Contribution of laser microdissection-based technology to proteomic analysis in hepatocellular carcinoma developing on cirrhosis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cause of cancer worldwide. Proteomic studies provide opportunities to uncover targets for the diagnosis and treatment of this disease. However, in HCC developing in a setting of cirrhosis, the detection of proteome alterations may be hampered by the increased cellular heterogeneity of tissue when analysing global liver homogenates. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the identification of proteome alterations in these HCC cases was improved when the differential protein profile between tumour and non-tumour areas of liver was determined using hepatocytes isolated by laser microdissection (LM). Differential profiles established with LM-hepatocytes and liver section homogenates using 2-DE and MS exhibited noticeable differences: 30% of the protein spots with deregulated expression in tumorous LM-samples did not display any modification in homogenates; conversely 15% of proteins altered in tumorous homogenates were not impaired in LM-hepatocytes. These alterations resulted from the presence in cirrhotic liver of fibrotic stroma which displayed a protein pattern different from that determined in LM-hepatocytes. In conclusion, our data demonstrate the interest of LM in distinguishing between fibrotic and hepatocyte proteome alterations and thus the benefit of LM to proteome studies of HCC developing in a context of cirrhosis.     

Neural computing models for prediction of permeability coefficient of coarse-grained soils

Correlations are very significant from the earliest days; in some cases, it is essential as it is difficult to measure the amount directly, and in other cases it is desirable to ascertain the results with other tests through correlations. Soft computing techniques are now being used as alternate statistical tool, and new techniques such as artificial neural networks, fuzzy inference systems, genetic algorithms, and their hybrids were employed for developing the predictive models to estimate the needed parameters, in the recent years. Determination of permeability coefficient (k) of soils is very important for the definition of hydraulic conductivity and is difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and involves destructive tests. In this paper, use of some soft computing techniques such as ANNs (MLP, RBF, etc.) and ANFIS (adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system) for prediction of permeability of coarse-grained soils was described and compared. As a result of this paper, it was obtained that the all constructed soft computing models exhibited high performance for predicting k. In order to predict the permeability coefficient, ANN models having three inputs, one output were applied successfully and exhibited reliable predictions. However, all four different algorithms of ANN have almost the same prediction capability, and accuracy of MLP was relatively higher than RBF models. The ANFIS model for prediction of permeability coefficient revealed the most reliable prediction when compared with the ANN models, and the use of soft computing techniques will provide new approaches and methodologies in prediction of some parameters in soil mechanics.     

Experimental and numerical studies on the determination of twist drill temperature in dry drilling: A new approach

In this paper, the influences of the spindle speed and feed rate on the drill temperature responses have been investigated. A new experimental approach was developed to measure drill temperature in drilling process. Drill temperatures were measured by inserting standard thermocouples through the coolant (oil) hole of TiAlN-coated carbide drills. Experimental parameters used in the study has based on Taguchi’s method. Experimental study was conducted by using two different workpiece materials, AISI 1040 steel and Al 7075-T651. The drill bit temperature was predicted using a numerical calculation with Third Wave AdvantEdge^TM Lagrangian based on explicit finite element analysis software. The results obtained from experimental study and finite element analyses (FEA) were compared. Good agreement between the measured and analyzed temperature results was found in dry drilling process.     

Corrosion behavior of carbon steel rock bolt in simulated Yucca Mountain ground waters

Medium carbon steel (AISI 1040) was one of the candidate materials for rock bolts to reinforce the borehole liners and emplacement drifts of the high-level nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain. The corrosion performance of this structural steel was investigated by techniques such as linear polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and laboratory immersion tests in simulated ground waters. The corrosion rates of the steel were measured for the temperatures in the range from 25 °C to 85 °C, for the ionic concentrations of 1 time (1×), 10 times (10×), and a hundred times (100×) ground water concentration. The steel corroded uniformly at penetration rates of 35 to 200 μm/year in the deaerated waters, and at 200 to 1000 μm/year in the aerated waters. Increasing temperatures in the deaerated waters increased the corrosion rate of the steel. However, increasing ionic concentrations influenced the corrosion rate only slightly. In the aerated 1×and 10×waters, increasing temperatures increased the rates of the steel significantly. In the aerated 100×waters, the corrosion rate increased from 25 °C to 45 °C and decreased at higher temperatures (65 °C and up) due to the formation of oxide/hydroxide films and salt scales on the surface of the steel specimen. The steel suffered pitting corrosion in the both deaerated and aerated hot ground water environments after anodic polarization. This article is based on a presentation made in the symposium “Effect of Processing on Materials Properties for Nuclear Waste Disposition,” November 10–11, 2003, at the TMS Fall meeting in Chicago, Illinois, under the joint auspices of the. TMS Corrosion and Environmental Effects and Nuclear Materials Committees.     

