2,725 research outputs found
Radio emission from satellite-Jupiter interactions (especially Ganymede)
Analyzing a database of 26 years of observations of Jupiter from the
Nan\c{c}ay Decameter Array, we study the occurrence of Io-independent emissions
as a function of the orbital phase of the other Galilean satellites and
Amalthea. We identify unambiguously the emissions induced by Ganymede and
characterize their intervals of occurrence in CML and Ganymede phase and
longitude. We also find hints of emissions induced by Europa and, surprisingly,
by Amalthea. The signature of Callisto-induced emissions is more tenuous.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, in "Planetary Radio Emissions VIII", G. Fischer,
G. Mann, M. Panchenko and P. Zarka eds., Austrian Acad. Sci. Press, Vienna,
in press, 201
Differences in salivary α-amylase levels among women with different taste sensitivities
Saliva is the main component of taste receptor cells external environment, and consequently it may have a decisive role in taste perception. Taste sensitivity varies among different individuals. Sensitivity to the compound n-6-propylthiouracil (PROP) has been considerably studied and besides the known influence of genetic background, the contribution of perireceptor environment is not completely clear yet. Salivary α-amylase (one of the main proteins of saliva) is involved in carbohydrate digestion and its enzymatic activity may change the levels of sugars present in the mouth, influencing food perception. To evaluate differences in salivary total protein content and α-amylase activity and expression among individuals with different PROP taste sensitivities. Sixty seven female women (18-30 years old) were classified in one of the three groups of taste sensitivity (non-taster, medium-taster or super-taster), according to the perceived intensity for PROP, using Labeled Magnitude Scales. Saliva was collected without stimulation. Flow rate was calculated by dividing total volume for the 5 minutes collection. Bradford method was used for total protein assessment. Dinitrosalicylic acid assay was used for measuring the starch-hydrolyzing activity of salivary α-amylase, while the expression of this enzyme was evaluated by Wester blot. 20,9% of the subjects were classified as non-taters. The three groups presented similar saliva flow rates and total protein content was not significantly different although a tendency for lower protein concentration in medium-tasters individuals was observed. Salivary α-amylase activity (U/min) was higher in supertasters (P<0,05). Salivary α-amylase activity (U/min) was higher in super-tasters (P<0,05) without any significant differences in expression. In women individual differences in saliva composition can contribute to the different taste sensitivity. One of the differences appears to be α-amylase enzymatic activity. The reason for this deserves to be elucidated, as well as the potential involvement of others salivary proteins
Protective activity of propofol, Diprivan and intralipid against active oxygen species.
We separately studied the antioxidant properties of propofol (PPF), Diprivan (the commercial form of PPF) and intralipid (IL) (the vehicle solution of PPF in Diprivan) on active oxygen species produced by phorbol myristate acetate (10(-6) M)-stimulated human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN: 5 x 10(5) cells/assay), human endothelial cells (5 x 10(5) cells/assay) or cell-free systems (NaOCl or H2O2/peroxidase systems), using luminol (10(-4) M)-enhanced chemiluminescence (CL). We also studied the protective effects of Diprivan on endothelial cells submitted to an oxidant stress induced by H2O2/MPO system: cytotoxicity was assessed by the release of preincorporated 51Cr. Propofol inhibited the CL produced by stimulated PMN in a dose dependent manner (until 5 x 10(-5) M, a clinically relevant concentration), while Diprivan and IL were not dose-dependent inhibitors. The CL produced by endothelial cells was dose-dependently inhibited by Diprivan and PPF, and weakly by IL (not dose-dependent). In cell free systems, dose-dependent inhibitions were obtained for the three products with a lower effect for IL. Diprivan efficaciously protected endothelial cells submitted to an oxidant stress, while IL was ineffective. By HPLC, we demonstrated that PPF was not incorporated into the cells. The drug thus acted by scavenging the active oxygen species released in the extracellular medium. IL acted in the same manner, but was a less powerful antioxidant
Extracting clinical knowledge from electronic medical records
As the adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) rises in the healthcare institutions, these resources' importance increases because of the clinical information they contain about patients. However, the unstructured information in the form of clinical narratives present in those records, makes it hard to extract and structure useful clinical knowledge. This unstructured information limits the potential of the EMRs, because the clinical information these records contain can be used to perform important tasks inside healthcare institutions such as searching, summarization, decision support and statistical analysis, as well as be used to support management decisions or serve for research. These tasks can only be done if the unstructured clinical information from the narratives is properly extracted, structured and transformed in clinical knowledge. Usually, this extraction is made manually by healthcare practitioners, which is not efficient and is error-prone. This research uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Extraction (IE) techniques, in order to develop a pipeline system that can extract clinical knowledge from unstructured clinical information present in Portuguese EMRs, in an automated way, in order to help EMRs to fulfil their potential.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Spitzer observations of the asteroid-comet transition object and potential spacecraft target 107P (4015) Wilson-Harrington
Context. Near-Earth asteroid-comet transition object 107P/ (4015)
Wilson-Harrington is a possible target of the joint European Space Agency (ESA)
and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Marco Polo sample return
mission. Physical studies of this object are relevant to this mission, and also
to understanding its asteroidal or cometary nature. Aims. Our aim is to obtain
significant new constraints on the surface thermal properties of this object.
