Protein-protein interfaces are often stabilized by a small number of dominant contacts, exemplified by the overrepresentation of arginine residues at oligomerization interfaces. Positively charged arginines are most commonly involved in ion pairs of opposite charge; however, previous work of Scheraga and co-workers described the stable, close range interaction between guanidinium ...

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of bisphosphonates on the progression of aortic stenosis. Valvular calcification is associated with the development and progression of aortic stenosis. Bisphosphonates have been suggested to slow this progression. Female patients older than the age of 60 years with an aortic ...

This study investigated the outcome for all patients undergoing catheter valve perforation for pulmonary atresia with intact ventricular septum (PAIVS) 21 years after the first procedure at their center. Catheter perforation for PAIVS is now an established procedure. However, the management of the borderline right ventricle (RV) is controversial, and ...

This study hypothesized that peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) would increase with acute heart failure (AHF) treatment over the first 24 h, related to a Dyspnea Index (DI) change and treatment effect. Dyspnea is a key symptom and clinical trial endpoint in AHF, yet objective assessment is lacking. In a ...

This study sought to assess whether plasminogen, which is homologous to lipoprotein (a) [Lp(a)], contains proinflammatory oxidized phospholipids (OxPL) and whether this has clinical relevance. OxPL measured on apolipoprotein B-100 (OxPL/apoB), primarily reflecting OxPL on Lp(a), independently predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. The authors examined plasminogen from commercially available preparations ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying alcoholic cardiomyopathy. The mechanism for alcoholic cardiomyopathy remains largely unknown. The chronic cardiac effects of alcohol were examined in mice feeding with alcohol or isocaloric control diet for 2 months. Signaling pathways of alcohol-induced cardiac cell ...

Until recently, vitamin K antagonists were the only available oral anticoagulants, but with numerous limitations that prompted the introduction of new oral anticoagulants targeting the single coagulation enzymes thrombin (dabigatran) or factor Xa (apixaban, rivaroxaban, and edoxaban) and given in fixed doses without coagulation monitoring. Here we review the pharmacology ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between prolongation of QT interval corrected for heart rate (QTc) with incident stroke. Unlike cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, little is known about the relationship between QTc and risk of stroke. A total of 27,411 participants age 45 years and older ...

Pattern collapse of small or high aspect ratio lines during traditional wet development is a major challenge for miniaturization in nanolithography. Here we report on a new dry process which combines high resolution resist exposure with selective laser ablation to achieve high resolution with high aspect ratios. Using a low ...

INTRODUCTION: In 10-30% of women, vaginal birth results in levator ani tears ('avulsion') that are associated with pelvic floor dysfunction in later life. We hypothesised that women notice reduced pelvic floor muscle strength after childbirth, especially those with avulsion. METHODS: This is a secondary analysis of two perinatal studies. At ...

In this work we evaluate the influence of thermal desorber temperature on the analytical response of a swipe-based thermal desorption ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) for detection of trace explosives. IMS response for several common high explosives ranging from 0.1 ng to 100 ng was measured over a thermal desorber temperature ...

In order to identify aromatic compounds in "Jiashi" melon juice, the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry (GC-MS-O) analysis was used. Odor activity value (OAV) was also calculated based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of volatile compounds. Results showed that 42 volatiles were identified, among which four compounds, namely diethyl carbonate, isophorone, ...

Caspase-2 is an initiator caspase, which has been implicated to function in apoptotic and non-apoptotic signalling pathways, including cell-cycle regulation, DNA-damage signalling and tumour suppression. We previously demonstrated that caspase-2 deficiency enhances E1A/Ras oncogene-induced cell transformation and augments lymphomagenesis in the EμMyc mouse model. Caspase-2(-/-) mouse embryonic fibroblasts (casp2(-/-) MEFs) ...

We present a phenomenological calculation of the quasiparticle interference (QPI) pattern and inelastic neutron scattering (INS) spectra in iron-pnictide and layered iron-selenide compounds by using material specific band structure and superconducting (SC) gap properties. As both the QPI and the INS spectra arise due to scattering of the Bogolyubov quasiparticles, ...

Background:  Impaired gallbladder and gastric motility have been associated with obesity in adults. The timing of appearance of this dysfunction, however, is unclear. Methods:  Lean and obese subjects from 3 different age groups were studied noninvasively: 50 newborns (1-12 months old, 6 obese), 18 preadolescents (7-8 years old, 7 obese), ...

Enteritis has been recognized as a major symptom in domestic animals and human patients suffering from feed and food poisonings. The aim of the present study was to clarify the excitatory mechanism of the pelvic nerve afferent which may influence the occurrence of enteritis in response to nociceptive chemical stimuli ...

