457 research outputs found
Lois Lee Ciapponi, 86
No full textLois Lee Ciapponi, a Palo Alto resident who was a nurse at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, has died. She was 86
Telomere capping and cellular checkpoints: clues from fruit flies
No full textIn most organisms, telomeres consist of repetitive G-rich sequences that are elongated by a specific reverse transcriptase, telomerase. A large number of proteins are recruited by these terminal repeats, forming specialized structures that regulate telomerase activity and protect telomeres from degradation and recombination. Drosophila lacks telomerase and telomere length is maintained by transposition of three specialized retrotransposons. In addition, unlike yeast and mammals, Drosophila telomeres are epigenetically determined, sequence-independent structures. However, several proteins required for Drosophila telomere behavior are evolutionarily conserved. These include the Mre11-Rad50-Nbs (MRN) complex and the Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM) kinase, which are required to prevent telomeric fusions. In addition, recent studies have provided evidence that Drosophila uncapped telomeres elicit a DNA damage response (DDR) just as dysfunctional yeast and human telomeres. Uncapped Drosophila telomeres also activate the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) by recruiting the SAC kinase BubR1. Telomere-induced DDR and SAC both require the wild type function of the MRN complex. In addition, while DDR is mediated by ATR kinase, SAC activation requires both the ATM and ATR activities. These results indicate that the DNA repair systems play multiple roles at Drosophila telomeres, highlighting the importance of this model organism for investigations on the relationships between DNA repair and telomere maintenance
Quantitative opioid withdrawal signs in rats : effects exerted by clothiapine administration
No full textAn opioid withdrawal syndrome, which causes alteration of several physiological signs, was induced in rats by repeated morphine administration and final naloxone injection. The aim of this study was prevention of the altered physiological profiles by utilising clothiapine, which is capable of affecting fecal and urinary excretion, rectal temperature, pain threshold levels and salivatory behaviour. Morphine was administered in three daily intraperitoneal (ip) injections for 4 days at doses of 9, 16 and 25 mg/kg (d 1), 25, 25 and 50 mg/kg (d 2), 50, 50 and 50 mg/kg (d 3) and 50, 50 and 100 mg/kg (d 4). Naloxone was injected (30 mg/kg) ip 180 min after the last morphine injection. Clothiapine was administered orally 0.7, 2 and 6 mg/kg 2 hours before the naloxone administration. Signs such as fecal and urine excretion, rectal temperature and latency times to thermal stimulus salivation, jumping and wet dog shakes were affected in different ways by morphine, naloxone, clothiapine and combination of them. Notably the administration of clothiapine in rats receiving morphine and naloxone decreased the intensity of certain withdrawal symptoms, such as altered excretion of feces, temperature values, salivation, jumping and wet dog shakes behaviour, and elevated the nociceptive threshold values. The effects exhibited by clothiapine administration may be explained through its antimuscarinic, antiadrenergic and antidopaminergic activities interfering with the mechanisms involved in the regulation of these previously mentioned withdrawal symptoms. The use of this drug is thus suggested as a possible control of the acute phase of opioid withdrawal in heroin addicts
Exploiting Neural Audio Codecs for Edge-to-Gateway Speech Processing
No full textNeural Audio Codecs have become powerful tools for audio processing, offering learnable compression methods that balance high compression ratios with perceptual quality. This paper introduces a signal processing system that utilizes the latent space of Neural Audio Codecs for signal reconstruction and feature extraction in edge computing environments. We design a lightweight NAC encoder inspired by SoundStream, optimized for resource-constrained devices. Our evaluation on speech recognition and classification tasks highlights the system's adaptability to Internet of Things applications. The proposed design achieves a 40× audio waveform compression with only a 3% increase in word error rate for transcription tasks and a 94.6% accuracy on end-to-end intent classification, demonstrating its practicality for real-world deployment. Additionally, the encoder operates at a real-time factor of 1.77 on an ARM Cortex-A53 using a single thread for intra/inter-operation, ensuring efficient real-time compression and 12-8 times less energy consumption compared to the original model encoder
How does yoga compare with exercise for women with a diagnosis of breast cancer?