Layered precursors for new zeolitic materials: Synthesis and characterization of B-RUB-39 and its condensation product B-RUB-41

Condensation of layered silicate precursors leads to new, all silica zeolite frameworks. In order to introduce catalytic functionality, boron has been substituted into the silicate layer of RUB-39 in a single step synthesis process. Condensation of the silicate layer to the zeolite framework of RUB-41, RRO framework structure type, preserved B as constituent of the material. Analysis of structural details obtained from Rietveld analysis of powder diffraction data, ¹¹B and ²⁹Si NMR experiments of the as synthesized precursor as well as of the zeolite condensation product, and crystal chemical reasoning indicates segregation of B on one specific T-site. This T-site is buried in the silicate anionic layer of the precursor shielding the additional negative charge introduced by the trivalent T-atom.     

The electrical and dielectric characterization of the Co/ZnO-Rods/p-Si heterostructure depending on the frequency

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Zinc oxide (ZnO) rods film was fabricated by homemade and simple spray pyrolysis technique on a p-type silicon (Si) substrate, and the film...     

Layer-by-layer self-assembly of multifunctional enzymatic UF membranes

In order to eliminate membrane fouling and to ensure enzymatic hydrolysis of urea, multifunctional biocatalytic membranes were prepared by using urease (URE) and trypsin (TRY) enzymes on the sulfonated polysulfone (SPSf) ultrafiltration membrane via layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly method. The membrane architecture consisted of multilayer assembly with TRY and URE enzymes as the outer layer and inner sandwiched layer, respectively. Polyethyleneimine (PEI) and alginate (ALG) were used as cationic and anionic polyelectrolytes. Sulfonation and PEI deposition were successfully accomplished as confirmed by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and scanning electron microscopy analysis, contact angle measurements, staining with toluidine blue and Congo red dyes and dead-end filtration experiments. A characteristic value of SPSf membrane with a high water permeability (1000 L/m².h.bar) and 95% bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection was observed. In static conditions, URE activities of SPSf2-PEI-URE membrane were not affected by BSA fouling, while TRY immobilizations with increased concentrations (SPSf2-PEI-URE-PEI-ALG-TRY) significantly lowered the activity of URE. In dynamic conditions, each deposited layer exhibited individual resistance to flow that can be considered as irreversible fouling and caused 90% of flux decline for the SPSf2-PEI-URE-PEI-ALG-TRY membrane assembly. The recovery of the initial flux for the multilayered membrane at the end of six fouling and washing cycles was observed 85%. Moreover, at the end of 5 cycles, 78% of the URE initial activity of the multilayered membrane was preserved. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020 , 137, 48750.     

Estimating crown diameters in urban forests with Unmanned Aerial System-based photogrammetric point clouds

Field measurements are the main source of information when determining stand parameters, which are essential to produce an effective forest management plan. However, conducting terrestrial measurements is neither time- nor cost-efficient in most cases. In recent years, the advent of sophisticated remote sensing technologies has enabled the extraction of accurate and robust information about the physical characteristics of trees. Crown diameter is one of the most important stand parameters that should be measured or estimated. This study proposes a Polynomial Fitting Based (PFB) methodology to estimate crown diameters of urban trees with Unmanned Aerial System (UAS)-based data. Crown diameters estimated with the PFB methodology were compared not only to a reference data but also to those estimated based on five widely used image segmentation algorithms, which were the Mean Shift Segmentation (MSS), Morphological Profiles Based Segmentation (MPBS), Multiresolution Segmentation (MRS), Seeded Region Growing Segmentation (SRGS) and Watershed Segmentation (WS). Quantitative investigations revealed that the PFB approach outperformed the other segmentation-based approaches. The PFB approach estimated the crown diameters with root-mean-square errors (RMSE) ranging from 0.69 m to 0.92 m. The PFB methodology was found to be a practical and robust approach for the estimation of crown diameters, which plays a very significant role in effective forest management.