In Vitro Investigation of the Effect of Exogenous Ubiquitin on Processes Associated with Atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis, characterized by the build-up of cholesterol, immune cells and cellular debris within arterial walls, is accelerated following myocardial infarction by poorly understood mechanisms. Ubiquitin, a small, well-studied intracellular protein involved in protein turnover via the proteasome pathway, has recently been shown to exert extracellular effects on cardiac myocytes, in vitro, and in mice undergoing myocardial remodeling. This study investigates the potential role of extracellular ubiquitin in atherosclerosis by determining its effects on two critical atherosclerotic processes: the migration of vascular smooth muscles cells and the uptake of modified LDL by monocyte/macrophages in foam cell formation. In the presence of ubiquitin, smooth muscle cell migration was accelerated and foam cell formation was enhanced, suggesting that ubiquitin has an active role in atherosclerosis

Recipes for sparse LDA of horizontal data

Many important modern applications require analyzing data with more variables than observations, called for short horizontal. In such situation the classical Fisher’s linear discriminant analysis (LDA) does not possess solution because the within-group scatter matrix is singular. Moreover, the number of the variables is usually huge and the classical type of solutions (discriminant functions) are difficult to interpret as they involve all available variables. Nowadays, the aim is to develop fast and reliable algorithms for sparse LDA of horizontal data. The resulting discriminant functions depend on very few original variables, which facilitates their interpretation. The main theoretical and numerical challenge is how to cope with the singularity of the within-group scatter matrix. This work aims at classifying the existing approaches according to the way they tackle this singularity issue, and suggest new ones

Plasma–liquid interactions: a review and roadmap

Plasma–liquid interactions represent a growing interdisciplinary area of research involving plasma science, fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer, photolysis, multiphase chemistry and aerosol science. This review provides an assessment of the state-of-the-art of this multidisciplinary area and identifies the key research challenges. The developments in diagnostics, modeling and further extensions of cross section and reaction rate databases that are necessary to address these challenges are discussed. The review focusses on non-equilibrium plasmas

Comparative Response of Rams and Bulls to Long-Term Treatment with Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Analogs

The objective was to compare the relative response between rams and bulls in characteristics of LH, FSH and testosterone (T) secretion, during and after long-term treatment with GnRH analogs. Animals were treated with GnRH agonist, GnRH antagonist, or vehicle (Control) for 28 days. Serial blood samples were collected on day 21 of treatment, and at several intervals after treatment. Injections of natural sequence GnRH were used to evaluate the capacity of the pituitary to release gonadotropins during and after treatment. Treatment with GnRH agonist increased basal LH and T concentrations in both rams and bulls, with a greater relative increase in bulls. Endogenous LH pulses and LH release after administration of GnRH were suppressed during treatment with GnRH agonist. Treatment with GnRH antagonist decreased mean hormone concentrations, LH and T pulse frequency, and the release of LH and T after exogenous GnRH, with greater relative effects in bulls. Rams previously treated with antagonist had a greater release of LH after administration of GnRH compared with control rams, while rams previously treated with agonist showed a reduced LH response. Bulls previously treated with agonist had reduced FSH concentrations and LH pulse amplitudes compared with control bulls while bulls previously treated with antagonist had greater T concentrations and pulse frequency. The present study was the first direct comparison between domestic species of the response in males to treatment with GnRH analogs. The findings demonstrated that differences do occur between rams and bulls in LH, FSH and testosterone secretion during and after treatment. Also, the consequences of treatment with either GnRH analog can persist for a considerable time after discontinuation of treatment