Two distinct subsets of γδ T cells that produce interleukin 17 (IL-17) (CD27(-) γδ T cells) or interferon-γ (IFN-γ) (CD27(+) γδ T cells) develop in the mouse thymus, but the molecular determinants of their functional potential in the periphery remain unknown. Here we conducted a genome-wide characterization of the methylation patterns of histone H3, along with analysis of mRNA encoding transcription factors, to identify the regulatory networks of peripheral IFN-γ-producing or IL-17-producing γδ T cell subsets in vivo. We found that CD27(+) γδ T cells were committed to the expression of Ifng but not Il17, whereas CD27(-) γδ T cells displayed permissive chromatin configurations at loci encoding both cytokines and their regulatory transcription factors and differentiated into cells that produced both IL-17 and IFN-γ in a tumor microenvironment.

We wonder how it is possible to use the Electroencephalogram (EEG) as a TA instrument, rather than a diagnosis procedure, to evaluate how children hear the sounds. The first concern was related to the definition of concepts, namely the primary and secondary objectives, the importance of the study, the materials and equipment, the procedures, the criteria for inclusion and exclusion and the expected outcomes. We present the main research questions, the proposed methodology and report the first steps of the practical work, some results and a few considerations about the thesis next development.

The incorporation of europium polyoxometalates into silica nanoparticles can lead to a biocompatible nanomaterial with luminescent properties suitable for applications in biosensors, biological probes, and imaging. Keggin-type europium polyoxometalates Eu(PW11)x (x = 1 and 2) with different europium coordination environments were prepared by using simple methodologies and no expensive reactants. These luminescent compounds were then encapsulated into silica nanoparticles for the first time through the water-in-oil microemulsion methodology with a nonionic surfactant. The europium polyoxometalates and the nanoparticles were characterized by using several techniques [FTIR, FT-Raman, 31P magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR, and TEM/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (TEM-EDS), AFM, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and inductively coupled plasma MS (ICP-MS) analysis]. The stability of the material and the integrity of the europium compounds incorporated were also examined. Furthermore, the photoluminescence properties of the Eu(PW11)x@SiO2 nanomaterials were evaluated and compared with those of the free europium polyoxometalates. The silica surface of the most stable nanoparticles was successfully functionalized with appropriate organosilanes to enable the covalent binding of oligonucleotides.

The surface chemistry of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) plays a critical role in the self-assembly of thiolated molecules and in retaining the biological function of the conjugated biomolecules. According to the well-established gold-thiol interaction the undefined ionic species on citrate-reduced gold nanoparticle surface can be replaced with a self-assembled monolayer of certain thiolate derivatives and other biomolecules. Understanding the effect of such derivatives in the functionalization of several types of biomolecules, such as PEGs, peptides or nucleic acids, has become a significant challenge. Here, an approach to attach specific biomolecules to the AuNPs (∼14 nm) surface is presented together with a study of their effect in the functionalization with other specific derivatives. The effect of biofunctional spacers such as thiolated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains and a positive peptide, TAT, in dsRNA loading on AuNPs is reported. Based on the obtained data, we hypothesize that loading of oligonucleotides onto the AuNP surface may be controlled by ionic and weak interactions positioning the entry of the oligo through the PEG layer. We demonstrate that there is a synergistic effect of the TAT peptide and PEG chains with specific functional groups on the enhancement of dsRNA loading onto AuNPs.

The six most common 3-glucoside anthocyanins, pelargonidin-3-glucoside, peonidin-3-glucoside, delphinidin-3-glucoside, malvidin-3-glucoside, cyanidin-3-glucoside and petunidin-3-glucoside were studied in great detail by NMR, UV-vis absorption and stopped flow. For each anthocyanin, the thermodynamic and kinetic constants of the network of chemical reactions were calculated at different anthocyanin concentration, from 6 x 10(-6) M up to 8 x 10(-4) M; an increasing of the flavylium cation acidity constant to give quinoidal base and a decreasing of the flavylium cation hydration constant to give hemiketal were observed by increasing the anthocyanin concentration. These effects are attributed to the self-aggregation of the flavylium cation and quinoidal base, which is stronger in the last case. The UV-vis and H-1 NMR spectral variations resulting from the increasing of the anthocyanin concentration were discussed in terms of two aggregation models; monomer-dimer and isodesmic, the last one considering the formation of higher order aggregates possessing the same aggregation constant of the dimer. The self-aggregation constant of flavylium cation at pH = 1.0, calculated by both models increases by increasing the number of methoxy (-OCH3) or hydroxy (-OH) substituents following the order: myrtillin (2 -OH), oenin (2 -OCH3), 3-OGI-petunidin (1 -OH, 1 -OCH3), kuromanin (1 -OH), 3-OGI-peonidin (1 -OCH3) and callistephin (none). Evidence for flavylium aggregates possessing a shape between J and H was achieved, as well as for the formation of higher order aggregates. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The photoreaction of indigo and two other derivatives in its reduced (leuco) form was investigated by absorption and fluorescence (steady-state and time-resolved) techniques. The fluorescence quantum yield (phi(F)) dependence with the UV irradiation time was found to increase up to a value of phi(F) approximate to 0.2-0.3 (after 16 min) for indigo and phi(F) = 0.2 (at similar to 150 min) for its derivative 4,4'-dibutoxy-7,7'-dimethoxy-5,5'-dinitroindigo (DBMNI). With a model compound, where rotation around the central C-C bond is blocked, the phi(F) value was found constant with the UV irradiation time. Time-resolved fluorescence revealed that initially the decays are fitted with a biexponential law (with 0.12 and 2.17 ns), ending with an almost monoexponential decay (similar to 2.17 ns). Quantum yields for the isomerization photoreaction (phi(R)) were also obtained for indigo and DBMNI with values of 0.9 and 0.007, respectively. The results are rationalized in terms of a photoisomerization (conversion) reaction occurring in the first excited singlet state of trans to cis forms of leuco indigo.

