Microfluidic Tumor-on-a-Chip Model to Study Tumor Metabolic Vulnerability

Tumor-specific metabolic adaptations offer an interesting therapeutic opportunity to selectively destroy cancer cells. However, solid tumors also present gradients of nutrients and waste products across the tumor mass, forcing tumor cells to adapt their metabolism depending on nutrient availability in the surrounding microenvironment. Thus, solid tumors display a heterogenous metabolic phenotype across the tumor mass, which complicates the design of effective therapies that target all the tumor populations present. In this work, we used a microfluidic device to study tumor metabolic vulnerability to several metabolic inhibitors. The microdevice included a central chamber to culture tumor cells in a three-dimensional (3D) matrix, and a lumen in one of the chamber flanks. This design created an asymmetric nutrient distribution across the central chamber, generating gradients of cell viability. The results revealed that tumor cells located in a nutrient-enriched environment showed low to no sensitivity to metabolic inhibitors targeting glycolysis, fatty acid oxidation, or oxidative phosphorylation. Conversely, when cell density inside of the model was increased, compromising nutrient supply, the addition of these metabolic inhibitors disrupted cellular redox balance and led to tumor cell death.     

Towards data-driven approaches in manufacturing: an architecture to collect sequences of operations

The technological advancements of recent years have increased the complexity of manufacturing systems, and the ongoing transformation to Industry 4.0 will further aggravate the situation. This is leading to a point where existing systems on the factory floor get outdated, increasing the gap between existing technologies and state-of-the-art systems, making them incompatible. This paper presents an event-based data pipeline architecture, that can be applied to legacy systems as well as new state-of-the-art systems, to collect data from the factory floor. In the presented architecture, actions executed by the resources are converted to event streams, which are then transformed into an abstraction called operations. These operations correspond to the tasks performed in the manufacturing station. A sequence of these operations recount the task performed by the station. We demonstrate the usability of the collected data by using conformance analysis to detect when the manufacturing system has deviated from its defined model. The described architecture is developed in Sequence Planner – a tool for modelling and analysing production systems – and is currently implemented at an automotive company as a pilot project.     

Chronic growth stimulation of human adult melanocytes by inflammatory mediators in vitro: implications for nevus formation and initial steps in melanocyte oncogenesis

In the human epidermis, melanocytes are distributed at a distance from each other. In contrast, melanocytes in nevi, which are considered benign neoplasms of melanocytes, are grouped in nests. Although still not well defined, environmental factors are thought to play an important role in the development of nevi. We found that chronic growth stimulation by leukotriene C4, a compound found in increased amounts in inflamed skin, induced pleiotropic modifications in the normal melanocyte phenotype. These changes include loss of contact inhibition and formation of structures resembling tumor spheroids. In parallel with these changes, there was a constitutive expression of Fos protein. Switching these cultures to medium supplemented with phorbol ester sustained growth with reversion of the altered phenotype. In contrast, a cAMP stimulator, cholera toxin, induced features of terminal differentiation. Our findings suggest a role for inflammatory mediators in human epidermal melanocytes. This observation provides insight into melanocyte growth alterations which may have relevance in early stages of melanocyte oncogenesis.     

Therapeutic Efficacy of Natural Product ‘C-Phycocyanin’ in Alleviating Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes via the Inhibition of Glycation Reaction in Rats

Diabetes is a long-term metabolic disorder characterized by persistently elevated blood sugar levels. Chronic hyperglycemia enhances glucose–protein interactions, leading to the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which form irreversible cross-links with a wide variety of macromolecules, and accumulate rapidly in the body tissues. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess the therapeutic properties of C-phycocyanin (C-PC) obtained from Plectonema species against oxidative stress, glycation, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in a streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic Wistar rat. Forty-five days of C-PC administration decreased levels of triglycerides (TGs), blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, (HbA1c), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), liver and kidney function indices, and raised body weight in diabetic rats. C-PC suppressed biochemical glycation markers, as well as serum carboxymethyllysine (CML) and fluorescent AGEs. Additionally, C-PC maintained the redox state by lowering lipid peroxidation and protein-bound carbonyl content (CC), enhancing the activity of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and renal antioxidant enzymes, and preserving retinal and renal histopathological characteristics. Thus, we infer that C-PC possesses antidiabetic and antiglycation effects in diabetic rats. C-PC may also act as an antidiabetic and antiglycation agent in vivo that may reduce the risk of secondary diabetic complications.     

