The regulation of quantal size through pre- rather than postsynaptic mechanisms has recently received considerable attention as a potential mechanism for plasticity. Vesicular transporters catalyze the filling of synaptic vesicles with transmitter and are thus potential substrates for such presynaptic regulation. In this issue of Neuron, Prado et al. pursue this line of investigation and show t...

For n odd, a half-cycle for Zn is a cycle [a1, a2, . . . , am] of distinct elements from Zn such that (a) m = (n − 1)/2, (b) the elements ai (i = 1, 2, . . . ,m) are all distinct, and (c) the differences ai+1 − ai (i = 1, 2, . . . ,m, with am+1 = a1) are all distinct and no two of them are the negatives of one another, modulo n. Similarly, a chaplet for Zn is now newly defined to be a cycle [a1...

Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-23 is probably the most important regulator of serum phosphate and calcitriol (1,25(OH)₂D₃) levels. It is secreted by osteocytes and osteoblasts in response to oral phosphate loading or increased serum 1,25(OH)₂D₃ levels. In human chronic kidney disease (CKD), plasma FGF-23 appears to be a sensitive biomarker of abnormal renal phosphate handling, as FGF-23 levels ...

Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Tom Treasure is responsible to the society for the collection and collation of these data and has a mandate from the society’s annual general meeting of its members to disseminate information based on the data. Contributors: AS, TT, and JvdM were responsible for study concept and design. TT and AS were responsible for acquisition of the data...

In reading through the various preprints, I was struck by the fact that many were concerned with specific computer implementations of one kind or another. Unfortunately, there seems to be little discussion of the program-ing from the programmer's viewpoint. This is under standable in a congress of computational linguistics but, I feel, somewhat regrettable. Especially nce the reports of what ha...

Usually propagation-based constraint solvers construct a constraint network as a conjunction of constraints. They provide propagators for each form of constraint c. In order to increase expressiveness, systems also usually provide propagators for reified forms of constraints. A reified constraint b ↔ c associates a truth value b with a constraint c. With reified propagators, systems can express...

Background: Asthma is the chronic inflammation of airways characterized by eosinophilic infiltration, mucus overproduction, airway hyper-responsiveness and airway remodeling. These changes are induced mostly by cytokines which are produced by T helper (Th) 2 cells. Recently, the role of interleukin-23 (IL-23) in the pathogenesis of adultallergic asthma has been studied. Objective: To explore IL...