Physiological study of cold acclimation in Rhododendron sp. with emphasis on role of dehydrins

In this study we established the significance of 25 kDa dehydrin accumulation during cold acclimation (CA) in a wide array of Rhododendron species. These species (24 in total) belong to two diverse subgenera, Hymenanthes and Rhododendron, native to diverse latitudes and altitudes. The dehydrin of interest is highly conserved in Rhododendron genus and was present and up-regulated during CA in all the species studied with one exception---R. brookeanum ---a species adapted to tropics. Some other dehydrins were also found to accumulate in response to cold acclimation in several species, but none of these accumulated consistently. Experimental data show that there is no correlation between the absolute amount of 25 kDa dehydrin and the degree of leaf hardiness in cold acclimated plants. Moreover, a higher number of dehydrin species in a particular genotype does not necessarily translate into more hardy Rhododendron. However, our results suggest that the cold-inducibility of a 25 kDa dehydrin is positively correlated with cold acclimation ability in Rhododendron. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Lagrangian Variational Framework for Boundary Value Problems

A boundary value problem is commonly associated with constraints imposed on a system at its boundary. We advance here an alternative point of view treating the system as interacting "boundary" and "interior" subsystems. This view is implemented through a Lagrangian framework that allows to account for (i) a variety of forces including dissipative acting at the boundary; (ii) a multitude of features of interactions between the boundary and the interior fields when the boundary fields may differ from the boundary limit of the interior fields; (iii) detailed pictures of the energy distribution and its flow; (iv) linear and nonlinear effects. We provide a number of elucidating examples of the structured boundary and its interactions with the system interior. We also show that the proposed approach covers the well known boundary value problems.Comment: 41 pages, 3 figure

Effect of pre-deformation on age-hardening behaviors in an Al-Mg-Cu alloy

The effects of 3%–50% pre-deformation following solution heat treatment on the age hardening of an Al-3Mg-1Cu alloy have been investigated by Vickers microhardness measurement, tensile tests, differential scanning calorimetry, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Pre-deformation has a strong effect on subsequent age-hardening behavior. The precipitation was accelerated, hardness peaks appeared earlier, formation of clusters was inhibited, and a larger fraction of precipitates was observed along the dislocation lines. The contribution of the precipitates to the hardness was evaluated by dissolution tests. It was found that pre-deformation followed by artificial aging resulted in a good strength-elongation balance. The results are significant for the development of combined mechanical deformation and heat treatment processes.publishedVersio

Surgical conservative treatment of breast cancer in Constanta

Spitalul Clinic Județean, Constanța, Al XI-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova și cea de-a XXXIII-a Reuniune a Chirurgilor din Moldova „Iacomi-Răzeșu” 27-30 septembrie 2011În ultimele 4 decenii conceptul de chirurgie conservatoare s-a impus ca o alternativă viabilă în arsenalul terapeutic al cancerului de sân. Această evoluție a fost determinată de concluziile numeroaselor studii clinice randomizate şi de atenția deosebită acordată calității vieții pacientelor diagnosticate cu neoplasm mamar, astfel încât standardul actual al tratamentului cancerului de sân din stadiile I şi II este reprezentat de tehnicile de chirurgie conservatoare.Cu toate că această problematică reprezintă o preocupare constantă în ultimii 7 ani în cadrul Clinicii de Chirurgie din cadrul Spitalului Clinic Judetean Constanta, numărul de intervenții chirurgicale conservatoare reprezintă un procent de doar 11.18% din totalul operațiilor pentru neoplasmele mamare.Scopul acestei lucrări este de prezenta experiența colectivului Clinicii de Chirurgie în acest domeniu şi de a identifica problemele ridicate de aplicarea în practică a acestui concept în contextul medicinei româneşti, în dorința ca această opțiune terapeutică să devină o realitate a chirurgiei cancerului de sân din țara noastră.In the last 4 decades, the concept of conservative surgery imposed itself as a viable alternative in the therapeutic scheme of breast cancer. The evolvement was determined by the conclusions of numerous randomized clinical studies and by the special attention given to the quality of life of the patients diagnosed with breast cancer so that the actual standard of treatment in breast cancer in stages Ist, and IInd is represented by conservative surgery techniques. Although this pathology represents a constant preoccupation in the last 7 years in the Surgery Clinic of County Hospital Constanta, the number of conservative surgery in breast cancer represents only 11.18% out of the total number of interventions for breast cancer. The purpose of this article is to present the experience in this domain in the Surgery Clinic of County Hospital Constanta and to identify the problems of application into the practice of this concept in the context of Romanian medicine, wishing that this therapeutical option become a reality in the surgery of breast cancer in our country

