Reactive oxygen species induced by water containing nano-bubbles and its role in the improvement of barley seed germination

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.The study of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation caused by nano-bubbles (NBs) is of great importance for its application in both physiological activity promotion aspect and sterilization aspect. In this paper, Aminophenyl Fluorescein (APF) was used as a fluorescent reagent for the detection of ROS generation by NBs. The NBs scattering could cause the decrease of fluorescence intensity. Meanwhile, the quenching effect of oxygen could also cause the decrease of fluorescence intensity. Although the above two factors masked the fluorescence intensity generation by ROS, the fluorescence intensity of the water containing NBs still increased with NBs generation time, which proved that oxygen NBs could generate ROS. Moreover, the endogenous ROS in the barley seed cells were measured in the seed that germinated in the water containing NBs and the distilled water respectively. According to the results of seed staining experiments, both the microscope images and the absorbance at 560nm proved that the seeds dipped in the water containing NBs could generate more ROS compared to those in the distilled water. These findings greatly increase the NBs potential use both in agricultural field and environmental field

Indikasi Kerusakan Dingin pada Mentimun Jepang (Cucumis Sativus L.) Berdasarkan Perubahan Ion Leakage dan PH

In this study, the chilling induced in Japanese cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) stored at chilled temperature and the changes in its quality during storage period were examined. Change in ion leakage and pH were used as indicator of chilling injury symptopms. The sample of cucumber were stored at 5ºC (chilling) and 25ºC (non chilling). Percentage of ion leakage for cucumber stored at 5ºC was higher than that at 25 ºC at storage time of 3, 6 and 9 days. The increase in the rate of ion leakage at 5ºC indicates the chilling induced of cell membrane. The increasing tendency of pH was observed for cucumber stored at 5ºC with the value at storage time of 9 days were higher than that at 25ºC. The increase in pH could be thought as the change in acid content which indicate the occurrence of chilling injury. Changes in ion leakage and pH indicate the change in membrane permeability which related to chilling injury

Vision based referee sign language recognition system for the RoboCup MSL league

In RoboCup Middle Size league (MSL) the main referee uses assisting technology, controlled by a second referee, to support him, in particular for conveying referee decisions for robot players with the help of a wireless communication system. In this paper a vision-based system is introduced, able to interpret dynamic and static gestures of the referee, thus eliminating the need for a second one. The referee's gestures are interpreted by the system and sent directly to the Referee Box, which sends the proper commands to the robots. The system is divided into four modules: a real time hand tracking and feature extraction, a SVM (Support Vector Machine) for static hand posture identification, an HMM (Hidden Markov Model) for dynamic unistroke hand gesture recognition, and a FSM (Finite State Machine) to control the various system states transitions. The experimental results showed that the system works very reliably, being able to recognize the combination of gestures and hand postures in real-time. For the hand posture recognition, with the SVM model trained with the selected features, an accuracy of 98,2% was achieved. Also, the system has many advantages over the current implemented one, like avoiding the necessity of a second referee, working on noisy environments, working on wireless jammed situations. This system is easy to implement and train and may be an inexpensive solution

The First Result of Global Commissioning of the ATLAS Endcap Muon Trigger System in ATLAS Cavern

We report on the ATLAS commissioning run from the view point of the Thin Gap Chamber (TGC), which is the ATLAS end cap muon trigger detector. All the TGC sectors with on-detector electronics are going to be installed to the ATLAS cavern by the end of September 2007. To integrate all sub-detectors before the physics run starting from early 2008, the global commissioning run together with other sub-detectors has been performed from June 2007. We have evaluated the performance of the complete trigger chain of the TGC electronics and provide the trigger signal using cosmic-ray to the sub-systems in the global run environment

Final Test at the Surface of the ATLAS Endcap Muon Trigger Chamber Electronics

For the detector commissioning planned in 2007, sector assembly of the ATLAS muon-endcap trigger chambers and final test at the surface for the assembled electronics are being done in CERN and almost completed. For the test, we built up the Data Acquisition (DAQ) system using test pulse of two types and cosmic rays in order to check functionality of the various aspects of the electronics mounted on a sector. So far, 99% of all 320,000 channels have been tested and most of them were installed into the ATLAS cavern. In this presentation, we will describe the DAQ systems and mass-test procedure in detail, and report the result of electronics test with some actual experience

