A Novel Artificially Humanized Anti-Cripto-1 Antibody Suppressing Cancer Cell Growth

Cripto-1 is a member of the EGF-CFC/FRL1/Cryptic family and is involved in embryonic development and carcinogenesis. We designed a novel anti-Cripto-1 artificial antibody and assessed the recognition to the antigen and the potential to suppress the growth of cancer stem cells. First, single chain antibody clones were isolated by bio-panning with the affinity to recombinant Cripto-1 protein from our original phage-display library. Then, the variable regions of heavy chain VH and light chain VL in each clone were fused to constant regions of heavy chain CH and light chain CL regions respectively. These fused genes were expressed in ExpiCHO-S cells to produce artificial humanized antibodies against Cripto-1. After evaluation of the expression levels, one clone was selected and the anti-Cripto-1 antibody was produced and purified. The purified antibody showed affinity to recombinant Cripto-1 at 1.1 pmol and immunoreactivity to cancer tissues and cell lines. The antibody was available to detect the immunoreactivity in tissue microarrays of malignant tumors as well as in Cripto-1 overexpressing cells. Simultaneously, the antibody exhibited the potential to suppress the growth of human colon cancer derived GEO cells overexpressing Cripto-1 with IC₅₀ at approximately 110 nM. The artificially humanized antibody is proposed to be a good candidate to target cancer cells overexpressing Cripto-1.     

Index-Based Cache Coherence Protocol

A multiprocessor envirorLment may encounter many problems such as deadlock, load balancing and cache coherence. However, the latter is considered the most dangerous if not properly designed, the system works naturally but generates inaccurate results. This occurs if obsolete versions of a memory block are used. Users may not be aware of the presence of such problem. Two main approaches are known to maintain data consistency： namely, snoopy and directory-based protocols. Each approach has its advantages and limitations. This paper proposes a new technique that considers both previously mentioned approaches. The network architecture is slightly updated by adding an index table to each processor. The proposed protocol is expected to reduce the access time, decrease the number of accesses to main memory, maintain data consistency, and assure the usage of the most recent value of a shared variable.     

A performance evaluation of a fault-tolerant path recommendation protocol for smart transportation system

Recommending traveling vehicles to take a certain path towards their targeted destinations have received great interest recently. At the downtown area several paths can lead to the same located destination, this is due to the grid-layout architecture of modern downtowns. Drivers always wish to reach their destinations as fast as possible and without traveling drastically long distance or without consuming extra fuel. The best path towards any destination is determined based on the relative location of the vehicle from its destination and based on other vehicles traffic distribution on the road network. Although numerous studies have investigated this issue over the road network, the communication failures and their effects on the obtained path have been neglected in those previous studies. In this paper, we investigate these potential faults and their effects on the correctness of the selected paths. We then proposed a new protocol to tackle these potential failures while selecting the best path towards each destination over the road network, fault tolerant path recommendation protocol (FT-PR). From the experimental results, we can see that the FT-PR protocol has a higher success ratio than previous path recommendation protocols, such as ICOD. This is demonstrated by obtaining paths with shorter traveling time and shorter traveling distance. The FT-PR protocol also eliminates extra loops over the road network in each selected path.     

Biochar as a filler in mixed matrix materials: Synthesis,characterization, and applications

The use of mixed-matrix materials (MMM) has become a major topic of research in recent years, due to unique properties achieved in these composites. In this work, biochar from sunflower seed hull pyrolysis and biochar/polysulfone (PSF) MMMs were produced and characterized. The optimal pyrolysis temperature for biochar production was determined to be 500 °C. The resulting biochar properties were an iodine number of 203 mg/g and a pore volume of 0.595 mL/g. In MMM fabrication, the use 4% ethanol as nonsolvent in the wet phase inversion process increased the glass transition temperature by 8 °C, indicating improved biochar/PSF interaction. The presence of biochar was shown to create pores in otherwise dense surfaces. The critical surface energy was also increased by the addition of biochar from 28.6 mN/m in pristine PSF to 35.7 mN/m in biochar/PSF MMMs. We identified and discussed several potential applications based on the determined properties. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48027.     

