BACKGROUND This study elucidates exposure-response relationships between performance of repetitive tasks, grip strength declines, and fibrogenic-related protein changes in muscles, and their link to inflammation. Specifically, we examined forearm flexor digitorum muscles for changes in connective tissue growth factor (CTGF; a matrix protein associated with fibrosis), collagen type I (Col1; a ma...

In this paper, utilization of clustering algorithms for data fusion in decision level is proposed. The results of automatic isolated word recognition, which are derived from speech spectrograph and Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) analysis, are combined with each other by using fuzzy clustering algorithms, especially fuzzy k-means and fuzzy vector quantization. Experimental results show that the ...

INTRODUCTION In vitro and animal model of osteoarthritis (OA) studies suggest that TGF-β signalling is involved in OA, but human data is limited. We undertook this study to elucidate the role of TGF-β signalling pathway in OA by comparing the expression levels of TGFB1 and BMP2 as ligands, SMAD3 as an intracellular mediator, and MMP13 as a targeted gene between human osteoarthritic and healthy ...

Three strains of facultatively anaerobic thermotolerant and moderately halophilic bacteria were isolated from two Jordanian hot spring locations. The novel Bacillus strains were short rods, Gram-positive, motile and spore formers. The strains were capable of anaerobic (but not aerobic) growth at 63C, moderately halophilic, able to grow at NaCl concentration range of 12 15 % and at temperatures ...

BACKGROUND Mechanical stimulation (e.g. slow heavy loading) has proven beneficial in the rehabilitation of chronic tendinopathy, however the optimal parameters of stimulation have not been experimentally determined. In this study of mechanically stimulated human tenocytes, the influence of rest insertion and cycle number on (1) the protein and mRNA levels of type I and III collagen; (2) the mRN...

Face recognition is important in human identification. The biological recognition technique acts as a good method and broad applications in security areas. This work presents a method to improve the face recognition accuracy using a combination of Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Wavelet Transform. Wavelet Transform is used to decompose the input image with different levels and rearrange...

Transforming growth factor β1 (TGFB1) T29C and TGF β receptor type 1 (TGFBR1) 6A/9A polymorphisms have been implicated in the modulation of risk for breast cancer in Caucasian women. We analyzed these polymorphisms and combinations of their genotypes, in pre menopausal breast cancer patients (N = 182) and healthy women (N = 236) from western India as well as in breast cancer patients and health...

TGF-b plays a critical role in normal mammary development and morphogenesis. Decreased TGF-b signaling has been associated with increased mammographic density. Percent mammographic density (PMD) adjusted for age and body mass index (BMI) is a strong risk factor and predictor of breast cancer risk. PMD is highly heritable, but few genetic determinants have been identified. We investigated the as...