PdO and PtO doped WS2 boosts NO2 gas sensing characteristics at room temperature

In this work tungsten disulphide nanostructures loaded with platinum-oxide (PtO), or palladium-oxide (PdO) were grown directly onto alumina substrates. This was achieved using a combination of aerosol-assisted chemical vapour deposition (AA-CVD) method with atmospheric pressure CVD technique. At first, tungsten oxide nanowires loaded with either PtO or PdO nanoparticles were successfully co-deposited via AA-CVD followed by sulfurization at 900 °C in the next step. The morphological, structural, and chemical characteristics were investigated using FESEM, TEM, XRD, XPS and Raman spectroscopy. The results confirm the presence of PdO and PtO in the WS2 host matrix. Gas sensing attributes of loaded and pristine WS2 sensors were investigated, at room temperature, towards different analytes (NO2, NH3, H2 etc.). Both pristine and metal-oxide loaded WS2 gas sensors show remarkable responses at room temperature towards NO2 detection. Further, the loaded sensors demonstrated stable, reproducible, ultrasensitive, and enhanced gas sensing response, with a detection limit below 25 ppb. Additionally, the effect of ambient humidity on the sensing response of both loaded and pristine sensors was investigated for NO2 gas. The response of PtO loaded sensor considerably decreased in humid environments, while the response for pristine and PdO loaded sensors increased. However, slightly heating (at 100 °C) the sensors, suppresses the influence of humidity. Finally, the long-term stability of different sensors is investigated, and the results demonstrate high stability with repeatable results after 6 weeks of gas sensing tests. This work exploits an attractive pathway to add functionality in the transition metal dichalcogenide host matrix

Histone H1 depletion triggers an interferon response in cancer cells via activation of heterochromatic repeats

Histone H1 has seven variants in human somatic cells and contributes to chromatin compaction and transcriptional regulation. Knock-down (KD) of each H1 variant in breast cancer cells results in altered gene expression and proliferation differently in a variant specific manner with H1.2 and H1.4 KDs being most deleterious. Here we show combined depletion of H1.2 and H1.4 has a strong deleterious effect resulting in a strong interferon (IFN) response, as evidenced by an up-regulation of many IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) not seen in individual nor in other combinations of H1 variant KDs. Although H1 participates to repress ISG promoters, IFN activation upon H1.2 and H1.4 KD is mainly generated through the activation of the IFN response by cytosolic nucleic acid receptors and IFN synthesis, and without changes in histone modifications at induced ISG promoters. H1.2 and H1.4 co-KD also promotes the appearance of accessibility sites genome wide and, particularly, at satellites and other repeats. The IFN response may be triggered by the expression of noncoding RNA generated from heterochromatic repeats or endogenous retroviruses upon H1 KD. In conclusion, redundant H1-mediated silencing of heterochromatin is important to maintain cell homeostasis and to avoid an unspecific IFN response

BAULA, de l'escola al barri : un projecte d'art comunitari per a la transformació social

‘BAULA, de l’escola al barri’ és un projecte d’art comunitari pensat per ajudar a la construcció social del barri de Roquetes – districte de Nou Barris, Barcelona – a partir de l’actuació dins del marc educatiu del CEIP Antaviana. Després d’una primera fase de documentació sobre l’impacte social de la participació en les arts i els nous reptes de l’educació, hem portat a terme una investigació de camp amb l’objectiu de detectar les necessitats del context concret. El resultat ha estat el disseny d’una proposta d’actuació que estructura el seu eix central al voltant de la creativitat i la improvisació, com a eines de creixement individual i col·lectiu. Finalment, una prova pilot ens ha permès fer diverses millores al plantejament previ, sent, el resultat, un proposta fortament fonamentada i aplicable en un futur més o menys proper.‘BAULA, de la escuela al barrio’ es un proyecto de arte comunitario pensado para ayudar en la construcción social del barrio de Roquetes – distrito de Nou Barris, Barcelona – a partir de la actuación dentro del marco educativo del CEIP Antaviana. Después de una primera fase de documentación sobre el impacto social de la participación en las artes y los nuevos retos de la educación, hemos desarrollado una investigación de campo con el objetivo de detectar las necesidades del contexto concreto. El resultado ha sido el diseño de una propuesta de actuación que estructura su eje central alrededor de la creatividad i la improvisación, como instrumentos de crecimiento individual y colectivo. Finalmente, una prueba piloto nos ha permitido hacer varias mejoras al planteamiento previo, siendo, el resultado, una propuesta fuertemente fundamentada i aplicable en un futuro más o menos próximo.‘BAULA, from the school to the neighborhood’ is a community arts project created in order to boost the social construction of Roquetes area – in Nou Barris district, in Barcelona – from the action done in Antaviana public primary school. After the first stage of documentation about the social impact of participation in the arts, and after getting acquainted about education new challenges, we developed a field investigation in order to detect the concrete needs of the context. The result took us to make a design of a program whose axis is creativity and improvisation, as an instrument of individual and collective growth. At the end, we did a try-out for the purpose of evaluating the original program and we improved it with the results. The final project is now solid so as to be applied in the next future

