Environmental UV‐A and UV‐B Threshold Doses for Apoptosis and Necrosis in Humans Fibroblasts¶

Apoptosis involves a highly organized and programmed series of events aimed at maintaining genomic stability by eliminating defective host cells. The purpose of this study was to determine the threshold doses and environmental UV‐A and UV‐B exposure times necessary to produce apoptosis and necrosis in the normal cells of a human fibroblast cell line. Enviromental UV‐A and UV‐B doses were measured over a 6 year period with a four‐channel UV radiometer. The fibroblasts were irradiated once using an Oriel UV Solar Simulator with six doses of environmentally‐based UV. Doses corresponded to 0,11,19,23 and 45 min of average environmental UV‐A and UV‐B radiation at solar noon in Puerto Rico. The Annexin‐V binding method was used to differentiate between normal fibroblasts and apoptotic or necrotic fibroblasts. The threshold dose from apoptosis to necrosis was found between 24–28 kJ/m², which corresponded to 19 and 23 min of environmental UV‐A and UV‐B exposure. This study provides the first data that specify the environmental threshold doses of UV‐A and UV‐B at which human fibroblasts undergo apoptosis and necrosis. These results may provide valuable dose‐response thresholds for apoptosis and necrosis for future mechanistic studies and baseline data for skin cancer prevention programs.     

Mixtures of sodium dodecyl sulfate/dodecanol at the air/water interface by computer simulations

Molecular dynamics simulations of monolayers of surfactant mixtures at the air/water interface were performed where the binary mixture was composed of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and dodecanol molecules. At the same ratio of SDS and dodecanol molecules, two monolayer mixtures were prepared. In the first monolayer, all the dodecanol molecules were placed together in the center of the simulation box, whereas in the second monolayer, those molecules were uniformly distributed in the surface area in such a way that they were far from each other. Simulations of both systems indicate that the dodecanol tails in the first monolayer are straighter and more ordered than those in the second monolayer. From the present results, we observed new insights of how the different molecules should array or distribute at the interface in real systems. Finally, studies of the interfacial water around the different surfactants were also analyzed, showing that they are closer to the polar headgroups of dodecanol than to the SDS headgroups.     

Classical analogue of displaced Fock states and quantum correlations in Glauber-Fock photonic lattices

Coherent states and their generalizations, displaced Fock states, are of fundamental importance to quantum optics. Here we present a direct observation of a classical analogue for the emergence of these states from the eigenstates of the harmonic oscillator. To this end, the light propagation in a Glauber-Fock waveguide lattice serves as equivalent for the displacement of Fock states in phase space. Theoretical calculations and analogue classical experiments show that the square-root distribution of the coupling parameter in such lattices supports a new family of intriguing quantum correlations not encountered in uniform arrays. Because of the broken shift invariance of the lattice, these correlations strongly depend on the transverse position. Consequently, quantum random walks with this extra degree of freedom may be realized in Glauber-Fock lattices.     

A new space–time discretization for the Swift–Hohenberg equation that strictly respects the Lyapunov functional

The Swift–Hohenberg equation is a central nonlinear model in modern physics. Originally derived to describe the onset and evolution of roll patterns in Rayleigh–Bénard convection, it has also been applied to study a variety of complex fluids and biological materials, including neural tissues. The Swift–Hohenberg equation may be derived from a Lyapunov functional using a variational argument. Here, we introduce a new fully-discrete algorithm for the Swift–Hohenberg equation which inherits the nonlinear stability property of the continuum equation irrespectively of the time step. We present several numerical examples that support our theoretical results and illustrate the efficiency, accuracy and stability of our new algorithm. We also compare our method to other existing schemes, showing that is feasible alternative to the available methods.     

On the effects of non-linear elements in the reliability-based optimal design of stochastic dynamical systems

The aim of the present paper is to study the effects of non-linear devices on the reliability-based optimal design of structural systems subject to stochastic excitation. One-dimensional hysteretic devices are used for modelling the non-linear system behavior while non-stationary filtered white noise processes are utilized to represent the stochastic excitation. The reliability-based optimization problem is formulated as the minimization of the expected cost of the structure for a specified failure probability. Failure is assumed to occur when any one of the output states of interest exceeds in magnitude some specified threshold level within a given time duration. Failure probabilities are approximated locally in terms of the design variables during the optimization process in a parallel computing environment. The approximations are based on a local interpolation scheme and on an efficient simulation technique. Specifically, a subset simulation scheme is adopted and integrated into the proposed optimization process. The local approximations are then used to define a series of explicit approximate optimization problems. A sensitivity analysis is performed at the final design in order to evaluate its robustness with respect to design and system parameters. Numerical examples are presented in order to illustrate the effects of hysteretic devices on the design of two structural systems subject to earthquake excitation. The obtained results indicate that the non-linear devices have a significant effect on the reliability and global performance of the structural systems.     

Correlation analysis of chaotic trajectories from Chua’s system

Chaotic systems exhibit an erratic behavior reflected by a strong divergence of trajectories with arbitrarily close initial condition. In this way, similar to trajectories from pseudorandom number generators, chaotic trajectories can be seen as noise with some degree of correlation. This work focuses on the study of some correlation properties (i.e., scaling) of chaotic trajectories from the Chua’s system. This is done by using detrended fluctuation analysis, which is a method designed for the detection of correlations in stochastic time series. It is found that, in general, Chua’s trajectories behave as a Brownian motion for small time scales, while they can display a white noise-like behavior or be dominated by harmonic oscillations for large time scales.     

Novel synthesis of 19-nor-vitamin D compounds

1,25-Dihydroxy-19-nor-vitamin D₃ was prepared efficiently in a convergent synthesis starting with (−)-quinic acid and a ketone of the Windaus-Grundmann type.     

Definability of Frobenius orbits and a result on rational distance sets

We prove that the first order theory of (possibly transcendental) meromorphic functions of positive characteristic \(p>2\) is undecidable. We also establish a negative solution to an analogue of Hilbert’s tenth problem for such fields of meromorphic functions, for Diophantine equations including vanishing conditions. These undecidability results are proved by showing that the binary relation \(\exists s\ge 0, f=g^{p^s}\) is positive existentially definable in such fields. We also prove that the abc conjecture implies a solution to the Erdös–Ulam problem on rational distance sets. These two seemingly distant topics are addressed by a study of power values of bivariate polynomials of the form F(X)G(Y).     

Insulator-based dielectrophoresis of microorganisms: theoretical and experimental results

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is the motion of particles due to polarization effects in nonuniform electric fields. DEP has great potential for handling cells and is a non-destructive phenomenon. It has been utilized for different cell analysis, from viability assessments to concentration enrichment and separation. Insulator-based DEP (iDEP) provides an attractive alternative to conventional electrode-based systems; in iDEP, insulating structures are used to generate nonuniform electric fields, resulting in simpler and more robust devices. Despite the rapid development of iDEP microdevices for applications with cells, the fundamentals behind the dielectrophoretic behavior of cells has not been fully elucidated. Understanding the theory behind iDEP is necessary to continue the progress in this field. This work presents the manipulation and separation of bacterial and yeast cells with iDEP. A computational model in COMSOL Multiphysics was employed to predict the effect of direct current-iDEP on cells suspended in a microchannel containing an array of insulating structures. The model allowed predicting particle behavior, pathlines and the regions where dielectrophoretic immobilization should occur. Experimental work was performed at the same operating conditions employed with the model and results were compared, obtaining good agreement. This is the first report on the mathematical modeling of the dielectrophoretic response of yeast and bacterial cells in a DC-iDEP microdevice.