Radio-resistance induced by nitric oxide to heavy ion irradiation in A172 human glioma cells

To investigate effects of nitric oxide on cellular radio-sensitivity, three human glioma cell lines, i.e. A172, A172 transfected green fluorescence protein (EGFP) gene (EA172) and A172 transfected inducible nitric oxide synthesis (iNOS) gene (iA72), were irradiated by C-12(6+) ions to 0, 1 or My. Productions of nitric oxide and glutathione (GSH) in A172, EA172 and iA172 were determined by chemical methods, cell cycle was analyzed by flow cytometry at the 24th hour after irradiation, and survival fraction of the cells was measured by colorimetric MTT assay at the 5th day after irradiation. The results showed that the concentrations of nitric oxide and GSH in iA172 were significantly higher than in A172 and EA172; the G(2)/M stage arrest induced by the C-12(6+) ion irradiation was observed in A172 and EA172 but not in iA172 at the 24th hour after exposure; and the survival fraction of iA172 was higher than that of EA172 and iA172. Data suggest that the radio-sensitivity of the A172 was reduced after the iNOS gene transfection. The increase of GSH production and the change of cellular signals such as the cell cycle control induced by nitric oxide may be involved in this radio-resistance.

电离层胶片频高图数字化转换与分析研究

The ionogram acquired with the ionospheric vertical sounding method is the oldest data in the history of ionospheric research. Using of modern microelectronics and computer technology to digitalize, analyse and preserve the huge amount of historical film ionogram has become more and more important and urgent. This paper introduced the progress of the film ionogram digitalization by using digital image processing technologies to correct and repair film ionogram and convert them in an exchangeable format. An analysis and conversion software, basing on this method, has been developed for the film ionogram analysis, and then it introduces the application of this software by combining the SAO Explorer program for Wuhan film ionogram and pseudo-color ionogram in Yamagawa in Japan. It shows that our method is reliable，and the developed software is used friendly and provides a positive solution in digitalization and analysis of huge amount of historical film ionogram. Firstly, we briefly introduce the film ionogram and the process of its digitalization. By observing a amount of film ionogram, we obtain some common characteristics of the digitalized film ionogram following as: (1) the image rotation are caused by scanning; (2) the vertical axis of a large number of film ionogram exist more or less tilt and bending ; (3) coordinates of the film ionogram appear the non-uniformity phenomena result from the instability of driving motor rotation and the error of altitudinal cursor orientation. Moreover, based on the characteristics of the film ionogram and the SAO Explorer software which is widely used for the digital ionogram analysis in the world, a new method has been developed for film ionogram procession. The method contains the image geometric correction and film ionogram format conversion. The image geometric correction includes such as image rotation correction, vertical correction and coordinates scale correction. After geometric correction, the BMP file format images will be converted to the SBF file format images. Then, we also discuss the data format converting methods, which include two methods of the image data mapping basing on the normalization and logarithm, and the method of the preprocessing of the noise filtering and the threshold setting. Combining with SAO Explorer software, we successfully obtain ionospheric parameters and electron profile from the converted SBF file format digital ionograms. Based on the above method, we developed the software for the film ionogram to realize its correction analysis and conversion of the image format, and then give a introduction for its function and operation. Subsequently, the software are applied into the Wuhan film ionogram which separately observed in the high solar activity year and the low in 1980s last century. The results reveal the converted SBF digital ionogram almost preserve the all echo information of the film ionogram. Furthermore, we expressly discuss the application to the Wuhan film ionogram in 1958 in order to validate the applicability and credibility of the software. And it is showed that the important information of the film ionogram are maintained into the SBF digital ionogram. It is represented that there is credibility for conversion of the software when it applied in the older film ionogram. In sum, this software could apply to the digitalization and analysis of huge amount of historical film ionogram. Last, we extended the function of the software by bring some new conversion method and used it to apply to the pseudo-color ionogram of yamagawa in Japan. The results show that the converted ionogram information basically maintain the importantly ionogram information and the error of scaling of converted SBF file format image is almost acceptable, though there is no preprocessing for the original ionogram. Hence, we could extend the applicable range of the software and apply it to all kinds of simulative ionogram imaging by improving the method and software.

