Ethyl 1-acetyl-1H-indole-3-carboxyl­ate

The title compound, C13H13NO3, was synthesized by acetyl­ation of ethyl 1H-indole-3-carboxyl­ate. The aromatic ring system of the mol­ecule is essentially planar, but the saturated ethyl group is also located within this plane and the overall r.m.s. deviation from planarity is only 0.034 Å. Pairs of C—H⋯O inter­actions connect mol­ecules into chains along the diagonal of the unit cell. Mol­ecules also form weakly connected dimers via π⋯π stacking inter­actions of the indole rings with centroid–centroid separations of 3.571 (1) Å. C—H⋯π inter­actions between methyl­ene and methyl groups and the indole and benzene ring complete the directional inter­molecular inter­actions found in the crystal structure

FMNL formins boost lamellipodial force generation

Migration frequently involves Rac-mediated protrusion of lamellipodia, formed by Arp2/3 complex-dependent branching thought to be crucial for force generation and stability of these networks. The formins FMNL2 and FMNL3 are Cdc42 effectors targeting to the lamellipodium tip and shown here to nucleate and elongate actin filaments with complementary activities in vitro. In migrating B16-F1 melanoma cells, both formins contribute to the velocity of lamellipodium protrusion. Loss of FMNL2/3 function in melanoma cells and fibroblasts reduces lamellipodial width, actin filament density and -bundling, without changing patterns of Arp2/3 complex incorporation. Strikingly, in melanoma cells, FMNL2/3 gene inactivation almost completely abolishes protrusion forces exerted by lamellipodia and modifies their ultrastructural organization. Consistently, CRISPR/Cas-mediated depletion of FMNL2/3 in fibroblasts reduces both migration and capability of cells to move against viscous media. Together, we conclude that force generation in lamellipodia strongly depends on FMNL formin activity, operating in addition to Arp2/3 complex-dependent filament branching

Prospective exploratory muscle biopsy, imaging, and functional assessment in patients with late-onset Pompe disease treated with alglucosidase alfa: The EMBASSY Study

Background Late-onset Pompe disease is characterized by progressive skeletal myopathy followed by respiratory muscle weakness, typically leading to loss of ambulation and respiratory failure. In this population, enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) with alglucosidase alfa has been shown to stabilize respiratory function and improve mobility and muscle strength. Muscle pathology and glycogen clearance from skeletal muscle in treatment-naïve adults after ERT have not been extensively examined. Methods This exploratory, open-label, multicenter study evaluated glycogen clearance in muscle tissue samples collected pre- and post- alglucosidase alfa treatment in treatment-naïve adults with late-onset Pompe disease. The primary endpoint was the quantitative reduction in percent tissue area occupied by glycogen in muscle biopsies from baseline to 6 months. Secondary endpoints included qualitative histologic assessment of tissue glycogen distribution, secondary pathology changes, assessment of magnetic resonance images (MRIs) for intact muscle and fatty replacement, and functional assessments. Results Sixteen patients completed the study. After 6 months of ERT, the percent tissue area occupied by glycogen in quadriceps and deltoid muscles decreased in 10 and 8 patients, respectively. No changes were detected on MRI from baseline to 6 months. A majority of patients showed improvements on functional assessments after 6 months of treatment. All treatment-related adverse events were mild or moderate. Conclusions This exploratory study provides novel insights into the histopathologic effects of ERT in late-onset Pompe disease patients. Ultrastructural examination of muscle biopsies demonstrated reduced lysosomal glycogen after ERT. Findings are consistent with stabilization of disease by ERT in treatment-naïve patients with late-onset Pompe disease

TransAID Deliverable 6.2/2 - Assessment of Traffic Management Procedures in Transition Areas

