1,535 research outputs found
Open borders, closed minds: the discursive construction of national identity in North Cyprus
The article investigates the discursive construction of a Turkish Cypriot national
identity by the newspapers in North Cyprus. It questions the representation and
reconstruction processes of national identity within the press and examines the
various practices employed to mobilize readers around certain national imaginings.
Using Critical Discourse Analysis, the article analyses news reports of the opening of
border crossings in Cyprus in 2003, based on their content, the strategies used in the
production of national identity and the linguistic means employed in the process. In this
way, the nationalist tendencies embedded in news discourses, as well as discriminatory
and exclusive practices, are sought out
ANTHOCYANIN PROFILE AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF FRESHLY SQUEEZED POMEGRANATE (PUNICA GRANATUM L.) JUICES OF SICILIAN AND SPANISH PROVENANCES
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L., Punicaceae) fruit is traditionally consumed in several countries, especially in Middle East, and has gained increasing popularity all over the world due to its assumed health benefits. Juices derived from the arils of the seeds were shown to be rich in anthocyanin glucosides, typically composed of cyanidin, delphinidin, and pelargonidin. The aim of the present study was the characterization of diverse Sicilian and Spanish pomegranate accessions regarding their anthocyanin and total polyphenol contents using the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent. The anthocyanin profiles were determined by HPLC-DAD and LC-MS, and color parameters were characterized using the CIELAB coordinates. Antioxidant activities were measured using a fluorimetric assay, and
expressed as ORAC values. The anthocyanin and polyphenol contents were correlated with their antioxidant activities. Results obtained were correlated and evaluated for the identification of the most suitable accessions to be selected for cultivation, juice processing, and further breeding
po 287 a novel l1 stat3 crosstalk drives ovarian cancer stem cell function
Introduction Ovarian cancer (OC) is the most lethal gynaecological malignancy due to the lack of peculiar symptoms during its onset. Moreover, OC often relapses as a chemoresistant disease within 1–2 years after surgical debulking. These pathological hallmarks raised the hypothesis that OC is a cancer-stem cell (CSC)-driven disease. Indeed, a 'stem-like' chemoresistant subset in OC is able to form spheroids in suspension cultures and is more tumorigenic respect to the bulk population. This pointed to ovarian CSC (OCSC) as an intriguing target for OC-eradicating therapies. The cell adhesion molecule L1 (hereafter referred to as L1) has been implicated in OC progression. Furthermore, L1 function has been causally linked to stemness in both embryonic and stem-like cells from different tumours. Finally, a strong correlation exists between L1 expression and shorter 5 year overall and progression-free survival in Stage I/II OC, a subgroup of patients that normally has a relatively good prognosis. This confirms the potential clinical value of L1 in OC. Based on these observations, we aimed to investigate the functional role of L1 in the physiopathology of OCSC. Material and methods OVCAR3 and Ov90, two OC cell lines with high and low L1 levels, respectively, were employed for loss- and gain-of-function studies. Sphere-forming efficiency (SFE) and tumorigenesis in NSG mice were employed as in vitro and in vivo assays for cancer stemness, respectively. BBI608 was used as STAT3 activity inhibitor. Results and discussions L1 was both required and sufficient for self-renewal in OC in vitro. Moreover, L1 silencing prevented tumour formation while its forced expression in OCSC-enriched sphere cultures promoted tumour initiation in vivo. L1 per se was sufficient for OC sphere formation even under very stringent conditions. Mechanistically, L1 dramatically increased the expression and the activation of STAT3 in OCSC. Moreover, STAT3 activity was required for L1-induced OCSC function and, interestingly, L1-induced activation of STAT3 occurred in a JAK-independent manner. Thus, a novel L1/STAT3 axis appears to sustain OCSC pathophysiology. Conclusion L1 can be considered as a new player and potential target in the context of OCSC, and the L1/STAT3 cross-talk emerges as a novel driver in OC initiation and progression. Therefore, this work might pave the way to novel therapeutic strategies for the eradication of such a devastating disease
Implementation of a High Throughput Soft MIMO Detector on GPU
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) significantly increases the throughput of a communication system by employing multiple antennas at the transmitter
and the receiver. To extract maximum performance from a MIMO system, a computationally intensive search based detector is needed. To meet the challenge
of MIMO detection, typical suboptimal MIMO detectors are ASIC or FPGA designs. We aim to show that a MIMO detector on Graphic processor unit (GPU),
a low-cost parallel programmable co-processor, can achieve high throughput and can serve as an alternative to ASIC/FPGA designs. However, careful architecture
aware software design is needed to leverage the performance offered by GPU. We propose a novel soft MIMO detection algorithm, multi-pass trellis traversal
(MTT), and show that we can achieve ASIC/FPGA-like performance and handle different configurations in software on GPU. The proposed design can be used
to accelerate wireless physical layer simulations and to offload MIMO detection processing in wireless testbed platforms.NokiaNokia Siemens Networks (NSN)Texas InstrumentsXilinxNational Science Foundatio
Statistical Binary Decay of Cl + Mg at 8 MeV/nucleon
The properties of the two-body channels in the Cl + Mg reaction
at a bombarding energy of 275 MeV have been investigated by using
fragment-fragment coincident techniques. The exclusive data show that the
majority of events arises from a binary-decay process. The rather large number
of secondary light charged-particles emitted from the two excited exit
fragments are cnsistent with the expectations of the Extended Hauser-Feshbach
Method. No evidence for the occurence of ternary break-up events is observed.Comment: 8 pages, 3 Figures available upon request To be published at Z. Phys.
