Printed dose-recording tag based on organic complementary circuits and ferroelectric nonvolatile memories.

We have demonstrated a printed electronic tag that monitors time-integrated sensor signals and writes to nonvolatile memories for later readout. The tag is additively fabricated on flexible plastic foil and comprises a thermistor divider, complementary organic circuits, and two nonvolatile memory cells. With a supply voltage below 30 V, the threshold temperatures can be tuned between 0 °C and 80 °C. The time-temperature dose measurement is calibrated for minute-scale integration. The two memory bits are sequentially written in a thermometer code to provide an accumulated dose record

Ecosystem shift of a mountain lake under climate and human pressure : A move out from the safe operating space

A multiproxy approach including chironomid, diatom, pollen and geochemical analyses was applied on short gravitational cores retrieved from an alpine lake (Lacul Balea) in the Southern Carpathians (Romania) to unveil how this lake responded to natural and anthropogenic forcing over the past 500 years.On the basis of chironomid and diatom assemblage changes, and supported by sediment chemical data and historical information, we distinguished two main phases in lake evolution. Before 1926 the lake was dominated by chironomids belonging to Micropsectra insignilobus-type and benthic diatoms suggesting well-oxygenated oligotrophic environment with only small-scale disturbance. We considered this state as the lake's safe operational space. After 1926 significant changes occurred: Tanytarsus lugens-type and T. mendax-type chironomids took over dominance and collector filterers increased until 1970 pointing to an increase in available nutrients. The diatom community showed the most pronounced change between 1950 and 1992 when planktonic diatoms increased. The highest trophic level was reconstructed between 1970 and 1992, while the indicator species of increasing nutrient availability, Asterionella formosa spread from 1982 and decreased rapidly at 1992. Statistical analyses evidenced that the main driver of the diatom community change was atmospheric reactive nitrogen (Nr) fertilization that drastically moved the community towards planktonic diatom dominance from 1950. The transformation of the chironomid community was primarily driven by summer mean temperature increase that also changed the dominant feeding guild from collector gatherers to collector falterers. Our results overall suggest that the speed of ecosystem reorganisation showed an unprecedented increase over the last 100 years; biological systems in many cases underwent threshold type changes, while several system components displayed non-hysteretic change between alternating community composition. We conclude that Lake Balea is outside of its safe operating space today. The main trigger of changes since 1926 was climate change and human impact acting synergically. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Climate and land-use as the main drivers of recent environmental change in a mid-altitude mountain lake, Romanian Carpathians

Recent decades have been marked by unprecendented environmental changes which threaten the integrity of freshwater systems and their ecological value. Although most of these changes can be attributed to human activities, disentagling natural and anthropogenic drivers remains a challenge. In this study, surface sediments from Lake Ighiel, a mid-altitude site in the Carpathian Mts (Romania) were investigated following high-resolution sedimentological, geochemical, environmental magnetic and diatom analyses supported by historical cartographic and documentary evidence. Our results suggest that between 1920 and 1960 the study area experienced no significant anthropogenic impact. An excellent correspondence is observed between lake proxy responses (e.g., growth of submerged macrophytes, high detrital input, shifts in diatom assemblages) and parameters tracking natural hydroclimate variability (e.g., temperature, NAO). This highlights a dominant natural hydroclimatic control on the lacustrine system. From 1960 however, the depositional regime shifted markedly from laminated to homogenous clays; since then geochemical and magnetic data document a trend of significant (and on-going) subsurface erosion across the catchment. This is paralleled by a shift in lake ecosystem conditions denoting a strong response to an intensified anthropogenic impact, mainly through forestry. An increase in detrital input and marked changes in the diatom community are observed over the last three decades, alongside accelerated sedimentation rates following enhanced grazing and deforestation in the catchment. Recent shifts in diatom assemblages may also reflect forcing from atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition, a key recent drive of diatom community turnover in mountain lakes. In general, enhanced human pressure alongside intermittent hydroclimate forcing drastically altered the landscape around Lake Ighiel and thus, the sedimentation regime and the ecosystem’s health. However, paleoenvironmental signals tracking natural hydroclimate variability are also clearly discernible in the proxy data. Our work illustrates the complex link between the drivers of catchment-scale impacts on one hand, and lake proxy responses on the other, highlighting the importance of an integrated historical and palaeolimnological approach to better assess lake system changes

Lack of cyclophilin D protects against the development of acute lung injury in endotoxemia.

