Evidence is emerging that the closely related ROCK1 and ROCK2 serine/threonine kinases support the invasive and metastatic growth of a spectrum of human cancer types. Therefore, inhibitors of ROCK are under preclinical development. However, a key step in their development involves the identification of genetic biomarkers that will predict ROCK inhibitor antitumor activity. One identified mechan...

Sustained contractions of smooth muscle cells (SMC) maintain basal tone in the internal anal sphincter (IAS). To examine the molecular bases for the myogenic tone in the IAS, the present studies focused on the role of RhoA/ROCK in the SMC isolated from the IAS vs. the adjoining phasic tissues of the rectal smooth muscle (RSM) and anococcygeus smooth muscle (ASM) of rat. We also compared cellula...

Glacial reworking of paraglacial rock slope material has been inferred from long-deglaciated terrains to be an important component of glacial sediment transfer. We provide the first description from a contemporary glacial environment of the geomorphological consequences of glacier advance (of the Feegletscher Nord, Switzerland) across a paraglacial rock avalanche deposit. The landform-sediment ...

BACKGROUND Rho kinase (ROCK) and myosin-light chain kinase (MLCK) are key enzymes in smooth muscle contraction. Previous data have suggested that ROCK contribution to human detrusor contraction is increasing with age. Here, we have analyzed the transcriptional expression of Rho kinase isoforms (ROCK1 and ROCK2) as well as MLCK in the aging human detrusor smooth muscle obtained from resected tis...

This text is to appear in a volume produced at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Léon Walras death. The first part (introduction) answers one initial demand (to the solicited authors), i.e the evaluation of Walras influence on their own research and more generally on contemporary research. The second part “Between the Capitol Hill and the Tarpeian Rock ? ” goes further into the discussio...

Capillary pressure and relative permeability are important parameters in geothermal reservoir engineering. It is essential to represent capillary pressure curves mathematically in an appropriate way. The Brooks-Corey capillary pressure model has been accepted widely, however it has been found that the Brooks-Corey model cannot represent capillary pressure curves of The Geysers rock samples. In ...

Rock selection in modeling and simulation studies is usually based on two techniques; routinely defined rock types and those defined by special core analysis (SCAL). The challenge in utilizing these two techniques is that they are frequently assumed to be the same, but in practice, static rock-types (routinely defined) are not always representative of dynamic rock-types (SCAL defined) in the re...

The explosion process of explosives in a borehole applies a very high pressure on its surrounding rock media. This process can initiate and propagate rock fractures, and finally, may result in the rock fragmentation. Rock fragmentation is mainly caused by the propagation of inherent pre-existing fractures of the rock mass and also from the extension of the newly formed cracks within the intact ...