Observing Proteins as Single Molecules Encapsulated in Surface‐Tethered Polymeric Nanocontainers

Protein unfolding inside immobilized polymerosomes : One of the most interesting properties of polymeric vesicles is their remarkable stability against extreme temperatures and osmotic stress, and their longevity even under harsh environmental conditions. We have demonstrated, in an application on protein folding, that surface‐tethered polymerosomes are suitable for performing time‐resolved single molecule studies with encapsulated proteins, as illustrated here.

     

Cyclooxygenase Inhibition Alters Proliferative,Migratory, and Invasive Properties of Human Glioblastoma Cells In Vitro

Prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂) is known to increase glioblastoma (GBM) cell proliferation and migration while cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibition decreases proliferation and migration. The present study investigated the effects of COX inhibitors and PGE₂ receptor antagonists on GBM cell biology. Cells were grown with inhibitors and dose response, viable cell counting, flow cytometry, cell migration, gene expression, Western blotting, and gelatin zymography studies were performed. The stimulatory effects of PGE₂ and the inhibitory effects of ibuprofen (IBP) were confirmed in GBM cells. The EP2 and EP4 receptors were identified as important mediators of the actions of PGE₂ in GBM cells. The concomitant inhibition of EP2 and EP4 caused a significant decrease in cell migration which was not reverted by exogenous PGE₂. In T98G cells exogenous PGE₂ increased latent MMP2 gelatinolytic activity. The inhibition of COX1 or COX2 caused significant alterations in MMP2 expression and gelatinolytic activity in GBM cells. These findings provide further evidence for the importance of PGE₂ signalling through the EP2 and the EP4 receptor in the control of GBM cell biology. They also support the hypothesis that a relationship exists between COX1 and MMP2 in GBM cells which merits further investigation as a novel therapeutic target for drug development.     

Liquid Biopsy: A New Translational Diagnostic and Monitoring Tool for Musculoskeletal Tumors

Soft tissue and bone sarcomas represent a group of aggressive neoplasms often accompanied by dismal patient prognosis, especially when distant metastases are present. Moreover, effective treatment can pose a challenge, as recurrences are frequent and almost half of patients present with advanced disease. Researchers have unveiled the molecular abnormalities implicated in sarcomas’ carcinogenesis, paving the way for novel treatment strategies based on each individual tumor’s characteristics. Therefore, the development of new techniques aiding in early disease detection and tumor molecular profiling is imperative. Liquid biopsy refers to the sampling and analysis of patients’ fluids, such as blood, to identify tumor biomarkers, through a variety of methods, including qRT-PCR, qPCR, droplet digital PCR, magnetic microbeads and digital PCR. Assessment of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), circulating free DNA (ctDNA), micro RNAs (miRs), long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), exosomes and exosome–associated proteins can yield a plethora of information on tumor molecular signature, histologic type and disease stage. In addition, the minimal invasiveness of the procedure renders possible its wide application in the clinical setting, and, therefore, the early detection of the presence of tumors. In this review of the literature, we gathered information on biomarkers assessed through liquid biopsy in soft tissue and bone sarcoma patients and we present the information they can yield for each individual tumor type.     

The Neglected Water Rebound Effect of Income and Employment Growth

Water Resources Management - The water footprint assessment, particularly for the agricultural sector, is often a valuable input to water policy formation globally. Efforts on reducing it focus on...     

