2,738 research outputs found
Intracardiac Calcification - An Interesting Chest X-ray Report.
We report a case of chest X-ray finding of mitral annular calcification. Mitral annular calcification is a degenerative process involving the fibrous annulus of the mitral valve. It is generally an incidental finding associated with aging and atherosclerosis. It may lead to significant mitral regurgitation and can rarely cause symptomatic mitral stenosis. In addition, mitral annulus calcification may be associated with atrial fibrillation and cardiac arrhythmia. Calcification of mitral annulus in the chest X-ray generally follows the C-shape of the mitral annulus. Confirmation is by echocardiography. Symptomatic cases require repair by surgery
Advances in methods to analyse cardiolipin and their clinical applications
Cardiolipin (CL) is a mitochondria-exclusive phospholipid, primarily localised within the inner mitochondrial membrane, that plays an essential role in mitochondrial architecture and function. Aberrant CL content, structure, and localisation have all been linked to impaired mitochondrial activity and are observed in the pathophysiology of cancer and neurological, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders. The detection, quantification, and localisation of CL species is a valuable tool to investigate mitochondrial dysfunction and the pathophysiological mechanisms underpinning several human disorders. CL is measured using liquid chromatography, usually combined with mass spectrometry, mass spectrometry imaging, shotgun lipidomics, fluorometry, and radiolabelling. This review summarises available methods to analyse CL, with a particular focus on modern mass spectrometry, and evaluates their advantages and limitations. We provide guidance aimed at selecting the most appropriate technique, or combination of techniques, when analysing CL in different model systems, and highlight the clinical contexts in which measuring CL is relevant
Occupational choice, number of entrepreneurs and output: theory and empirical evidence with Spanish data
This paper extends the (Lucas, Bell J Econ 9:508–523,1978) model of occupational choices by individuals with different skills, beyond the simple options of self-employment or wage-employment, by including a second choice for the self-employed. That is, an option to hire employees and so become self-employed with employees (SEWEs), or to be self-employed without employees (SEWNEs). We solve for the market equilibrium and examine the sensitivity of relative sizes of occupational groups, and of the level of productivity, to changes in the exogenous parameters. The results show that the positive (negative) association between number of SEWEs (SEWNEs) and productivity, observed in the Spanish data, can be explained, under certain conditions, as the result of cross-region and time differences in average skills. These findings point to the importance of distinguishing between SEWEs and SEWNEs in drawing valid conclusions concerning any link between entrepreneurship and economic development
Anomalous diffusion in polymers: long-time behaviour
We study the Dirichlet boundary value problem for viscoelastic diffusion in
polymers. We show that its weak solutions generate a dissipative semiflow. We
construct the minimal trajectory attractor and the global attractor for this
problem.Comment: 13 page
Enemies Within: Redefining the insider threat in organizational security policy
The critical importance of electronic information exchanges in the daily operation of most large modern organizations is causing them to broaden their security provision to include the custodians of exchanged data – the insiders. The prevailing data loss threat model mainly focuses upon the criminal outsider and mainly regards the insider threat as ‘outsiders by proxy’, thus shaping the relationship between the worker and workplace in information security policy. A policy that increasingly takes the form of social policy for the information age as it acquires the power to include and exclude sections of society and potentially to re-stratify it? This article draws upon empirical sources to critically explore the insider threat in organizations. It looks at the prevailing threat model before deconstructing ‘the insider’ into various risk profiles, including the well-meaning insider, before drawing conclusions about what the building blocks of information security policy around the insider might be
Towards a Linked democracy model
In this chapter we lay out the properties of participatory ecosystems as linked democracy ecosystems. The goal is to provide a conceptual roadmap that helps us to ground the theoretical foundations for a meso-level, institutional theory of democracy. The identification of the basic properties of a linked democracy eco-system draws from different empirical examples that, to some extent, exhibit some of these properties. We then correlate these properties with Ostrom's design principles for the management of common-pool resources (as generalised to groups cooperating and coordinating to achieve shared goals) to open up the question of how linked democracy ecosystems can be governed
Multiple dynamical time-scales in networks with hierarchically nested modular organization
Many natural and engineered complex networks have intricate mesoscopic
organization, e.g., the clustering of the constituent nodes into several
communities or modules. Often, such modularity is manifested at several
different hierarchical levels, where the clusters defined at one level appear
as elementary entities at the next higher level. Using a simple model of a
hierarchical modular network, we show that such a topological structure gives
rise to characteristic time-scale separation between dynamics occurring at
different levels of the hierarchy. This generalizes our earlier result for
simple modular networks, where fast intra-modular and slow inter-modular
processes were clearly distinguished. Investigating the process of
synchronization of oscillators in a hierarchical modular network, we show the
existence of as many distinct time-scales as there are hierarchical levels in
the system. This suggests a possible functional role of such mesoscopic
organization principle in natural systems, viz., in the dynamical separation of
events occurring at different spatial scales.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Anti-epileptic effect of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides by inhibition of intracellular calcium accumulation and stimulation of expression of CaMKII a in epileptic hippocampal neurons
Purpose: To investigate the mechanism of the anti-epileptic effect of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides (GLP), the changes of intracellular calcium and CaMK II a expression in a model of epileptic neurons were investigated.
