Alternatively activated macrophages (M2 macrophages) are involved in tissue remodeling and fibrosis, but their effects on peritoneal fibrosis (PF) induced by high glucose peritoneal dialysate have yet to be fully established. In this study, PF was induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats by intraperitoneal injection with Lactate-G4.25% dialysate (20 ml/rat/day) for 4 weeks. Control rats were given a...

The use of biological fluids such as saliva and cervical mucus as diagnostics for measurements of health status is becoming increasingly popular in the fields of biology and medecine, particularly given the non-invasiveness and ease of obtaining such fluids [39, 78]. In general, these biological fluids are polymeric, and as a result tend to be viscoelastic. However, as a result of protease and ...

The visibility of a target stimulus (T) can be reduced by an aftercoming and spatially non-overlapping mask stimulus (M1), a phenomenon known as metacontrast masking. Interestingly, the visibility of the masked target can be recovered when a secondary mask (M2) is added to the T-M1 sequence. We analyzed a computational model of retino-cortical dynamics (RECOD) and derived the prediction that co...

BACKGROUND The impact of antimicrobial audit and feedback on outcomes of critically ill adults is unclear. METHODS A prospective study was performed in the intensive care units (ICU) of a public hospital in Atlanta, GA. Critically ill adults receiving empiric imipenem or piperacillin-tazobactam were eligible. Outcomes for 3 periods were compared: baseline (B, February to May 2006), model 1 (M...

Observations are presented of several novel phenomena involved in the dynamics of a pendant drop of viscoelastic micellar fluid falling through air. Generally, when a drop falls a filament forms connecting it to the orifice; the filament eventually breaks due to an instability. The filament dynamics and instabilities reported here are very different from the standard Newtonian and non-Newtonian...

The anti-tumour and pro-tumour roles of Th1/Th2 immune cells and M1/M2 macrophages have been documented by numerous experimental studies. However, it is still unknown how these immune cells interact with each other to control tumour dynamics. Here, we use a mathematical model for the interactions between mouse melanoma cells, Th2/Th1 cells and M2/M1 macrophages, to investigate the unknown role ...

Fast synaptic neurotransmission is mediated by transmitter-activated conformational changes in ligand-gated ion channel receptors, culminating in opening of the integral ion channel pore. Human hereditary hyperekplexia, or startle disease, is caused by mutations in both the intracellular or extracellular loops flanking the pore-lining M2 domain of the glycine receptor alpha1 subunit. These flan...

A swine influenza virus (SIV) vaccine-challenge pig model was used to study the potential of a conserved matrix 2 (M2) protein vaccine alone or in combination with an inactivated H1N1-vaccine to protect against H1N1 and H1N2 viruses. The H1N1-vaccine and heterologous H1N2-challenge virus model has previously been shown to prolong fever and increase SIV-associated pneumonic lesions. The M2 vacci...

ν = q · P M = E − E′ is the lepton’s energy loss in the nucleon rest frame (in earlier literature sometimes ν = q · P ). Here, E and E′ are the initial and final lepton energies in the nucleon rest frame. Q2 = −q2 = 2(EE′−−→k · −→k ′)−m2 −m2 ′ where m (m ′) is the initial (final) lepton mass. If EE′ sin2(θ/2) m2 , m2 ′ , then ≈ 4EE′ sin2(θ/2), where θ is the lepton’s scattering angle with respe...