Sepsis caused by LPS is characterized by an intense systemic inflammatory response affecting the lungs, causing acute lung injury (ALI). Dysfunction of mitochondria and the role of reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen species produced by mitochondria have already been proposed in the pathogenesis of sepsis; however, the exact molecular mechanism is poorly understood. Oxidative stress induces cyclophilin D (CypD)-dependent mitochondrial permeability transition (mPT), leading to organ failure in sepsis. In previous studies mPT was inhibited by cyclosporine A which, beside CypD, inhibits cyclophilin A, B, C and calcineurin, regulating cell death and inflammatory pathways. The immunomodulatory side effects of cyclosporine A make it unfavorable in inflammatory model systems. To avoid these uncertainties in the molecular mechanism, we studied endotoxemia-induced ALI in CypD-/- mice providing unambiguous data for the pathological role of CypD-dependent mPT in ALI. Our key finding is that the loss of this essential protein improves survival rate and it can intensely ameliorate endotoxin-induced lung injury through attenuated proinflammatory cytokine release, down-regulation of redox sensitive cellular pathways such as MAPKs, Akt, and NF-kappaB and reducing the production of ROS. Functional inhibition of NF-kappaB was confirmed by decreased expression of NF-kappaB-mediated proinflammatory genes. We demonstrated that impaired mPT due to the lack of CypD reduces the severity of endotoxemia-induced lung injury suggesting that CypD specific inhibitors might have a great therapeutic potential in sepsis-induced organ failure. Our data highlight a previously unknown regulatory function of mitochondria during inflammatory response

Presence of Anti-Microbial Antibodies in Liver Cirrhosis – A Tell-Tale Sign of Compromised Immunity?

Bacterial translocation plays important role in the complications of liver cirrhosis. Antibody formation against various microbial antigens is common in Crohn's disease and considered to be caused by sustained exposure to gut microflora constituents. We hypothesized that anti-microbial antibodies are present in patients with liver cirrhosis and may be associated with the development of bacterial infections.<0.001, OR:2.02) by Cox-regression analysis.The present study suggests that systemic reactivity to microbial components reflects compromised mucosal immunity in patients with liver cirrhosis, further supporting the possible role of bacterial translocation in the formation of anti-microbial antibodies

Common NOD2/CARD15 variants are not associated with susceptibility or the clinicopathologic characteristics of sporadic colorectal cancer in Hungarian patients

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological observations suggest that cancer arises from chronically inflamed tissues. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a typical example as patients with longstanding IBD are at an increased risk for developing colorectal cancer (CRC) and mutations of the NOD2/CARD15 gene increase the risk for Crohn's disease (CD). Recently, NOD2/CARD15 has been associated with a risk for CRC in some studies, which stemmed from ethnically diverse populations. Our aim was to identify common NOD2/CARD15 mutations in Hungarian patients with sporadic CRC. METHODS: A total of 194 sporadic CRC patients (m/f: 108/86, age at diagnosis of CRC: 63.2 ± 9.1 years old) and 200 healthy subjects were included. DNA was screened for SNP8, SNP12 and SNP13 NOD2/CARD15 mutations by denaturing-HPLC and confirmed by direct sequencing. RESULTS: NOD2/CARD15 mutations were found in 28 patients (14.4%) and in 23 controls (11.5%, p = NS). Allele frequencies for SNP8/R702W (1.8% vs. 1.5%) SNP12/G908R (1.8% vs. 1.8%) and SNP13/3020insC (3.6% vs. 2.5%) were also not statistically different between patients and controls. The clinicopathologic characteristics of CRC patients with or without NOD2/CARD15 mutations were not significantly different. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that common NOD2/CARD15 mutations alone do not contribute to CRC risk in the Hungarian population

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis