Optimal Water Allocation of Surface and Ground Water Resources Under Climate Change with WEAP and IWOA Modeling

Water Resources Management - The water evaluation and planning (WEAP) approach and the invasive weed optimization algorithm (IWOA) are herein employed to determine the optimal operating policies in...     

Adaptation to Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Enhances Resistance of Oral Cancer Cells to Cisplatin by Up-Regulating Polymerase η and Increasing DNA Repair Efficiency

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response is an adaptive program to cope with cellular stress that disturbs the function and homeostasis of ER, which commonly occurs during cancer progression to late stage. Late-stage cancers, mostly requiring chemotherapy, often develop treatment resistance. Chemoresistance has been linked to ER stress response; however, most of the evidence has come from studies that correlate the expression of stress markers with poor prognosis or demonstrate proapoptosis by the knockdown of stress-responsive genes. Since ER stress in cancers usually persists and is essentially not induced by genetic manipulations, we used low doses of ER stress inducers at levels that allowed cell adaptation to occur in order to investigate the effect of stress response on chemoresistance. We found that prolonged tolerable ER stress promotes mesenchymal–epithelial transition, slows cell-cycle progression, and delays the S-phase exit. Consequently, cisplatin-induced apoptosis was significantly decreased in stress-adapted cells, implying their acquisition of cisplatin resistance. Molecularly, we found that proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) ubiquitination and the expression of polymerase η, the main polymerase responsible for translesion synthesis across cisplatin-DNA damage, were up-regulated in ER stress-adaptive cells, and their enhanced cisplatin resistance was abrogated by the knockout of polymerase η. We also found that a fraction of p53 in stress-adapted cells was translocated to the nucleus, and that these cells exhibited a significant decline in the level of cisplatin-DNA damage. Consistently, we showed that the nuclear p53 coincided with strong positivity of glucose-related protein 78 (GRP78) on immunostaining of clinical biopsies, and the cisplatin-based chemotherapy was less effective for patients with high levels of ER stress. Taken together, this study uncovers that adaptation to ER stress enhances DNA repair and damage tolerance, with which stressed cells gain resistance to chemotherapeutics.     

Crowding as an Agronomic Factor Determining the Development of Plants and the Productivity of Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.)

ABSTRACT

Nine sowing densities of linseed were compared in a two-year experiment. Self-regulation of the density of a linseed stand resulted in a differentiated branching of the plants. The number of capsules on a linseed shoot, as well as seeds in the capsule, and the number of seeds from the shoot were highly varied from year to year, and there is even a stronger differentiation in the weight of 1000 seeds. Linear relationships were noted between the mass of seeds from the linseed plant and the number of capsules. The yield of linseed was affected by both factors. An increasing sowing rate reduced the seed yield from the shoot and the plant. At lower seeding rates, the lateral shoots contributed in the seeds yield of the plant to a higher degree compared to the main ones.     

Inverse identification of constitutive parameters from heat source fields: A local approach applied to hyperelasticity

In this paper, a new inverse identification method of constitutive parameters is developed from full kinematic and thermal field measurements. It consists in reconstructing the heat source field from two different approaches by using the heat diffusion equation. The first one requires the temperature field measurement and the value of the thermophysical parameters. The second one is based on the kinematic field measurement and the choice of a thermo-hyperelastic model that contains the parameters to be identified. The identification is carried out at the local scale, ie, at any point of the heat source field, without using the boundary conditions. In the present work, the method is applied to the challenging case of hyperelasticity from a heterogeneous test. Due to large deformations undergone by the rubber specimen tested, a motion compensation technique is developed to plot the kinematic and the thermal fields at the same points before reconstructing the heterogeneous heat source field. In the present case, the constitutive parameter of the Neo-Hookean model has been identified, and its distribution has been characterized with respect to the strain state at the surface of a cross-shaped specimen.     

