Separation and quantitation of phospholipids in animal tissues by latroscan TLC/FID

A procedure has been developed to separate and quantitate phospholipids, including phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidylserine, from animal tissues by means of the Iatroscan TLC/FID technique. The method is based on the use of 0.01 M oxalic acid impregnated Chromarods-SII and stepwise resolution of the phospholipids in the presence of 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho (N,N-dimethylethanolamine) as internal standard. To remove the neutral lipids, the rods are initially developed in a nonpolar solvent mixture followed by partial scanning. Next, the rods are impregnated with oxalic acid, developed twice in CHCl₃/CH₃OH/CH₃COOH/HCOOH/H₂O (80∶35∶2∶1∶3, v/v/v/v/v) and partially scanned for measuring lysophosphatidylcholine, sphingomyelin and phosphatidylcholine. The subsequent step involves double development in CHCl₃/CH₃OH/30% NH₄OH (60∶35∶0.9, v/v/v) to resolve cardiolipin, internal standard, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylserine and phosphatidic acid. For each phospholipid a linear calibration curve with a highly significant correlation coefficient was obtained. However, the calibration lines extrapolated to negative intercepts on the ordinate, indicating declining sensitivity at low phospholipid loads.     

Using an adversary simulator to evaluate global EDF scheduling of sporadic task sets on multiprocessors

Schedulability analysis of real-time multiprocessor systems is usually based on sufficient but not necessary tests that produce pessimistic results. One difficulty in evaluating the effectiveness of sufficient schedulability tests has been distinguishing the cause of a task set failing the test, i.e., finding out whether the task set is in fact not schedulable or it is actually schedulable but the test itself is too pessimistic. Necessary schedulability tests help to distinguish between these two situations, since if a task set fails in the test then it is guaranteed to be unschedulable. An adversary simulator is a scheduling simulator that uses the non-determinism of the task model to generate scenarios that will stress a specific scheduling algorithm, improving the odds of a deadline miss. In this paper we describe a new adversary simulator algorithm for sporadic task sets executed on multiprocessors scheduled by Global Earliest Deadline First (G-EDF). It is shown that this new adversary simulator is more effective as a necessary test than existing approaches. We also estimate the uncertainty regarding G-EDF by applying to the same task sets a well-known sufficient schedulability test from the literature and the necessary schedulability test based on the adversary simulator.     

Methotrexate Alters the Expression of microRNA in Fibroblast-like Synovial Cells in Rheumatoid Arthritis

We aimed to investigate the effect of methotrexate (MTX) on microRNA modulation in rheumatoid arthritis fibroblast-like synovial cells (RA-FLS). RA-FLS were treated with MTX for 48 h. We then performed miRNA array analysis to investigate differentially expressed miRNAs. Transfection with miR-877-3p precursor and inhibitor were used to investigate the functional role of miR-877-3p in RA-FLS. Gene ontology analysis was used to investigate the cellular processes involving miR-877-3p. The production of cytokines/chemokines was screened by multiplex cytokine/chemokine bead assay and confirmed by ELISA and quantitative real-time PCR. The migratory and proliferative activities of RA-FLS were analyzed by wound healing assay and MKI-67 expression. MTX treatment altered the expression of 13 miRNAs (seven were upregulated and six were downregulated). Among them, quantitative real-time PCR confirmed that miR-877-3p was upregulated in response to MTX (1.79 ± 0.46-fold, p < 0.05). The possible target genes of miR-877-3p in RA-FLS revealed by the microarray analysis were correlated with biological processes. The overexpression of miR-877-3p decreased the production of GM-CSF and CCL3, and the overexpression of miR-877-3p inhibited migratory and proliferative activity. MTX altered the miR-877-3p expression on RA-FLS, and this alteration of miR-877-3p attenuated the abundant production of cytokines/chemokines and proliferative property of RA-FLS.     

The TNF-α-238G > A single-nucleotide polymorphism protects against memory decline in older adults with Type 2 diabetes.

Inflammatory markers predict memory dysfunction in elderly patients, but their contribution to memory deficits in adults with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is less well understood. The present study determined whether specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the promoter region of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) predict verbal memory in older patients with T2DM. Immediate and delayed verbal memory were assessed using word list and paragraph recall tests in a cohort of subjects with T2DM during 2 sessions, separated by 48 weeks. The presence of the TNF-α-238A allele, which has been shown to decrease gene expression, consistently predicted better baseline performance and protected against memory decline over a period of 48 weeks. Therefore, inflammatory mediators may be important modulators of memory function in individuals with T2DM. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Channel response to sediment replenishment in a large gravel‐bed river: The case of the Saint‐Sauveur dam in the Buëch River (Southern Alps,France)

The Saint‐Sauveur dam was built in 1992 in the middle section of the Buëch River. Downstream of the dam, a channel incision by several meters was observed. A gravel replenishment operation was planned in order to restore the active channel. An equivalent of two times the mean annual bedload‐transport capacity (43,500 m³) was replenished downstream of the dam in September 2016. The aim of this paper is to quantify morphological change associated with sediment remobilization in order to evaluate the efficiency of the restoration works. The monitoring was based on a combination of (a) change detection using sequential high‐resolution digital elevation models (from airborne LiDAR data), (b) bedload tracing using active ultrahigh‐frequency radio‐frequency identification technology, and (c) complementary field surveys of channel grain‐size distribution and morphology for bedload‐transport computation. Field monitoring allows us to capture a net aggradation along a 2‐km reach after the first post‐replenishment flood. A sediment balance analysis was performed to back‐calculate bedload supply coming from the sluicing operation during the flood. Although the sediment replenishment operation clearly had a positive impact on the morphological conditions of the starved river reach, the effective bedload supply from artificial berms (22,650 m³) was insufficient to initiate substantial channel shifting along the restored reach and a subsequent amplification of the sediment recharge. The combination of high‐resolution topographic resurveys and sediment tracing was successful to evaluate the downstream propagation of sediment replenishment effects.     

