Abstract—Nowadays, energy dissipation devices are commonly used in structures. High rate of energy absorption during earthquakes is the benefit of using such devices, which results in damage reduction of structural elements, specifically columns. The hysteretic damping capacity of energy dissipation devices is the key point that it may adversely make analysis and design process complicated. Thi...

key role in vision, has a blood-retinal barrier (BRB) to maintain a constant milieu and shield the neural retina from the circulating blood. The BRB forms complex tight junctions of retinal capillary endothelial cells (inner BRB) and retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE; outer BRB). The inner two thirds of the human retina is nourished by retinal capillaries and the remainder is covered by cho...

Berberine (BRB), a natural alkaloid, has a long history of medicinal use in both Ayurvedic and old Chinese medicine. Recently, available as a dietary supplement, Berberine is reported to have application in treatment of variety diseases. Previously we observed that BRB inhibited mTOR/S6 signaling concurrently with reduction of the level of endogenous oxidants and constitutive DNA damage respons...

Our laboratory has used a rodent model of human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma to identify putative chemopreventive agents for this disease and to determine their mechanisms of action. In the present study, we treated F344 rats with the esophageal carcinogen, N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine (NMBA), thrice per week for 5 weeks. Beginning 1 week later, they were fed a synthetic diet containing 5% ...

The blood-retinal barrier (BRB) prevents most systemically-administered drugs from reaching the retina. This study investigated whether burst ultrasound applied with a circulating microbubble agent can disrupt the BRB, providing a noninvasive method for the targeted delivery of systemically administered drugs to the retina. To demonstrate the efficacy and reversibility of such a procedure, five...

Evolutionary optimization (EO) has been proven to be highly effective computation means in solving asymmetry problems engineering practices. In this study, a novel evolutionary approach for the belief rule base (BRB) system is proposed, namely EO-BRB, by constructing an model and employing Differential (DE) algorithm as its engine due ability locate optimal solution with nonlinear complexity. E...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to develop and characterize a quantitative assay of blood-retinal barrier (BRB) function in mice and to determine the effect of several purported vasopermeability factors on the BRB. METHODS Adult C57BL/6J mice were treated with three regimens of increasingly extensive retinal cryopexy and subsequently were given an intraperitoneal injection of 1 microCi/...

This study presents a new all-steel Buckling-Restrained Brace (BRB) named Coplanar Dual Core (CDC) BRB, that consists of rectangular cross-sectional core divided into two coplanar yielding lateral bands, whose movements are constrained by an external restrainer (ER) and internal (IR). In contrast with the traditional BRB dog-bone shaped core, CDC-BRB has advantage can be easily extracted inspec...

Escin, a natural mixture of triterpenoid saponins isolated from the seed of the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), has been demonstrated to possess glucocorticoid (GC)‑like anti‑edematous and anti‑inflammatory effects. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether escin exhibits synergistic protective effects on blood‑retinal barrier (BRB) breakdown when combined with GCs in a ra...

BACKGROUND Cognitive impairment could affect quality of life for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), and cognitive function may be correlated with several factors such as depression and fatigue. This study aimed to evaluate cognitive function in Japanese patients with MS and the association between cognitive function and apathy, fatigue, and depression. METHODS The Brief Repeatable Battery...