Phase I–II study of irinotecan (CPT-11) plus nedaplatin (254-S) with recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor support in patients with advanced or recurrent cervical cancer

Combination chemotherapy with irinotecan (CPT-11) and platinum compounds is effective for treating cervical cancer. Nedaplatin (254-S) is a new cisplatin analogue that achieves a high response rate (53%) in patients with primary cervical cancer. We performed a phase I–II study of combination chemotherapy with CPT-11 plus 254-S for advanced or recurrent cervical cancer. The inclusion criteria were stage IV disease or recurrence. CPT-11 and 254-S were administered intravenously on day 1, while rhG-CSF (50 μg) was given on days 3–12. This regimen was repeated after 4 weeks. Dose escalation was carried out in tandem (CPT-11/254-S: 50/70, 50/80, and 60/80 mg m−2). A total of 27 patients (stage IV=seven, recurrence=20) were enrolled. The phase I study enrolled eight patients. At dose levels 1 and 2, no dose-limiting toxicities were observed. At dose level 3, the first two patients developed DLTs. The maximum tolerated dose of CPT-11 and 254-S was 60 and 80 mg m−2, respectively, and the recommended doses were 50 and 80 mg m−2. Grade 3/4 haematologic toxicity occurred in 67% in phase II study, but there were no grade 3 nonhaematologic toxicities except fot nausea or lethargy. In all 27 patients, there were two complete responses (7%) and 14 Partial responses (52%), for an overall response rate of 59% (95% confidence interval: 39–78%). Among the 12 responders with recurrent disease, the median time to progression and median survival were 161 days (range: 61–711 days) and 415 days (range: 74–801 days). This new regimen is promising for cervical cancer

Adult bone marrow stromal cell-based tissue-engineered aggrecan exhibits ultrastructure and nanomechanical properties superior to native cartilage

Objective: To quantify the structural characteristics and nanomechanical properties of aggrecan produced by adult bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) in peptide hydrogel scaffolds and compare to aggrecan from adult articular cartilage. Design: Adult equine BMSCs were encapsulated in 3D-peptide hydrogels and cultured for 21 days with TGF-β1 to induce chondrogenic differentiation. BMSC-aggrecan was extracted and compared with aggrecan from age-matched adult equine articular cartilage. Single molecules of aggrecan were visualized by atomic force microcopy-based imaging and aggrecan nanomechanical stiffness was quantified by high resolution force microscopy. Population-averaged measures of aggrecan hydrodynamic size, core protein structures and CS sulfation compositions were determined by size-exclusion chromatography, Western analysis, and fluorescence-assisted carbohydrate electrophoresis (FACE). Results: BMSC-aggrecan was primarily full-length while cartilage-aggrecan had many fragments. Single molecule measurements showed that core protein and GAG chains of BMSC-aggrecan were markedly longer than those of cartilage-aggrecan. Comparing full-length aggrecan of both species, BMSC-aggrecan had longer GAG chains, while the core protein trace lengths were similar. FACE analysis detected a ∼1:1 ratio of chondroitin-4-sulfate to chondroitin-6-sulfate in BMSC-GAG, a phenotype consistent with aggrecan from skeletally-immature cartilage. The nanomechanical stiffness of BMSC-aggrecan was demonstrably greater than that of cartilage-aggrecan at the same total sGAG (fixed charge) density. Conclusions: The higher proportion of full-length monomers, longer GAG chains and greater stiffness of the BMSC-aggrecan makes it biomechanically superior to adult cartilage-aggrecan. Aggrecan stiffness was not solely dependent on fixed charge density, but also on GAG molecular ultrastructure. These results support the use of adult BMSCs for cell-based cartilage repair.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH grant EB003805)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant AR33236)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant NIRT-0403903)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CMMI-0758651)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Biomechanics Training Grant)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Whitaker Health Science Fund Fellowship