Processing Modification Research Articles

熱処理および表面改質処理を施した生体用Ti-12Cr合金の力学的特性変化

熱処理および表面改質処理を施した生体用Ti-12Cr合金の力学的特性変化

STUDY ON THE ACTIVATION OF CALCIUM MONTMORILLONITE (CA-MMT) BY SODIUM CATIONS

The results of spectral research (IR, UV-Vis) of activation process of calcium montmorillonite Ca-MMT by sodium cations are presented in this article. Modifications Ca-MMT were carried out by modifier in the form of sodium carbonate by keeping different times of activations. On the base of received sodium modifiers MMT (Na-MMT) analytical cycle of research was done, including structural (IR) and spectrophotometric (UV-Vis) researches, in order for designation of ions exchange ability (CEC). There was observed that the method of processing modification (changing activation time) does not affect on ion exchange ability Na-MMT. Application of modified MMT used as a binding material in greensand will be described in next part of planned researches.

Biosolids Processing Modifications for Cake Odor Reduction (Phase 3 of Identifying and Controlling the Municipal Wastewater Environment)

Phase 3 of the overall WERF project was developed to study eight Phase 2 hypotheses in more depth, beginning in the laboratory (bench-scale) studies and continuing on to targeted investigations where the WERF team manipulated plant parameters at full scale to identify the best means of reducing biosolids cake odors. The Phase 3 research specifically sought ways to enhance anaerobicly digested and dewatered biosolids to reduce the odor levels in the biosolids end product, thereby reducing negatively perceived impacts on the environment or to the public when beneficially used on land. The goal of the Phase 3 study was to provide a general application of findings to WERF subscribers who are seeking ways to reduce odors produced by anaerobicly-digested biosolids. The Phase 3 options summary present a general roadmap for wastewater treatment plant operators seeking to optimize biosolids processing and reduce biosolids cake odors. Biosolids cakes with minimal odors lead to better public acceptance near biosolids management sites and in neighborhoods adjacent to WWTPs. Reduced odors also could open the WWTP dewatered biosolids cake to other recycling or disposal opportunities that are currently not used due to odor and other concerns (including on-plant site composting or storage). Additionally, significant cost savings could be realized by not requiring extensive odor control or other expensive options for containment and management of biosolids. This title belongs to WERF Research Report Series ISBN: 9781780403694 (eBook) ISBN: 9781843397908 (Print)

Surface wettability, surface free energy, and surface adhesion of microwave plasma-treated Pinus yunnanensis wood

In this study, microwave plasma was used to treat the surface of Pinus yunnanensis wood under the conditions of 220 V of input voltage, 20 μA of filament current, 8.8 mW of output power, 11 mW of reflected power, 2450 MHz of frequency, and 700 Pa of vacuum. The microwave plasma presented very significant treatment effects on the treated surface, even under weak treatment conditions, for example long treatment distance of 120 mm and short treatment time of 60 s. The treated surface showed better surface wettability, and the contact angles on the treated surface measured from deionized water, glycerin, and diiodomethane decreased sharply, even decreased to 0°. The treated surface also presented higher surface free energy, for example, 61.4–62.8 mJ m−2, being greatly improved by microwave plasma compared to that of untreated surface of 46.5 mJ m−2. The bond strength of the treated surface was 7.34 MPa, about 16 % higher than 6.31 MPa for untreated surface. The best treatment effect was obtained for the treatment distance of 120 mm and treatment time of 60–300 s. This technique might be widely used in wood modification and wood processing.

