Sanguinarine Inhibition of TNF-α-Induced CCL2, IKBKE/NF-κB/ERK1/2 Signaling Pathway,and Cell Migration in Human Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells

Angiogenesis is a process that drives breast cancer (BC) progression and metastasis, which is linked to the altered inflammatory process, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). In targeting inflammatory angiogenesis, natural compounds are a promising option for managing BC. Thus, this study was designed to determine the natural alkaloid sanguinarine (SANG) potential for its antiangiogenic and antimetastatic properties in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells. The cytotoxic effect of SANG was examined in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cell models at a low molecular level. In this study, SANG remarkably inhibited the inflammatory mediator chemokine CCL2 in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cells. Furthermore, qRT-PCR confirmed with Western analysis studies showed that mRNA CCL2 repression was concurrent with reducing its main regulator IKBKE and NF-κB signaling pathway proteins in both TNBC cell lines. The total ERK1/2 protein was inhibited in the more responsive MDA-MB-231 cells. SANG exhibited a higher potential to inhibit cell migration in MDA-MB-231 cells compared to MDA-MB-468 cells. Data obtained in this study suggest a unique antiangiogenic and antimetastatic effect of SANG in the MDA-MB-231 cell model. These effects are related to the compound’s ability to inhibit the angiogenic CCL2 and impact the ERK1/2 pathway. Therefore, SANG use may be recommended as a component of the therapeutic strategy for TNBC.     

DeepHP: A New Gastric Mucosa Histopathology Dataset for Helicobacter pylori Infection Diagnosis

Emerging deep learning-based applications in precision medicine include computational histopathological analysis. However, there is a lack of the required training image datasets to generate classification and detection models. This phenomenon occurs mainly due to human factors that make it difficult to obtain well-annotated data. The present study provides a curated public collection of histopathological images (DeepHP) and a convolutional neural network model for diagnosing gastritis. Images from gastric biopsy histopathological exams were used to investigate the performance of the proposed model in detecting gastric mucosa with Helicobacter pylori infection. The DeepHP database comprises 394,926 histopathological images, of which 111 K were labeled as Helicobacter pylori positive and 283 K were Helicobacter pylori negative. We investigated the classification performance of three Convolutional Neural Network architectures. The models were tested and validated with two distinct image sets of 15% (59K patches) chosen randomly. The VGG16 architecture showed the best results with an Area Under the Curve of 0.998%. The results showed that CNN could be used to classify histopathological images from gastric mucosa with marked precision. Our model evidenced high potential and application in the computational pathology field.     

A diversity combining DS/CDMA system with convolutional encodingand Viterbi decoding

Averaged diversity combining is applied to an asynchronous DS/CDMA system using convolutional encoding and Viterbi decoding. A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code is included in the scheme to trigger retransmission requests. Multiple received packets are combined on a bit by bit basis to form a single, more reliable packet. The error correcting decoder operates on the combined packet, as opposed to the most recently received individual packet (e.g., as in a type-I hybrid ARQ protocol), substantially increasing the probability of acceptance with each additional transmission. We show that the proposed technique allows a significant increase in the CDMA system capacity, throughput, and reliability     

Effect of (R+, X–) salts addition on nickel corrosion in 1M sulfuric acid medium

We used the electrochemical techniques to study the effect of the addition of four salts, K⁺,Cl^?, K⁺,Br^?, K⁺,I^? and C₈H₁₇Ph₃P⁺,I^?, on the corrosion behaviour of nickel when submitted to 1M sulphuric acid medium. After one hour of immersion time, we noted an acceleration of nickel corrosion process after the addition of K⁺,Cl^? and K⁺,Br^? in the 1M H₂SO₄ electrolyte. K⁺,I^? exhibited an inhibition of the anodic Ni corrosion process whereas the phosphonium iodine (R⁺,I^?) acts simultaneously on both processes: it is a mixed inhibitor. Such result is due to the adsorption of the alkyl group C₈H₁₇ which limited oxygen diffusion. EIS characterization of Ni exhibited surfaces after iodine salts addition allowed us simulating the resulting interfaces by electrical equivalent circuits. We concluded that (K⁺,I^?) addition decreased the material corrosion rate without changing the alteration mechanism. That result is due to the formation of NiI at the electrode surface. On the other hand, phosphonium iodine addition modifies the interface behaviour. In fact, the alkyl part of the organic iodine adsorbs at the surface preserving it against the corrosive action of the sulfuric acid.     

Reliable and Adaptive Distributed Public-Key Management Infrastructure for the Internet of Things

Wireless Personal Communications - The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging paradigm in the world of computer networks, where physical objects are connected over the Internet. Given the huge...     

