Search results for "init"

Models of Computation, Riemann Hypothesis, and Classical Mathematics

1998

Classical mathematics is a source of ideas used by Computer Science since the very first days. Surprisingly, there is still much to be found. Computer scientists, especially, those in Theoretical Computer Science find inspiring ideas both in old notions and results, and in the 20th century mathematics. The latest decades have brought us evidence that computer people will soon study quantum physics and modern biology just to understand what computers are doing.

“AD HOC” MODIFIED CLAYS FOR BIOTECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS

Nowadays, the scientific community has to face with cogent problems strictly linked to the improvement of quality of live. Among the different tasks to achieve the prefixed objective the focus has been put on the drug administration, i.e., attention has been paid to propose an appropriate solution to improve the performance of a drug delivery system and to eliminate both the side effect and drawbacks. With the aim to achieve the design, synthesis, and characterization of versatile systems, with peculiar characteristics, based on clays and clays modified with a biocompatible surfactant, able to adsorb and release organic substances of pharmaceutical interest the present PhD thesis has been u…

Therapeutic implications of Cancer Initiating Cells.

2009

Background: Until few years ago, all neoplastic cells within a tumour were suggested to have tumorigenic capacity, but recent evidences hint to the possibility that such feature is confined to a subset of Cancer Initiating Cells (CICs), also called Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs). These cells are the reservoir of the heterogeneous populations of differentiated cancer cells constituting the tumour bulk. Mechanisms shared with somatic stem cells, such as quiescence, self-renewal ability, asymmetric division and multidrug resistance, allow to these cells to drive tumour growth and to evade conventional therapy. Objective: Here, we give a brief overview on the origin of CICs, the mechanisms involved i…

Strategies for improving production and purification of a recombinant protein: rP30 of Toxoplasma gondii expressed in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces p…

2007

Abstract Many problems concerned with the production and the purification of recombinant proteins must be addressed prior to launching an industrial production process. Among these problems, attention is focused on low-level expression that complicates the purification step and can jeopardise the process. The expression of a membrane protein, rP30, of Toxoplasma gondii in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe led to a secretion of only 0.5 μg ml−1. In order to obtain a sufficient quantity for biochemical characterization and evaluation in vitro diagnostic test development, strategies for both production and purification had to be optimized. First, the influence of four nitrogen sources (three…

Chiral separation of oxprenolol by affinity electrokinetic chromatography-partial filling technique using human serum albumin as chiral selector

2005

The intrinsic characteristics of capillary electrophoresis have made this technique a powerful tool in the chiral separation field. The present paper deals with the enantiomeric separation of oxprenolol enantiomers by affinity electrokinetic chromatography-partial filling technique using human serum albumin (HSA) as chiral selector. Several experimental conditions and variables affecting the separation such as pH, HSA concentration and plug length, background electrolyte concentration, temperature and voltage were studied. Baseline separation of oxprenolol enantiomers was obtained in less than 8 min under the following selected conditions: electrophoretic buffer composed of 50 mM Tris-(hydr…

Identification and isolation of the primary aggregation factor from the cell membrane of the sponge Geodia cydonium

1985

The primary aggregation factor (pAF) of sponge cells is a glycoprotein that is firmly associated with the cell membrane. Polyspecific antibodies (anti-GM) prepared from sera raised against membranes of cells from the siliceous sponge Geodia cydonium were found to inhibit initial aggregation of homologous cells. The inhibition of aggregation, caused by anti-GM was neutralized by pAF. The pAF had been successfully solubilized and enriched by affinity chromatography, gel filtration and density gradient centrifugation, if checked by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of urea. The Mr of the native pAF was approximately 40 000 as estimated by gel filtration; under denaturing condi…

Specific recommendations for PROs and HRQoL assessment in allergic rhinitis and/or asthma: a GA(2)LEN taskforce position paper

2010

The GA(2)LEN taskforce on Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) published in 2009 a position paper concerning PROS and HRQoL assessment in clinical trials on allergy. Because of the specificity of this topic in asthma and rhinitis, specific recommendations are needed. The aim of this position paper is to define PROs and their meaning in asthma and rhinitis research, explore the available tools to provide criteria for a proper choice, identify patient-related factor which could influence PROs assessment, define specific recommendations for assessment, analysis and results spreading, underline the unexplored areas and unmet needs. PROs assessment is gaini…

Salinity gradient engines

2016

Abstract This chapter is devoted to the description of a new class of heat engines based on salinity gradient technology and able to convert low-grade heat into power. The salinity gradient power (SGP) process is employed within a closed loop composed of two different sections: (i) the SGP unit devoted to the energy production, and (ii) a regeneration unit fed by the solutions exiting from the SGP unit and able to restore the initial concentration, thus regenerating the salinity gradient. The main features, limits and perspectives of this novel heat engine are described along with an overview of the state of the art presented in the literature and an example of exergetic analysis of the cyc…

SMART: Unique splitting-while-merging framework for gene clustering

2014

© 2014 Fa et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Successful clustering algorithms are highly dependent on parameter settings. The clustering performance degrades significantly unless parameters are properly set, and yet, it is difficult to set these parameters a priori. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a unique splitting-while-merging clustering framework, named "splitting merging awareness tactics" (SMART), which does not require any a priori knowledge of either the number …

Structural clustering of millions of molecular graphs

2014

We propose an algorithm for clustering very large molecular graph databases according to scaffolds (i.e., large structural overlaps) that are common between cluster members. Our approach first partitions the original dataset into several smaller datasets using a greedy clustering approach named APreClus based on dynamic seed clustering. APreClus is an online and instance incremental clustering algorithm delaying the final cluster assignment of an instance until one of the so-called pending clusters the instance belongs to has reached significant size and is converted to a fixed cluster. Once a cluster is fixed, APreClus recalculates the cluster centers, which are used as representatives for…