Reduced Water Emissions in Fabric Care Appliances

ME450 Capstone Design and Manufacturing Experience: Fall 2007Whirlpool Corporationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57955/1/me450f07project26_report.pd

Exomer Is Part of a Hub Where Polarized Secretion and Ionic Stress Connect

[EN] Plasma membrane and membranous organelles contribute to the physiology of the Eukaryotic cell by participating in vesicle trafficking and the maintenance of ion homeostasis. Exomer is a protein complex that facilitates vesicle transport from the trans-Golgi network to the plasma membrane, and its absence leads to the retention of a set of selected cargoes in this organelle. However, this retention does not explain all phenotypes observed in exomer mutants. The Schizosaccharomyces pombe exomer is composed of Cfr1 and Bch1, and cfr1¿ and bch1¿ were sensitive to high concentrations of potassium salts but not sorbitol, which showed sensitivity to ionic but not osmotic stress. Additionally, the activity of the plasma membrane ATPase was higher in exomer mutants than in the wild-type, pointing to membrane hyperpolarization, which caused an increase in intracellular K+ content and mild sensitivity to Na+, Ca2+, and the aminoglycoside antibiotic hygromycin B. Moreover, in response to K+ shock, the intracellular Ca2+ level of cfr1¿ cells increased significantly more than in the wild-type, likely due to the larger Ca2+ spikes in the mutant. Microscopy analyses showed a defective endosomal morphology in the mutants. This was accompanied by an increase in the intracellular pools of the K+ exporting P-type ATPase Cta3 and the plasma membrane Transient Receptor Potential (TRP)-like Ca2+ channel Pkd2, which were partially diverted from the trans-Golgi network to the prevacuolar endosome. Despite this, most Cta3 and Pkd2 were delivered to the plasma membrane at the cell growing sites, showing that their transport from the trans-Golgi network to the cell surface occurred in the absence of exomer. Nevertheless, shortly after gene expression in the presence of KCl, the polarized distribution of Cta3 and Pkd2 in the plasma membrane was disturbed in the mutants. Finally, the use of fluorescent probes suggested that the distribution and dynamics of association of some lipids to the plasma membrane in the presence of KCl were altered in the mutants. Thus, exomer participation in the response to K+ stress was multifaceted. These results supported the notion that exomer plays a general role in protein sorting at the trans-Golgi network and in polarized secretion, which is not always related to a function as a selective cargo adaptor.Financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad/European Regional Development Fund¿FEDER¿program (BFU2017-84508-P to M-HV and PGC2018-098924-B-I00 to PP), and from the Junta de Castilla y Leon/FEDER program (CSI150P20 to PP, and ¿Escalera de Excelencia¿ CLU-2017-03/14-20 to the IBFG), made this work possible. SM was supported by fellowships from the Universidad de Salamanca and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, and EMR by a fellowship from Junta de Castilla y León. The Agencia Española de Investigación (AEI) Grants PID2019-104054 GB-I00 and RTC-2017-6468-2-AR supported JM. QC and AP were supported by the University of Toledo start up fund and a grant from National Institutes of Health (R15GM134496).Moro, S.; Moscoso-Romero, E.; Poddar, A.; Mulet, JM.; Pérez, P.; Chen, Q.; Valdivieso, M. (2021). Exomer Is Part of a Hub Where Polarized Secretion and Ionic Stress Connect. Frontiers in Microbiology. 12:1-22. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.708354S1221

GRK2 kinases in the primary cilium initiate SMOOTHENED-PKA signaling in the Hedgehog cascade.

