Mortality rates from coronary heart disease are lower in Swedish men and among Finnish migrants who have lived in Sweden for over 20 years than in men living in Finland. Sero-epidemiological studies, investigations of atheromatous plaque specimens, in vitro animal models and anti-chlamydial antibiotic trials have given support to the hypothesis that Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cpn) has a role in athe...

Mnemonic persistent activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) constitutes the neural basis of working memory. To understand how neuromodulators contribute to the generation of persistent activity, it is necessary to identify the intrinsic properties of the layer V pyramidal neurons that transfer this information to downstream networks. Here we show that the somatic dynamic and integrative propert...

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic demyelinating and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Although the etiology of MS is not completely understood, there is evidence suggesting a role for infectious agents in the pathophysiology of MS. There are evidences of a possible association between MS and Chlamydia pneumonia (CPn), however a consensus on this issue...

Much attention has focused on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis molecular chaperone chaperonin (Cpn) 60.2 (Hsp 65) in the pathology of tuberculosis because of its immunogenicity and ability to directly activate human monocytes and vascular endothelial cells. However, M. tuberculosis is one of a small group of bacteria that contain multiple genes encoding Cpn 60 proteins. We have now cloned and exp...

This study presents a novel Adaptive resonance theory-Counterpropagation neural network (ART-CPN) for solving forecasting problems. The network is based on the ART concept and the CPN learning algorithm for constructing the neural network. The vigilance parameter is used to automatically generate the nodes of the cluster layer for the CPN learning process. This process improves the initial weig...

BACKGROUND Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cpn) has been proposed as a possible etiologic agent in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, previous studies were cross-sectional and could not assess whether Cpn infection preceded the onset of MS. METHODS The authors conducted a prospective nested case-control study among 3 million US Army personnel and 121,466 members of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Pro...

Lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are major causes of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Smoking is the main cause for both diseases, but other factors seem to contribute. Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cpn) is an obligate intracellular bacterium with a unique biphasic replicative cycle associated with respiratory infections. The ability to cause chronic infections ...

Celiac plexus neurolysis (CPN) has become a minimally invasive approach for the management of patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer and abdominal pain unresponsive to medical treatment. CPN has been shown to have long-lasting improvement in abdominal pain and decreased narcotic usage in 70% to 90% of patients. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to report our experience with CPN in the ...

I n this paper, we propose a safety analysis method using coloured Petri nets (CPN). Our method employs a backward approach where a hazard is assumed to have occurred and backward simulation from the hazard is performed in order to determine i f and how the hazard might occur. Using CPN, we define a hazard as a set of markings and perform backward simulation by generating a reachability graph b...

The complexity of today’s embedded systems and their development trajectories requires a systematic, model-driven design approach, supported by tooling wherever possible. Only then, development trajectories become manageable, with high-quality, cost-effective results. This paper introduces the Octopus Design-Space Exploration (DSE) toolset that aims to leverage existing modeling, analysis, and ...