Catalan child relative contrasts as a processing effect

Research in various languages indicates that children interpret subject relatives in an adult-like manner substantially earlier than they interpret object relatives. This asymmetry, while grounded in a grammatical contrast, may be attributed to processing of the corresponding syntactic structures, as in Gibson (1998), Morrill (2000). One question which emerges is: if processing can be argued to be the source of poor performance in the interpretation of object relatives, does this carry over to production? This issue is addressed in this paper with the acquisition of Catalan; original results for relative clause elicitation are parallel to those of a relative clause interpretation experiment. It is proposed to account for the findings by adopting an analysis based on Morrill's (2000) metric of syntactic complexity, an implementation of Gibson's (1998) insight that processing difficulties increase as a function of the number of unresolved dependencies that the speaker must keep in memory. Gibson's and Morrill's proposals are neutral with respect to whether linguistic knowledge is put to use in production or comprehension; here it is claimed that, in fact, for the empirical domain considered, production and comprehension are equally taxe

Histone H1 depletion triggers an interferon response in cancer cells via activation of heterochromatic repeats

Histone H1 has seven variants in human somatic cells and contributes to chromatin compaction and transcriptional regulation. Knock-down (KD) of each H1 variant in breast cancer cells results in altered gene expression and proliferation differently in a variant specific manner with H1.2 and H1.4 KDs being most deleterious. Here we show combined depletion of H1.2 and H1.4 has a strong deleterious effect resulting in a strong interferon (IFN) response, as evidenced by an up-regulation of many IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) not seen in individual nor in other combinations of H1 variant KDs. Although H1 participates to repress ISG promoters, IFN activation upon H1.2 and H1.4 KD is mainly generated through the activation of the IFN response by cytosolic nucleic acid receptors and IFN synthesis, and without changes in histone modifications at induced ISG promoters. H1.2 and H1.4 co-KD also promotes the appearance of accessibility sites genome wide and, particularly, at satellites and other repeats. The IFN response may be triggered by the expression of noncoding RNA generated from heterochromatic repeats or endogenous retroviruses upon H1 KD. In conclusion, redundant H1-mediated silencing of heterochromatin is important to maintain cell homeostasis and to avoid an unspecific IFN response

Histone H1 depletion triggers an interferon response in cancer cells via activation of heterochromatic repeats

Histone H1 has seven variants in human somatic cells and contributes to chromatin compaction and transcriptional regulation. Knock-down (KD) of each H1 variant in breast cancer cells results in altered gene expression and proliferation differently in a variant specific manner with H1.2 and H1.4 KDs being most deleterious. Here we show combined depletion of H1.2 and H1.4 has a strong deleterious effect resulting in a strong interferon (IFN) response, as evidenced by an up-regulation of many IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) not seen in individual nor in other combinations of H1 variant KDs. Although H1 participates to repress ISG promoters, IFN activation upon H1.2 and H1.4 KD is mainly generated through the activation of the IFN response by cytosolic nucleic acid receptors and IFN synthesis, and without changes in histone modifications at induced ISG promoters. H1.2 and H1.4 co-KD also promotes the appearance of accessibility sites genome wide and, particularly, at satellites and other repeats. The IFN response may be triggered by the expression of noncoding RNA generated from heterochromatic repeats or endogenous retroviruses upon H1 KD. In conclusion, redundant H1-mediated silencing of heterochromatin is important to maintain cell homeostasis and to avoid an unspecific IFN response

Lamin B1 mapping reveals the existence of dynamic and functional euchromatin lamin B1 domains

Lamins (A/C and B) are major constituents of the nuclear lamina (NL). Structurally conserved lamina-associated domains (LADs) are formed by genomic regions that contact the NL. Lamins are also found in the nucleoplasm, with a yet unknown function. Here we map the genome-wide localization of lamin B1 in an euchromatin-enriched fraction of the mouse genome and follow its dynamics during the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Lamin B1 associates with actively expressed and open euchromatin regions, forming dynamic euchromatin lamin B1-associated domains (eLADs) of about 0.3 Mb. Hi-C data link eLADs to the 3D organization of the mouse genome during EMT and correlate lamin B1 enrichment at topologically associating domain (TAD) borders with increased border strength. Having reduced levels of lamin B1 alters the EMT transcriptional signature and compromises the acquisition of mesenchymal traits. Thus, during EMT, the process of genome reorganization in mouse involves dynamic changes in eLADsThis work was supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) FIS/FEDER (PI15/00396; CPII14/0006), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) (SAF2013-40922-R1; FPU14/0407; BFU2016-75008-P), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional-FEDER (SAF2016-76461-R), Generalitat de Catalunya (2014 SGR 32), Fundació FERO, Fundació La Marató TV3, and La Caixa Foundation. We also thank the Advanced Light Microscopy Unit at the CRG for their assistance and the Cellex Foundation for providing research facilities and equipment. M.A.M.-R. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council under the 7th Framework Program (FP7/2010-2015, ERC grant agreement 609989), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (agreement 676556), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2013-47736-P), and the Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013-2017 (SEV-2012-0208) to the CR