938 research outputs found
Пленум Наукової ради«Українська мова» Українська лексикографія та лексикологія: проблеми, завдання
10–11 листопада 2011року у Ніжинському державному університеты імені Миколи Гоголя відбувся Пленум Наукової ради “Українська мова” Інституту української мови НАН України на тему “Українська лексикографія та лексикологія: проблеми, завдання”
Prerequisites for cytokine measurements in clinical trials with multiplex immunoassays
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Growing knowledge about cellular interactions in the immune system, including the central role of cytokine networks, has lead to new treatments using monoclonal antibodies that block specific components of the immune system. Systemic cytokine concentrations can serve as surrogate outcome parameters of these interventions to study inflammatory pathways operative in patients <it>in vivo</it>. This is now possible due to novel technologies such as multiplex immunoassays (MIA) that allows detection of multiple cytokines in a single sample. However, apparently trivial underappreciated processes, (sample handling and storage, interference of endogenous plasma proteins) can greatly impact the reliability and reproducibility of cytokine detection.</p> <p>Therefore we set out to investigate several processes that might impact cytokine profiles such as blood collecting tubes, duration of storage, and number of freeze thawing cycles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Since under physiological conditions cytokine concentrations normally are low or undetectable we spiked cytokines in the various plasma and serum samples. Overall recoveries ranged between 80-120%. Long time storage showed cytokines are stable for a period up to 2 years of storage at -80°C. After 4 years several cytokines (IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-10, IL-15 and CXCL8) degraded up to 75% or less of baseline values. Furthermore we show that only 2 out of 15 cytokines remained stable after several freeze-thawing cycles. We also demonstrate implementation of an internal control for multiplex cytokine immunoassays.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>All together we show parameters which are essential for measurement of cytokines in the context of clinical trials.</p
Phi-values in protein folding kinetics have energetic and structural components
Phi-values are experimental measures of how the kinetics of protein folding
is changed by single-site mutations. Phi-values measure energetic quantities,
but are often interpreted in terms of the structures of the transition state
ensemble. Here we describe a simple analytical model of the folding kinetics in
terms of the formation of protein substructures. The model shows that
Phi-values have both structural and energetic components. In addition, it
provides a natural and general interpretation of "nonclassical" Phi-values
(i.e., less than zero, or greater than one). The model reproduces the
Phi-values for 20 single-residue mutations in the alpha-helix of the protein
CI2, including several nonclassical Phi-values, in good agreement with
experiments.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
The Long-Term Care System in Denmark
This document provides an overview of the long-term care system, the number and develop-ment of beneficiaries and the long-term care policy in Denmark. The report is part of the first stage of the European project ANCIEN (Assessing Needs of Care in European Nations), commissioned by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The first part of the project aims to facilitate structured comparison of the long-term care systems and policies in European Nations. Thus, this report is one of comparable reports provided for most European countries
Orthogonalities and functional equations
In this survey we show how various notions of orthogonality appear in the theory of functional equations. After introducing some orthogonality relations, we give examples of functional equations postulated for orthogonal vectors only. We show their solutions as well as some applications. Then we discuss the problem of stability of some of them considering various aspects of the problem. In the sequel, we mention the orthogonality equation and the problem of preserving orthogonality. Last, but not least, in addition to presenting results, we state some open problems concerning these topics. Taking into account the big amount of results concerning functional equations postulated for orthogonal vectors which have appeared in the literature during the last decades, we restrict ourselves to the most classical equations
Conformational dynamics and charge separation in the excited state of bridged donor-acceptor compounds
Features of Muon Arrival Time Distributions of High Energy EAS at Large Distances From the Shower Axis
In view of the current efforts to extend the KASCADE experiment
(KASCADE-Grande) for observations of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) of primary
energies up to 1 EeV, the features of muon arrival time distributions and their
correlations with other observable EAS quantities have been scrutinised on
basis of high-energy EAS, simulated with the Monte Carlo code CORSIKA and using
in general the QGSJET model as generator. Methodically various correlations of
adequately defined arrival time parameters with other EAS parameters have been
investigated by invoking non-parametric methods for the analysis of
multivariate distributions, studying the classification and misclassification
probabilities of various observable sets. It turns out that adding the arrival
time information and the multiplicity of muons spanning the observed time
distributions has distinct effects improving the mass discrimination. A further
outcome of the studies is the feature that for the considered ranges of primary
energies and of distances from the shower axis the discrimination power of
global arrival time distributions referring to the arrival time of the shower
core is only marginally enhanced as compared to local distributions referring
to the arrival of the locally first muon.Comment: 24 pages, Journal Physics G accepte
A very brief description of LOFAR - the Low Frequency Array
LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) is an innovative radio telescope optimized for
the frequency range 30-240 MHz. The telescope is realized as a phased aperture
array without any moving parts. Digital beam forming allows the telescope to
point to any part of the sky within a second. Transient buffering makes
retrospective imaging of explosive short-term events possible. The scientific
focus of LOFAR will initially be on four key science projects (KSPs): 1)
detection of the formation of the very first stars and galaxies in the universe
during the so-called epoch of reionization by measuring the power spectrum of
the neutral hydrogen 21-cm line (Shaver et al. 1999) on the ~5' scale; 2)
low-frequency surveys of the sky with of order expected new sources; 3)
all-sky monitoring and detection of transient radio sources such as gamma-ray
bursts, x-ray binaries, and exo-planets (Farrell et al. 2004); and 4) radio
detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos (Falcke & Gorham 2003)
allowing for the first time access to particles beyond 10^21 eV (Scholten et
al. 2006). Apart from the KSPs open access for smaller projects is also
planned. Here we give a brief description of the telescope.Comment: 2 pages, IAU GA 2006, Highlights of Astronomy, Volume 14, K.A. van
der Hucht, e
Dominant Folding Pathways of a WW Domain
We investigate the folding mechanism of the WW domain Fip35 using a realistic
atomistic force field by applying the Dominant Reaction Pathways (DRP)
approach. We find evidence for the existence of two folding pathways, which
differ by the order of formation of the two hairpins. This result is consistent
with the analysis of the experimental data on the folding kinetics of WW
domains and with the results obtained from large-scale molecular dynamics (MD)
simulations of this system. Free-energy calculations performed in two
coarse-grained models support the robustness of our results and suggest that
the qualitative structure of the dominant paths are mostly shaped by the native
interactions. Computing a folding trajectory in atomistic detail only required
about one hour on 48 CPU's. The gain in computational efficiency opens the door
to a systematic investigation of the folding pathways of a large number of
globular proteins
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