Intermittent Fasting Primes the Tumor Microenvironment and Improves Nanomedicine Delivery in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Fasting has many health benefits, including reduced chemotherapy toxicity and improved efficacy. It is unclear how fasting affects the tumor microenvironment (TME) and tumor-targeted drug delivery. Here the effects of intermittent (IF) and short-term (STF) fasting are investigated on tumor growth, TME composition, and liposome delivery in allogeneic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) mouse models. To this end, mice are inoculated either subcutaneously or intrahepatically with Hep-55.1C cells and subjected to IF for 24 d or to STF for 1 d. IF but not STF significantly slows down tumor growth. IF increases tumor vascularization and decreases collagen density, resulting in improved liposome delivery. In vitro, fasting furthermore promotes the tumor cell uptake of liposomes. These results demonstrate that IF shapes the TME in HCC towards enhanced drug delivery. Finally, when combining IF with liposomal doxorubicin treatment, the antitumor efficacy of nanochemotherapy is found to be increased, while systemic side effects are reduced. Altogether, these findings exemplify that the beneficial effects of fasting on anticancer therapy outcomes go beyond modulating metabolism at the molecular level.     

Design and implementation of mechanical resonators for optimized inertial electromagnetic microgenerators

This work describes the design and implementation of an electromagnetic inertial microgenerator for energy scavenging from ambient vibrations. The structure of the device is based in a mechanical resonator formed by a permanent magnet (inertial mass) mounted on a polymeric membrane, in combination with a fixed micromachined coil. ANSYS simulations are carried out to investigate the influence of the resonator geometry on the resonant frequency and on the parasitic damping, and to analyze the optimum geometry of the coil for optimization of the electromagnetic coupling in the devices. Generator prototypes have been fabricated with a modular manufacturing process in which the electromagnetic converter and the mechanical resonator are manufactured separately, diced and then assembled. The experimental results show the ability of these devices to generate power levels in the range of 50 μW with output voltages in the range of hundreds of mV. The parasitic damping of the resonator structures is estimated from the fitting of the experimental data, and suggests the existence of an intrinsic limitation of the polymers related to spring stiffening effects at large excitation amplitudes. The comparison of the simulations and the experimental results indicate that further optimizations of this parameter and of the coil series resistance would allow increasing the generated power in more than one order of magnitude.     

Cross-organizational collaboration supported by Augmented Reality

This paper presents a study where Augmented Reality (AR) technology has been used as a tool for supporting collaboration between the rescue services, the police and military personnel in a crisis management scenario. There are few studies on how AR systems should be designed to improve cooperation between actors from different organizations while at the same time supporting individual needs. In the present study, an AR system was utilized for supporting joint planning tasks by providing organization specific views of a shared map. The study involved a simulated emergency event conducted in close to real settings with representatives from the organizations for which the system is developed. As a baseline, a series of trials without the AR system was carried out. Results show that the users were positive toward the AR system and would like to use it in real work. They also experience some performance benefits of using the AR system compared to their traditional tools. Finally, the problem of designing for collaborative work as well as the benefits of using an iterative design processes is discussed.     

Proposal and performance evaluation of a packet over VDSL protocol for increasing throughput in the transmission of IP packets

This paper presents a possible implementation of a Packet over very high bit rate digital subscriber line protocol with reduced impact of the overhead when transmitting Internet protocol packets. The proposal relates to some shared opinions about the inefficiency of the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) layer when used to transport this kind of packets, and it is based on proper adaptation of previous recommendations and standards. It is numerically shown that a significant throughput increase is achieved when the new protocol is used in place of the current ATM adaptation layer type 5/ATM protocol. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The behavioral sequela following the prevention of home-cage grid-climbing activity in C57BL/6 mice.

