Development of a Miniature Pair of Eyes With Camera for the Humanoid Robot Robota

A growing trend in humanoid robotics tend at reducing the size of humanoids in order to lower their building costs. While growing small has its advantages, it also has drawbacks. In particular, providing miniature humanoids with the same sensorimotor capabilities as their grown-up peers is a challenge, both in terms of mechanics, electronics and control. The Robota project creates humanoids, whose size should match that of a commercial doll, so that they can be used as part of experiments with autistic children. Because these experiments measure the child's ability to socially interact with others, it is fundamental to provide the robot with sensory capabilities, such as speech and vision, that are at the basis of these interactions. This paper presents the creation of a miniature pair of mobile eyes, mounted with miniature cameras to provide Robota with binocular and mobile vision. The system allows the robot to blink, to direct its gaze toward or away from its user and to track the user's face

Cornelia-de Lange syndrome-associated mutations cause a DNA damage signalling and repair defect

Cornelia de Lange syndrome is a multisystem developmental disorder typically caused by mutations in the gene encoding the cohesin loader NIPBL. The associated phenotype is generally assumed to be the consequence of aberrant transcriptional regulation. Recently, we identified a missense mutation in BRD4 associated with a Cornelia de Lange-like syndrome that reduces BRD4 binding to acetylated histones. Here we show that, although this mutation reduces BRD4-occupancy at enhancers it does not affect transcription of the pluripotency network in mouse embryonic stem cells. Rather, it delays the cell cycle, increases DNA damage signalling, and perturbs regulation of DNA repair in mutant cells. This uncovers a role for BRD4 in DNA repair pathway choice. Furthermore, we find evidence of a similar increase in DNA damage signalling in cells derived from NIPBL-deficient individuals, suggesting that defective DNA damage signalling and repair is also a feature of typical Cornelia de Lange syndrome

Usefulness of molecular biology performed with formaldehyde-fixed paraffin embedded tissue for the diagnosis of combined pulmonary invasive mucormycosis and aspergillosis in an immunocompromised patient

Immunocompromised patients who develop invasive filamentous mycotic infections can be efficiently treated if rapid identification of the causative fungus is obtained. We report a case of fatal necrotic pneumonia caused by combined pulmonary invasive mucormycosis and aspergillosis in a 66 year-old renal transplant recipient. Aspergillus was first identified during the course of the disease by cytological examination and culture (A. fumigatus) of bronchoalveolar fluid. Hyphae of Mucorales (Rhizopus microsporus) were subsequently identified by culture of a tissue specimen taken from the left inferior pulmonary lobe, which was surgically resected two days before the patient died. Histological analysis of the lung parenchyma showed the association of two different filamentous mycoses for which the morphological features were evocative of aspergillosis and mucormycosis. However, the definitive identification of the associative infection was made by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) performed on deparaffinized tissue sections using specific primers for aspergillosis and mucormycosis. This case demonstrates that discrepancies between histological, cytological and mycological analyses can occur in cases of combined mycotic infection. In this regard, it shows that PCR on selected paraffin blocks is a very powerful method for making or confirming the association of different filamentous mycoses and that this method should be made available to pathology laboratories

PI3K signaling pathway in normal B cells and indolent B-cell malignancies

In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs), B-cell receptor signaling leads to activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway. Idelalisib, a PI3Kδ inhibitor was approved in 2014 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in combination with rituximab for the treatment of patients with CLL for whom single-agent rituximab would be considered appropriate and as a single agent for patients with relapsed small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) and relapsed follicular lymphoma (FL). Following its approval, several trials investigating various PI3Kδ inhibitors as single agents or in combination with chemoimmunotherapy or other molecular targeted agents in CLL and indolent NHL (iNHL) have uncovered some severe autoimmune related toxicities. This review discusses and summarizes the biologic basis and the clinical experience of the PI3Kδ inhibitors in indolent B-cell malignancies

Activity of Deferasirox in Mucorales: Influences of Species and Exogenous Iron

Differences in deferasirox susceptibility among members of the order Mucorales are unknown. Here we show that Cunninghamella bertholletiae (four isolates) and Mucor species (five isolates) display higher deferasirox MICs and minimal fungicidal concentrations compared to Rhizopus species (six isolates). Exogenous iron further attenuated the deferasirox susceptibility of Mucorales isolates with low MICs. Vital staining revealed damage to subapical compartments in susceptible strains

BRD4 facilitates DNA damage response and represses CBX5/Heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1)

Ovarian cancer (OC) is a heterogeneous disease characterized by defective DNA repair. Very few targets are universally expressed in the high grade serous (HGS) subtype. We previously identified that CHK1 was overexpressed in most of HGSOC. Here, we sought to understand the DNA damage response (DDR) to CHK1 inhibition and increase the anti-tumor activity of this pathway. We found BRD4 suppression either by siRNA or BRD4 inhibitor JQ1 enhanced the cytotoxicity of CHK1 inhibition. Interestingly, BRD4 was amplified and/or upregulated in a subset of HGSOC with statistical correlation to overall survival. BRD4 inhibition increased CBX5 (HP1α) level. CHK1 inhibitor induced DDR marker, γ-H2AX, but BRD4 suppression did not. Furthermore, nuclear localization of CBX5 and γ-H2AX was mutually exclusive in BRD4-and CHK1-inhibited cells, suggesting BRD4 facilitates DDR by repressing CBX5. Our results provide a strong rationale for clinical investigation of CHK1 and BRD4 co-inhibition, especially for HGSOC patients with BRD4 overexpression

Inverse Kinematics Analysis and COG Trajectory Planning Algorithms for Stable Walking of a Quadruped Robot with Redundant DOFs

This paper presents a new Center of Gravity (COG) trajectory planning algorithm for a quadruped robot with redundant Degrees of Freedom (DOFs). Each leg has 7 DOFs, which allow the robot to exploit its kinematic redundancy for various locomotion and manipulation tasks. Also, the robot can suitably adapt to different environment (e.g., passing through a narrow gap) by simply changing the body posture. However, the robot has significant COG movement during the leg swinging phase due to the heavy leg weights; the weight of all the four legs takes up 80% of the robot???s total weight. To achieve stable walking in the presence of undesired COG movements, a new COG trajectory planning algorithm was proposed by using a combined Jacobian of COG and centroid of a support polygon including a foot contact constraint. Additionally, the inverse kinematics of each leg was solved by modified improved Jacobian pseudoinverse (mIJP) algorithm. The mIJP algorithm could generate desired trajectories for the joints even when the robot???s leg is in a singular posture. Owing to these proposed methods, the robot was able to perform various modes of locomotion both in simulations and experiments with improved stability