Imaging methods to evaluate hepatic microcirculation (HM) and liver function (LF) by directly monitoring overall liver tissue remain lacking. This study establish imaging methods for LF that combines Laser speckle perfusion imaging (LSPI) and in vivo optical imaging (IVOI) technologies to investigate changes of hepatic microcirculation and reserve function in the animals gavaged with 50% ethano...

The purpose of this study was to clarify the acute effects of a single session of stretching exercises on vascular endothelial function and peripheral circulation in patients with acute myocardial infarction. This study evaluated 32 patients (mean age, 66 ± 9 years) who received phase I cardiac rehabilitation after acute myocardial infarction. Five types of stretching exercises were performed o...

This paper describes a new approach for detection of curvilinear regions. These features detection can be useful for any matching based algorithm such as stereoscopic vision. Our detector is based on curvilinear structure model, defined observing the real world. Then, we propose a multi-scale search algorithm of curvilinear regions and we report some preliminary results.

Standard linguistic analysis of syntax uses the T-model. This model requires the ordering: D-structure > S-structure > LF, where D-structure is the sentences deep structure, S-structure is its surface structure, and LF is its logical form. Between each of these representations there is movement which alters the order of the constituent words; movement is achieved using the principles and parame...

BACKGROUND The vulnerability-stress hypothesis is an established model of schizophrenia symptom formation. We sought to characterise the pattern of the cardiac autonomic response to mental arithmetic stress in patients with stable schizophrenia. METHODS We performed heart rate variability (HRV) analysis on recordings obtained before, during, and after a standard test of autonomic function inv...

This paper presents the realization of third-order low-pass active-RC filters using a new Leap-Frog (LF) topology. New structure is a simplified LF structure with the elements calculated directly from the transfer function coefficients. Several versions of the circuits are presented and compared. The comparison to other common thirdorder filter sections is done, as well. The new LF filter has t...

Lactoferrin receptor (LfR) is expressed in most mammalian tissues including placental trophoblasts and is presumed to mediate the internalization of lactoferrin (Lf). However, the physiological significance of trophoblast LfR is not understood. Using a cytotrophoblast cell model (BeWo) we demonstrated that transfection with LfR siRNA significantly decreased apo- but not holo-Lf uptake compared ...