Comment on ``Two Time Scales and Violation of the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem in a Finite Dimensional Model for Structural Glasses''

In cond-mat/0002074 Ricci-Tersenghi et al. find two linear regimes in the fluctuation-dissipation relation between density-density correlations and associated responses of the Frustrated Ising Lattice Gas. Here we show that this result does not seem to correspond to the equilibrium quantities of the model, by measuring the overlap distribution P(q) of the density and comparing the FDR expected on the ground of the P(q) with the one measured in the off-equilibrium experiments.Comment: RevTeX, 1 page, 2 eps figures, Comment on F. Ricci-Tersenghi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4473 (2000

Dysfunctional telomeres in primary cells from Fanconi anemia FANCD2 patients

© 2012 Joksic et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Fanconi anemia (FA) is characterized by sensitivity to DNA cross-linking agents, mild cellular, and marked clinical radio sensitivity. In this study we investigated telomeric abnormalities of non-immortalized primary cells (lymphocytes and fibroblasts) derived from FA patients of the FA-D2 complementation group, which provides a more accurate physiological assessment than is possible with transformed cells or animal models. Results: We analyzed telomere length, telomere dysfunction-induced foci (TIFs), sister chromatid exchanges (SCE), telomere sister chromatid exchanges (T-SCE), apoptosis and expression of shelterin components TRF1 and TRF2. FANCD2 lymphocytes exhibited multiple types of telomeric abnormalities, including premature telomere shortening, increase in telomeric recombination and aberrant telomeric structures ranging from fragile to long-string extended telomeres. The baseline incidence of SCE in FANCD2 lymphocytes was reduced when compared to control, but in response to diepoxybutane (DEB) the 2-fold higher rate of SCE was observed. In contrast, control lymphocytes showed decreased SCE incidence in response to DEB treatment. FANCD2 fibroblasts revealed a high percentage of TIFs, decreased expression of TRF1 and invariable expression of TRF2. The percentage of TIFs inversely correlated with telomere length, emphasizing that telomere shortening is the major reason for the loss of telomere capping function. Upon irradiation, a significant decrease of TIFs was observed at all recovery times. Surprisingly, a considerable percentage of TIF positive cells disappeared at the same time when incidence of γ-H2AX foci was maximal. Both FANCD2 leucocytes and fibroblasts appeared to die spontaneously at higher rate than control. This trend was more evident upon irradiation; the percentage of leucocytes underwent apoptosis was 2.59- fold higher than that in control, while fibroblasts exhibited a 2- h delay before entering apoptosis. Conclusion: The results of our study showed that primary cells originating from FA-D2 patients display shorten telomeres, elevated incidence of T-SCEs and high frequency of TIFs. Disappearance of TIFs in early response to irradiation represent distinctive feature of FANCD2 cells that should be examined further.This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia (Project No.173046)

Making GDPR Usable: A Model to Support Usability Evaluations of Privacy

We introduce a new model for evaluating privacy that builds on the criteria proposed by the EuroPriSe certification scheme by adding usability criteria. Our model is visually represented through a cube, called Usable Privacy Cube (or UP Cube), where each of its three axes of variability captures, respectively: rights of the data subjects, privacy principles, and usable privacy criteria. We slightly reorganize the criteria of EuroPriSe to fit with the UP Cube model, i.e., we show how EuroPriSe can be viewed as a combination of only rights and principles, forming the two axes at the basis of our UP Cube. In this way we also want to bring out two perspectives on privacy: that of the data subjects and, respectively, that of the controllers/processors. We define usable privacy criteria based on usability goals that we have extracted from the whole text of the General Data Protection Regulation. The criteria are designed to produce measurements of the level of usability with which the goals are reached. Precisely, we measure effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, considering both the objective and the perceived usability outcomes, producing measures of accuracy and completeness, of resource utilization (e.g., time, effort, financial), and measures resulting from satisfaction scales. In the long run, the UP Cube is meant to be the model behind a new certification methodology capable of evaluating the usability of privacy, to the benefit of common users. For industries, considering also the usability of privacy would allow for greater business differentiation, beyond GDPR compliance.Comment: 41 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, and appendixe

The Empirical Research of Environmental Protection Significance in the Republic of Serbia

The purpose of this research is to acquaint the reader with ecological management at micro level, which the research targets and whereby it will be determined how much importance domestic companies place on environmental protectio

Co-overexpression of bcl-2 and c-myc in uterine cervix carcinomas and premalignant lesions

