Disabling VEGF-Response of Purkinje Cells by Downregulation of KDR via miRNA-204-5p

The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is well known for its wide-ranging functions, not only in the vascular system, but also in the central (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). To study the role of VEGF in neuronal protection, growth and maturation processes have recently attracted much interest. These effects are mainly mediated by VEGF receptor 2 (VEGFR-2). Current studies have shown the age-dependent expression of VEGFR-2 in Purkinje cells (PC), promoting dendritogenesis in neonatal, but not in mature stages. We hypothesize that microRNAs (miRNA/miR) might be involved in the regulation of VEGFR-2 expression during the development of PC. In preliminary studies, we performed a miRNA profiling and identified miR204-5p as a potential regulator of VEGFR-2 expression. In the recent study, organotypic slice cultures of rat cerebella (postnatal day (p) 1 and 9) were cultivated and VEGFR-2 expression in PC was verified via immunohistochemistry. Additionally, PC at age p9 and p30 were isolated from cryosections by laser microdissection (LMD) to analyse VEGFR-2 expression by quantitative RT-PCR. To investigate the influence of miR204-5p on VEGFR-2 levels in PC, synthetic constructs including short hairpin (sh)-miR204-5p cassettes (miRNA-mimics), were microinjected into PC. The effects were analysed by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and morphometric analysis. For the first time, we could show that miR204-5p has a negative effect on VEGF sensitivity in juvenile PC, resulting in a significant decrease of dendritic growth compared to untreated juvenile PC. In mature PC, the overexpression of miR204-5p leads to a shrinkage of dendrites despite VEGF treatment. The results of this study illustrate, for the first time, which miR204-5p expression has the potential to play a key role in cerebellar development by inhibiting VEGFR-2 expression in PC.     

A comprehensive security analysis of LEACH++ clustering protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) will play a major role in future technologies in the development of the cyber-physical society. Studies show that WSNs are vulnerable to various insider attacks that may degrade its performance and affect the application services. Various intrusion detection system-based solutions have been proposed for WSNs to secure them from such attacks; however, these solutions have certain limitations with respect to completeness and evaluation. Recently, we proposed an intrusion detection framework to secure WSNs from insider attacks and proposed a protocol called LEACH++. In this paper, we perform a detailed security analysis of LEACH++ against black-hole, sink-hole and selective forwarding attacks by launching a number of attacks with different patterns. The results of our experiments performed in network simulator-2 show that the proposed scheme is highly efficient and achieves higher accuracy and detection rates with very low false-positive rate when compared to an anomaly based detection scheme.

     

Thiyl radical-catalyzed isomerization of oils: An entry to the trans lipid library

The unsaturated fatty acyl moieties of TAG present in natural oils of borage, olive, and rice were converted to their corresponding geometrical trans isomers by thiyl radical-catalyzed isomerization. Thiyl radicals were generated from 2-mercaptoethanol under photolytic or thermal conditions. A relevant feature of this method is the absence of double-bond shifts, so that no positional trans isomers or conjugated polyenes are formed. Oils obtained after the isomerization were winterized to further increase their trans fatty acid content. Methanolysis and hydrolysis of the trans oil mixtures using an enzymatic method (lipase B from Candida antarctica) gave good conversions to the corresponding trans FAME and fatty acids, respectively. These results are relevant for the studies of lipid isomerism and trans fatty acid recognition, which is a growing concern in biochemistry and nutrition, and open new perspectives for the synthesis of glycerides and studies of their structure-activity relationships.     

MMSMAC: A Multi-mode Medium Access Control Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks with Latency and Energy-Awareness

In this paper, we propose a new medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless sensor networks called MMSMAC (multi-mode sensor MAC protocol), which operates according to the application requirements and traffic load, in three main modes: synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid. In the synchronous mode, MMSMAC organizes the sensor nodes under even and odd clusters. Each sensor node has its own active/sleep and send/receive periods according to its cluster identifier, which ensures better load balancing among nodes. In the asynchronous mode, sensor nodes communicate freely without the utilization of even and odd clusters. We propose a mechanism to wake up the destination node and minimize the overhead. In this mode, we propose another mechanism to circumvent the problem of hidden host. In the hybrid mode, the features of asynchronous and asynchronous modes are combined. Our simulation results and analysis show that each of the MMSMAC modes shows convincing performance gains and outperforms B-MAC and Hybrid CSMA/TDMA protocols.     

Multi-Objective Optimization Model Based on Localized Loops for the Rehabilitation of Gravity-fed Pressurized Irrigation Networks

Nowadays, some of the existing irrigation distribution networks (IDNs) are facing hydraulic performance problems, due partly to the ageing of pipe networks, initial design flaws, improper management or/and the increase in water demand. Rehabilitation of these networks may become an inevitable need to provide the best services to farmers. To this end, a comprehensive computer model was developed to assist planners and decision makers in the determination of the most cost-effective strategy for the rehabilitation of irrigation networks. This model incorporates an innovative algorithm for the automatic search of the best looping positions in the network. Two multi-objective optimizations were applied for the rehabilitation of a real medium-size network operating on-demand and by gravity, one included the looping option while the other excluded this option. The two Pareto fronts, associated with each optimization, clearly indicated that it is imperative to consider the localized loops option during the rehabilitation process as it provided superior cost-effective solutions. The comparison between two selected cases from each front showed that even though the two solutions offered the same magnitude of improvement to the network, a cost saving of about 77% is obtained by choosing the case with the looping option. The model developed in the framework of this work represents a powerful optimization tool for cost-effective rehabilitation of irrigation networks.