Ultralow Expansion Glass as Material for Advanced Micromechanical Systems

Ultralow expansion (ULE) glasses are of special interest for temperature stabilized systems for example in precision metrology. Nowadays, ULE materials are mainly used in macroscopic and less in micromechanical systems. Reasons for this are a lack of technologies for parallel fabricating high-quality released microstructures with a high accuracy. As a result, there is a high demand in transferring these materials into miniaturized application examples, realistic system modeling, and the investigation of microscopic material properties. Herein, a technological base for fabricating released micromechanical structures and systems with a structure height above 100 μm in ULE 7972 glass is established. Herein, the main fabrication parameters that are important for the system design and contribute thus to the introduction of titanium silicate as material for glass-based micromechanical systems are discussed. To study the mechanical properties in combination with respective simulation models, microcantilevers are used as basic mechanical elements to evaluate technological parameters and other impact factors. The implemented models allow to predict the micromechanical system properties with a deviation of only ±5% and can thus effectively support the micromechanical system design in an early stage of development.     

Effect of Betaine and Arginine on Interaction of αB-Crystallin with Glycogen Phosphorylase b

Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) play an important role in many biological processes in a living cell. Among them chaperone–client interactions are the most important. In this work PPIs of αB-crystallin and glycogen phosphorylase b (Phb) in the presence of betaine (Bet) and arginine (Arg) at 48 °C and ionic strength of 0.15 M were studied using methods of dynamic light scattering, differential scanning calorimetry, and analytical ultracentrifugation. It was shown that Bet enhanced, while Arg reduced both the stability of αB-crystallin and its adsorption capacity (AC₀) to the target protein at the stage of aggregate growth. Thus, the anti-aggregation activity of αB-crystallin increased in the presence of Bet and decreased under the influence of Arg, which resulted in inhibition or acceleration of Phb aggregation, respectively. Our data show that chemical chaperones can influence the tertiary and quaternary structure of both the target protein and the protein chaperone. The presence of the substrate protein also affects the quaternary structure of αB-crystallin, causing its disassembly. This is inextricably linked to the anti-aggregation activity of αB-crystallin, which in turn affects its PPI with the target protein. Thus, our studies contribute to understanding the mechanism of interaction between chaperones and proteins.     

Significance of adrenal hormones in brain energy metabolism

Intensity of glycolysis was studied under conditions of immobilization stress and adrenalectomy as well as with administration of adrenaline and hydrocortisone. The processes of aerobic glycolysis, activity of enzymes of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and mitochondria respiratory chain, content of total, free and protein-bound glycogen, glucose-I-phosphate, glucose-6-phosphate, pyruvate, alpha-ketoglutarate, cytrate and macroergs in the brain are shown to depend on the level of adrenal hormones producing a multilateral effect on a series of energy metabolism links.     

Properties of Phenocarbon Plastics Based on UVIS Carbon Fabric

The physicomechanical and thermophysical properties of phenocarbon plastics based on UVIS carbon fabric were determined. It was found that use of UVIS carbon fabric ensures a high level of performance characteristics of the phenocarbon plastics. Phenocarbon plastics with a 60 wt. % degree of filling with 10 × 10 to 20 × 20 mm reinforcing elements have optimum strength and thermophysical properties with a random scheme of reinforcement. __________ Translated from Khimicheskie Volokna, No. 3, pp. 54–56, May–June, 2005.     

Resource pool management: Reactive versus proactive or let’s be friends

The consolidation of multiple workloads and servers enables the efficient use of server and power resources in shared resource pools. We employ a trace-based workload placement controller that uses historical information to periodically and proactively reassign workloads to servers subject to their quality of service objectives. A reactive migration controller is introduced that detects server overload and underload conditions. It initiates the migration of workloads when the demand for resources exceeds supply. Furthermore, it dynamically adds and removes servers to maintain a balance of supply and demand for capacity while minimizing power usage. A host load simulation environment is used to evaluate several different management policies for the controllers in a time effective manner. A case study involving three months of data for 138 SAP applications compares three integrated controller approaches with the use of each controller separately. The study considers trade-offs between: (i) required capacity and power usage, (ii) resource access quality of service for CPU and memory resources, and (iii) the number of migrations. Our study sheds light on the question of whether a reactive controller or proactive workload placement controller alone is adequate for resource pool management. The results show that the most tightly integrated controller approach offers the best results in terms of capacity and quality but requires more migrations per hour than the other strategies.     

