Morphology Analyses (morphology + analysis)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Morphology analysis for technology roadmapping: application of text mining

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2008
Byungun Yoon
The practice of technology roadmapping (TRM) has received much attention from researchers and practitioners, to support planning and forecasting in companies and sectors. However, little research has focused on the support of well-organized information for more effective roadmapping and the presentation of in-depth configurations of new products or technology. This paper proposes a roadmapping methodology to assist decision-making by applying a systematic approach based on quantitative data. To this end, key information is extracted from documents such as product manuals and patent documents by text mining, which is then used to identify the morphology of existing products and technology. Morphology analysis (MA) also plays a crucial role in deriving promising opportunities for new development of product or technology by matching product and technology morphology. Therefore, MA-based TRM can enable the effective exploitation of large quantities of significant information that might otherwise be left untapped, supporting innovation by generating a comprehensive set of detailed product and technology configurations. The proposed MA-based TRM approach can be applied to both incremental and radical innovation, supporting both market pull and technology push. The method is illustrated with a detailed example for mobile phones to demonstrate its practical application. [source]


The structure of the outer shell layer in radiolitid rudists, a morphoconstructional approach

LETHAIA, Issue 3 2008
JOSE MARIA PONS
Radiolitids (Bivalvia, Radiolitidae) built the calcite outer layer of their shell with compact structure as many other bivalves, or with repetitively layered non-compact structure following different patterns: continuous radial ridges, discontinuous radial ridges, normal cellular, cellular with radially elongate cells, discontinuous cellular, and discontinuous cellular with elongate cells. Some special structures may develop in localized parts: radial structures and inner-marginal or radial grooves. All these structures are currently used in the diagnosis of the family and for the characterization of subfamilies. Constructional morphology analyses and re-evaluation of all these structures reveal that they were misunderstood in some important aspects in the bivalve Treatise and that, consequently, the diagnosis of the family has to be emended and their subfamilies reconsidered. All outer shell layer structure related characters are described, illustrated, and interpreted under a constructional approach, some characters are proposed to emend the diagnosis of the family, and two possible clades are preliminarily distinguished. [source]


Population divergence in the amphicarpic species Amphicarpaea edgeworthii Benth. (Fabaceae): microsatellite markers and leaf morphology

BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 3 2009
ZHONG-CHENG LIANG
Comparative analyses of the genetic differentiation in microsatellite markers (FST) and leaf morphology characters (QST) of Amphicarpaea edgeworthii Benth. were conducted to gain insight into the roles of random processes and natural selection in the population divergence. Simple sequence repeat analyses on 498 individuals of 19 natural populations demonstrate that a significant genetic differentiation occurs among populations (mean FST = 0.578), and A. edgeworthii is a highly self-fertilized species (mean selfing rate s = 0.989). The distribution pattern of genetic diversity in this species shows that central populations possess high genetic diversity (e.g. population WL with HE = 0.673 and population JG with HE = 0.663), whereas peripheral ones have a low HE as in population JD (0.011). The morphological divergence of leaf shape was estimated by the elliptical Fourier analysis on the data from 11 natural and four common garden populations. Leaf morphology analyses indicate the morphological divergence does not show strong correlation with the genetic differentiation (R = 0.260, P = 0.069). By comparing the 95% confidence interval of QST with that of FST, QST values for five out of 12 quantitative traits are significantly higher than the average FST value over eight microsatellite loci. The comparison of FST and QST suggests that two kinds of traits can be driven by different evolutionary forces, and the population divergence in leaf morphology is shaped by local selections. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 96, 505,516. [source]


T-cadherin loss induces an invasive phenotype in human keratinocytes and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cells in vitro and is associated with malignant transformation of cutaneous SCC in vivo

BRITISH JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
D. Pfaff
Summary Background, Cadherins play important roles in controlling keratinocyte growth, differentiation and survival. Atypical glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored T-cadherin (T-cad) is highly expressed in the basal keratinocyte layer of skin. The role of T-cad in keratinocyte biology and pathology is unclear. Objectives, To define the role of T-cad in the pathogenesis of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) through gain-of-function and loss-of-function studies in vitro and through examination of T-cad expression patterns in human cutaneous SCC specimens in relation to histological classification of degree of tumour differentiation. Methods,In vitro studies employed lentiviral-mediated overexpression/silencing of T-cad in normal human keratinocyte (HaCaT) and SCC (A431) cell lines, monolayer and multicellular spheroid culture models, cell morphology analyses and assays of random motility and invasion. Immunohistochemistry was performed on skin specimens from patients with actinic keratosis, Bowen disease or SCC. Results,In vitro, silencing of T-cad induced a morphologically elongated and disorganized cell phenotype, increased random motility and markedly enhanced invasive potential. Overexpression of T-cad induced a morphologically spread and compact cell phenotype and blunted invasive potential. In vivo, regional loss of T-cad expression was more frequent and prominent in SCC classified as moderately-to-poorly differentiated than in SCC classified as well differentiated. However, in both categories aberrant and/or absence of T-cad expression was associated with histological features of a potentially more malignant and invasive phenotype of cutaneous SCC. Conclusions, T-cad is a controlling determinant of SCC phenotype and invasive behaviour and its loss is associated with the process of malignant transformation from noninvasive to invasive SCC. [source]


