The discovery of selective water channel proteins-aquaporins-has prompted growing interest in using these proteins, as the building blocks for designing new types of membranes. However, as with any other new and potentially disruptive technology, barriers for successful market entry exist. One category includes customer-related barriers, which can be influenced to some extent. Another category ...

In oocyte donation (OD) pregnancies, there is a higher level of antigenic dissimilarity between mother and fetus compared with naturally conceived (NC) pregnancies. We hypothesize that a higher degree and/or a different type of immunoregulation is necessary to maintain an uncomplicated OD pregnancy. Different immunological aspects of successful OD pregnancies (n=28) were compared with those of ...

Adult offspring of severely diabetic pregnant rats are insulin resistant and display cardiovascular dysfunction. When pregnant they develop mild hyperglycaemia. Diets high in saturated fat have been implicated in the development of cardiovascular disease and vascular dysfunction. In the present study we have determined vascular function in small mesenteric arteries from offspring of normal (OC)...

Traffics of different regions in a city have different Origin-Destination (OD) patterns, which potentially reveal the surrounding traffic context and social functions. In this work, we present a visual analysis system to explore OD patterns of interested regions based on taxi trajectories. The system integrates interactive trajectory filtering with visual OD patterns exploration. Trajectories r...

The decision-aiding procedure developed by Beach and his colleagues for birth planning is reviewed. It is shown that the models underlying the Beach procedure have some unusual and problematic formal consequences. Contrary to the claims of Beach et al., the procedure cannot rely on a simple interpretation of standard utility theory for its justification. It is noted that, despite its formal dif...

BACKGROUND During shoulder surgery, blood pressure is frequently measured at the ankle. Anesthetic complications may result when ankle blood pressure is higher than brachial blood pressure and anesthesiologists misinterpret ankle blood pressure as brachial blood pressure. Therefore, we investigated whether ankle blood pressure is significantly higher than brachial blood pressure before anesthes...

Monthly cross shore beach profiles measured at the Ogata Wave Observation pier located in Joetsu-Ogata Coast, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, was analyzed to investigate multi-scale morphodynamic beach behavior. The Ogata beach, facing the Sea of Japan, is subjected to high energy wave conditions that has a strong winter/summer seasonal signature. The measured beach profiles at the beach show very s...