This Deliverable 6.2 of the TransAID project presents and evaluates the simulation results obtained for the scenarios considered during the project's first and second iterations. To this end, driver- and AV-models designed in WP3, traffic management procedures developed in WP4, and V2X communication protocols and models from WP5 were implemented within the iTETRIS simulation framework. Previous main results from Deliverable 4.2, where baseline and traffic management measures without V2X communication were compared, have been confirmed. While not all TransAID scenarios' traffic KPIs were affected, the realistic simulation of V2X communication has shown a discernible impact on some of them, which makes it an indispensable modelling aspect for a realistic performance evaluation of V2X traffic scenarios. Flaws of the first iteration's traffic management algorithms concerning wireless V2X communication and the accompanying possibility of packet loss were identified and have been addressed during the project's second iteration. Finally, lessons learned while working on these simulation results and assessments have additionally been described in the form of recommendations for the real-world prototype to be developed in WP7. We conclude that all results obtained for all scenarios when employing ideal communication confirmed the statistical trends of the results from the original TM scenarios as reported in Deliverable 4.2 where no V2X communication was considered. Furthermore, the performance evaluation of the considered scenarios and parameter combinations has shown the following, which held true in both the first and second iterations: (1) The realistic simulation of V2X communication has an impact on traffic scenarios, which makes them indispensable for a realistic performance evaluation of V2X traffic scenarios. (2) Traffic management algorithms need to account for sporadic packet loss of various message types in some way. (3) Although important, the realistic modelling and simulation of V2X communication also induces a significant computational overhead. Thus, from a general perspective, a trade-off between computation time and degree of realism should be considered

Deployment of unmanned aircraft systems as part of precision agriculture in Finland

This thesis is written as part of a project to modify an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for agricultural purposes in Finland. On demand of a farmer with a big plot of land, we’re searching for a solution to make pest control effective and environmental friendly at the same time. This will be done by using a UAV to check yellow measurement papers for the amount of insects sticking on them. If the amount exceeds a certain number, the farmer is supposed to start using pest control on that specific plot of land. This is part of a concept called precision agriculture and it is estimated to save up to 75% on fertilizer and pesticides. So the use of this method means a cost saving for the farmer and at the same time it has a positive influence on the environment. Furthermore it will be determined what type of UAV is most suitable for this task. Therefore some requirements have to be taken into account. Such as the possibility of the device to fly autonomously to the different measurement papers while using a pre-set flight plan. Also the different requirements for camera performance, sensors and flight time will be investigated, as well as the potential to transport and install the measurement papers with this device. This project shows in general that for the agricultural sector, UAV’s can be a big advancement. The monitoring of the crops, the irrigating as well as the combination of these and other functions can be done very efficiently. To get familiar with this subject, the first part of this thesis wil consist of a theoretical approach of UAV’s and all related terminology.Deze thesis is geschreven in het kader van een project met als doel het implementeren van een unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) voor gebruik in de landbouw. Op vraag van een lokale boer met een groot stuk land, wordt er gezocht naar mogelijkheden om pest control effectiever en milieuvriendelijker te maken. Hiervoor wordt vertrokken vanuit het idee om een UAV te gebruiken om de gele meetpapieren voor insecten te controleren. Wanneer de hoeveelheid insecten op het papier een bepaalde waarde overschrijdt, weet de boer namelijk dat het is aangeraden om het betreffende veld te besproeien. Deze manier van werken maakt deel uit van het concept “precision agriculture” en er wordt geschat dat dit concept tot 75% kan besparen op meststof en pesticiden. Voor de boer betekent dit zowel een kostenbesparing als een positievere invloed op het milieu. Er wordt verder ook onderzocht welk type UAV het meest geschikt is voor deze opdracht. Hierbij wordt rekening gehouden met bepaalde eisen zoals het feit dat het toestel autonoom moet vliegen naar de verschillende meetpapieren door gebruik te maken van een vooraf ingesteld vluchtplan. Ook wordt er gekeken naar de mogelijkheden op vlak van camera prestaties, sensoren en vliegtijd en wordt de optie onderzocht voor het vervoer en bevestigen van de meetbladen met het toestel. Dit project toont algemeen aan dat de mogelijkheden voor het gebruik van UAV’s in de agrarische sector zeer uitgebreid zijn. Het observeren van de gewassen, het besproeien evenals de combinatie van deze en andere functies kan hierbij zeer efficient uitgevoerd worden. Om vertrouwd te geraken met het onderwerp, worden UAV’s en alle verwante begrippen hier eerst theoretsich behandeld