Methods. We present mid-infrared photometry in two filters (16 and 22 microns)
obtained with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope on February 12, 2007, and results
from the application of the Near Earth Asteroid Thermal Model (NEATM).We
obtained high S/N in two mid-IR bands allowing accurate measurements of its
thermal emission. Results. We obtain a well constrained beaming parameter (eta
= 1.39 +/- 0.26) and obtain a diameter and geometric albedo of D = 3.46 +/-
0.32 km, and pV = 0.059 +/- 0.011. We also obtain similar results when we apply
this best-fitting thermal model to single-band mid-IR photometry reported by
Campins et al. (1995), Kraemer et al. (2005) and Reach et al. (2007).
Conclusions. The albedo of 4015 Wilson-Harrington is low, consistent with those
of comet nuclei and primitive C-, P-, D-type asteorids. We establish a rough
lower limit for the thermal inertia of W-H of 60 Jm^-2s^(-0.5)K^-1 when it is
at r=1AU, which is slightly over the limit of 30 Jm^-2s^(-0.5)K-1 derived by
Groussin et al. (2009) for the thermal inertia of the nucleus of comet
22P/Kopff.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure and 3 tables. Paper accepted for publicatio
Effects of sphingosine and sphingosine analogues on the free radical production by stimulated neutrophils: ESR and chemiluminescence studies
Sphingolipids inhibit the activation of the neutrophil (PMN) NADPH oxidase by protein kinase C pathway. By electron spin resonance spectroscopy (ESR) and chemiluminescence (CL), we studied the effects of sphingosine (SPN) and ceramide analogues on phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA, 5 × 10-7M) stimulated PMN (6 × 106 cells). By ESR with spin trapping (100 mM DMPO: 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline-Noxide), we showed that SPN (5 to 8 × 10-6M), C2-ceramide (N-acetyl SPN) and C6-ceramide (N-hexanoyl SPN) at the final concentration of 2 × 10-5 and 2 × 10-4M inhibit the production of free radicals by stimulated PMN. The ESR spectrum of stimulated PMN was that of DMPO-superoxide anion spin adduct. Inhibition by 5 × 10-6M SPN was equivalent to that of 30 U/ml SOD. SPN (5 to 8 × 10-6M) has no effect
on in vitro systems generating superoxide anion (xanthine 50 mM/xanthine oxidase 110 mU/ml) or hydroxyl radical (Fenton reaction: 88 mM H2O2, 0.01 mM Fe2+ and 0.01 mM EDTA). SPN and N-acetyl SPN also inhibited the CL of PMA stimulated PMN in a dose dependent manner (from 2 × 10-6 to 10-5M), but N-hexanoyl SPN was less active (from 2 × 10-5 to 2 × 10-4M). These effects were compared with those of known PMN inhibitors, superoxide dismutase, catalase and azide. SPN was a better inhibitor compared with these agents. The complete inhibition by SPN of ESR signal and CL of stimulated PMN confirms that this compound or one of its metabolites act at the level of NADPH-oxidase, the key enzyme responsible for production of oxygen-derived free radicals
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Multimedia delivery in the future internet
The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio
and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks,
like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white
paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked
challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet.
Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted
with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning
media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace
of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more
than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so
regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected
to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising
to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged
that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new)
multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized
way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety.
In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe
network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as
community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of
interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and
innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/
media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content
combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P
networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to
contribute towards such a vision.
Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6)
and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily
contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way
ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms
Effects of methylprednisolone on exercise-induced increases of plasma levels of polymorphonuclear elastase and myeloperoxidase in man. Preliminary results
The aim of the present study was to verify whether a single oral dose of methylprednisolone could modulate the exercise-induced release of polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) elastase and myeloperoxidase. Four healthy, male subjects were submitted to a 20 min downhill run (−20%) at 60% VO2 max, 3 h after oral absorption of a placebo or a single dose of 32 mg methylprednisolone. A marked neutrophilia (+103% of basal PMN count; p < 0.02) was observed 3 h after methylprednisolone ingestion. During both exercise trials, placebo and methylprednisolone, PMN counts were increased by 46% and 19% (p < 0.05), respectively. The running test caused marked and significant (p < 0.05) increases in plasma myeloperoxidase concentration (MPO). The magnitude of MPO changes was the same in the two trials (+110%). Exercise also resulted in significant changes in plasma elastase concentration (EL) in both experimental conditions (placebo: +104%, p < 0.05; methylprednisolone: +338%, p < 0.005). Plasma elastase levels reached at the end of exercise on methylprednisolone were significantly higher than after placebo (p < 0.05). A significant relationship was found between EL and PMN in methylprednisolone trial only (r = 0.72; l0 < 0.005). These results showed that the transient exercise-induced release of elastase and myeloperoxidase were not decreased by methylprednisolone
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