Defective Thyroglobulin: Cell Biology of Disease

The primary functional units of the thyroid gland are follicles of various sizes comprised of a monolayer of epithelial cells (thyrocytes) surrounding an apical extracellular cavity known as the follicle lumen. In the normal thyroid gland, the follicle lumen is filled with secreted protein (referred to as colloid), comprised nearly exclusively of thyroglobulin with a half-life ranging from days to weeks. At the cellular boundary of the follicle lumen, secreted thyroglobulin becomes iodinated, resulting from the coordinated activities of enzymes localized to the thyrocyte apical plasma membrane. Thyroglobulin appearance in evolution is essentially synchronous with the appearance of the follicular architecture of the vertebrate thyroid gland. Thyroglobulin is the most highly expressed thyroid gene and represents the most abundantly expressed thyroid protein. Wildtype thyroglobulin protein is a large and complex glycoprotein that folds in the endoplasmic reticulum, leading to homodimerization and export via the classical secretory pathway to the follicle lumen. However, of the hundreds of human thyroglobulin genetic variants, most exhibit increased susceptibility to misfolding with defective export from the endoplasmic reticulum, triggering hypothyroidism as well as thyroidal endoplasmic reticulum stress. The human disease of hypothyroidism with defective thyroglobulin (either homozygous, or compound heterozygous) can be experimentally modeled in thyrocyte cell culture, or in whole animals, such as mice that are readily amenable to genetic manipulation. From a combination of approaches, it can be demonstrated that in the setting of thyroglobulin misfolding, thyrocytes under chronic continuous ER stress exhibit increased susceptibility to cell death, with interesting cell biological and pathophysiological consequences.     

Mutual authentication protocols for RFID systems

With the availability of low-cost radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, security becomes an increasing concern.However, such tags do not permit complex eryptographic functions due to their computational, communications, and storage limitations.In this paper, we investigate the security issues and requirements of RFID systems, and propose ultra-light weight and light weight protocols for low-cost RFID tags. The proposed protocols has been applied to a supply chain management system.     

A coagulase-negative variant of Staphylococcus aureus from bovine mastitis milk

Bacteriological analysis of milk samples from quarters of a dairy cow suffering from subclinical mastitis yielded two isolates of Staphylococcus aureus which gave a negative reaction in the standard coagulase test. Both isolates were also clumping factor and thermonuclease negative, and gave a negative reaction in the Staphaurex? test. The isolates were identified by using commercial biochemical systems, and by PCR analysis of different staphylococcal cell surface protein and exoprotein genes. Further molecular identification of the isolates, which included sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and RT-PCR of coagulase (coa), clumping-factor (clfA) and thermonuclease (nuc) genes, was consistent with the diagnosis phenotypically 'coagulase-negative variant of Staph. aureus'. The fact that coagulase-negative Staph. aureus variants can occur in the context of intramammary infections in cattle may result in the incorrect diagnosis 'coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS)' in routine mastitis diagnostic, at least in rare cases. To fully ensure correct species diagnosis, sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and amplification of specific genes such as coa is necessary in these cases.     

Changes in the texture,physicochemical properties and volatile compound profiles of fresh Kashar cheese (<90 days) during ripening

In this study, four different fresh Kashar cheese samples were ripened for 90 days. The physicochemical properties, texture attributes, fatty acid composition and volatile compound profiles of the samples were measured every 30 days of ripening. The texture properties of the cheese samples were significantly affected by the duration of the ripening period. The results of this study highlighted that texture parameters as a function of ripening period should be considered for both fresh and aged Kashar cheeses to determine the ripening period as they are very important for consumer acceptability and consumption of the end product.     

Computationally highly efficient mixture of adaptive filters

We introduce a new combination approach for the mixture of adaptive filters based on the set-membership filtering (SMF) framework. We perform SMF to combine the outputs of several parallel running adaptive algorithms and propose unconstrained, affinely constrained and convexly constrained combination weight configurations. Here, we achieve better trade-off in terms of the transient and steady-state convergence performance while providing significant computational reduction. Hence, through the introduced approaches, we can greatly enhance the convergence performance of the constituent filters with a slight increase in the computational load. In this sense, our approaches are suitable for big data applications where the data should be processed in streams with highly efficient algorithms. In the numerical examples, we demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approaches over the state of the art using the well-known datasets in the machine learning literature.     

Methods of analysis modified size exchange chromatography method for analysis of heavy oil residues

A modified size exchange chromatography method is used to obtain molecular weight distributions, average molecular weight, and other characteristics of heavy oil residues: coal asphalt, petroleum asphalt, vacuum residue oil, and ethylene residue oil. This method can be applied for developing and studying processes involved in hydrogenation of heavy oil residues, road asphalt production, and coal liquefaction.     

Investigating the effect of production process of ball mill refiner on some physical quality parameters of compound chocolate: response surface methodology approach

Chocolate compound was produced using ball mill refiner, and the effect of agitator shaft speed and refining time on the physical quality parameters (particle size, colour and steady‐state rheology) of compound chocolate was determined using response surface methodology. The shaft speed and refining time range were selected between 40–60 r.p.m. and 10–30 min, respectively. Determination coefficient of the models established for particle size, Newtonian viscosity and colour parameters (brightness, chroma and hue angle) were found to be very close to unity. Increasing shaft speed and time induced a reduction in particle size and an increase in viscosity of the samples. Temperature sweep test was also performed, and the obtained data were successfully fitted to Arrhenius equation to calculate the corresponding parameters representing temperature dependency of the compounds. The results highlighted that the establishment of such models can provide essential information in terms of optimisation of production processes regarding usage purpose of the compound chocolate.     

On human–machine relations

Cognition, Technology & Work - This paper presents an approach to human–machine interactions based on the concept of teamwork and the psychological theory of object relations. We envision...     

Reactive scheduling in a dynamic and stochastic FMS environment

In this paper, we study the reactive scheduling problems in a dynamic and stochastic manufacturing environment. Specifically, we develop a simulation-based scheduling system for flexible manufacturing systems. We also propose several reactive scheduling policies (i.e. when-to-schedule and how-to-schedule policies) and test their performances under various experimental conditions, processing time variations, and machine breakdowns. Moreover, we compare offline and online scheduling schemes in a dynamic manufacturing environment. The results of extensive simulation experiments indicate that the variable-time-response is better than the fixed-time-response. The full scheduling scheme generally performs better than the partial scheduling. Finally, the online scheduling is more robust to uncertainty and variations in processing times than the optimum-seeking offline scheduling. A comprehensive bibliography is also provided in the paper.