Sensitivity to Cisplatin in Head and Neck Cancer Cells Is Significantly Affected by Patient-Derived Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are one of the most abundant and critical components of the tumor stroma. CAFs can impact many important steps of cancerogenesis and may also influence treatment resistance. Some of these effects need the direct contact of CAFs and cancer cells, while some involve paracrine signals. In this study, we investigated the ability of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) patient-derived CAFs to promote or inhibit the colony-forming ability of HNSCC cells. The effect of cisplatin on this promoting or inhibiting influence was also studied. The subsequent analysis focused on changes in the expression of genes associated with cancer progression. We found that cisplatin response in model HNSCC cancer cells was modified by coculture with CAFs, was CAF-specific, and different patient-derived CAFs had a different “sensitizing ratio”. Increased expression of VEGFA, PGE2S, COX2, EGFR, and NANOG in cancer cells was characteristic for the increase of resistance. On the other hand, CCL2 expression was associated with sensitizing effect. Significantly higher amounts of cisplatin were found in CAFs derived from patients who subsequently experienced a recurrence. In conclusion, our results showed that CAFs could promote and/or inhibit colony-forming capability and cisplatin resistance in HNSCC cells via paracrine effects and subsequent changes in gene expression of cancer-associated genes in cancer cells.     

Supervisory control based on minimal cuts and Petri net sub-controllers coordination

This paper addresses the synthesis of Petri net (PN) controller for the forbidden state transition problem with a new utilisation of the theory of regions. Moreover, as any method of control synthesis based on a reachability graph, the theory of regions suffers from the combinatorial explosion problem. The proposed work minimises the number of equations in the linear system of theory of regions and therefore one can reduce the computation time. In this paper, two different approaches are proposed to select minimal cuts in the reachability graph in order to synthesise a PN controller. Thanks to a switch from one cut to another, one can activate and deactivate the corresponding?PNcontroller. An application is implemented in a flexible manufacturing system to illustrate the present method. Finally, comparison with previous works with experimental results in obtaining a maximally permissive controller is presented.     

A new approach to 3D reconstruction without camera calibration

In this paper, we present a new approach for 3D scene reconstruction based on projective geometry without camera calibration. Previous works use at least six points to build two projective reference planes. Our contribution is to reduce the number of reference points to four by exploiting some geometrical shapes contained in the scene. The first implemented algorithm allows the reconstruction of a fourth point on each reference plane. The second algorithm is devoted to the 3D reconstruction. We obtained the expected good results and the proposed method is to equip a mobile robot moving in a structured environment.     

Compositional characteristics and aromatic profile of date palm seeds from seven varieties grown in Tunisia

This paper reports a discrimination study based on the physico‐chemical characteristics, fatty acids and profile of volatile compounds of the seeds from seven date palm varieties (Phoenix dactylifera L.) grown in Tunisia. Date seeds contained 10.49–14.76% moisture; 6.28–11.2% fat (on a dry weight basis); 2.67–12.85% protein; 0.91–6.06% reducing sugar; 0.61–2.98% sucrose and 0.97–1.17% ash. Gas liquid chromatography revealed that the oil fraction of the date palm seeds contained eighteen fatty acids, with oleic acid (30.77–42.50%) and lauric acid (18.51–27.48%) as the main unsaturated and saturated ones. Volatile profile showed differences among varieties. In total, forty‐five compounds were identified, mainly alcohols, aldehydes and unsaturated hydrocarbons ones. This study provides evidence that the seeds of date may be a potential source of valuable nutrients with interesting functionality.     

Passivity-based current controller design for a permanent-magnet synchronous motor

The control of a permanent-magnet synchronous motor is a nontrivial issue in AC drives, because of its nonlinear dynamics and time-varying parameters. Within this paper, a new passivity-based controller designed to force the motor to track time-varying speed and torque trajectories is presented. Its design avoids the use of the Euler–Lagrange model and destructuring since it uses a flux-based dq modelling, independent of the rotor angular position. This dq model is obtained through the three-phase abc model of the motor, using a Park transform. The proposed control law does not compensate the model’s workless force terms which appear in the machine’s dq model, as they have no effect on the system’s energy balance and they do not influence the system’s stability properties. Another feature is that the cancellation of the plant’s primary dynamics and nonlinearities is not done by exact zeroing, but by imposing a desired damped transient. The effectiveness of the proposed control is illustrated by numerical simulation results.     

Four-week short chain fructo-oligosaccharides ingestion leads to increasing fecal bifidobacteria and cholesterol excretion in healthy elderly volunteers

Background  

Short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides (scFOS) are increasingly used in human diet for their prebiotic properties. We aimed at investigating the effects of scFOS ingestion on the colonic microflora and oro-fecal transit time in elderly healthy humans.     

Performance optimization of a photovoltaic induction motor pumping system

The performances of a photovoltaic pumping system based on an induction motor are degraded once insolation varies far from the value called nominal, where the system was sized. To surmount this handicap, an improvement of these performances by the optimization of the motor efficiency is described in this paper. The results obtained are compared with those of similar work pieces presented in the literature where the motor effeciency and air gap flux where optimized separatly. The simulation results show that the proposed system allows at the same time to combine the performances of the system with constant efficiency and the simplicity of implementation provided by the system with constant airgap flux.     

Study and characterization of porous copper oxide produced by electrochemical anodization for radiometric heat absorber

The aim of this work is to optimize the different parameters for realization of an absorbing cavity to measure the incident absolute laser energy. Electrochemical oxidation is the background process that allowed the copper blackening. A study of the blackened surface quality was undertaken using atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis and ultraviolet-visible-infrared spectrophotometry using a Shimadzu spectrophotometer. A two-dimensional and three-dimensional visualization by AFM of the formed oxide coating showed that the copper surfaces became porous after electrochemical etching with different roughness. This aspect is becoming more and more important with decreasing current density anodization. In a 2 mol L ^-1 of NaOH solution, at a temperature of 90°C, and using a 16 mA cm² constant density current, the copper oxide formed has a reflectivity of around 3% in the spectral range between 300 and 1,800 nm. Using the ‘mirage effect’ technique, the obtained Cu₂O diffusivity and thermal conductivity are respectively equal to (11.5 ± 0.5) 10 to 7 m² s^-1 and (370 ± 20) Wm^-1 K^-1. This allows us to consider that our Cu₂O coating is a good thermal conductor. The results of the optical and thermal studies dictate the choice of the cavity design. The absorbing cavity is a hollow cylinder machined to its base at an angle of 30°. If the included angle of the plane is 30° and the interior surface gives specular reflection, an incoming ray parallel to the axis will undergo five reflections before exit. So the absorption of the surface becomes closely near 0.999999.     

Growth and characterization of hydroxyapatite nanorice on TiO2 nanofibers

Hydroxyapatite (HA) coating with nanoparticles like nanorice is fabricated on chemically pretreated titanium (Ti) surface, through an electrochemical deposition approach, for biomaterial applications. The Ti surface was chemically patterned with anatase TiO₂ nanofibers. These nanofibers were prepared by in situ oxidation of Ti foils in a concentrated solution of H₂O₂ and NaOH, followed by proton exchange and calcinations. Afterward, TiO₂ nanofibers on Ti substrate were coated with HA nanoparticles like nanorice. The obtained samples were annealed at high temperature to produce inter diffusion between TiO₂ and HA layers. The resultant layers were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), corrosion tests in SBF solution, and Electron Probe Micro Analysis (EPMA). It was found that only Ti from the titanium substrate diffuses into the HA coating and a good corrosion resistance in simulated body fluid was obtained.