MOPT: list-based heuristic for scheduling workflows in cloud environment

Cloud computing is a popular and widely adopted computing platform for the execution of scientific workflows as it provides flexible infrastructure and offers access to collection of autonomous heterogeneous resources. Effective scheduling of computationally complex workflows which contain many interconnected tasks is a complex problem and becomes more challenging in cloud environment. Optimal solutions can be obtained by considering not only the heterogeneity of computation costs involved, but also by taking into account the communication costs among the tasks in a way that schedule length of the application is reduced. In this paper, we propose a list scheduling heuristic, namely minimal optimistic processing time (MOPT), with optimized duplication approach. The additional feature is introduced for the entry task and is applied only in scenarios in which duplication is more practical and effective. The prioritization phase of the proposed work is based on an optimistic processing time matrix that is used for ranking of the tasks. The algorithm has same time complexity as state-of-the-art existing algorithms, but notable improvements are acquired in terms of makespan and other performance evaluation parameters. Extensive experimental analysis of the proposed algorithm is carried out using synthesized graphs and graphs from the real-world applications. The results prove that MOPT achieves quality schedules with reduced makespans. As communication cost among the tasks grows higher, performance of the proposed algorithm becomes more effective, thus providing the evidence that the MOPT algorithm is well-suited for communication-intensive applications.

     

Novel soft bending actuator-based power augmentation hand exoskeleton controlled by human intention

This article presents the development of a soft material power augmentation wearable robot using novel bending soft artificial muscles. This soft exoskeleton was developed as a human hand power augmentation system for healthy or partially hand disabled individuals. The proposed prototype serves healthy manual workers by decreasing the muscular effort needed for grasping objects. Furthermore, it is a power augmentation wearable robot for partially hand disabled or post-stroke patients, supporting and augmenting the fingers’ grasping force with minimum muscular effort in most everyday activities. This wearable robot can fit any adult hand size without the need for any mechanical system changes or calibration. Novel bending soft actuators are developed to actuate this power augmentation device. The performance of these actuators has been experimentally assessed. A geometrical kinematic analysis and mathematical output force model have been developed for the novel actuators. The performance of this mathematical model has been proven experimentally with promising results. The control system of this exoskeleton is created by hybridization between cascaded position and force closed-loop intelligent controllers. The cascaded position controller is designed for the bending actuators to follow the fingers in their bending movements. The force controller is developed to control the grasping force augmentation. The operation of the control system with the exoskeleton has been experimentally validated. EMG signals were monitored during the experiments to determine that the proposed exoskeleton system decreased the muscular efforts of the wearer.     

Mathematical programming models for scheduling in a CPU/FPGA architecture with heterogeneous communication delays

This paper deals with the mathematical modelling of a scheduling problem in a heterogeneous CPU/FPGA architecture with heterogeneous communication delays in order to minimize the makespan, \(C_{max}\). This study was motivated by the quality of the available solvers for Mixed Integer Program. The proposed model includes the communication delay constraints in a heterogeneous case, depending on both tasks and computing units. These constraints are linearized without adding any extra variables and the obtained linear model is reduced to speed-up the solving with CPLEX up to 60 times. Computational results show that the proposed model is promising. For an average sized problem of up to 50 tasks and five computing units the solving time under CPLEX is a few seconds.     

Biological treatment of saline wastewaters from marine‐products processing factories by a fixed‐bed reactor

Wastewaters generated by a factory processing marine products are characterized by high concentrations of organic compounds and salt constituents (>30 g dm^?3). Biological treatment of these saline wastewaters in conventional systems usually results in low chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency, because of the plasmolysis of the organisms. In order to overcome this problem a specific flora was adapted to the wastewater from the fish‐processing industry by a gradual increase in salt concentrations. Biological treatment of this effluent was then studied in a continuous fixed biofilm reactor. Experiments were conducted at different organic loading rates (OLR), varying from 250 to 1000 mg COD dm^?3 day^?1. Under low OLR (250 mg COD dm^?3 day^?1), COD and total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiencies were 92.5 and 95.4%, respectively. Thereafter, fluctuations in COD and TOC were observed during the experiment, provoked by the progressive increase of OLR and the nature of the wastewater introduced. High COD (87%) and TOC (99%) removal efficiencies were obtained at 1000 mg COD dm^?3 day^?1. © 2002 Society of Chemical Industry     

Adsorption and kinetic studies of methylene blue on modified HUSY zeolite and an amorphous mixture of γ-alumina and silica

ABSTRACT

Our work focuses on the study of the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) on adsorbents based on zeolite HUSY and (γAl₂O₃-SiO₂). To optimize the process of removing MB onto Ni/Co USY, different parameters were studied such as contact time, initial pH, initial dye concentration, zero charge’s point, and adsorbent dosage. The adsorption isotherm follows the Langmuir model. The maximum adsorption capacities of MB were 59.88 mg g^?1 for Ni/Co USY and 43.86 mg g^?1 for Ni/Co (γAl-Si) at 298°K. The thermodynamic parameters and activation energy’s values obtained suggested that the adsorption was a physical process, spontaneous, and endothermic in nature. MB adsorption on Ni/Co USY may occur via electrostatic interaction, hydrogen bonding, and Lewis acid–base interaction.