A chimeric vitronectin : IGF-I protein supports feeder-cell-free and serum-free culture of human embryonic stem cells

This paper was retracted by the Journal of Stem Cells and Development on February 15, 2013.

Slum free India program. Report on the findings and recommendations of QUT BEE workshop to investigate strategies to deliver better outcomes

As a result of a broad invitation extended by Professor Martin Betts, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering, to the community of interest at QUT, a cross-disciplinary collaborative workshop was conducted to contribute ideas about responding to the Government of India’s urgent requirement to implement a program to re-house slum dwellers. This is a complex problem facing the Indian Ministry of Housing. Not only does the government aspire to eradicate existing slum conditions and to achieve tangible results within five years, but it must also ensure that slums do not form in the future. The workshop focused on technological innovation in construction to deliver transformation from the current unsanitary and overcrowded informal urban settlements to places that provide the economically weaker sections of Indian society with healthy, environmentally sustainable, economically viable mass housing that supports successful urban living. The workshop was conducted in two part process as follows: Initially, QUT academics from diverse fields shared current research and provided technical background to contextualise the challenge at a pre-workshop briefing session. This was followed by a one-day workshop during which participants worked intensively in multi-disciplinary groups through a series of exercises to develop innovative approaches to the complex problem of slum redevelopment. Dynamic, compressed work sessions, interspersed with cross-functional review and feedback by the whole group took place throughout the day. Reviews emphasised testing the concepts for their level of complexity, and likelihood of success. The two-stage workshop process achieved several objectives:  Inspired a sense of shared purpose amongst a diverse group of academics  Built participants’ knowledge of each other’s capacity  Engaged multi disciplinary team in an innovative design research process  Built participants’ confidence in the collaborative process  Demonstrated that collaborative problem solving can create solutions that represent transformative change.  Developed a framework of how workable solutions might be developed for the program through follow up workshops and charrettes of a similar nature involving stakeholders drawn from the context of the slum housing program management.

Effects of free flow state highway traffic parameters on the performance of amplify and forward cooperative multi-hop vehicular networks

In this paper we analyse the effects of highway traffic flow parameters like vehicle arrival rate and density on the performance of Amplify and Forward (AF) cooperative vehicular networks along a multi-lane highway under free flow state. We derive analytical expressions for connectivity performance and verify them with Monte-Carlo simulations. When AF cooperative relaying is employed together with Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) at the receivers the average route error rate shows 10-20 fold improvement compared to direct communication. A 4-8 fold increase in maximum number of traversable hops can also be observed at different vehicle densities when AF cooperative communication is used to strengthen communication routes. However the theorical upper bound of maximum number of hops promises higher performance gains.

Lattice-free models of cell invasion : discrete simulations and travelling waves

Invasion waves of cells play an important role in development, disease and repair. Standard discrete models of such processes typically involve simulating cell motility, cell proliferation and cell-to-cell crowding effects in a lattice-based framework. The continuum-limit description is often given by a reaction–diffusion equation that is related to the Fisher–Kolmogorov equation. One of the limitations of a standard lattice-based approach is that real cells move and proliferate in continuous space and are not restricted to a predefined lattice structure. We present a lattice-free model of cell motility and proliferation, with cell-to-cell crowding effects, and we use the model to replicate invasion wave-type behaviour. The continuum-limit description of the discrete model is a reaction–diffusion equation with a proliferation term that is different from lattice-based models. Comparing lattice based and lattice-free simulations indicates that both models lead to invasion fronts that are similar at the leading edge, where the cell density is low. Conversely, the two models make different predictions in the high density region of the domain, well behind the leading edge. We analyse the continuum-limit description of the lattice based and lattice-free models to show that both give rise to invasion wave type solutions that move with the same speed but have very different shapes. We explore the significance of these differences by calibrating the parameters in the standard Fisher–Kolmogorov equation using data from the lattice-free model. We conclude that estimating parameters using this kind of standard procedure can produce misleading results.

