Macrophage Immunomodulation Through New Polymers that Recapitulate Functional Effects of Itaconate as a Power House of Innate Immunity

Itaconate (ITA) is an emerging powerhouse of innate immunity with therapeutic potential that is limited in its ability to be administered in a soluble form. A library of polyester materials that incorporate ITA into polymer backbones resulting in materials with inherent immunoregulatory behavior is developed. Harnessing hydrolytic degradation release from polyester backbones, ITA polymers result in the mechanism specific immunoregulatory properties on macrophage polarization in vitro. In a functional assay, the polymer-released ITA inhibits bacterial growth on acetate. Translation to an in vivo model of biomaterial associated inflammation, intraperitoneal injection of ITA polymers demonstrate a rapid resolution of inflammation in comparison to a control polymer silicone, demonstrating the value of sustained biomimetic presentation of ITA.     

Autolysis and the endogenous proteinases characterised in beardless barb (Anematichthys apogon) muscle

Beardless barb is a common fish species used in fermentation of fish paste Ka-pi-plaa. Autolytic profile of beardless barb muscle showed the maximum autolysis was at 50 °C, at both acidic and alkaline pH values. With augmentation concentration of NaCl, autolytic activity slightly decreased. Endogenous proteinases isolated from fish muscle in crude extract forms were also characterised. The acidic proteinases had optimum activity at pH 3.0 and 50°C, and they showed higher proteolytic activity than the alkaline proteinases which were optimally active at pH 9.0 and 50 °C. Proteinases in peak at pH 3.0 were inhibited by pepstatin A, but those in peak at pH 9.0 were highly inhibited by PMSF, TLCK and soybean trypsin inhibitor, suggesting that both aspartic and serine proteinases were existed in beardless barb muscle. The proteinases were stable in pH range of 2.0-5.0 but unstable at the temperatures higher than 40 °C. NaCl suppressed the proteolytic activity, ATP activated the proteinase activity, while CaCl₂, MgCl₂ and CoCl₂ exhibited no influence on the activity. The results implied that cathepsin D is the predominant proteinase responsible for autolysis in beardless barb. The findings were useful to improve the processing and qualities of Ka-pi-plaa product using beardless barb as raw material.     

Cloning and disruption of the antigenic catalase gene of Aspergillus fumigatus

Aspergillus fumigatus possesses two catalases (described as fast and slow on the basis of their electrophoretic mobility). The slow catalase has been recognized as a diagnostic antigen for aspergillosis in immunocompetent patients. The antigenic catalase has been purified. The enzyme is a tetrameric protein composed of 90-kDa subunits. The corresponding cat1 gene was cloned, and sequencing data show that the cat1 gene codes for a 728-amino-acid polypeptide. A recombinant protein expressed in Pichia pastoris is enzymatically active and has biochemical and antigenic properties that are similar to those of the wild-type catalase. Molecular experiments reveal that CAT1 contains a signal peptide and a propeptide of 15 and 12 amino acid residues, respectively. cat1-disrupted mutants that were unable to produce the slow catalase were as sensitive to H2O2 and polymorphonuclear cells as the wild-type strain. In addition, there was no difference in pathogenicity between the cat1 mutant and its parental cat1+ strain in a murine model of aspergillosis.     

Joint Measurements on Qubits and Cloning of Observables

Cloning of observables, unlike standard cloning of states, aims at copying the information encoded in the statistics of a class of observables rather then on quantum states themselves. In such a process the emphasis is on the quantum operation (evolution plus measurement) necessary to retrieve the original information. We analyze, for qubit systems, the cloning of a class generated by two noncommuting observables, elucidating the relationship between such a process and joint measurements. This helps in establishing an optimality criterion for cloning of observables. We see that, even if the cloning machine is designed to act on the whole class generated by two noncommuting observables, the same optimal performances of a joint measurement can be attained. Finally, the connection with state dependent cloning is enlightened.     

Breaking the search space symmetry in partitioning problems: An application to the graph coloring problem

Many problems consist in splitting a set of objects into different groups so that each group verifies some properties. In practice, a partitioning is often encoded by an array mapping each object to its group numbering. In fact, the group number of an object does not really matter, and one can simply rename each group to obtain a new encoding. That is what we call the symmetry of the search space in a partitioning problem. This property may be prejudicial for optimization methods such as evolutionary algorithms (EA) which require some diversity during the search.     