Long Non-Coding RNA Induces De Novo Myelodysplastic Syndrome through Epigenetic Regulation

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) form the largest part of the mammalian non-coding transcriptome and control gene expression at various levels including chromatin modification, transcriptional and post-transcriptional processing. LncRNAs are implicated in initiation and progression of several cancers.Cancer-associated genomic regions are regions showing high frequency of cancer related abnormalities, such as loss of heterozygosity or amplifications. One such widely studied CAGR is the 8q24.21 genomic region. One SNP of particular importance present at this locus is rs6983267, with the G allele of the SNP conferring increased risk of colorectal, prostate, breast and bladder cancers. CCAT2 is a lncRNA that spans this highly conserved region. CCAT2 has been shown to play an important role in inducing chromosomal instability and supporting cell proliferation and cell cycle arrest. Despite advances in diagnosis of MDS patients, the underlying mechanisms that lead to spontaneous induction of MDS remains poorly understood. Here we attempted to elucidate the role of CCAT2 and its specific alleles (G/T) in regulation of cellular processes that drive spontaneous tumorigenesis using a genetically engineered mouse model. We generated transgenic mice for each CCAT2 allele using random integration approach in C57Bl6/N background, expressing CCAT2 in all tissues of mice.In this study, we identified that CCAT2 plays an important role in regulation of normal hematopoiesis. Constitutive in vivo overexpression of each CCAT2 transcript in the mice resulted in spontaneous induction of widespread pancytopenias. CCAT2(G/T) BM biopsies displayed severe myeloid or erythroid hyperplasia, and dysplastic megakaryocytic proliferation, along with enhanced proliferation and excessive apoptosis. Interestingly, we identified two distinct phenotypes in CCAT2(G/T) mice with equal prevalence of MDS or mixed MDS/MPN. This suggests that CCAT2 overexpression might affect regulation of hematopoietic stem cells, disturbing their self-renewal or maturation capacity, and subsequently resulting in BM failure. Percentage of HSPCs was significantly reduced in BM of MDS mice, with increased presence of immature erythroid blasts and granulocyte-macrophage progenitors suggesting a block in differentiation. HSPCs of CCAT2(G/T) mice also showed increased frequency of cytogenetic aberrations, including breaks and chromosomal fusions. However, these mice don't develop sAML, suggesting CCAT2 is critical in initiation of MDS. We further identified significantly higher CCAT2 expression in the MDS patients as compared to healthy volunteers. Patients with sAML had significantly lower expression of CCAT2 as compared to patients with only MDS.To determine the mechanism by which CCAT2 induces genomic instability and myelodysplasia, we screened for several genes that have been previously reported to induce myelodysplasia as potential targets of CCAT2. Interestingly, EZH2 was downregulated in the BMCs of CCAT2(G/T) mice compared to WT littermates. EZH2 downregulation was observed in both MDS only and MDS/MPD mice. In CCAT2(G/T) mice, EZH2 and H3K27Me3 reduction was observed in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) as well as lineage positive bulk cells,suggesting that CCAT2 might induce alteration in EZH2 levels in the HSC compartment. Interestingly, we identified miR-26a and miR-26b, that were already reported to target EZH2, were significantly overexpressed only in BM of CCAT2-G mice. These data suggests that CCAT2-G regulates EZH2 expression primarily through regulation of target miRNAs. On the other hand, we identified EZH2 to interact preferentially to CCAT2-T compared to WT or CCAT2-G transcript. These data confirmed that EZH2 preferentially binds to the CCAT2 in an allele-specific manner.In conclusion, deciphering the role of CCAT2 in spontaneously induced myelodysplasia and cytopenias will help us further characterize the poorly understood MDS/MPN phenotype. CCAT2 mice can serve as a robust model for studying initiation of de novo MDS/MPN that does not progress to secondary AML, and as a pre-clinical model for evaluation of new therapies for MDS. It has high translational potential as CCAT2 can be developed into a diagnostic and prognostic marker, as well as a novel intervention target for MDS therapy. DisclosuresNo relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Modifying Effect of Metallic Powder Fillers

Industry produces many types and varieties of polymers. Often, however, materials with superior processing and functional properties are needed. Their increased diversity or novel properties can be obtained through chemical and physical modification of polymers, reactive processing or preparation of compositions. The article presents an analysis of mechanical and processing properties of products of polypropylene filled with metallic powder fillers, obtained with constant processing parameters. Samples of polypropylene were subjected to uniaxial stretching by a strength testing machine. Changes in the maximum tensile stress and strain depending on the different content of the metallic filler. Hardness and impact strength of the samples obtained from the injection moulded product were determined and changes in melt flow rate (MFR) were examined. We used five metal powder fillers: aluminium, zinc, tin, iron and copper powders, with their contents ranging from 2.5 to 15 wt% relative to a polypropylene matrix composite material. Based on the results of research, the appropriate dependencies of different types of powder metal fillers on the mass content were prepared.

