Electrical behaviour, characteristics and properties of anodic aluminium oxide films coloured by nickel electrodeposition

Porous anodic films on 1050 aluminium substrate were coloured by AC electrodeposition of nickel. Several experiments were performed at different deposition voltages and nickel concentrations in the electrolyte in order to correlate the applied electrical power to the electrical behaviour, as well as the characteristics and properties of the coatings. The content of nickel inside the coatings reached 1.67 g/m2, depending on the experimental conditions. According to the applied AC voltage in comparison with the threshold voltage Ut, the coating either acted only as a capacitor when U\Ut and, when U[Ut, the behaviour during the anodic and cathodic parts of the power sine wave was different. In particular, due to the semi-conducting characteristics of the barrier layer, additional oxidation of the aluminium substrate occurred during the anodic part of the electrical signal, whilst metal deposition (and solvent reduction) occurred during the cathodic part; these mechanisms correspond to the blocked and pass directions of the barrier layer/electrolyte junction, respectively

Design, synthesis and characterization of novel fluorinated styryl chromones

225-228(E)-3-(3-(Trifluoromethyl)-5-nitrophenyl)acrylic acid 1 when treated with substituted 2-hydroxyacetophenones 2 in dry pyridine and POCl3 affords compound 3 which when reacted with pyridine/KOH by B. V. transformation gives 4. Compound 4 on refluxing with acetic acid in HCl gives 5. The structures of all synthesized compounds have been confirmed by spectroscopic techniques

Designing and implementing sample and data collection for an international genetics study: the Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (T1DGC)

Background and Purpose The Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (T1DGC) is an international project whose primary aims are to: (a) discover genes that modify type 1 diabetes risk; and (b) expand upon the existing genetic resources for type 1 diabetes research. The initial goal was to collect 2500 affected sibling pair (ASP) families worldwide

Analgesic antipyretic use among young children in the TEDDY study: no association with islet autoimmunity

Background: The use of analgesic antipyretics (ANAP) in children have long been a matter of controversy. Data on their practical use on an individual level has, however, been scarce. There are indications of possible effects on glucose homeostasis and immune function related to the use of ANAP. The aim of this study was to analyze patterns of analgesic antipyretic use across the clinical centers of The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) prospective cohort study and test if ANAP use was a risk factor for islet autoimmunity.Methods: Data were collected for 8542 children in the first 2.5 years of life. Incidence was analyzed using logistic regression with country and first child status as independent variables. Holm's procedure was used to adjust for multiplicity of intercountry comparisons. Time to autoantibody seroconversion was analyzed using a Cox proportional hazards model with cumulative analgesic use as primary time dependent covariate of interest. For each categorization, a generalized estimating equation (GEE) approach was used.Results: Higher prevalence of ANAP use was found in the U.S. (95.7%) and Sweden (94.8%) compared to Finland (78.1%) and Germany (80.2%). First-born children were more commonly given acetaminophen (OR 1.26; 95% CI 1.07, 1.49; p = 0.007) but less commonly Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAID) (OR 0.86; 95% CI 0.78, 0.95; p = 0.002). Acetaminophen and NSAID use in the absence of fever and infection was more prevalent in the U.S. (40.4%; 26.3% of doses) compared to Sweden, Finland and Germany (p < 0.001). Acetaminophen or NSAID use before age 2.5 years did not predict development of islet autoimmunity by age 6 years (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.99-1.09; p = 0.27). In a sub-analysis, acetaminophen use in children with fever weakly predicted development of islet autoimmunity by age 3 years (HR 1.05; 95% CI 1.01-1.09; p = 0.024).Conclusions: ANAP use in young children is not a risk factor for seroconversion by age 6 years. Use of ANAP is widespread in young children, and significantly higher in the U. S. compared to other study sites, where use is common also in absence of fever and infection

alphabeta T cell receptors as predictors of health and disease

The diversity of antigen receptors and the specificity it underlies are the hallmarks of the cellular arm of the adaptive immune system. T and B lymphocytes are indeed truly unique in their ability to generate receptors capable of recognizing virtually any pathogen. It has been known for several decades that T lymphocytes recognize short peptides derived from degraded proteins presented by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules at the cell surface. Interaction between peptide-MHC (pMHC) and the T cell receptor (TCR) is central to both thymic selection and peripheral antigen recognition. It is widely assumed that TCR diversity is required, or at least highly desirable, to provide sufficient immune coverage. However, a number of immune responses are associated with the selection of predictable, narrow, or skewed repertoires and public TCR chains. Here, we summarize the current knowledge on the formation of the TCR repertoire and its maintenance in health and disease. We also outline the various molecular mechanisms that govern the composition of the pre-selection, naive and antigen-specific TCR repertoires. Finally, we suggest that with the development of high-throughput sequencing, common TCR \u27signatures\u27 raised against specific antigens could provide important diagnostic biomarkers and surrogate predictors of disease onset, progression and outcome

The Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal: an Open access Genetic Resource Dedicated to Type 2 Diabetes and Related Traits

Associations between human genetic variation and clinical phenotypes have become a foundation of biomedical research. Most repositories of these data seek to be disease-agnostic and therefore lack disease-focused views. The Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal (T2DKP) is a public resource of genetic datasets and genomic annotations dedicated to type 2 diabetes (T2D) and related traits. Here, we seek to make the T2DKP more accessible to prospective users and more useful to existing users. First, we evaluate the T2DKP\u27s comprehensiveness by comparing its datasets with those of other repositories. Second, we describe how researchers unfamiliar with human genetic data can begin using and correctly interpreting them via the T2DKP. Third, we describe how existing users can extend their current workflows to use the full suite of tools offered by the T2DKP. We finally discuss the lessons offered by the T2DKP toward the goal of democratizing access to complex disease genetic results

The quest for genetic risk factors for Crohn's disease in the post-GWAS era

Multiple genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and two large scale meta-analyses have been performed for Crohn's disease and have identified 71 susceptibility loci. These findings have contributed greatly to our current understanding of the disease pathogenesis. Yet, these loci only explain approximately 23% of the disease heritability. One of the future challenges in this post-GWAS era is to identify potential sources of the remaining heritability. Such sources may include common variants with limited effect size, rare variants with higher effect sizes, structural variations, or even more complicated mechanisms such as epistatic, gene-environment and epigenetic interactions. Here, we outline potential sources of this hidden heritability, focusing on Crohn's disease and the currently available data. We also discuss future strategies to determine more about the heritability; these strategies include expanding current GWAS, fine-mapping, whole genome sequencing or exome sequencing, and using family-based approaches. Despite the current limitations, such strategies may help to transfer research achievements into clinical practice and guide the improvement of preventive and therapeutic measures

The Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal: an open access genetic resource dedicated to type 2 diabetes and related traits

Associations between human genetic variation and clinical phenotypes have become a foundation of biomedical research. Most repositories of these data seek to be disease-agnostic and therefore lack disease-focused views. The Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal (T2DKP) is a public resource of genetic datasets and genomic annotations dedicated to type 2 diabetes (T2D) and related traits. Here, we seek to make the T2DKP more accessible to prospective users and more useful to existing users. First, we evaluate the T2DKP's comprehensiveness by comparing its datasets with those of other repositories. Second, we describe how researchers unfamiliar with human genetic data can begin using and correctly interpreting them via the T2DKP. Third, we describe how existing users can extend their current workflows to use the full suite of tools offered by the T2DKP. We finally discuss the lessons offered by the T2DKP toward the goal of democratizing access to complex disease genetic results