Robots and cyborgs: to be or to have a body?

Starting with service robotics and industrial robotics, this paper aims to suggest philosophical reflections about the relationship between body and machine, between man and technology in our contemporary world. From the massive use of the cell phone to the robots which apparently “feel” and show emotions like humans do. From the wearable exoskeleton to the prototype reproducing the artificial sense of touch, technological progress explodes to the extent of embodying itself in our nakedness. Robotics, indeed, is inspired by biology in order to develop a new kind of technology affecting human life. This is a bio-robotic approach, which is fulfilled in the figure of the cyborg and consequently in the loss of human nature. Today, humans have reached the possibility to modify and create their own body following their personal desires. But what is the limit of this achievement? For this reason, we all must question ourselves whether we have or whether we are a body

LTBP-2 has a single high-affinity binding site for FGF-2 and blocks FGF-2-induced cell proliferation

Latent transforming growth factor-beta-1 binding protein-2 (LTBP-2) belongs to the fibrillin-LTBP superfamily of extracellular matrix proteins. LTBPs and fibrillins are involved in the sequestration and storage of latent growth factors, particularly transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), in tissues. Unlike other LTBPs, LTBP-2 does not covalently bind TGF-β, and its molecular functions remain unclear. We are screening LTBP-2 for binding to other growth factors and have found very strong saturable binding to fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) (Kd = 1.1 nM). Using a series of recombinant LTBP-2 fragments a single binding site for FGF-2 was identified in a central region of LTBP-2 consisting of six tandem epidermal growth factor-like (EGF-like) motifs (EGFs 9-14). This region was also shown to contain a heparin/heparan sulphate-binding site. FGF-2 stimulation of fibroblast proliferation was completely negated by the addition of 5-fold molar excess of LTBP-2 to the assay. Confocal microscopy showed strong co-localisation of LTBP-2 and FGF-2 in fibrotic keloid tissue suggesting that the two proteins may interact in vivo. Overall the study indicates that LTBP-2 is a potent inhibitor of FGF-2 that may influence FGF-2 bioactivity during wound repair particularly in fibrotic tissues.Clementine Menz, Mahroo K. Parsi, Julian R. J. Adams, Mohamed A. Sideek, Zlatko Kopecki, Allison J. Cowin, Mark A. Gibso

Pulsed electromagnetic field - a cultivation practice used to increase soybean seed germination and yield

The aim of the research was to test the effect of pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) on soybean seed germination and yield depending on specific field conditions, years of study, exposure duration and frequency. Field trial was conducted on an experimental field of Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2010-2013. Seeds of the soybean (Glycine hispida (Moench)) medium-early cultivar. Valjevka 'were exposed to the PEMF therapy using the impulse generator and strip. Low-frequency (16, 24, 30 and 72 Hz) PEMF was used in the duration of 0, 30, 60 and 90 minutes. Research results indicate that this method can increase seed germination up to 8.00% and yield by 960.5 kg, or 21% in field conditions, which is a significant increase and a solid basis to introduce this practice, primarily in organic production with a very limited use of seed treatment preparations. However, the practice can have an inhibitory effect under an unfavourable combination of exposure duration and frequency. The obtained data were processed using the analysis of variance of three-factorial trials considering all years of study. Due to different meteorological conditions in the study years, analysis of variance was conducted for each year of study and correlations between the tested traits were examined

Numerical investigation of two-phase flow induced local fluctuations and interactions of flow properties through elbow.

The local interactions and fluctuations of multiphase flow properties present in upward slug/churn flow patterns through a 900 pipe bend has been investigated. Numerical modelling technique using the Volume of Fluid method (VOF) and Reynolds Averaged Naiver-Stokes equation (RANS) was used in this study. Validation of the modelling approach was carried out using the void fraction signals from the simulation and its PDF result. These signals compared well with reported experimental results for slug and churn flow patterns. Result analysis which focused on velocity and pressure fluctuations at three different cross-sectional planes of the elbow showed a reduction in the fluctuation energy (PSD) of the velocity signal at the downstream locations compared to the upstream. Similar behaviour was seen in the pressure signal. The observation was attributed to the change in multiphase flow patterns from slug to stratified/stratified wavy flow pattern after the bend. The results from this study intend to inform enhanced description of the local fluctuations of slug geometry, density and frequency for the accurate prediction of flow induced fluctuating forces due to slug-churn turbulent flows at pipe bends

Epigenomic analysis of aberrantly methylated genes in colorectal cancer identifies genes commonly affected by epigenetic alterations.

Methylation profiling based on bead-chip arrays is an effective method for screening aberrantly methylated genes in CRC. In addition, we identified novel methylated genes that are candidate diagnostic or prognostic markers for CRC

Essential role of microfibrillar-associated protein 4 in human cutaneous homeostasis and in its photoprotection

UVB-induced cutaneous photodamage/photoaging is characterized by qualitative and quantitative deterioration in dermal extracellular matrix (ECM) components such as collagen and elastic fibers. Disappearance of microfibrillar-associated protein 4 (MFAP-4), a possible limiting factor for cutaneous elasticity, was documented in photoaged dermis, but its function is poorly understood. To characterize its possible contribution to photoprotection, MFAP-4 expression was either augmented or inhibited in a human skin xenograft photodamage murine model and human fibroblasts. Xenografted skin with enhanced MFAP-4 expression was protected from UVB-induced photodamage/photoaging accompanied by the prevention of ECM degradation and aggravated elasticity. Additionally, remarkably increased or decreased fibrillin-1-based microfibril development was observed when fibroblasts were treated with recombinant MFAP-4 or with MFAP-4-specific siRNA, respectively. Immunoprecipitation analysis confirmed direct interaction between MFAP-4 and fibrillin-1. Taken together, our findings reveal the essential role of MFAP-4 in photoprotection and offer new therapeutic opportunities to prevent skin-associated pathologies

Image Segmentation based on Multi-region Multi-scale Local Binar Fitting and Kullback-Leibler Divergence

The inhomogeneity of intensity and the noise of image are the two major obstacles to accurate image segmentation by region-based level set models. To provide a more general solution to these challenges and address the difficulty of image segmentation methods to handle an arbitrary number of regions, we propose a region-based multi-phase level set method, which is based on the multi-scale local binary fitting (MLBF) and the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence, called KL–MMLBF. We first apply the multi-scale theory and multi-phase level set framework to the local binary fitting model to build the multi-region multi-scale local binary fitting (MMLBF). Then the energy term measured by KL divergence between regions to be segmented is incorporated into the energy function of MMLBF. KL–MMLBF utilizes the between-cluster distance and the adaptive kernel function selection strategy to formulate the energy function. Being more robust to the initial location of the contour than the classical segmentation models, KL–MMLBF can deal with blurry boundaries and noise problems. The results of experiments on synthetic and medical images have shown that KL–MMLBF can improve the effectiveness of segmentation while ensuring the accuracy by accelerating this minimization of this energy function and the model has achieved better segmentation results in terms of both accuracy and efficiency to analyze the multi-region image

Molecular dynamics simulation of humic substances

© 2014, Orsi. Humic substances (HS) are complex mixtures of natural organic material which are found almost everywhere in the environment, and particularly in soils, sediments, and natural water. HS play key roles in many processes of paramount importance, such as plant growth, carbon storage, and the fate of contaminants in the environment. While most of the research on HS has been traditionally carried out by conventional experimental approaches, over the past 20 years complementary investigations have emerged from the application of computer modeling and simulation techniques. This paper reviews the literature regarding computational studies of HS, with a specific focus on molecular dynamics simulations. Significant achievements, outstanding issues, and future prospects are summarized and discussed