Outer membrane lipoprotein biogenesis: Lol is not the end.

Bacterial lipoproteins are lipid-anchored proteins that contain acyl groups covalently attached to the N-terminal cysteine residue of the mature protein. Lipoproteins are synthesized in precursor form with an N-terminal signal sequence (SS) that targets translocation across the cytoplasmic or inner membrane (IM). Lipid modification and SS processing take place at the periplasmic face of the IM. Outer membrane (OM) lipoproteins take the localization of lipoproteins (Lol) export pathway, which ends with the insertion of the N-terminal lipid moiety into the inner leaflet of the OM. For many lipoproteins, the biogenesis pathway ends here. We provide examples of lipoproteins that adopt complex topologies in the OM that include transmembrane and surface-exposed domains. Biogenesis of such lipoproteins requires additional steps beyond the Lol pathway. In at least one case, lipoprotein sequences reach the cell surface by being threaded through the lumen of a beta-barrel protein in an assembly reaction that requires the heteropentomeric Bam complex. The inability to predict surface exposure reinforces the importance of experimental verification of lipoprotein topology and we will discuss some of the methods used to study OM protein topology.

Transcriptional and post-transcriptional control of adipocyte differentiation by Jumonji domain-containing protein 6.

Jumonji domain-containing protein 6 (JMJD6) is a nuclear protein involved in histone modification, transcription and RNA processing. Although JMJD6 is crucial for tissue development, the link between its molecular functions and its roles in any given differentiation process is unknown. We report that JMJD6 is required for adipogenic gene expression and differentiation in a manner independent of Jumonji C domain catalytic activity. JMJD6 knockdown led to a reduction of C/EBPβ and C/EBPδ protein expression without affecting mRNA levels in the early phase of differentiation. However, ectopic expression of C/EBPβ and C/EBPδ did not rescue differentiation. Further analysis demonstrated that JMJD6 was associated with the Pparγ2 and Cebpα loci and putative enhancers. JMJD6 was previously found associated with bromodomain and extra-terminal domain (BET) proteins, which can be targeted by the bromodomain inhibitor JQ1. JQ1 treatment prevented chromatin binding of JMJD6, Pparγ2 and Cebpα expression, and adipogenic differentiation, yet had no effect on C/EBPβ and C/EBPδ expression or chromatin binding. These results indicate dual roles for JMJD6 in promoting adipogenic gene expression program by post-transcriptional regulation of C/EBPβ and C/EBPδ and direct transcriptional activation of Pparγ2 and Cebpα during adipocyte differentiation.

Investigation of Effective Parameters on Metal Nitride Deposition by Plasma Focus Device: Number of Shots and Substrate Axial and Angular Positions

Plasma focus (PF) technique is potentially promising candidate for the materials processing and surface modification because of the radiations in a wide range of energies. In this review paper, we discuss and report the use of PF device for transition hard metal nitrides thin film synthesis and investigation of some effective deposition parameters in PF. In this paper, we focus on tungsten nitride film, which has promising industrial and scientific applications. A systematic study has been performed to investigate the effect of the number of focus shots and substrate axial and angular positions on the physical properties of tungsten nitride film deposited by PF device. It is indicated that these parameters are effective in order to obtain good quality tungsten nitride film and estimating the optimum conditions for growing these films with desired physical properties.

