Scientific Publications

The insula was for a long time considered as one of the most challenging areas of the brain. This is mainly related to its location, deep and medial to the frontoparietal, temporal, and fronto-orbital opercula. Another difficulty is the content of the lateral fossa, located between the insula and the opercula, which contains the trunks, stem, arteries, and cortical branches of the insular (M2) and opercular (M3) segments of the middle cerebral artery (MCA). Finally, the insula is surrounded by several white matter tracts and cortical structures having important functional roles, especially for language in the dominant hemisphere; the insula is indeed located between a dorsal phonological stream, centered by the arcuate fasciculus and lateral to the posterior insula, and a ventral semantic system, medial to the ventral aspect of the insula and centered by the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF). This chapter reviews some of these surgically relevant anatomical relationships.

Transactive Response DNA-Binding Protein-43 (TDP-43) is an RNA/DNA binding protein that forms phosphorylated and ubiquitinated aggregates in the cytoplasm of motor neurons in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which is a hallmark of this disease. ALS is a neurodegenerative condition affecting the upper and lower motor neurons. Even though the aggregative property of TDP-43 is considered a cornerstone of ALS, there has been major controversy regarding the functional link between TDP-43 aggregates and cell death. In this review, we attempt to reconcile the current literature surrounding this debate by discussing the results and limitations of the published data relating TDP-43 aggregates to cytotoxicity, as well as therapeutic perspectives of TDP-43 aggregate clearance. We point out key data suggesting that the formation of TDP-43 aggregates and the capacity to self-template and propagate among cells as a “prion-like” protein, another pathological property of TDP-43 aggregates, are a significant cause of motor neuronal death. We discuss the disparities among the various studies, particularly with respect to the type of models and the different forms of TDP-43 utilized to evaluate cellular toxicity. We also examine how these disparities can interfere with the interpretation of the results pertaining to a direct toxic effect of TDP-43 aggregates. Furthermore, we present perspectives for improving models in order to better uncover the toxic role of aggregated TDP-43. Finally, we review the recent studies on the enhancement of the cellular clearance mechanisms of autophagy, the ubiquitin proteasome system, and endocytosis in an attempt to counteract TDP-43 aggregation-induced toxicity. Altogether, the data available so far encourage us to suggest that the cytoplasmic aggregation of TDP-43 is key for the neurodegeneration observed in motor neurons in ALS patients. The corresponding findings provide novel avenues toward early therapeutic interventions and clinical outcomes for ALS management.

The purpose of the current study was green synthesis of ZnO-nanoparticles (NPs) from different tissues of Silybum marianum (L.) Gaernt. (i.e., seeds, wild plant, in vitro derived plantlets and callus cultures) followed by extensive characterization and evaluation of their biological potency. ZnO-NPs thus synthesized were subjected to characterization using standard techniques such as XRD, FTIR and SEM. Thermal stability of synthesized NPs was also evaluated using thermo-gravimetric analysis. Highly stable crystalline NPs with size ranging between 30.8 and 46.0 nm were obtained from different tissues of S. marianum. These NPs have revealed a wide range of biological applications showing antioxidant, moderate α-amylase inhibitor, antibacterial and cytotoxicpotencies. The highest antibacterial activity (20 0.98 mm) was shown by seed extract-mediated ZnO NPs against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC-6538). Seed extract-mediated ZnO NPs also showed the most potent antioxidant activity (27.7 .9 gAAE/mg, 23.8 0.7 gAAE/mg and 12.7 1.9% total antioxidant capacity (TAC), total reducing power (TRP) and DPPH-free radical scavenging assay (FRSA), respectively). All of the synthesized ZnO NPs also showed cytotoxic activity against the hepato-cellular carcinoma (HepG2) human cells. Interestingly, these ZnO NPs were also highly biocompatible, as evidenced by the brine shrimp lethality and human red blood cells hemolytic assays. Among all of the NPs synthesized and used, the effect of seed extract-mediated NPs was found to be most promising for future applications.

