Extracellular signal-regulated kinases mediate the enhancing effects of inflammatory mediators on resurgent currents in dorsal root ganglion neurons

Previously we reported that a group of inflammatory mediators significantly enhanced resurgent currents in dorsal root ganglion neurons. To understand the underlying intracellular signaling mechanism, we investigated the effects of inhibition of extracellular signal-regulated kinases and protein kinase C on the enhancing effects of inflammatory mediators on resurgent currents in rat dorsal root ganglion neurons. We found that the extracellular signal-regulated kinases inhibitor U0126 completely prevented the enhancing effects of the inflammatory mediators on both Tetrodotoxin-sensitive and Tetrodotoxin-resistant resurgent currents in both small and medium dorsal root ganglion neurons. U0126 substantially reduced repetitive firing in small dorsal root ganglion neurons exposed to inflammatory mediators, consistent with prevention of resurgent current amplitude increases. The protein kinase C inhibitor Bisindolylmaleimide I also showed attenuating effects on resurgent currents, although to a lesser extent compared to extracellular signal-regulated kinases inhibition. These results indicate a critical role of extracellular signal-regulated kinases signaling in modulating resurgent currents and membrane excitability in dorsal root ganglion neurons treated with inflammatory mediators. It is also suggested that targeting extracellular signal-regulated kinases-resurgent currents might be a useful strategy to reduce inflammatory pain

The form factors existing in the b->s g^* decay and the possible CP violating effects in the noncommutative standard model

We study the form factors appearing in the inclusive decay b -> s g^*, in the framework of the noncommutative standard model. Here g^* denotes the virtual gluon. We get additional structures and the corresponding form factors in the noncommutative geometry. We analyse the dependencies of the form factors to the parameter p\Theta k where p (k) are the four momenta of incoming (outgoing) b quark (virtual gluon g^*, \Theta is a parameter which measures the noncommutativity of the geometry. We see that the form factors are weaklyComment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Heart rate from face videos under realistic conditions for advanced driver monitoring

Abstract The role of physiological signals has a large impact on driver monitoring systems, since it tells something about the human state. This work addresses the recursive probabilistic inference problem in time-varying linear dynamic systems to incorporate invariance into the task of heart rate estimation from face videos under realistic conditions. The invariance encapsulates motion as well as varying illumination conditions in order to accurately estimate vitality parameters from human faces using conventional camera technology. The solution is based on the canonical state space representation of an Itô process and a Wiener velocity model. Empirical results yield to excellent real-time and estimation performance of heart rates in presence of disturbing factors, like rigid head motion, talking, facial expressions and natural illumination conditions making the process of human state estimation from face videos applicable in a much broader sense, pushing the technology towards advanced driver monitoring systems.</jats:p

Determination of an optimal response cut-off able to predict progression-free survival in patients with well-differentiated advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours treated with sunitinib: an alternative to the current RECIST-defined response.

BACKGROUND: Sunitinib prolongs progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (pNET). Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST)-defined partial responses (PR; classically defined as ⩾30% size decrease from baseline) are infrequent. METHODS: Individual data of pNET patients from the phase II [NCT00056693] and pivotal phase III [NCT00428597] trials of sunitinib were analysed in this investigator-initiated, post hoc study. The primary objective was to determine the optimal RECIST (v.1.0) response cut-off value to identify patients who were progression-free at 11 months (median PFS in phase III trial); and the most informative time-point (highest area under the curve (AUC) by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and logistic regression) for prediction of benefit (PFS) from sunitinib. RESULTS: Data for 237 patients (85 placebo; 152 sunitinib (n=66.50 mg \u274-weeks on/2-weeks off\u27 schedule; n=86 \u2737.5 mg continuous daily dosing (CDD)\u27)) and 788 scans were analysed. The median PFS for sunitinib and placebo were 9.3 months (95% CI 7.6-12.2) and 5.4 months (95% CI 3.5-6.01), respectively (hazard ratio (HR) 0.43 (95% CI 0.29-0.62); P CONCLUSIONS: A 10% reduction within marker lesions identifies pNET patients benefiting from sunitinib treatment with implications for maintenance of dose intensity and future trial design

Comparative rainfall data analysis from two vertically pointing radars, an optical disdrometer, and a rain gauge

The authors present results of a comparative analysis of rainfall data from several ground-based instruments. The instruments include two vertically pointing Doppler radars, S-band and X-band, an optical disdrometer, and a tipping-bucket rain gauge. All instruments were collocated at the Iowa City Municipal Airport in Iowa City, Iowa, for a period of several months. The authors used the rainfall data derived from the four instruments to first study the temporal variability and scaling characteristics of rainfall and subsequently assess the instrumental effects on these derived properties. The results revealed obvious correspondence between the ground and remote sensors, which indicates the significance of the instrumental effect on the derived properties