Atomic and molecular hydrogen gas temperatures in a low-pressure helicon plasma

Neutral gas temperatures in hydrogen plasmas are important for experimental and modelling efforts in fusion technology, plasma processing, and surface modification applications. To provide values relevant to these application areas, neutral gas temperatures were measured in a low pressure (10 mTorr) radiofrequency helicon discharge using spectroscopic techniques. The atomic and molecular species were not found to be in thermal equilibrium with the atomic temperature being mostly larger then the molecular temperature. In low power operation (1 kW), the molecular hydrogen temperature was observed to be linearly proportional to the pressure while the atomic hydrogen temperature was inversely proportional. Both temperatures were observed to rise linearly with input power. For high power operation (5–20 kW), the molecular temperature was found to rise with both power and pressure up to a maximum of approximately 1200 K. Spatially resolved measurements near a graphite target demonstrated localised cooling near the sample surface. The temporal evolution of the molecular gas temperature during a high power 1.1 ms plasma pulse was also investigated and found to vary considerably as a function of pressure.

Targeted next-generation sequencing reveals high frequency of mutations in epigenetic regulators across treatment-naïve patient melanomas.

BackgroundRecent developments in genomic sequencing have advanced our understanding of the mutations underlying human malignancy. Melanoma is a prototype of an aggressive, genetically heterogeneous cancer notorious for its biologic plasticity and predilection towards developing resistance to targeted therapies. Evidence is rapidly accumulating that dysregulated epigenetic mechanisms (DNA methylation/demethylation, histone modification, non-coding RNAs) may play a central role in the pathogenesis of melanoma. Therefore, we sought to characterize the frequency and nature of mutations in epigenetic regulators in clinical, treatment-naïve, patient melanoma specimens obtained from one academic institution.ResultsTargeted next-generation sequencing for 275 known and investigative cancer genes (of which 41 genes, or 14.9 %, encoded an epigenetic regulator) of 38 treatment-naïve patient melanoma samples revealed that 22.3 % (165 of 740) of all non-silent mutations affected an epigenetic regulator. The most frequently mutated genes were BRAF, MECOM, NRAS, TP53, MLL2, and CDKN2A. Of the 40 most commonly mutated genes, 12 (30.0 %) encoded epigenetic regulators, including genes encoding enzymes involved in histone modification (MECOM, MLL2, SETD2), chromatin remodeling (ARID1B, ARID2), and DNA methylation and demethylation (TET2, IDH1). Among the 38 patient melanoma samples, 35 (92.1 %) harbored at least one mutation in an epigenetic regulator. The genes with the highest number of total UVB-signature mutations encoded epigenetic regulators, including MLL2 (100 %, 16 of 16) and MECOM (82.6 %, 19 of 23). Moreover, on average, epigenetic genes harbored a significantly greater number of UVB-signature mutations per gene than non-epigenetic genes (3.7 versus 2.4, respectively; p = 0.01). Bioinformatics analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) melanoma mutation dataset also revealed a frequency of mutations in the 41 epigenetic genes comparable to that found within our cohort of patient melanoma samples.ConclusionsOur study identified a high prevalence of somatic mutations in genes encoding epigenetic regulators, including those involved in DNA demethylation, histone modification, chromatin remodeling, and microRNA processing. Moreover, UVB-signature mutations were found more commonly among epigenetic genes than in non-epigenetic genes. Taken together, these findings further implicate epigenetic mechanisms, particularly those involving the chromatin-remodeling enzyme MECOM/EVI1 and histone-modifying enzyme MLL2, in the pathobiology of melanoma.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13148-015-0091-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Codon-biased translation can be regulated by wobble-base tRNA modification systems during cellular stress responses

