The development of novel composite materials with beneficial mechanical, thermal and electrical properties often focus only on the final properties of the products. However, in many cases their ...significant application potential may be suppressed by limitations resulting from their rheological and processing properties. The isotactic polypropylene (iPP) composites filled with basalt powder (BP) are known for their good thermomechanical stability and stiffness. The paper presents the complex results of off-line rheological measurements (oscillatory, capillary and torque rheometry) related to processing behavior obtained in a laboratory conditions with the use of a processing machine (single screw extruder), which allow understanding the different manner of the processing behavior occurring during the melt processing of iPP-BP composites. It was found that the addition of BP may cause unusual, beneficial effect of lowered viscosity of the melt. While the addition of up to 5 wt% of BP results in a profitable reduction of the pressure in the barrel during extrusion without influence on the throughput, a higher amount of the filler may lead to significant processing limitations due to strong wall slip.
•Polypropylene (iPP) with basalt powder (BP) composites were manufactured by extrusion.•Off-line rheological results were correlated with extrusion processing conditions.•Low amounts of BP (5 wt%) caused improved processability of iPP.•Unusual rheological behavior of polypropylene basalt composites was found.•The addition of BP induced strong wall slip during capillary flow of iPP-BP composites.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Familial partial lipodystrophy (FPLD) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by the selective loss of adipose tissue. Its estimated prevalence is as low as 1 in 1 million. The deficiency of ...metabolically active adipose tissue is closely linked with a wide range of metabolic complications, such as insulin resistance, lipoatrophic diabetes, dyslipidemia with severe hypertriglyceridemia, hypertension or hepatic steatosis. Moreover, female patients often develop hyperandrogenism, hirsutism, polycystic ovaries and infertility. The two most common types are FPLD type 2 and 3. Variants within LMNA and PPARG genes account for more than 50% of all reported FPLD cases. Because of its high heterogeneity and rarity, lipodystrophy can be easily unrecognized or misdiagnosed. To determine the genetic background of FPLD in a symptomatic woman and her close family, an NGS custom panel was used to sequence LMNA and PPARG genes. The affected patient presented fat deposits in the face, neck and trunk, with fat loss combined with muscular hypertrophy in the lower extremities and hirsutism, all features first manifesting at puberty. Her clinical presentation included metabolic disturbances, including hypercholesterolemia with severe hypertriglyceridemia, diabetes mellitus and hepatic steatosis. This together with her typical fat distribution and physical features raised a suspicion of FPLD. NGS analysis revealed the presence of missense heterozygous variant c.443G>A in exon 4 of PPARG gene, causing glycine to glutamic acid substitution at amino acid position 148, p.(Gly148Glu). The variant was also found in the patient’s mother and son. The variant was not previously reported in any public database. Based on computational analysis, crucial variant localization within DNA-binding domain of PPARγ, available literature data and the variant cosegregation in the patient’s family, novel c.443G>A variant was suspected to be causative. Functional testing is needed to confirm the pathogenicity of the novel variant. Inherited lipodystrophy syndromes represent a heterogenous group of metabolic disorders, whose background often remains unclear. A better understating of the genetic basis would allow earlier diagnosis and targeted treatment implementation.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Lipid droplets (LDs) are common organelles observed in Eucaryota. They are multifunctional organelles (involved in lipid storage, metabolism, and trafficking) that originate from endoplasmic ...reticulum (ER). LDs consist of a neutral lipid core, made up of diacyl- and triacylglycerols (DAGs and TAGs) and cholesterol esters (CEs), surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer and proteins, which are necessary for their structure and dynamics.
Here, we report the protein and lipid composition as well as characterization and dynamics of grass snake (Natrix natrix) skeletal muscle LDs at different developmental stages. In the present study, we used detailed morphometric, LC-MS, quantitative lipidomic analyses of LDs isolated from the skeletal muscles of the snake embryos, immunofluorescence, and TEM.