eInvoke: Secure e-Invoicing based on web services

Electronic Invoicing services (e-Invoicing) will have a pivotal role in all the stages of handling Value Added Tax (VAT) for European Member States. Through a systematic introduction of e-invoicing, tax administrators will be able to implement new tools and procedures to carry out alternative controls that are less intrusive on the trading partners. Nevertheless, successful European e-invoicing implementations need to be in compliance with the corresponding European Directive 2001/115/EC. Most contemporary e-Invoicing implementations are proprietary and based on EDI, thus demonstrating great deficiencies. This paper presents an open electronic invoicing system named eInvoke, based on XML, XML cryptography and Web Services, that addresses all security requirements imposed by the Directive. Our e-Invoicing system has been accepted by “CEN/ISSS e-Invoicing Focus Group on Standards and Developments on electronic invoicing relating to VAT Directive 2001/115/EC” and its summary appears in CEN 2003 report [13] (pg 79–85), forwarded to EC as a recommendation. Alexandros Kaliontzoglou holds a Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. Since 2001 he is a PhD candidate in the area of Network and Information Systems Security at the Telecommunications laboratory in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of NTUA. Since April 2000 he has been working for Expertnet S.A. as a security engineer specializing at Web Technologies and network applications, and he has been active both in European research projects in the 5th and 6th Framework Programme (eMayor, Intelcities, SELIS, Reshen, La Mer, TSEC, WebSig) and projects of the Greek private sector. His research interests focus in the area of IT Security, Service Oriented Architectures, Web Services, Software Engineering, e-Government, e-Commerce and Public Key Infrastructures. Pelagia Boutsi has obtained the Degree in Informatics from the University of Piraeus, Greece, in November 2001. Since April 2002, she is a PhD candidate in the area of Security Information at the Computer Science Department of University of Piraeus. Since September 2001 she is employed at Expertnet S.A. as member of the Technical Department. Her current research interests are in the fields of PKIs, XML and XML Security. She has participated in European research projects and projects of the private sector. Despina Polemi has obtained the Degree in Applied Mathematics from Portland State University(USA) in 1984, Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Coding Theory) from City University of New York (Graduate Center) in 1991. She held teaching positions (1984– 1995) in Queens College and Baruch College of City University of NewYork. From 1991 to 1996 was assistant professor (tenure track) in State University of New Yorkat Farmingdale in the department of Mathematics. During 1996–2002 she was an associate researcher in ICCS. From 2000 to 2003 she acted as President of the BoD in a security consulting company Expertnet (www.expertnet.net.gr) and technical manager of the company from 2000–2004. She nowa Professor in the University of Piraeus R&D department. Her current research interests are in the fields of cryptology, security and e-business. She has over ninety publications in the above areas. She has received many research grants from various organizations such as the Danish Research Foundation, MSI Army Research Office/Cornell University, IEEE, State University of New York (SUNY), and The Graduate School of City University of New York (CUNY). She has been project manager (PM)/technical manger (TM) in security projects of various programmes such as National Security Agency (NSA), Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Foundation, Greek Ministry of Defense, INFOSEC TELEMATICS for Administrations (COSACC), the Fifth Framework IST Programme (HARP, BEE, SEED, WebSig, TSEC, CORAS, RESHEN, SEED, La Mer, SECRETS) and the 6FP (e-Mayor, Intelcities, BIOSEC, SELIS). She participated in the EC security projects of the programs COST, ACTS, and NATOs’ security projects. She is a member of IEEE. She serves as an evaluator, reviewer and expert in the European Commission and consultant for the FP6.     

Evaluation of optical core networks based on the CANON architecture

Clustering of nodes in optical networks has been proven to be an efficient way to serve end-to-end connectivity. However, clustering requires specific topological characteristics, or alternatively the introduction of significant alterations of an existing topology to achieve the expected performance improvements. The comparison of future dynamic optical networking technologies should therefore include in the set of initial assumptions, apart from the statistical properties of the traffic load, the network topology to draw conclusions regarding the efficiency as well as feasibility and scalability of the proposed solutions. In this article, we show how node clustering under the CANON architecture can be applied in real-life core networks and provide superior performance compared to conventional burst switching techniques in terms of blocking, resource utilization and power consumption.     

Multi-view human movement recognition based on fuzzy distances and linear discriminant analysis

In this paper, a novel multi-view human movement recognition method is presented. A novel representation of multi-view human movement videos is proposed that is based on learning basic multi-view human movement primitives, called multi-view dynemes. The movement video is represented in a new feature space (called dyneme space) using these multi-view dynemes, thus producing a time invariant multi-view movement representation. Fuzzy distances from the multi-view dynemes are used to represent the human body postures in the dyneme space. Three variants of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) are evaluated to achieve a discriminant movement representation in a low dimensionality space. The view identification problem is solved either by using a circular block shift procedure followed by the evaluation of the minimum Euclidean distance from any dyneme, or by exploiting the circular shift invariance property of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). The discriminant movement representation combined with camera viewpoint identification and a nearest centroid classification step leads to a high human movement classification accuracy.     

Hand dexterity assessment based on mouse pointer trajectory measurements in children with learning disabilities

Universal Access in the Information Society - We present an investigation of the systematic differences in upper limb motor skills between children with learning disabilities (LDs) and children...