No full textFor women with a diagnosis of breast cancer, very low‐certainty evidence suggests that yoga and exercise might be similarly effective in improving quality of life, and yoga might be slightly better for fatigue; however, these estimations are based on a small number of participants and are imprecise. No information is available for other outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, or adverse events.Fil: Tort, Sera. No especifíca;Fil: Ciapponi, Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Centro de Investigaciones en Epidemiología y Salud Pública. Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Epidemiología y Salud Pública; Argentin
The mechanism of telomere protection: a comparison between Drosophila and humans
No full textDrosophila telomeres are maintained by transposition of specialized retrotransposons rather than by telomerase activity, and their stability is independent of the sequence of DNA termini. Recent studies have identified several proteins that protect Drosophila telomeres from fusion events. These proteins include the telomere capping factors HP1/ORC-associated protein (HOAP) and heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1), the Rad50 and Mre11 DNA repair proteins that are required for HOAP and HP1 localization at telomeres, and the ATM kinase. Another telomere- protecting factor identified in Drosophila is UbcD1, a polypeptide highly homologous to class I ubiquitin-conjugating E2 enzymes. In addition, it has been shown that HP1 and both components of the Drosophila Ku70/80 heterodimer act as negative regulators of telomere length. Except for HOAP, all these proteins are conserved in humans and are associated with human telomeres. Collectively, these results indicate that Drosophila is an excellent model system for the analysis of the mechanisms of telomere maintenance. In past and current studies, 15 Drosophila genes have been identified that prevent telomeric fusion, and it has been estimated that the Drosophila genome contains at least 40 genes required for telomere protection. We believe that the molecular characterization of these genes will lead to identification of many novel human genes with roles in telomere maintenance
Mechanical reinforcement by microalgal biofiller in novel thermoplastic biocompounds from plasticized gluten
No full textThe aim of this work was to develop new bioplastic compounds from wheat gluten, biobased plasticizers (glycerol, octanoic acid and 1,4-butanediol), and microalgal biomass as a filler. The effects of the composition on tensile properties, thermal stability, and water sensitivity were investigated. Microalgal biomass was added with the selected quantities: 10, 20, and 30 per hundred parts (php). Mechanical mixing of the components, i.e., gluten, plasticizer, and microalgae, was followed by molding in a hot press. Microlgal filler improved mechanical properties of the plasticized gluten material: in samples plasticized with 1,4-butanediol, 30 php of biomass increased the tensile modulus by nearly one order of magnitude, from 36.5 MPa to 273.1 MPa, and it also increased the tensile strength from 3.3 MPa to 4.9 MPa. The introduction of microalgal biomass slightly increased the surface sensitivity against water: 30 php of biomass reduced the water contact angle from 41° to 22° in samples plasticized with glycerol, but the biomass lowered the overall water absorption kinetics for material with each plasticizer. Microalgal biomass proved therefore to be an interesting sustainable resource with which to develop materials based on gluten, in particular to increase the mechanical properties of the compounds without reducing thermal stability or water resistance
Nanomechanical Characterization of Bacterial Polyhydroxyalkanoates Using Atomic Force Microscopy
No full textPolyhydroxyalkanoates are a promising class of biopolymers that can allow the production of sustainable plastic materials. The mechanical properties of such materials are very important for possible industrial applications, but the amount of polymer required for common mechanical testing can be orders of magnitude more than what is possible to achieve with a lab-scale process. Nanoindentation with the Atomic Force Microscope allows an estimation of the Elastic Modulus that can be used as a preliminary measurement on PHA when only a limited amount of material is available. Poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) copolymers were analyzed, with moduli ranging from 528 ± 62 MPa to 1623 ± 172 MPa, according to both the composition and the crystallization kinetics
How does eszopiclone compare with placebo for adults with insomnia?
No full textModerate‐certainty evidence shows that adults with primary insomnia taking eszopiclone 2 to 3 mg daily fell asleep a mean of 12 minutes more quickly and woke up a mean of 17 minutes later aer onset of persistent sleep than those taking placebo (follow‐up two days to six months). There was little or no dierence between groups in withdrawal symptoms (accidental injury, agitation, anxiety, back pain, dizziness, headache, nausea, pharyngitis, and pain) or in rebound insomnia. Eszopiclone increased total sleep time (a mean of around 30 minutes more; moderate‐certainty evidence) and slightly improved next‐day alertness (mean dierence of 0.46 points on a scale from 0 to 10; low‐certainty evidence).Fil: Ciapponi, Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Centro de Investigaciones en Epidemiología y Salud Pública. Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Epidemiología y Salud Pública; Argentin
How does yoga compare with psychological interventions for women with a diagnosis of breast cancer?
No full textFor women with a diagnosis of breast cancer, moderate‐ to low‐certainty evidence suggests that yoga may result in lower depression, anxiety, and fatigue scores compared with psychological interventions, although imprecision of results means that the magnitude of this effect remains unclear. Very low‐certainty evidence suggests potential benefits of yoga for quality of life and sleep disturbances; however, these estimations are based on inadequate numbers of participants and are imprecise.Fil: Tort, Sera. No especifíca;Fil: Ciapponi, Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Centro de Investigaciones en Epidemiología y Salud Pública. Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Epidemiología y Salud Pública; Argentin
- …
