduct is converted into the natural product enzymatically. Crystal structures of three pericyclases, computational simulations of potential energies and molecular dynamics, and site-directed mutagenesis establish the mechanism of this transformation. This work shows how enzymes are able to catalyse concerted pericyclic reactions involving ambimodal transition states.

Grape seed proanthocyanidins (GSP) as a cholesterol-lowering nutraceutical has been investigated in both humans and animals, however, little is known of how it interacts with the genes and proteins involved in lipoprotein metabolism in vivo. So the first objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of GSP supplementation on blood cholesterol level and gene expression of cholesterol-regulating enzymes in Golden Syrian hamsters maintained on a 0.1% cholesterol diet., Hypercholesterolemia is one of the major proven risk factors for atherosclerosis. Decreasing blood total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels with cholesterol-lowering nutraceuticals and dietary intake modification could slow or reverse the progression of cardiovascular disease., In conclusion, the present study confirmed that hypocholesterolemic activity of GSP was most likely mediated by enhancement of bile acid excretion and up-regulation of CYP7A1. The present study also demonstrated that frequent cholesterol and myristic acid intake is associated with elevation of plasma TC level, while beta-sitosterol intake frequency had no effect on plasma cholesterol for a given amount., In the beta-sitosterol consumption frequency study, hamsters fed the basal diet with a gavage-administration of 3 mg cholesterol 3 times (control), or a gavage-administration of 3 mg beta-sitosterol with 3 mg cholesterol 3 times per day (high beta-sitosterol intake frequency), or a gavage-administration of 9 mg beta-sitosterol with 3 mg cholesterol for one time and 3 mg cholesterol for the other two times (low beta-sitosterol intake frequency). The results demonstrated that for a given dose of beta-sitosterol, the administration frequency had no or little effect on plasma lipoprotein profiles. The present study also found that cholesterol-lowering activity of beta-sitosterol was mediated by its inhibition on the intestinal cholesterol absorption with up-regulation of NPC1L1, ATP binding cassette transporters G5 and G8 (ABCG5/8) and MTP., In the cholesterol consumption frequency study, hamsters were given daily 9 mg of cholesterol either in diet (high cholesterol intake frequency) or a gavage-administration of 3 times 3 mg (regular cholesterol intake frequency) and 1 time 9 mg (low cholesterol intake frequency). The results demonstrated that there was an increasing trend in concentrations of plasma TC, Non-HDL-C, TC/HDL-C ratio and TG in association with the cholesterol intake frequency. It is the first time to demonstrate that the increasing cholesterol intake frequency increased the apparent cholesterol absorption. Elevation of plasma TC and cholesterol absorption is most likely mediated by up-regulation of intestinal Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 (NPC1L1), acyl coenzyme A: cholesterol acyltransferase 2 (ACAT2), and microsomal triacylglycerol transport protein (MTP) gene expression., In the myristic acid consumption frequency study, hamsters were given daily 210 mg of myristic acid either in diet (high myristic acid intake frequency) or a gavage-administration of 3 times 70 mg (regular myristic acid intake frequency) and 1 time 210 mg (low myristic acid intake frequency). The results showed that the increasing consumption frequency elevated plasma TC, Non-HDL-C and HDL-C levels. Elevation of plasma TC and HDL-C is most likely mediated by up-regulation of NPC1L1 and down-regulation of scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI) gene expression via enhancement of dietary myristic acid absorption., The results affirmed supplementation of 0.5% or 1.0% GSP could decrease plasma TC, non-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (Non-HDL-C) and triglyceride (TG) levels. In addition, dietary GSP was able to increase the excretion of bile acids by 3--4 folds, this was partially mediated by up-regulation of Cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) in both transcriptional and translational levels. It was concluded that the hypocholesterolemic activity of GSP was most likely mediated by enhancement of bile acid excretion and up-regulation of CYP7A1., The second objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of cholesterol, myristic acid and beta-sitosterol consumption frequency on plasma lipoprotein profiles in hamsters. Numerous studies reported that dietary cholesterol and saturated fatty acids elevated plasma TC level, whereas dietary phytosterols in moderate and high doses favorably reduced plasma TC and LDL levels. However, it is still unknown whether consumption frequency of sterols and fatty acids could affect plasma cholesterol level and lipid profiles., Jiao, Rui., Adviser: Chen Zhen Yu., Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-02, Section: B, page: ., Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-150)., Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web., Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web., also