Since the early days of ontology engineering, manufacturing is one of the main areas where ontologies have traditionally been applied (Guarino et al., 1997; Uschold and Grüninger, 1996). The interest in ontologies has been motivated, first, by the massive exploitation of computer-based technologies in manufacturing organizations, which need to manage and share data in a robust way, and second, by the need to harmonize different terminologies to facilitate communication. The two motivations are strictly related, since shared terminologies and models are needed to enable computer systems to interact effectively. In addition, in the new landscape of Industry 4.0 (Lu, 2017), guided and informed by big data and machine learning, ontologies find their place to organize the data upon which learning algorithms run.

In this paper, a non-asymptotic pseudo-state estimator for a class of commensurate fractional order linear systems is designed in noisy environment. Different from existing modulating functions methods, the proposed method is based on the system model with fractional sequential derivatives by introducing fractional order modulating functions. By applying the fractional order integration by parts formula and thanks to the properties of the fractional order modulating functions, a set of fractional derivatives and fractional order initial values of the output are analogously obtained by algebraic integral formulas. Then, an explicit formula of the pseudo-state is accomplished by using the fractional sequential derivatives of the output computed based on the previous results. This formula does not contain any source of errors in continuous noise-free case, and can be used to non-asymptotically estimate the pseudo-state in discrete noisy case. The construction of the fractional order modulating functions is also shown, which is independent of the time. Finally, simulations and comparison results demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method

This special issue of Annals of Forest Science compiles ten papers on “Wood formation and tree adaptation to climate”, which were presented at “Le Studium” International Conference in May 2018 in Orléans (France). These papers present observational, experimental and modelling studies investigating the influence of climatic changes on treegrowth from the hour to the century, and from the cell to the landscape.

Maternal immune transfer is the most significant source of protection from early-life infection, but whether maternal transfer of immunity by nursing permanently alters offspring immunity is poorly understood. Here, we identify maternal immune imprinting of offspring nursed by mothers who had a pre-conception helminth infection. Nursing of pups by helminth-exposed mothers transferred protective cellular immunity to these offspring against helminth infection. Enhanced control of infection was not dependent on maternal antibody. Protection associated with systemic development of protective type 2 immunity in T helper 2 (TH2) impaired IL-4R−/− offspring. This maternally acquired immunity was maintained into maturity and required transfer (via nursing) to the offspring of maternally derived TH2-competent CD4 T cells. Our data therefore reveal that maternal exposure to a globally prevalent source of infection before pregnancy provides long-term nursing-acquired immune benefits to offspring mediated by maternally derived pathogen-experienced lymphocytes.

Background: The use of electromagnetic fields has been considered as adjuvant therapy for the treatment of cancer given that some clinical trials have shown that the irradiation of cancer cells with electromagnetic fields can slow down the disease progression. 

Aims: We hypothesize that this effect could be amplified by irradiating tumor cells with electromagnetic fields having frequencies close to the natural resonant frequencies of membrane channels in tumor cells, in order to obtain a significant change of the ion flux across tumor cell membrane channels, inducing the largest harmful alteration in their cellular function.

Methods: Neuronal-like cells were used as a cell model and exposed for 6 h to electromagnetic fields at different frequencies (0, 50 Hz, 900 MHz) at the same intensity of 2 mT. The exposure system was represented by two Helmholtz coils driven by a power amplifier in current mode and an arbitrary function generator. FTIR spectroscopy was used to evaluate the results of the exposure.

Results: The results of this study showed that the Amide I vibration band increased in intensity with the increase of the frequency, leading us to assume that the displacement of the cell channels α-helices depends on the frequency of the applied electromagnetic fields.

Conclusion: This preliminary result leads us to plan future research aimed at searching for the natural frequencies of membrane channels in tumor cells using resonant electromagnetic fields in