Mechanisms of resistance in a human cell line exposed to sequential topoisomerase poisoning

Camptothecins are a new class of anticancer drugs that target DNA topoisomerase I; current efforts are directed toward elucidating optimal combinations of these drugs with other antineoplastic agents. A rationale for the use of sequential therapy involving the combination of camptothecins with topoisomerase II-targeting drugs, such as etoposide, has arisen from observations of increased topoisomerase II protein levels in cell lines resistant to camptothecin. In an effort to understand potential mechanisms of resistance to this strategy, we developed a U-937 cell subline, denoted RERC, that is capable of surviving exposure to sequential topoisomerase poisoning. The RERC cells are 200-fold resistant to camptothecin, 8-fold resistant to etoposide, and 10-fold hypersensitive to cisplatin compared to the parental U-937 cells. Biochemical analyses indicate that the resistant phenotype involves alterations in both topoisomerase I and topoisomerase IIalpha. Topoisomerase I catalytic activity in the resistant cells is similar to that of the parental line but is resistant to camptothecin. Moreover, the resistant cells express a single mRNA species of topoisomerase I that codes for a mutation in codon 533. In addition, topoisomerase IIalpha protein levels are decreased 10-fold in the resistant line, coincident with a two-fold decrease in the expression of topoisomerase IIalpha mRNA. Collectively, these results indicate that resistance to sequential topoisomerase poisoning may involve a reduction in total cellular topoisomerase activity.     

Thermodynamic analysis of solar photovoltaic cell systems

The thermodynamic characteristics of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells are investigated from a perspective based on exergy. A new efficiency is developed that is useful in studying PV performance and possible improvements. Exergy analysis is applied to a PV system and its components, and exergy flows, losses and efficiencies are evaluated. Energy efficiency is seen to vary between 7% and 12% during the day. In contrast, exergy efficiencies, which incorporate the second law of thermodynamics and account for solar irradiation exergy values, are lower for electricity generation using the considered PV system, ranging from 2% to 8%. Values of “fill factors” are determined for the system and observed to be similar to values of exergy efficiency.     

Compact WLAN disc antennas

A novel conical beam patch antenna design, suitable for local area network applications, uses a central cylindrical connection from the disc to ground to achieve a large reduction in resonant size. Results on efficiency, bandwidth, and pattern are reported for several prototypes.     

Measurement of Inlet Drop Size Distribution of Secondary Dispersions by Laser Particle Size Analyzer

Knowledge of the Oil drop size distribution, in addition to the mean drop size, is necessary in order to characterize secondary dispersions. Furthermore, the capture efficiency for any drop flowing through a packed bed depends upon its Oil inlet drop diameter. The Oil/Water secondary dispersions produced by the centrifugal pump were analyzed at regular intervals during an experiment to ascertain the drop size distribution and to check that the feed to the coalescence bed was consistent. New techniques that were developed for measurement of drop size distribution of secondary dispersions using Laser Particle Size Analyzer, which consisted of (He/Ne) laser emitter and laser receiver and lenses. The Laser Particle Size Analyzer was fixed directly to the experimental equipment by using the special designed circular cell. The measurement of drop size distribution was done by computer system with application software package. The new mean drop diameter (i.e., d₂₁) equation has been derived theoretically and the results that predicted from this equation exhibited a maximum error of ±15% from the experimental data.     

Using Automated Negotiation for Grid Services

The popularity of grid services has widened their application to numerous domains and increased the utilization of computational resources. In order to create more incentives for the resources owners to lease their resources and prevent users from wasting the resources, the introduction of a market-oriented grid is inevitable. However, the issues for the negotiation between service provider and consumer over the supply and demand of resources can be complex, with highly interdependent issues. In this research, a simulated automated negotiation mechanism including a co-evolutionary mechanism and a modified game theory approach is proposed, to assist them in reaching an agreement over the conflicting issues. In the proposed architecture, the co-evolution process is able to reduce the multiple dimensional search space into a two-dimension search space and identify the appropriate negotiation strategies for the negotiating agents to form a payoff matrix which can be used for the game theory related stage of their interaction. The multiple stage negotiation process is introduced to improve the negotiation result. In this paper, an application which requires a large amount of computational resources to process the data generated from mobile devises is used to demonstrate that the proposed system is able to resolve the conflicts and obtain a valid solution.     

E. coli meningitis as an indicator of intestinal perforation by V-P shunt tube

Shunting systems widely used for the treatment of hydrocephalus have been connected with certain risks and potential complications which stem from implanting a non-biological material into the human body. Several complications have been reported to arise from the insertion of ventriculo-peritoneal shunts. This short report highlights the observation that when anaerobic meningitis together with gram negative E. Coli in the CSF of a V-P shunted patient is found, bowel perforation should be assumed. Four cases developed such a complication among 643 hydrocephalic patients of various etiology over a period of ten years.     

Harmonic and intermodulation performance in an R-LED series network

Analytical expressions are obtained for predicting the harmonic and intermodulation performance of R-LED series networks. These expressions are in terms of the ordinary Bessel functions with arguments depenedent on the modulation index.     

The Bivariate Transmuted Family of Distributions: Theory and Applications

The bivariate distributions are useful in simultaneous modeling of two random variables. These distributions provide a way to model models. The bivariate families of distributions are not much widely explored and in this article a new family of bivariate distributions is proposed. The new family will extend the univariate transmuted family of distributions and will be helpful in modeling complex joint phenomenon. Statistical properties of the new family of distributions are explored which include marginal and conditional distributions, conditional moments, product and ratio moments, bivariate reliability and bivariate hazard rate functions. The maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) for parameters of the family is also carried out. The proposed bivariate family of distributions is studied for the Weibull baseline distributions giving rise to bivariate transmuted Weibull (BTW) distribution. The new bivariate transmuted Weibull distribution is explored in detail. Statistical properties of the new BTW distribution are studied which include the marginal and conditional distributions, product, ratio and conditional momenst. The hazard rate function of the BTW distribution is obtained. Parameter estimation of the BTW distribution is also done. Finally, real data application of the BTW distribution is given. It is observed that the proposed BTW distribution is a suitable fit for the data used.