Human Sarcopenic Myoblasts Can Be Rescued by Pharmacological Reactivation of HIF-1α

Sarcopenia, an age-related decline in muscle mass and strength, is associated with metabolic disease and increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. It is associated with decreased tissue vascularization and muscle atrophy. In this work, we investigated the role of the hypoxia inducible factor HIF-1α in sarcopenia. To this end, we obtained skeletal muscle biopsies from elderly sarcopenic patients and compared them with those from young individuals. We found a decrease in the expression of HIF-1α and its target genes in sarcopenia, as well as of PAX7, the major stem cell marker of satellite cells, whereas the atrophy marker MURF1 was increased. We also isolated satellite cells from muscle biopsies and cultured them in vitro. We found that a pharmacological activation of HIF-1α and its target genes caused a reduction in skeletal muscle atrophy and activation of PAX7 gene expression. In conclusion, in this work we found that HIF-1α plays a role in sarcopenia and is involved in satellite cell homeostasis. These results support further studies to test whether pharmacological reactivation of HIF-1α could prevent and counteract sarcopenia.     

Characterization of PLLA scaffolds for biomedical applications

The porosity and pore size distribution of three-dimensional scaffolds have direct implications on their biomedical applications (tissue engineering, drug delivery, and wound dressing). Accordingly, in this paper, a fast, facile, and conservative method relying on low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) for the evaluation of mean pore size and pore size distribution of polymeric scaffolds is reported. The applicability of the technique is demonstrated on poly-L-lactic acid scaffolds fabricated using the thermal induced phase separation. Results obtained through LF-NMR are successfully compared to scanning electron microscope and X-ray microcomputed tomography micrographs.     

Lightly supervised alignment of subtitles on multi-genre broadcasts

This paper describes a system for performing alignment of subtitles to audio on multigenre broadcasts using a lightly supervised approach. Accurate alignment of subtitles plays a substantial role in the daily work of media companies and currently still requires large human effort. Here, a comprehensive approach to performing this task in an automated way using lightly supervised alignment is proposed. The paper explores the different alternatives to speech segmentation, lightly supervised speech recognition and alignment of text streams. The proposed system uses lightly supervised decoding to improve the alignment accuracy by performing language model adaptation using the target subtitles. The system thus built achieves the third best reported result in the alignment of broadcast subtitles in the Multi–Genre Broadcast (MGB) challenge, with an F1 score of 88.8%. This system is available for research and other non–commercial purposes through webASR, the University of Sheffield’s cloud–based speech technology web service. Taking as inputs an audio file and untimed subtitles, webASR can produce timed subtitles in multiple formats, including TTML, WebVTT and SRT.     

Influence of carbohydrates on self‐association of mung bean protein hydrolysate in the presence of amphiphilic asiatic acid

This study investigated the influence of surface‐inactive carbohydrates on association characteristics of amphiphilic mung bean protein hydrolysate (MPH) and asiatic acid (AA) in aqueous suspension (11.72–11.94% total solids). The carbohydrates investigated were trehalose, maltodextrin, mixed trehalose–maltodextrin and mixed maltodextrin–starch. The presence of low‐molecular‐weight carbohydrates enhanced micellisation of AA to form micrometre‐sized particles due to depletion flocculation. Nonetheless, the presence of starch retained the submicrometre size of AA. In contrast, the presence of starch enhanced self‐association of MPH via segregative phase separation. However, the mixed suspensions containing MPH, AA and carbohydrate in a ratio of 1:0–0.072:2.34, respectively, retained particle sizes of around 300 nm regardless of the carbohydrate used. It was found that the MPH–AA co‐aggregates were stable against the osmotic effect of carbohydrates. The results suggest that carbohydrates regulated the aggregate size and surface hydrophobic region of MPH and MPH–AA by controlling surface‐induced aggregation.     

Improved methods for solving monomer partitioning in emulsion copolymer systems

A new algorithm for the calculation of monomer partitioning in emulsion copolymer systems is presented. The algorithm can be applied both to monodisperse and polydisperse systems and the outputs of the algorithm include the distribution of the volume fractions of the monomers according to the particle size distribution, the volume fractions of the monomers in the monomer droplets, and the aqueous phase and the total volumes of all the phases in the system. The algorithm can handle both Interval II and Interval III conditions, using the same set of equations. This results in substantial computer time savings during the simulation of emulsion copolymerization systems. Examples of applications are given. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.