Sinusoidal disturbance rejection in chaotic planar oscillators

The main goal of this paper is to design a compensator able to restore the nominal behavior of a planar system, which is rendered chaotic by an unmeasurable sinusoidal disturbance input. To reach such a goal, some instruments, taken from algebraic geometry, are used to estimate the unmeasurable disturbance from the time derivatives of the output of the system and of the control input. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward optimization of a robust low-cost sulfonated-polyethersulfone containing layered double hydroxide for PEM fuel cells

Polyethersulphone (PES) is an aromatic thermoplastic, at low environmental impact, evaluated in this work as a promising candidate for new polymer electrolytes in the PEMFCs technology. A sulfonation procedure has been tuned in order to graft sulfonic acid groups on the polymer chains (sPES) and to make it hydrophilic. Homogeneous membranes with different polymer's sulfonation degrees (SD%) have demonstrated excellent mechanical properties and very low permeability toward methanol (important in the DMFCs), even if low proton conductivity. Nanocomposite sPES membranes were prepared by dispersion of highly hydrophilic lamellar particles such as layered double hydroxide (LDH) in the polymer. Deep investigations performed by a combination of PFG-NMR, EIS, XRD, DMA, and scanning electron microscopy have evidenced the exfoliation of the lamellae in polymer matrix. However, a certain anisotropy was evidenced both in the morphology and molecular diffusion, favored in the longitudinal direction (parallel to surface), while completely inhibited in the cross-section. This finding is most likely induced by the polymer structure, therefore particular attention must be paid to the choice of the filler and preparation of the composites. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47884.     

The Role of Cell Cycle Regulators in Cell Survival—Dual Functions of Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 20 and p21Cip1/Waf1

The mammalian cell cycle is important in controlling normal cell proliferation and the development of various diseases. Cell cycle checkpoints are well regulated by both activators and inhibitors to avoid cell growth disorder and cancerogenesis. Cyclin dependent kinase 20 (CDK20) and p21^Cip1/Waf1 are widely recognized as key regulators of cell cycle checkpoints controlling cell proliferation/growth and involving in developing multiple cancers. Emerging evidence demonstrates that these two cell cycle regulators also play an essential role in promoting cell survival independent of the cell cycle, particularly in those cells with a limited capability of proliferation, such as cardiomyocytes. These findings bring new insights into understanding cytoprotection in these tissues. Here, we summarize the new progress of the studies on these two molecules in regulating cell cycle/growth, and their new roles in cell survival by inhibiting various cell death mechanisms. We also outline their potential implications in cancerogenesis and protection in heart diseases. This information renews the knowledge in molecular natures and cellular functions of these regulators, leading to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of the associated diseases and the discovery of new therapeutic strategies.     

Synthesis of Long-Chain β-Lactones and Their Antibacterial Activities against Pathogenic Mycobacteria

In the quest for new antibacterial agents, a series of novel long- and medium-chain mono- and disubstituted β-lactones was developed. Their activity against three pathogenic mycobacteria—M. abscessus, M. marinum, and M. tuberculosis—was assessed by the resazurin microtiter assay (REMA). Among the 16 β-lactones synthesized, only 3-hexadecyloxetan-2-one (VM005) exhibited promising activity against M. abscessus, whereas most of the β-lactones showed interesting activities against M. marinum, similar to that of the classical antibiotic, isoniazid. Regarding M. tuberculosis, six compounds were found to be active against this mycobacterium, with β-lactone VM008 [trans-(Z)-3-(hexadec-7-en-1-yl)-4-propyloxetan-2-one] being the best growth inhibitor. The promising antibacterial activities of the best compounds in this series suggest that these molecules may serve as leads for the development of much more efficient antimycobacterial agents.     

Impact of the anode operating conditions on the liquid water distribution in the cathode gas diffusion layer

Previous experimental results indicate that the humidification conditions at the anode have an impact on the liquid water distribution in the cathode gas diffusion layer. Numerical simulations are developed to reproduce and analyze this effect. Results consistent with the experimental results are first obtained by playing with the partition coefficients of an advanced pore network model computing the liquid water formation and transfer in the cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL) for a large range of operating conditions. Then, a model for the full anode – cathode assembly is developed by combining the pore network model of the cathode GDL and a 1D model describing the heat and water transfer in the various components of the anode-cathode assembly. This enables one to generalize the dry – wet regime diagram introduced in a previous work by incorporating the effect of the humidity condition at the anode.