Acquired resistance to classic caspase-mediated apoptosis is a common problem for the treatment of human cancer. Here, we show that siramesine, a novel S-2 receptor ligand, effectively induces caspase-independent programmed cell death in immortalized and transformed cells of various origins. Siramesine-treated tumor cells displayed increased levels of reactive oxygen species, lysosomal membrane...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Dietary inadequacy is common in developing countries and so is in immune-deficient HIV infected individuals. Hence, an assessment of dietary patterns was done among a group of HIV infected individuals and compared with recommended dietary allowances. METHODS One hundred consecutive HIV infected individuals were interviewed from the Immunodeficiency Clinic of a tertiary...

During pregnancy and lactation, the adequate intake (AI) for total water intake is increased. This cross-sectional survey aimed to assess Total Fluid Intake (TFI; sum of drinking water and all other fluids) of 300 pregnant and 300 breastfeeding women in Indonesia. A seven-day fluid specific record was used to assess TFI. Mean TFI of pregnant and breastfeeding women were 2332 ± 746 mL/day and 25...

There is, perhaps, no disease entity that better exemplifies the complexities, challenges, and creative innovations characteristic of the evolution in congenital heart disease care than the univentricular heart. The univentricular heart encompasses an array of uncommon and severe inborn cardiac malformations that share a similar physiology, with pulmonary and systemic venous return predominantl...

Recent research in generalizing quantum computation from 2-valued qudits to dvalued qudits has shown practical advantages for scaling up a quantum computer. A further generalization leads to quantum computing with hybrid qudits where two or more qudits have different finite dimensions. Advantages of hybrid and dvalued gates (circuits) and their physical realizations have been studied in detail ...

Formant dynamics in vowel nuclei contribute to vowel classification in English. This study examined listeners' ability to discriminate dynamic second formant transitions in synthetic high front vowels. Acoustic measurements were made from the nuclei (steady state and 20% and 80% of vowel duration) for the vowels /i, I, e, epsilon, ae/ spoken by a female in /bVd/ context. Three synthesis paramet...

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at the glucose transporter 9 (GLUT9) locus are clearly related to uric acid concentrations previously identified as a major cause of gout. Due to the important function of various SNPs, we hypothesized that the common GLUT9 polymorphisms (rs16890979, rs6855911, and rs7442295) are associated with gout risk. The purpose of this investigation was to test the ...

BACKGROUND Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified many loci associated with breast cancer risk. These studies have primarily been conducted in populations of European descent. OBJECTIVE To determine whether previously reported susceptibility loci in other ethnic groups are also risk factors for breast cancer in a Chinese population. METHOD We genotyped 21 previously reported...

BACKGROUND The goal of this study was to develop and validate an assessment tool for adult primary care patients diagnosed with depression to determine predictive probability of clinical outcomes at 6 months. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed 3096 adult patients enrolled in collaborative care management (CCM) for depression. Patients enrolled on or before December 31, 2013, served as the tr...

BACKGROUND The use of quarantined cryopreserved semen is mandatory in donor insemination programs. Whether sperm cells can survive and retain their ability to fertilize after long-term storage remains a controversial issue. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of the duration of cryostorage in liquid nitrogen on the sperm cells' progressive motility concentration (PMC) in a l...