Fabrication and Characterization of DNA/QPVP-Os Redox-Active Multilayer Film

ELECTROANALYSIS, Issue 23 2004
Jianyun Liu
Abstract Calf thymus DNA was immobilized on functionalized glassy carbon, gold and quartz substrates, respectively, by the layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly method with a polycation QPVP-Os, a quaternized poly(4-vinylpyridine) partially complexed with osmium bis(2,2,-bipyridine) as counterions. UV-visible absorption and surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy (SPR) showed that the resulting film was uniform with the average thickness 3.4,nm for one bilayer. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) showed that the total surface coverage of the polycations increases as each QPVP-Os/DNA bilayer added to the electrode surface, but the surface formal potential of Os-centered redox reaction shifts negatively, which is mainly attributed to the intercalation of redox-active complex to DNA chain. The electron transfer kinetics of electroactive QPVP-Os in the multilayer film was investigated by electrochemical impedance experiment for the first time. The permeability of Fe(CN) in the solution into the multilayer film depends on the number of bilayers in the film. It is worth noting that when the multilayer film is up to 4 bilayers, the CV curves of the multilayer films display the typical characteristic of a microelectrode array. The nanoporous structure of the multilayer film was further confirmed by the surface morphology analysis using atomic force microscopy (AFM). [source]


Influence of high temperature and pressure ammonia solution treatment on interfacial behavior of carbon fiber/epoxy resin composites

JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE, Issue 6 2009
L. H. Meng
Abstract The method of high temperature and pressure ammonia solution treatment to improve the interfacial performances of carbon fiber/epoxy composites is discussed in this study. Besides, the influence of high temperature and pressure ammonia solution treatment on carbon fiber and its reinforced epoxy composite interface performance were studied. The untreated and treated carbon fibers were characterized by monofilament tensile test, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscope (AFM). The interfacial adhesion of the untreated and treated carbon fibers reinforced epoxy resin composites were also evaluated by interface shear strength (IFSS) test, interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) test, and fracture morphology analysis. It was found that the interfacial adhesion of composites increased greatly after high temperature and pressure ammonia solution treatment. The improvement of interfacial adhesion was attributed to the increase of polar functional groups and surface roughness of carbon fibers surface after treatment. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009 [source]


Reduction of Oxidative Stress in Bovine Spermatozoa During Flow Cytometric Sorting

REPRODUCTION IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS, Issue 1 2007
P Klinc
Contents The goal of the study was to investigate the effect of antioxidant supplementation on the quality of frozen-thawed flow cytometrically sorted bull spermatozoa. Twelve ejaculates from two Holstein Friesian bulls were sorted according to the Beltsville Sperm Sexing Technology. Each ejaculate was divided into three parts and processed as (i) unsorted controls, (ii) according to a standard sorting protocol and (iii) in the presence of different antioxidants (S-AO). Cooling and freezing of the samples were performed in the same way for all three groups, except that antioxidants were added to the TRIS-egg-yolk freezing extender for those semen samples that were already sorted in the presence of antioxidants. The semen quality in frozen-thawed samples was determined by morphology analysis immediately after thawing, motility estimation in a thermo-resistance test after 0, 6, 12 and 24 h incubation at 37°C and Fluorescein isothiocyanate conjugated PNA/propidium iodide (FITC-PNA/PI) staining after 0, 12 and 24 h of incubation at 37°C. There was a significantly higher (p < 0.05) percentage of motile spermatozoa in S-AO samples in comparison to unsorted frozen-thawed control at 0, 6 and 24 h after thawing and compared with normally sorted samples at all times after thawing. The percentage of damaged acrosomes was significantly lower (p < 0.05) in S-AO samples than in the unsorted controls (20.8 ± 6.9% vs 30.3 ± 12.0%). The percentage of morphologically abnormal spermatozoa in this group was significantly lower (p < 0.05) than in the unsorted controls and normally sorted samples (25.8 ± 5.2%, 36.0 ± 12.5% and 35.1 ± 7.4%, respectively). Analysis of frozen-thawed spermatozoa with FITC/PI revealed no significant difference in membrane integrity at 0 and 12 h after sorting, but after 24 h of incubation the S-AO samples had a significantly higher (p < 0.001) percentage of spermatozoa with intact membranes in comparison to unsorted controls and normally sorted semen (40.7 ± 6.3%, 7.8 ± 4.7% and 7.4 ± 4.6%, respectively). The percentage of acrosome-reacted spermatozoa was significantly lower (p < 0.05) in the S-AO samples than in the unsorted controls (14.1 ± 7.5%, 23.4 ± 5.4% and 28.8 ± 6.3% vs 25.9 ± 14.4%, 38.5 ± 16.7% and 79.8 ± 4.1%, for 0, 12 and 24 h after thawing, respectively) and in comparison to normally sorted semen 24 h after thawing (67.3 ± 10.0%). This study demonstrates the highly protective effects of antioxidants on the quality of flow cytometrically sorted frozen-thawed bull spermatozoa. [source]