Evidence for coordinated induction and repression of ecto-5'-nucleotidase (CD73) and the A2a adenosine receptor in a human B cell line

In the human B cell line P493-6 two mitogenic signals, the EpsteinBarr virus nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2) and myc, can be independently regulated by means of an estrogen receptor fusion construct or an inducible expression vector, respectively. Shut off of EBNA2, either in the presence or absence of myc, leads to a significant increase in enzymatic activity and surface expression of ecto-5nucleotidase (CD73) as well as an increased adenosine receptor response in cyclic AMP formation. Shut off of myc expression has a small additional positive effect on CD73 activity. Among the four different subtypes of adenosine receptors, the A2a receptor exclusively is subject to regulation in this system, which is substantiated by pharmacologic data (specific agonists and inhibitors), as well as on the mRNA level. With upregulated CD73 and A2a, cells also respond to 5AMP with increased cyclic AMP formation. Turn on of EBNA2 has the reverse effect of repression of CD73 and A2a expression. The time course of both induction and repression of CD73 and A2a is rather slow

Investigation of thin n-in-p planar pixel modules for the ATLAS upgrade

In view of the High Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), planned to start around 2023-2025, the ATLAS experiment will undergo a replacement of the Inner Detector. A higher luminosity will imply higher irradiation levels and hence will demand more ra- diation hardness especially in the inner layers of the pixel system. The n-in-p silicon technology is a promising candidate to instrument this region, also thanks to its cost-effectiveness because it only requires a single sided processing in contrast to the n-in-n pixel technology presently employed in the LHC experiments. In addition, thin sensors were found to ensure radiation hardness at high fluences. An overview is given of recent results obtained with not irradiated and irradiated n-in-p planar pixel modules. The focus will be on n-in-p planar pixel sensors with an active thickness of 100 and 150 um recently produced at ADVACAM. To maximize the active area of the sensors, slim and active edges are implemented. The performance of these modules is investigated at beam tests and the results on edge efficiency will be shown

Leak Detection and Localization through Demand Components Calibration

Success in the application of any model-based methodology (e.g., design, control, supervision) highly depends on the availability of a well-calibrated model. The calibration of water distribution networks needs to be performed online due to the continuous evolution of demands. During the calibration process, background leakages or bursts can be unintentionally incorporated to the demand model and treated as a system evolution (change in demands). This work proposes a leak-detection and localization approach to be coupled with a calibration methodology that identifies geographically distributed parameters. The approach proposed consists in comparing the calibrated parameters with their historical values to assess if changes in these parameters are caused by a system evolution or by the effect of leakage. The geographical distribution allows unexpected behavior of the calibrated parameters (e.g., abrupt changes, trends, etc.) to be associated with a specific zone in the network. The performance of the methodology proposed is tested on a real water distribution network using synthetic data. Tested scenarios include leaks occurring at different locations and ranging from 2.5 to 13% of the total consumption. Leakage is represented as pressure-dependent demand simulated as emitter flows at the network nodes. Results show that even considering a low number of sensors, leaks with an effect on parameters higher than the parameters’ uncertainty can be correctly detected and located within 200 m.FP7 - ICT - 2012 - 318556 (EFFINET)European CommissionPolytechnic University of Cataloni

Explicit expressions for state estimation sensitivity analysis in water systems

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.The implementation of state estimation techniques to water systems enables the hydraulic state of a given network to be computed at any time. However, errors in both measurements and model parameters can severely affect the quality of the state estimate, thus sensitivity analysis is crucial to assess its performance. The aim of this paper is to provide general explicit expressions for the sensitivities of the objective function and the primal variables of the state estimation problem with respect to both measurements and roughness parameters based on the perturbation of the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. Additionally, among all the possible applications of sensitivity analysis, two specific forms of such analysis for water systems are presented: identifiability of roughness parameters, and linear state estimate approximation. The merit of these applications is illustrated by means of a case study, which highlights the usefulness of compact sensitivity formulae to further understanding of state estimation solutions

Anisotropy and internal field distribution of MgB2 in the mixed state at low temperatures

