Shhedding New Light on the Role of Hedgehog Signaling in Corneal Wound Healing

The cornea, an anterior ocular tissue that notably serves to protect the eye from external insults and refract light, requires constant epithelium renewal and efficient healing following injury to maintain ocular homeostasis. Although several key cell populations and molecular pathways implicated in corneal wound healing have already been thoroughly investigated, insufficient/impaired or excessive corneal wound healing remains a major clinical issue in ophthalmology, and new avenues of research are still needed to further improve corneal wound healing. Because of its implication in numerous cellular/tissular homeostatic processes and oxidative stress, there is growing evidence of the role of Hedgehog signaling pathway in physiological and pathological corneal wound healing. Reviewing current scientific evidence, Hedgehog signaling and its effectors participate in corneal wound healing mainly at the level of the corneal and limbal epithelium, where Sonic Hedgehog-mediated signaling promotes limbal stem cell proliferation and corneal epithelial cell proliferation and migration following corneal injury. Hedgehog signaling could also participate in corneal epithelial barrier homeostasis and in pathological corneal healing such as corneal injury-related neovascularization. By gaining a better understanding of the role of this double-edged sword in physiological and pathological corneal wound healing, fascinating new research avenues and therapeutic strategies will undoubtedly emerge.     

The catalysis of the Ruff oxidative degradation of aldonic acids by titanium‐containing zeolites

Ti‐BEA and Ti‐FAU, obtained by post‐synthesis treatment, and TS‐1, obtained by direct hydrothermal synthesis, have been tested as catalysts for the Ruff oxidative degradation of calcium d‐gluconate to d‐arabinose using diluted hydrogen peroxide as oxidant. Only large‐pore zeolites Ti‐BEA and Ti‐FAU were found to be active. It was shown, in particular, that a very rapid leaching of titanium occurred and that the titanium species present in the solution were responsible for the catalytic activity observed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Friction coefficients in cold forging: A global perspective

Worldwide, at least twenty different tribological tests have been proposed for the empirical determination of friction coefficients in cold forging processes. Due to the varying test setups, means of measurement, and level of abstraction, the comparability of the outcomes is, however, disputable. Within this work, six established test principles are compared using identical tribological systems. Large differences between the empirically determined friction coefficients are observed but can be explained under consideration of the respective tribological loads. Additional investigations of an extrusion process reveal that friction models also have to take into account the varying local thickness of the lubricant film.     

Predicting compliance of children with and without developmental delay.

Noncompliance is a common problem exhibited by children with developmental delay (DD; Walker, 1993). The authors evaluated whether performance on the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) test would predict compliance of children with and without DD to instructions alone (IA) versus instructions with modelling and/or gestures (IMG) administered by their caregivers. The ABLA test uses standard prompting and reinforcement procedures to assess the ease or difficulty with which a testee is able to learn a simple imitation and five two-choice discriminations. Twenty-one children without DD and 16 children with DD were presented with five age-appropriate educational tasks by their respective caregivers in a structured teaching session that included IA on some trials and IMG on others. The ABLA test performance reliably predicted the compliance of the children in the two conditions, and the results were consistent across both groups. The results are important for providing information to caregivers on how best to instruct their children in an effort to increase compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

AlGaN/GaN MISHEMT with hBN as gate dielectric

Metal/Insulator/Semiconductor AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (MISHEMTs) on sapphire substrate were fabricated with hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) thin film as gate dielectric. The hBN thin film, deposited by MW-PECVD, is an insulator permitting to obtain a low leakage current gate, an interface state density as low as 5 × 1011 cm^? 2 eV^? 1 for hBN/AlGaN interface and low roughness surface less than 0.4 nm. HBN thin film is deposited to have optical c-axis oriented weakly tilted to the perpendicular at the AlGaN barrier surface and to increase the lateral electrical resistivity. DC measurement on MISHEMT exhibits promising performance for microwave power devices associated to a good gate charge control in enhancement mode.     

Study of the effects of structural uncertainties on a fractional system of the first kind – application in vibration isolation with the CRONE suspension

In this paper, we deal with the effects of the uncertainties on a fractional system of the first kind, mainly on the frequency-domain and the time-domain responses. For the structural uncertainties, two main aspects are studied: the nonlinearities of the physical components used to realize the fractional system and the consideration of the previously neglected dynamics of the system. Both uncertainties are introduced for the hydropneumatic CRONE suspension, previously synthesized and realized without taking into consideration these uncertainties. So, the novel approach treated in this work is to find whether the uncertainties, which were previously neglected in the synthesis and the realization phases, alter the behaviour of the system or not. The results show that the fractional order system behaviour is not affected.     

Apoferritin Modified Magnetic Particles as Doxorubicin Carriers for Anticancer Drug Delivery

Magnetic particle mediated transport in combination with nanomaterial based drug carrier has a great potential for targeted cancer therapy. In this study, doxorubicin encapsulation into the apoferritin and its conjugation with magnetic particles was investigated by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection (CE-LIF). The quantification of encapsulated doxorubicin was performed by fluorescence spectroscopy and compared to CE-LIF. Moreover, the significant enhancement of the doxorubicin signal was observed by addition of methanol into the sample solution.     

Drift-free magnetic equilibrium reconstruction using the response to plasma position modulation

Inductive magnetic sensors are widely used for plasma equilibrium reconstruction and control. However, their measurements involve electronic integration and can therefore experience drift leading to inaccurate plasma positioning. For this reason, we have studied an original drift-free approach to estimate the plasma equilibrium. The principle of this correction is based on modulation of the plasma position and current at three independent frequencies and analysing the modulated magnetic signals to provide additional estimation on the equilibrium. Using a plasma model based on current wires, the accuracy of such a method is assessed for Tore Supra in terms of the signal to noise ratio. The plasma position is recovered within a precision of 5 mm for a signal to noise ratio better than 80 dB. Applying our approach to dedicated experiments performed on the Tore Supra tokamak, we confirm the quality of the result and find that we can estimate the radial and vertical positions of the plasma to 1 mm with a one standard deviation confidence interval.