New results on Coulomb interaction effects in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The effects of the Coulomb interaction on charged pion production in Au+Au collisions at RHIC-BES energies are studied. From pT spectra of charged pions measured with STAR experiment, the negative-to-positive pion ratios as a function of transverse momentum are obtained. Based of these pion ratio the finalstate Coulomb interaction can be investigated. The “Coulomb kick” (a momentum change due to Coulomb interaction) and initial pion ratio for RHIC-BES energies (7.7 GeV, 11.5 GeV, 19.6 GeV, 27 GeV and 39 GeV) and various centrality classes are obtained. The energy and centrality dependence of the Coulomb kick is presented. These results are connected with the kinetic freeze-out dynamics

Gravitational frequency shifts in transformation acoustics

In metamaterial acoustics, it is conceivable that any type of fine-tuned acoustic properties far beyond those found in nature may be transferred to an appropriate medium. Effective design and engineering of these modern acoustic metadevices poses one of the forefront challenges in this field. As a practical example of a new covariant approach for modelling acoustics on spacetime manifolds, we choose to implement the acoustic analogue of the frequency shift due to gravitational time dilation. In accordance with Einstein's equivalence principle, two different spacetimes, corresponding to uniform acceleration or uniform gravity, are considered. For wave propagation in a uniformly accelerating rigid frame, an acoustic event horizon arises. The discussion includes a detailed numerical analysis for both spacetime geometries. Copyright (c) EPLA, 2013MMT wishes to thank MARKUS SCHOBINGER for an introduction to the SBVP MATLAB solver and acknowledges partial support by the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (PAID-00-12) and the International Office of the Vienna University of Technology.Tung, MM.; Weinmüller, EB. (2013). Gravitational frequency shifts in transformation acoustics. EPL. 101(5):54006-54011. https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/101/54006S5400654011101

MicroRNA Expression Variability in Human Cervical Tissues

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short (∼22 nt) non-coding regulatory RNAs that control gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Deregulation of miRNA expression has been discovered in a wide variety of tumours and it is now clear that they contribute to cancer development and progression. Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women worldwide and there is a strong need for a non-invasive, fast and efficient method to diagnose the disease. We investigated miRNA expression profiles in cervical cancer using a microarray platform containing probes for mature miRNAs. We have evaluated miRNA expression profiles of a heterogeneous set of cervical tissues from 25 different patients. This set included 19 normal cervical tissues, 4 squamous cell carcinoma, 5 high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) and 9 low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) samples. We observed high variability in miRNA expression especially among normal cervical samples, which prevented us from obtaining a unique miRNA expression signature for this tumour type. However, deregulated miRNAs were identified in malignant and pre-malignant cervical tissues after tackling the high expression variability observed. We were also able to identify putative target genes of relevant candidate miRNAs. Our results show that miRNA expression shows natural variability among human samples, which complicates miRNA data profiling analysis. However, such expression noise can be filtered and does not prevent the identification of deregulated miRNAs that play a role in the malignant transformation of cervical squamous cells. Deregulated miRNAs highlight new candidate gene targets allowing for a better understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying the development of this tumour type

MicroRNA-143 targets DNA methyltransferases 3A in colorectal cancer

Background:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are 19-25-nucleotides regulatory non-protein-coding RNA molecules that regulate the expressions of a wide variety of genes, including some involved in cancer development. In this study, we investigated the possible role of miR-143 in colorectal cancer (CRC).Methods:Expression levels of human mature miRNAs were examined using real-time PCR-based expression arrays on paired colorectal carcinomas and adjacent non-cancerous colonic tissues. The downregulation of miR-143 was further evaluated in colon cancer cell lines and in paired CRC and adjacent non-cancerous colonic tissues by qRT-PCR. Potential targets of miR-143 were defined. The functional effect of miR-143 and its targets was investigated in human colon cancer cell lines to confirm miRNA-target association.Results:Both real-time PCR-based expression arrays and qRT-PCR showed that miR-143 was frequently downregulated in 87.5% (35 of 40) of colorectal carcinoma tissues compared with their adjacent non-cancerous colonic tissues. Using in silico predictions, DNA methyltranferase 3A (DNMT3A) was defined as a potential target of miR-143. Restoration of the miR-143 expression in colon cell lines decreased tumour cell growth and soft-agar colony formation, and downregulated the DNMT3A expression in both mRNA and protein levels. DNMT3A was shown to be a direct target of miR-143 by luciferase reporter assay. Furthermore, the miR-143 expression was observed to be inversely correlated with DNMT3A mRNA and protein expression in CRC tissues.Conclusion:Our findings suggest that miR-143 regulates DNMT3A in CRC. These findings elucidated a tumour-suppressive role of miR-143 in the epigenetic aberration of CRC, providing a potential development of miRNA-based targeted approaches for CRC therapy. © 2009 Cancer Research UK.published_or_final_versio