Histone Methylation Marks on Circulating Nucleosomes as Novel Blood-Based Biomarker in Colorectal Cancer

Circulating nucleic acids (CNAs) are under investigation as a liquid biopsy in cancer as potential non-invasive biomarkers, as stable structure in circulation nucleosomes could be valuable sources for detection of cancer-specific alterations in histone modifications. Our interest is in histone methylation marks with a focus on colorectal cancer, one of the leading cancers respective the incidence and mortality. Our previous work included the analysis of trimethylations of lysine 9 on histone 3 (H3K9me3) and of lysine 20 on histone 4 (H4K20me3) by chromatin immuno- precipitation-related PCR in circulating nucleosomes. Here we asked whether global immunologic measurement of histone marks in circulation could be a suitable approach to show their potential as biomarkers. In addition to H3K9me3 and H4K20me3 we also measured H3K27me3 in plasma samples from CRC patients (n = 63) and cancer free individuals (n = 40) by ELISA-based methylation assays. Our results show that of three marks, the amounts of H3K27me3 (p = 0.04) and H4K20me3 (p < 0.001) were significantly lower in CRC patients than in healthy controls. For H3K9me3 similar amounts were measured in both groups. Areas under the curve (AUC) in receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves indicating the power of CRC detection were 0.620 for H3K27me3, 0.715 for H4K20me3 and 0.769 for the combination of both markers. In conclusion, findings of this preliminary study reveal the potential of blood-based detection of CRC by quantification of histone methylation marks and the additive effect of the marker combination.     

Varnish layer hardness of oriental beech (fagus orientalist L.) wood as affected by impregnation and bleaching

The impacts of impregnation and bleaching on the varnish layer hardness of Oriental beech (Fagus orientalist L.) wood were investigated. A number of bleaching combinations {[NaOH−H₂O₂], [NaOH−Ca(OH)₂−H₂O₂], [NaOH−MgSO₄−H₂O₂] [NaHSO₃−H₂C₂O₄], [NaSiO₃−H₂O₂], [KMnO₄+NaHSO₃+H₂O₃]} were applied at 18% concentration for bleaching to both impregnated and unimpregnated specimens of Oriental beech wood. Subsequently, water-based (WB) varnish was coated over the samples and the varnish layer hardness values were determined in accordance with ASTM D 4366-95. All of the chemicals used for bleaching reduced the surface hardness. However, after varnish coating, the hardness of most samples was similar to that of the varnish-coated natural (control) samples.     

A modified genetic algorithm for forecasting fuzzy time series

Fuzzy time series approaches are used when observations of time series contain uncertainty. Moreover, these approaches do not require the assumptions needed for traditional time series approaches. Generally, fuzzy time series methods consist of three stages, namely, fuzzification, determination of fuzzy relations, and defuzzification. Artificial intelligence algorithms are frequently used in these stages with genetic algorithms being the most popular of these algorithms owing to their rich operators and good performance. However, the mutation operator of a GA may cause some negative results in the solution set. Thus, we propose a modified genetic algorithm to find optimal interval lengths and control the effects of the mutation operator. The results of applying our new approach to real datasets show superior forecasting performance when compared with those obtained by other techniques.     

Surface analysis and adsorption behavior of caffeine as an environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitor at the copper/aqueous chloride solution interface

Abstract

Corrosion inhibitors based on environmentally friendly and harmless products are currently being studied and developed. The corrosion inhibition properties of caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) on copper corrosion in aqueous chloride solution (3.5?wt.% NaCl) are analysed here using stationary and transient electrochemical methods, and a theoretical study based on density functional theory is carried out. Caffeine is a very competitive compared to the chemical inhibitors that are often used for copper protection. Electrochemical and impedance experiments reveal that the protective efficiency of caffeine reaches a value of 96% at a concentration of 10^?2?mol L^?1. Based on these results, the Langmuir model appears to be the best representation of the adsorption of caffeine onto the copper surface. Scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to determine the surface morphology and the chemical composition of the copper surface in chloride media, in the absence and presence of caffeine. The results show the development of a mechanism of corrosion inhibition. In order to confirm the correlation between the inhibitory effect and the molecular structure of caffeine, quantum chemical parameters are used to calculate its electronic properties.     

The Effectiveness of Latent Semantic Analysis for Building Up a Bottom-up Taxonomy from Folksonomy Tags

In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of a semantic smoothing technique to organize folksonomy tags. Folksonomy tags have no explicit relations and vary because they form uncontrolled vocabulary. We discriminates so-called subjective tags like “cool” and “fun” from folksonomy tags without any extra knowledge other than folksonomy triples and use the level of tag generalization to form the objective tags into a hierarchy. We verify that entropy of folksonomy tags is an effective measure for discriminating subjective folksonomy tags. Our hierarchical tag allocation method guarantees the number of children nodes and increases the number of available paths to a target node compared to an existing tree allocation method for folksonomy tags.     

Emergence of photoluminescence on bulk MoS<Subscript>2</Subscript> by laser thinning and gold particle decoration

We demonstrate a facile and effective approach to significantly improve the photoluminescence of bulk MoS₂ via laser thinning followed by gold particle decoration. Upon laser thinning of exfoliated bulk MoS₂, photoluminescence emerges from the laser-thinned region. After further treatment with an AuCl₃ solution, gold particles self-assemble on the laser-thinned region and thick edges, further increasing the fluorescence of bulk MoS₂ 28 times and the Raman response 3 times. Such fluorescence enhancement can be attributed to both surface plasmon resonance and p-type doping induced by gold particles. The combination of laser thinning and AuCl₃ treatment enables the functionalization of bulk MoS₂ for optoelectronic applications. It can also provide a viable strategy for mask-free and area-selective p-type doping on single MoS₂ flakes.

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Integration of “Components” to Test Software Components

We present an ongoing research project aimed at developing a framework for component-based testing, in which we re-use and suitably combine some existing tools: the system architecture and the components are specified by the UML, and specifically the recently proposed UML Components methodology; the test cases are derived by applying the Cow_Suite, an environment for UML-based testing, previously conceived for the integration testing of OO systems; and the tests are codified and executed within the CDT, a framework under development, allowing for the decoupling between the abstract specification of tests, which is made against an architectural model, and their concrete execution, which needs to take into account the component implementations.