Signaling Mechanisms in the Regulation of Renal Matrix Metabolism in Diabetes

Renal hypertrophy and accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins are among cardinal manifestations of diabetic nephropathy. TGF beta system has been implicated in the pathogenesis of these manifestations. Among signaling pathways activated in the kidney in diabetes, mTOR- (mammalian target of rapamycin-)regulated pathways are pivotal in orchestrating high glucose-induced production of ECM proteins leading to functional and structural changes in the kidney culminating in adverse outcomes. Understanding signaling pathways that influence individual matrix protein expression could lead to the development of new interventional strategies. This paper will highlight some of the diverse components of the signaling network stimulated by hyperglycemia with an emphasis on extracellular matrix protein metabolism in the kidney in diabetes

National instruments labVIEW and video imaging technique for health status monitoring

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Finite element modelling of four edges simply supported steel plate under impact load

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Load Balanced Clustering Technique in MANET using Genetic Algorithms

Mobile adhoc network (MANET) has characteristics of topology dynamics due to factors such as energy conservation and node movement that leads to dynamic load-balanced clustering problem (DLBCP). Load-balancing and reliable data transfer between all the nodes are essential to prolong the lifetime of the network. MANET can also be partitioned into clusters for maintaining the network structure. Generally, Clustering is used to reduce the size of topology and to accumulate the topology information. It is necessary to have an effective clustering algorithm for adapting the topology change. In this, we used energy metric in genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the DLBCP. It is important to select the energy- efficient cluster head for maintaining the cluster structure and balance the load effectively. In this work, we used genetic algorithms such as elitism based immigrants genetic algorithm (EIGA) and memory enhanced genetic algorithm (MEGA) to solve DLBCP. These schemes select an optimal cluster head by considering the distance and energy parameters. We used EIGA to maintain the diversity level of the population and MEGA to store the old environments into the memory. It promises the load -balancing in cluster structure to increase the lifetime of the network. Experimental results show that the proposed schemes increases the network lifetime and reduces the total energy consumption. The simulation results show that MEGA and EIGA give a better performance in terms of load-balancing

Improvement of Weld Bead Characteristics in Gas Metal Arc Welding of SA515 Carbon Steel by Applying Alternating Shielding Gas Flow Technique

High service temperature of pressure vessel components necessitates the use of welded SA515 grade carbon steel components. The gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process using CO2 as shielding gas is known for its undesirable spatter behaviour and inferior weld quality. The alternating shielding gas flow (ASGF) technique is proposed in this study using the shielding gases, viz. CO2 and argon to overcome this difficulty. The welding current, stand-off distance, and shielding gas flow were all varied to improve the bead-on-plate profile geometry. The bead profile parameters such as depth of penetration, bead width, and bead height are considered as weld bead parameters. The following methods are used: correlation analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), modelling, and grey relational analysis (GRA). According to the findings, the welding current and ASGF are the most influential parameters impacting the weld bead characteristics. By increasing the welding current, the bead profile parameters increase linearly. The geometry of the bead profile was improved by using the GRA

Hypoxia and Extracellular Matrix Proteins Influence Angiogenesis and Lymphangiogenesis in Mouse Embryoid Bodies

Regulatory mechanisms for angiogenesis are relatively well established compared to lymphangiogenesis. Few studies have shown that a combination of vascular endothelial growth factor VEGF-A/C with hypoxia or collagen matrix promotes lymphatic structures along with blood vessel development in mouse embryoid bodies (EB). In this study we tested the hypothesis that while hypoxia combined with prolonged VEGF-A/C treatment would induce early lymphangiogenesis in addition to angiogenesis in mouse EBs, under similar conditions specific extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins would promote lymphatic vessel-like structures over angiogenesis. EBs were subjected to four conditions and were maintained under normoxia and hypoxia (21% and 2.6% O2, respectively) with or without VEGF-A/C. Microarray analyses of normoxic and hypoxic EBs, and immunofluorescence data showed very low expression of early lymphatic endothelial cell (LEC) markers, lymphatic vessel endothelial hyaluronan receptor 1 (LYVE1), and prospero-related homeobox 1 (Prox1) at early time points. Double immunofluorescence using MECA-32 and Prox1/LYVE1 demonstrated that combined hypoxia and VEGF-A/C treatment promoted formation of blood vessel-like structures, whereas only Prox1+/LYVE1+ LECs were detected in EBs at E22.5. Furthermore, EBs were grown on laminin or collagen-I coated plates and were subjected to the four treatments as described above. Results revealed that LECs in EBs at E36.5 attached better to collagen-I, resulting in an organized network of lymphatic vessel-like structures as compared to EBs grown on laminin. However, blood vessel-like structures were less favored under these same conditions. Collectively, our data demonstrate that hypoxia combined with growth factors promotes angiogenesis, whereas combination of these conditions with specific ECM proteins favors lymphangiogenesis processes in mouse EBs

Detection of Wolbachia endobacteria in Culex quinquefasciatus by Gimenez staining and confirmation by PCR

Background & objectives: Wolbachia are common intracellular bacteria that are found in arthropods and nematodes.These endosymbionts are transmitted vertically through host eggs and alter host biology in diverse ways, includingthe induction of reproductive manipulations, such as feminization, parthenogenesis, male killing and sperm-eggincompatibility. Since they can also move horizontally across species boundaries, Wolbachia is gaining importancein recent days as it could be used as a biological control agent to control vector mosquitoes or for paratransgenicapproaches. However, the study of Wolbachia requires sophisticated techniques such as PCR and cell culturefacilities which cannot be affordable for many laboratories where the diseases transmitted by arthropod vectorsare common. Hence, it would be beneficial to develop a simple method to detect the presence of Wolbachia inarthropods.Method: In this study, we described a method of staining Wolbachia endobacteria, present in the reproductivetissues of mosquitoes. The reliability of this method was compared with Gram staining and PCR based detection.Results: The microscopic observation of the Gimenez stained smear prepared from the teased ovary of wildcaught and Wolbachia (+) Cx. quinquefasciatus revealed the presence of pink coloured pleomorphic cells ofWolbachia ranging from cocci, comma shaped cells to bacillus and chain forms. The ovaries of Wolbachia (–)cured mosquito did not show any cell. Although Gram’s staining is a reliable differential staining for the otherbacteria, the bacterial cells in the smears from the ovaries of wild caught mosquitoes did not take the stain properlyand the cells were not clearly visible. The PCR amplified product from the pooled remains of wild caught andWolbachia (+) Cx. quinquefasciatus showed clear banding, whereas, no banding was observed for the negativecontrol (distilled water) and Wolbachia (–) Cx. quinquefasciatus.Interpretation & conclusion: The Gimenez staining technique applied, could be used to detect the members of theendobacteria Wolbachia easily, even in a simple laboratory without any special facilities or even in the fieldcondition and for handling large number of samples in a shorter duratio