| 11. |
- Amarasinghe, Kosala N., et al.
(författare)
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Virtual Screening Expands the Non-Natural Amino Acid Palette for Peptide Optimization
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1549-9596 .- 1549-960X. ; 62:12, s. 2999-3007
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Peptides are an important modality in drug discovery. While current peptide optimization focuses predominantly on the small number of natural and commercially available non-natural amino acids, the chemical spaces available for small molecule drug discovery are in the billions of molecules. In the present study, we describe the development of a large virtual library of readily synthesizable non-natural amino acids that can power the virtual screening protocols and aid in peptide optimization. To that end, we enumerated nearly 380 thousand amino acids and demonstrated their vast chemical diversity compared to the 20 natural and commercial residues. Furthermore, we selected a diverse ten thousand amino acid subset to validate our virtual screening workflow on the Keap1-Neh2 complex model system. Through in silico mutations of Neh2 peptide residues to those from the virtual library, our docking-based protocol identified a number of possible solutions with a significantly higher predicted affinity toward the Keap1 protein. This protocol demonstrates that the non-natural amino acid chemical space can be massively extended and virtually screened with a reasonable computational cost.
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| 12. |
- Amarasuriya, Gayan, et al.
(författare)
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Wireless Information and Power Transfer in Multiway Massive MIMO Relay Networks
- 2016
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. - : IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC. - 1536-1276 .- 1558-2248. ; 15:6, s. 3837-3855
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer techniques for multiway massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay networks are investigated. By using two practically viable relay receiver designs, namely 1) the power splitting receiver and 2) the time switching receiver, asymptotic signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) expressions are derived for an unlimited number of antennas at the relay. These asymptotic SINRs are then used to derive asymptotic symmetric sum rate expressions in closed form. Notably, these asymptotic SINRs and sum rates become independent of radio frequency-to-direct current (RF-to-DC) conversion efficiency in the limit of infinitely many relay antennas. Moreover, tight average sum rate approximations are derived in closed form for finitely many relay antennas. The fundamental tradeoff between the harvested energy and the sum rate is quantified for both relay receiver structures. Notably, the detrimental impact of imperfect channel state information (CSI) on the MIMO detector/precoder is investigated, and thereby, the performance degradation caused by pilot contamination, which is the residual interference due to nonorthogonal pilot sequence usage in adjacent/cochannel systems, is quantified. The presence of cochannel interference (CCI) can be exploited to be beneficial for energy harvesting at the relay, and consequently, the asymptotic harvested energy is an increasing function of the number of cochannel interferers. Notably, in the genie-aided perfect CSI case, the detrimental impact of CCI for signal decoding can be cancelled completely whenever the number of relay antennas grows without bound. Nevertheless, the pilot contamination severely degrades the sum rate performance even for infinitely many relay antennas.
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| 13. |
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- Bianchi Piccinini, Giulio, 1982, et al.
(författare)
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Factors contributing to commercial vehicle rear-end conflicts in China: A study using on-board event data recorders
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Safety Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-4375. ; 62, s. 143-153
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: In the last 30 years, China has undergone a dramatic increase in vehicle ownership and a resulting escalation in the number of road crashes. Although crash figures are decreasing today, they remain high; it is therefore important to investigate crash causation mechanisms to further improve road safety in China. Method: To shed more light on the topic, naturalistic driving data was collected in Shanghai as part of the evaluation of a behavior-based safety service. The data collection included instrumenting 47 vehicles belonging to a commercial fleet with data acquisition systems. From the overall sample, 91 rear-end crash or near-crash (CNC) events, triggered by 24 drivers, were used in the analysis. The CNC were annotated by three researchers, through an expert assessment methodology based on videos and kinematic variables. Results: The results show that the main factor behind the rear-end CNC was the adoption of very small safety margins. In contrast to results from previous studies in the US, the following vehicles' drivers typically had their eyes on the road and reacted quickly in response to the evolving conflict in most events. When delayed reactions occurred, they were mainly due to driving-related visual scanning mismatches (e.g., mirror checks) rather than visual distraction. Finally, the study identified four main conflict scenarios that represent the typical development of rear-end conflicts in this data. Conclusions: The findings of this study have several practical applications, such as informing the specifications of in-vehicle safety measures and automated driving and providing input into the design of coaching/training procedures to improve the driving habits of drivers.
