Utility-Oriented Placement of Actuator Nodes with a Collaborative Serving Scheme for Facilitated Business and Working Environments

Places to be served by cyber-physical systems (CPS) are usually distributed unevenly over the area. Thus, different areas usually have different importance and values of serving. In other words, serving power can be excessive or insufficient in practice. Therefore, actuator nodes (ANs) in CPS should be focused on serving around points of interest (POIs) with considerations of “service utility.” In this paper, a utility-oriented AN placement framework with a collaborative serving scheme is proposed. Through spreading serving duties among correctly located ANs, deployment cost can be reduced, utility of ANs can be fully utilized, and the system longevity can be improved. The problem has been converted into a binary integer linear programming optimization problem. Service fading, 3D placements, multiscenario placements, and fault-tolerant placements have been modeled in the framework. An imitated example of a CPS deployment in a smart laboratory has been used for evaluations.published_or_final_versio

Piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties of PT/P(VDF-TrFE) 0-3 composites

Version of RecordPublishe

Repair of a defect following the removal of an impacted maxillary canine by orthodontic tooth movement: a case report

This case report describes a 13-year-old boy with alveolar bony defect resulted from surgical removal of impacted upper canine transposed in the anterior region. The boy had a normal occlusion with malposition of upper central and lateral incisors. The treatment objectives were to align teeth, close spaces by mesial movement of the buccal segments in the upper jaw to repair bone loss. Fixed appliance with palatal root torque was used for the mesial movements, levelling, and alignment of teeth

The diagnostic value of methylated DNA in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma: meta-analysis

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The clinical association of programmed cell death protein 4 (PDCD4) with solid tumors and its prognostic significance: a meta-analysis

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MicroRNA 744-3p promotes MMP-9-mediated metastasis by simultaneously suppressing PDCD4 and PTEN in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

MicroRNA controls cancer invasion by governing the expression of gene regulating migration and invasion. Here, we reported a novel regulatory pathway controlled by miR-744-3p, which enhanced expression of matrix metallopeptidase 9 (MMP-9) in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). We profiled the differential micoRNA expression pattern in LSCC cell lines and normal epithelial cultures derived from the head and neck mucosa using microRNA microarray. MiR-7-1-3p, miR-196a/b and miR-744-3p were expressed differentially in the LSCC cell lines. Subsequent validation using real-time PCR revealed that high miR-744-3p level was positively correlated with regional lymph node metastasis of LSCC. Real-time cellular kinetic analysis showed that suppressing miR-744-3p could inhibit migration and invasion of LSCC cell lines and reduce the number of lung metastatic nodules in nude mice modules. In silico analysis revealed that miR-744-3p targeted 2 distinct signaling cascades which eventually upregulated MMP-9 expression in LSCC. First, miR-744-3p could suppress programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4), a direct suppressor of NF-κB (p65). PDCD4 could also prevent AKT activation and suppress MMP-9 expression. Further, suppressing miR-744-3p expression could restore phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) expression. PTEN could inhibit AKT activation and inhibit MMP-9 expression in LSCC cells. The results revealed that suppressing miR-744-3p was effective to inhibit LSCC metastasis by inactivating AKT/mTOR and NF-κB (p65) signaling cascade. Targeting miR-744-3p could be a valuable therapeutic intervention to suppress the aggressiveness of LSCC.published_or_final_versio

QoSatAr: a cross-layer architecture for E2E QoS provisioning over DVB-S2 broadband satellite systems