An efficient cooperative technique for power-constrained multiuser wireless network

Cooperative communication plays an important role in wireless networks by improving network connectivity, spectrum efficiency, power, and communication reliability. Moreover, cooperative communication also facilitates the development of a well-organized approach in order to improve the quality of wireless terminals. Besides, it enables the utilisation of communication resources by allowing the nodes and pathways in a network to cooperate with one another via data transmissions. To control a wireless network, cooperative communication must manage its power to improve a network’s energy efficiency, capacity and reliability. When information is transmitted at a higher power, this decreases the lifespans of both the nodes and the network itself. Thus, controlling over the transmission of power is essential to obtain a sufficient level of bit-error-rate (BER) performance at the receiver. Relay nodes can improve system performance by reducing power consumption. Moreover, the decode-and-forward method is one of the best cooperative relay protocols that can be used to achieve better system performance in power constraints and BERs. In the present paper, system model containing source, destination and relay node is analysed. One cooperative scheme which including decode and forward is employed and investigated. At the experimental and simulation levels, the present paper showed that the power in the transmitters was observed and calculated in order to show the savings which are resulting from the use of relay nodes.     

An efficient dynamic traffic light scheduling algorithm considering emergency vehicles for intelligent transportation systems

Traffic lights have been installed throughout road networks to control competing traffic flows at road intersections. These traffic lights are primarily intended to enhance vehicle safety while crossing road intersections, by scheduling conflicting traffic flows. However, traffic lights decrease vehicles’ efficiency over road networks. This reduction occurs because vehicles must wait for the green phase of the traffic light to pass through the intersection. The reduction in traffic efficiency becomes more severe in the presence of emergency vehicles. Emergency vehicles always take priority over all other vehicles when proceeding through any signalized road intersection, even during the red phase of the traffic light. Inexperienced or careless drivers may cause an accident if they take inappropriate action during these scenarios. In this paper, we aim to design a dynamic and efficient traffic light scheduling algorithm that adjusts the best green phase time of each traffic flow, based on the real-time traffic distribution around the signalized road intersection. This proposed algorithm has also considered the presence of emergency vehicles, allowing them to pass through the signalized intersection as soon as possible. The phases of each traffic light are set to allow any emergency vehicle approaching the signalized intersection to pass smoothly. Furthermore, scenarios in which multiple emergency vehicles approach the signalized intersection have been investigated to select the most efficient and suitable schedule. Finally, an extensive set of experiments have been utilized to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm.     

A novel optimized neutrosophic <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-means using genetic algorithm for skin lesion detection in dermoscopy images

This paper implemented a new skin lesion detection method based on the genetic algorithm (GA) for optimizing the neutrosophic set (NS) operation to reduce the indeterminacy on the dermoscopy images. Then, k-means clustering is applied to segment the skin lesion regions. Therefore, the proposed method is called optimized neutrosophic k-means (ONKM). On the training images set, an initial value of \(\alpha \) in the \(\alpha \)-mean operation of the NS is used with the GA to determine the optimized \(\alpha \) value. The Jaccard index is used as the fitness function during the optimization process. The GA found the optimal \(\alpha \) in the \(\alpha \)-mean operation as \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}} =0.0014\) in the NS, which achieved the best performance using five fold cross-validation. Afterward, the dermoscopy images are transformed into the neutrosophic domain via three memberships, namely true, indeterminate, and false, using \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}}\). The proposed ONKM method is carried out to segment the dermoscopy images. Different random subsets of 50 images from the ISIC 2016 challenge dataset are used from the training dataset during the fivefold cross-validation to train the proposed system and determine \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}}\). Several evaluation metrics, namely the Dice coefficient, specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy, are measured for performance evaluation of the test images using the proposed ONKM method with \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}} =0.0014\) compared to the k-means, and the \(\gamma \)–k-means methods. The results depicted the dominance of the ONKM method with \(99.29\pm 1.61\%\) average accuracy compared with k-means and \(\gamma \)–k-means methods.     