Lattice-free descriptions of collective motion with crowding and adhesion

Cell-to-cell adhesion is an important aspect of malignant spreading that is often observed in images from the experimental cell biology literature. Since cell-to-cell adhesion plays an important role in controlling the movement of individual malignant cells, it is likely that cell-to-cell adhesion also influences the spatial spreading of populations of such cells. Therefore, it is important for us to develop biologically realistic simulation tools that can mimic the key features of such collective spreading processes to improve our understanding of how cell-to-cell adhesion influences the spreading of cell populations. Previous models of collective cell spreading with adhesion have used lattice-based random walk frameworks which may lead to unrealistic results, since the agents in the random walk simulations always move across an artificial underlying lattice structure. This is particularly problematic in high-density regions where it is clear that agents in the random walk align along the underlying lattice, whereas no such regular alignment is ever observed experimentally. To address these limitations, we present a lattice-free model of collective cell migration that explicitly incorporates crowding and adhesion. We derive a partial differential equation description of the discrete process and show that averaged simulation results compare very well with numerical solutions of the partial differential equation.

Mesoporous titania microspheres composed of exposed active faceted nanosheets and their catalytic activities for solvent-free synthesis of azoxybenzenes

Mesoporous titania microspheres composed of nanosheets with exposed active facets were prepared by hydrothermal synthesis in the presence of hexafluorosilicic acid. They exhibited superior catalytic activity in the solvent-free synthesis of azoxybenzene by oxidation of aniline and could be used for 7 cycles with slight loss of activity.

The use of uniaxial and triaxial accelerometers to measure children's "free-play" physical activity

In order to effectively measure the physical activity of children, objective monitoring devices must be able to quantify the intermittent and nonlinear movement of free play. The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of the Computer Science and Applications (CSA) uniaxial accelerometer and the TriTrac-R3D triaxial accelerometer with respect to their ability to measure 8 "free-play" activities of different intensity. The activities ranged from light to very vigorous in intensity and included activities such as throwing and catching, hopscotch, and basketball. Twenty-eight children, ages 9 to 11, wore a CSA and a heart rate monitor while performing the activities. Sixteen children also wore a Tritrac. Counts from the CSA, Tritrac, and heart rates corresponding to the last 3 min of the 5 min spent at each activity were averaged and used in correlation analyses. Across all 8 activities, Tritrac counts were significantly correlated with predicted MET level (r= 0.69) and heart rate (r= 0.73). Correlations between CSA output, predicted MET level (0.43), and heart rate (0.64) were also significant but were lower than those observed for the Tritrac. These data indicate that accelerometers are an appropriate methodology for measuring children's free-play physical activities.

Label-free isolation of a prostate cancer cell among blood cells and the single-cell measurement of drug accumulation using an integrated microfluidic chip

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are found in the blood of patients with cancer. Although these cells are rare, they can provide useful information for chemotherapy. However, isolation of these rare cells from blood is technically challenging because they are small in numbers. An integrated microfluidic chip, dubbed as CTC chip, was designed and fabricated for conducting tumor cell isolation. As CTCs usually show multidrug resistance (MDR), the effect of MDR inhibitors on chemotherapeutic drug accumulation in the isolated single tumor cell is measured. As a model of CTC isolation, human prostate tumor cells were mixed with mouse blood cells and the labelfree isolation of the tumor cells was conducted based on cell size difference. The major advantages of the CTC chip are the ability for fast cell isolation, followed by multiple rounds of single-cell measurements, suggesting a potential assay for detecting the drug responses based on the liquid biopsy of cancer patients.

Split-Freedom And Mvd-Intersection - A New Characterization Of Multivalued Dependencies Having Conflict-Free Covers

Sets of multivalued dependencies (MVDs) having conflict-free covers are important to the theory and design of relational databases [2,12,15,16]. Their desirable properties motivate the problem of testing a set M of MVDs for the existence of a confiict-free cover. In [8] Goodman and Tay have proposed an approach based on the possible equivalence of M to a single (acyclic) join dependency (JD). We remark that their characterization does not lend an insight into the nature of such sets of MVDs. Here, we use notions that are intrinsic to MVDs to develop a new characterization. Our approach proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, we use the notion of “split-free” sets of MVDs and obtain a characterization of sets M of MVDs having split-free covers. In the second, we use the notion of “intersection” of MVDs to arrive at a necessary and sufficient condition for a split-free set of MVDs to be conflict-free. Based on our characterizations, we also give polynomial-time algorithms for testing whether M has split-free and conflict-free covers. The highlight of our approach is the clear insight it provides into the nature of sets of MVDs having conflict-free covers. Less emphasis is given in this paper to the actual efficiency of the algorthms. Finally, as a bonus, we derive a desirable property of split-free sets of MVDs,thereby showing that they are interesting in their own right.

