(The appearance of the number of the beast in the lower bound is purely coincidental.) The supremal average kissing number k is defined in any dimension, as are kc, the supremal average kissing number for congruent ball packing, and ks, the maximal kissing number for a single ball surrounded by congruent balls with disjoint interiors. (Clearly, kc ≤ k and kc ≤ ks.) It is interesting that k is a...

Mesangial cells are specialized cells of the renal glomerulus that share some properties of vascular smooth muscle cells and macrophages. They are implicated in the pathogenesis of many forms of nephritis. The murine CXC-chemokines macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2) and KC induce migration of mouse mesangial cells. Mesangial cells also exhibit a unique chemokine feedback mechanism. Treat...

Chemokines (pro-inflammatory chemoattractant cytokines) are expressed in pathological conditions of the central nervous system (CNS). Previous studies suggested that the CNS is relatively resistant to leukocyte diapedesis after chemokine injection, leaving their functional role unresolved. The CNS function of N51/KC, a neutrophil-selective chemokine, was addressed by expressing N51/KC under con...

Surgical management of keratoconus (KC) has undergone a paradigm shift in the last two decades and component corneal transplantation technique of deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty has established itself as a modality of choice for management of advanced cases of KC. Every now and then, new minimalist modalities are being innovated for the management of KC. On the same lines, a new technique, ...

OBJECTIVES Abiraterone acetate (AA) is a CYP17 inhibitor of androgen synthesis approved for use following docetaxel for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC); evaluation in the pre-docetaxel setting is ongoing. Given that the reported efficacy of AA is lower following docetaxel vs. pre-docetaxel, the potential exists for cross resistance given docetaxel's partly androgen recep...

Objective Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is a frugal innovation improving newborn health at reduced cost compared with incubator use. KMC widely recommended; however, in the UK, poor evidence exists on KMC, and its implementation remains inconsistent. Design This Systematic Review Realist Synthesis explores barriers facilitators of UK. Data source OVID databases, Cumulative Index to Nursing Allied ...

This study was conducted to determine the potential evapotranspiration (PET) of maize, the crop coefficient (Kc) under full water requirement as well as the cause of decrease in maize yield. It was determined that the seasonal PET of maize is about 486.6 mm. The Kc under full water supply was found to be: 0.11, 0.35, 1.51 and 0.34 for initial, development, midseason and the late season stages r...

The nearly neutral theory, which proposes that most mutations are deleterious or close to neutral, predicts that the ratio of nonsynonymous over synonymous substitution rates (dN/dS), and potentially also the ratio of radical over conservative amino acid replacement rates (Kr/Kc), are negatively correlated with effective population size. Previous empirical tests, using life-history traits (LHT)...

To determine the role of lung cancer tumor imaging with monoclonal antibodies directed against high molecular weight human milk fat globule antigens, we administered i.v. 111In-KC-4G3 to 24 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. One mg of 111In-KC-4G3 was mixed with 0, 9, 49, 99, or 499 mg of unlabeled KC-4G3 and infused i.v. over 1 to 5 h. The mean 111In-KC-4G3 radiochemical purity...

PURPOSE The etiology of keratoconus (KC) and the factors governing its progression are not well understood. It has been suggested that this disease might be caused by biochemical alterations in the cornea; changes in the expression profiles of human aqueous humor (hAH) proteins have been observed in some diseases. To gain a new insight into the molecular mechanisms of KC pathology, we examined ...