Propaganda by Proxy?: Britain, America, and Arab Radio Broadcasting, 1953-1957

Vaughn, James, ''Propaganda by Proxy': Britain, America and Arab Radio Broadcasting 1953-1957 ', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (2002) 22(2) pp.157-172 RAE2008

Radio tomography: A new experimental technique

Pryse, Sian, 'Radio tomography: A new experimental technique', Surveys in Geophysics (2003) 24 pp.1-38 RAE2008

The dayside high-latitude trough under quiet geomagnetic conditions: Radio tomography and the CTIP model

Pryse, Sian; Dewis, K.L.; Middleton, H.R.; Balthazor, R.L., (2005) 'The dayside high-latitude trough under quiet geomagnetic conditions: Radio tomography and the CTIP model', Annales Geophysicae 23(4) pp.1199-1206 RAE2008

Radio i jego miejsce w życiu codziennym. Studium odbioru stacji radiowych w Polsce po 1989 roku. Analiza i interpretacja badań jakościowych

Wydział Historyczny: Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej

The s-mote: a versatile heterogeneous multi-radio platform for wireless sensor networks applications

This paper presents a novel architecture and its implementation for a versatile, miniaturised mote which can communicate concurrently using a variety of combinations of ISM bands, has increased processing capability, and interoperability with mainstream GSM technology. All these features are integrated in a small form factor platform. The platform can have many configurations which could satisfy a variety of applications’ constraints. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first integrated platform of this type reported in the literature. The proposed platform opens the way for enhanced levels of Quality of Service (QoS), with respect to reliability, availability and latency, in addition to facilitating interoperability and power reduction compared to existing platforms. The small form factor also allows potential of integration with other mobile platforms including smart phones.

Experimental impulse radio IEEE 802.15.4a UWB based wireless sensor localization technology: Characterization, reliability and ranging

Ultra Wide Band (UWB) transmission has recently been the object of considerable attention in the field of next generation location aware wireless sensor networks. This is due to its fine time resolution, energy efficient and robustness to interference in harsh environments. This paper presents a thorough applied examination of prototype IEEE 802.15.4a impulse UWB transceiver technology to quantify the effect of line of sight (LOS) and non line of sight (NLOS) ranging in real indoor and outdoor environments. Results included draw on an extensive array of experiments that fully characterize the 802.15.4a UWB transceiver technology, its reliability and ranging capabilities for the first time. A new two way (TW) ranging protocol is proposed. The goal of this work is to validate the technology as a dependable wireless communications mechanism for the subset of sensor network localization applications where reliability and precision positions are key concerns.

A dual-band antenna enabling improved quality of service in multi-radio wireless sensor applications in indoor environments

Science Foundation Ireland (CSET - Centre for Science, Engineering and Technology, Grant No. 07/CE/11147)

An investigation on the use of SNR distributions for the optimisation of coarse-fine spectrum sensing for cognitive radio

This thesis investigates the optimisation of Coarse-Fine (CF) spectrum sensing architectures under a distribution of SNRs for Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA). Three different detector architectures are investigated: the Coarse-Sorting Fine Detector (CSFD), the Coarse-Deciding Fine Detector (CDFD) and the Hybrid Coarse-Fine Detector (HCFD). To date, the majority of the work on coarse-fine spectrum sensing for cognitive radio has focused on a single value for the SNR. This approach overlooks the key advantage that CF sensing has to offer, namely that high powered signals can be easily detected without extra signal processing. By considering a range of SNR values, the detector can be optimised more effectively and greater performance gains realised. This work considers the optimisation of CF spectrum sensing schemes where the security and performance are treated separately. Instead of optimising system performance at a single, constant, low SNR value, the system instead is optimised for the average operating conditions. The security is still provided such that at the low SNR values the safety specifications are met. By decoupling the security and performance, the system’s average performance increases whilst maintaining the protection of licensed users from harmful interference. The different architectures considered in this thesis are investigated in theory, simulation and physical implementation to provide a complete overview of the performance of each system. This thesis provides a method for estimating SNR distributions which is quick, accurate and relatively low cost. The CSFD is modelled and the characteristic equations are found for the CDFD scheme. The HCFD is introduced and optimisation schemes for all three architectures are proposed. Finally, using the Implementing Radio In Software (IRIS) test-bed to confirm simulation results, CF spectrum sensing is shown to be significantly quicker than naive methods, whilst still meeting the required interference probability rates and not requiring substantial receiver complexity increases.

