Activator protein-1 (AP-1) is an important bZIP transcription factor that regulates a series of physiological processes by specifically activating transcription of several genes, and one of its well-chartered functions in mammals is participating in bone mineralization. We isolated and cloned the complete cDNA of a Jun/AP-1 homolog from Pinctada fucata and called it Pf-AP-1. Pf-AP-1 had a highl...

The literature shows inconsistent evidence regarding the association between clinically assessed plantar-flexor (PF) spasticity and walking function in ambulatory persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). The use of a dynamometer-based spasticity measure (DSM) may help to clarify this association. Our cohort included 42 pwMS (27 female, 15 male; age: 42.9 +/- 10.1 yr) with mild clinical disabilit...

In this paper, we introduce the tractable pf -EL logic, a paraconsistent version of the fuzzy logic f -EL. Within pf -EL, it is possible to tolerate contradictions under incomplete and vague knowledge. pf -EL extends the f -EL language with a paraconsistent negation in order to represent contradictions. This paraconsistent negation is defined under Belnap’s bilattices. It is important to observ...

Making use of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation, we study the quasi-particle spectrum and the vortex core structure of a single vortex in quasi 2D s-wave superconductors for small pF ξ0, where pF is the Fermi momentum and ξ0 = vF /∆0 is the coherence length (h̄ = 1). During our numerical calculation the particle number is conserved for each pF ξ0. In particular, we find that there are only 1 or ...

Electroluminescent characteristics were investigated for the blue emitting devices fabricated with the blend systems consisting of hole transporting polytriarylamine (PTAA), electron transporting polyfluorene (PF), and a block copolymer with both segments (PF-b-PTAA) as an active layer in order to elucidate the relationship between the chemical nature and morphology of the active layer, and EL ...

A method for the linear discrimination of two classes is presented. It maximizes the Patrick-Fisher (PF) distance between the projected class-conditional densities. Since the PF distance is a highly nonlinear function, we propose a method, which searches for the directions corresponding to several large local maxima of the PF distance. Its novelty lies in a neural network transformation of the ...

Background. Patellofemoral osteoarthritis (PF OA) is a leading cause of significant pain and disability of the knee joint. Stair climbing dysfunction is commonly reported in this cohort. Objectives. To compare the temporal muscle activation between females with PF OA and healthy controls during stair ascent and decide whether there is a link between altered core activity and Patellofemoral oste...

Enterotoxic factor (EF) was present and could be developed in nonagglutinable vibrios, but not the permeability factor (PF). Presence of PF without EF in Vibrio parahaemolyticus is significant. Both EF and PF were absent in V. alcaligenes.

BACKGROUND Physical functioning (PF) is an essential domain of older persons' health and quality of life. Health behaviors are the main modifiable determinants of PF. Cross-sectionally, alcohol consumption appears to be linked to better PF, but longitudinal evidence is mixed and very little is known about alcohol consumption and longitudinal PF trajectories. METHODS We conducted longitudinal ...

The aim of the present study was to genotypically characterize Vibrio cholerae strains isolated from cholera patients in various provinces of Thailand. Two hundred and forty V. cholerae O1 strains, isolated from patients with cholera during two outbreaks, i.e. March 1999-April 2000 and December 2001-February 2002, in Thailand, were genotypically characterized by NotI digestion and pulsed-field ...