Recent research suggests that the diastolic ryanodine-receptor-mediated release of Ca(2+) (J(leak)) from the sarcoplasmic reticulum of ventricular myocytes occurs in spark and nonspark forms. Further information about the role(s) of these release manifestations is scarce, however. This study addresses whether the fraction of spark-mediated J(leak) increases due to β-adrenergic stimulation. Conf...

The release of Ca from intracellular stores is key to cardiac muscle function; however, the molecular control of intracellular Ca release remains unclear. Depletion of the intracellular Ca store (sarcoplasmic reticulum, SR) may play an important role, but the ability to measure local SR Ca with fluorescent Ca indicators is limited by the microscope optical resolution and properties of the indic...

Building on efforts to promote a culture of innovation at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Central Spark is a collection of exploratory spaces and concepts designed to provide APL staff members with new means to develop creative solutions to their sponsors’ most difficult challenges. Areas associated with Central Spark are open 24/7 and encourage creative explorati...

Examining calcium spark morphology and its relationship to the structure of the cardiac myocyte offers a direct means of understanding excitation-contraction coupling mechanisms. Traditional confocal line-scanning achieves excellent temporal spark resolution but at the cost of spatial information in the perpendicular dimension. To address this, we developed a methodology to identify and analyze...

Examining calcium spark morphology and its relationship to the structure of the cardiac myocyte offers a direct means of understanding excitation-contraction coupling mechanisms. Traditional confocal line scanning achieves excellent temporal spark resolution but at the cost of spatial information in the perpendicular dimension. To address this, we developed a methodology to identify and analyze...

Ca(2+) sparks are highly localized Ca(2+) transients caused by Ca(2+) release from sarcoplasmic reticulum through ryanodine receptors (RyR). In smooth muscle, Ca(2+) sparks activate nearby large-conductance, Ca(2+)-sensitive K(+) (BK) channels to generate spontaneous transient outward currents (STOC). The properties of individual sites that give rise to Ca(2+) sparks have not been examined syst...

We investigate acute effects of axial stretch, applied by carbon fibers (CFs), on diastolic Ca spark rate in rat isolated cardiomyocytes. CFs were attached either to both cell ends (to maximize the stretched region), or to the center and one end of the cell (to compare responses in stretched and nonstretched half-cells). Sarcomere length was increased by 8.01 0.94% in the stretched cell fractio...

The risks of spreadsheet use do not just come from the misuse of formulae. As such, training needs to go beyond this technical aspect of spreadsheet use and look at the spreadsheet in its full business context. While standard training is by and large unable to do this, task-based training is perfectly suited to a contextual approach to training. 1 THE SITUATION 1.1 What Are The Risks Of Spreads...

While cluster computing frameworks are continuously evolving to provide real-time data analysis capabilities, Apache Spark has managed to be at the forefront of big data analytics for being a unified framework for both, batch and stream data processing. There is also a renewed interest is Near Data Computing (NDC) due to technological advancement in the last decade. However, it is not known if ...

Semantic search promises to provide more accurate result than present-day keyword search. However, progress with semantic search has been delayed due to the complexity of its query languages. In this paper, we explore a novel approach of adapting keywords to querying the semantic web: the approach automatically translates keyword queries into formal logic queries so that end users can use famil...