in Chinese., isbn: 9781267003713, Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International” License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Grape seed proanthocyanidins (GSP) as a cholesterol-lowering nutraceutical has been investigated in both humans and animals, however, little is known of how it interacts with the genes and proteins involved in lipoprotein metabolism in vivo. So the first objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of GSP supplementation on blood cholesterol level and gene expression of cholesterol-regulating enzymes in Golden Syrian hamsters maintained on a 0.1% cholesterol diet., Hypercholesterolemia is one of the major proven risk factors for atherosclerosis. Decreasing blood total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels with cholesterol-lowering nutraceuticals and dietary intake modification could slow or reverse the progression of cardiovascular disease., In conclusion, the present study confirmed that hypocholesterolemic activity of GSP was most likely mediated by enhancement of bile acid excretion and up-regulation of CYP7A1. The present study also demonstrated that frequent cholesterol and myristic acid intake is associated with elevation of plasma TC level, while beta-sitosterol intake frequency had no effect on plasma cholesterol for a given amount., In the beta-sitosterol consumption frequency study, hamsters fed the basal diet with a gavage-administration of 3 mg cholesterol 3 times (control), or a gavage-administration of 3 mg beta-sitosterol with 3 mg cholesterol 3 times per day (high beta-sitosterol intake frequency), or a gavage-administration of 9 mg beta-sitosterol with 3 mg cholesterol for one time and 3 mg cholesterol for the other two times (low beta-sitosterol intake frequency). The results demonstrated that for a given dose of beta-sitosterol, the administration frequency had no or little effect on plasma lipoprotein profiles. The present study also found that cholesterol-lowering activity of beta-sitosterol was mediated by its inhibition on the intestinal cholesterol absorption with up-regulation of NPC1L1, ATP binding cassette transporters G5 and G8 (ABCG5/8) and MTP., In the cholesterol consumption frequency study, hamsters were given daily 9 mg of cholesterol either in diet (high cholesterol intake frequency) or a gavage-administration of 3 times 3 mg (regular cholesterol intake frequency) and 1 time 9 mg (low cholesterol intake frequency). The results demonstrated that there was an increasing trend in concentrations of plasma TC, Non-HDL-C, TC/HDL-C ratio and TG in association with the cholesterol intake frequency. It is the first time to demonstrate that the increasing cholesterol intake frequency increased the apparent cholesterol absorption. Elevation of plasma TC and cholesterol absorption is most likely mediated by up-regulation of intestinal Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 (NPC1L1), acyl coenzyme A: cholesterol acyltransferase 2 (ACAT2), and microsomal triacylglycerol transport protein (MTP) gene expression., In the myristic acid consumption frequency study, hamsters were given daily 210 mg of myristic acid either in diet (high myristic acid intake frequency) or a gavage-administration of 3 times 70 mg (regular myristic acid intake frequency) and 1 time 210 mg (low myristic acid intake frequency). The results showed that the increasing consumption frequency elevated plasma TC, Non-HDL-C and HDL-C levels. Elevation of plasma TC and HDL-C is most likely mediated by up-regulation of NPC1L1 and down-regulation of scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI) gene expression via enhancement of dietary myristic acid absorption., The results affirmed supplementation of 0.5% or 1.0% GSP could decrease plasma TC, non-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (Non-HDL-C) and triglyceride (TG) levels. In addition, dietary GSP was able to increase the excretion of bile acids by 3--4 folds, this was partially mediated by up-regulation of Cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) in both transcriptional and translational levels. It was concluded that the hypocholesterolemic activity of GSP was most likely mediated by enhancement of bile acid excretion and up-regulation of CYP7A1., The second objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of cholesterol, myristic acid and beta-sitosterol consumption frequency on plasma lipoprotein profiles in hamsters. Numerous studies reported that dietary cholesterol and saturated fatty acids elevated plasma TC level, whereas dietary phytosterols in moderate and high doses favorably reduced plasma TC and LDL levels. However, it is still unknown whether consumption frequency of sterols and fatty acids could affect plasma cholesterol level and lipid profiles., Jiao, Rui., Adviser: Chen Zhen Yu., Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-02, Section: B, page: ., Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-150)., Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web., Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web., also in Chinese., isbn: 9781267003713, Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International” License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)