bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Location-Based Power Conservation Scheme for MANETs
Authors: Al-Bahadili Hussein , Halasa Azmi
Published: January 2012

In a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET), a mobile node consumes its power in message communication, message processing, and other operation missions. The amount of power a mobile node consumes for communication is the highest and the dominant as compared to what a node consumes for other tasks. The power consumed in communication is proportional to the square of the nodes’ radio transmission range (R); therefore, minimizing R contributes to a significant reduction in power consumption and consequently increases node battery-power lifetime. This chapter presents a description and performance evaluation of a new efficient power conservation scheme, namely, the Location-Based Power Conservation (LBPC) scheme. It is based on the concept of reducing R by utilizing locally available nodes’ location information to adjust R according to one of the three proposed radius adjustment criteria: farthest, average, and random. So that instead of transmitting with full power to cover up to its maximum radio transmission range (Rmax), the transmitting node adjusts R to less than Rmax, which provides a power conservation factor equivalent to (R/Rmax)2.
Analyzing and Evaluating Current Computer Networks Simulation Models
Authors: Ababneh Jafar , Abdel-Jaber Hussein , Albalas Firas , Daoud Amjad
Published: January 2012

Computer simulation is widely-used in investigating the performance of existing and proposed systems in many areas of science, engineering, operations research, and management science, especially in applications characterized by complicated geometries and interaction probabilities, and for dealing with system design in the presence of uncertainty. This is particularly true in the case of computer systems and computer networks. Therefore, it is very important to have efficient, reliable, and accurate methodologies for simulating these systems to ensure effective, reliable, and accurate evaluation and analysis of performance and to create the optimum design parameters for communication and computer networks. Although practical experiments and simulations are the most widely used, several efforts have also been directed towards mathematical models. The main objectives of this chapter are to: present the methodologies and techniques used to evaluate and analyze the performance of communication and computer networks routers, such as mathematical analysis, computer simulations techniques, and empirical measurements; identify the workload required for accomplishing a simulation model or mathematical analysis; identify the main metrics used to evaluate, manage, and control the performance of the computer networks; present the advantage and disadvantage of these techniques; and identify the challenges facing these different methodologies.
Integrating Semantic Web and Software Agents
Authors: Gong Yiwei , Overbeek Sietse , Janssen Marijn
Published: January 2012

Software agents and rules are both used for creating flexibility. Exchanging rules between Semantic Web and agents can ensure consistency in rules and support easy updating and changing of rules. The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) is a new W3C recommendation Semantic Web standard for exchanging rules among disparate systems. Yet, the contribution of RIF in rules exchange between Semantic Web and software agents is unclear. The BDI architectural style is regarded as the predominant approach for the implementation of intelligent agents. This paper proposes a development for integrating RIF and BDI agents to enhance agent reasoning capabilities. This approach consists of an integration architecture and equivalence principles for rule translation. The equivalence principles are demonstrated using examples. The results show that the approach allows the integration of RIF with BDI agent programming and realize the translation between the two systems.
Tool-Support for Software Development Processes
Authors: Kuhrmann Marco , Kalus Georg , Chroust Gerhard
Published: January 2012

Software development projects are complex. The more complex a project is, the higher are the requirements related to the software development process. The implementation of a process is a great challenge. This, in part, has to do with human factors (acceptance, etc.) as the benefits of a formal development process might not be obvious immediately and it may take a while until the process becomes the lifeblood of a team. A crucial step towards implementing, enacting and enforcing a process is to provide tool support for the many activities the process asks for. Tool support is necessary to guarantee efficiency in the project, to do the housekeeping and to minimize the “overhead” of the process. This chapter describes challenges and options for supporting process models by tools. Furthermore it describes concrete samples and shows how tool chains can be created with commercial tools as well as with open source tools.
Petri Net Based Deadlock Prevention Approach for Flexible Manufacturing Systems
Authors: Zhong Chunfu , Li Zhiwu
Published: January 2012

In flexible manufacturing systems, deadlocks usually occur due to the limited resources. To cope with deadlock problems, Petri nets are widely used to model these systems. This chapter focuses on deadlock prevention for flexible manufacturing systems that are modeled with S4R nets, a subclass of generalized Petri nets. The analysis of S4R leads us to derive an iterative deadlock prevention approach. At each iteration step, a non-max-controlled siphon is derived by solving a mixed integer linear programming. A monitor is constructed for the siphon such that it is max-controlled. Finally, a liveness-enforcing Petri net supervisor can be derived without enumerating all the strict minimal siphons.
Prediction of Non-Functional Properties of Service-Based Systems
Authors: Taweel Adel , Tyson Gareth
Published: January 2012