A 1.3-Gsample/s interpolation with flash CMOS ADC based on active interpolation technique

In this paper, the design of a high-speed low-voltage CMOS interpolation with flash analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in CMOS 0.18-μm process is presented. The use of summing differential amplifiers operating in continuous time for interpolation and resistor averaging circuit have significantly improved the circuit’s linearity. The new interpolation technique has improved the pertinent phase delay problem of voltage interpolation enormously. A technique to reduce metastability errors in the Error Correction Circuitry is also presented. The circuit achieves a maximum sampling speed of 1.3 GHz. The measured signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ration (SNDR) is 32 dB at 500 MHz. Peak DNL and INL are less than 0.15 LSB and 0.35 LSB, respectively. This ADC consumes about 600 mW from 1.8 V at full speed. The chip occupies 0.56-mm² active area, prototyped in CMOS 0.18-μm technology. Shazia Seemi was born in New Delhi, India in 1976. She received Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication from JMI University, New Delhi, India in 1998. From 1998 to 2000, she was working with NIIT as an Associate Engineer. She worked as a Software Engineer with Samsung Electronics in 2001. Currently she is a postgraduate student at the VLSI Research Group, Multimedia University, Malaysia, doing research in the area of CMOS high speed ADC design. Mohd Shahiman Sulaiman received the 1st. Class Honors, Co-op B.A.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and the M.A.Sc. degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He has worked in the area of low-power high-speed mixed-signal IC design since 1998. In 1998, he worked with the VLSI Research Group, University of Waterloo, Canada designing low-power PLL-based frequency synthesizer for Actel Corporation. In 1999, he worked with Actel Corporation in Sunnyvale, CA, USA designing an optimized clock network for Actel,s SX and SX-A anti-fused. Mohd S Sulaiman is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Malaysia. He is a research associate for Intel Corporation (Malaysia) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Japan, as well as consultant for Multimedia Development Corp., Agilent Technologies, Telekom R&D, and PSDC, Malaysia as well as ActiveMedia Innovation Pte Ltd, Singapore. His current research work includes low-power high-performance integrated circuit design, low-power high-speed frequency synthesis techniques, signal integrity, and VLSI system design. He has authored/co-authored more than 30 international conference/journal papers on integrated circuit design and design automation. Arshad Suhail Farooqui was born in Aligarh, India in 1977. He received his Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication from JMI University, New Delhi, India in 1998. From 1998 to 2000, he was working as an Embedded Software Engineer with Indusoft, Delhi, India. From 2000 to 2001, he was with Samsung Electronics, Bangalore, India, as a Senior Software Engineer. From 2002 to 2005, he was with Sires Labs Bhd., Cyberjaya, Malaysia as an ASIC Design Engineer. Arshad is a postgraduate student at the VLSI Research Group, Multimedia University working on high-speed clock and data recovery circuit.     

AdDroid: Rule-Based Machine Learning Framework for Android Malware Analysis

Mobile Networks and Applications - Recent years have witnessed huge growth in Android malware development. Colossal reliance on Android applications for day to day working and their massive...     

Influence of carbon nanotube (CNT) on the mechanical properties of LLDPE/CNT nanocomposite fibers

The present study shows the effect of adding CNT to linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) to produce LLDPE/CNT nanocomposite fibers. The LLDPE/CNT fibers were produced by melt extrusion process using a twin-screw extruder, in a controlled temperature from 160 °C to 275 °C. Further, melt extrusion process was followed by drawing of fibers at the room temperature. Three different weight percentages, 0.08, 0.3 and 1 wt.% of CNT were studied for producing nanocomposite fibers. The addition of 1 wt.% CNT in the LLDPE fiber has increased the tensile strength by 38% (350 MPa). The addition of 0.08 and 0.3 wt.% CNT in the fiber matrix has improved the ductility by 87% and 122%, respectively. Similarly, improvement in the toughness was observed by 63% and 105% for LLDPE fibers with 0.08 wt.% and 0.3 wt.% CNT respectively. The increase in the mechanical properties of the composite fibers was attributed to the alignment and distribution of CNT in the LLDPE matrix. The dispersion of CNT in the polymeric matrix has been revealed by SEM. The study shows that the small addition of CNT when properly mixed and aligned will increase the mechanical properties of pristine polymer fibers.     

System investigations of few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier (FM-EDFA) for vortex mode amplifications

Journal of Computational Electronics - This paper describes the system performance of mode division multiplexing applications. The mode of amplification involved a ring profile-based multi-mode...     

Nanocomposite BaZr0.7Sm0.1Y0.2O3−δ–La0.8Sr0.2Co0.2Fe0.8O3−δ materials for single layer fuel cell

Single layer fuel cell (SLFC) is a novel breakthrough in energy conversion technology. This study is to realize the physical-electrochemical co-driving mechanism of a single component device composed of mixed ionic and semiconductor material. This paper is focused on investigating the mechanism and characterization of synthesized nanocomposite BaZr_0.7Sm_0.1Y_0.2O_3?δ (BZSY)–La_0.8Sr_0.2Co_0.2Fe_0.8O_3?δ (LSCF) in proportion 1:1 and 3:7 for SLFC. The crystallographic structure and morphology is studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The nano-particles lie in the range of 100–210 nm. Ultraviolet (UV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is used to analyze the semiconducting nature of nanocomposite (BZSY–LSCF). The performance of SLFC was carried out at different temperatures ranging between 400 and 650 °C. The mixed conductivity of the synthesized material was about 2.3 S cm^?1. The synergic effect of junction and energy band gap towards charge separation as well as the promotion of ion transport by junction built in field contributes to the working principle and high power output in the SLFC.