Instantaneous cell migration velocity may be ill-defined

Cell crawling is critical to biological development, homeostasis and disease. In many cases, cell trajectories are quasi-random-walk. In vitro assays on flat surfaces often described such quasi-random-walk cell trajectories as approximations to a solution of a Langevin process. However, experiments show quasi-diffusive behavior at small timescales, indicating that instantaneous velocity and velocity autocorrelations are not well-defined. We propose to characterize mean-squared cell displacement using a modified F\"urth equation with three temporal and spatial regimes: short- and long-time/range diffusion and intermediate time/range ballistic motion. This analysis collapses mean-squared displacements of previously published experimental data onto a single-parameter family of curves, allowing direct comparison between movement in different cell types, and between experiments and numerical simulations. Our method also show that robust cell-motility quantification requires an experiment with a maximum interval between images of a few percent of the cell-motion persistence time or less, and a duration of a few orders-of-magnitude longer than the cell-motion persistence time or more.Comment: 5 pages, plus Supplemental materia

Effects of sintering temperature on microstructure and properties of sanitaryware ceramic produced with waste material

Abstract This paper aims at exploring the possibility of using a great percentage of recycled materials into vitreous china (VC), thus, contributing to urban waste decrease while lowering the industry's buying costs, previously optimized, for the sanitaryware production. The recycled blend was introduced in the ceramic slip, Sanitser VC, and used in three sanitaryware production plants. This slip let to improve the environmental performances of the overall ceramic production through energy-saving and a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the firing temperature is 80-100 °C lower than traditional production. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to evaluate the firing behavior, technological properties, and microstructure of a typical industrial vitreous china body in comparison with Sanitser VC. The analytical results confirmed the force of this idea and highlighted the advantages of the choice made

Rearranjos Subteloméricos: Apresentação de 21 Probandos, com Ênfase nos Casos Familiares

Intellectual disability affects 2% - 3% of the general population, with a chromosomal abnormality being found in 4% - 28% of these patients and a cryptic subtelomeric abnormality in 3% - 16%. In most cases, these subtelomeric rearrangements are submicroscopic, requiring techniques other than conventional karyotype for detection. They may be de novo or inherited from an affected parent or from a healthy carrier of a balanced chromosomal abnormality. The aim of this study was to characterize patients from our medical genetics center, in whom both a deletion and duplication in subtelomeric regions were found.Introdução:O défice intelectual afeta 2% – 3% da população geral, sendo encontrada uma alteração cromossómica em 4% – 28% dos casos e uma alteração subtelomérica em 3% – 16%. Estas alterações subteloméricas são, na maioria dos casos, submicroscópicas, não sendo detetadas no cariótipo convencional. Podem ser de novoou herdadas de um progenitor afetado ou de um progenitor saudável portador de um rearranjo equilibrado. O objetivo deste estudo foi caracterizar os doentes seguidos no nosso centro de genética médica com uma deleção e uma duplicação nas regiões subteloméricas. Material e Métodos:Caracterização clínica e citogenética de 21 probandos com alterações subteloméricas seguidos no nosso centro entre 1998 e 2017. Resultados:Foram caracterizados 21 probandos que apresentavam défice intelectual e dismorfia facial, pertencentes a 19 famílias. Sete tinham alterações do comportamento, cinco epilepsia e 14 outro sinal ou sintoma. Quatro tinham alterações no cariótipo e quatro foram diagnosticados por array-comparative genomic hybridization. Em quatro famílias não foi possível o estudo dos progenitores. Quando um dos fenótipos era dominante (síndrome de deleção ou duplicação), foi atribuída a classificação online mendelian inheritance in man. Discussão:Foi realizada classificação dos doentes e das famílias. As alterações nas regiões subteloméricas são, apesar de raras, uma causa substancial para défice intelectual sindrómico com repercussões familiares importantes. É essencial lembrar que um arraycomparative genomic hybridizationnormal não exclui um rearranjo equilibrado familiar. Conclusão:O estudo dos progenitores é essencial não só para caracterização completa do rearranjo mas também para um aconselhamento genético preciso e identificação de familiares em risco de recorrência. Palavras-chave:Deficiência Intelectual/genética; Rearranjo Génico/genética; Telómero/genéticainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A 26-Year Experience in Chorionic Villus Sampling Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis

Abstract: This report describes the trends of chorionic villus sampling (CVS) referred for prenatal genetic diagnosis in the past two and a half decades in a Portuguese Center. Our cohort of 491 CVS was mostly performed by the transcervical method at the 12th gestational week. Data collected within the framework of this study relate to the following: sampling method, referral reason versus abnormality and incidence of procedure-related pregnancy loss, that declined to about 0.5% over the last 15 years. The year 2000 represented a change in referral reasons for chorionic tissue collection, shifting from almost exclusively for cytogenetic testing to an increasing number of molecular tests for monogenic disorders. Herein, success rates as well as cytogenetic and/or molecular DNA results are presented. These latter include not only tests for several monogenic disorders, but also aneuploidy and maternal cell contamination screening. This retrospective analysis reiterates that CVS is a safe and reliable first trimester technique for prenatal diagnosis in high genetic risk pregnancies

Analysis of remote synchronization in complex networks

A novel regime of synchronization, called remote synchronization, where the peripheral nodes form a phase synchronized cluster not including the hub, was recently observed in star motifs [Bergner et al., Phys. Rev. E 85, 026208 (2012)]. We show the existence of a more general dynamical state of remote synchronization in arbitrary networks of coupled oscillators. This state is characterized by the synchronization of pairs of nodes that are not directly connected via a physical link or any sequence of synchronized nodes. This phenomenon is almost negligible in networks of phase oscillators as its underlying mechanism is the modulation of the amplitude of those intermediary nodes between the remotely synchronized units. Our findings thus show the ubiquity and robustness of these states and bridge the gap from their recent observation in simple toy graphs to complex networks

Magnetic field resistant quantum interferences in bismuth nanowires based Josephson junctions

We investigate proximity induced superconductivity in micrometer-long bismuth nanowires con- nected to superconducting electrodes with a high critical field. At low temperature we measure a supercurrent that persists in magnetic fields as high as the critical field of the electrodes (above 11 T). The critical current is also strongly modulated by the magnetic field. In certain samples we find regular, rapid SQUID-like periodic oscillations occurring up to high fields. Other samples ex- hibit less periodic but full modulations of the critical current on Tesla field scales, with field-caused extinctions of the supercurrent. These findings indicate the existence of low dimensionally, phase coherent, interfering conducting regions through the samples, with a subtle interplay between orbital and spin contributions. We relate these surprising results to the electronic properties of the surface states of bismuth, strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling, large effective g factors, and their effect on the induced superconducting correlations.Comment: 5 page