Theranostic Interpolation of Genomic Instability in Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is a diverse disease caused by mutations in multiple genes accompanying epigenetic aberrations of hazardous genes and protein pathways, which distress tumor-suppressor genes and the expression of oncogenes. Alteration in any of the several physiological mechanisms such as cell cycle checkpoints, DNA repair machinery, mitotic checkpoints, and telomere maintenance results in genomic instability. Theranostic has the potential to foretell and estimate therapy response, contributing a valuable opportunity to modify the ongoing treatments and has developed new treatment strategies in a personalized manner. “Omics” technologies play a key role while studying genomic instability in breast cancer, and broadly include various aspects of proteomics, genomics, metabolomics, and tumor grading. Certain computational techniques have been designed to facilitate the early diagnosis of cancer and predict disease-specific therapies, which can produce many effective results. Several diverse tools are used to investigate genomic instability and underlying mechanisms. The current review aimed to explore the genomic landscape, tumor heterogeneity, and possible mechanisms of genomic instability involved in initiating breast cancer. We also discuss the implications of computational biology regarding mutational and pathway analyses, identification of prognostic markers, and the development of strategies for precision medicine. We also review different technologies required for the investigation of genomic instability in breast cancer cells, including recent therapeutic and preventive advances in breast cancer.     

Anticonvulsant activity of furanocoumarins and the essential oil obtained from the fruits of Heracleum crenatifolium

The anticonvulsant activity of furanocoumarins, coumarin mixture and the essential oil obtained from the fruits of Heracleum crenatifolium was examined against maximal electroshock (MES)-induced seizures in mice. Bergapten showed significant anticonvulsant activity. The furanocoumarins isolated from the fruits of the plant were identified using thin-layer chromatography, melting points and spectroscopic methods (IR, MS, ¹H NMR) as isobergapten (1), pimpinellin (2), bergapten (3), isopimpinellin (4), sphondin (5) and byak-angelicol (6). The essential oil content of the fruits were found as 5.5%. Twenty-two compounds representing 99.3% of the essential oil obtained from the fruits of H. crenatifolium were determined and the major components were identified as octanol and octyl acetate (3.1% and 88.4% respectively) by GC and GC–MS.     

Natural lipid-lowering agents and their effects: an update

Hyperlipidemia is one of the main contributing factors in the development of cardiovascular diseases. The hunt for effective antihyperlipidemic drugs is still on with an intention of finding potent agents with meager adverse effects. For the past several decades, medicinal plants have been evaluated for lipid-lowering effects apart from synthetic approaches to develop newer antihyperlipidemic agents. This article highlights the work carried out on potential antihyperlipidemic agents from plant sources from 2006 till 2012 that were archived in Google Scholar and Science Direct database. Seventy-nine articles were included in the review after manual content curation. The review summarizes the investigations on medicinal plants, compounds and herbal formulations using various hyperlipidemic animal models or in humans, the research findings and possibility of chemotaxonomic occurrence of secondary metabolites responsible for the antihyperlipidemic activities within certain plant families.     

Comparison of estimates using record statistics from Weibull model: Bayesian and non-Bayesian approaches

This paper develops a Bayesian analysis in the context of record statistics values from the two-parameter Weibull distribution. The ML and the Bayes estimates based on record values are derived for the two unknown parameters and some survival time parameters e.g. reliability and hazard functions. The Bayes estimates are obtained based on a conjugate prior for the scale parameter and a discrete prior for the shape parameter of this model. This is done with respect to both symmetric loss function (squared error loss), and asymmetric loss function (linear-exponential (LINEX)) loss function. The maximum likelihood and the different Bayes estimates are compared via a Monte Carlo simulation study. A practical example consisting of real record values using the data from an accelerated test on insulating fluid reported by Nelson was used for illustration and comparison. Finally, Bayesian predictive density function, which is necessary to obtain bounds for predictive interval of future record is derived and discussed using a numerical example. The results may be of interest in a situation where only record values are stored.     

Lazy garbage collection of recovery state for fault-tolerantdistributed shared memory

We address the problem of garbage collection in a single-failure fault-tolerant home-based lazy release consistency (HLRC) distributed shared-memory (DSM) system based on independent checkpointing and logging. Our solution uses laziness in garbage collection and exploits consistency constraints of the HLRC memory model for low overhead and scalability. We prove safe bounds on the state that must be retained in the system to guarantee correct recovery after a failure. We devise two algorithms for garbage collection of checkpoints and logs, checkpoint garbage collection (CGC), and lazy log trimming (LLT). The proposed approach targets large-scale distributed shared-memory computing on local-area clusters of computers. The challenge lies in controlling the size of the logs and the number of checkpoints without global synchronization while tolerating transient disruptions in communication. Evaluation results for real applications show that it effectively bounds the number of past checkpoints to be retained and the size of the logs in stable storage     

Water reuse for irrigation from waste water treatment plants with seasonal varied operation modes.

Irrigation periods are usually limited to vegetation periods. The quality requirements for treated wastewater for disposal and for reuse are different. The reuse of water for irrigation allows partly the reuse of the wastewater's nutrients (N and P). Outside the irrigation period the water must be treated for disposal, thus nutrient removal is often required in order to avoid detrimental effects on the receiving surface water body. Only wastewater treatment plants with different operation modes for different seasons can realise these requirements. The nitrification is the most sensitive biological process in the aerobic wastewater treatment process. At low water temperatures the nitrifying bacteria need several weeks to re-start full nitrification after periods without NH4-removal. Therefore it is necessary to develop options for waste water treatment plants which allow a fast re-start of the nitrification process. Based on theoretical considerations and computer simulations of the activated sludge treatment process, one possibility for implementing a wastewater treatment plant with different seasonal operation modes is evaluated.     

An integrated approach for groundwater potential zoning in shallow fracture zone aquifers

This study presents an integrated approach for the identification of groundwater occurrences in shallow fracture zone (SFZ) aquifers using remote-sensing, geological, and geophysical data. The Central Eastern Desert of Egypt was selected as a test site for the present study. The distribution of major faults and shear zones was extracted from a fusion image generated by injecting high-spatial resolution phased array L-band synthetic aperture radar (PALSAR) images into Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper images. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) digital elevation model was processed to extract the drainage systems, slope, and topographic wetness index (TWI). The multidate PALSAR imagery acquired during rainy and dry seasons was used to estimate the relative soil moisture content. The lithology, fractures, drainage density, slope, TWI, and soil moisture content were used as thematic layers for groundwater occurrence in the SFZ aquifers. A GIS model of groundwater potential was developed by selecting the most probable locations for groundwater in each layer. The results indicate that the spatial distribution of the existing water wells is in agreement with the model where all wells fall in the regions of high groundwater potential zones. A geophysical survey was conducted using ground penetrating radar (GPR), indicating that the high groundwater potential zones are promising for drilling shallow wells. The adopted approach can be used as a cost-effective tool for groundwater exploration in the SFZ aquifers in the study area and in areas of similar geologic and hydrogeologic settings elsewhere.