Divide-and-Conquer Matrisome Protein (DC-MaP) Strategy: An MS-Friendly Approach to Proteomic Matrisome Characterization

Currently, the extracellular matrix (ECM) is considered a pivotal complex meshwork of macromolecules playing a plethora of biomolecular functions in health and disease beyond its commonly known mechanical role. Only by unraveling its composition can we leverage related tissue engineering and pharmacological efforts. Nevertheless, its unbiased proteomic identification still encounters some limitations mainly due to partial ECM enrichment by precipitation, sequential fractionation using unfriendly-mass spectrometry (MS) detergents, and resuspension with harsh reagents that need to be entirely removed prior to analysis. These methods can be technically challenging and labor-intensive, which affects the reproducibility of ECM identification and induces protein loss. Here, we present a simple new method applicable to tissue fragments of 10 mg and more. The technique has been validated on human ovarian tissue and involves a standardized procedure for sample processing with an MS-compatible detergent and combined centrifugation. This two-step protocol eliminates the need for laborious sample clarification and divides our samples into 2 fractions, soluble and insoluble, successively enriched with matrisome-associated (ECM-interacting) and core matrisome (structural ECM) proteins.     

Bibliometric analysis of the evolution of biochar research trends and scientific production

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Biochar has caught great attention over the last decade, yielding a large number of publications in a broad range of disciplines. This scientometric...     

Face Recognition Through Different Facial Expressions

Face recognition has become an accessible issue for experts as well as ordinary people as it is a focal non-interfering biometric modality. In this paper, we introduced a new approach to perform face recognition under varying facial expressions. The proposed approach consists of two main steps: facial expression recognition and face recognition. They are two complementary steps to improve face recognition across facial expression variation. In the first step, we selected the most expressive regions responsible for facial expression appearance using the Mutual Information technique. Such a process helps not only improve the facial expression classification accuracy but also reduce the features vector size. In the second step, we used the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to build EigenFaces for each facial expression class. Then, a face recognition is performed by projecting the face onto the corresponding facial expression Eigenfaces. The PCA technique significantly reduces the dimensionality of the original space since the face recognition is carried out in the reduced Eigenfaces space. An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach in terms of face recognition accuracy and spatial-temporal complexity.

     

Pseudo bond graph model of thermal transfers sustained by ice quantity of a domestic refrigerator for energy saving application

This paper presents a study on the use of ice to improve the energy efficiency of a domestic refrigerator by applying a pseudo bond graph model that describes the thermal transfers sustained by a quantity of ice introduced inside the cavity of refrigeration. The use of ice resulted in a global energy saving of 4.68%. The effect of ice was found to be more significant during the transitional regime. It reduced the response time to reach the stable average temperature from 15 h to only 3.5 h compared to when not using ice. This achievement did not cost additional electrical power, but rather allowed a saving of electrical energy of 76.73%. However, during the steady state, a reduction in the energy efficiency was noted. An improvement in the cooling by keeping the temperature inside the refrigerator more homogeneous is also proved. The model has two inputs: the outside temperature, and the modulated temperature of the evaporator. This latter determines the functioning of the compressor cycle. The model describes the thermal transfers by natural convection inside the refrigerator. Two experiments were carried out to make a performance comparison and to prove the influence of ice in cooling and energy saving. We used real measurements to modulate the evaporator temperature source in the pseudo bond graph model. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Compositional characteristics and aromatic profile of date palm seeds from seven varieties grown in Tunisia

This paper reports a discrimination study based on the physico‐chemical characteristics, fatty acids and profile of volatile compounds of the seeds from seven date palm varieties (Phoenix dactylifera L.) grown in Tunisia. Date seeds contained 10.49–14.76% moisture; 6.28–11.2% fat (on a dry weight basis); 2.67–12.85% protein; 0.91–6.06% reducing sugar; 0.61–2.98% sucrose and 0.97–1.17% ash. Gas liquid chromatography revealed that the oil fraction of the date palm seeds contained eighteen fatty acids, with oleic acid (30.77–42.50%) and lauric acid (18.51–27.48%) as the main unsaturated and saturated ones. Volatile profile showed differences among varieties. In total, forty‐five compounds were identified, mainly alcohols, aldehydes and unsaturated hydrocarbons ones. This study provides evidence that the seeds of date may be a potential source of valuable nutrients with interesting functionality.     

Electrochemical degradation of waters containing O-Toluidine on PbO2 and BDD anodes

Electrochemical oxidation of O-Toluidine (OT) was studied by galvanostatic electrolysis using lead dioxide (PbO₂) and boron-doped diamond (BDD) as anodes. The influence of operating parameters, such as current density, initial concentration of OT and temperature was investigated. Measurements of chemical oxygen demand were used to follow the oxidation. The experimental data indicated that on PbO₂ and BDD anodes, OT oxidation takes place by reaction with electrogenerated hydroxyl radicals and is favoured by low current density and high temperature. Furthermore, BDD anodes offer significant advantages over PbO₂ in terms of current efficiency and oxidation rate.     