Several studies have demonstrated that the early postweaning phase (3-7 weeks of age) is a crucial ontogenic period for rodent neurobehavioral development. During this phase, both brain and behavior are highly sensitive to environmental variations (i.e., changes in the standard housing conditions). In the present study, male and female C57BL/6 mice were housed at weaning in cages provided with a Plexiglas lid, and thus, they were deprived of the opportunity to perform climbing activity on the cage grid--a major component of mouse behavior in standard laboratory environments. At early adulthood (7-10 weeks old), mice underwent an extensive battery of behavioral tests. The present study demonstrates for the first time the psychological, sex-specific relevance of home-cage grid-climbing activity in mice, showing that its prevention alters fear-conditioned responses in mice of both sexes and induces psychotic-like and anxious behaviors in females only. The data further highlight the importance of the early postweaning phase for the study of environmentally induced neurobehavioral plasticity and the design of animal models of psychiatric disorders on the basis of environmental manipulation in early postweaning life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

物质感官：N!Studio作品

内容简介：意大利建筑师Susanna Ferrini和Antonello Stella的设计战略阐释了某种对模拟的渴望,它利用某一条件或背景的具体情形,将其转化为一种卓越而稀少的解决方案的灵感源。他们的事务所n!studio,这个具有无法形容特质的名称旨在隐喻建筑设计中所存在的一种“界限”,这已不再是其突变和演变过程中所出现的＂物品的形式＂这一问题的解决方案了,     

Chiral recognition by mass-resolved laser spectroscopy

Chiral recognition is a fundamental phenomenon in life sciences, based on the enantioselective complexation of a chiral molecule with a chiral selector. The diastereomeric aggregates, formed by complexation, are held together by a different combination of intermolecular forces and are therefore endowed with different stability and reactivity. Determination of these forces, which are normally affected in the condensed phase by solvent and supramolecular interactions, requires the generation of the diastereomeric complexes in the isolated state and their spectroscopic investigation. This review deals with chiral recognition in the gas phase through the application of laser-resolved mass spectrometric techniques (R2PI-TOF and RET-MS). The measurement of the fragmentation thresholds of diastereomeric clusters by these techniques allows the determination of the nature of the intrinsic interactions, which control their formation and affect their stability and reactivity.     

Numerical simulation of ballistic surface transport in cylindrical nanosystems

We study, by numerical simulations, the effect of topology on coherent electron transport through cylindrical junctions and bent cylindrical surfaces. The dynamics of a particle bound to a curved surface is described by a modified Schrödinger equation depending on two curvilinear coordinates. The modeling approach based on a finite-difference discretization of the latter equation is described, and a comparison with the standard solution of Schrödinger equation for flat surfaces is given. The effect of the geometrical parameters of the structures is reported.     

Effects of training in sentence construction on the comprehension of learning disabled children.

30 learning-disabled Hispanic, White, and Black children (mean IQ 88.60 and mean age 11.73 yrs) were randomly assigned to 2 conditions focusing on sentence comprehension: a sentence anagram/word grouping treatment and a more traditional sentence study treatment. With age, IQ, and pretest comprehension (Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests) controlled, Ss in the sentence anagram/word grouping condition had significantly higher cloze scores than Ss in the sentence study group. The greatest achievement benefits associated with the anagram treatment, however, accrued to Ss with higher initial reading achievement. As level of pretreatment achievement decreased, the magnitude of the treatment differences also tended to decrease. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Palladium Catalytic Species Containing Chiral Phosphites: Towards a Discrimination between Molecular and Colloidal Catalysts

Palladium nanoparticles ( Pd1 – Pd3 ) stabilized by chiral diphosphite ligands ( 1 – 3 ), were synthesized and tested as catalysts for the allylic alkylation reaction, using different substrates (rac‐ I , rac‐ III and rac‐ V ). Carbohydrate ligands ( 1 and 2 ), only differing in the C‐3 configuration, led to a remarkable difference in stability of the corresponding nanoparticles: while Pd1 is a robust catalyst, Pd2 decomposes into molecular species. In addition, the high enantioselective systems, Pd1 and Pd3 , are only active for a substrate containing phenyl groups. Concerning the catalytic behaviour of the corresponding molecular systems, palladium complexes coordinated to ligands 1 or 3 , gave excellent asymmetric inductions, but an analogous catalyst accommodating ligand 2 , was not found selective.