From a user centered point of view an important basic requirement to enable human-robot cooperation is to achieve conformity with operator's expectations of robot behavior. Therefore, this study focuses on the question, whether anthropomorphic robot movement trajectories can lead to an improved anticipation of the robot's behavior. Based on a virtual simulation environment a robotized assembly cell consisting of the assembly robot and the actual workplace was considered. In order to be able to simulate anthropomorphic movements, the human wrist trajectories of defined pick and place movements were obtained using an infrared motion capture system. The captured data were used to navigate the virtual assembly robot. Within the experiment anthropomorphic and robotic trajectories were distinguished. During the experiment, the main task of the participants was to predict the movement's destination as quickly as possible. Thus, the corresponding reaction value was analyzed to investigate the influence of anthropomorphic robot movements on human prediction in industrial environments.

Implementations of Software Transactional Memory (STM) algorithms associate metadata with the memory locations accessed during a transaction’s lifetime. This metadata may be stored either in-place, by wrapping every memory cell in a container that includes the memory cell itself and the corresponding metadata; or out-place (also called external), by resorting to a mapping function that associates the memory cell address with an external table entry containing the corresponding metadata. The implementation techniques for these two approaches are very different and each STM framework is usually biased towards one of them, only allowing the efficient implementation of STM algorithms following that approach, hence inhibiting the fair comparison with STM algorithms falling into the other. In this paper we introduce a technique to implement in-place metadata that does not wrap memory cells, thus overcoming the bias by allowing STM algorithms to directly access the transactional metadata. The proposed technique is available as an extension to the DeuceSTM framework, and enables the efficient implementation of a wide range of STM algorithms and their fair (unbiased) comparison in a common STM infrastructure. We illustrate the benefits of our approach by analyzing its impact in two popular TM algorithms with two different transactional workloads, TL2 and multi-versioning, with bias to out-place and in-place respectively.

In this work, we propose RATS, a middleware to enhance and extend the Terracotta framework for Java with the ability to transparently execute multi-threaded Java applications to provide a single-system image. It supports efficient scheduling of threads, according to available resources, across several nodes in a Terracotta cluster, taking advantage of the extra computational and memory resources available. It also supports profiling to gather application characteristics such as dispersion of thread workload, thread inter-arrival time and resource usage of the application. Profiling and clustering capabilities are inserted with the help of byte code instrumentations. We developed a range of alternative scheduling heuristics and classify them based on the application and cluster behavior. The middleware is tested with different applications with varying thread characteristics to assess and classify the scheduling heuristics with respect to application speed-ups. Results indicate that, for a CPU intensive application, it is possible to classify the scheduling heuristic based on application and cluster properties and also achieve linear speed ups. Furthermore, we show that a memory intensive application is able to scale its memory usage considerably when compared to running the application on a single JVM.

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Ion Jelly materials combine the chemical versatility and conductivity of an ionic liquid (IL) with the morphological versatility of a biopolymer (gelatin). They exhibit very interesting properties, such as conductivities up to 10− 4 S cm− 1, and high thermostability up to 180 °C, and have been used successfully to design electrochromic windows. In this work we report on the preparation of Ion Jelly fibers through electrospinning in order to obtain high surface area conductive materials. We have used the IL 1-(2-hydroxyethyl)-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([C2OHmim]BF4), which exhibits conveniently high ionic conductivity (over 10− 3 S cm− 1) and electrochemical stability (electrochemical window over 6.0 V). The morphology of the obtained fibers was quantified using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). We found that on average the effect of the IL on fiber diameter differs for lower and higher IL concentrations and that this effect was correlated with the initial conductivity and viscosity of Ion Jelly electrospinning solution. Moreover we also found that conductivities of Ion Jelly fibers are of the same order of magnitude as the conductivities of Ion Jelly dense films (~ 10− 4 S cm− 1). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the incorporation of an IL into gelatin fibers using electrospinning. This opens up new opportunities for the application of gelatin fibers in electrochemical and biomedical devices.

This work reports the production of hydroxyapatite (HA) sub-micron fibers by combining electrospinning and a non-alkoxide sol–gel system, using cheap precursors. Phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) and calcium nitrate tetrahydrate (Ca(NO3)2.4H2O) were used as precursors of phosphorus and calcium, respectively. The fibers were electrospun from a mixture of the gel formed from the system Ca(NO3)2.4H2O/P2O5 with polymeric solutions of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in water and ethanol/water mixtures. The fibers were analyzed for their morphology (Scanning Electron Microscopy, SEM), chemical composition (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, FTIR) and structure (X-ray diffraction, XRD). The fibers obtained were composed mainly of type B carbonated HA with traces of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP). SEM analysis revealed that increasing the concentration of water in the solvent system, used in the preparation of electrospinning solutions, led to fibers with smaller diameters and narrower diameter distribution.