Isolation of a yeast,Trichosporon cutaneum,able to use low molecular weight phenolic compounds: application to olive mill waste water treatment

This study deals with the degradation of phenolic compounds in olive oil mill waste; a highly polluting material in olive oil‐producing countries because of its abundance and the toxicity of its phenolic compound content. This investigation confirms the ability of an isolated yeast, identified as Trichosporon cutaneum, to degrade phenolic compounds extracted from olive mill waste water (OMW). The yeast was adapted to the OMW by an enrichment culture. The results of this biotransformation were a decrease in the phenolic content and hence a reduction in the phytotoxic effects of the effluent after the yeast treatment. The kinetic growth of the isolated yeast on phenol over a range of concentrations (0.3–3.0 g dm^?3) was studied. The ability of the strain to assimilate simple monomeric phenols and alkyl phenols, at a concentration of 1 g dm^?3, in a synthetic liquid medium used as the sole carbon source was investigated in a batch culture. The aromatic ring cleavage pathway occurred in the yeast through catechol oxidation. Using various concentrations of ethyl acetate extract from OMW as the sole carbon source, the yeast exhibited growth on the substrate up to 7 g dm^?3 equivalent of phenols. A significant reduction of COD after the treatment of the OMW extract by the yeast isolate was noticed. The removal of phenol and COD exceeded 80% of the original loading after 8 days of treatment, for extracts containing initial COD in the range 19 to 72 g dm^?3. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

The Role of Selectively Located Commercial Graphene Nanoplatelets in the Electrical Properties,Morphology, and Stability of EVA/LLDPE Blends

Graphene nanoplatelets (GN) produced on a large scale by mechanochemical exfoliation of graphite are incorporated in a co‐continuous ethylene‐vinyl acetate/linear low‐density polyethylene (EVA/LLDPE) blend. Two different processing routes are chosen to selectively place GN in the EVA phase or force its migration to the EVA/LLDPE interface. The results show a drastic decrease in the electrical percolation threshold when the blends are compared to the respective single‐polymer composites. Even with the presence of agglomerates, GN particles are able to migrate to the blend interface and stabilize the morphology and hence the electrical properties. Annealing the insulating samples at processing temperatures causes a drastic increase in conductivity due to continued GN migration and blend morphology coarsening. Semi‐conductive samples, in which a more robust GN network is already established during processing, present no change in morphology but a slight increase in conductivity during annealing. The mechanical performance of the materials is also evaluated and some of the blends with GN present similar elongation at break as pure EVA, but with increased tensile modulus and tensile strength. The electrical performance at different working temperatures shows that the EVA/LLDPE/GN composites are good candidates to act as a semi‐conductive screen material in power cables or as anti‐static materials in electronic devices.     

Link efficiency and quality of experience aware routing protocol to improve video streaming in urban VANETs

In a vehicular ad‐hoc network (VANET), vehicles can play an essential role in monitoring areas of a smart city by transmitting data or multimedia content of environmental circumstances like disasters or road conditions. Multimedia content communication with quality of experience (QoE) guarantees is a challenging undertaking in an environment such as that of a VANET. Indeed, a VANET is characterized by numerous varying conditions, significantly impacting its topology, quality of communication channels, and paths with respect to bandwidth, loss, and delay. This paper introduces a link efficiency and quality of experience aware routing protocol (LEQRV) to improve video streaming provisioning in urban vehicular ad‐hoc networks. LEQRV uses an enhanced greedy forwarding‐based approach to create and maintain stable high quality routes for video streaming delivery. It improves the performance of the quality of experience by increasing the achieved QoE scores and reducing the forwarding end‐to‐end delay and frame loss.     

Runoff Estimation for an Ungauged Catchment Using Geomorphological Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph (GIUH) and Copulas

A methodology is proposed to apply Geomorphological Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph to ungauged basins using Monte Carlo Simulations and copulas. The effective rainfall, input of GIUH is assumed to be unknown; it is estimated with infiltration index method (?-index). Correlations are detected between this index and the characteristics of rainfall. They are modeled with copulas, and are used to derive effective rainfall hyetographs. The generated hydrographs from GIUH are analyzed and give statistically the same results: dispersion and variability for all studied characteristics (volume, peak discharge, peak time and base time). However, only these hydrographs derived from ? conditioned to maximum intensity distribution allow reconstituting the observed hydrographs. Moreover comparing the series of order statistics of interest output and observed series, leads to decide on the representative hydrograph of the catchment behavior.