Evaluation of potential anti‐cancer activity of cationic liposomal nanoformulated Lycopodium clavatum in colon cancer cells

Research dealing with early diagnosis and efficient treatment in colon cancer to improve patient''s survival is still under investigation. Chemotherapeutic agent result in high systemic toxicity due to their non‐specific actions on DNA repair and/or cell replication. Traditional medicine such as Lycopodium clavatum (LC) has been claimed to have therapeutic potentials against cancer. The present study focuses on targeted drug delivery of cationic liposomal nanoformulated LC (CL‐LC) in colon cancer cells (HCT15) and comparing the efficacy with an anti‐colon cancer drug, 7‐ethyl‐10‐hydroxy‐camptothecin (SN38) along with its nanoformulated form (CL‐SN38). The colloidal suspension of LC was made using thin film hydration method. The drugs were characterised using ultraviolet, dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy, energy, dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy. In vitro drug release showed kinetics of 49 and 89% of SN38 and LC, whereas CL‐SN38 and CL‐LC showed 73 and 74% of sustained drug release, respectively. Studies on morphological changes, cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, cancer‐associated gene expression analysis of Bcl‐2, Bax, p53 by real‐time polymerase chain reaction and western blot analysis of Bad and p53 protein were performed. Nanoformulated LC significantly inhibited growth and increased the apoptosis of colon cancer cells indicating its potential anti‐cancer activity against colon cancer cells.Inspec keywords: cancer, biological organs, cellular biophysics, drug delivery systems, drugs, nanomedicine, genetics, DNA, molecular biophysics, biochemistry, lipid bilayers, toxicology, suspensions, colloids, light scattering, X‐ray chemical analysis, solvation, enzymes, nanostructured materialsOther keywords: energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy, in vitro drug release, morphological changes, cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, cancer‐associated gene expression analysis, Bcl‐2, Bax, real‐time polymerase chain reaction, western blot analysis, Bad protein, p53 protein, scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, ultraviolet scattering, thin film hydration method, colloidal suspension, nanoformulated form CL‐SN38, 7‐ethyl‐10‐hydroxy‐camptothecin, anticolon cancer drug, colon cancer cells HCT15, cationic liposomal nanoformulated LC, targeted drug delivery, therapeutic potentials, Lycopodium clavatum, traditional medicines, cell replication, DNA repair, nonspecific actions, high systemic toxicity, chemotherapeutic agents, patient survival, colon cancer treatment, colon cancer diagnosis, CL‐LC, potential anticancer activity     

Concurrent consideration of evacuation safety and productivity in manufacturing facility planning using multi-paradigm simulations

Manufacturing facilities are expected to maintain a high level of production and at the same time, employ strict safety standards to ensure the safe evacuation of the people in the event of emergencies (fire is considered in this paper). These two goals are often conflicting. This paper presents a methodology to evaluate evacuation safety versus productivity concurrently for various, widely known manufacturing layouts. While the safety performance indicators such as evacuation times are inferred from the crowd (agent based) simulation, the productivity performance indicators (e.g. throughput) are analyzed using the discrete event simulation. To this end, this research focuses on creating innovative techniques for developing accurate crowd simulations, where Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent framework is employed to build each person’s individual actions and the interactions between them. The data model and rule based action algorithms for each agent are reverse-engineered from the human-in-the-loop experiments in the immersive virtual reality environments. Finally, experiments are conducted using the constructed simulations to compare safety and productivity for different layouts. To demonstrate the proposed methodology, an automotive power-train (engine and transmission) manufacturing plant was used. Initial results look quite promising.     

Fault diagnosis of spur bevel gear box using discrete wavelet features and Decision Tree classification

The wavelet transform (WT) is used to represent all possible types of transients in vibration signals generated by faults in a gear box. It is shown that the transform provides a powerful tool for condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. The vibration signal of a spur bevel gear box in different conditions is used to demonstrate the application of various wavelets in feature extraction. In present work, a discrete wavelet, Daubechies wavelets (db1–db15) is used for feature extraction and their relative effectiveness in feature extraction is compared. The major steps in pattern classification are feature extraction and classification. This paper investigates the use of discrete wavelets for feature extraction and a Decision Tree for classification. J48 Decision Tree algorithm has been used for feature selection as well as for classification. This paper illustrates the powerfulness and flexibility of the discrete wavelet transform to decompose linear and non-linear processing of vibration signal.     

