Immobilization of Anti-Galectin-3 onto Polysiloxane–Polyvinyl Alcohol Disks for Tumor Prostatic Diseases Diagnosis

This work aimed to immobilize the antibody anti-galectin-3 onto polysiloxane–polyvinyl alcohol (POS-PVA) support, to evaluate its capacity to capture the serum antigen galectin-3 and to quantify by ELISA the antigen levels in sera from patients with prostatic adenocarcinoma (PA) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and healthy individuals. Also, for comparative effect, the galectin-3 expression in the prostate tissue through immunohistochemistry was evaluated. The optical density (galectin-3 level) values established for the sera from PA and BPH patients were lower compared with those found for the healthy individuals. Galectin-3 immunohistochemically showed a significant increase and reduction of the cytoplasmatic protein expression in BPH and PA, respectively, compared with the normal prostate. These results showed that POS-PVA disks could be used as solid phase to immobilize serum galectins and in immunoassays procedures for the correspondent IgG anti-galectins detection in human sera.     

Modification of the electrical properties in Fe-Al2O3 granular thin films due to increased bias potential

We studied the electrical properties in Fe-Al₂O₃ granular films when the injected direct current or bias potential are varied in the low-field regime (eΔV?k_BT). Measurements of the electrical resistance as a function of temperature and applied bias at different temperatures were performed. We found that the electrical properties are best described using variable range hopping. The variation in resistance showed unexpected characteristics in distinct regions of potential. These regions of potential could be due to modification of the electronic localization length. We have shown that the electrical resistance decreases when the applied bias and/or current increases. We associate this behavior of the resistance with the activation of new electronic paths. The total resistance of our samples is reduced as additional parallel electronic paths are formed.     

Processing discontinuous displacement fields by a spatio-temporal derivative technique

In this paper, a digital image correlation (DIC) method coupling cross-correlation with spatio-temporal differential techniques was proposed for assessing discontinuous displacement fields. The accuracy and robustness of the algorithm was assessed on a set of numerical tests by processing computer generated speckled-pattern images. Fracture mechanical tests in mode I were considered, in which both in-plane and out-of-plane rigid-body movements were taken into account. The ability for recovering the analytical asymptotic displacement field in mode I was analysed, and stress intensity factor, crack opening displacement and crack tip location were used as quantitative parameters for validation purposes. Throughout these tests, the results obtained with the proposed method were systematically compared to the ones from Aramis DIC-2D commercial code. Globally, the results computed from both methods are in good agreement with reference values. However, due to the high spatial resolution (point-wise characteristic), a better matching of the displacements in the neighbour of discontinuities could be obtained by the proposed method.     

Generalized elementary functions

We use the theory of generalized linear differential equations to introduce new definitions of the exponential, hyperbolic and trigonometric functions. We derive some basic properties of these generalized functions, and show that the time scale elementary functions with Lebesgue integrable arguments represent a special case of our definitions.     

Adaptive and multi-mining versions of the DM-GRASP hybrid metaheuristic

Metaheuristics represent an important class of techniques to solve, approximately, hard combinatorial optimization problems for which the use of exact methods is impractical. Some researches have been combining machine learning techniques with metaheuristics to adaptively guide and improve the search for near optimal solutions. An example of such development is the DM-GRASP, a hybrid version of the Greedy Randomized Adaptative Search Procedures (GRASP) metaheuristic which incorporates a data mining process. In this hybrid proposal, after executing half of the total number of iterations, the data mining process extracts patterns from an elite set of sub-optimal solutions for the optimization problem. These patterns present characteristics of near optimal solutions and can be used to guide the following half GRASP iterations in the search through the solution space. In this work, we explore new versions of the DM-GRASP metaheuristic to experiment, not a single activation, but multiple and adaptive executions of the data mining process during the metaheuristic execution. We also applied the data mining technique into a reactive GRASP to show that a more sophisticated and not memoryless GRASP approach can also benefit from the use of this technique. In order to evaluate these new proposals, we adopted the server replication for reliable multicast problem since the best known results for this problem were obtained by GRASP and DM-GRASP implementations. The computational experiments, comparing traditional GRASP, DM-GRASP, and the new proposals, showed that multiple and adaptive executions of the data mining process can improve the results obtained by the DM-GRASP hybrid metaheuristic—the new proposals were able to find better results in less computational time for the reliable multicast problem.     

Characterization of Commercial Amylases for the Removal of Filter Cake on Petroleum Wells

Drilling fluid has many functions, such as carry cuttings from the hole permitting their separation at the surface, cool and clean the bit, reduce friction between the drill pipe and wellbore, maintain the stability of the wellbore, and prevent the inflow of fluids from the wellbore and form a thin, low-permeable filter cake. Filter cake removal is an important step concerning both production and injection in wells, mainly concerning horizontal completion. The drilling fluids are typically comprised of starch, the most important component of the filter cake. A common approach to remove this filter cake is the use of acid solutions. However, these are non-specific reactants. A possible alternative is the use of enzymatic preparations, like amylases, that are able to hydrolyze starch. Wells usually operate in drastic conditions for enzymatic preparations, such as high temperature, high salt concentration, and high pressure. Thus, the main objective of this work was to characterize four enzymatic preparations for filter cake removal under open hole conditions. The results showed that high salt concentrations (204,000 ppm NaCl) in completion fluid decreased amylolytic activity. All enzymatic preparations were able to catalyze starch hydrolysis at all temperatures tested (30, 65, 80, and 95 °C). An increase of amylolytic activity was observed with the increase of pressure (100, 500 and 1,000 psi) for one commercial amylase.     

Product ion studies of some novel arylamine adducts of deoxyguanosine by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization and post-source decay.

The product ions of the BH(2)(+) ions formed by the glycosidic cleavage of N-(deoxyguanosin-O(6)-yl)-2-methylaniline, 4-(deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-2-methylaniline, and N-(deoxyguanosin-1-yl)-2-methylaniline have been studied using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) and post-source decay (PSD) to identify fragment ions and pathways that may be used to differentiate their structures. All three isomers may be distinguished based on their PSD product ion spectra using only femtomole quantities of sample. N-(Deoxyguanosin-O(6)-yl)-2-methylaniline produces product ions at m/z 107 and 134 that are diagnostic for 2-methylaniline attachment to the O(6) position of guanine. The BH(2)(+) ion from 4-(deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-2-methylaniline yields a product ion formed by the consecutive losses of 17 and 42 u neutral fragments that may be regarded as specific for guanine-arylamine adducts that possess two primary amine groups. The BH(2)(+) ion from 4-(deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-2-methylaniline yields no product ions that correlate with specificity for guanine N1 substitution. However, the product ion abundance ratio of the protonated arylamine to that of the ammonia loss ion may be used to differentiate an adduct formed by N1 substitution from other arylamine adducts of guanine studied thus far.     

Unexpected reactivity of trifluoromethylated olefins with indole: a mechanistic investigation

Several trifluoromethylated compounds were reacted with indole sodium salt, leading to monofluorinated compounds. The unexpected products formation was rationalized by DFT calculations.