HIF-1alpha role in oxygen-dependent radio- and chemosensitivity

Poor oxygenation (hypoxia) is a common characteristic of human solid tumours, and is associated with cell survival, metastasis and resistance to radio- and chemotherapies. Hypoxia-induced stabilisation of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) leads to changes in expression of various genes associated with growth, vascularisation and metabolism. However whether HIF-1α plays a causal role in promoting hypoxic resistance to antitumour therapies remains unclear. In this study we used pharmacological and genetic methods to investigate the HIF-1α contribution to radio- and chemoresistance in four cancer cell lines derived from cervical, breast, prostate and melanoma human tumours. Under normoxia or hypoxia (<0.2% or 0.5% oxygen) the cells were exposed to either a standard irradiation dose (6.2 Gy) or chemotherapeutic drug (cisplatin), and subsequent cell proliferation (after 7 days) was measured in terms of resazurin reduction. Oxygen-dependent radio- and chemosensitivity was evident in all wild type whereas it was reduced or abolished in HIF-1α (siRNA) knockdown cells. The effects of HIF-1α-modulating drugs (EDHB, CoCl2, deferoxamine to stabilise and R59949 to destabilise it) reflected both HIF-1α-dependent and independent mechanisms. Collectively the data show that HIF-1α played a causal role in our in vitro model of hypoxia-induced radioresistance whereas its contribution to oxygendependent sensitivity to cisplatin was less clear-cut. Although this behavior is likely to be conditioned by further biological and physical factors operating in vivo, it is consistent with the hypothesis that interventions directed at HIF-1α may improve the clinical effectiveness of tumour treatments.

The development of new methods for high resolution radio astronomy imaging

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) polarisation observations of the relativistic jets from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) allow the magnetic field environment around the jet to be probed. In particular, multi-wavelength observations of AGN jets allow the creation of Faraday rotation measure maps which can be used to gain an insight into the magnetic field component of the jet along the line of sight. Recent polarisation and Faraday rotation measure maps of many AGN show possible evidence for the presence of helical magnetic fields. The detection of such evidence is highly dependent both on the resolution of the images and the quality of the error analysis and statistics used in the detection. This thesis focuses on the development of new methods for high resolution radio astronomy imaging in both of these areas. An implementation of the Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) suitable for multi-wavelength VLBI polarisation observations is presented and the advantage in resolution it possesses over the CLEAN algorithm is discussed and demonstrated using Monte Carlo simulations. This new polarisation MEM code has been applied to multi-wavelength imaging of the Active Galactic Nuclei 0716+714, Mrk 501 and 1633+382, in each case providing improved polarisation imaging compared to the case of deconvolution using the standard CLEAN algorithm. The first MEM-based fractional polarisation and Faraday-rotation VLBI images are presented, using these sources as examples. Recent detections of gradients in Faraday rotation measure are presented, including an observation of a reversal in the direction of a gradient further along a jet. Simulated observations confirming the observability of such a phenomenon are conducted, and possible explanations for a reversal in the direction of the Faraday rotation measure gradient are discussed. These results were originally published in Mahmud et al. (2013). Finally, a new error model for the CLEAN algorithm is developed which takes into account correlation between neighbouring pixels. Comparison of error maps calculated using this new model and Monte Carlo maps show striking similarities when the sources considered are well resolved, indicating that the method is correctly reproducing at least some component of the overall uncertainty in the images. The calculation of many useful quantities using this model is demonstrated and the advantages it poses over traditional single pixel calculations is illustrated. The limitations of the model as revealed by Monte Carlo simulations are also discussed; unfortunately, the error model does not work well when applied to compact regions of emission.

Optimized, unequal pulse spacing in multiple echo sequences improves refocusing in magnetic resonance.

A recent quantum computing paper (G. S. Uhrig, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 100504 (2007)) analytically derived optimal pulse spacings for a multiple spin echo sequence designed to remove decoherence in a two-level system coupled to a bath. The spacings in what has been called a "Uhrig dynamic decoupling (UDD) sequence" differ dramatically from the conventional, equal pulse spacing of a Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) multiple spin echo sequence. The UDD sequence was derived for a model that is unrelated to magnetic resonance, but was recently shown theoretically to be more general. Here we show that the UDD sequence has theoretical advantages for magnetic resonance imaging of structured materials such as tissue, where diffusion in compartmentalized and microstructured environments leads to fluctuating fields on a range of different time scales. We also show experimentally, both in excised tissue and in a live mouse tumor model, that optimal UDD sequences produce different T(2)-weighted contrast than do CPMG sequences with the same number of pulses and total delay, with substantial enhancements in most regions. This permits improved characterization of low-frequency spectral density functions in a wide range of applications.