Thermodynamics of Nanoscale Calcium and Strontium Titanate Perovskites

The surface enthalpies of nanocrystalline CaTiO₃ and SrTiO₃ perovskites were determined using high‐temperature oxide melt solution calorimetry in conjunction with water adsorption calorimetry. The nanocrystalline samples were synthesized by a hydrothermal method and characterized using powder X‐ray diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area measurements. The integral heats of water vapor adsorption on the surfaces of nanocrystalline CaTiO₃ and SrTiO₃ are ?78.63 ± 4.71 kJ/mol and ?69.97 ± 4.43 kJ/mol, respectively. The energies of the hydrous and anhydrous surfaces are 2.49 ± 0.12 J/m² and 2.79 ± 0.13 J/m² for CaTiO₃ and 2.55 ± 0.15 J/m² and 2.85 ± 0.15 J/m² for SrTiO₃, respectively. The stability of the perovskite compounds in this study is discussed according to the lattice energy and tolerance factor approach. The energetics of different perovskites suggest that the formation enthalpy becomes more exothermic and surface energy increases with an increase in ionic radius of the “A” site cation (Ca, Sr, and Ba), or with the tolerance factor. PbTiO₃ shows a lower surface energy, weaker water binding, and a less exothermic enthalpy of formation than the alkaline‐earth perovskites.     

Novel Hybrid 1,2,4- and 1,2,3-Triazoles Targeting Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Enoyl Acyl Carrier Protein Reductase (InhA): Design,Synthesis, and Molecular Docking

Tuberculosis (TB) caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis is still a serious public health concern around the world. More treatment strategies or more specific molecular targets have been sought by researchers. One of the most important targets is M. tuberculosis’ enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase InhA which is considered a promising, well-studied target for anti-tuberculosis medication development. Our team has made it a goal to find new lead structures that could be useful in the creation of new antitubercular drugs. In this study, a new class of 1,2,3- and 1,2,4-triazole hybrid compounds was prepared. Click synthesis was used to afford 1,2,3-triazoles scaffold linked to 1,2,4-triazole by fixable mercaptomethylene linker. The new prepared compounds have been characterized by different spectroscopic tools. The designed compounds were tested in vitro against the InhA enzyme. At 10 nM, the inhibitors 5b, 5c, 7c, 7d, 7e, and 7f successfully and totally (100%) inhibited the InhA enzyme. The IC₅₀ values were calculated using different concentrations. With IC₅₀ values of 0.074 and 0.13 nM, 7c and 7e were the most promising InhA inhibitors. Furthermore, a molecular docking investigation was carried out to support antitubercular activity as well as to analyze the binding manner of the screened compounds with the target InhA enzyme’s binding site.     

Tackling increased CO2 concentration in feeds for existing acid gas removal units: A simulation study based on a customized CO2 kinetics model

A Middle East-based amine sweetening unit, with an overall capacity of about 2.2 BSCFD of gas, is among the world’s largest process plants and currently processes sour gas with 10 mol% of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) put together. Current expectation is that acid gas contents in the feed may increase beyond the design limit of the plant. The present work is an effort to quantify the effects of the feed gas CO₂ increase on the plant and to proffer solutions to handle these effects efficiently. We revised the kinetics of amine-based CO₂ absorption correlation of an existing model using real-data-driven parameters re-estimation. Evolutionary technique that employs particle swarm optimization algorithm is used for this purpose. The new CO₂ kinetic model is inserted in a first-principle process simulator, ProMax® V4.0, in order to analyze various solutions necessary to mitigate the operational challenges due to increased feed CO₂. The process plant with present design and operating conditions is determined to handle up to 8.45 mol% CO₂ contents in the sour gas feed. Further results revealed that methyldiethanolamine, diethanolamine, and dimethyl ether propylene glycol (DEPG) could not handle this high feed CO₂ challenge, even at maximum (design) steam and solvent usage. However, diglycolamine exclusively renders the solution as it treats high CO₂ feed gas efficiently with allowable utility consumption, while satisfying the constraints imposed by product gas specifications.