Magnetization and muon spin relaxation on MgB2 were measured as a function of field at 2 K. Both indicate an inverse-squared penetration depth strongly decreasing with increasing field H below about 1 T. Magnetization also suggests the anisotropy of the penetration depth to increase with increasing H, interpolating between a low Hc1 and a high Hc2 anisotropy. Torque vs angle measurements are in agreement with this finding, while also ruling out drastic differences between the mixed state anisotropies of the two basic length scales penetration depth and coherence length.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Autoimmune-autoinflammatory rheumatoid arthritis overlaps: a rare but potentially important subgroup of diseases

At the population level, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is generally viewed as autoimmune in nature with a small subgroup of cases having a palindromic form or systemic autoinflammatory disorder (SAID) phenotype. Herein, we describe resistant cases of classical autoantibody associated RA that had clinical, genetic and therapeutic responses indicative of coexistent autoinflammatory disease. Five patients with clinically overlapping features between RA and SAID including polysynovitis and autoantibody/shared epitope positivity, and who had abrupt severe self-limiting attacks including fevers and serositis, are described. Mutations or single nucleotide polymorphisms in recognised autoinflammatory pathways were evident. Generally, these cases responded poorly to conventional Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD) treatment with some excellent responses to colchicine or interleukin 1 pathway blockade. A subgroup of RA cases have a mixed autoimmune-autoinflammatory phenotype and genotype with therapeutic implications

Multiobjective optimization of water distribution systems accounting for economic cost, hydraulic reliability, and greenhouse gas emissions

In this paper, three objectives are considered for the optimization of water distribution systems (WDSs): the traditional objectives of minimizing economic cost and maximizing hydraulic reliability and the recently proposed objective of minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is particularly important to include the GHG minimization objective for WDSs involving pumping into storages or water transmission systems (WTSs), as these systems are the main contributors of GHG emissions in the water industry. In order to better understand the nature of tradeoffs among these three objectives, the shape of the solution space and the location of the Pareto-optimal front in the solution space are investigated for WTSs and WDSs that include pumping into storages, and the implications of the interaction between the three objectives are explored from a practical design perspective. Through three case studies, it is found that the solution space is a U-shaped curve rather than a surface, as the tradeoffs among the three objectives are dominated by the hydraulic reliability objective. The Pareto-optimal front of real-world systems is often located at the "elbow" section and lower "arm" of the solution space (i.e., the U-shaped curve), indicating that it is more economic to increase the hydraulic reliability of these systems by increasing pipe capacity (i.e., pipe diameter) compared to increasing pumping power. Solutions having the same GHG emission level but different cost-reliability tradeoffs often exist. Therefore, the final decision needs to be made in conjunction with expert knowledge and the specific budget and reliability requirements of the system. © 2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.Wenyan Wu, Holger R. Maier, and Angus R. Simpso

X-ray structural analysis and antitumor activity of new salicylic acid derivatives

This Thesis project is going to be situated in my home town Östersund, 600 kilometers north from Stockholm.It´s a small town with 60 000 people and it is the only city of the region Jämtland in Norrland, Sweden.In the city centre of Östersund there is one existing bus terminal station where the buses arrive with people from the entire region.The task for this Thesis project is to rebuild the existing bus station in Östersund where the actual terminal building is going to be completely demolished and the entire block within the current bus stops is going to be rearranged.The topography of the terminal area is now dividing the regional buses that arrives on the upper level from the city buses that stops at the lower level. Therefore the main challenge of the new proposal is how one would strengthen the junction between these two flows of people and how a new architecture could enable the encounter between the countryside and the urban city.Detta examensprojekt kommer att vara belägen i min hemstad Östersund, 600 kilometer norr om Stockholm. Det är en liten stad med 60 000 personer och det är den enda staden i regionen Jämtland, Norrland. I centrum av Östersund finns en befintlig bussterminalen där bussarna anländer med folk från hela regionen. Uppgiften för detta projekt är att bygga om den befintliga busstationen i Östersund topografin på terminalområdet i dagsläget separerar de regionala bussarna som anländer på den övre nivån från stadsbussarna som stannar på en lägre nivå. Den största utmaningen i det nya förslaget är hur man istället skulle kunna stärka förbindelsen mellan dessa två flöden av människor och hur en ny arkitektur kan möjliggöra mötet mellan glesbyggd och den urbana staden