Non-viral gene delivery systems are being developed to address limitations of viral gene delivery. Many of these non-viral systems are modeled on the properties of viruses including cell surface binding, endocytosis, endosomal escape, and nuclear targeting. Most non-viral gene transfer systems exhibit little correlation between in vitro and in vivo efficiency, hampering a systematic approach to...

Basic-helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins are transcriptional regulatory proteins that govern cell fate determination and differentiation in a variety of tissues. We have identified a novel bHLH protein, named Pod-1, that belongs to a recently-described subfamily of bHLH proteins that have essential roles in the embryonic development of mesodermal tissues. In the adult human and mouse, Pod-1 was m...

BACKGROUND Accurately estimating fat percentage is important for assessing health and determining treatment course. Methods of estimating body composition such as hydrostatic weighing or dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), however, can be expensive, require extensive operator training, and, in the case of hydrostatic weighing, be highly burdensome for patients. Our objective was to evaluate...

We consider the optimal control problem governed by diffusion convection reaction equation without control constraints. The proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) method is used to reduce the dimension of the problem. The POD method may be lack of accuracy if the POD basis depending on a set of parameters is used to approximate the problem depending on a different set of parameters. We are intere...

A combination of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) and In Situ Adaptive Tabulation (ISAT) is proposed for the representation of parameter-dependent solutions of coupled partial differential equations (PDE). The accuracy of the method is easily controlled by open parameters that can be adjusted according to the users needs. The method is tested on a coupled fluid-thermal problem: the design ...

Microdetermination of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) glycoforms by lectin affinity electrophoresis followed by chemiluminescence reaction using horseradish peroxidase (POD) or alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in antibody-affinity blotting was developed. The intensity of chemiluminescence obtained by ALP was greater than that by POD; however, the coefficient of variation with POD was less than that with ALP....

Specific lipoxygenase isoforms immunolocalize to the cytosol of a single cell layer in the soybean (Glycine max L.) pod wall. The cells of this layer, termed the mid-pericarp layer (MPL), are larger than adjacent cells and are highly branched. The entire MPL appears to form an elaborate interdigitated network within the pod wall. A particularly striking feature of the MPL is the presence of ext...

In this study the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) methodology to model reduction is applied to construct a reduced-order control space for simple advection-diffusion equations. Several 4D-Var data assimilation experiments associated with these models are carried out in the reduced control space. Emphasis is laid on the performance evaluation of an adaptive POD procedure, with respect to t...

Cocoa pod is among the by-products of cocoa (Theobroma cacao) plantations. The aim of this study was to apply a number of treatments in order to improve nutritional quality of cocoa pod for feeding of ruminants. Cocoa pod was subjected to different treatments, i.e. C (cocoa pod without any treatment or control), CAm (cocoa pod+1.5% urea), CMo (cocoa pod+3% molasses), CRu (cocoa pod+3% rumen con...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of a supplement enriched in ω-3 fatty acids on immune responses and platelet-leukocyte complex formation in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Patients in the supplement group (n = 7) took a supplement enriched in ω-3 fatty acids (Impact(®)) in addition to a hospital diet for five successive days before surgery; those in the contro...