Discussion of enthalpy, entropy and free energy of formation of GaN

Presented in this letter is a critical discussion of a recent paper on experimental investigation of the enthalpy, entropy and free energy of formation of gallium nitride (GaN) published in this journal [T.J. Peshek, J.C. Angus, K. Kash, J. Cryst. Growth 311 (2008) 185-189]. It is shown that the experimental technique employed detects neither the equilibrium partial pressure of N-2 corresponding to the equilibrium between Ga and GaN at fixed temperatures nor the equilibrium temperature at constant pressure of N-2. The results of Peshek et al. are discussed in the light of other information on the Gibbs energy of formation available in the literature. Entropy of GaN is derived from heat-capacity measurements. Based on a critical analysis of all thermodynamic information now available, a set of optimized parameters is identified and a table of thermodynamic data for GaN developed from 298.15 to 1400 K.

Posted Workers and Free Movement of Services in the European Union – the Impact on National Employment and Immigration Law

This thesis examines posting of workers within the free movement of services in the European Union. The emphasis is on the case law of the European Court of Justice and in the role it has played in the liberalisation of the service sector in respect of posting of workers. The case law is examined from two different viewpoints: firstly, that of employment law and secondly, immigration law. The aim is to find out how active a role the Court has taken with regard these two fields of law and what are the implications of the Court’s judgments for the regulation on a national level. The first part of the thesis provides a general review of the Community law principles governing the freedom to provide services in the EU. The second part presents the Posted Workers’ Directive and the case law of the European Court of Justice before and after the enactment of the Directive from the viewpoint of employment law. Special attention is paid to a recent judgment in which the Court has taken a restrictive position with regard to a trade union’s right to take collective action against a service provider established in another Member State. The third part of the thesis concentrates, firstly, on the legal status of non-EU nationals lawfully resident in the EU. Secondly, it looks into the question of how the Court’s case law has affected the possibilities to use non-EU nationals as posted workers within the freedom to provide services. The final chapter includes a critical analysis of the Court’s case law on posted workers. The judgments of the European Court of Justice are the principal source of law for this thesis. In the primary legislation the focus is on Articles 49 EC and 50 EC that lay down the rules concerning the free movement of services. Within the secondary legislation, the present work principally concentrates on the Posted Workers’ Directive. It also examines proposals of the European Commission and directives that have been adopted in the field of immigration. The conclusions of the case study are twofold: while in the field of employment law, the European Court of Justice has based its judgments on a very literal interpretation of the Posted Workers’ Directive, in the field of immigration its conclusions have been much more innovative. In both fields of regulation the Court’s judgments have far-reaching implications for the rules concerning posting of workers leaving very little discretion for the Member States’ authorities.

Constituting religion after Williams: The false dichotomy of theocracy and secularism

The Williams case is a relevant segue to consider the broader issue of constitutional relations between church and state in Australia. This paper argues that the dichotomous approach of theocracy as opposed to secularism is false and actually undermines the proper operation of s 116. A theocracy would contravene s 116 as an establishment of religion, but secularism also amounts to a conflict with s 116 as prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The necessary alternative is to find a middle ground compatible with s 116, one which will not establish any single state religion but will allow the contribution of different religious perspectives in the process of policy-making. This paper briefly considers how such an approach may be implemented.

Calculations of the free energy of interaction of the c-Fos−c-Jun coiled coil: Effects of the solvation model and the inclusion of polarization effects

The leucine zipper region of activator protein-1 (AP-1) comprises the c-Jun and c-Fos proteins and constitutes a well-known coiled coil protein−protein interaction motif. We have used molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in conjunction with the molecular mechanics/Poisson−Boltzmann generalized-Born surface area [MM/PB(GB)SA] methods to predict the free energy of interaction of these proteins. In particular, the influence of the choice of solvation model, protein force field, and water potential on the stability and dynamic properties of the c-Fos−c-Jun complex were investigated. Use of the AMBER polarizable force field ff02 in combination with the polarizable POL3 water potential was found to result in increased stability of the c-Fos−c-Jun complex. MM/PB(GB)SA calculations revealed that MD simulations using the POL3 water potential give the lowest predicted free energies of interaction compared to other nonpolarizable water potentials. In addition, the calculated absolute free energy of binding was predicted to be closest to the experimental value using the MM/GBSA method with independent MD simulation trajectories using the POL3 water potential and the polarizable ff02 force field, while all other binding affinities were overestimated.