The objective of this study was to more clearly define the relationship between body condition, plasma leptin and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) in stallions and geldings in moderate (5.0-5.5) versus fleshy (7.0-7.5) body condition. Data analyses of physical measurements showed that there was a difference for BCS (P<0.001) even though the fat group only achieved a mean BCS of 6.3 + 0.2 as compared with a mean BCS of 5.3 + 0.1 for the moderate group. Differences also existed for rump fat (P<0.05) and percent body fat (P<0.05) between BCS groups. Analysis of physical measurements revealed that there was no sex effect as geldings and stallions within each group were not significantly different. Analysis of plasma leptin concurred with previous reports as a difference (P<0.001) existed between the BCS groups. Mean leptin concentrations were 2.13 + 0.1 ng/ml for the fat group and 1.44 + 0.1 ng/ml for the moderate group. After normalization of the data, changes in leptin concentrations still revealed a significant difference (P<0.05) between BCS groups, yet no difference in leptin concentrations between stallions and geldings was seen. Dexamethasone (DEX) treatment on d 0 caused a subsequent 24 h rise in plasma leptin in both groups. Analysis of plasma IGF-I revealed no difference in IGF-I concentrations between BCS groups. Mean plasma IGF-I was 347.2 + 11.4 ng/ml for the fat group and 344.3 + 10.0 ng/ml for the moderate group. There was however a difference (P<0.05) between geldings and stallions. Geldings exhibited an overall mean plasma IGF-I concentration of 360.6 + 9.1 ng/ml with stallions exhibiting a mean IGF-I concentration of 329.1 + 12.1 ng/ml. The post DEX challenge rise seen with leptin was not evident when analyzing the change in plasma IGF-I concentrations. In conclusion, the data presented herein have provided a more accurate profile of circulating concentrations of leptin and IGF-I in stallions and geldings of moderate and fleshy body condition.

Burns often leads to infection, due to damage to the skin's protective barrier. Burn injury has been repeatedly shown to induce considerable inflammatory and immune dysfunction. The innate immune system is a universal and ancient form of host defense against infection. Activation of innate immunity constitutes the first line of host defense against infection. Neutrophils are white blood cells and part of the immune system. They are the most common PMN (polymorphonuclear neutrophils) and accounted for 70% of all leukocytes. Neutrophils provided the first line of defense of the innate immune system by phagocytosing, killing, and digesting bacteria and fungi. Priming means a process whereby the response of neutrophils to an activating stimulus is potentiated, sometimes greatly, by prior to exposure to priming agents such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF-alpha), platelet-activating factor (PAF). Neutrophil priming causes a dramatic increase in the response of these cells to an activating agent; this process has been shown to be critical for neutrophil-mediated tissue injury both in vitro and in vivo. However, the intracellular signaling pathways used by neutrophil in response to pro-inflammatory stimuli have not been elucidated. The discovery of TLRs has made us understanding of the mechanisms of innate immune recognition. The innate immune system detectes the invasion of microorganism through TLRs, which recognize microbial components and trigger inflammatory responses. Severe burn injury produces shock and induces acute gastrointestinal derangement that may disrupt gastrointestinal mucosa integrity and facilitate the bacterial translocation (BT) to Mesenteric lymph node (MLN), liver, and spleen. Hypertonic saline (HTS) has been advocated in thermal injury resuscitation because of the possibility of giving less total volume of resuscitation fluid, with a resulting decrease in edema and the need for escharotomy. In this study, I found that priming effect of BM neutrophils is TNF-alpha and p38 dependent and TLRs play a critical role to the innate immunity by recognizing bacteria and HTS enhance host response to bacterial challenge by increasing TLRs of inflammatory cells.

The study and application of machine vision in early years mostly focus on a single camera. However, the trend of research on multiple cameras has been developed recently. Due to highly complicated correlation among multiple images, the arrangement of multiple cameras was restricted to the encirclement layout for acquiring more than one views of a target object. Furthermore, it has been well known that the special architecture of insect compound eyes contributes outstanding capability for precise and efficient observation of moving objects. If this technique can be transferred to the domain of engineering applications, significant improvement on visual tracking of moving objects will be greatly expected. This thesis builds a visual servo system with trinocular cameras by mimicking the configuration of compound eye of insects for tracking an object moving in 2D space. The arrangement of the trinocular cameras is divergent, and this system can function properly without the information of distance between the object and the cameras.