From the outset, service-based systems offer several advantages, including the promise of shortening the development life cycle, reducing the costs of software development and faster utilisation of recent technical improvements in the software industry in terms of capability, reliability, compatibility, performance, and so forth. However, this is rarely realised in practice. An important issue of service-based systems is that they are likely to be (or perhaps already being) used in domains where human life and/or economic loss are possible and the need for a highly reliable system is a must. However, would it be possible to build reliable service-based systems that meet such domains’ requirements? Does it necessarily mean that composing a system from highly reliable services produce a highly reliable system? Is it possible to predict quality attributes of a service-based system from its services before building it? In this chapter, the complexity of this issue is highlighted, focusing on reliability, in an attempt to answer some of these questions. The chapter outlines various approaches that attempt to address this issue, and proposes a possible way forward for predicting the reliability of service-based systems from its individual services.
Metaheuristic Search with Inequalities and Target Objectives for Mixed Binary Optimization Part I
Authors: Glover Fred , Hanafi Saïd
Published: January 2012

Recent adaptive memory and evolutionary metaheuristics for mixed integer programming have included proposals for introducing inequalities and target objectives to guide the search. These guidance approaches are useful in intensification and diversification strategies related to fixing subsets of variables at particular values, and in strategies that use linear programming to generate trial solutions whose variables are induced to receive integer values. In Part I (the present paper), we show how to improve such approaches by new inequalities that dominate those previously proposed and by associated target objectives that underlie the creation of both inequalities and trial solutions. Part I focuses on exploiting inequalities in target solution strategies by including partial vectors and more general target objectives. We also propose procedures for generating target objectives and solutions by exploiting proximity in original space or projected space. Part II of this study (to appear in a subsequent issue) focuses on supplementary linear programming models that exploit the new inequalities for intensification and diversification, and introduce additional inequalities from sets of elite solutions that enlarge the scope of these models. Part II indicates more advanced approaches for generating the target objective based on exploiting the mutually reinforcing notions of reaction and resistance. Our work in the concluding segment, building on the foundation laid in Part I, examines ways our framework can be exploited in generating target objectives, employing both older adaptive memory ideas of tabu search and newer ones proposed here for the first time.
Identification of Genomic Islands by Pattern Discovery
Authors: Parekh Nita
Published: January 2012

Pattern discovery is at the heart of bioinformatics, and algorithms from computer science have been widely used for identifying biological patterns. The assumption behind pattern discovery approaches is that a pattern that occurs often enough in biological sequences/structures or is conserved across organisms is expected to play a role in defining the respective sequence’s or structure’s functional behavior and/or evolutionary relationships. The pattern recognition problem addressed here is at the genomic level and involves identifying horizontally transferred regions, called genomic islands. A horizontally transferred event is defined as the movement of genetic material between phylogenetically unrelated organisms by mechanisms other than parent to progeny inheritance. Increasing evidence suggests the importance of horizontal transfer events in the evolution of bacteria, influencing traits such as antibiotic resistance, symbiosis and fitness, virulence, and adaptation in general. In the genomic era, with the availability of large number of bacterial genomes, the identification of genomic islands also form the first step in the annotation of the newly sequenced genomes and in identifying the differences between virulent and non-virulent strains of a species. Considerable effort is being made in their identification and analysis and in this chapter a brief summary of various approaches used in the identification and validation of horizontally acquired regions is discussed.
Introduction to Modern Banking Technology and Management
Authors: Ravi Vadlamani
Published: January 2012

This chapter introduces Banking Technology as a confluence of several disparate disciplines such as Finance (including risk management), Information technology, Computer Science, Communication technology and marketing science. It presents the evolution of banking, the tremendous influence of information and communication technologies on banking and its products, the quintessential role played by computer science in fulfilling banks’ marketing objective of servicing customers better at a less cost and thereby reap more profits. It also highlights the use of advanced statistics and computer science to measure, mitigate and manage various risks associated with banks’ business with its customers and other banks. The growing influence of customer relationship management and data mining in tackling various marketing related problems and fraud detection problems in banking industry is well documented. Of particular significance is the set of latest trends this chapter presents in terms of biometric ATMs, RFID enabled bank notes, Antiphishing techniques that make Internet banking secure and the applications of Web 2.0 in banking. The chapter concludes by predicting that the Banking Technology discipline is all set for rapid growth in future.
Ontological Description and Similarity-Based Discovery of Business Process Models
Authors: Belhajjame Khalid , Brambilla Marco
Published: January 2012