Magnetically Controlled Carbonate Nanocomposite with Ciprofloxacin for Biofilm Eradication

Biofilms are the reason for a vast majority of chronic inflammation cases and most acute inflammation. The treatment of biofilms still is a complicated task due to the low efficiency of drug delivery and high resistivity of the involved bacteria to harmful factors. Here we describe a magnetically controlled nanocomposite with a stimuli-responsive release profile based on calcium carbonate and magnetite with an encapsulated antibiotic (ciprofloxacin) that can be used to solve this problem. The material magnetic properties allowed targeted delivery, accumulation, and penetration of the composite in the biofilm, as well as the rapid triggered release of the entrapped antibiotic. Under the influence of an RF magnetic field with a frequency of 210 kHz, the composite underwent a phase transition from vaterite into calcite and promoted the release of ciprofloxacin. The effectiveness of the composite was tested against formed biofilms of E. coli and S. aureus and showed a 71% reduction in E. coli biofilm biomass and an 85% reduction in S. aureus biofilms. The efficiency of the composite with entrapped ciprofloxacin was higher than for the free antibiotic in the same concentration, up to 72%. The developed composite is a promising material for the treatment of biofilm-associated inflammations.     

Mlig-SKP1 Gene Is Required for Spermatogenesis in the Flatworm Macrostomum lignano

In a free-living flatworm, Macrostomum lignano, an S-phase kinase-associated protein 1 (SKP1) homologous gene was identified as enriched in proliferating cells, suggesting that it can function in the regulation of stem cells or germline cells since these are the only two types of proliferating cells in flatworms. SKP1 is a conserved protein that plays a role in ubiquitination processes as a part of the Skp1-Cullin 1-F-box (SCF) ubiquitin ligase complex. However, the exact role of Mlig-SKP1 in M. lignano was not established. Here, we demonstrate that Mlig-SKP1 is neither involved in stem cell regulation during homeostasis, nor in regeneration, but is required for spermatogenesis. Mlig-SKP1(RNAi) animals have increased testes size and decreased fertility as a result of the aberrant maturation of sperm cells. Our findings reinforce the role of ubiquitination pathways in germ cell regulation and demonstrate the conserved role of SKP1 in spermatogenesis.     

Protein Misfolding and Aggregation in the Brain: Common Pathogenetic Pathways in Neurodegenerative and Mental Disorders

Mental disorders represent common brain diseases characterized by substantial impairments of social and cognitive functions. The neurobiological causes and mechanisms of psychopathologies still have not been definitively determined. Various forms of brain proteinopathies, which include a disruption of protein conformations and the formation of protein aggregates in brain tissues, may be a possible cause behind the development of psychiatric disorders. Proteinopathies are known to be the main cause of neurodegeneration, but much less attention is given to the role of protein impairments in psychiatric disorders’ pathogenesis, such as depression and schizophrenia. For this reason, the aim of this review was to discuss the potential contribution of protein illnesses in the development of psychopathologies. The first part of the review describes the possible mechanisms of disruption to protein folding and aggregation in the cell: endoplasmic reticulum stress, dysfunction of chaperone proteins, altered mitochondrial function, and impaired autophagy processes. The second part of the review addresses the known proteins whose aggregation in brain tissue has been observed in psychiatric disorders (amyloid, tau protein, α-synuclein, DISC-1, disbindin-1, CRMP1, SNAP25, TRIOBP, NPAS3, GluA1, FABP, and ankyrin-G).