In vitro Antitumour Activity of Tomato-Extracted Carotenoids on Human Colorectal Carcinoma

The aim of this research was to establish whether all-trans lycopene extracted from fresh and frozen tomatoes is able to inhibit the in vitro proliferation of colon cancer cells, to trigger apoptosis by reactive oxygen species modulation and to reveal its influence on NF-kβ signalling, through the p65 transcription factor and expression of two TNF receptors: GITR and CD27. The carotenoid extracts containing all-trans lycopene were obtained from fresh (E1) and frozen/thawed (E2) tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), hybrid ‘Menhir’ F1. DLD-1 and HT-29 human colon adenocarcinoma cell lines were co-cultivated with the two extracts and cytotoxicity, apoptosis, antioxidant activity, reactive oxygen species as well as modulation of NF-kβ signalling pathway were assessed. Tomato extracts E1 and E2 were able to inhibit colon cancer cell growth in vitro. E2 contained a higher proportion of all-trans lycopene and displayed superior cytotoxicity and a better apoptosis inducing capacity. The two extracts proved antioxidant activity against DPPH radicals and were able to scavenge the reactive oxygen species in the treated tumour cells. This study also showed that lycopene acts mainly through p65 protein and moderately by TNF receptors GITR and CD27 to deactivate the NF-kβ signalling pathway involved in cancer cell proliferation

BRAIN Journal - Pseudo-holographic Displays as Teaching Tools in Mathematics

ABSTRACT Due to the fact that the abstract mathematical notions are often hard to grasp by students, without linking them to a specific physical representation or correlate them with regular facts, our team came up with the idea to create and implement a set of interactive teaching tool packages (ITTPs) to help them overcome such issues. The ITTPs consist of theoretical modules and applications in the framework of a Hungarian - Romanian cross-border project, developed with the aid of existing open source software and technologies. The focus of the Romanian team was on basic elements of linear algebra and analytic geometry, showcased using an auto-stereoscopic display for the purpose of image visualization. This paper presents an overview of similar technologies and the applications developed for representing pseudo-holographic images of geometric objects, namely vectors, straight lines, planes and conics. One of the developed packages was written using web technologies in order to make the applications available on mobile devices, as well as to eliminate the need to install any additional software

ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING: A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The paper aims to analyze the ways in which accounting as a social science and management information tool can contribute to sustainable development. The paper highlights the emergence of the environmental accounting concept, the applicability of the environmental accounting, types of environmental accounting, scope and benefits of environmental accounting

Halve the dose while maintaining image quality in paediatric Cone Beam CT

Cone beam CT (CBCT) for dentomaxillofacial paediatric assessment has been widely used despite the uncertainties of the risks of the low-dose radiation exposures. The aim of this work was to investigate the clinical performance of different CBCT acquisition protocols towards the optimization of paediatric exposures. Custom-made anthropomorphic phantoms were scanned using a CBCT unit in six protocols. CT slices were blinded, randomized and presented to three observers, who scored the image quality using a 4-point scale along with their level of confidence. Sharpness level was also measured using a test object containing an air/PMMA e,dge. The effective dose was calculated by means of a customized Monte Carlo (MC) framework using previously validated paediatric voxels models. The results have shown that the protocols set with smaller voxel size (180 µm), even when decreasing exposure parameters (kVp and mAs), showed high image quality scores and increased sharpness. The MC analysis showed a gradual decrease in effective dose when exposures parameters were reduced, with an emphasis on an average reduction of 45% for the protocol that combined 70 kVp, 16 mAs and 180 µm voxel size. In contrast, both "ultra-low dose" protocols that combined a larger voxel size (400 µm) with lower mAs (7.4 mAs) demonstrated the lowest scores with high levels of confidence unsuitable for an anatomical approach. In conclusion, a significant decrease in the effective dose can be achieved while maintaining the image quality required for paediatric CBCT.status: publishe