Influence of MRE Education on Explosive Ordnance Disposal in Quang Tri

In collaboration with local and international organizations, Project RENEW is facilitating comprehensive mine risk education initiatives in Vietnam’s Quang Tri province

Vitamin C inhibited FasL-induced apoptotic death of mouse dendritic cells through c-FLIP expression

Vitamin C (VitC) is a potent antioxidant and contributes as an apoptosis inhibitor by preventing death receptor-triggered caspase 8 activity. Fas ligand (FasL) induces the apoptotic cell death via activation of Fas signaling, which is dependent on the expression level of anti-apoptotic molecule c-FLIP (FADD-like IL-1beta-converting enzyme-inhibitory proteins). The present study addressed the effects of VitC on survival of dendritic cells (DCs), a regulator of innate and adaptive immunity. To this end, mouse bone marrow cells were isolated and cultured to attain bone marrow-derived DCs (BMDCs). The cells were treated with FasL in the presence or absence of VitC. Real time RT-PCR, Western blotting and FACS analysis were performed to determine different hallmarks of DC apoptosis. As a result, FasL treatment resulted in activation of caspase 8 and stimulation of cell membrane scrambling, the effects were supressed when VitC was present in the cell culture or the cells were transfected with FLIP siRNA. In conclusion, VitC prevented FasL-triggered DC apoptosis mediated through the expression of c-FLIP

Finite topology self-translating surfaces for the mean curvature flow in R³

Finite topology self-translating surfaces for the mean curva-ture flow constitute a key element in the analysis of TypeII singularities from a compact surface because they arise as lim-its after suitable blow-up scalings around the singularity. We prove the existence of such a surface M⊂R3that is ori-entable, embedded, complete, and with three ends asymptot-ically paraboloidal. The fact that Mis self-translating means that the moving surface S(t) =M+tezevolves by mean curvature flow, or equivalently, that Msatisfies the equation HM=ν·ezwhere HMdenotes mean curvature, νis a choice of unit normal to M, and ezis a unit vector along the z-axis. This surface Mis in correspondence with the classical three-end Costa–Hoffman–Meeks minimal surface with large genus, which has two asymptotically catenoidal ends and one pla-nar end, and a long array of small tunnels in the intersection region resembling a periodic Scherk surface. This example is the first non-trivial one of its kind, and it suggests a strong connection between this problem and the theory of embedded complete minimal surfaces with finite total curvature