To establish the role of co-overexpression of bcl-2 and c-myc protooncogenes in uterine cervix carcinogenesis, we examined 138 tissue samples of low grade cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL), high grade SIL, portio vaginalis uteri (PVU) carcinoma in situ and PVU invasive carcinoma, stage IA-IIA (study group) and 36 samples without SIL or malignancy (control group). The expression of bcl-2 and c-myc was detected immunohistochemically using a monoclonal antibody. Fisher's exact test (P<0.05) was used to assess statistical significance. Overexpression of bcl-2 was found to increase in direct relation to the grade of the cervical lesions. High sensitivity was of great diagnostic significance for the detection of these types of changes in the uterine cervix. On the basis of high predictive values it can be said that in patients with bcl-2 overexpression there is a great possibility that they have premalignant or malignant changes in the uterine cervix. Co-overexpression of bcl-2 and c-myc oncogenes was found only in patients with PVU invasive carcinoma (6/26-23.0%). Statistically significant difference was not found in the frequency of co-overexpression in patients with PVU invasive carcinoma in relation to the control group (Fisher's test; P=0.064). The method's sensitivity of determining these oncogenes with the aim of detecting PVU invasive carcinoma was 23%, while specificity was 72.2%. On the basis of high predictive values (100%), speaking in statistical terms, it can be concluded that all patients with co-overexpression of bcl-2 and c-myc oncogenes will have PVU invasive carcinoma. We confirmed in our research that co-overexpression of bcl-2 and c-myc oncogenes was increased only in PVU invasive carcinoma. However, a more extensive series of samples and additional tests are required to establish the prognostic significance of bcl-2 and c-myc co-overexpression in cervical carcinogenesis

Comparison of thermistor linearization techniques for accurate temperature measurement in phase change materials

Alternate energy technologies are developing rapidly in the recent years. A significant part of this trend is the development of different phase change materials (PCMs). Proper utilization of PCMs requires accurate thermal characterization. There are several methodologies used in this field. This paper stresses the importance of accurate temperature measurements during the implementation of T-history method. Since the temperature sensor size is also important thermistors have been selected as the sensing modality. Two thermistor linearization techniques, one based on Wheatstone bridge and the other based on simple serial-parallel resistor connection, are compared in terms of achievable temperature accuracy through consideration of both, nonlinearity and self-heating errors. Proper calibration was performed before T-history measurement of RT21 (RUBITHERM® GmbH) PCM. Measurement results suggest that the utilization of serial-parallel resistor connection gives better accuracy (less than ±0.1°C) in comparison with the Wheatstone bridge based configuration (up to ±1.5°C)

Robusna procedura za umetanje vodenog žiga u sliku zasnovana na Hermitovoj projekcijskoj metodi

A procedure for combined image watermarking and compression, based on the Hermite projection method is proposed. The Hermite coefficients obtained by using the Hermite expansion are used for watermark embedding. The image can be efficiently reconstructed by using a set of Hermite coefficients that is quite smaller than the number of original ones. Hence, the watermark embedding is actually done in the compressed domain, while maintaining still high image quality (measured by high PSNR). The efficiency of the proposed procedure is proven experimentally, showing high robustness even for very strong standard attacks. Moreover, the method is robust not only to the standard attacks, but to the geometrical attacks, as well. The proposed approach can be suitable for different copyright and ownership protection purposes, especially in real-applications that require image compression, such as multimedia and Internet applications, remote sensing and satellite imaging.U radu je predložena procedura za umetanje vodenog žiga u sliku i kompresiju slike zasnovana na Hermitovoj projekcijskoj metodi. Odgovarajući koeficijenti, dobiveni kao rezultat primjene razvoja slike u red Hermitovih funkcija, korišteni su za umetanje vodenog žiga watermark). S obzirom na to da se slika može efikasno rekonstruirati korištenjem znatno manjeg broja Hermitovih koeficijenata u odnosu na broj originalnih koeficijenata slike, umetanje vodenog žiga zapravo je provedeno u domeni kompresije, uz očuvanje visoke kvalitete slike (velika vrijednost PSNR). Učinkovitost predložene procedure ispitana je eksperimentalno i pokazuje značajnu otpornost na uobičajene napade. Osim uobičajenih, procedura pokazuje robusnost i na geometrijske napade. Predloženi pristup može biti korišten u različitim aplikacijama za zaštitu autorskih prava, naročito u aplikacijama koje ujedno zahtijevaju i kompresiju slike, kao što su multimedijske i internetske aplikacije, daljinsko očitavanje podataka i satelitska snimanja