The First Aysnchronous Microprocessor: The Test Results

No abstract available

Tomatoes as functional food

Tomatoes and many tomato products are healthy and protect against a.o. cardiovascular diseases. The large diversity of substances in tomatoes is the reason for this health effect. Lycopene and vitamin C and E appear to occur the most in tomatoes. These three substances have each a protective effect against the development of cardiovascular diseases. This research shows that a combination of lycopene and vitamin C and E has a larger health effect than each substance alone. That is the case because the substances cooperate in various processes in the body. A combination of several substances therefore turns out to be better than one single substance

Protection against Chemotaxis in the Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Bioactives from Tomato Ketchup

The consumption of tomato products has been associated with a decreased risk for chronic inflammatory diseases. In this study, the anti-inflammatory potential of tomato ketchup was evaluated by studying the effect of tomato ketchup extracts and bioactives from tomato ketchup on human monocytes and vascular endothelial cells (HUVEC). HUVEC were pre-treated for 1 h with either individual bioactives (7.5 µM lycopene, 1.4 µM α-tocopherol or 55 µM ascorbic acid) or a combination of these three compounds, or with the hydrophilic or lipophilic tomato ketchup extracts or with the two extracts combined. After the pretreatment, the cells were washed and challenged with TNF-α (10 ng/ml) for 6 h. The medium was used for the determination of the release of cytokines and the chemotaxis of monocytes. Inflammatory protein expression and production were assayed with real-time RT-PCR and ELISA. It was found that tomato ketchup extracts significantly reduced gene expression and release of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-8 in HUVEC after the inflammatory challenge, whereas the release of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was increased. Chemotaxis was effectively impeded as demonstrated by a reduced monocyte migration. This effect correlated with the reduction of IL-8 production in the presence of the test compounds and extracts. The results consistently emphasize the contribution of lycopene to the anti-inflammatory effect of tomato ketchup. Other compounds in tomato ketchup such as α-tocopherol and ascorbic acid appeared to strengthen the anti-inflammatory effect of lycopene. The tomato ketchup extracts subtly interfered with several inflammatory phases that inhibit chemotaxis. Such a pleotropic mode of action exemplifies its potential mitigation of diseases characterized by prolonged low grade inflammation

The first asynchronous microprocessor: the test results

We have designed the first entirely asynchronous (also called self-timed or delay-insensitive) microprocessor. The design was reported at the Decennial Caltech Conference on VLSI, last March. The conference paper is included here as an appendix. Since the chips had not yet been fabricated at the moment of writing the conference paper, the paper does not include the results of the experiment. The purpose of this note is to publish these results, which are quite remarkable because of the speed reached on this first design, and, as importantly, because of the surprising robustness of the chips to variations in temperature and VDD voltage values

The design of an asynchronous microprocessor

[no abstract

The design of an asynchronous microprocessor

[no abstract

The effect of tomato ketchup extracts and lycopene (7.5 µM), α-tocopherol (1.4 µM) and ascorbic acid (55 µM) on gene expression of E-selectin and ICAM-1 in HUVEC after an inflammatory challenge.

<p>Data are presented as mean ± S.E.M. of 3 triplicates,* significantly lower (<i>P</i>≤0.05) than the control (only the inflammatory challenge). Mix AOX: the combination of lycopene, α-tocopherol and ascorbic acid; Hydro: hydrophilic tomato ketchup extract; Lipo: lipophilic tomato ketchup extract; Mix extracts: the combination of the hydrophilic and lipophilic tomato ketchup extracts.</p

The effect of tomato ketchup extracts, lycopene, α-tocopherol and ascorbic acid on chemotaxis (panel A) and the relation between cell migration and IL-8 concentrations (panel B).

<p>Data are presented as mean ± S.E.M. of 3 triplicates. The effect of the pretreatments was significantly lower (<i>P</i>≤0.05) than the control (only the inflammatory challenge). The concentration of IL-8 showed a significant correlation with chemotaxis (R² = 0.7316; <i>P</i>≤0.05). Mix AOX: the combination of lycopene, α-tocopherol and ascorbic acid; Hydro: hydrophilic tomato ketchup extract; Lipo: lipophilic tomato ketchup extract.</p