ELIN: A Framework to Deliver Media content in an Efficient way Based in MPEG Standards

ISBN: 0-7695-2409-5Nowadays, technologies involved in Web information distribution services are evolving to adapt themselves to new user requirements. Usually, these new technologies are used separately. ELIN (Electronic Newspaper Initiative) project is an European Commission funded project, that tries to integrate the newest standards and technologies involved in multimedia delivery applied to web newspapers. It has as objective the delivery of any type of media format to any kind of user terminal in an efficient way. In order to do that, it takes the approach of using MPEG standards: MPEG-4 for video delivery, MPEG-7 for data classification and MPEG-21 for data management and adaptation. So it integrates the totality of solutions provided for the MPEG group

ELIN: A Newspaper Universal Multimedia Access Platform Based on Mpeg Standards

ISBN:0-88989-530-2Nowadays, technologies involved in Web information distribution services are evolving to adapt themselves to new user requirements. Usually, these new technologies are used separately. This paper presents ELIN (Electronic Newspaper Initiative) project, an European Commission funded project, that tries to integrate the newest standards and technologies involved in multimedia delivery. It has as objective the delivery of any type of media format to any kind of user terminal in an efficient way. In order to do that, it takes the approach of using MPEG standards: MPEG-4 for video delivery, MPEG-7 for data classification and MPEG-21 for data management and adaptation. So it integrates the totality of solutions provided for the MPEG group. In order to test this technology, ELIN has chosen the online newspaper field. Therefore, it provides a toolkit to be used by mass media companies to set an advanced electronic newspaper. This toolkit enables to personalize the delivery of news using collaborative filtering, to build a XML file architecture to store and manage data, to deliver information in video (MPEG-4) or in HTML format for low capabilities devices, to adapt media for different capabilities terminals and includes a 3 Dimension environment to create an user community to communicate between them and share data objects

New Therapies and Immunological Findings in Melanoma and Other Skin Cancers

New therapies are currently being developed in the field of skin cancer. In particular, advances in melanoma now represent the frontline of cancer immunotherapy, as immunological findings in the disease have led to the development of highly effective immune-checkpoint inhibitors. However, these immune-checkpoint inhibitors are only effective in a subset of patients, and may not work in other skin cancer types, thus highlighting the need for further innovation in the field of skin cancer treatment. The purpose of this Research Topic is therefore to provide an up-to-date overview of immune processes and new therapies for melanoma and other skin cancers in order to further stimulate the development of new and even more successful treatments

Combined use of ELISA and Western blot with recombinant N protein is a powerful tool for the immunodiagnosis of avian infectious bronchitis

Abstract Background The avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) remains a significant source of loss in the poultry industry and early diagnosis is required to prevent the disease from spreading. This study examined the combined use of an ELISA and Western blot (WB) to detect antibodies against the nucleocapsid protein (N) of IBV. The coding sequence for N was amplified by RT-PCR and expressed in Escherichia coli. A soluble recombinant N protein (rN) of approximately 50 kDa was obtained. A total of 389 sera were tested against the rN in ELISA and the results were compared with those of the commercial IDEXX IBV Ab test. ELISA-rN achieved a 90.34% sensitivity and 90.16% specificity. WB confirmed all false negative sera in ELISA-rN or IDEXX test as truly positive. The current study indicate that the combined use of rN in ELISA and WB is a powerful tool for the immunodiagnosis of avian infectious bronchitis. Methods Constructed recombinant pAE/n expression vectors were used to transform E. coli BL21(DE3) Star competent cells (Invitrogen). The rN of infectious bronchitis virus was purified by affinity chromatography using HisTrap HP 1 mL columns pre-packed with pre-charged Ni Sepharose in the ÄKTAprime Automated Liquid Chromatography system (GE Healthcare). A total of 389 serum samples from chickens were used to develop and evaluate the ELISA-rN test. To standardize the indirect ELISA development, serum dilutions (1:100, 1:200 and 1:400) and different concentrations of purified rN antigen (50, 100 and 200 ng/well) were tested. Positive and negative sera for IBV were used as controls. The results were compared with those obtained from a commercial kit. Serum samples scored as negative with the commercial kit but as positive with the ELISA-rN were further analysed by Western blot analyses using the rN protein as an antigen. The results of the ELISA-rN were compared to the commercial kit results using receiver-operating characteristics curves, area under the curve, and confidence intervals with the software GraphPad Prism version 6.0 for Windows (GraphPad Software, USA). Results The expected cDNA fragment of approximately 1240 bp was successfully amplified by PCR using primers designed to select for the coding region of the N protein. The rN was expressed as a soluble protein to avoid the refolding steps and, after purification a yield of 10 mg/L of rN was obtained. The SDS-PAGE results demonstrated the presence of two distinct bands that had a molecular mass of approximately 45 and 50 KDa. Out of 244 sera that scored positive in the commercial ELISA IDEXX IBV Ab Test, 220 were also positive in the ELISA-rN, yielding an ELISA-rN test sensitivity of 90.16%. Out of 145 sera that scored negative in the IDEXX IBV Ab Test, 131 also scored negative in the ELISA-rN, indicating a specificity of 90.34%. Sera that tested negative in the ELISA-rN and positive in the commercial test also reacted with the rN protein in Western blot. Conclusions The association between the ELISA and Western blot techniques developed in this study with a subunit of IBV (rN) were able to detect antibodies that the commercial ELISA did not detect suggesting that the ELISA-rN has greater sensitivity

Proteomic Profiling of Advanced Melanoma Patients to Predict Therapeutic Response to Anti-PD-1 Therapy

Purpose: Despite high clinical need, there are no biomarkers that accurately predict the response of patients with metastatic melanoma to anti-PD-1 therapy. Experimental design: In this multicenter study, we applied protein depletion and enrichment methods prior to various proteomic techniques to analyze a serum discovery cohort (n = 56) and three independent serum validation cohorts (n = 80, n = 12, n = 17). Further validation analyses by literature and survival analysis followed. Results: We identified several significantly regulated proteins as well as biological processes such as neutrophil degranulation, cell-substrate adhesion, and extracellular matrix organization. Analysis of the three independent serum validation cohorts confirmed the significant differences between responders (R) and nonresponders (NR) observed in the initial discovery cohort. In addition, literature-based validation highlighted 30 markers overlapping with previously published signatures. Survival analysis using the TCGA database showed that overexpression of 17 of the markers we identified correlated with lower overall survival in patients with melanoma. Conclusions: Ultimately, this multilayered serum analysis led to a potential marker signature with 10 key markers significantly altered in at least two independent serum cohorts: CRP, LYVE1, SAA2, C1RL, CFHR3, LBP, LDHB, S100A8, S100A9, and SAA1, which will serve as the basis for further investigation. In addition to patient serum, we analyzed primary melanoma tumor cells from NR and found a potential marker signature with four key markers: LAMC1, PXDN, SERPINE1, and VCAN