Prostaglandin E2-like activity of 20:3n-9 platelet lipoxygenase end-product

Abstract5,8,11-Icosatrienoic acid (20:3n-9), a fatty acid associated with platelet hyperactivity, was oxygenated by platelet lipoxygenase. The end-product of this pathway was purified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and characterized as 12-hydroxy-5,8,10-icosatrienoic acid [12-OH-20:3(5,8,10)] by capillary gas-liquid mass spectrometry. When tested upon platelet aggregation, 12-OH-20:3(5,8,10) exhibited a biphasic effect. At low concentrations (below 5 × 10−7 M) it potentiated aggregation but inhibited it at higher levels, a pattern similar to that obtained with prostaglandin E2. However, since the amounts of 12-OH-20:3(5,8,10) generated under thrombin stimulation are in the range of concentrations with potentiating effects, it seems that the 12-OH derivative is responsible for the hyperaggrebility of 20: 3n-9-rich platelets

Hardware Trojan Detection by Delay and Electromagnetic Measurements

International audience—Hardware Trojans (HT) inserted in integrated circuits have received special attention of researchers. In this paper, we present firstly a novel HT detection technique based on path delays measurements. A delay model, which considers intra-die process variations, is established for a net. Secondly, we show how to detect HT using ElectroMagnetic (EM) measurements. We study the HT detection probability according to its size taking into account the inter-die process variations with a set of FPGA. The results show, for instance, that there is a probability greater than 95% with a false negative rate of 5% to detect a HT larger than 1.7% of the original circuit. I. Introduction The trust and security of Integrated Circuits (IC) design and fabrication is critical for sensitive fields like finance, health, and governmental communications. Due to the complexity and the high cost of IC fabrication cycle, more and more firms outsource their production. This trend gives a possibility for an adversary to introduce malicious circuit, called Hardware Trojan horse (HT), in any IC. It can either perform a Denial Of Service (DOS), deteriorate circuit performance [8], or steal sensitive information. Therefore, the HTs are considered a real threat which has gained attention from researchers. HT can be inserted at any point during the design or fabrication process from Register Transfer Level (RTL) to layout and circuit fabrication. For example in [11], authors show some techniques to insert malicious circuitry at RTL level. These HTs, which are activated with a specific pattern inputs, can leak secret key via RS232 channels. The HT, unlike a software trojan, cannot be removed once it is fabricated. So, it is better to proactively prevent the insertion of a HT: few methods have been proposed. One seminal work is known as " private circuits II " [9]. This paper describes a proof-of-concept, too costly to be implemented. A more reasonable option has been recently proposed in [5]: it uses two codes to encode the state and mix it with encoded randomness, which allows to prevent an easy triggering and has a detection capability. Otherwise it is important to detect it before it becomes effective. Previous works classify detection methods into two wide categories: destructive and non-destructive. Invasive methods destroy the chip to reconstruct successfully the GDSII an

Purification and Reconstitution of the Glutamate Carrier GltT of the Thermophilic Bacterium Bacillus stearothermophilus

An affinity tag consisting of six adjacent histidine residues followed by an enterokinase cleavage site was genetically engineered at the N-terminus of the glutamate transport protein GltT of the thermophilic bacterium Bacillus stearothermophilus. The fusion protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and shown to transport glutamate. The highest levels of expression were observed in E. coli strain DH5α grown on rich medium. The protein could be purified in a single step by Ni2+-NTA affinity chromatography after solubilization of the cytoplasmic membranes with the detergent Triton X100. Purified GltT was reconstituted in an active state in liposomes prepared from E. coli phospholipids. The protein was reconstituted in detergent-treated preformed liposomes, followed by removal of the detergent with polystyrene beads. Active reconstitution was realized with a wide range of Triton X100 concentrations. Neither the presence of glycerol, phospholipids, nor substrates of the transporter was necessary during the purification and reconstitution procedure to keep the enzyme in an active state. In B. stearothermophilus, GltT translocates glutamate in symport with protons or sodium ions. In membrane vesicles derived from E. coli cells expressing GltT, the Na+ ion dependency seems to be lost, suggesting a role for the lipid environment in the cation specificity. In agreement with the last observation, glutamate transport catalyzed by purified GltT reconstituted in E. coli phospholipid is driven by an electrochemical gradient of H+ but not of Na+.