Method: Primary hippocampal neurons were divided into: 1) Control group, neurons were cultured with Neurobasal medium, for 3 hours; 2) Model group I: neurons were incubated with Mg2+ free medium for 3 hours; 3) Model group II: neurons were incubated with Mg2+ free medium for 3 hours then cultured with the normal medium for a further 3 hours; 4) GLP group I: neurons were incubated with Mg2+ free medium containing GLP (0.375 mg/ml) for 3 hours; 5) GLP group II: neurons were incubated with Mg2+ free medium for 3 hours then cultured with a normal culture medium containing GLP for a further 3 hours. The CaMK II a protein expression was assessed by Western-blot. Ca2+ turnover in neurons was assessed using Fluo-3/AM which was added into the replacement medium and Ca2+ turnover was observed under a laser scanning confocal microscope.
Results: The CaMK II a expression in the model groups was less than in the control groups, however, in the GLP groups, it was higher than that observed in the model group. Ca2+ fluorescence intensity in GLP group I was significantly lower than that in model group I after 30 seconds, while in GLP group II, it was reduced significantly compared to model group II after 5 minutes.
Conclusion: GLP may inhibit calcium overload and promote CaMK II a expression to protect epileptic neuron
Network Archaeology: Uncovering Ancient Networks from Present-day Interactions
Often questions arise about old or extinct networks. What proteins interacted
in a long-extinct ancestor species of yeast? Who were the central players in
the Last.fm social network 3 years ago? Our ability to answer such questions
has been limited by the unavailability of past versions of networks. To
overcome these limitations, we propose several algorithms for reconstructing a
network's history of growth given only the network as it exists today and a
generative model by which the network is believed to have evolved. Our
likelihood-based method finds a probable previous state of the network by
reversing the forward growth model. This approach retains node identities so
that the history of individual nodes can be tracked. We apply these algorithms
to uncover older, non-extant biological and social networks believed to have
grown via several models, including duplication-mutation with complementarity,
forest fire, and preferential attachment. Through experiments on both synthetic
and real-world data, we find that our algorithms can estimate node arrival
times, identify anchor nodes from which new nodes copy links, and can reveal
significant features of networks that have long since disappeared.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure
Modelling avalanches in martensites
Solids subject to continuous changes of temperature or mechanical load often
exhibit discontinuous avalanche-like responses. For instance, avalanche
dynamics have been observed during plastic deformation, fracture, domain
switching in ferroic materials or martensitic transformations. The statistical
analysis of avalanches reveals a very complex scenario with a distinctive lack
of characteristic scales. Much effort has been devoted in the last decades to
understand the origin and ubiquity of scale-free behaviour in solids and many
other systems. This chapter reviews some efforts to understand the
characteristics of avalanches in martensites through mathematical modelling.Comment: Chapter in the book "Avalanches in Functional Materials and
Geophysics", edited by E. K. H. Salje, A. Saxena, and A. Planes. The final
publication is available at Springer via
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45612-6_
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