Water and charge transport models in proton exchange membranes: An overview

Recently, the significant role of water management in affecting the performance and durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been subjective to an intensive research to understand water transport phenomena which is marked by two processes: water adsorption and water diffusion. Various mathematical models have been developed to address both processes on a different basis. This article briefly reviews various water transport models in a comparative manner to have a better understanding on the role of water hydration with respect to membrane structure and transport mechanism, in affecting the proton transport in the membranes. A discussion on the validity and reliability of the models for describing the water management is also presented. The limitations that are required to be overcome to design new materials meeting the new trends of membranes development for fuel cell are also highlighted

Deciphering the Immune Evolution Landscape of Multiple Myeloma Long-Term Survivors Using Single Cell Genomics

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant bone marrow (BM) disease characterized by somatic hypermutation and DNA damage in plasma cells; leading to the overproduction of dysfunctional malignant myeloma cells. Accumulation of myeloma cells has direct and indirect effects on the BM and other organs. Despite the development of new therapeutic options; MM remains incurable and only a small fraction of patients experiences long-term survival (LTS). The past has shown that ultimately all patients still relapse; leading to the hypothesis that a state of active immune-surveillance is required to control the residual disease. To understand the long-term survival phenomenon and its link to the immune-phenotypes in MM disease; we collected paired bone marrow samples from 24 patients who survived for about 7 to 17 years after Autologous Stem Cell Transplant (ASCT), with a high plasma cell infiltration in the BM (median 49.5%) at diagnosis time. Response assessment according to the International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) revealed that 15 patients were in complete remission (CR), whereas 9 patients were in non-complete remission (non-CR) that had tumor cells which remained stable over recent years. We performed single-cell RNA-seq sequencing on more than 290,000 bone marrow cells from 11 patients before treatment (BT) and in LTS, as well as three healthy controls using 10x Genomics technology. I developed a computational approach using the state-of-the-art single cell methods, statistical inference and machine learning models to decipher the bone marrow immune cell types and states across all clinical groups. I performed in-depth analyses of the bone marrow immune microenvironment across all captured cell types, and provided the global landscape of cellular states across all clinical groups. In this work, I defined new cellular states, marker genes, and gene signatures associated with the patients’ clinical and survival states. Additionally, I defined a new myeloid population termed Myeloma-associated Neutrophils (MAN) cells and a T cell exhaustion population termed Aberrant Memory Cytotoxic (AMC) CD8+ T cells in newly diagnosed Multiple Myeloma patients. Moreover, I propose new therapeutic targets CXCR3 and NR4A2 in AMC CD8+ T cells, which could be further investigated to reverse the T cell exhaustion state in newly diagnosed MM patients. Furthermore, I defined new prognostic markers in the CD8+ T cell compartment which could be predictive for the global disease state. Finally, I propose that MM long-term survivors go through a complex and evolving immune landscape and acquire cellular states in a stepwise manner. Furthermore, I propose the Continuum Immune Landscape (CIL) Model which explains the immune landscape of MM patients before and after long-term survival. Additionally, I introduced the Disease-State Trajectories (DST) hypothesis regarding the disease-associated dysregulated cellular states in MM context, which could be generalized into other tumor entities and diseases

Role of multi-detector computed tomography in the evaluation of pancreatic tumors

AbstractObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to determine the role of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) in evaluation and prediction of pancreatic tumors resectability.Patients and methodsThe study included 20 patients who had pancreatic masses, 16 males and 4 females, and their age range was 30–70years with a mean age of 58.0years. All the patients underwent non-contrast and contrast enhanced Multi-slice CT using a 16-slice machine. The gold standard for diagnosis was histopathology and operative data.ResultsAdenocarcinoma as reported by pathological studies was found in 8 patients, cyst adenocarcinoma in one patient, infiltrative adenocarcinoma in 2 patients, intraductal papillary mucinous tumor in 2 patients, mucinous cyst adenocarcinoma in one patient, pancreatic pseudo cyst in 2 patients and mucinous cystadenoma in 4 patients. According to MDCT criteria 6 patients were considered suitable for tumor resection and 14 patients were considered inoperable with unresectable tumor, one out of the 6 operable patients was unresectable during operation due to the invasion of the superior mesenteric vein with infiltration of the mesenteric root.ConclusionContrast-enhanced multiphase pancreatic imaging by multislice computerized tomography (MSCT) with its postprocessing techniques represents the image of choice for diagnosis and predicting pancreatic masses and resectability

Simbolismo de lugar y etimología de los nombres en "Hijos de nuestro barrio" de Naguib Mahfuz.

Sin resume

A modified multiview video streaming system using 3-tier architecture

In this paper, we present a modified inter-view prediction Multiview Video Coding (MVC) scheme from the perspective of viewer's interactivity. When a viewer requests some view(s), our scheme leads to lower transmission bit-rate. We develop an interactive multiview video streaming system exploiting that modified MVC scheme. Conventional interactive multiview video systems require high bandwidth due to redundant data being transferred. With real data test sequences, clear improvements are shown using the proposed interactive multiview video system compared to competing ones in terms of the average transmission bit-rate and storage size of the decoded (i.e., transferred) data with comparable rate-distortion