During Hedgehog (Hh) signal transduction in development and disease, the atypical G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) SMOOTHENED (SMO) communicates with GLI transcription factors by binding the protein kinase A catalytic subunit (PKA-C) and physically blocking its enzymatic activity. Here, we show that GPCR kinase 2 (GRK2) orchestrates this process during endogenous mouse and zebrafish Hh pathway activation in the primary cilium. Upon SMO activation, GRK2 rapidly relocalizes from the ciliary base to the shaft, triggering SMO phosphorylation and PKA-C interaction. Reconstitution studies reveal that GRK2 phosphorylation enables active SMO to bind PKA-C directly. Lastly, the SMO-GRK2-PKA pathway underlies Hh signal transduction in a range of cellular and in vivo models. Thus, GRK2 phosphorylation of ciliary SMO and the ensuing PKA-C binding and inactivation are critical initiating events for the intracellular steps in Hh signaling. More broadly, our study suggests an expanded role for GRKs in enabling direct GPCR interactions with diverse intracellular effectors

Identifying a Medical Department Based on Unstructured Data: A Big Data Application in Healthcare

Health is an individual’s most precious asset and healthcare is one of the vehicles for preserving it. The Indian government’s spend on healthcare system is relatively low (1.2% of GDP). Consequently, Secondary and Tertiary government healthcare centers in India (that are presumed to be of above average ratings) are always crowded. In Tertiary healthcare centers, like the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), patients are often unable to articulate their problems correctly to the healthcare center’s reception staff, so that these patients to be directed to the correct healthcare department. In this paper, we propose a system that will scan prescriptions, referral letters and medical diagnostic reports of a patient, process the input using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engines, coupled with image processing tools, to direct the patient to the most relevant department. We have implemented and tested parts of this system wherein a patient enters his symptoms and/or provisional diagnosis; the system suggests a department based on this user input. Our system suggests the correct department 70.19% of the time. On further investigation, we found that one particular department of the hospital was over-represented. We eliminated the department from the data and performance of the system improved to 92.7%. Our system presently makes its suggestions using random forest algorithm that has been trained using two information repositories-symptoms and disease data, functional description of each medical department. It is our informed assumption that, once we have incorporated medicine information and diagnostics imaging data to train the system; and the complete medical history of the patient, performance of the system will improve further

The Mechanosensitive Pkd2 Channel Modulates the Recruitment of Myosin II and Actin to the Cytokinetic Contractile Ring

Cytokinesis, the last step in cell division, separates daughter cells through mechanical force. This is often through the force produced by an actomyosin contractile ring. In fission yeast cells, the ring helps recruit a mechanosensitive ion channel, Pkd2, to the cleavage furrow, whose activation by membrane tension promotes calcium influx and daughter cell separation. However, it is unclear how the activities of Pkd2 may affect the actomyosin ring. Here, through both microscopic and genetic analyses of a hypomorphic pkd2 mutant, we examined the potential role of this essential gene in assembling the contractile ring. The pkd2-81KD mutation significantly increased the counts of the type II myosin heavy chain Myo2 (+18%), its regulatory light chain Rlc1 (+37%) and actin (+100%) molecules in the ring, compared to the wild type. Consistent with a regulatory role of Pkd2 in the ring assembly, we identified a strong negative genetic interaction between pkd2-81KD and the temperature-sensitive mutant myo2-E1. The pkd2-81KD myo2-E1 cells often failed to assemble a complete contractile ring. We conclude that Pkd2 modulates the recruitment of type II myosin and actin to the contractile ring, suggesting a novel calcium-dependent mechanism regulating the actin cytoskeletal structures during cytokinesis

Generative Pipeline for Data Augmentation of Unconstrained Document Images with Structural and Textural Degradation (Student Abstract)

Computer vision applications for document image understanding (DIU) such as optical character recognition, word spotting, enhancement etc. suffer from structural deformations like strike-outs and unconstrained strokes, to name a few. They also suffer from texture degradation due to blurring, aging, or blotting-spots etc. The DIU applications with deep networks are limited to constrained environment and lack diverse data with text-level and pixel-level annotation simultaneously. In this work, we propose a generative framework to produce realistic synthetic handwritten document images with simultaneous annotation of text and corresponding pixel-level spatial foreground information. The proposed approach generates realistic backgrounds with artificial handwritten texts which supplements data-augmentation in multiple unconstrained DIU systems. The proposed framework is an early work to facilitate DIU system-evaluation in both image quality and recognition performance at a go

