1,377 research outputs found
GENCOR:a national registry for patients and families suffering from a familial heart disease in the Netherlands
GENCOR:a national registry for patients and families suffering from a familial heart disease in the Netherlands
Olfactomedin 4 Serves as a Marker for Disease Severity in Pediatric Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Infection
Funding: Statement of financial support: The study was financially supported by the VIRGO consortium, an Innovative Cluster approved by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative and partially funded by the Dutch Government (BSIK 03012). The authors have indicated they have no personal financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose. Data Availability Statement: The data is accessible at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE69606.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Poisson structures for reduced non-holonomic systems
Borisov, Mamaev and Kilin have recently found certain Poisson structures with
respect to which the reduced and rescaled systems of certain non-holonomic
problems, involving rolling bodies without slipping, become Hamiltonian, the
Hamiltonian function being the reduced energy. We study further the algebraic
origin of these Poisson structures, showing that they are of rank two and
therefore the mentioned rescaling is not necessary. We show that they are
determined, up to a non-vanishing factor function, by the existence of a system
of first-order differential equations providing two integrals of motion. We
generalize the form of that Poisson structures and extend their domain of
definition. We apply the theory to the rolling disk, the Routh's sphere, the
ball rolling on a surface of revolution, and its special case of a ball rolling
inside a cylinder.Comment: 22 page
Towards a catalog of spreadsheet smells
Spreadsheets are considered to be the most widely used programming language in the world, and reports have shown that 90% of real-world spreadsheets contain errors. In this work, we try to identify spreadsheet smells, a concept adapted from software, which consists of a surface indication that usually corresponds to a deeper problem. Our smells have been integrated in a tool, and were computed for a large spreadsheet repository. Finally, the analysis of the results we obtained led to the refinement of our initial catalog
Probing background ionization: Positive streamers with varying pulse repetition rate and with a radioactive admixture
Positive streamers need a source of free electrons ahead of them to
propagate. A streamer can supply these electrons by itself through
photo-ionization, or the electrons can be present due to external background
ionization. Here we investigate the effects of background ionization on
streamer propagation and morphology by changing the gas composition and the
repetition rate of the voltage pulses, and by adding a small amount of
radioactive Krypton 85.
We find that the general morphology of a positive streamer discharge in high
purity nitrogen depends on background ionization: at lower background
ionization levels the streamers branch more and have a more feather-like
appearance. This is observed both when varying the repetition rate and when
adding Krypton 85, though side branches are longer with the radioactive
admixture. But velocities and minimal diameters of streamers are virtually
independent of the background ionization level. In air, the inception cloud
breaks up into streamers at a smaller radius when the repetition rate and
therefore the background ionization level is higher. When measuring the effects
of the pulse repetition rate and of the radioactive admixture on the discharge
morphology, we found that our estimates of background ionization levels are
consistent with these observations; this gives confidence in the estimates.
Streamer channels generally do not follow the paths of previous discharge
channels for repetition rates of up to 10 Hz. We estimate the effect of
recombination and diffusion of ions and free electrons from the previous
discharge and conclude that the old trail has largely disappeared at the moment
of the next voltage pulse; therefore the next streamers indeed cannot follow
the old trail.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figure
The motion of the 2D hydrodynamic Chaplygin sleigh in the presence of circulation
We consider the motion of a planar rigid body in a potential flow with
circulation and subject to a certain nonholonomic constraint. This model is
related to the design of underwater vehicles.
The equations of motion admit a reduction to a 2-dimensional nonlinear
system, which is integrated explicitly. We show that the reduced system
comprises both asymptotic and periodic dynamics separated by a critical value
of the energy, and give a complete classification of types of the motion. Then
we describe the whole variety of the trajectories of the body on the plane.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. This article uses some introductory material
from arXiv:1109.321
Panton-Valentine Leukocidin Does Play a Role in the Early Stage of Staphylococcus aureus Skin Infections: A Rabbit Model
Despite epidemiological data linking necrotizing skin infections with the production of Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL), the contribution of this toxin to the virulence of S. aureus has been highly discussed as a result of inconclusive results of in vivo studies. However, the majority of these results originate from experiments using mice, an animal species which neutrophils - the major target cells for PVL - are highly insensitive to the action of this leukocidin. In contrast, the rabbit neutrophils have been shown to be as sensitive to PVL action as human cells, making the rabbit a better experimental animal to explore the PVL role. In this study we examined whether PVL contributes to S. aureus pathogenicity by means of a rabbit skin infection model. The rabbits were injected intradermally with 108 cfu of either a PVL positive community-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus isolate, its isogenic PVL knockout or a PVL complemented knockout strain, and the development of skin lesions was observed. While all strains induced skin infection, the wild type strain produced larger lesions and a higher degree of skin necrosis compared to the PVL knockout strain in the first week after the infection. The PVL expression in the rabbits was indirectly confirmed by a raise in the serum titer of anti-LukS-PV antibodies observed only in the rabbits infected with PVL positive strains. These results indicate that the rabbit model is more suitable for studying the role of PVL in staphylococcal diseases than other animal models. Further, they support the epidemiological link between PVL producing S. aureus strains and necrotizing skin infections
Human surfactant protein D alters oxidative stress and HMGA1 expression to induce p53 apoptotic pathway in eosinophil leukemic cell line
This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright: © 2013 Mahajan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Surfactant protein D (SP-D), an innate immune molecule, has an indispensable role in host defense and regulation of
inflammation. Immune related functions regulated by SP-D include agglutination of pathogens, phagocytosis,
oxidative burst, antigen presentation, T lymphocyte proliferation, cytokine secretion, induction of apoptosis and
clearance of apoptotic cells. The present study unravels a novel ability of SP-D to reduce the viability of leukemic
cells (eosinophilic leukemic cell line, AML14.3D10; acute myeloid leukemia cell line, THP-1; acute lymphoid leukemia
cell lines, Jurkat, Raji; and human breast epithelial cell line, MCF-7), and explains the underlying mechanisms. SP-D
and a recombinant fragment of human SP-D (rhSP-D) induced G2/M phase cell cycle arrest, and dose and timedependent
apoptosis in the AML14.3D10 eosinophilic leukemia cell line. Levels of various apoptotic markers viz.
activated p53, cleaved caspase-9 and PARP, along with G2/M checkpoints (p21 and Tyr15 phosphorylation of cdc2)
showed significant increase in these cells. We further attempted to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of rhSP-D
induced apoptosis using proteomic analysis. This approach identified large scale molecular changes initiated by SPD
in a human cell for the first time. Among others, the proteomics analysis highlighted a decreased expression of
survival related proteins such as HMGA1, overexpression of proteins to protect the cells from oxidative burst, while a
drastic decrease in mitochondrial antioxidant defense system. rhSP-D mediated enhanced oxidative burst in
AML14.3D10 cells was confirmed, while antioxidant, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, abrogated the rhSP-D induced apoptosis.
The rhSP-D mediated reduced viability was specific to the cancer cell lines and viability of human PBMCs from
healthy controls was not affected. The study suggests involvement of SP-D in host’s immunosurveillance and
therapeutic potential of rhSP-D in the eosinophilic leukemia and cancers of other origins.Department of Biotechnology, Indi
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