tRNA (tRNA) is a key molecule used for protein synthesis, with multiple points of stress-induced regulation that can include transcription, transcript processing, localization and ribonucleoside base modification. Enzyme-catalyzed modification of tRNA occurs at a number of base and sugar positions and has the potential to influence specific anticodon-codon interactions and regulate translation. Notably, altered tRNA modification has been linked to mitochondrial diseases and cancer progression. In this review, specific to Eukaryotic systems, we discuss how recent systems-level analyses using a bioanalytical platform have revealed that there is extensive reprogramming of tRNA modifications in response to cellular stress and during cell cycle progression. Combined with genome-wide codon bias analytics and gene expression studies, a model emerges in which stress-induced reprogramming of tRNA drives the translational regulation of critical response proteins whose transcripts display a distinct codon bias. Termed Modification Tunable Transcripts (MoTTs),1 we define them as (1) transcripts that use specific degenerate codons and codon biases to encode critical stress response proteins, and (2) transcripts whose translation is influenced by changes in wobble base tRNA modification. In this review we note that the MoTTs translational model is also applicable to the process of stop-codon recoding for selenocysteine incorporation, as stop-codon recoding involves a selective codon bias and modified tRNA to decode selenocysteine during the translation of a key subset of oxidative stress response proteins. Further, we discuss how in addition to RNA modification analytics, the comprehensive characterization of translational regulation of specific transcripts requires a variety of tools, including high coverage codon-reporters, ribosome profiling and linked genomic and proteomic approaches. Together these tools will yield important new insights into the role of translational elongation in cell stress response.

Novel pre-alloyed powder processing of modified alnico 8: Correlation of microstructure and magnetic properties

Progress is reviewed on development of an improved near-final bulk magnet fabrication process for alnico 8, as a non-rare earth permanent magnet with promise for sufficient energy density and coercivity for electric drive motors. This study showed that alnico bulk magnets in near-final shape can be made by simple compression molding from spherical high purity gas atomized pre-alloyed powder. Dwell time at peak sintering temperature (1250 °C) greatly affected grain size of the resulting magnet alloys. This microstructure transformation was demonstrated to be useful for gaining partially aligned magnetic properties and boosting energy product. While a route to increased coercivity was not identified by these experiments, manufacturability of bulk alnico magnet alloys in near-final shapes was demonstrated, permitting further processing and alloy modification experiments that can target higher coercivity and better control of grain anisotropy during grain growth.

Inferring genome-wide functional modulatory network: a case study on NF-κB/RelA transcription factor.

How different pathways lead to the activation of a specific transcription factor (TF) with specific effects is not fully understood. We model context-specific transcriptional regulation as a modulatory network: triplets composed of a TF, target gene, and modulator. Modulators usually affect the activity of a specific TF at the posttranscriptional level in a target gene-specific action mode. This action may be classified as enhancement, attenuation, or inversion of either activation or inhibition. As a case study, we inferred, from a large collection of expression profiles, all potential modulations of NF-κB/RelA. The predicted modulators include many proteins previously not reported as physically binding to RelA but with relevant functions, such as RNA processing, cell cycle, mitochondrion, ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis, and chromatin modification. Modulators from different processes exert specific prevalent action modes on distinct pathways. Modulators from noncoding RNA, RNA-binding proteins, TFs, and kinases modulate the NF-κB/RelA activity with specific action modes consistent with their molecular functions and modulation level. The modulatory networks of NF-κB/RelA in the context epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and burn injury have different modulators, including those involved in extracellular matrix (FBN1), cytoskeletal regulation (ACTN1), and metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1), a long intergenic nonprotein coding RNA, and tumor suppression (FOXP1) for EMT, and TXNIP, GAPDH, PKM2, IFIT5, LDHA, NID1, and TPP1 for burn injury.

Transfer RNA comes of age.

Transfer RNA comes of age.

Antigenic validation of recombinant hemagglutinin-neuraminidase protein of Newcastle disease virus expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The outer membrane glycoprotein, hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is important for virus infection and subsequent immune response by host, and offers target for development of recombinant antigen-based immunoassays and subunit vaccines. In this study, the expression of HN protein of NDV is attempted in yeast expression system. Yeast offers eukaryotic environment for protein processing and posttranslational modifications like glycosylation, in addition to higher growth rate and easy genetic manipulation. Saccharomyces cerevisiae was found to be better expression system for HN protein than Pichia pastoris as determined by codon usage analysis. The complete coding sequence of HN gene was amplified with the histidine tag, cloned in pESC-URA under GAL10 promotor and transformed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The recombinant HN (rHN) protein was characterized by western blot, showing glycosylation heterogeneity as observed with other eukaryotic expression systems. The recombinant protein was purified by affinity column purification. The protein could be further used as subunit vaccine.

