Emerging Molecular Connections between NM23 Proteins,Telomeres and Telomere-Associated Factors: Implications in Cancer Metastasis and Ageing

The metastasis suppressor function of NM23 proteins is widely understood. Multiple enzymatic activities of NM23 proteins have also been identified. However, relatively less known interesting aspects are being revealed from recent developments that corroborate the telomeric interactions of NM23 proteins. Telomeres are known to regulate essential physiological events such as metastasis, ageing, and cellular differentiation via inter-connected signalling pathways. Here, we review the literature on the association of NM23 proteins with telomeres or telomere-related factors, and discuss the potential implications of emerging telomeric functions of NM23 proteins. Further understanding of these aspects might be instrumental in better understanding the metastasis suppressor functions of NM23 proteins.     

The optimisation of space structures using evolution strategies with functional networks

In this work, the input for large space structures is created using the Formex algebra of the Formian software. The different search and optimisation algorithm known as evolution strategies (ESs) has been applied to find the optimal design of the space trusses considering the areas of the members of the space structures as discrete variables. The objective function is obtained for first few generations by using a structural analysis package such as Feast and for other generations by functional networks (FNs). Initially, to obtain the data for a functional network, a structural package such as Feast is used. The use of a functional network is motivated by time consuming repeated analyses required by evolution strategies during the optimisation process. In addition, a multilevel optimisation approach is implemented by reducing the size of the search space for individual design variables in each successive level of the optimisation process for the first example; for the remaining three examples, a functional network has been combined with evolution strategies to get away with the use of a structural analysis package and a multilevel optimisation technique. The numerical tests presented demonstrate the computational advantage of the proposed approach of ESs combined with functional networks (FNs) which become pronounced for fairly large scale optimisation problems involving about 700 degrees of freedom.