Soil and groundwater at many existing and former industrial areas and disposal sites is contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons that were released into the environment. Among those petroleum hydrocarbons, fuel oil is more difficult to treat compared to gasoline and diesel fuel due to its characteristics of low volatility, low biodegradability, and low mobility. Thus, a combination of several different treatment technologies is required to remediate fuel oil contaminated soil or groundwater. The objective of this study was to assess the potential of applying Fenton-like oxidation process to remediate fuel-oil contaminated soils. The following tasks were performed in this study: (1) determination of the optimal oxidation conditions, (2) evaluation of the efficiency of chemical by Fenton-like process after the pretreatment of surfactant flushing, and (3) evaluation of the stability of H2O2 by the addition of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4). Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in soil were analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the oxidation treatment. Results from this study show that the highest TPH removal efficiency (84.8%) was obtained for soils containing 3%(w/w) of fuel oil when 3% of H2O2 was applied followed by 0.05% of H2O2 with 56.7% of TPH removal. Results also show that approximately 69.1% of TPH removal was detected with soils containing 5%(w/w) of fuel oil when 6% of H2O2 was applied followed by 3% of H2O2 with 56.7% of TPH removal and 0.05% of H2O2 with 32.6% of TPH removal. Results also indicate that Fenton-like process has much higher oxidation efficiency than using H2O2 alone. The oxidation efficiency was significantly affected when the contaminated soils were pretreated with surfactant. Results reveal that the maximum allowable surfactant addition was approximately 0.7% (w/w) for soils containing 0.5% (w/w) of fuel oil when 6% of H2O2 was applied. Addition of 2.2 mM of potassium dihydrogen phosphate influence could increase the stability of H2O2, but caused the decrease in the efficiency of TPH removal. During the Fenton-like reaction, pH values were close to 6 to 7. The neutral to slightly acidic conditions caused the decreased dissolution rate of iron minerals. This would also cause the decreased production of hydroxyl radicals from the surface of iron minerals. Results from the byproduct analysis show that the oxidation potential of Fenton-like process is not strong enough to completely destroy the fuel oil to non-toxic end products. The oxidation process produced byproducts containing carboxyl groups with molecular weights similar to their parent compounds.

The most abundant microflora is present in the distal parts of gut and the majority of the bacteria are Gram-negative anaerobes. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), one of the ¡§pathogen-recognition molecules¡¨, recognize the lipopolysaccharide (LPS), derived from Gram-negative bacteria. TLR4 recognized the intestinal microflora and triggers the inflammatory responses. Although the effect of intestinal microflora on enhancing host to response the challenge from bacteria has been established, the mechanism has not been well studied. In this study, the relationship between TLR4 expression and the inflammatory response under intestinal microflora depletion was investigated. Mice fed with antibiotics for 4 weeks to delete the intestinal commensals and supplemented with or without LPS to stimulate TLR4 at week 3 were under sham or burn treatment. Results showed that thermal injury intestinal permeability, bacterial translocation to mesenteric lymph nodes, and neutrophil deposition in lung. Also, the activation of NF-£MB, expression of HSP70 and TLR4 were induced in intestinal after thermal injury. Moreover, TLR4 expression was increased in lung and peritoneal cells, ICAM and TNF-£\ expression were increased in peritoneal cells after thermal injury. However, NF-£MB activation, expression of TLR4, ICAM, and HSP70 were decreased in intestinal mucosa of mice with microflora depletion after thermal injury. Microflora depletion also significantly decreased the MPO activity in lung, and the phagocytic activity, the TLR4, ICAM, and TNF-£\ expression of peritoneal cells after thermal injury. Interestingly, LPS supplement reversed the effect of microflora depletion, suggest that intestinal microflora can trigger the host defense through TLR4 signaling pathway in thermal injured mice.

Abstract Cr-containing diamond-like carbon coatings (Cr-DLC) with gradient interlayers were studied to elucidate the effects of Cr content and substrate bias on the mechanical properties and microstructure of the deposited coatings. The coatings were deposited with a closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (CFUBMS) system. The Cr content and substrate bias were varied from 5 at.% to 30 at.% and -22 V to -60 V, respectively. Mechanical properties of the coatings were evaluated with nano-indenter, scratch tester, ball-on-disk tribo-tester and ball crater. Microstructures of the films were characterized by SEM, TEM, and Raman spectroscopy. Experimental results show that an increases in Cr content from 5 at.% to 30 at.% for the Cr-DLC coatings deposited at substrate bias of ¡V40V results in the increase of the hardness, Young¡¦s modulus, adhesion and friction coefficient, and the decrease of the deposition rate. A minimum abrasive wear rate was found at about 10 ~ 15 at.% Cr content. An increase in substrate bias from -22 V to -60 V for the Cr-DLC a of 10 at% Cr content results in a maximum hardness, Young¡¦s modulus and adhesion, and a minimum friction coefficient and abrasive wear rate at a substrate bias of -50 V, the although the deposition rate is decreased. TEM analysis revealed layered structure of about 35 nm period and fine CrC crystallite nanometer in size on the top layer of the Cr-DLC coatings.

