Determination of the Gyrotropic Characteristics of Hexaferrite Ceramics From 75 to 600 GHz

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Profoundly reduced neovascularization capacity of bone marrow mononuclear cells derived from patients with chronic ischemic heart disease

Background— Cell therapy with bone marrow–derived stem/progenitor cells is a novel option for improving neovascularization and cardiac function in ischemic heart disease. Circulating endothelial progenitor cells in patients with coronary heart disease are impaired with respect to number and functional activity. However, whether this impairment also extends to bone marrow–derived mononuclear cells (BM-MNCs) in patients with chronic ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICMP) is unclea

Sex-dependent influence of endogenous estrogen in pulmonary hypertension

Rationale: The incidence of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is greater in women suggesting estrogens may play a role in the disease pathogenesis. Experimentally, in males exogenously administered estrogen can protect against PH; however in models that display female susceptibility estrogens may play a causative role. Objectives: To clarify the influence of endogenous estrogen and gender in PH and assess the therapeutic potential of a clinically available aromatase inhibitor. Methods: We interrogated the effect of reduced endogenous estrogen in males and females using the aromatase inhibitor, anastrozole, in two models of PH; the hypoxic mouse and Sugen 5416/hypoxic rat. We also determined the effects of gender on pulmonary expression of aromatase in these models and in lungs from PAH patients. Results: Anastrozole attenuated PH in both models studied, but only in females. To verify this effect was due to reduced estrogenic activity we confirmed that in hypoxic mice inhibition of estrogen receptor alpha also has a therapeutic effect specifically in females. Female rodent lung displays increased aromatase and decreased BMPR2 and Id1 expression compared to male. Anastrozole treatment reversed the impaired BMPR2 pathway in females. Increased aromatase expression was also detected in female human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells compared to male. Conclusions: The unique phenotype of female pulmonary arteries facilitates the therapeutic effects of anastrozole in experimental PH confirming a role for endogenous estrogen in the disease pathogenesis in females and suggests aromatase inhibitors may have therapeutic potential

Combinatorial RNA Design: Designability and Structure-Approximating Algorithm

In this work, we consider the Combinatorial RNA Design problem, a minimal instance of the RNA design problem which aims at finding a sequence that admits a given target as its unique base pair maximizing structure. We provide complete characterizations for the structures that can be designed using restricted alphabets. Under a classic four-letter alphabet, we provide a complete characterization of designable structures without unpaired bases. When unpaired bases are allowed, we provide partial characterizations for classes of designable/undesignable structures, and show that the class of designable structures is closed under the stutter operation. Membership of a given structure to any of the classes can be tested in linear time and, for positive instances, a solution can be found in linear time. Finally, we consider a structure-approximating version of the problem that allows to extend bands (helices) and, assuming that the input structure avoids two motifs, we provide a linear-time algorithm that produces a designable structure with at most twice more base pairs than the input structure.Comment: CPM - 26th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching, Jun 2015, Ischia Island, Italy. LNCS, 201

Influence of severe plastic deformation on the precipitation hardening of a FeSiTi steel

The combined strengthening effects of grain refinement and high precipitated volume fraction (~6at.%) on the mechanical properties of FeSiTi alloy subjected to SPD processing prior to aging treatment were investigated by atom probe tomography and scanning transmission electron microscopy. It was shown that the refinement of the microstructure affects the precipitation kinetics and the spatial distribution of the secondary hardening intermetallic phase, which was observed to nucleate heterogeneously on dislocations and sub-grain boundaries. It was revealed that alloys successively subjected to these two strengthening mechanisms exhibit a lower increase in mechanical strength than a simple estimation based on the summation of the two individual strengthening mechanisms

The influence of HLA matching on cytomegalovirus hepatitis and chronic rejection after liver transplantation

Previous findings in liver transplantation patients have raised the concept that HLA plays a dualistic role. HLA matching will reduce rejection but may augment MHC restricted cellular immune mechanisms of liver allograft injury. To evaluate this concept, we studied CMV hepatitis in 399 FK506-treated liver transplant patients, including 355 cases for which complete HLA-A, B, DR, DQ typing information was available. CMV hepatitis developed in 25 patients, and 17 of them (or 68%) showed a one or two HLA-DR antigen match with the donor. In contrast, HLA-DR matches were found in only 35% of 330 patients without CMV hepatitis (P=0.005). No significant associations were seen for HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DQ antigens. In pretransplant CMV-seronegative patients with seropositive grafts (n=39), the frequency of CMV hepatitis was 44% for HLA-DR-matched livers but 14% for HLA-DR-un-matched livers. In seropositive recipients (n=187), these frequencies were 12% and 2% for HLA-DR-matched and unmatched liver grafts. Chronic rejection developed in 29 patients (or 8%) during a follow-up between 10 and 24 months after transplantation. Its incidence was higher in the CMV hepatitis group (24% vs. 6%) (P=0.007). Although no associations were found between HLA matching and the incidence of chronic rejection, there was an earlier onset of chronic rejection of HLA-DR-matched livers irrespective of CMV hepatitis. These findings suggest that an HLA-DR match between donor and recipient increases the incidence of CMV hepatitis in both primary and secondary CMV infections. Although HLA compatibility leads to less acute cellular rejection, it is suggested that DR matching may accelerate chronic rejection of liver transplants, perhaps through HLA-DR-restricted immunological mechanisms toward viral antigens, including CMV. © 1993 by Williams and Wilkins

Phylogeny of Prokaryotes and Chloroplasts Revealed by a Simple Composition Approach on All Protein Sequences from Complete Genomes Without Sequence Alignment

The complete genomes of living organisms have provided much information on their phylogenetic relationships. Similarly, the complete genomes of chloroplasts have helped to resolve the evolution of this organelle in photosynthetic eukaryotes. In this paper we propose an alternative method of phylogenetic analysis using compositional statistics for all protein sequences from complete genomes. This new method is conceptually simpler than and computationally as fast as the one proposed by Qi et al. (2004b) and Chu et al. (2004). The same data sets used in Qi et al. (2004b) and Chu et al. (2004) are analyzed using the new method. Our distance-based phylogenic tree of the 109 prokaryotes and eukaryotes agrees with the biologists tree of life based on 16S rRNA comparison in a predominant majority of basic branching and most lower taxa. Our phylogenetic analysis also shows that the chloroplast genomes are separated to two major clades corresponding to chlorophytes s.l. and rhodophytes s.l. The interrelationships among the chloroplasts are largely in agreement with the current understanding on chloroplast evolution

Problematising parent–professional partnerships in education

The value of, and need for, parent–professional partnerships is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to ‘special educational needs’. In spite of this, partnerships continue to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for 20 years of children with the label autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parent–professional relationships might be achieved

Monocytes regulate the mechanism of T-cell death by inducing Fas-mediated apoptosis during bacterial infection.

Monocytes and T-cells are critical to the host response to acute bacterial infection but monocytes are primarily viewed as amplifying the inflammatory signal. The mechanisms of cell death regulating T-cell numbers at sites of infection are incompletely characterized. T-cell death in cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) showed 'classic' features of apoptosis following exposure to pneumococci. Conversely, purified CD3(+) T-cells cultured with pneumococci demonstrated necrosis with membrane permeabilization. The death of purified CD3(+) T-cells was not inhibited by necrostatin, but required the bacterial toxin pneumolysin. Apoptosis of CD3(+) T-cells in PBMC cultures required 'classical' CD14(+) monocytes, which enhanced T-cell activation. CD3(+) T-cell death was enhanced in HIV-seropositive individuals. Monocyte-mediated CD3(+) T-cell apoptotic death was Fas-dependent both in vitro and in vivo. In the early stages of the T-cell dependent host response to pneumococci reduced Fas ligand mediated T-cell apoptosis was associated with decreased bacterial clearance in the lung and increased bacteremia. In summary monocytes converted pathogen-associated necrosis into Fas-dependent apoptosis and regulated levels of activated T-cells at sites of acute bacterial infection. These changes were associated with enhanced bacterial clearance in the lung and reduced levels of invasive pneumococcal disease