El exómero: conexión entre la secreción polarizada y el estrés iónico

Poster del trabajo presentado en el XV Congreso Nacional de Micología, celebrado en Valencia del 7 al 9 de septiembre de 2022El exómero es un complejo proteico que facilita el transporte de vesículas desde la red trans del Golgi (TGN) hasta la membrana plasmática (MP). En Saccharomyces cerevisiae su ausencia causa la retención de un conjunto específico de proteínas cargo en este orgánulo. El exómero de Schizosaccharomyces pombe está compuesto por Cfr1 y Bch1. Los mutantes cfr1¿ y bch1¿ son sensibles a estrés iónico pero no osmótico. Además, la actividad ATPasa en la MP es mayor en un mutante del exómero, lo que sugiere una hiperpolarización de la membrana. Además, en respuesta a estrés por K+, los niveles de Ca2+ intracelular aumentan significativamente más en cfr1¿ que en el silvestre. Los análisis por microscopía muestran una morfología endosomal defectuosa en los mutantes. Esto va acompañado de un incremento de los niveles intracelulares del exportador de K+ Cta3 y el canal de Ca2+ Pck2, que están parcialmente acumulados en el endosoma prevacuolar. Aun así, estos transportadores iónicos llegan a la membrana en los sitios de crecimiento polarizado, lo que demuestra que su transporte desde el TGN ocurre en ausencia del exómero. En los momentos posteriores a su expresión génica en presencia de KCl, la localización polarizada de Cta3 y Pkd2 en la membrana está alterada en los mutantes, de manera que su distribución es asimétrica y subapical. Finalmente, el uso de sondas fluorescentes sugiere que en los mutantes hay una distribución defectuosa de algunos lípidos de la MP en presencia de KCl. Por tanto, el exómero participa en muchos procesos celulares que están alterados en respuesta a estrés por K+. Estos resultados apoyan la idea de que el exómero juega un papel general en el mantenimiento del TGN, la secreción polarizada, y la respuesta a estrés que no está necesariamente relacionado con una función como adaptador de cargo.Este trabajo ha sido posible gracias al apoyo del Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad/Ciencia, Investigación y Universidades/ programa European Regional Development Fund—FEDER—(BFU2017-84508-P y PID2020-115111GB-I00 a M-HV y PGC2018-098924-B-I00 a PP), y de la Junta de Castilla y Leon/programa FEDER (CSI150P20 a PP, y Escalera de Excelencia CLU-2017-03/14-20 al IBFG). SM disfrutó de becas de la Universidad de Salamanca y el Ministerio de Educación, y EMR disfrutó de una beca de la Junta de Castilla y León. Las becas de la Agencia Española de Investigación (AEI) PID2019-104054 GB-I00 y RTC-2017-6468-2-AR financiaron a JM. QC y AP fueron financiados por la “University of Toledo start up fund” y una beca del “National Institute of Health” (R15GM134496).Peer reviewe

Xanthogranulomatous Cholecystitis Mimicking Carcinoma Gallbladder

Xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis (XGC) is a rare benign chronic inflammatory disease of the gallbladder that often presents as cholecystitis and can mimic gallbladder carcinoma. Distinguishing XGC from gallbladder cancer preoperatively is challenging. We present a case of a 62-year-old male who presented with features of carcinoma gallbladder in the CECT abdomen and MRCP. Intraoperatively, there was a mass in the gallbladder and extension into the adjacent structures with involvement of the hepatic artery, 1st part of the duodenum, portal vein, and hepatic flexure of the colon, and thus a palliative cholecystectomy was done. The histopathological report came out as XCG. The case aims to outline the clinical presentation of XGC and differentiate it from carcinoma gallbladder

A neuromorphic bionic eye with filter-free color vision using hemispherical perovskite nanowire array retina

Designing full-color spherical artificial eyes remains a challenge. Here, Long et al. report a bionic eye where each pixel on the hemispherical retina can recognize different colors based on the unique bidirectional photo response; with optical adaptivity and neuromorphic preprocessing abilit