Identification of tubulin drug binding sites and prediction of relative differences in binding affinities to tubulin isotypes using digital signal processing

Microtubules are involved in numerous cellular processes including chromosome segregation during mitosis and, as a result, their constituent protein, tubulin, has become a successful target of several chemotherapeutic drugs. In general, these drugs bind indiscriminately to tubulin within both cancerous and healthy cells, resulting in unwanted side effects. However, differences between beta-tubulin isotypes expressed in a wide range of cell types may aid in the development of anti-tubulin drugs having increased specificity for only certain types of cells. Here, we describe a digital signal processing (DSP) method that is capable of predicting hot spots for the tubulin family of proteins as well as determining relative differences in binding affinities to these hot spots based only on the primary sequence of 10 human tubulin isotypes. Due to the fact that several drug binding sites have already been characterized within beta-tubulin, we are able to correlate hot spots with the binding sites for known chemotherapy drugs. We have also verified the accuracy of this method using the correlation between the binding affinities of characterized drugs and the tubulin isotypes. Additionally, the DSP method enables the rapid estimation of relative differences in binding affinities within the binding sites of tubulin isotypes that are yet to be experimentally determined.     

Human pathogenic streptococcal proteomics and vaccine development

Gram-positive streptococci are non-motile, chain-forming bacteria commonly found in the normal oral and bowel flora of warm-blooded animals. Over the past decade, a proteomic approach combining 2-DE and MS has been used to systematically map the cellular, surface-associated and secreted proteins of human pathogenic streptococcal species. The public availability of complete streptococcal genomic sequences and the amalgamation of proteomic, genomic and bioinformatic technologies have recently facilitated the identification of novel streptococcal vaccine candidate antigens and therapeutic agents. The objective of this review is to examine the constituents of the streptococcal cell wall and secreted proteome, the mechanisms of transport of surface and secreted proteins, and describe the current methodologies employed for the identification of novel surface-displayed proteins and potential vaccine antigens.     

Robust Estimation of GARMA Model Parameters with an Application to Cointegration among Interest Rates of Industrialized Countries

We review the literature on long memory ARFIMA and GARMA models andintroduce a new efficient estimator for GARMA models, which we show to berobust. Next we conduct a Monte Carlo study to demonstate the power of theDickie–Fuller test when the data are generated from a stationary GARMAprocess. We conclude with a brief discussion of cointegration in the contextof GARMA models with an application to international interest rates.     

Effect of alternating and direct current in an electrocoagulation process on the removal of cadmium from water

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of AC and DC on the removal of cadmium from water using iron as anode and cathode. The various operating parameters on the removal efficiency of cadmium were investigated. The results showed that the optimum removal efficiency of 98.1 and 97.3% with the energy consumption of 0.734 and 1.413 kWh/kL was achieved at a current density of 0.2 A/dm(2), at pH of 7.0 using AC and DC respectively. The adsorption process follows second order kinetics and the temperature studies showed that adsorption was endothermic and spontaneous in nature.     

Probabilistic Belief Contraction

Probabilistic belief contraction has been a much neglected topic in the field of probabilistic reasoning. This is due to the difficulty in establishing a reasonable reversal of the effect of Bayesian conditionalization on a probabilistic distribution. We show that indifferent contraction, a solution proposed by Ramer to this problem through a judicious use of the principle of maximum entropy, is a probabilistic version of a full meet contraction. We then propose variations of indifferent contraction, using both the Shannon entropy measure as well as the Hartley entropy measure, with an aim to avoid excessive loss of beliefs that full meet contraction entails.     

Thermal and structural properties of spray pyrolysed CdS thin film

Using photo acoustic technique, the thermal properties of CdS thin films grown by spray pyrolysis are measured. Thermal diffusivity and conductivity in these films decrease at least two orders compared with bulk. These results are compared with our study on nano CdS and the other available literature. The comparison is good. The dependence of thermal diffusivity on the thickness of the layer or the size of the particles on the glass substrate are analysed from the present measurement and discussed. The dependence of thermal diffusivity on the thickness of the layer on the glass substrate is discussed.     

Effects of various environments on fatigue crack growth in Laser formed and IM Ti–6Al–4V alloys

The fatigue crack growth behaviors of Laser formed and ingot metallurgy (IM) Ti–6Al–4V alloys were studied in three environments: vacuum, air and 3.5% NaCl solution. Taking the Unified Fatigue Damage Approach, the fatigue crack growth data were analyzed with two intrinsic parameters, stress intensity amplitude ΔK and maximum stress intensity K_max, and their limiting values ΔK^* and . Fatigue crack growth rates da/dN were found increase with stress ratio R, highest in 3.5% NaCl solution, somewhat less in air and lowest in vacuum, and higher in IM alloy than in Laser formed one. In 3.5% NaCl solution, stress corrosion cracking (SCC) was superimposed on fatigue at R=0.9 for where K_max>K_ISCC, the threshold stress intensity for SCC. This and environment-assisted fatigue crack growth were evidenced by the deviation in fatigue crack growth trajectory (ΔK^* vs. curve) from the pure fatigue line where . Furthermore, the fractographic features, identified along the trajectory path, reflected the fatigue crack growth behaviors of both alloys in a given environment.