Inflammatory Transcriptome Profiling of Human Monocytes Exposed Acutely to Cigarette Smoke

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Cigarette smoking is responsible for 5 million deaths worldwide each year, and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and lung diseases. Cigarette smoke contains a complex mixture of over 4000 chemicals containing 10¹⁵ free radicals. Studies show smoke is perceived by cells as an inflammatory and xenobiotic stimulus, which activates an immune response. The specific cellular mechanisms driving cigarette smoke-induced inflammation and disease are not fully understood, although the innate immune system is involved in the pathology of smoking related diseases.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principle findings</h3><p>To address the impact of smoke as an inflammagen on the innate immune system, THP-1 cells and Human PBMCs were stimulated with 3 and 10% (v/v) cigarette smoke extract (CSE) for 8 and 24 hours. Total RNA was extracted and the transcriptome analysed using Illumina BeadChip arrays. In THP-1 cells, 10% CSE resulted in 80 genes being upregulated and 37 downregulated by ≥1.5 fold after 8 hours. In PBMCs stimulated with 10% CSE for 8 hours, 199 genes were upregulated and 206 genes downregulated by ≥1.5 fold. After 24 hours, the number of genes activated and repressed by ≥1.5 fold had risen to 311 and 306 respectively. The major pathways that were altered are associated with cell survival, such as inducible antioxidants, protein chaperone and folding proteins, and the ubiquitin/proteosome pathway.</p> <h3>Conclusions</h3><p>Our results suggest that cigarette smoke causes inflammation and has detrimental effects on the metabolism and function of innate immune cells. In addition, THP-1 cells provide a genetically stable alternative to primary cells for the study of the effects of cigarette smoke on human monocytes.</p> </div

A Metaheuristic Framework for Bi-level Programming Problems with Multi-disciplinary Applications

Bi-level programming problems arise in situations when the decision maker has to take into account the responses of the users to his decisions. Several problems arising in engineering and economics can be cast within the bi-level programming framework. The bi-level programming model is also known as a Stackleberg or leader-follower game in which the leader chooses his variables so as to optimise his objective function, taking into account the response of the follower(s) who separately optimise their own objectives, treating the leader’s decisions as exogenous. In this chapter, we present a unified framework fully consistent with the Stackleberg paradigm of bi-level programming that allows for the integration of meta-heuristic algorithms with traditional gradient based optimisation algorithms for the solution of bi-level programming problems. In particular we employ Differential Evolution as the main meta-heuristic in our proposal.We subsequently apply the proposed method (DEBLP) to a range of problems from many fields such as transportation systems management, parameter estimation and game theory. It is demonstrated that DEBLP is a robust and powerful search heuristic for this class of problems characterised by non smoothness and non convexity

Global Character of a Six-Dimensional Nonlinear System of Difference Equations

The aim of this paper is to study the dynamical behavior of positive solutions for a system of rational difference equations of the following form: u n + 1 = ? u n - 1 / ß + ? v n - 2 p, v n + 1 = ? 1 v n - 1 / ß 1 + ? 1 u n - 2 p, n = 0,1,., where the parameters ?, ß, ?, ? 1, ß 1, ? 1, p and the initial values u - i, v - i for i = 0,1, 2 are positive real numbers. © 2016 Mehmet Gümüş and Yüksel Soykan

The evaluation of dietary application of conjugated linoleic acid on performance, egg quality, blood parameters, antioxidant capacity and egg yolk cholesterol parameters in layer quails

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is a poly unsaturated fatty acid (FA) which is accepted as favorable for human health. The aim of this study is to ascertain the effects of CLA on performance, egg quality traits, egg yolk and albumin pH levels, blood serum biochemical parameters, egg yolk cholesterol content and blood antioxidant capacity in layer quails. 96 7-weeks-old female Japanese quails divided to 4 groups with 6 subgroups and the groups fed with basal diet supplied with 0 g/kg, 10 g/kg, 20 g/kg and 30 g/kg CLA respectively for 8 weeks. Our results indicated that CLA supplementation did not statistically affect performance, egg quality traits, egg pH levels, total antioxidant capacity in blood serum and yolk cholesterol content. Although dietary CLA did not significantly differ between groups for blood serum total protein, glycose, total cholesterol, triglyceride and high-density lipoprotein; lipoprotein lipase levels were significantly decreased in CLA supplemented groups (p<0.05). In summary, our results have shown dietary CLA supplementation might affect lipid metabolism and enzyme activity in female Japanese quails

Optical and structural properties of manganese sulfide thin films

Highly transparent crystalline manganese sulfide (?-MnS) thin films were prepared on glass substrate by chemical bath deposition (CBD) method at room temperature (27 °C). The refractive index n(?), extinction coefficient k(?) and film thickness t are evaluated from spectrophotometric transmittance spectrum by using envelope method. The optical band gap of the film was estimated to be 3.88 eV. XRD measurements show that the MnS films are crystallized in the wurtzite phase and present a preferential orientation along the c-axis. The effect of trisodium citrate on crystalline films has been determined. The grain size of the film is estimated to be 29.8 nm using by the Scherrer's formula. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.FEF2004BAP3This work was supported by Cukurova University under FEF2004BAP3 project number