mTOR and Tumor Cachexia.

Cancer cachexia affects most patients with advanced forms of cancers. It is mainly characterized by weight loss, due to muscle and adipose mass depletion. As cachexia is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in cancer patients, identifying the underlying mechanisms leading to cachexia is essential in order to design novel therapeutic strategies. The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a major intracellular signalling intermediary that participates in cell growth by upregulating anabolic processes such as protein and lipid synthesis. Accordingly, emerging evidence suggests that mTOR and mTOR inhibitors influence cancer cachexia. Here, we review the role of mTOR in cellular processes involved in cancer cachexia and highlight the studies supporting the contribution of mTOR in cancer cachexia

Confinement enhances the diversity of microbial flow fields

Despite their importance in many biological, ecological and physical processes, microorganismal fluid flows under tight confinement have not been investigated experimentally. Strong screening of Stokelets in this geometry suggests that the flow fields of different microorganisms should be universally dominated by the 2D source dipole from the swimmer's finite-size body. Confinement therefore is poised to collapse differences across microorganisms, that are instead well-established in bulk. Here we combine experiments and theoretical modelling to show that, in general, this is not correct. Our results demonstrate that potentially minute details like microswimmers' spinning and the physical arrangement of the propulsion appendages have in fact a leading role in setting qualitative topological properties of the hydrodynamic flow fields of micro-swimmers under confinement. This is well captured by an effective 2D model, even under relatively weak confinement. These results imply that active confined hydrodynamics is much richer than in bulk, and depends in a subtle manner on size, shape and propulsion mechanisms of the active components.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters. 5 pages and 4 figures, plus Supplementary Materia

Sub MeV Particles Detection and Identification in the MUNU detector ((1)ISN, IN2P3/CNRS-UJF, Grenoble, France, (2)Institut de Physique, Neuch\^atel, Switzerland, (3) INFN, Padova Italy, (4) Physik-Institut, Z\"{u}rich, Switzerland)

We report on the performance of a 1 m$^{3}$ TPC filled with CF$_{4}$ at 3 bar, immersed in liquid scintillator and viewed by photomultipliers. Particle detection, event identification and localization achieved by measuring both the current signal and the scintillation light are presented. Particular features of $\alpha$ particle detection are also discussed. Finally, the ${54}$Mn photopeak, reconstructed from the Compton scattering and recoil angle is shown.Comment: Latex, 19 pages, 20 figure

Limits on the neutrino magnetic moment from the MUNU experiment

The MUNU experiment was carried out at the Bugey nuclear power reactor. The aim was the study of electron antineutrino-electron elastic scattering at low energy. The recoil electrons were recorded in a gas time projection chamber, immersed in a tank filled with liquid scintillator serving as veto detector, suppressing in particular Compton electrons. The measured electron recoil spectrum is presented. Upper limits on the neutrino magnetic moment were derived and are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures Added reference: p.3, 1st col., TEXONO Added sentence: p.4, 1st col., electron attachement Modified sentence: p.5, 1st col., readout sequence Added sentence: p.5, 1st col., fast rise time cu

Biophotonic tool for sensing the dynamics of H2O2 extracellular release in stressed cells

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is known to play a multifaceted role in cell physiology mechanisms involving oxidative stress and intracellular signal transduction. Therefore, the development of analytical tools providing information on the dynamics of H2O2 generation remains of utmost importance to achieve further insight in the complex physiological processes of living cells and their response to environmental stress(1). In the present work we developed a novel optic biosensor that provides continuous real-time quantification of the dynamics of the hydrogen peroxide release from cells under oxidative stress conditions. The biosensor is based on the ultra-sensitive dark field optical detection of cytochrome c (cyt c) that exhibits a narrow absorption peaks in its reduced state (Fe(II)) at lambda = 550 nm. In the presence of H2O2 the ferrous heme group Fe(II) is oxidised into Fe(III) providing the spectroscopic information exploited in this approach. Extremely low limit-of-detection for H2O2 down to the subnanomolar range is achieved by combining scattering substrates (eg. polystyrene beads) able to shelter cyt c and an inverted microscope in dark field configuration. The developed biosensor was able to perform real-time detection of H2O (2) extracellular release from human promyelocytic leukemia cells (HL-60) exposed to lipopolysaccaride (LPS) that elicits strong immune-response. This biosensing tool is currently being implemented to the real-time detection of superoxide anion (O-2(center dot-)) and offers the possibility to extend to further oxidative stress biomarkers such as glutathione. More generally, multianalyte and dynamic informations might bring new insights to understand complex cellular metabolisms involved in oxidative-stress-related diseases and cytotoxic responses

Ultrasensititve system for the real time detection of H2O2 based on strong coupling in a bio-plasmonic system

We theoretically investigate the dependence of the different parameters of an optical biosensor for the detection of Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) based on absorption enhancement of Cytochrome c molecules near gold nanoparticles. H2O2 is a major reactive oxygen species which is involved in signaling pathways and oxidative stress in cells. We use the Green's function approach as well as confirm the corresponding simulation results using the surface integral formulation. Further we show that this technique can be applied for detection of other small molecules, like oxygen and carbon monoxide

Design Status of the CLIC 3-TeV Beam Delivery System and Damping Rings

We describe the present design status of beam delivery and damping rings for CLIC at 3 TeV cm energy, and outline our future plans. The beam delivery system comprises collimation, final focus and post-IP exit line. Critical design aspects include halo collimation, machine protection, beam removal, and thermal stability analysis. In order to attain the design spot size at the collision point, the damping rings must provide beams of extremely small emittances. In this paper, we focus on collimation and spent beam

Wake Up and Talk with Me! In-the-Field Study of an Autonomous Interactive Wake Up Robot

12th International Conference, ICSR 2020, Golden, CO, USA, November 14–18, 2020In this paper, we present a robot that is designed to smoothly wake up a user in the morning. We created an autonomous interactive wake up robot that implements a wake up behavior that was selected through preliminary experiments. We conducted a user study to test the interactive robot and compared it to a baseline robot that behaves like a conventional alarm clock. We recruited 22 participants that agreed to bring the robot to their home and test it for two consecutive nights. The participants felt significantly less sleepy after waking up with the interactive robot, and reported significantly more intention to use the interactive robot

Low temperature superfluid stiffness of d-wave superconductor in a magnetic field

The temperature and field dependence of the superfluid density $\rho_s$ in the vortex state of a d-wave superconductor are calculated using a microscopic model in the quasiclassical approximation. We show that at temperatures below T^{*} \varpropto \sqrt{H}$, the linear T dependence of rho_s crosses over to a T^2 dependence differently from the behavior of the effective penetration depth, lambda_eff^{-2}(T). We point out that the expected dependences could be probed by a mutual-inductance technique experiment.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX4, 2 EPS figures; minor revisions made and 1 new reference added; final version published in PR