Our study also provides a valuable insight concerning the LDs' multifunctionality and ability to interact with a variety of organelles. These LD features are reflected in their proteome composition, which contains scaffold proteins, metabolic enzymes signalling polypeptides, proteins necessary for the formation of docking sites, and many others. We also provide insights into the biogenesis and growth of muscle LDs goes beyond the conventional mechanism based on the synthesis and incorporation of TAGs and LD fusion. We assume that the formation and functioning of grass snake muscle LDs are based on additional mechanisms that have not yet been identified, which could be related to the unique features of reptiles that are manifested in the after-hatching period of life, such as a reptile-specific strategy for energy saving during hibernation.
•The LDs multifunctionality is reflected in their proteome composition•The synthesis and incorporation of TAGs and LDs fusion are the grass snake skeletal muscles LDs growth mechanisms•The formation and functioning of grass snake muscle LDs are based on additional, not identified yet mechanisms
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Thin films sustaining plasmonic circular dichroism (PCD) have acquired high scientific relevance and a great potential for applications. While most efforts in PCD thin film structures focus on ...lithographically fabricated static metasurfaces, the bottom‐up fabrication of active chiral plasmonic films constitutes an alternative approach. Herein, the preparation of PCD thin films by melting and freezing a mixture of liquid crystal (LC), a chiral dopant, and gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), serving as helical matrix, symmetry breaking inducer, and plasmonic component, respectively is reported. UV–vis and circular dichroism spectroscopies, as well as theoretical modeling are used to disclose the interactions among thin film components, toward maximizing the PCD dissymmetry factor (g‐factor). Variation of substrate temperature affords reversible off/on switching of the chiroptical response. The soft nature of LC matrix enables patterning of the films via a thermal nanoimprinting method, using a polydimethylsiloxane mold for transfer‐printing onto a flexible substrate, leading to stretchable PCD films. The PCD wavelengths can be readily tuned by varying the geometry of the Au NPs. This work provides an efficient technique to produce PCD thin films with active plasmonic properties and mechanical tunability.
Chiral plasmonic thin films can be prepared by using liquid crystals as hosts for Au nanoparticles. This versatile fabrication concept relies on the dynamic tunability of liquid crystals and leads to customized assemblies with responsive chiroptical properties. The soft character of the film enables transfer to flexible substrates and imprinting, affording stretchable and nanopatterned chiral plasmonic films.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Liquid crystalline (LC) dimers formed helical nanofilaments depending on the parity of the alkyl linker, revealing an unusual odd-even effect. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to investigate ...the observed tendency. Elongation of the linker translates to an increase of the pitch of the helices, which allows achieving tuneable helical assemblies of Au nanoparticles doped to the LC matrix. The impact of the tuneable pitch of helices on the chiral optical properties of composites was investigated with full-wave simulations based on the T-matrix method.
Liquid crystalline (LC) dimers formed helical nanofilaments depending on the parity of the alkyl linker, revealing an unusual odd-even effect. Doping LC with Au nanoparticles evidenced that helical pitch was regulated by the length of the linker.
Efficient and robust person perception is one of the most basic skills a mobile robot must have to ensure intuitive human-machine interaction. In addition to person detection, this also includes ...estimating various attributes, like posture or body orientation, in order to achieve user-adaptive behavior. However, given limited computing and battery capabilities on a mobile robot, it is inefficient to solve all perception tasks separately, especially when using computationally expensive deep neural networks. Therefore, we propose a multi-task system for person perception, comprising of a fast, depth- based region proposal and an efficient, lightweight deep neural network. Using a single network forward pass, the system simultaneously detects persons, classifies their body postures, and estimates the upper body orientations while retaining almost the same computation time as a single-task network. We describe how to handle a real-world multi-task scenario and conduct an extensive series of experiments in order to compare various network architectures and task weightings. We further show that multi-task learning improves the networks' performance compared to their single-task baselines. For training and evaluation, we combine an existing dataset for orientation estimation and a new, self-recorded dataset, consisting of more than 235,000 depth patches that is made publicly available to the research community.
