RATIONALE Thiodiglycolic acid (TDGA) is a urinary metabolite of the oxazaphosphorine class of chemotherapeutics, in particular of ifosfamide. Ifosfamide metabolism generates chloroacetaldehyde (CAA), a toxic compound associated with neurotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, urotoxicity and cardiotoxicity. CAA, in turn, interacts with cellular thiol groups leading to GSH depletion, cell death and generatio...

The DRL (Delayed Reinforcement Learning) problem is classical in Reinforcement Learning theory. There were several agent architectures solving that problem including some connectionist architectures. This work describes an early connectionist agent architecture, the CAA architecture, that solved the problem using the concept of emotion it its learning rule. The architecture is compared to anoth...

Infrared spectroscopy has been used in adsorption studies of trimethyl phosphite (TMP) on the hydrogen (H) form of the A-type and 13X zeolites. Infrared spectra of H-zeolites, except H-KA, show that TMP reacts rapidly with silanol hydroxyls on their surfaces and gives rise to form product molecules such as SiOCH3 and liquid dimethyl phosphite. The unaccomplished adsorption on the HKA zeolite ha...

Multiple-site-specific incorporation of a noncanonical amino acid into a recombinant protein would be a very useful technique to generate multiple chemical handles for bioconjugation and multivalent binding sites for the enhanced interaction. Previously combination of a mutant yeast phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase variant and the yeast phenylalanyl-tRNA containing the AAA anticodon was used to inc...

All five tRNALeu isoacceptors from the archaeon Pyrococcus horikoshii have been transcribed in vitro and purified. The leucyl-tRNA synthetase (LeuRS) from P. horikoshii was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and purified, and cocrystallizations with each of the tRNALeu isoacceptors were attempted. Cocrystals were obtained by the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method, but only when the tRNALeu iso...

A 59-year-old man was arrested for unruly public behavior. He was subsequently found unresponsive with bilateral upper extremity extensor posturing and lower extremity triple flexion when stimulated. Over the next 48 hours, he awoke and became belligerent. MRI revealed innumerable cortical microhemorrhages on susceptibility-weighted imaging (figure, A) and asymmetric subcortical T2 hyperintensi...

In an earlier report, we showed that a shorter CAG repeat length in the androgen receptor (AR) gene is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer in China, the population with the lowest reported prostate cancer incidence in the world. Because AR coactivators enhance transactivation of AR, in this report we evaluated the relationship of a CAG/CAA repeat length polymorphism in the AIB1...

Immune thrombocytopenic purpura is an acquired autoimmune disorder that is the most common cause of thrombocytopenia in children. The endocannabinoid system is involved in immune regulation. We evaluated a common missense variant (CAA/CGG; Q63R) of the gene encoding the cannabinoid receptor type 2 (GeneID 1269) in 190 children with immune thrombocytopenic purpura and 600 healthy controls. The a...

BACKGROUND Early recognition of acute kidney injury (AKI) is important. It frequently develops first in the community. KDIGO-based AKI e-alert criteria may help clinicians recognize AKI in hospitals, but their suitability for application in the community is unknown. METHODS In a large renal cohort (n = 50 835) in one UK health authority, we applied the NHS England AKI 'e-alert' criteria to id...

Coronary artery aneurysms (CAAs) represent a rare pathology. However, the true burden of CAAs may be currently underestimated. The use of newer imaging technologies, such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance coronary angiography, may assist in unraveling its true prevalence (1). Atherosclerosis is the main etiology of CAAs. It has been reported that 50% of CAAs are due to atheroscleros...