Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation by 8-Plex iTRAQ Labelling

Analysis of gene expression to define molecular mechanisms and pathways involved in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) proliferation and differentiations has allowed for further deciphering of the self-renewal and pluripotency characteristics of hESC. Proteins associated with hESCs were discovered through isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ). Undifferentiated hESCs and hESCs in different stages of spontaneous differentiation by embryoid body (EB) formation were analyzed. Using the iTRAQ approach, we identified 156 differentially expressed proteins involved in cell proliferation, apoptosis, transcription, translation, mRNA processing, and protein synthesis. Proteins involved in nucleic acid binding, protein synthesis, and integrin signaling were downregulated during differentiation, whereas cytoskeleton proteins were upregulated. The present findings added insight to our understanding of the mechanisms involved in hESC proliferation and differentiation

Challenge-sensitive game balancing: an evaluation of user satisfaction

User satisfaction in computer games seems to be influenced by game balance, the level of challenge faced by the user. This work presents an evaluation, performed by human players, of dynamic game balancing approaches. The results indicate that adaptive approaches are more effective. This paper also enumerates some issues encountered in evaluating users ’ satisfaction, in the context of games, and depicts some learned lessons

Silicone-induced granuloma of breast implant capsule (SIGBIC): similarities and differences with anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) and their differential diagnosis

Eduardo de Faria Castro Fleury,1 Milena Morais Rêgo,1 Luciana Costa Ramalho,1 Veronica Jorge Ayres,1 Rodrigo Oliveira Seleti,2 Carlos Alberto Pecci Ferreira,2 Decio Roveda Jr 2 1Radiology Department, IBCC – Instituto Brasileiro de Controle do Câncer, 2Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Abstract: Primary breast lymphoma is a rare disease and accounts for 0.5% of cases of breast cancer. Most primary breast lymphomas develop from B cells, and the involvement of T cells is rare. Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is a recently discovered T-cell lymphoma associated with breast implants. Only a few cases have been reported to date. It is believed that the incidence of ALCL is increasing because of the increasing number of breast implants. The clinical presentation is variable and can manifest as a palpable mass in the breast or armpit, breast pain, or capsular contracture. Because of the rarity of the disease and the lack of knowledge to date, clinical diagnosis is often delayed, with consequent delays in treatment. The cause and pathogenesis have not been fully elucidated, and there are no evidence-based guidelines for diagnosis, treatment, or follow-up of this disease. We present a review of cases of patients with silicone breast implants, including ALCL, a rare type of breast cancer that is still under study, and silicone-induced granuloma of breast implant capsule and its differential diagnosis, and discuss if a silicone-induced granuloma of breast implant capsule could be the precursor of the disease. Keywords: lymphoma, granuloma, breast cancer, implan

In Virtual Reality 5:1-10. 2001 A Synthetic Actor Model for Long-Term Computer

Abstract. Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence provide suitable techniques to improve computer games quality. While the former offers mechanisms to model environment and characters physical features, the latter provides models and tools for building characters, namely Synthetic Actors or Believable Agents, which can exhibit intelligent social behavior and express personality and emotions. The current architecture proposals for Synthetic Actors do not fully meet the requirements for long-term games development. In long-term games, such as strategy and adventure ones, it is necessary to guarantee both personality stability and reactive emotional responses, which may be contradictory. In this work, we propose a new Synthetic Actor model that tightly connects emotions and social attitudes to personality, providing a longterm coherent behavior. This model has been applied to two games presented here as case studies

1 Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

Abstract. Patrolling is a complex multi-agent task, which usually requires agents to coordinate their decision-making in order to achieve optimal performance of the group as a whole. In previous work, many patrolling strategies have been developed, based on different approaches: heuristic agents, negotiation mechanisms, reinforcement learning techniques, techniques based on graph-theory and others. In this paper, we complement these studies by comparing all the approaches developed so far for this domain, using patrolling problem instances that were not dealt with before (i.e. new map topologies). The final results constitute a valuable benchmark for this domain, as well as a survey of the strategies developed so far for this task