In order to deploy service robots in environments where they encounter and/or cooperate with persons, one important key factor is human acceptance. Hence, information on which upcoming actions of the ...robot are based has to be made transparent and understandable to the human. However, considering the restricted power resources of mobile robot platforms, systems for visualization not only have to be expressive but also energy efficient. In this paper, we applied the well-known technique of laser scanning on a mobile robot to create a novel system for intention visualization and human-robot-interaction. We conducted user tests to compare our system to a low-power consuming LED video projector solution in order to evaluate the suitability for mobile platforms and to get human impressions of both systems. We can show that the presented system is preferred by most users in a dynamic test setup on a mobile platform.
Proteasome inhibitors are among the most potent classes of drugs in multiple myeloma treatment. One of the main challenges in myeloma therapy is acquired resistance to drugs. Several theories have ...been proposed to describe the mechanisms responsible for resistance to the most commonly used proteasome inhibitors bortezomib and carfilzomib. This study aimed to describe functional differences between sensitive myeloma cells (MM1S WT) and their daughter cell lines resistant to either bortezomib (MM1S/R BTZ) or carfilzomib (MM1S/R CFZ), as well as between both resistant cell lines. Bortezomib- and carfilzomib-resistant cell lines were successfully generated by continuous exposure to the drugs. When exposed to different drugs than during the resistance generation period, MM1S/R BTZ cells showed cross-resistance to carfilzomib, whereas MM1S/R CFZ cells were similarly sensitive to bortezomib as MM1S WT cells. Following proteomic profiling, unsupervised principal component analysis revealed that the MM1S/R BTZ and MM1S/R CFZ cell lines differed significantly from the MM1S WT cell line and from each other. Canonical pathway analysis showed similar pathways enriched in both comparisons - MM1S WT vs. MM1S/R CFZ and MM1S WT vs. MM1S/R BTZ. However, important differences were present in the statistical significance of particular pathways. Key alterations included the ubiquitin-proteasome system, metabolic pathways responsible for redox homeostasis and the unfolded protein response. In functional studies, both drugs continued to reduce chymotrypsin-like proteasome activity in resistant cells. However, the baseline activity of all three catalytic domains of the proteasome was higher in the resistant cells. Differences in generation of reactive oxygen species were identified in MM1S/R BTZ (decreased) and MM1S/CFZ cells (increased) in comparison to MM1S WT cells. Both baseline and drug-induced activity of the unfolded protein response were higher in resistant cells than in MM1S WT cells and included all three arms of this pathway: IRE1α/XBP1s, ATF6 and EIF2α/ATF4 (downstream effectors of PERK). In conclusion, contrary to some previous reports, resistant MM1S cells show upregulation of unfolded protein response activity, reflecting the heterogeneity of multiple myeloma and prompting further studies on the role of this pathway in resistance to proteasome inhibitors.
To say data is revolutionising the medical sector would be a vast understatement. The amount of medical data available today is unprecedented and has the potential to enable to date unseen forms of ...healthcare. To process this huge amount of data, an equally huge amount of computing power is required, which cannot be provided by regular desktop computers. These areas can be (and already are) supported by High-Performance-Computing (HPC), High-Performance Data Analytics (HPDA), and AI (together "HPC+").
This overview article aims to show state-of-the-art examples of studies supported by the National Competence Centres (NCCs) in HPC+ within the EuroCC project, employing HPC, HPDA and AI for medical applications.
The included studies on different applications of HPC in the medical sector were sourced from the National Competence Centres in HPC and compiled into an overview article. Methods include the application of HPC+ for medical image processing, high-performance medical and pharmaceutical data analytics, an application for pediatric dosimetry, and a cloud-based HPC platform to support systemic pulmonary shunting procedures.
This article showcases state-of-the-art applications and large-scale data analytics in the medical sector employing HPC+ within surgery, medical image processing in diagnostics, nutritional support of patients in hospitals, treating congenital heart diseases in children, and within basic research.
HPC+ support scientific fields from research to industrial applications in the medical area, enabling researchers to run faster and more complex calculations, simulations and data analyses for the direct benefit of patients, doctors, clinicians and as an accelerator for medical research.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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