In the present thesis, diamond-like carbon thin films were deposited on Si(100) and LiNbO3 substrates by a planar capacitor plasma-enhence-chemical-vapor-deposition system. The reaction gases were C2H2,CH4,O2 and mixed with Ar (95¢M) and H2(5¢M).The influence of the growth of the thin film from different substrates and three different source gases flow ratios have been studied. The bi-layers structure of SAW(Surface Acoustic Wave) device was then fabricated. The interdigital transducers (IDTs) were fabricated on the bi-layers structure. The conditions of the DLC thin film of the bi-layers structure was varied in order to discuss its effects on SAW devices. In addition to Raman analyses, SEM and AFM have been employed to characterize the DLC thin film quality. From the experimental results of Raman spectrum analysis reveals that the DLC film has wide and flat spectrum region at wavelength of 1585~1600cm-1 of G-band and 1390cm-1 of D-band .It indicates that the DLC film contains much graphite sp2 bonds and a small part of amorphous DLC sp3 bonds. The optimal deposition conditions of the DLC film have been found for the reaction gas of C2H2 and Ar, from which the insertion loss of the SAW filter shows the quality better than from the others. SEM and AFM analyses shows that the roughness of the DLC film is below 10 nm and the faces of the DLC films are flat to be made into devices.

DLC exhibits an extreme hardness, chemical stability and optical transparency properties, which are, to a certain extent, similar to those of diamond and thus of technological importance. In the case of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) films they can be interpreted as intermediate between diamond, graphite, and polymer-like carbon sites. The most important intrinsic hardness is protection of tools or machine parts against wear. Most modifications have been used on DLC to enhanced mechanical properties, such as reducing its internal compressive stress (N, Si, and metal incorporation), or to reduce its surface energy for further lowering of its already low friction coefficient with 0.1. Among various deposition techniques, microwave generated discharges, especially electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasmas, develop excellent a high degree of ionization, high ions densities. In this work, a novel hybrid technique for diamond-like carbon (DLC) film deposition has been developed, which combines the microwave ECR plasma discharging C2H2 and metallic magnetron sputtering. The effects of negative bias voltage and hydrocarbon flow rate for the deposition of a-C:H films on high speed steel were examined by Raman spectra, and their hardness was investigated by the Rockwell method. The Raman spectra show that at different hydrocarbon flow rate, the variation of the G line peak and width, and the integrated intensity ratio ID/IG of DLC and graphic, correlate well with the film hardness. Consequently, we suggest a deposition mechanism of DLC for this combined method.

Colloidal suspensions of disk-like particles have been of interest in both colloidal and liquid crystal studies because they exhibit unique liquid crystalline phases different from those of rod-like molecules. Disk-like particles, such as asphaltenes in heavy oil industry, clay particles in agriculture, and red blood cells in biology, are of great interest in a variety of industries and scientific areas. However, to fabricate monodisperse microdisks, uniform in structure or composition with precise control of particle size and shape has not yet succeeded. In this thesis, we show an experimental strategy of using microfluidic technique to fabricate homogeneous α-eicosene microemulsions with chloroform in an aqueous solution of sodium dedecyl sulfate (SDS). The monodisperse chloroform emulsions, generated by the glass-based microfluidic devices, ensure the precise control on microdisk particle size and shape. A systematic investigation was performed to study the relation between the resulted microdisk size and the initial concentration of α-eicosene in chloroform before evaporation. The smectic liquid crystalline phase inside the wax particles controls the coin-like disk shape below the melting temperature of wax’s rotator phase. The kinetics of the disk formation is observed using a polarized light microscope. Dynamic light scattering is used to characterize the Brownian motion of the microdisks, and the rotational diffusion is estimated from the image sequences taken by the charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. Effort has been put into collecting a large quantity of microdisks to investigate the discotic liquid crystalline phases, which can be readily probed by light scattering and microscope. In comparison, X-ray and neutron have to be used for the atomic liquid crystalline phase investigation.

Fish nodavirus causes the death of several high economic fish. For studying the package and stability of dragon grouper necrosis virus (DGNNV), wild type virus-like particles (wt-VLPs) and £GN25-VLPs were employed. After experiments of disassembly and assembly, the result showed that DNA of 608 bp was able to be packaged by wt-VLPs. The sedimentation of VLPs was affected by different pH buffers during the process of purification: the VLPs at alkaline conditions behaved faster than those at the acidic. The stability of pure VLPs was pH-independent. The micrographs of the wt-VLPs in alkaline buffers showed that particles were rough and irregular in shapes, some of which were stain-permeable. However, the wt-VLPs in acidic buffers were morphologically indistinguishable from the untreated VLPs. The Western blotting for gradiently purified miture of VLPs and lysozyme revealed that lysozyme was co-precipitated with wt-VLPs.