Project repositories are a central asset in software development, as they preserve the knowledge gathered in past development activities. Locating relevant information in a vast project repository is problematic, because it requires manually tagging projects with accurate metadata, an activity which is time consuming and prone to errors and omissions. Just like any other artifact or web service, business processes can be stored in repositories to be shared and used by third parties, e.g., as building blocks for constructing new business processes. The success of such a paradigm depends partly on the availability of effective search tools to locate business processes that are relevant to the user purposes. A handful of researchers have investigated the problem of business process discovery using as input syntactical and structural information that describes business processes. This work explores an additional source of information encoded in the form of annotations that semantically describe business processes. Business processes can be semantically described using the so called abstract business processes. These are designated by concepts from an ontology which additionally captures their relationships. This ontology can be built in an automatic fashion from a collection of (concrete) business processes, and this work illustrates how it can be refined by domain experts and used in the discovery of business processes, with the purpose of reuse and increase in design productivity.
Context-Aware Pervasive Services for Smart Cities
Authors: Meier René , Lee Deirdre
Published: January 2012

Smart environments support the activities of individuals by enabling context-aware access to pervasive information and services. This article presents the iTransIT framework for building such context-aware pervasive services in Smart Cities. The iTransIT framework provides an architecture for conceptually integrating the independent systems underlying Smart Cities and a data model for capturing the contextual information generated by these systems. The data model is based on a hybrid approach to context-modelling that incorporates the management and communication benefits of traditional object-based context modelling with the semantic and inference advantages of ontology-based context modelling. The iTransIT framework furthermore supports a programming model designed to provide a standardised way to access and correlate contextual information from systems and ultimately, to build context-aware pervasive services for Smart Cities. The framework has been assessed based on a prototypical realisation of an architecture for integrating diverse intelligent transportation systems in Dublin and by building context-aware pervasive transportation services for urban journey planning and for visualising traffic congestion.
Estimation of Irrigation Water Demand on a Regional Scale
Authors: Viaggi Davide , Raggi Meri
Published: January 2012

Mathematical programming tools are widely used to simulate agriculture water use thanks to their ability to provide a detailed technical and economic representation of farm choices. However, they also require a significant amount of basic information and appropriate methods for the organization of such information. The objective of the paper is to test a methodology for the estimation of irrigation water demand using a combination of Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) at farm level, and a cluster analysis. The methodology is applied in an area of Northern Italy. The main outcome of our empirical application is the variety and complexity of reactions of different farms. The scenarios considered highlight the potential importance of the effects of price and cost variables, while the changes in the (area-based) tariff system appear less significant. The change in water cost/pricing appears somehow relevant, but does not motivate major changes in present water management policy, at least in the range of scenarios considered.
Calling Police Using SMS
Authors: Shirali-Shahreza Mohammad , Shirali-Shahreza M. Hassan
Published: January 2012

In this chapter, a method is proposed to contact the Police with mobile phones and via SMS (Short Message Service). In this method, when a person wants to contact the Police, he must only press a special key on his mobile phone for a short time to launch a special program. This program sends current location of the person using GPS system and sends it periodically with other useful information such as name, home and work address of that person automatically to the Police Station using SMS. In this method, there is no need to talk and a person can contact the Police easily and tell them the place which crime has occurred. In addition, there is no busy line problem. This method has low cost and can be run on many mobile phones This method is implemented using JavaME (Java Platform Micro Edition) programming language and tested on a Nokia N71 mobile phone by using an ‘Evermore BT-R700’ GPS receiver.
Open Source Implementation of Mobile Pair Programming for Java Programming Class
Authors: Chao Lee
Published: January 2012

Pair programming has been used to improve the learning of programming by many computer science educators. Implementing pair programming on the mobile learning platform can significantly improve the availability and collaboration between pair programming partners. This chapter explores a set of open source mobile technologies that can be used to implement mobile pair programming. It shows that mobile pair programming can be implemented entirely with open source or free software.
Adventure Game Learning Platform
Authors: Minovic Miroslav , Štavljanin Velimir , Milovanovic Miloš , Starcevic Dušan
Published: January 2012

Educational games display great potential as an active form of knowledge transfer. This research field is young, but some patterns in educational game development can be recognized. In this paper, the authors present a new approach to educational game development that overcomes some downsides of more traditional systems. The paper provides the opportunity to create an educational adventure game by using specialized software tool as well as integrating knowledge in that specific game instance. As a result of that process, game definition is created as a form of XML document. On the other side, a web-based interpreter is used to present the adventure game to user in runtime. XML format provides us with platform independency. By use of this tool, the educator gains the ability to create an educational game without programming knowledge, and to reuse some previously created knowledge.
Girls and Computers - Yes We Can!
Authors: Heo Misook , Spradley-Myrick L. Monique
Published: January 2012

This research was designed to increase the awareness of female students with regard to Computer Science (CS) as both a major and a career field. Five female students from a high school in a northeastern state were voluntarily recruited for a weekly, after-school computer club curriculum for one academic year. Over the project period, participants ventured through tasks relating to various technologies, thereby increasing their computer confidence. Collaboration preferences increased only when faced with both technical and content knowledge. Participants’ understanding of CS changed from abstract and superficial to more concrete, but disinterest in the major persisted. Finally, while the participants’ perceptions of gender differences changed, some of the self-reflections did not match their responses to structured questions. While the project impacted only a small sample, increased knowledge of the field of CS prevailed. If females are educated earlier, this may cause a noticeable shift in gender inequity amongst CS majors.
Interest and Performance When Learning Online
Authors: Fraughton Tamra B. , Sansone Carol , Butner Jonathan , Zachary Joseph
Published: January 2012

As part of the Regulating Motivation and Performance Online Project (RMAPO), students completing an online HTML programming lesson demonstrated higher quiz scores and greater post-lesson interest when initially provided information about how the skills could be used (personal or organizational applications). These effects were mediated by higher levels of engagement with optional examples and exercises during the lesson. This paper examines whether the benefit from adding utility value information was limited to students with no prior experience creating web pages. Results show that, regardless of prior experience, the added information was associated with higher engagement levels, which were associated with higher lesson interest and quiz scores. Because prior experience was related to lower engagement levels overall, results suggest that experience had an indirect negative effect on motivation and performance outcomes that was offset by enhanced engagement when value was added. Implications for the Self-Regulation of Motivation Model (SRM) and online instructors are discussed.
VPRS-Based Group Decision-Making for Risk Response in Petroleum Investment
Authors: Xie Gang , Yue Wuyi , Wang Shouyang
Published: January 2012

From the perspective of risk response in petroleum project investment, the authors use a group decision-making (GDM) approach based on a variable precision rough set (VPRS) model for risk knowledge discovery, where experts were invited to identify risk indices and evaluate risk exposure (RE) of individual projects. First, the approach of VPRS-based GDM is introduced. Next, while considering multiple risks in petroleum project investment, the authors use multi-objective programming to obtain the optimal selection of project portfolio with minimum RE, where the significance of risk indices is assigned to each of corresponding multi-objective functions as a weight. Then, a numerical example on a Chinese petroleum company’s investments in overseas projects is presented to illustrate the proposed approach, and some important issues are analyzed. Finally, conclusions are drawn and some topics for future work are suggested.
Strategic E-Business/ IT Alignment for SME Competitiveness
Authors: Escofet Eduardo , Rodríguez-Fórtiz María José , Garrido José Luis , Chung Lawrence
Published: January 2012

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have used e-business models for enhancing their competitiveness. As the needs of SMEs grow, however, so does e-business/ IT strategic alignment. Although some techniques have been proposed in literature to find and evaluate business/ IT strategic alignment, they largely suffer from lack of objectivity and integration. In this chapter, the authors propose a practical lightweight interview-based method that permits us to align e-business and IT strategies and to obtain investment priorities per software development process and area, towards improvements on service quality and business profitability. This method incorporates goal modeling and the Strategic Alignment Modeling techniques to address the growing needs of SMEs, to avoid inconsistencies and to increase confidence in compiled data and modeling results.
Empowering Web Service Search with Business Know-How
Authors: Mirbel Isabelle , Crescenzo Pierre , Cerezo Nadia
Published: January 2012

Scientists who are not proficient in computer science and yet wish to perform in-silico experiments and harness the power of Service Oriented Architecture are presented with dozens of daunting technical solutions: scientific workflow frameworks. While these systems do take care of complex technical aspects such as Grid technologies, little is done to support transfer of service composition knowledge and know-how. The authors of this chapter believe the problem lies in the scientific workflow models which are too low-level and too anchored in the underlying technologies to allow efficient reuse and sharing. This chapter’s approach, called SATIS, relies on a goal-driven model, that has proven its worth in requirement engineering, and the Semantic Web technologies to leverage the collective knowledge and know-how in order to bridge the gap between service providers and end-users.
Recent Developments in Supplier Selection and Order Allocation Process
Authors: Demirtas Ezgi Aktar , Ustun Ozden
Published: January 2012

Because the purchasing department can play a key role in cost reduction, supplier selection and order allocation are the most important functions of purchasing management. In view of its complexity, it will be focused especially on the final selection stage that consists of determining the best mixture of suppliers and allocating orders among them so as to satisfy different purchasing requirements. In recent years, many researchers used new integrated models for supplier selection and order allocation. They combine multi-criteria approaches such as AHP/ANP and linear programming (LP), mixed integer programming (MIP), non-linear programming (NLP), mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) and goal programming (GP) with different achievement scalarizing functions. In this chapter, after the stages of supplier selection process are explained, these new integrated models are introduced and their constraints, variables, and goals/objectives of these models are explained in detail. Then the solution methods of these integrated models are given. Finally, different integrated models are compared by considering their advantages and disadvantages.
Innovative Hybrid Genetic Algorithms and Line Search Method for Industrial Production Management
Authors: Vasant Pandian
Published: January 2012

Many engineering, science, information technology and management optimization problems can be considered as non linear programming real world problems where the all or some of the parameters and variables involved are uncertain in nature. These can only be quantified using intelligent computational techniques such as evolutionary computation and fuzzy logic. The main objective of this research chapter is to solve non linear fuzzy optimization problem where the technological coefficient in the constraints involved are fuzzy numbers which was represented by logistic membership functions by using hybrid evolutionary optimization approach. To explore the applicability of the present study a numerical example is considered to determine the production planning for the decision variables and profit of the company.
Law, Architecture, Gameplay, and Marketing
Authors: Wasilko Peter J.
Published: January 2012

This chapter introduces readers to a broad range of legal issues relevant to game designers and developers touching such topics as intellectual property protection, player disputes, employment, licensing, and taxation. It provides an overview of relevant law, but primarily focuses on how to bring legal considerations into game design, software development, and business planning so as to minimize one’s legal risk. The Principle of Severability is also highlighted as a way to increase users’ willingness to contribute content; it is then extended to offer guidance in setting up a Litigation Savvy Development process.
Knowledge, Truth, and Values in Computer Science
Authors: Colburn Timothy , Shute Gary
Published: January 2012

Among empirical disciplines, computer science and the engineering fields share the distinction of creating their own subject matter, raising questions about the kinds of knowledge they engender. The authors argue that knowledge acquisition in computer science fits models as diverse as those proposed by Piaget and Lakatos. However, contrary to natural science, the knowledge acquired by computer science is not knowledge of objective truth, but of values.
Systematically Exploiting Web 2.0 Social Media in Government for Extending Communication with Citizens
Authors: Yannis Charalabidis , Kleinfeld Robert , Euripidis Loukis , Steglich Stephan
Published: January 2012

Governments of many countries have been for long time attempting to establish communications with citizens in order to understand better their problems and needs, benefit from their collective knowledge, and promote public participation and transparency in their decision making and policy formulation processes. For this purpose they exploited initially the Web 1.0, making considerable investments in developing official e-participation websites, but the results were below expectations; so recently government agencies started exploiting the emerging Web 2.0 social media, which offers big opportunities for interacting with the large numbers of users these media attract. This chapter contributes in this direction by presenting a methodology for the systematic and centrally managed exploitation of Web 2.0 social media by government agencies for extending their communication with citizens. It is based on a central platform providing interoperability with many different Web 2.0 social media, which enables posting and retrieving content from them in a systematic centrally managed and automated manner using their application programming interfaces (APIs). It also allows the deployment in various popular Web 2.0 social media of Policy Gadgets (Padgets), which are micro Web applications presenting policy messages and collecting users’ interactions with them (e.g. views, comments, ratings, votes, etc.). The two basic critical success factors of this methodology, interoperability with Web 2.0 social media and composition of their users’ base, are also discussed.
Soft Computing Techniques in Civil Engineering
Authors: Pérez Juan L. , Rabuñal Juan , Abella Fernando Martínez
Published: January 2012

Soft computing techniques are applied to a huge quantity of problems spread in several areas of science. In this case, Evolutionary Computation (EC) techniques are applied, in concrete Genetic Programming (GP), to a temporary problem associated to the field of Civil Engineering. The case of study of this technique has been centered in the prediction, over time, of the behavior of the structural concrete in controlled conditions. Given the temporary nature of the case of study, it has been necessary to make several changes to the classical algorithm of GP, among whom it can be emphasized the incorporation of a new operator that gives the GP the ability to be able to solve problems with temporary behavior. The obtained results shown that the proposed method has succeeded in improving the adjustment to the current regulations about creep in the structural concrete.
Bundlet Model for Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes, Nanocones and Nanohorns
Authors: Torrens Francisco , Castellano Gloria
Published: January 2012

This paper discusses the existence of single-wall carbon nanocones (SWNCs), especially nanohorns (SWNHs), in organic solvents in the form of clusters. A theory is developed based on a bundlet model describing their distribution function by size. Phenomena have a unified explanation in bundlet model in which free energy of an SWNC, involved in a cluster, is combined from two components: a volume one, proportional to number of molecules n in a cluster, and a surface one proportional to n1/2. Bundlet model enables describing distribution function of SWNC clusters by size. From purely geometrical differences, bundlet (SWNCs) and droplet (fullerene) models predict different behaviours. The SWNCs of various disclinations are investigated via energetic–structural analyses. Several SWNC’s terminations are studied, which are different among one another because of type of closing structure and arrangement. The packing efficiencies and interaction-energy parameters of SWNCs/SWNHs are intermediate between fullerene and single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) clusters; an in-between behaviour is expected. However, the properties of SWNCs, especially SWNHs, are calculated close to SWNTs. The structural asymmetry in the different SWNCs, entirely characterized by their cone angle, distinguishes the properties of some, such as P2.
Establishing Service Management in SOA
Authors: Kleiner Carsten , Dunkel Jürgen
Published: January 2012

In service-oriented architectures the management of services is a crucial task during all stages of IT operations. Based on a case study performed for a group of finance companies the different aspects of service management are presented. First, the paper discusses how services must be described for management purposes. In particular, a special emphasis is placed on the integration of legacy/non web services. Secondly, the service lifecycle that underlies service management is presented. Especially, the relation to SOA governance and an appropriate tool support by registry repositories is outlined.
Perioperative management of a patient with renal cell carcinoma and polycythaemia
Authors: Laddahinga CK , De Silva C , Nanayakkara M , Abeygunasekera AM
Published: January 2012

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/slju.v11i1.4057 SLJU 2010; 11(1): 22-23
Sri Lanka Association of Urological Surgeons v11i1
Authors: Editor The
Published: January 2012

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/slju.v11i1.4061 SLJU 2010; 11(1): 36-37
Regulatory Dendritic Cells Pulsed with Carbonic Anhydrase I Protect Mice from Colitis Induced by CD4+CD25− T Cells
Authors: Yamanishi Hirofumi , Murakami Hidehiro , Ikeda Yoshiou , Abe Masanori , Kumagi Teru , Hiasa Yoichi , Matsuura Bunzo , Onji Morikazu
Published: January 2012

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which is characterized by a dysregulated intestinal immune response, is postulated to be controlled by intestinal self-antigens and bacterial Ags. Fecal extracts called cecal bacterial Ag (CBA) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of IBD. In this study, we identified a major protein of CBA related to the pathogenesis of IBD and established a therapeutic approach using Ag-pulsed regulatory dendritic cells (Reg-DCs). Using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, carbonic anhydrase I (CA I) was identified as a major protein of CBA. Next, we induced colitis by transfer of CD4+CD25− T cells obtained from BALB/c mice into SCID mice. Mice were treated with CBA- or CA I-pulsed Reg-DCs (Reg-DCsCBA or Reg-DCsCA1), which expressed CD200 receptor 3 and produced high levels of IL-10. Treatment with Reg-DCsCBA and Reg-DCsCA1 ameliorated colitis. This effect was shown to be Ag-specific based on no clinical response of irrelevant Ag (keyhole limpet hemocyanin)-pulsed Reg-DCs. Foxp3 mRNA expression was higher but RORγt mRNA expression was lower in the mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs) of the Reg-DCsCA1–treated mice compared with those in the MLNs of control mice. In the MLNs, Reg-DCsCA1–treated mice had higher mRNA expression of IL-10 and TGF-β1 and lower IL-17 mRNA expression and protein production compared with those of control mice. In addition, Reg-DCsCBA–treated mice had higher Foxp3+CD4+CD25+ and IL-10–producing regulatory T cell frequencies in MLNs. In conclusion, Reg-DCsCA1 protected progression of colitis induced by CD4+CD25− T cell transfer in an Ag-specific manner by inducing the differentiation of regulatory T cells.
HLA Anchor Optimization of the Melan-A–HLA-A2 Epitope within a Long Peptide Is Required for Efficient Cross-Priming of Human Tumor-Reactive T Cells
Authors: Chauvin Joë-Marc , Larrieu Pierre , Sarrabayrouse Guillaume , Prévost-Blondel Armelle , Lengagne Renée , Desfrançois Juliette , Labarrière Nathalie , Jotereau Francine
Published: January 2012

The uptake and long-term cross-presentation of tumor Ag long peptides (LP) by dendritic cells (DC) make them attractive cancer vaccine candidates. However, it remains to be established whether LP can prime long-lived tumor-reactive CTL and whether other cell types are able to cross-present them. Using HLA-A2 healthy donor and melanoma patient-derived PBMC, we studied the in vitro cross-priming potential of Melan-A 16–40 LP bearing the HLA-A2–restricted epitope 26–35 or its analog 26–35A27L and compared it to the priming capacity of the short analog. We then addressed LP priming capacity in vivo using HLA-A2 mice. We also studied LP cross-presentation by monocyte-derived DC, plasmacytoid DC, monocytes, and B cells. We showed that the modified LP gave rise to high and sustained cross-presentation by monocyte-derived DC. This led to cross priming in vitro and in vivo and to expansion of long-lived tumor-reactive cytotoxic T cells. In contrast, the LP containing the natural 26–35 epitope primed specific T cells poorly, despite its long-lived cross-presentation, and T cells primed against the short analog were short-lived. We further showed that LP cross-presentation is restricted to monocytes and conventional DC. These results document for the first time, to our knowledge, the strong immunogenicity of a human tumor Ag LP. Of note, they underscore that this property is critically dependent on sufficient HLA binding affinity and/or TCR ligand potency of the cross-presented epitope. We conclude that LP fulfilling this requirement should be used as tumor vaccines, together with DC maturating agents, especially the Melan-A 16–40A27L LP, for the treatment of HLA-A2+ melanoma patients.
Influence of Cytochrome P450 2C19 on the pharmacokinetics of lansoprazole administered by single and successive intravenous infusion in healthy Chinese volunteers
Authors: Wang Yongqing , Zhang Peipei , Jiang Ningling , Gong Xiaojian , Wang Dewang , Tang Nana , Zhang Hongwen , Zhang Haibo , Zhang Xiyong , Ou Ning , Meng Ling
Published: January 2012

This study aimed to explore the effect of CYP2C19 polymorphisms on the pharmacokinetics of lansoprazole administered by single and successive intravenous (iv) infusions in healthy Chinese volunteers. A total of 30 subjects, including 20 extensive metabolizers (EMs) and 10 poor metabolizers (PMs) were recruited and randomly assigned to three groups receiving doses of 15, 30 and 60 mg. All subjects received a single dose of lansoprazole during a 60-min period, and only the 30 mg dose group continued to receive the same dose iv for the next seven days (twice daily). Plasma concentrations of lansoprazole were monitored by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) at the following times: 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 105, 165, 225, 300, 390, 480, 600 and 720 min after lansoprazole administration. After a single intravenous infusion in the three groups, AUC, Cmax and t½ were significantly higher in PMs than in EMs, while total clearance (Cltotal) in PMs was significantly lower than that in EMs. Mean AUC and Cmax ratios in EMs and PMs were 2.1:1 and 1.4:1, respectively. After repeated doses of 30 mg, the AUC, Cmax, and t½ increased significantly, while the Cltotal decreased significantly in EMs. Mean AUC and Cmax ratios in EMs and PMs amounted to 2.2:1.4 and 1.5:1.2, respectively. Lansoprazole displays a linear increase in AUC and Cmax over a dose range of 15-60 mg, and these were dependent on individual CYP2C19 status.
Fatal child abuse: a study of 13 cases of continuous abuse
Authors: Kauppi Anne Leena Marika , Vanamo Tuija , Karkola Kari , Merikanto Juhani
Published: January 2012

A parent who continuously physically abuses her/his child doesn't aim to kill the child but commits an accidental filicide in a more violent outburst of anger. Fatal abuse deaths are prevented by recognition of signs of battering in time. Out of 200 examined intra-familial filicides, 23 (12%) were caused by child battering and 13 (7%) by continuous battering. The medical and court records of the victim and the perpetrator were examined. The perpetrator was the biological mother and the victim was male in 69 per cent of the cases. The abused children were either younger than one year or from two-and-a-half to four years old. Risk factors of the victim (being unwanted, premature birth, separation from the parent caused by hospitalization or custodial care, being ill and crying a lot) and the perpetrator (personality disorder, low socioeconomic status, chaotic family conditions, domestic violence, isolation, alcohol abuse) were common. The injuries caused by previous battering were mostly soft tissue injuries in head and limbs and head traumas and the battering lasted for days or even an year. The final assault was more violent and occurred when the parent was more anxious, frustrated or left alone with the child. The perpetrating parent was diagnosed as having a personality disorder (borderline, narcissistic or dependent) and often substance dependence (31%). None of them were psychotic. Authorities and community members should pay attention to the change in child's behavior and inexplicable injuries or absence from daycare. Furthermore if the parent is immature, alcohol dependent, have a personality disorder and is unable to cope with the demands the small child entails in the parent's life, the child may be in danger.
Fast and complete degradation of Congo red under visible light with Er3+ and Nd3+ ions doped TiO2 nanocomposites
Authors: Narayan Himanshu , Alemu Hailemichael , Alotsi Daniel N. , Macheli Lebohang , Thakurdesai Madhavi , Jaybhaye Sandesh , Singh Arvind
Published: January 2012

We report fast and complete destruction of the dye Congo red (CR) under visible light in the presence of Nd3+ and Er3+ doped TiO2 nanocomposites (NCs). TiO2 NCs with general composition TiO2[R2O3]x, {x=0.1, 0.2; R≡ Nd, Er} and particle size 12-16 nm were synthesized through co-precipitation/hydrolysis (CPH). A set of similar composites was also prepared through solid state reaction (SSR) route, which produced 31- 47 nm particles. After characterization, visible light photocatalytic activity of all the samples was recorded for the degradation of CR. NCs with molar concentration x=0.2 of both doping types produced close to 100% degradation in 180 min. The apparent rate constant (kobs) was found to be 2.91×10–2 min–1 and 2.36×10–2 min–1, for these Nd3+ and Er3+ doped NCs, respectively. The other NCs with x=0.1, also showed significant degradation of CR, but the samples prepared through SSR performed worse. The excellent degradation obtained with the NCs may be attributed to their small particle size. Moreover, the doping of Nd3+ and Er3+ ions further supported the photocatalysis through formation of intermediate energy levels within the band gap of TiO2. These new levels not only acted as electron traps for efficient suppression of the undesired e–/h+ recombination, but also facilitated to a certain extent the absorption of visible irradiation.
Intramedullary Melanotic Schwannoma
Authors: Hoover Jason M. , Bledsoe Jonathan M. , Giannini Caterina , Krauss William E.
Published: January 2012