This article presents QoSatAr, a cross-layer architecture developed to provide end-to-end quality of service (QoS) guarantees for Internet protocol (IP) traffic over the Digital Video Broadcasting-Second generation (DVB-S2) satellite systems. The architecture design is based on a cross-layer optimization between the physical layer and the network layer to provide QoS provisioning based on the bandwidth availability present in the DVB-S2 satellite channel. Our design is developed at the satellite-independent layers, being in compliance with the ETSI-BSM-QoS standards. The architecture is set up inside the gateway, it includes a Re-Queuing Mechanism (RQM) to enhance the goodput of the EF and AF traffic classes and an adaptive IP scheduler to guarantee the high-priority traffic classes taking into account the channel conditions affected by rain events. One of the most important aspect of the architecture design is that QoSatAr is able to guarantee the QoS requirements for specific traffic flows considering a single parameter: the bandwidth availability which is set at the physical layer (considering adaptive code and modulation adaptation) and sent to the network layer by means of a cross-layer optimization. The architecture has been evaluated using the NS-2 simulator. In this article, we present evaluation metrics, extensive simulations results and conclusions about the performance of the proposed QoSatAr when it is evaluated over a DVB-S2 satellite scenario. The key results show that the implementation of this architecture enables to keep control of the satellite system load while guaranteeing the QoS levels for the high-priority traffic classes even when bandwidth variations due to rain events are experienced. Moreover, using the RQM mechanism the user’s quality of experience is improved while keeping lower delay and jitter values for the high-priority traffic classes. In particular, the AF goodput is enhanced around 33% over the drop tail scheme (on average)

Liver cancer immunoassay with magnetic nanoparticles and MgO-based magnetic tunnel junction sensors

This journal issue is proceedings of the 56th 56th Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic MaterialsSession DV - Sensors 2 (Poster Session): no. DV-07We have demonstrated the detection of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) labeled with magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) using MgO-based magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) sensors. AFP is an important hepatic tumor biomarker and the detection of AFP has significant applications for clinical diagnostics and immunoassay for early-stage liver cancer indications. In this work, MgO-based MTJ sensors and 20-nm iron-oxide magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were used for detecting AFP antigens by a sandwich-assay configuration. The MTJ sensors with a sensing area of 4 × 2 μm 2 possess tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) of 122 and sensitivity of 0.95/Oe at room temperature. The target AFP antigens of three concentrations were successfully detected, and the experimental data indicate that the resistance variations of the MTJ sensor increased with the AFP concentration ratios proportionally. These results demonstrate that MgO-based MTJ sensors together with MNPs are a promising biosensing platform for liver cancer immunoassay. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versionThe 56th Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Scottsdale, AZ., 30 October-3 November 2011. In Journal of Applied Physics, 2012, v. 111 n. 7, article no. 07E50

EHMTI-0026. Neuroprolotherapy and acupuncture for clinical trial of acute and chronic migraine treatment

Nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP) and cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR) are Ca2+-mobilizing messengers important for modulating cardiac excitation–contraction coupling and pathophysiology. CD38, which belongs to the ADP-ribosyl cyclase family, catalyzes synthesis of both NAADP and cADPR in vitro. However, it remains unclear whether this is the main enzyme for their production under physiological conditions. Here we show that membrane fractions from WT but not CD38−/− mouse hearts supported NAADP and cADPR synthesis. Membrane permeabilization of cardiac myocytes with saponin and/or Triton X-100 increased NAADP synthesis, indicating that intracellular CD38 contributes to NAADP production. The permeabilization also permitted immunostaining of CD38, with a striated pattern in WT myocytes, whereas CD38−/− myocytes and nonpermeabilized WT myocytes showed little or no staining, without striation. A component of β-adrenoreceptor signaling in the heart involves NAADP and lysosomes. Accordingly, in the presence of isoproterenol, Ca2+ transients and contraction amplitudes were smaller in CD38−/− myocytes than in the WT. In addition, suppressing lysosomal function with bafilomycin A1 reduced the isoproterenol-induced increase in Ca2+ transients in cardiac myocytes from WT but not CD38−/− mice. Whole hearts isolated from CD38−/− mice and exposed to isoproterenol showed reduced arrhythmias. SAN4825, an ADP-ribosyl cyclase inhibitor that reduces cADPR and NAADP synthesis in mouse membrane fractions, was shown to bind to CD38 in docking simulations and reduced the isoproterenol-induced arrhythmias in WT hearts. These observations support generation of NAADP and cADPR by intracellular CD38, which contributes to effects of β-adrenoreceptor stimulation to increase both Ca2+ transients and the tendency to disturb heart rhythm