BC-819 is a DNA plasmid that was developed to target the expression of diphtheria-toxin gene under the control of H19 regulatory sequences. BC-819 has the potential to treat pancreatic cancer that overexpresses the H19 gene. The objectives were to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary efficacy of BC-819 administered ...

Background:  Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) of unknown etiology. We aimed to identify the etiological agent of CD using molecular cloning strategy that was particularly focused on identifying agents causing immune abnormalities and infectious agents. Methods:  We constructed a cDNA library derived from the inflamed ...

Bias stress effect in "air-gap" organic field-effect transistors is investigated in the absence of a material gate dielectric, dependent only on the semiconductor's properties. It is stronger with increasing density of trap states in the semiconductor. A general theoretical model based on carrier trapping and relaxation in localized tail states ...

Electronic transport through a junction made of two gold electrodes connected with a gold chain containing a silver impurity is analyzed with a tight binding model and the density-functional theory. It is shown that the conductance depends in a simple way on the position of the impurity in the chain ...

Endocytic recycling returns proteins to the plasma membrane in many physiological contexts. Studies of these events have helped to elucidate fundamental mechanisms that underlie recycling. Recycling was for some time considered to be the exception to a general mechanism of active cargo sorting in multiple intracellular pathways. In recent years, ...

The changes in crystal structure of LiFeSi(2)O(6) induced by the phase transition between the high-temperature C2/c and low-temperature P2(1)/c phase are studied using the density functional theory. For both monoclinic phases, the phonon dispersion curves and phonon density of states are calculated. The infrared absorption coefficients are obtained and analyzed ...

Single anatase TiO(2) nanowire is synthesized using the electrospinning technique with the sol-gel method and is suspended over a pre-processed 100 µm-wide TEM grid for further characterization. The diameters of the nanowires fall in the range of 250-400 nm. The transient electrothermal (TET) method is adopted to acquire the voltage-time (U-t) profile ...

Patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) following peripheral percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) with stent implantation are prone to stent thrombosis despite treatment with aspirin and clopidogrel. Impaired clopidogrel responsiveness is associated with increased risk of ischemic events in patients following coronary stent implantation. We sought to assess platelet responsiveness to ...

Reaction of methoxyvinylmethylketone with different amines and aldehydes under Lewis-acid catalysed conditions results in a novel, formal, step-wise [1+2+1+2]-cycloaddition to give dihydropyridine products.

Skilled readers use information about which letters are where in a word (orthographic information) in order to access the sounds and meanings of printed words. We asked whether efficient processing of orthographic information could be achieved in the absence of prior language knowledge. To do so, we trained baboons to ...

A new two-photon fluorescent Cd(2+) probe is developed by introducing a N(1),N(1)-dimethyl-N(2)-(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)ethane-1,2-diamine binding group and a 4-methoxyphenylvinyl conjugation-enhancing group to the 2- and 6-positions of quinoline. This probe shows a large red shift and good emission enhancement under Cd(2+) binding. It also exhibits a high ion selectivity for Cd(2+) (especially ...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from somatic cells of patients represent a powerful tool for biomedical research and may have a wide range of applications in cell and gene therapy. However, the safety issues and the low efficiency associated with generating human iPSCs have limited their usage in clinical ...

Plants have tremendous capacity to adjust their morphology, physiology and metabolism in response to changes in growing conditions. Thus, analysis solely of plants grown under constant conditions may give partial or misleading indications of their responses to the fluctuating natural conditions in which they evolved. To obtain data on growth-condition ...

Abstract The current study was intended to evaluate the hepatoprotective effect of Epicatechin (EC) against radiation-induced oxidative stress, in terms of inflammation and lipid peroxidation. Swiss albino mice were administered with EC (15 mg/kg body wt) for three consecutive days before exposing them to a single dose of 5 Gy ...

Electron beam induced deposition (EBID) has recently been developed into a method to directly write optically active three-dimensional nanostructures. For this purpose a metal-organic precursor gas (here dimethyl-gold(III)-acetylacetonate) is introduced into the vacuum chamber of a scanning electron microscope where it is cracked by the focused electron beam. Upon cracking ...

Dynamic amphiphiles provide access to transmembrane ion transport, differential sensing and cellular uptake. In this report, we introduce dynamic amphiphiles with fluorescent tails. Core-substituted naphthalenediimides (cNDIs) and perylenediimides (cPDIs) are tested. Whereas the latter suffer from poor partitioning, dynamic cNDI amphiphiles are found to be purifiable by RP-HPLC, to partition ...

Aims: Left ventricular (LV) function is a predictor for future cardiac events in patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS). The aim of this study was to assess whether left atrium (LA) function has additional predictive value for the prognosis of NSTE-ACS patients, especially when assessed by tissue Doppler imaging ...

