Transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) is a key regulator associated with the pathogenesis of gingival overgrowth (GO). Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF/CCN2) is overexpressed in GO tissues. CCN2 promotes and sustains fibrosis initiated by TGFβ. Previous studies have shown that JNK and Smad3 activation is required for TGFβ-induced CCN2 expressions in human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs). In this study, we have found that Src is a major signaling mediator for TGFβ-induced CCN2 expressions in HGFs. Pre-treatment with 2 Src kinase inhibitors (PP2, Src inhibitor-1) significantly reduced TGFβ1-induced CCN2 synthesis and JNK and Smad3 activation in HGFs. These results suggest that Src is an upstream signaling transducer of JNK and Smad3 with respect to TGFβ1-stimulated CCN2 expression in HGFs. We further found that curcumin significantly abrogated the TGFβ1-induced CCN2 in HGFs by inhibiting the phosphorylations of Src, JNK, and Smad3. Furthermore, curcumin inhibited TGFβ1-induced HGF migration and α-SMA expression. Curcumin potentially qualifies as a useful agent for the control of GO.

In this paper, the efficient memory-based VLSI arrays and the accompanied new design approach for the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) are presented. The DFT and DCT are formulated as cyclic convolution forms and mapped into linear arrays which characterize small numbers of 1 / 0 channels and low 1 / 0 bandwidth. Since the multipliers consume much hardware area, the presented designs utilize small ROM's and adders to implement the multiplications, which is based on good data arrangements exploiting the number properties of the transform kernels. Moreover, the ROM size can be reduced effectively by arranging the data in our designs appropriately. Typically, to perform l-D N-point DIT and DCT, the arrays need N X 2'words of ROM only. Compared to the conventional distributed arithmetic architectures which should require N X 2 N words of ROM, much memory can be saved if N is greater than L, which occurs in most D F I applications. To summarize, the presented arrays outperform others in the architectural topology (local and regular connection), computing speeds, hardware complexity, the number of I / 0 channels, and I / 0 bandwidth. They take the advantages of both systolic arrays and the memorybased architectures.

The main object of the present study is to theoretically solve the viscous flow of either a finite or infinite depth, which is driven by moving plane(s). Such a viscous flow is usually named as Stokes' first or second problems, which indicates the fluid motion driven by the impulsive or oscillating motion of the boundary, respectively. Traditional Stokes' problems are firstly revisited, and three extended problems are subsequently examined. Using some mathematical techniques and integral transforms, complete solutions which can exactly capture the flow characteristics at any time are derived. The corresponding steady-state and transient solutions are readily determined on the basis of complete solutions. Current results have wide applications in academic researches and are of significance for future studies taking more boundary conditions and non-Newtonian fluids into account.

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