Identifying composite crosscutting concerns through semi‐supervised learning

Aspect mining improves the modularity of legacy software systems through identifying their underlying crosscutting concerns (CCs). However, a realistic CC is a composite one that consists of CC seeds and relative program elements, which makes it a great challenge to identify a composite CC. In this paper, inspired by the state‐of‐the‐art information retrieval techniques, we model this problem as a semi‐supervised learning problem. First, the link analysis technique is adopted to generate CC seeds. Second, we construct a coupling graph, which indicates the relationship between CC seeds. Then, we adopt community detection technique to generate groups of CC seeds as constraints for semi‐supervised learning, which can guide the clustering process. Furthermore, we propose a semi‐supervised graph clustering approach named constrained authority‐shift clustering to identify composite CCs. Two measurements, namely, similarity and connectivity, are defined and seeded graph is generated for clustering program elements. We evaluate constrained authority‐shift clustering on numerous software systems including large‐scale distributed software system. The experimental results demonstrate that our semi‐supervised learning is more effective in detecting composite CCs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Human platelets release a paf-acether: Acetylhydrolase similar to that in plasma

Intact washed human platelets aggregated in response to paf-acether (paf) and did not metabolize [³H]paf at concentrations up to 10 nM. However, when platelets were lysed by exposure to pH 9.5, resulting in 37.5±2.5% (mean ±SD, n=3) lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) release, 20.5±5.7% of the radioactivity was detected as labeled lyso paf and 5.7±3.1% as labeled alkylacylglycerophosphocholine. When platelets were aggregated with 0.5 IU/mL thrombin or high concentrations of paf (100 nM), they released a part of their acetylhydrolase without releasing LDH. In supernatants obtained from aggregated platelets, 21±2% or 10±2% (n=3), respectively, of the total platelet acetylhydrolase activity was detectedvs. none in supernatants of resting cells. The release of acetylhydrolase was concentration-and time-dependent and paralleled the release of PF 4, a marker for α-granules. The acetylhydrolase affinity for paf (K_m) measured in sonicates of resting and thrombin-activated platelets was 8.3±1.5 μMvs. 10.6±1.5 μM, n=5, n.s. in a “Mann Whitney” test. The latter K_m was slightly but significantly different (P<0.05, n=5) from that of the thrombin-released acetylhydrolase (7.9 ±1.5 μM) and that of the latter was itself different from plasma acetylhydrolase (5.3±0.5,P<0.05, n=5). Addition of plasma (acid-treated to inactivate acetylhydrolase) decreased the K_m value of supernatant acetylhydrolase to 6.1±1.4 μM. All preparations of acetylhydrolase exhibited similar pH requirements and sensitvity to various inhibitors. Thus paf and thrombin cause release of acetylhydrolase from platelets in parallel with release of the α-granule marker PF4. This phenomenon might represent a protective mechanism against paf-mediated effects in thrombotic and cardiovascular diseases. This study has been presented in part as a preliminary report at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Las Vegas, NV, May 1988 (1).     

An extended access control mechanism exploiting data dependencies

In general, access control mechanisms in DBMSs ensure that users access only those portions of data for which they have authorizations, according to a predefined set of access control policies. However, it has been shown that access control mechanisms might be not enough. A clear example is the inference problem due to functional dependencies, which might allow a user to discover unauthorized data by exploiting authorized data. In this paper, we wish to investigate data dependencies (e.g., functional dependencies, foreign key constraints, and knowledge-based implications) from a different perspective. In particular, the aim was to investigate data dependencies as a mean for increasing the DBMS utility, that is, the number of queries that can be safely answered, rather than as channels for releasing sensitive data. We believe that, under given circumstances, this unauthorized release may give more benefits than issues. As such, we present a query rewriting technique capable of extending defined access control policies by exploiting data dependencies, in order to authorize unauthorized but inferable data.     

Robust Finite Volume Schemes for Two-Fluid Plasma Equations

Two-fluid plasma equations are derived by taking moments of Boltzmann equations. Ignoring collisions and viscous terms and assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium we get five moment equations for each species (electrons and ions), known as two-fluid plasma equations. These equations allow different temperatures and velocities for electrons and ions, unlike ideal magnetohydrodynamics equations. In this article, we present robust second order MUSCL schemes for two-fluid plasma equations based on Strang splitting of the flux and source terms. The source is treated both explicitly and implicitly. These schemes are shown to preserve positivity of the pressure and density. In the case of explicit treatment of source term, we derive explicit condition on the time step for it to be positivity preserving. The implicit treatment of the source term is shown to preserve positivity, unconditionally. Numerical experiments are presented to demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of these schemes.