We present a case of an intramedullary melanotic schwannoma (IMS) of the thoracic spinal cord. To our knowledge, this is the seventh reported case of an IMS of the central nervous system. Schwannomas are benign nerve sheath tumors of neural crest origin composed entirely of well differentiated Schwann cells that typically occur in peripheral nerves. Both the intramedullary location and the melanotic component of the reported lesion make it exceedingly rare. We will present our case, theories as to the origin of these tumors, clues in radiographic identification, and current clinical follow-up recommendations.
Glyphosate has low toxicity to citrus plants growing in the field
Authors: Gravena Renan , Filho Ricardo Victoria , Alves Pedro Luis C. A. , Mazzafera Paulo , Gravena Adriana R.
Published: January 2012

Gravena, R., Filho, R. V., Alves, P. L. C. A., Mazzafera, P. and Gravena, A. R. 2012. Glyphosate has low toxicity to citrus plants growing in the field. Can. J. Plant Sci. 92: 119–127. There has been controversy over whether glyphosate used for weed management in citrus fields causes significant toxicity to citrus plants. Glyphosate may be toxic to non-target plants exposed to accidental application or drift. This work evaluated glyphosate toxicity in plants of Valencia citrus (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) grafted onto ‘Rangpur lime’ (Citrus limonia L. Osbeck) and citrumelo ‘Swingle’ (Poncirus trifoliata (L.) Raf×Citrus paradisi Macf) by trunk- or foliar-directed herbicide applications under field conditions. In the first experiment, glyphosate was sprayed at rates of 0, 90, 180, 260, 540, 1080 and 2160 g a.e. ha−1 directly on the trunk to a height of 5 cm above the grafting region. In the second experiment, glyphosate was sprayed on the plant canopies at rates of 0, 0.036, 0.36, 3.6, 36, 360 and 720 g a.e. ha−1. There was no visual damage caused by glyphosate applied directly to the trunk, but the plants were affected by glyphosate sprayed directly on the canopies at rates over 360 g a.e. ha−1. The main symptom was observed in the new shoots formed after the application, indicating an effect on meristems. Little or no effect was observed in mature leaves. Eight days after application the levels of shikimate, total free amino acids and total phenolic compounds were unaffected. All plants affected by glyphosate recovered between 6 and 12 mo after the treatments. Therefore, despite some transient symptoms Valencia citrus grafted onto ‘Rangpur lime’ and citrumelo ‘Swingle’ were tolerant to glyphosate.
An evaluation of freezing tolerance of winter chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) using controlled freeze tests
Authors: Nezami Ahmad , Bandara Manjula S. , Gusta Lawrence V.
Published: January 2012

Nezami, A., Bandara, M. S. and Gusta, L. V. 2012. An evaluation of freezing tolerance of winter chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) using controlled freeze tests. Can. J. Plant Sci. 92: 155–161. Chickpeas (Cicer arietinum L.) are subject to freezing injury and/or winter kill. Field testing for freezing tolerance evaluation is slow, unreliable, and highly variable; thus an artificial freeze test that correlates with field survival is required. Our objective was to develop a reliable and simple artificial freeze test to evaluate the freezing tolerance of winter chickpeas. Four cultivars with varying levels of freezing tolerance were grown and cold acclimated under low irradiance (150 µmol m−2 s−1) and high irradiance (400 µmol m−2 s−1). Acclimated whole plants or excised leaflets were subjected to six tests to determine the LT50 temperature (lowest temperature to kill 50% of the plants). In two tests, following the freeze test, whole plants were held at 20°C/15°C (day/night) for 3 wk for re-growth analysis. LT50 was estimated from both axillary buds and foliage re-growth and from foliage re-growth. The LT50 was also assessed on excised plantlets from whole plants frozen to a series of test temperatures. LT50 was determined by re-growth of plantlets held for 1 wk at 20°C in test tubes or by electrolyte leakage following thawing at 20°C. Excised plantlets were frozen to the same temperatures used for the whole plants. LT50 was determined by re-growth in test tubes for 1 wk or by electrolyte leakage. Results from excised plant parts from frozen intact plants or plantlets excised prior to the freeze test were similar to those estimates derived from re-growth analysis of plants frozen whole. Freeze test employing excised plantlets offers high precision and the ability to screen large populations. Plants grown and cold acclimated under an irradiance of 150 µmol m−2 s−1 were not as freezing tolerant as those grown and cold acclimated under an irradiance of 400 µmol m−2 s−1.