In situ and in vitro nutritional evaluation of rumen-protected lipids

Rumen-protected lipids are a class of products which is increasingly used in ruminant nutrition even if the results are not homogeneous. The different results may be due to different analytical or technological characteristics. Aim of this work was therefore to compare the in situ rumen behaviour of different soaps as well as their in vitro intestinal digestibility

Fault Tolerance Analysis of a Bis-Ferrocene QCA Wire

Molecular Quantum Dot Cellular Automata (mQCA) are among the most promising emerging technologies for the expected theoretical operating frequencies (THz), the high device densities and the non-cryogenic working temperature. In this paper, we performed an analysis of the possible fabrication defects of a molecular QCA wire built with ad-hoc synthesized bis-ferrocene molecules. We then evaluated the fault tolerance of a real QCA device and assessed its performance in non-ideal conditions, by defining a new methodology for the fault analysis in the mQCA technology

Simulation of a molecular QCA wire

Molecular Quantum Dot Cellular Automata (MQCA) are among the most promising emerging technologies for the expected theoretical operating frequencies (THz), the high device densities and the non-cryogenic working temperature. In this work we simulated a molecular QCA wire, based on a molecule synthesized ad-hoc for this technology. The results discussed are obtained by means of iterative steps of ab-initio calculations

Improving Network-on-Chip-based Turbo Decoder Architectures

In this work novel results concerning Networkon- Chip-based turbo decoder architectures are presented. Stemming from previous publications, this work concentrates first on improving the throughput by exploiting adaptive-bandwidth-reduction techniques. This technique shows in the best case an improvement of more than 60 Mb/s. Moreover, it is known that double-binary turbo decoders require higher area than binary ones. This characteristic has the negative effect of increasing the data width of the network nodes. Thus, the second contribution of this work is to reduce the network complexity to support doublebinary codes, by exploiting bit-level and pseudo-floatingpoint representation of the extrinsic information. These two techniques allow for an area reduction of up to more than the 40 % with a performance degradation of about 0.2 d

Properties of local interactions and their potential value in complementing genome-wide association studies

Local interactions between neighbouring SNPs are hypothesized to be able to capture variants missing from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) via haplotype effects but have not been thoroughly explored. We have used a new high-throughput analysis tool to probe this underexplored area through full pair-wise genome scans and conventional GWAS in diastolic and systolic blood pressure and six metabolic traits in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966) and the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study cohort (ARIC). Genome-wide significant interactions were detected in ARIC for systolic blood pressure between PLEKHA7 (a known GWAS locus for blood pressure) and GPR180 (which plays a role in vascular remodelling), and also for triglycerides as local interactions within the 11q23.3 region (replicated significantly in NFBC1966), which notably harbours several loci (BUD13, ZNF259 and APOA5) contributing to triglyceride levels. Tests of the local interactions within the 11q23.3 region conditional on the top GWAS signal suggested the presence of two independent functional variants, each with supportive evidence for their roles in gene regulation. Local interactions captured 9 additional GWAS loci identified in this study (3 significantly replicated) and 73 from previous GWAS (24 in the eight traits and 49 in related traits). We conclude that the detection of local interactions requires adequate SNP coverage of the genome and that such interactions are only likely to be detectable between SNPs in low linkage disequilibrium. Analysing local interactions is a potentially valuable complement to GWAS and can provide new insights into the biology underlying variation in complex traits

PLEKHA7 Is an Adherens Junction Protein with a Tissue Distribution and Subcellular Localization Distinct from ZO-1 and E-Cadherin

The pleckstrin-homology-domain-containing protein PLEKHA7 was recently identified as a protein linking the E-cadherin-p120 ctn complex to the microtubule cytoskeleton. Here we characterize the expression, tissue distribution and subcellular localization of PLEKHA7 by immunoblotting, immunofluorescence microscopy, immunoelectron microscopy, and northern blotting in mammalian tissues. Anti-PLEKHA7 antibodies label the junctional regions of cultured kidney epithelial cells by immunofluorescence microscopy, and major polypeptides of Mr ∼135 kDa and ∼145 kDa by immunoblotting of lysates of cells and tissues. Two PLEKHA7 transcripts (∼5.5 kb and ∼6.5 kb) are detected in epithelial tissues. PLEKHA7 is detected at epithelial junctions in sections of kidney, liver, pancreas, intestine, retina, and cornea, and its tissue distribution and subcellular localization are distinct from ZO-1. For example, PLEKHA7 is not detected within kidney glomeruli. Similarly to E-cadherin, p120 ctn, β-catenin and α-catenin, PLEKHA7 is concentrated in the apical junctional belt, but unlike these adherens junction markers, and similarly to afadin, PLEKHA7 is not localized along the lateral region of polarized epithelial cells. Immunoelectron microscopy definitively establishes that PLEKHA7 is localized at the adherens junctions in colonic epithelial cells, at a mean distance of 28 nm from the plasma membrane. In summary, we show that PLEKHA7 is a cytoplasmic component of the epithelial adherens junction belt, with a subcellular localization and tissue distribution that is distinct from that of ZO-1 and most AJ proteins, and we provide the first description of its distribution and localization in several tissues