High density polyethylene-wood flour composite lumber: efficacy of two proprietary biocides in the control of fungal colonization and discoloration

Two proprietary biocides were compounded and extruded at three concentrations, respectively, into high density polyethylene-maple wood flour lumber (HDPE-MWL) and evaluated for their efficacy to control fungal colonization and discoloration using the ASTM Standard G 21-96. Although the silver biocide used in this study did not control fungal colonization and discoloration of HDPE-MWL, statistically significant difference was observed between the highest silver biocide concentration and those of the two lower silver biocide concentrations. The latter exhibited no significant difference with the controls. In contrast, the three levels of zinc biocides showed significant difference from each other with respect to their efficacy against fungal colonization and discoloration of HDPE-MWL. Overall, only the zinc biocide was efficacious against fungal colonization and discoloration. The biocide containing zinc as an active biocidal agent was most efficacious at 1% (by weight) concentration.     

SlideBar: Analysis of a linear input device

The SlideBar is a physical linear input device for absolute position control of 1° of freedom, consisting of a physical slider with a graspable knob positioned near or attached to the keyboard. Its range of motion is directly mapped to a one dimensional input widget such as a scrollbar. The SlideBar provides absolute position control in one dimension, is usable in the non-dominant hand in conjunction with a pointing device, and offers constrained passive haptic feedback. These characteristics make the device appropriate for the common class of tasks characterized by one-dimensional input and constrained range of operation. An empirical study of three devices (SlideBar, mouse controlled scrollbar, and mousewheel) shows that for common scrolling tasks, the SlideBar has a significant advantage over a standard mouse controlled scrollbar in user preference. In addition, users tended to prefer it over the mousewheel (without statistical significance).     

Intermediate order in tetrahedrally coordinated silicon: evidence for chainlike objects

In this report, we describe the nature of intermediate order in silicon as determined by recent measurements on thin films using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman scattering. The TEM images show in addition to the expected continuous random network (CRN), the presence of highly ordered quasi-one-dimensional “chain-like objects” (CLO's) that are 1–2 nm wide and tens of nm long that meander and show some evidence of cross-linking with each other. The presence of these objects correlate to a Raman feature centered at 490 cm⁻¹ whose width is 35–40 cm⁻¹, and is used to quantify the heterogeneity in terms of the CLO and CRN (=475 cm⁻¹ scattering) concentrations. The 490 and 35 cm⁻¹ values are consistent with bond angle deviations approaching 0°, and thus reinforces an association with the CLOs. We find that in reference quality a-Si:H (made using pure SiH₄), the CLO concentration is about 5 vol%, while in state-of-the-art material using high H₂ levels of dilution during processing, it increases to about 15%. Increased stability of such material to light-soaking is thus not mediated by a direct volumetric replacement of poor with high-quality components. Rather, an important characteristic of intermediate order in silicon is the low-dimensional aspect of its order, which allows it to influence more total volume than which it is itself composed. Consistent with these and other recent findings, we propose a tensegrity model of amorphous silicon.     

Optimal Massing Liquid Volume Determination by Energy Consumption Measurement: Study of the Influence of Some Physical Properties of Solvents and Products Used

This study tried to investigate, by the power comsumption technique, the influence of the powder's and solvent's properties on wet granulation.

It could be shown that the required amount of granulation liquid decreases when the particle size of the powder to be granulated increases. This relationship is however only true when the particle size distribution of the powder to be granulated is rather narrow.

Powders having the same solubility in different solvents require the same optimal liquid quantity for granulation, but the properties of resulting granules depend on surface tension and wetting properties of the solvent.

When the powder to be granulated contains crystallisation water, the temperature rising in the mixer can be sufficient to liberate this water, which must be taken into account in the optimal granulation liquid requirement.

The effect of a macromolecular binder (PVP, HPMC) has also been studied: the optimal liquid quantity required changes with the kind of binder used and the manufacturing process (binder used in solution or added as dry powder).

It was also shown that in the case of lactose, the optimal quantity of PVP or HPMC can be determined from the power consumption records and from the granules friability studies