Pancreatic tumours: molecular pathways implicated in ductal cancer are involved in ampullary but not in exocrine nonductal or endocrine tumorigenesis

Alterations of K-ras, p53, p16 and DPC4/Smad4 characterize pancreatic ductal cancer (PDC). Reports of inactivation of these latter two genes in pancreatic endocrine tumours (PET) suggest that common molecular pathways are involved in the tumorigenesis of pancreatic exocrine and endocrine epithelia. We characterized 112 primary pancreatic tumours for alterations in p16 and DPC4 and immunohistochemical expression of DPC4. The cases included 34 PDC, 10 intraductal papillary-mucinous tumours (IPMT), 6 acinar carcinomas (PAC), 5 solid-pseudopapillary tumours (SPT), 16 ampulla of Vater cancers (AVC) and 41 PET. All tumours were also presently or previously analysed for K- ras and p53 mutations and allelic loss at 9p, 17p and 18q. Alterations in K- ras, p53, p16 and DPC4 were found in 82%, 53%, 38% and 9% of PDC, respectively and in 47%, 60%, 25% and 6% of AVC. Alterations in these genes were virtually absent in PET, PAC or SPT, while in IPMT only K-ras mutations were present (30%). Positive immunostaining confirmed the absence of DPC4 alterations in all IPMT, SPT, PAC and PET, while 47% of PDC and 38% of AVC were immunonegative. These data suggest that pancreatic exocrine and endocrine tumourigenesis involves different genetic targets and that among exocrine pancreatic neoplasms, only ductal and ampullary cancers share common molecular events. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co

Risk Factors for Mortality after COVID-19 in Patients with Preexisting Interstitial Lung Disease.

International audienc

Sub-surface modifications in silicon with ultra-short pulsed lasers above 2 µm

Nonlinear optical phenomena in silicon such as self-focusing and multi-photon absorption are strongly dependent on the wavelength, energy, and duration of the exciting pulse, especially for wavelengths >2µm. We investigate the sub-surface modification of silicon using ultra-short pulsed lasers at wavelengths in the range of 1950–2400 nm, at a pulse duration between 2 and 10 ps and pulse energy varying from 1 µJ to 1 mJ. We perform numerical simulations and experiments using fiber-based lasers built in-house that operate in this wavelength range for the surface and sub-surface processing of Si-wafers. The results are compared to the literature data at 1550 nm. Due to a dip in the nonlinear absorption spectrum and a peak in the spectrum of the third-order nonlinearity, the wavelengths between 2000 and 2200 nm prove to be more favorable for creating sub-surface modifications in silicon. This is the case even though those wavelengths do not allow as tight focusing as those at 1550 nm. This is compensated for by an increased self-focusing due to the nonlinear Kerr-effect around 2100 nm at high light intensities, characteristic for ultra-short pulses

Subgraph spotting in graph representations of comic book images

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record Graph-based representations are the most powerful data structures for extracting, representing and preserving the structural information of underlying data. Subgraph spotting is an interesting research problem, especially for studying and investigating the structural information based content-based image retrieval (CBIR) and query by example (QBE) in image databases. In this paper we address the problem of lack of freely available ground-truthed datasets for subgraph spotting and present a new dataset for subgraph spotting in graph representations of comic book images (SSGCI) with its ground-truth and evaluation protocol. Experimental results of two state-of-the-art methods of subgraph spotting are presented on the new SSGCI dataset.University of La Rochelle (France

Monitoring of lung edema by microwave reflectometry during lung ischemia-reperfusion injury in vivo

It is still unclear whether lung edema can be monitored by microwave reflectometry and whether the measured changes in lung dry matter content (DMC) are accompanied by changes in PaO(2) and in pro-to anti-inflammatory cytokine expression (IFN-gamma and IL-10). Right rat lung hili were cross-clamped at 37 degrees C for 0, 60, 90 or 120 min ischemia followed by 120 min reperfusion. After 90 min (DMC: 15.9 +/- 1.4%; PaO(2): 76.7 +/- 18 mm Hg) and 120 min ischemia (DMC: 12.8 +/- 0.6%; PaO(2): 43 +/- 7 mm Hg), a significant decrease in DMC and PaO(2) throughout reperfusion compared to 0 min ischemia (DMC: 19.5 +/- 1.11%; PaO(2): 247 +/- 33 mm Hg; p < 0.05) was observed. DMC and PaO(2) decreased after 60 min ischemia but recovered during reperfusion (DMC: 18.5 +/- 2.4%; PaO(2) : 173 +/- 30 mm Hg). DMC values reflected changes on the physiological and molecular level. In conclusion, lung edema monitoring by microwave reflectometry might become a tool for the thoracic surgeon. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

Active Membrane Fluctuations Studied by Micropipet Aspiration

We present a detailed analysis of the micropipet experiments recently reported in J-B. Manneville et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4356--4359 (1999), including a derivation of the expected behaviour of the membrane tension as a function of the areal strain in the case of an active membrane, i.e., containing a nonequilibrium noise source. We give a general expression, which takes into account the effect of active centers both directly on the membrane, and on the embedding fluid dynamics, keeping track of the coupling between the density of active centers and the membrane curvature. The data of the micropipet experiments are well reproduced by the new expressions. In particular, we show that a natural choice of the parameters quantifying the strength of the active noise explains both the large amplitude of the observed effects and its remarkable insensitivity to the active-center density in the investigated range. [Submitted to Phys Rev E, 22 March 2001]Comment: 14 pages, 5 encapsulated Postscript figure