Expression of SLC26A9 in Airways and Its Potential Role in Asthma

SLC26A9 is an epithelial anion transporter with a poorly defined function in airways. It is assumed to contribute to airway chloride secretion and airway surface hydration. However, immunohistochemistry showing precise localization of SLC26A9 in airways is missing. Some studies report localization near tight junctions, which is difficult to reconcile with a chloride secretory function of SLC26A9. We therefore performed immunocytochemistry of SLC26A9 in sections of human and porcine lungs. Obvious apical localization of SLC26A9 was detected in human and porcine superficial airway epithelia, whereas submucosal glands did not express SLC26A9. The anion transporter was located exclusively in ciliated epithelial cells. Highly differentiated BCi-NS1 human airway epithelial cells grown on permeable supports also expressed SLC26A9 in the apical membrane of ciliated epithelial cells. BCi-NS1 cells expressed the major Cl⁻ transporting proteins CFTR, TMEM16A and SLC26A9 in about equal proportions and produced short-circuit currents activated by increases in intracellular cAMP or Ca²⁺. Both CFTR and SLC26A9 contribute to basal chloride currents in non-stimulated BCi-NS1 airway epithelia, with CFTR being the dominating Cl⁻ conductance. In wtCFTR-expressing CFBE human airway epithelial cells, SLC26A9 was partially located in the plasma membrane, whereas CFBE cells expressing F508del-CFTR showed exclusive cytosolic localization of SLC26A9. Membrane localization of SLC26A9 and basal chloride currents were augmented by interleukin 13 in wild-type CFTR-expressing cells, but not in cells expressing the most common disease-causing mutant F508del-CFTR. The data suggest an upregulation of SLC26A9-dependent chloride secretion in asthma, but not in the presence of F508del-CFTR.     

Characterization and corrosion protection properties of polypyrrole / montmorillonite electropolymerized onto aluminium alloy 1100

Films of Polypyrrole/Montmorillonite (PPy/MT) clays were electropolymerized potentiostatically on aluminium alloy 1100, using sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS) as a dopant. Two clay species were used: Na⁺-Montmorillonite (MT-Na) and modified-Montmorillonite (MT-M). The characterization of the PPy/MT films performed by XRD and TEM shows that the exfoliation method employed, as well the electrochemical polymerization method used in this work, allow nanocomposite materials to be obtained. The PPy/MT films were found to have less electrical conductivity than pure PPy. The corrosion protection of aluminium alloy 1100 covering PPy/MT was evaluated by electrochemical techniques in 0.05 mol L⁻¹ NaCl medium. The electrochemical parameters derived from the polarization curves, together with the EIS data, revealed that the corrosion resistance of PPy/clay coatings depends on the type and concentration of Montmorillonite employed. The best performance in the corrosion protection of the aluminum was achieved with PPy/MT films containing 1% of clay.     

A Review of Pathways for Building Fire Spread in the Wildland Urban Interface Part II: Response of Components and Systems and Mitigation Strategies in the United States

Structure loss in wildland fires has significantly increased over the past few decades, affected by increased development in rural areas, changing fuel management policies, and climate change, all of which are projected to increase in the future. This paper is Part II of a two-part review, which presents a summary of fundamental and applied research on pathways to fire spread in the wildland urban interface. Part I discussed the fundamentals of wildland fire spread via radiative heat transfer, direct flame contact, and firebrand exposure. Here in Part II, we cover the response of building components and systems, as well as mitigation strategies used to prevent fire spread into and within communities in the United States. Post-fire investigations, full-scale structural testing, individual component testing, and combined systems or assembly testing have been used to identify building component and system vulnerabilities such as roofs, vents, siding, decks, fences, and mulch. Using results from these tests and investigations at different scales, some knowledge has been gained on specific vulnerabilities and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, but a quantitative framework has not yet been established. On a community level, the layout of structures and the space between them has been shown to be incredibly important in mitigating wildfire risk. More locally, defensible space around homes has been effective in mitigating exposure from both radiation and direct flame contact. Firebrands still remain a challenge; however, many design recommendations have been proposed to harden structures against firebrand exposures. Recommendations for future research and development are also presented.     

