Aims. To assess the concentrations of serum CXCL13 and intrarenal ectopic lymphoid tissue (ELT) profiles and their correlation in the patients with lupus nephritis (LN). Methods. Serum CXCL13 levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). The expression of CD3, CD20, and CD21 in renal biopsy specimens was tested using immunohistochemical methods. Results. Serum CXCL13 le...

INTRODUCTION Lupus nephritis (LN) is among the most serious complications of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which causes significant morbidity and mortality. Renalase is a novel, kidney-secreted cytokine-like protein that promotes cell survival. Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship of serum renalase levels with LN and its role in the disease progression of LN. METHODS For this ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Lupus nephritis (LN), with considerable morbidity and mortality, is one of the most severe manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Yet, the pathogenic mechanisms of LN have not been clearly elucidated, and efficient therapies are still in great need. Granulin (GRN), a multifunctional protein linked to inflammatory diseases, has recently been reported to correla...

We study the diameter, or the mean distance between sites, in a scale-free network, having N sites and degree distribution p(k) proportional, variant k(-lambda), i.e., the probability of having k links outgoing from a site. In contrast to the diameter of regular random networks or small-world networks, which is known to be d approximately ln(N, we show, using analytical arguments, that scale-fr...

Metastasis and growth in neoplastic lesions requires the multistep regulation of microenvironmental factors. We aimed to elucidate the microenvironmental changes in the process of lymphatic metastasis of lung squamous cell carcinoma. We examined the morphological characteristics of 102 cases of primary tumor (PT), 50 of intralymphatic tumor (ILT), 51 of lymph node (LN) micrometastasis (LN-Mic; ...

PURPOSE Lymph node (LN) lymphangiogenesis has recently been shown to be important in the premetastatic niche of sentinel LNs. To study its role in the further metastatic spread of human breast cancer, we investigated the association of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis in sentinel LN metastases with the presence of nonsentinel LN metastases in breast cancer patients with a positive sentinel LN...

Ai Hua FAN and Qiyu SUN Abstract Let N be the re nable function with Butterworth lter cos2N 2( cos2N 2 +sin2N 2) 1, and let sp( N) be the Sobolev exponent of N of order p (0 < p 1). It is proved in this note that there exists a constant 0 < r = rp < 1 such that ln(1 + rN) ln 2 sp( N) N ln 3 ln 2 ln(1 + 3 N) ln 2 ; (8N 1):

Suppose X1, X2, . . . are i.i.d. nonnegative random variables with finite expectation, and for each k, Xk is observed at the k-th arrival time Sk of a Poisson process with unit rate which is independent of the sequence {Xk}. For t > 0, comparisons are made between the expected maximum M(t) := E[maxk≥1 Xk I(Sk ≤ t)] and the optimal stopping value V (t) := supτ∈T E[Xτ I(Sτ ≤ t)], where T is the s...

New 8-quinolinolate (Q) complexes of yttrium (1) and ytterbium (2) were synthesized by the reactions of Cp3Y and Yb[N(SiMe3)2]3 with 3 equiv. of 8-hydroxyquinoline in a DME solution. Single crystal X-ray analysis revealed the trinuclear molecular structure of the compounds Ln3Q9. The LDI-TOFMS investigation displayed that under the laser impact the compounds split off Q(-) anions to give Ln3Q8(...