Search results for "FOS"
showing 10 items of 15075 documents
Renewable energies, business models and local growth
2018
Abstract Energy is one of the driving factors of the world economy: energy consumption is closely linked to quality of life and environmental impact. Reducing the use of fossil fuels, curtailing greenhouse gas emissions, and cutting energy dependence from traditional energy producing countries are the cornerstones of European policies for safe, competitive, sustainable, and renewable energy. In addition, the pressing need to provide new and diversified opportunities for supplementary income for the agricultural sector has fueled the desire to engage rural areas in this process. Biogas, derived from the anaerobic digestion of biomass, is one of the renewable energy sources that has been very…
Weakly coupled map lattice models for multicellular patterning and collective normalization of abnormal single-cell states
2017
We present a weakly coupled map lattice model for patterning that explores the effects exerted by weakening the local dynamic rules on model biological and artificial networks composed of two-state building blocks (cells). To this end, we use two cellular automata models based on: (i) a smooth majority rule (model I) and (ii) a set of rules similar to those of Conway's Game of Life (model II). The normal and abnormal cell states evolve according with local rules that are modulated by a parameter $\kappa$. This parameter quantifies the effective weakening of the prescribed rules due to the limited coupling of each cell to its neighborhood and can be experimentally controlled by appropriate e…
Archaeology and ichnology at Gombore II-2, Melka Kunture, Ethiopia: everyday life of a mixed age hominin group 700,000 years ago
2018
AbstractWe report the occurrence at 0.7 million years (Ma) of an ichnological assemblage at Gombore II-2, which is one of several archaeological sites at Melka Kunture in the upper Awash Valley of Ethiopia, 2000 m asl. Adults and children potentially as young as 12 months old left tracks in a silty substrate on the shore of a body of water where ungulates, as well as other mammals and birds, congregated. Furthermore, the same layers contain a rich archaeological and palaeontological record, confirming that knapping was taking place in situ and that stone tools were used for butchering hippo carcasses at the site. The site gives direct information on hominin landscape use at 0.7 Ma and may p…
Patient-derived solitary fibrous tumour xenografts predict high sensitivity to doxorubicin/dacarbazine combination confirmed in the clinic and highli…
2017
Abstract Background Preclinical models that mimic pathological and molecular features of solitary fibrous tumour (SFT) represent an important tool to select effective regimes and novel compounds to be tested in the clinic. This study was aimed at developing two preclinical models of SFT, assessing their predictive value in the clinic and selecting potential novel effective treatments. Material and methods Two dedifferentiated-SFT (D-SFT) models obtained from patients' biopsies were grown in immunodeficient mice. The antitumour activity on these models of doxorubicin, dacarbazine (DTIC), ifosfamide (monotherapy or combination), trabectedin and eribulin was tested. Twelve SFT patients were tr…
Prognostic Value of Immune Environment Analysis in Small Bowel Adenocarcinomas with Verified Mutational Landscape and Predisposing Conditions
2020
Background: Small bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA) is a rare yet insidious cancer with poor survival. The abundance of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes is associated with improved survival, but the role of the programmed death-1/programmed death ligand-1 (PD-1/PD-L1) pathway in tumour escape is controversial. We evaluated immune cell infiltration, PD1/PD-L1 expression and their prognostic value in a series of SBAs with previously verified predisposing conditions and exome-wide somatic mutation characterization. Methods: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections stained for CD3, CD8, PD-L1 and PD-1 were analysed from 94 SBAs. An immune cell score (ICS) was formed from the amount of the CD3 a…
Extricating New Physics Scenarios at DUNE with High Energy Beams
2017
The proposed Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) utilizes a wide-band on-axis tunable muon-(anti)neutrino beam with a baseline of 1300 km to search for CP violation with high precision. Given the long baseline, DUNE is also sensitive to effects due to non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) which can interfere with the standard 3-flavor oscillation paradigm. In this Letter, we exploit the tunability of the DUNE neutrino beam over a wide-range of energies and utilize a new theoretical metric to devise an experimental strategy for separating oscillation effects due to NSI from the standard 3-flavor oscillation scenario. Using our metric, we obtain an optimal combination of beam tunes…
Wavelength selection of rippling patterns in myxobacteria
2016
Rippling patterns of myxobacteria appear in starving colonies before they aggregate to form fruiting bodies. These periodic traveling cell density waves arise from the coordination of individual cell reversals, resulting from an internal clock regulating them, and from contact signaling during bacterial collisions. Here we revisit a mathematical model of rippling in myxobacteria due to Igoshin et al.\ [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA {\bf 98}, 14913 (2001) and Phys. Rev. E {\bf 70}, 041911 (2004)]. Bacteria in this model are phase oscillators with an extra internal phase through which they are coupled to a mean-field of oppositely moving bacteria. Previously, patterns for this model were obtaine…
Quantum field inspired model of decision making: Asymptotic stabilization of belief state via interaction with surrounding mental environment
2018
This paper is devoted to justification of quantum-like models of the process of decision making based on the theory of open quantum systems, i.e. decision making is considered as decoherence. This process is modeled as interaction of a decision maker, Alice, with a mental (information) environment ${\cal R}$ surrounding her. Such an interaction generates "dissipation of uncertainty" from Alice's belief-state $\rho(t)$ into ${\cal R}$ and asymptotic stabilization of $\rho(t)$ to a steady belief-state. The latter is treated as the decision state. Mathematically the problem under study is about finding constraints on ${\cal R}$ guaranteeing such stabilization. We found a partial solution of th…
In vitro study of antimicrobial activity on Klebsiella Pneumoniae biofilms in endotracheal tubes
2019
Effective treatment approaches for biofilms in endotracheal tubes (ETTs) are lacking. In this study, we evaluated the in vitro effects of five antimicrobials against biofilms formed by Klebsiella pneumoniae in ETTs. K. pneumoniae was added to minimal mucin medium prior to inoculation in microtiter plates containing ETT fragments. Biofilm susceptibility was assessed by crystal violet staining. At 24 h, the antimicrobials significantly reduced biofilm formation. At 48 h, all of the antimicrobial agents exhibited significant reductions in biofilm formation, even at concentrations above the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Tigecycline and fosfomycin showed the greatest inhibition capacit…
Physical mechanisms of micro- and nanodomain formation in multicomponent lipid membranes.
2016
This article summarizes a variety of physical mechanisms proposed in the literature, which can generate micro- and nanodomains in multicomponent lipid bilayers and biomembranes. It mainly focusses on lipid-driven mechanisms that do not involve direct protein-protein interactions. Specifically, it considers (i) equilibrium mechanisms based on lipid-lipid phase separation such as critical cluster formation close to critical points, and multiple domain formation in curved geometries, (ii) equilibrium mechanisms that stabilize two-dimensional microemulsions, such as the effect of linactants and the effect of curvature-composition coupling in bilayers and monolayers, and (iii) non-equilibrium me…