Symmetric-Key-Based Security for Multicast Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a new key management protocol for group-based communications in non-hierarchical wireless sensor networks (WSNs), applied on a recently proposed IP-based multicast protocol. Confidentiality, integrity, and authentication are established, using solely symmetric-key-based operations. The protocol features a cloud-based network multicast manager (NMM), which can create, control, and authenticate groups in the WSN, but is not able to derive the actual constructed group key. Three main phases are distinguished in the protocol. First, in the registration phase, the motes register to the group by sending a request to the NMM. Second, the members of the group calculate the shared group key in the key construction phase. For this phase, two different methods are tested. In the unicast approach, the key material is sent to each member individually using unicast messages, and in the multicast approach, a combination of Lagrange interpolation and a multicast packet are used. Finally, in the multicast communication phase, these keys are used to send confidential and authenticated messages. To investigate the impact of the proposed mechanisms on the WSN, the protocol was implemented in ContikiOS and simulated using COOJA, considering different group sizes and multi-hop communication. These simulations show that the multicast approach compared to the unicast approach results in significant smaller delays, is a bit more energy efficient, and requires more or less the same amount of memory for the code

Creation and Evaluation of Educational Tools for E-Learning Based on Videomodels

We describe the design of a web platform supporting virtual experiments in electronics or electrics. The underlying methodology for the experiments are the videomodels. These models represent a 3D visualization of electronic and electrical circuits. From an earlier initiative, it was known that interactivity and documentation are very important issues. We show how the latest features from HTML5 are used to increase the interactivity and include several balloons, instruction videos, and guided exercises on the platform. In a second phase, we tested the platform with two groups of students, being students with and without earlier experience in videomodels. The overall results in both groups were very positive and presented an enormous improvement on efficiency and clearness, compared to a previous attempt

Time Slotted Channel Hopping and ContikiMAC for IPv6 Multicast-Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks

Smart buildings benefit from IEEE 802.15.4e time slotted channel hopping (TSCH) medium access for creating reliable and power aware wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs). As in these networks, sensors are supposed to communicate to each other and with actuators, IPv6 multicast forwarding is seen as a valuable means to reduce traffic. A promising approach to multicast, based on the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is Bidirectional Multicast RPL Forwarding (BMRF). This paper aimed to analyze the performance of BMRF over TSCH. The authors investigated how an adequate TSCH scheduler can help to achieve a requested quality of service (QoS). A theoretical model for the delay and energy consumption of BMRF over TSCH is presented. Next, BMRF’s link layer (LL) unicast and LL broadcast forwarding modes were analyzed on restricted and realistic topologies. On topologies with increased interference, BMRF’s LL broadcast on top of TSCH causes high energy consumption, mainly because of the amount of energy needed to run the schedule, but it significantly improves packet delivery ratio and delay compared to ContikiMAC under the same conditions. In most cases, the LL unicast was found to outperform the LL broadcast, but the latter can be beneficial to certain applications, especially those sensitive to delays

Time Slotted Channel Hopping and ContikiMAC for IPv6 Multicast-Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks

Smart buildings benefit from IEEE 802.15.4e time slotted channel hopping (TSCH) medium access for creating reliable and power aware wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs). As in these networks, sensors are supposed to communicate to each other and with actuators, IPv6 multicast forwarding is seen as a valuable means to reduce traffic. A promising approach to multicast, based on the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is Bidirectional Multicast RPL Forwarding (BMRF). This paper aimed to analyze the performance of BMRF over TSCH. The authors investigated how an adequate TSCH scheduler can help to achieve a requested quality of service (QoS). A theoretical model for the delay and energy consumption of BMRF over TSCH is presented. Next, BMRF’s link layer (LL) unicast and LL broadcast forwarding modes were analyzed on restricted and realistic topologies. On topologies with increased interference, BMRF’s LL broadcast on top of TSCH causes high energy consumption, mainly because of the amount of energy needed to run the schedule, but it significantly improves packet delivery ratio and delay compared to ContikiMAC under the same conditions. In most cases, the LL unicast was found to outperform the LL broadcast, but the latter can be beneficial to certain applications, especially those sensitive to delays