Growth Effects of Some Platinum(II) Complexes with Sulfur-Containing Carrier Ligands on MCF7 Human Breast Cancer Cell Line upon Simultaneous Administration with Taxol

The platinum (II)complexes, cis-[PtCl(2)(CH(3)SCH(2)CH(2)SCH(3))] (Pt1), cis-[PtCl(2)(dmso)(2)] (dmso is dimethylsulfoxide; Pt2) and cis-[PtCl(2)(NH(3))(2)] (cisplatin), and taxol (T) have been tested at different equimolar concentrations. Cells were exposed to complexes for 2 h and left to recover in fresh medium for 24, 48 or 72 h. Growth inhibition was measured by tetrazolium WST1 assay Analyses of the cell cycle, and apoptosis were performed by flow cytometry, at the same exposure times. The IC50 value of each platinum(II) complex as well as combination index (CI; platinum(II) complex + taxol) for various cytotoxicity levels were determined by median effects analysis.MCF7 cells were found to be sensitive to both Pt1 and Pt2 complexe These cisplatin analogues influenced the cell growth more effectively as compared to cisplatin. Cytotoxic effect was concentration and time-dependent. Profound growth inhibitory effect was observed for Pt1 complex, across all its concentrations at all recovery periods. A plateau effect was achieved three days after treatment at Pt1 concentrations 相似文献   

Effect of xylose and nutrients concentration on ethanol production by a newly isolated extreme thermophilic bacterium

An extreme thermophilic ethanol-producing strain was isolated from an ethanol high-yielding mixed culture, originally isolated from a hydrogen producing reactor operated at 70 degrees C. Ethanol yields were assessed with increasing concentrations of xylose, up to 20 g/l. The ability of the strain to grow without nutrient addition (yeast extract, peptone and vitamins) was also assessed. The maximum ethanol yield achieved was 1.28 mol ethanol/mol xylose consumed (77% of the theoretical yield), at 2 g/l of initial xylose concentration. The isolate was able to grow and produce ethanol as the main fermentation product under most of the conditions tested, including in media lacking vitamins, peptone and yeast extract. The results indicate that this new organism is a promising candidate for the development of a second generation bio-ethanol production process.     

When users are IT experts too: the effects of joint IT competence and partnership on satisfaction with enterprise-level systems implementation

Enterprise-level information systems (IS) are fundamental to businesses. Unfortunately, implementing these large-scale systems is a complex and risky endeavor. As a result, these initiatives must tap the expertise and active involvement of both the IS department and the enterprise's functional areas. Past studies focusing on IS implementation teams consistently identify the IS department as the source of technical expertise and leadership, while functional department team members are typically relegated to the role of business experts. However, unlike the past, many business professionals are knowledgeable about information technology (IT) and are increasingly capable of contributing to IS implementations from a technical perspective as well as a business perspective. This study examines how IT competence held by both the IS department and the user department stakeholders contributes to user satisfaction with the enterprise-level system implementation. Specifically, this research introduces a theoretically grounded construct, joint IT competence, which emerges when the IS department and user department stakeholders integrate their individually held IT competences. The study's results empirically demonstrate that joint IT competence is a key driver of user satisfaction in enterprise-level IS implementations. Although not as significant as joint IT competence, results show that partner-based leadership between the IS department and user stakeholders also influences user satisfaction with IS implementations.     

Intensity‐curvature functional‐based digital high‐pass filters

The intensity‐curvature functional (ICF) of a model polynomial function is defined on a pixel‐by‐pixel basis by the ratio between the intensity‐curvature term before interpolation and the intensity‐curvature term after interpolation. Through the comparison with the traditional high‐pass filter (HPF), this work presents evidence that the ICFs of three model polynomial functions can be tuned as HPFs. The evidence consists of the mathematical characterization of the ICF‐based HPFs, qualitative comparisons in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the human brain, and the determination of the finite impulse response (FIR) of the filters. The ICF‐based HPFs can remove periodic noise in the low‐frequency band.     

Simulation of mixing effects in a VVER-1000 reactor

This work has been performed in the framework of the OECD/NEA thermalhydraulic benchmark V1000CT-2. This benchmark is related to fluid mixing in the reactor vessel during a MSLB accident scenario in a VVER-1000 reactor. Coolant mixing in a VVER-1000 V320 reactor was investigated in plant experiments during the commissioning of the Unit 6 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant. Non-uniform and asymmetric loop flow mixing in the reactor vessel has been observed in the event of symmetric main coolant pump operation. For certain flow conditions, the experimental evidence of an azimuthal shift of the main loop flows with respect to the cold leg axes (swirl) was found.Such asymmetric flow distribution was analyzed with the Trio_U code. Trio_U is a CFD code developed by the CEA Grenoble, aimed to supply an efficient computational tool to simulate transient thermalhydraulic turbulent flows encountered in nuclear systems. For the presented study, a LES approach was used to simulate turbulent mixing. Therefore, a very precise tetrahedral mesh with more than 10 million control volumes has been created.The Trio_U calculation has correctly reproduced the measured rotation of the flow when the CAD data of the constructed reactor pressure vessel where used. This is also true for the comparison of cold leg to assembly mixing coefficients. Using the design data, the calculated swirl was significantly underestimated. Due to this result, it might be possible to improve with CFD calculations the lower plenum flow mixing matrices which are usually used in system codes.     

Evaluation of Level of Confidence and Optimization of Roll-back Recovery with Checkpointing for Real-Time Systems

Increasing soft error rates for semiconductor devices manufactured in later technologies enforce the usage of fault tolerant techniques such as Roll-back Recovery with Checkpointing (RRC). As RRC introduces time overhead that increases the completion (execution) time, time constraints (deadlines) might be violated. This is a drawback for a class of computer systems where the correct operation is defined not only by providing the correct outcome of an operation but also by ensuring that the deadlines are met. These computer systems are referred to as real-time systems (RTSs). In general RTSs are classified as soft and hard RTSs depending on the consequences of violating the deadlines. For soft RTSs, where consequences of violating the deadlines are not very severe, research have focused on optimizing RRC and shown that it is possible to find the optimal number of checkpoints such that the average execution time (AET) is minimal. While minimal AET is important for soft RTSs, it is more important to provide a high probability that deadlines are met for hard RTSs, where consequences of violating the deadlines may be catastrophic. Hence, there is a need of probabilistic guarantees that jobs employing RRC complete before a given deadline. Traditionally, AET analysis have been used for soft RTSs and worst case execution time (WCET) analysis along with schedule feasibility have been used for hard RTSs. In this paper we introduce a reliability metric, Level of Confidence (LoC), which is equally applicable to both soft and hard RTS. LoC is used as a metric to evaluate to what extent a deadline is met. The main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, we present a mathematical framework for the evaluation of LoC when RRC is employed. Second, we provide a proof to verify the correctness of the proposed expression. Third, in the context of hard RTSs, we provide a method to obtain the optimal number of checkpoints that maximizes the LoC. Fourth, in the context of soft RTSs where the maximal LoC may not be needed, but instead some LoC requirement is needed, we present an optimization method for RRC that finds the number of checkpoints that results in the minimal completion time while the minimal completion time satisfies a given LoC requirement. Fifth, we use the proposed framework to evaluate and compare probabilistic guarantees when RRC is optimized towards soft RTSs.