Cells are surrounded by a hyaluronan-rich coat called 'pericellular matrix' (PCM), mainly constituted by hyaluronan, a long-chain linear polysaccharide which is secreted and resorbed by the cell, depending on its activity. Cell attachment to a surface is mediated by PCM before integrins and focal adhesions are involved. As hyaluronan is known to bear a negative charge at physiological pH, the r...

The nanomechanical properties of individual cartilage cells (chondrocytes) and their aggrecan and collagen-rich pericellular matrix (PCM) were measured via atomic force microscope nanoindentation using probe tips of two length scales (nanosized and micron-sized). The properties of cells freshly isolated from cartilage tissue (devoid of PCM) were compared to cells that were cultured for selected...

Model-based Quality of Service (QoS) prediction approaches enable an early identification of bottlenecks in the design of complex software systems. In addition, they allow software architects to evaluate design decisions against each other. In data-intensive business applications, database accesses have a significant impact on a system’s QoS. Therefore, these accesses need to be considered in o...

Asbestos is a category 1 carcinogen under the EU classification, but in the absence of a method to quantify asbestos in a matrix at the 0.1% level, there has been a delay in implementing relevant directives to asbestos. An analytical scheme for identification and quantification of asbestos using polarised light microscopy (PLM) and phase contrast optical microscopy (PCM) has now been developed....

Phase change memory (PCM) is a promising alternative to DRAM, though its high latency and energy costs prohibit its adoption as a drop-in DRAM replacement. Hybrid memory systems comprising DRAM and PCM attempt to achieve the low access latencies of DRAM at the large capacities of PCM. However, known solutions neglect to assess the utility of data placed in DRAM, and hence fail to achieve high p...

many researchers have investigated how to increase the overall efficiency of solar-driven thermal systems. several key parameters, such as collector efficiency and storage tank characteristics, may impose some constraints on the annual solar fraction (asf) of such systems. in this paper, the behaviour of integrating the phase change material (pcm) in sdhw systems is modelled and optimized numer...

Centrosomes consist of two centrioles surrounded by an amorphous pericentriolar matrix (PCM), but it is unknown how centrioles and PCM are connected. We show that the centrioles in Drosophila embryos that lack the centrosomal protein Centrosomin (Cnn) can recruit PCM components but cannot maintain a proper attachment to the PCM. As a result, the centrioles "rocket" around in the embryo and ofte...

Introduction: The mechanical environment of the chondrocyte is one of several important environmental factors which influence the normal balance between synthesis and degradation of the articular cartilage extracellular matrix (ECM). Previous studies have shown that compression of cartilage explants alters cellular metabolism in a timeand spatially-varying manner which is correlated with the lo...