Coherent vibrations of submicron spherical gold shells in a photonic crystal

Coherent acoustic radial oscillations of thin spherical gold shells of submicron diameter excited by an ultrashort optical pulse are observed in the form of pronounced modulations of the transient reflectivity on a subnanosecond time scale. Strong acousto-optical coupling in a photonic crystal enhances the modulation of the transient reflectivity up to 4%. The frequency of these oscillations is demonstrated to be in good agreement with Lamb theory of free gold shells.Comment: Error in Eqs.2 and 3 corrected; Tabl. I corrected; Fig.1 revised; a model that explains the dependence of the oscillation amplitude of the transient reflectivity with wavelength adde

The regulatory interaction of EVI1 with the TCL1A oncogene impacts cell survival and clinical outcome in CLL

Dysregulated T-cell leukemia/lymphoma-1A (TCL1A), a modulator in B-cell receptor (BCR) signaling, is causally implicated in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). However, the mechanisms of the perturbed TCL1A regulation are largely unknown. To characterize TCL1A-upstream networks, we functionally screened for TCL1A-repressive micro-RNAs (miRs) and their transcriptional regulators. We identified the novel miR-484 to target TCL1A's 3'-UTR and to be downregulated in CLL. In chromatin immunoprecipitations and reporter assays, the oncogenic transcription factor of myeloid cells, EVI1, bound and activated the miR-484 promoter. Most common in CLL was a pan-EVI1 transcript variant. EVI1 protein expression revealed distinct normal-tissue and leukemia-associated patterns of EVI1/TCL1A co-regulation. EVI1 levels were particularly low in TCL1A-high CLL or such cellular subsets. Global gene expression profiles from a 337-patient set linked EVI1 networks to BCR signaling and cell survival via TCL1A, BTK and other molecules of relevance in CLL. Enforced EVI1, as did miR-484, repressed TCL1A. Furthermore, it reduced phospho-kinase levels, impaired cell survival, mitigated BCR-induced Ca-flux and diminished the in vitro ibrutinib response. Moreover, TCL1A and EVI1 showed a strongly interactive hazard prediction in prospectively treated patients. Overall, we present regressive EVI1 as a novel regulatory signature in CLL. Through enhanced TCL1A and other EVI1-targeted hallmarks of CLL, this contributes to an aggressive cellular and clinical phenotype

Using Embodied Multimodal Fusion to Perform Supportive and Instructive Robot Roles in Human-Robot Interaction

We present a robot that is working with humans on a common construction task. In this kind of interaction, it is important that the robot can perform different roles in order to realise an efficient collaboration. For this, we introduce embodied multimodal fusion, a new approach for processing data from the robot's input modalities. Using this method, we implemented two different robot roles: the robot can take the instructive role, in which the robot mainly instructs the user how to proceed with the construction; or the robot can take the supportive role, in which the robot hands over assembly pieces to the human that fit to the current progress of the assembly plan. We present a user evaluation that researches how humans react to the different roles of the robot. The main findings of this evaluation are that the users do not prefer one of the two roles of the robot, but take the counterpart to the robot's role and adjust their own behaviour according to the robot's actions. The most influential factors for user satisfaction in this kind of interaction are the number of times the users picked up a building piece without getting an explicit instruction by the robot, which had a positive influence, and the number of utterances the users made themselves, which had a negative influence. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht