Phloretin attenuates STAT-3 activity and overcomes sorafenib resistance targeting SHP-1-mediated inhibition of STAT3 and Akt/VEGFR2 pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver malignancy. Phloretin (PH) possesses anticancer, antitumor, and hepatoprotective effects, however, the effects and potential mechanisms of phloretin remain elusive. Methods: Five HCC cells were tested in vitro for sensitivity to PH, Sorafenib (Sor) or both and the apoptosis, signal transduction and phosphatase activity were analyzed. To validate the role of SHP-1, we used PTP inhibitor III and SHP-1 siRNA. Further, we used purified SHP-1 proteins or HCC cells expressing deletion N-SH2 domain or D61A point mutants to study the PH efficacy on SHP-1. The 'in vivo studies were conducted using HepG2 and SK-Hep1 and Sor resistant HepG2SR and Huh7SR xenografts. Molecular docking was done with Swiss dock and Auto Dock Vina. Results: PH inhibited cell growth and induced apoptosis in all HCC cells by upregulating SHP-1 expression and downregulating STAT3 expression and further inhibited pAKT/pERK signaling. PH activated SHP-1 by disruption of autoinhibition of SHP-1, leading to reduced p-STAT3Tyr705 level. PH induced apoptosis in two Sor-resistant cell lines and overcome STAT3, AKT, MAPK and VEGFR2 dependent Sor resistance in HCCs. PH potently inhibited tumor growth in both Sor-sensitive and Sor-resistant xenografts in vivo by impairing angiogenesis, cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis via targeting the SHP-1/STAT3 signaling pathway. Conclusion: Our data suggest that PH inhibits STAT3 activity in Sor-sensitive and -resistant HCCs via SHP-1-mediated inhibition of STAT3 and AKT/mTOR/JAK2/VEGFR2 pathway. Our results clearly indicate that PH may be a potent reagent for hepatocellular carcinoma and a noveltargeted therapy for further clinical investigations. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext]. - 2019 The Author(s).The publication of this article was funded by the Qatar National Library, Qatar. The graphical abstract was created with BioRender.comScopu

Effects of threshold of hard cut based technique for advertisement detection in TV video streams

Advertisement detection in a TV video recording/archiving system is a challenging task. In this paper, shot change (hard cut) detection that is based on 'inter-frame difference', 'normalized difference energy' and the 'normalized sum of absolute differences' and its comparison with a threshold are discussed. The effects of changing video threshold on hard cut detection have been summarized. A threshold value is evaluated for the efficient extraction of complete advertisement. Effects of various thresholds are extensively tested on more than 20 hrs of TV video streams. The frequency of shot breaks along with blank frames is considered as a key component in advertisement detection. Results of these MATLAB and LabVIEW based computer simulations have been reported

Aerial vehicle based sensing framework for structural health monitoring

A novel approach to implement wireless active sensing framework for Structural Health Monitoring is presented using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle as a Mobile Agent. This approach has unique features of critical activity detection, wireless power delivery and measurement and data collection options from the sensor nodes through Zigbee. The active sensing is initiated by wirelessly triggering the sensor node from UAV. UAV provides unrestricted accessibility in various applications for SHM. It carries Beagle Board payload for real-time calculations to check the health of structures. The onboard video camera provides improved analysis of Critical activities like abnormal vibration and structure tilt. It captures video of the area of interest and data measured by any sensor node network. This paper is intended to give sufficient details of the implementation of our approach

Real time low level parallel image processing for active vision systems

This paper presents an overview of low level parallel image processing algorithms and their implementation for active vision systems. Authors have demonstrated novel low level image processing algorithms for point operators, local operators, dithering, smoothing, edge detection, morphological operators, image segmentation and image compression. The algorithms have been prepared & described as pseudo codes. These algorithms have been simulated using Parallel Computing Toolboxtrade (PCT) of MATLAB. The PCT provides parallel constructs in the MATLAB language, such as parallel for loops, distributed arrays and message passing & enables rapid prototyping of parallel code through an interactive parallel MATLAB session