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| 16. |
- Bodahl, Sara
(författare)
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Effects of the host defense peptide LL-37 on human cells : Immunomodulation and cytotoxicity
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The human host defense peptide LL-37 has an essential role in the first line of defense against invading pathogens. This cathelicidin is mainly produced by immune cells and epithelial cells aligning the mucosal areas and is normally upregulated upon infection and inflammation. LL-37 displays direct antimicrobial activity against a variety of pathogens, but also modulates the immune responses by acting as a chemoattractant, influencing the production of inflammatory mediators and by affecting immune receptor signaling. Abnormally high local levels of LL-37 have been linked to inflammatory diseases, such as psoriasis, atherosclerosis, periodontitis and asthma. However, little is known about the role of LL-37 in the development and progression of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and more research is needed to clarify and establish how LL-37 mediates host cell functions in these conditions. In this thesis we have studied LL-37-induced cell toxicity, cell membrane permeability and immune receptor signaling in several types of human cells. We show that LL-37 reduces cell viability in a dose-dependent manner and permeabilizes the cell membranes in all human cell types studied. Interestingly, we demonstrate that LL-37 reduces the cell viability and generates cell membrane permeabilization in osteoblast-like cells even though LL-37 import via clathrin-mediated endocytosis is prevented. In mast cells, LL-37-induced cell membrane permeabilization results in release of both cytosolic and nucleic components, indicating that LL-37 permeabilizes cellular compartments such as the nucleus. Furthermore, we show that LL-37 influences TLR3 signaling in both coronary artery smooth muscle cells and bronchial epithelial cells. More specifically, LL-37 enhances viral dsRNA signaling on TLR3, resulting in upregulation of TLR3 expression and downstream pro-inflammatory signaling that involves the transcription factor NF-κB. Finally, we show that LL-37 induces an increased import of dsRNA in bronchial epithelial cells, suggesting that this mechanism of action is associated with upregulated expression of TLR3. Overall, the work in this thesis provides new insights on underlying mechanisms behind LL-37-induced host cytotoxicity and cell membrane permeability and proposes a novel LL-37-driven pro-inflammatory mechanism of action involving potentiation of dsRNA-stimulated TLR3 expression and signaling
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| 17. |
- Boella, G., et al.
(författare)
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Introduction to normative multiagent systems
- 2005
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Ingår i: AISB'05 Convention: Social Intelligence and Interaction in Animals, Robots and Agents. ; , s. 1-7
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we give a short introduction to the emerging area of normative multiagent systems by presenting definitions and examples.
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| 18. |
- Cayuela, Sergio Ruiz, et al.
(författare)
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Cooking commoning subjectivities: Guerrilla narrative in the cooperation birmingham solidarity kitchen
- 2021
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Ingår i: Co-Creativity and Engaged Scholarship: Transformative Methods in Social Sustainability Research. - Cham : Springer Nature. ; , s. 75-104
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this chapter, we explore the recently developed concept of guerrilla narrative as a tool that offers great potential for militant research. "Guerrilla narrative" emerged from the politicization of the oral history tradition; it was developed by Marco Armiero as a research tool to explore histories of contamination and resistance in subaltern communities. In this chapter, we broaden the scope of guerrilla narrative and explore its role in the reclamation/invention of the urban commons. Particularly, we look closely at the tools that contribute to the creation of commoning subjectivities. We focus on the mutual aid relief operations led by the grassroots organization Cooperation Birmingham during the COVID-19 pandemic, analysing both their solidarity kitchen and newsletter. We argue that both are manifestations of guerrilla narrative in the sense that both produce counter-hegemonic narratives while fostering commoning practices. This means that guerrilla narrative goes beyond the wording, textual or even artistic paradigms to incorporate more embodied forms of storytelling, such as the practice or running a solidarity kitchen or other forms of material commoning practices.
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| 19. |
- Cooke, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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The Wilson loop CFT : insertion dimensions and structure constants from wavy lines
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Physics A. - : IOP Publishing. - 1751-8113 .- 1751-8121. ; 50:33
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study operator insertions into the 1/2 BPS Wilson loop in N = 4 SYM theory and determine their two-point coefficients, anomalous dimensions and structure constants. The calculation is done for the first few lowest dimension insertions and relies on known results for the expectation value of a smooth Wilson loop. In addition to the particular coefficients that we calculate, our study elucidates the connection between deformations of the line and operator insertions and between the vacuum expectation value of the line and the CFT data of the insertions.
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| 20. |
- Hausel, J, et al.
(författare)
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Randomized clinical trial of the effects of oral preoperative carbohydrates on postoperative nausea and vomiting after laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
- 2005
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Ingår i: British Journal of Surgery. - West Susssex, United Kingdom : John Wiley & Sons. - 0007-1323 .- 1365-2168. ; 92:4, s. 415-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: A carbohydrate-rich drink (CHO) has been shown to reduce preoperative discomfort. It was hypothesized that it may also reduce postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV).Methods: Patients undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy under inhalational anaesthesia (127 women and 45 men; mean(s.d.) 48(15) years) were randomized to either preoperative fasting, intake of CHO (50 kcal/100 ml, 290 mOsm/kg) or placebo. The non-fasting groups were double-blinded; patients ingested 800 ml of liquid on the evening before surgery and 400 ml 2 h before anaesthesia. Nausea and pain scores on a visual analogue scale (VAS) and episodes of PONV were recorded up to 24 h after surgery.Results: The incidence of PONV was lower in the CHO than in the fasted group between 12 and 24 h after surgery (P = 0.039). Nausea scores in the fasted and placebo groups were higher after operation than before admission to hospital (P = 0.018 and P < 0.001 respectively), whereas there was no significant change in the CHO group. No intergroup differences in VAS scores were seen. The use of anaesthetics, opioids, antiemetics and intravenous fluids was similar in all groups.Conclusion: CHO may have a beneficial effect on PONV 12-24 h after laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
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