miR-194 Up-Regulates Cholesterol 7 Alpha-Hydroxylase Expression via β-Catenin Signaling and Aggravates Cholestatic Liver Diseases.

miR-194 is abundantly expressed in hepatocytes, and its depletion increases hepatic resistance to acetaminophen-induced acute injuries. In this study, the biological role of miR-194 in cholestatic liver injury was investigated by using miR-194/miR-192 cluster liver-specific knockout (LKO) mice, in which no liver injuries or metabolic disorders were predisposed. Bile duct ligation (BDL) and 1-naphthyl isothiocyanate (ANIT) were applied to LKO and matched control wild-type (WT) mice to induce hepatic cholestasis.

Inter-day repeatability assessment of human retinal blood flow using clinical laser speckle contrast imaging.

Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) can generate retinal blood flow maps inexpensively and non-invasively. These flow maps can be used to identify various eye disorders associated with reduced blood flow. Despite early success, one of the major obstacles to clinical adoption of LSCI is poor repeatability of the modality.

Simple and direct measurements of pretilt angles in hybrid-aligned nematic liquid-crystal cells.

We have developed a general approach to perform direct measurements of the pretilt angles from 0° to 75° in hybrid-aligned nematic (HAN) liquid-crystal cells whose cell gaps can also be accurately determined with the help of known pretilt angles. In this paper, we have used a Zeeman laser system to measure the angular-dependence phase retardation of the HAN cells and MATLAB mathematical software to carry out theoretical calculations and fit the measured data to derive the pretilt angles. In general, pretilt angles adjacent to opposite substrates of a HAN cell are different.

Simple method to obtain accurate pretilt angles for thin twisted nematic liquid-crystal cells.

Modern thin-film-transistor-driven twisted nematic (TN) products on the market require thin cell gaps below the value to satisfy the condition of the Gooch-Tarry first minimum in transmission for fast response times and wide viewing angles. For the first time to our knowledge, we have developed a simple experimental method based on a new configuration of out-of-plane cell rotation and analyzed our data by extended Jones matrix method to obtain accurate pretilt angles for such thin TN cells where the well-accepted configuration of the out-of-plane cell rotation method analyzed by Birecki and Kahn [The Physics and Chemistry of Liquid Crystal Devices (1980), p. 115] was insufficient to address.