Optimal trajectory and placement of a SCARA robot for natural yarns handling in the lattice distortion modification processing

This paper presents an application of SCARA robot for handling the natural yarn tubes in the lattice distortion modification processing system. The aim is to find the optimal trajectory and placement of the robot when executing handling operation between the conveyor and treatment tank, with regard to the minimisation of travelling time, total energy and joint jerk together by taking into account dynamic equation of motion as well as bounds on joint displacements, velocities, accelerations, jerks and torques. The quaternion spherical linear interpolation and the quantic polynomial spline techniques are utilised to construct trajectory in the work space. Furthermore, the genetic algorithm (GA) with a penalty function to deal with nonlinear constraints is used to optimise the trajectories of the robot. A simulation on the robot trajectory optimisation is carried out finally. And the results show that the appropriate placement of robot makes better performance.

Control System Design for Lattice Distortion Modification Test Equipment Based on Fuzzy Compensated Decoupling

A new technology of lattice distortion modification of cotton/linen fiber and yarn is introduced in this paper. The process parameters and control requirements in the lattice distortion modification processing are analyzed for designing its control system, The hardware system is designed using the Omron PLC as control core and the human-computer interaction interface is built by using configuration software. At last, a real time accurate program on fuzzy compensated decoupling control of the temperature and pressure in the modification process is presented. The test production results show that the control system designed totally meets the production requirements of the lattice distortion modification of cotton/linen fiber and yarn.

Corrosion and wear behavior of Ni60CuMoW coatings fabricated by combination of laser cladding and mechanical vibration processing

Ni60CuMoW composite coatings were fabricated on 45 medium carbon steel using mechanical vibration assisted laser cladding surface modification processing. The microstructure, element distribution, phase composition, microhardness, wear and corrosion resistance of cladding coatings were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS), hardness tester, friction and wear apparatus and electrochemical workstation. The results indicate that the microstructure of M23C6 (Cr23C6 or (Fe, Ni)23C6) carbide dispersion strengthening phase is uniformly distributed in eutectic (Ni, Fe) phase. The in-situ BCr and MoC compounds distribute in lamellar structure Fe3B and dendrite Fe3Ni3Si, and some new W2C phases also generated in Ni60CuMoW coating. In addition, the coarse dendrite has been replaced by some fine grain structure at the bonding interface. The fine grain hard phase makes the average microhardness of cladding coating increase from 720 to 835HV0.5. Under the condition of 200Hz mechanical vibration frequency, the wear mass loss and friction coefficient of Ni60CuMoW coating are 7.6mg and 0.068, 17% and 16% lower than the coating without mechanical vibration, respectively. The corrosion potential of cladding coating with mechanical vibration increases by 1134.9mV and the corrosion current density decreases by nearly one order of magnitude compared with the cladding coating without mechanical vibration.

Long non-coding RNAs and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Recent advances in next-generation sequencing technology in transcriptome analysis have helped identify numerous non-coding RNAs. The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is commonly defined as an RNA molecule with a length of 200 bp-100 kbp that lacks protein-coding potential. LncRNAs play a critical role in the regulation of gene expression, including chromatin modification, transcription and post-transcriptional processing. It has been confirmed that dysregulation of lncRNAs is associated with a number of human diseases, particularly tumors. In this study, we focused on the most extensively investigated lncRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The biological functions and molecular mechanisms of the majority of lncRNAs have yet to be investigated. The improved knowledge on lncRNAs in HCC may help identify lncRNAs that may be used as novel prognostic markers and therapeutic targets.