Much ado about nothing? Tracing the progress of innovations borne on enterprise social network sites

Enterprise social networks are organizationally bounded online platforms for users to interact with another and maintain interpersonal relationships. The allure of these technologies is often seen in intra-organizational communication, collaboration and innovation. How these technologies actually support organizational innovation efforts remains unclear. A specific challenge is whether digital content on these platforms converts to actual innovation development efforts. In this study we set out to examine innovation-centric content flows on enterprise social networking platforms, and advance a conceptual model that seeks to explain which innovation conveyed in the digital content will traverse from the digital platform into regular processes. We describe important constructs of our model and offer strategies for the operationalization of the constructs. We conclude with an outlook to our ongoing empirical study that will explore and validate the key propositions of our model, and we sketch some potential implications for industry and academia

Thin apps store for smart phones based on private cloud infrastructure

A novel approach to implement cloud computing for smart phone devices has been presented based on Eucalyptus, an open source cloud-computing framework that provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS). It has full support of Virtualization and is Amazon Web Services interface compatible. A private cloud has been designed using Eucalyptus to develop a smart phone application store. The architecture, physical and network implementation of Eucalyptus Private Cloud on Intel based platform has been discussed in details. We have developed two sample thin applications for mobile based on mobile learning that can be downloaded from our private cloud using Amazon Web Services Platform (PaaS). These thin apps use the private cloud as computing platform, and perform better even on low processing smart phones

Analiza fitochemiczna oraz ocena aktywności mięczakobójczej Andrographis paniculata

Andrographis paniculata Nees (Acanthaceae), commonly known as “Kalmegh” is traditionally used medicinal plant. In present study the laboratory evaluations were made to assess the preliminary phytochemical screening and molluscicidal activity of Andrographis paniculata. Maximum extractive value (3.134%) was found in water extract among test solvents. All the tested metabolites were qualitatively present in ethanolic extract. Regarding molluscicidal activity, the acute toxicity of the extracts on Lymnaea acuminata was evaluated by a rapid screening procedure. Among the different plant parts (root, stem and leaf) powder and ethanolic extract showed LC50 at 295.55mg/L and 19.73mg/L respectively. Screening of plant extracts represents a continuous effort to find new antiparasitic drugs.Andrographis paniculata Nees (Acanthaceae) jest tradycyjną rośliną leczniczą powszechnie znaną jako „Kalmegh”. W niniejszej pracy zaprezentowano wyniki wstępnych badań dotyczących analizy fitochemicznej oraz oceny aktywności mięczakobójczej Andrographis paniculata. Najwyższą wydajność ekstrakcji odnotowano w przypadku wyciągu wodnego – 3,134%, natomiast wszystkie bioaktywne metabolity były obecne w ilościach oznaczalnych w wyciągu alkoholowym. W przypadku działania mięczakobójczego oznaczono toksyczność ostrą z użyciem Lymnaea acuminata za pomocą szybkiego testu przesiewowego. Najwyższą LC50 spośród badanych części roślin (korzenie, łodyga i liście) odnotowano dla sproszkowanych korzeni oraz wyciągu alkoholowego, odpowiednio LC50=295,55 mg/L i 19,73 mg/L. Analiza wyciągów roślinnych potwierdza słuszność przeprowadzania dalszych badań mających na celu poszukiwanie nowych leków przeciwpasożytniczych

SATYAPAL SINGH AND

The ethanolic extracts of different plant parts of Alangium salviifolium Linn, Andrographis paniculata Nees and Spilanthus acemella Murr showed significant antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aureginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus A. niger, A. fumigatus and Fusarium oxysporium. Alangium salviifolium root extract and S. acemella leaf extract showed highest antibacterial activity against E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Root and stem extracts of Alangium salviifoilium recorded significant activity against all the test bacteria and fungi