A High Throughput Configurable SDR Detector for Multi-user MIMO Wireless Systems
Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) in
MIMO technology significantly increases the spectral
efficiency, and hence capacity, of a wireless communication
system: it is a core component of the next generation
wireless systems, e.g. WiMAX, 3GPP LTE and
other OFDM-based communication schemes. Moreover,
spatial division multiple access (SDMA) is one
of the widely used techniques for sharing the wireless
medium between different mobile devices. Sphere detection
is a prominent method of simplifying the detection
complexity in both SDM and SDMA systems
while maintaining BER performance comparable with
the optimum maximum-likelihood (ML) detection. On
the other hand, with different standards supporting
different system parameters, it is crucial for both base
station and handset devices to be configurable and
seamlessly switch between different modes without the
need for separate dedicated hardware units. This challenge
emphasizes the need for SDR designs that target
the handset devices. In this paper, we propose the
architecture and FPGA realization of a configurable
sort-free sphere detector, Flex-Sphere, that supports
4, 16, 64-QAM modulations as well as a combination of 2, 3 and 4 antenna/user configuration for handsets.
The detector provides a data rate of up to 857.1 Mbps
that fits well within the requirements of any of the next
generation wireless standards. The algorithmic optimizations
employed to produce an FPGA friendly realization
are discussed.Xilinx Inc.National Science Foundatio
CAESAR source finder: recent developments and testing
A new era in radioastronomy will begin with the upcoming large-scale surveys
planned at the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). ASKAP
started its Early Science program in October 2017 and several target fields
were observed during the array commissioning phase. The SCORPIO field was the
first observed in the Galactic Plane in Band 1 (792-1032 MHz) using 15
commissioned antennas. The achieved sensitivity and large field of view already
allow to discover new sources and survey thousands of existing ones with
improved precision with respect to previous surveys. Data analysis is currently
ongoing to deliver the first source catalogue. Given the increased scale of the
data, source extraction and characterization, even in this Early Science phase,
have to be carried out in a mostly automated way. This process presents
significant challenges due to the presence of extended objects and diffuse
emission close to the Galactic Plane. In this context we have extended and
optimized a novel source finding tool, named CAESAR , to allow extraction of
both compact and extended sources from radio maps. A number of developments
have been done driven by the analysis of the SCORPIO map and in view of the
future ASKAP Galactic Plane survey. The main goals are the improvement of
algorithm performances and scalability as well as of software maintainability
and usability within the radio community. In this paper we present the current
status of CAESAR and report a first systematic characterization of its
performance for both compact and extended sources using simulated maps. Future
prospects are discussed in light of the obtained results.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure
Fission and cluster decay of Sr nucleus in the ground-state and formed in heavy-ion reactions
Calculations for fission and cluster decay of are presented for
this nucleus to be in its ground-state or formed as an excited compound system
in heavy-ion reactions. The predicted mass distribution, for the dynamical
collective mass transfer process assumed for fission of , is clearly
asymmetric, favouring -nuclei. Cluster decay is studied within a
preformed cluster model, both for ground-state to ground-state decays and from
excited compound system to the ground-state(s) or excited states(s) of the
fragments.Comment: 14 pages LaTeX, 5 Figures available upon request Submitted to Phys.
Rev.
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