Quantum computers have the potential to solve certain problems faster than classical computers. To exploit their power, it is necessary to perform interqubit operations and generate entangled states. Spin qubits are a promising candidate for implementing a quantum processor because of their potential for scalability and miniaturization. However, their weak ...

Prevalence of equine gastric ulcer syndrome in 85 young Thoroughbreds was investigated. The presence of gastric ulcers was confirmed in 27.1% (23/85) of the horses by endoscopic examination. For 62 horses without gastric ulcers were allocated randomly to either the treated group (31 horses) or sham-dosed control group (31 horses) ...

Background: Regional myocardial deformation patterns are important in a variety of cardiac diseases, including stress-induced cardiomyopathy. Velocity-vector-based imaging is a speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE)-based algorithm that has been shown to allow in-depth cardiac phenotyping in humans. Regional posterior wall myocardial dysfunction occurs during severe isoprenaline stress in mice. We have previously ...

Total internal reflection (TIR) Raman and reflectivity spectra were collected for non-resonant analytes as a function of incident angle at sapphire or sapphire/smooth 50 nm gold interfaces using 785 nm excitation. For both interfaces, the Raman signal as a function of incident angle is well-modeled by the calculated interfacial mean ...

Background:  The widely accepted range of upper limits of normal ALT levels (ULN < 40 U/L) was recently challenged by several reports. And both ALT and AST are commonly used as surrogate marker of liver disease, almost all studies related aminotransferase activity limited to ALT activity. We investigated not only ...

Purpose: To use quantitative data characterizing whiplash-associated disorder (WAD)-related pain beliefs over time to develop qualitative analysis exploring experiences informing these beliefs. Method: A mixed-method design was used. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently at baseline and 3 and 6 months postmotor vehicle collision. WAD-related pain beliefs were quantitatively ...

The temperature and polarization dependence of the optical reflectivity  spectra of a quasi-one-dimensional 1/4-filled band system, (DMEDO-EBDT)(2)PF(6), have been investigated. We observed clear anisotropy in the electronic structures corresponding to the anisotropic transport properties. The appearance of a charge gap (E(g) > 0.1 eV) and transfer of the spectral weight accompanied by the ...

New coumarin-based chiral thiourea sensor was found to be an enantioselective fluorescent chemosensor for N-Boc-protected proline. The chiral sensor shows lower background fluorescence, and higher fluorescence enhancement with 18 nm blue shifts. Job plot analysis result indicates that sensor can form a 1 : 1 stoichiometric complex and it could be used ...

Background and Aims:  Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are generally used to prevent delayed bleeding after endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) and to heal the artificial ulcers. However, it remains controversial whether PPIs or histamine-2 receptor antagonists (H(2) RAs) are more effective in preventing delayed bleeding after ESD. We prospectively compared the ...

We present an in-depth study of the myriad atomically resolved patterns observed on graphite using the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) over the past three decades. Through the use of highly resolved atomic resolution images, we demonstrate how the interactions between the different graphene layers comprising graphite affect the local surface ...

Objectives: Anderson-Fabry disease (AFD) is a lysosomal storage disease, which can involve the heart, mimicking hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The underlying mechanism of disease in AFD is an infiltrative, diffuse process, whereas HCM is a primary heart muscle condition with patchy distribution, which may prompt differences in myocardial mechanics. The aim ...

Background: The left ventricle (LV) undergoes significant architectural remodeling in heart failure (HF). However, the fundamental associations between cardiac function and LV size and performance have not been thoroughly characterized in this population. We sought to define the adaptive remodeling that occurs in chronic human HF through the detailed analyses ...

Using a square-gradient density functional model we test the prediction that the filling transition for a fluid in a wedge geometry changes from continuous to first-order as the wedge becomes more acute. Our numerical findings confirm such a change of order, but the value of the tilt angle at which ...

We have characterized the optoelectrical properties of networks of silver nanowires as a function of nanowire dimension by measuring transmittance (T) and sheet resistance (R(s)) for a large number of networks of different thicknesses fabricated from wires of different diameters (D) and lengths (L). We have analysed these data using ...

Growth factors regulated by specific macronutrients have been shown to promote aging and accelerate mortality in the majority of the organisms studied. In particular, the enzymes activated by growth hormone, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor-1 in mammals and their orthologs in simple model organisms represent perhaps the best-understood proteins involved ...

As genomic sequencing projects attempt ever more ambitious integration of genetic, molecular, and phenotypic information, a specialization of genomics has emerged, embodied in the subdiscipline of computational genomics. Models inherited from population genetics, phylogenetics, and human disease genetics merge with those from graph theory, statistics, signal processing, and computer science ...

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of postactivation treatment with latrunculin A (LatA), an actin polymerization inhibitor, on in vitro and in vivo development of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos derived from kidney fibroblasts of an Clawn miniature boar (12 years old). After electric activation, ...