B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia-associated nuclear antigens

One- and two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis were used to compare the composition of nuclear polypeptides from normal and В-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia mononuclear cells. Against two electrophoretically-specific nuclear proteins with molecular weight of 38/39 and 44/46 kD a from leukemic cells rabbit sera were obtained. As it was analyzed by Western blot technique the available antisera recognized the 38/39 kDa antigen in 53 of the 56 (94.6%), while the 44/46 kDa in 46 of the 49 (93.9%) of examined В-CLL nuclear fraction preparations, but not in normal ones. The pi values of described leukaemia-specific antigens were determined; p38/39 had pi in the range of pH 6.55 -7.00 and p44/46 - in the range of pH 6.2-6.4.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 dofinansowane zostało ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę

Emotional Geographies of Home: Place Identities Among Senior Women Residing in a Long-Term Care Facility

This research aimed to document the meanings and identities attached to the concept of ‘home’ among older women residing in long-term care. The study is based upon semi-structured, open-ended interviews with eleven senior women who reside in a long-term care home in The City of London, Ontario. This study contributes towards theoretical and methodological debates by combining critical humanism, feminism and the newly developing body of work called ‘emotional geographies’ in its approach. Along with the interview, the novel method of using the body as an ‘instrument of research’ is utilized (Longhurst, 2008). The methodology allows for ‘emotional spaces’ occupied by the participants to be revealed and documented. Findings problematize and provide nuance to previous studies about ‘home’. In particular, my findings demonstrate that spatialities, temporalities, boundaries, tension, and paradox need to be considered when theorizing, and more importantly, legislating ‘home’ into public policy. The landscape of the long-term care ‘home’ is identified to be located simultaneously and paradoxically ‘elsewhere’ – it is displaces from the ‘concrete’ wall of the long-term care institution – while being closely tied to the concept of a changing and fluid body and boundary zones that the body questions. The findings contribute to social theory about the experience of place, while having practical implications for policymakers, managers of long-term care facilities and senior citizens

Pricing Upward-Only Adjusting Leases

This paper presents a stochastic pricing model of a unique, path-dependent lease instrument common in the United Kingdom and numerous commonwealth countries, the upward-only adjusting lease. In this lease, the rental rate is fixed at lease commencement but will be reset to the market rate at predetermined intervals (usually every five years) if it exceeds the contract rent. Numerical results indicate how the initial coupon rate should be set relative to that on a symmetric up-and-downward adjusting variable rate' lease under various economic conditions (level of real interest rates and expected drift and volatility of the underlying rental service flow). We also consider the calculation of effective rents when free rent periods are given during either a market collapse or a steady-state drift.

State-dependent photon blockade via quantum-reservoir engineering

An arbitrary initial state of an optical or microwave field in a lossy driven nonlinear cavity can be changed, in the steady-state limit, into a partially incoherent superposition of only the vacuum and the single-photon states. This effect is known as single-photon blockade, which is usually analyzed for a Kerr-type nonlinear cavity parametrically driven by a single-photon process assuming single-photon loss mechanisms. We study photon blockade engineering via a squeezed reservoir, i.e., a quantum reservoir, where only two-photon absorption is allowed. Namely, we analyze a lossy nonlinear cavity parametrically driven by a two-photon process and allowing two-photon loss mechanisms, as described by the master equation derived for a two-photon absorbing reservoir. The nonlinear cavity engineering can be realized by a linear cavity with a tunable two-level system via the Jaynes-Cummings interaction in the dispersive limit. We show that by tuning properly the frequencies of the driving field and the two-level system, the steady state of the cavity field can be the single-photon Fock state or a partially incoherent superposition of several Fock states with photon numbers, e.g., (0,2), (1,3), (0,1,2), or (0,2,4). We observe that an arbitrary initial coherent or incoherent superposition of Fock states with an even (odd) number of photons can be changed into a partially incoherent superposition of a few Fock states of the same photon-number parity. A general solution for an arbitrary initial state is a weighted mixture of the above two solutions with even and odd photon numbers, where the weights are given by the probabilities of measuring the even and odd numbers of photons of the initial cavity field, respectively. Thus, in contrast to the standard photon blockade, we prove that the steady state in the engineered photon blockade, can depend on its initial state.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures, 1 tabl

Segmentation, Reconstruction, and Analysis of Blood Thrombus Formation in 3D 2-Photon Microscopy Images

We study the problem of segmenting, reconstructing, and analyzing the structure growth of thrombi (clots) in blood vessels in vivo based on 2-photon microscopic image data. First, we develop an algorithm for segmenting clots in 3D microscopic images based on density-based clustering and methods for dealing with imaging artifacts. Next, we apply the union-of-balls (or alpha-shape) algorithm to reconstruct the boundary of clots in 3D. Finally, we perform experimental studies and analysis on the reconstructed clots and obtain quantitative data of thrombus growth and structures. We conduct experiments on laser-induced injuries in vessels of two types of mice (the wild type and the type with low levels of coagulation factor VII) and analyze and compare the developing clot structures based on their reconstructed clots from image data. The results we obtain are of biomedical significance. Our quantitative analysis of the clot composition leads to better understanding of the thrombus development, and is valuable to the modeling and verification of computational simulation of thrombogenesis

RNase HI Is Essential for Survival of Mycobacterium smegmatis

RNases H are involved in the removal of RNA from RNA/DNA hybrids. Type I RNases H are thought to recognize and cleave the RNA/DNA duplex when at least four ribonucleotides are present. Here we investigated the importance of RNase H type I encoding genes for model organism Mycobacterium smegmatis. By performing gene replacement through homologous recombination, we demonstrate that each of the two presumable RNase H type I encoding genes, rnhA and MSMEG4305, can be removed from M. smegmatis genome without affecting the growth rate of the mutant. Further, we demonstrate that deletion of both RNases H type I encoding genes in M. smegmatis leads to synthetic lethality. Finally, we question the possibility of existence of RNase HI related alternative mode of initiation of DNA replication in M. smegmatis, the process initially discovered in Escherichia coli. We suspect that synthetic lethality of double mutant lacking RNases H type I is caused by formation of R-loops leading to collapse of replication forks. We report Mycobacterium smegmatis as the first bacterial species, where function of RNase H type I has been found essential.The study was supported by POIG.01.01.02-10-107/09 project implemented under Innovative Economy Operational Programme, years 2007–2013 "Studies of the molecular mechanisms at the interface the human organism - the pathogen - environmental factors" and by grant of Polish National Center of Science 2011/01/N/NZ6/04186 “Identification of a novel mechanism of initiation of DNA replication in Mycobacterium smegmatis”