A case-based approach for coordinated action selection in robot soccer

Designing coordinated robot behaviors in uncertain, dynamic, real-time, adversarial environments, such as in robot soccer, is very challenging. In this work we present a case-based reasoning approach for cooperative action selection, which relies on the storage, retrieval, and adaptation of example cases. We focus on cases of coordinated attacking passes between robots in the presence of the defending opponent robots. We present the case representation explicitly distinguishing between controllable and uncontrollable indexing features, corresponding to the positions of the team members and opponent robots, respectively. We use the symmetric properties of the domain to automatically augment the case library. We introduce a retrieval technique that weights the similarity of a situation in terms of the continuous ball positional features, the uncontrollable features, and the cost of moving the robots from the current situation to match the case controllable features. The case adaptation includes a best match between the positions of the robots in the past case and in the new situation. The robots are assigned an adapted position to which they move to maximize the match to the retrieved case. Case retrieval and reuse are achieved within the distributed team of robots through communication and sharing of own internal states and actions. We evaluate our approach, both in simulation and with real robots, in laboratory scenarios with two attacking robots versus two defending robots as well as versus a defender and a goalie. We show that we achieve the desired coordinated passing behavior, and also outperform a reactive action selection approach.     

Immunological determination of gliadin 33‐mer equivalent peptides in beers as a specific and practical analytical method to assess safety for celiac patients

BACKGROUND: Cereals used for beer manufacturing contain gluten, which is immunotoxic for celiac patients. The gluten remaining after processes of malting and brewing is mostly hydrolyzed, which makes practical evaluation of the immunotoxicity of the gluten pools challenging. RESULTS: We analyzed the presence of gluten peptides equivalent to the major immunotoxic protease‐resistant gliadin 33‐mer in 100 Belgium beers, using monoclonal antibodies (G12/A1). Immunochromatographic strips and enzyme‐linked immonosorbent assay G12/A1 methods estimated at least 20 ppm gluten equivalents in 90 beers and gluten‐free in 10 beers. The G12/A1 reactivity of beer high‐performance liquid chromatographic fractions correlated to the presence of T‐cell‐reactive epitopes identified by peptide sequencing. CONCLUSION: The determination of equivalent gliadin 33‐mer epitopes in beers has been shown to be practical, specific, and sensitive for the measurement of potential immunotoxicity for celiac patients. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Developing BP-driven web applications through the use of MDE techniques

Model driven engineering (MDE) is a suitable approach for performing the construction of software systems (in particular in the Web application domain). There are different types of Web applications depending on their purpose (i.e., document-centric, interactive, transactional, workflow/business process-based, collaborative, etc). This work focusses on business process-based Web applications in order to be able to understand business processes in a broad sense, from the lightweight business processes already addressed by existing proposals to long-running asynchronous processes. This work presents a MDE method for the construction of systems of this type. The method has been designed in two steps following the MDE principles. In the first step, the system is represented by means of models in a technology-independent manner. These models capture the different aspects of Web-based systems (these aspects refer to behaviour, structure, navigation, and presentation issues). In the second step, the model transformations (both model- to-model and model-to-text) are applied in order to obtain the final system in terms of a specific technology. In addition, a set of Eclipse-based tools has been developed to provide automation in the application of the proposed method in order to validate the proposal.     

NiMo/C Used as Magnetic Support for SILP Catalysts

In this work, supported ionic liquid (IL) phases catalysts were prepared based on Pd dispersed in IL phases supported on magnetic particles of nickel/molybdenum covered with carbon (NiMo/C). The magnetic support was prepared via CVD method at 800 °C. XRD analysis showed the phases of metallic nickel and molybdenum carbide. The presence of carbon in these materials was confirmed by TEM/EDS and thermogravimetric analysis (TG) analysis. Pd particles were dispersed in 1 and 2.5 wt% of the IL 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMIm·BF₄), which were immobilized on the support surface via impregnation method. TG analysis shows a weight loss between 300 and 420 °C attributed to the BMIm·BF₄, confirming the existence of IL on the support surface. The prepared materials were investigated in hydrogenations reactions of 1,5-cyclooctadiene and nitrobenzene, and the influence of IL on the activity and selectivity of these catalysts were observed. These materials have great potential for catalysis applications, because they bring together the advantages of the IL in the catalyst surface and the facility of magnetic materials separation.