Exploring Direction Estimation in Virtual Environments

Environmental spatial abilities are key for moving around in large spaces, and direction estimation is a common task for assessing such skills. Two key factors impacting on such skills is the complexity of the environment and pointing angle. We report on an experimental study with 40 participants in virtual environments to examine the effect of pointing angles and environment complexity on egocentric pointing judgments. Findings indicate that pointing accuracy performance with target locations at orthogonal angles is significantly higher than with non-orthogonal angles. We discuss our findings with respect to the Orthogonal Framework

LOW LEVEL OF CYCLOOXYGENASE-2 TRANSCRIPT IN THE SPLEEN OF LYMPHOMA RATS SUPPLEMENTED WITH GARLIC POWDER

Cyclooxygenases (COXs) regulate tumor cell proliferation and metastasis in many types of cancers including hematological cancers. Organosulfursderived from garlic have a potential to inhibit the expression of COX-2 in cancer patients.Objective: In this study, we evaluate the transcription levels of COX-2 in the spleen of lymphoma rats supplemented with garlic powder.Methods: Three groups of rats were equally divided into control (n=3), lymphoma (n=3), and lymphoma supplemented with garlic powder (n=3)groups. Lymphoma was induced via administration of N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU) intraperitoneally 4 times in 2 week periods. Garlic powdermixed with ground commercial rat diet was given daily at 5% of feed intake, starting at day 1 of MNU exposure. All rats were kept for 24 weeks beforespleen samples were collected and extracted for total RNA. The transcription levels of COX-2 transcript in the total RNA were determined usingquantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay. The total RNA was converted into cDNA followed by amplification ofCOX-2 and beta-actin genes.Results: Results of the amplification of COX-2 transcripts were normalized with the housekeeping gene, beta-actin. The relative transcription levelof COX-2 transcript in the spleen of lymphoma rats was 1.941±0.131 fold higher (p<0.05) than control rats (1.00±0.001 fold), while the transcriptionlevels in the spleen of lymphoma rats supplemented with garlic was significantly lower (0.423±0.239 SE fold) than the lymphoma rats that receivedno supplementation of garlic powder.Conclusion: The findings suggest that garlic powder reduces the transcription of COX-2 transcript in the spleen of lymphoma ratsKeywords: Garlic, Cyclooxygenase-2, N-methyl-N-nitrosourea, Splenic lymphoma, Real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay