BACKGROUND Blood flow (Qa) measurements are an important step in the surveillance protocol of haemodialysis vascular access (VA). The glucose pump test (GPT) is a new test for Qa measurement based on the dilution of a constant glucose infusion. The aim of this study is to verify the clinical accuracy of GPT in a graft surveillance protocol with sequential Qa measurements. METHODS In 30 chroni...

Quinacrine (QA), an antimalarial drug used for over seven decades, has been found to have potent antiprion activity in vitro. To determine whether QA can be used to treat prion diseases, we investigated its metabolism and ability to traverse the blood-brain barrier in mice. In vitro and in vivo, we identified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry the major metabolic pathway of QA as...

The antiserum (B6 X A-Tlab) anti-A (Tlaa) defines several TL antigens expressed exclusively on thymocytes. When reacted with peripheral lymphocytes, the same antiserum defines another antigenic system, provisionally termed Qa-1. The genotypic disparity distinguishing the recipients and donors in this immunization comprises a section of chromosome 17 extending from a crossover point between H-2D...

Every day, people widely use information retrieval (IR) systems to find documents that answer their questions. Compared to these IR systems, question answering (QA) systems aim to speed the rate at which users find answers by retrieving answers rather than documents. To better understand how IR systems compare to QA systems, we measured the performance of humans using an interactive IR system t...

Quinolinic acid (QA) is an endogenous excitotoxin present in mammalian brain that reproduces many of the histologic and neurochemical features of Huntington's disease (HD). In the present study we have examined the ability of a variety of systemically administered compounds to modify striatal QA neurotoxicity. Lesions were assessed by measurements of the intrinsic striatal neurotransmitters sub...

Selective GLP-1 secretagogues represent a novel potential therapy for type 2 diabetes mellitus. This study examined the GLP-1 secretory activity of the ethnomedicinal plant, Fagonia cretica, which is postulated to possess anti-diabetic activity. After extraction and fractionation extracts and purified compounds were tested for GLP-1 and GIP secretory activity in pGIP/neo STC-1 cells. Intracellu...

Prostaglandin A(1) (PGA1) reportedly inhibits NF-kappaB activation and induces expression of heat shock proteins. Since both these effects could be neuroprotective, the therapeutic potential of PGA1 in neurodegenerative disorders, where excitotoxicity may contribute to pathogenesis, was evaluated in rat striatal neurons exposed to the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor agonist quinolinic acid...

Question answering (QA) systems focus on making sense out of data via an easy-to-use interface. However, these systems are very complex and integrate a lot of technology tightly. Previously presented QA systems are mostly singular and monolithic implementations. Hence, their reusability is limited. In contrast, we follow the research agenda of establishing an ecosystem for components of QA syst...

We have several different commercial Web search engines that are available. It is expected that the combination of the results from different Web search engines has some impact on the accuracy of questionanswering (QA) for Web documents, because the search results are not identical and the combination increases the variety of information source. However, as far as we know, there are no studies ...