BACKGROUND The influence of the changes in atmospheric states, typical for areas close to big deserts, on general well-being of hypertensive persons was analyzed. METHODS Under test was the group of 20 hypertensive weather-sensitive patients; their blood pressure, pulse rate and appearance of 4 symptoms of discomfort sensations: arthritic pain, unjustified anxiety, severe headache and inexpli...

The natriuretic peptides (NPs) are a group of peptide hormones that play important roles in the control of renal, cardiovascular, endocrine, and skeletal homeostasis. Atrial NP (ANP) was first identified as an activity by de Bold et al1 in 1981. It is a 28 amino acid peptide in humans that assumes a hairpin structure by virtue of a cystine bridge that links residues 7 and 23 (Figure 1). Brain N...

BACKGROUND Mechanical properties and cyto-compatibility of a composite scaffold which possessed negative (-) Poisson's ratio (NPR) was investigated for effective load transfer from auxetic scaffold to cell. METHODS Organic/inorganic composite scaffolds were prepared by mixing hydroxyapatite (HA) to poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA). To induce NPR in composite scaffold, 3-directional volumetri...

We have shown previously that increased extracellular osmolality stimulates expression and promoter activity of the type A natriuretic peptide receptor (NPR-A) gene in rat inner medullary collecting duct (IMCD) cells through a mechanism that involves activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). The serum and glucocorticoid inducible kinase (Sgk) is thought to participate in the re...

C-Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP)4-23, a ring deleted analog of ANP that specifically interacts with natriuretic peptide receptor-C (NPR-C), has been shown to decrease the enhanced expression of Giα proteins implicated in the pathogenesis of hypertension. In the present study, we investigated whether in vivo treatment of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) with C-ANP4-23 could attenuate the...

BACKGROUND Pregnant patients with cancer are increasingly treated with anticancer drugs, although the specific impact of pregnancy-induced physiological changes on the pharmacokinetics (PK) of anticancer drugs and associated implications for optimal dose regimens remains unclear. Our objectives were to quantify changes in PK during pregnancy for four frequently used anticancer agents doxorubici...

Controller adaptation is always a major concern. A controller that meets certain performance design objectives can not be satisfactory unless it can preserve such quality in the presence of system parameters fluctuation. For the nuclear power reactors (NPR) a controller that preserves stability and performance for wide range of operation conditions and fluctuations is especially desirable. This...

In this paper, we propose various levels of non-photorealistic rendering(NPR) scheme for virtual heritage. The different levels of rendering are simple feature level, semantic level and imaginative level. At the simple feature level, simple facts or features are represented. Semantics generated from relations between features and/or environmental context are represented at the semantic level of...

The subject of Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR) is one which tends towards a certain, small set of targeted appearances. Work in NPR in particular in real-time graphics is generally aimed at a classic cel-animated, "cartoon" visual style that is, solid black outlines with clamped ramp shading. While this look is often arresting and interesting, it is a narrow approach to NPR. Even within the ...

Animals undergo periods of behavioral quiescence and arousal in response to environmental, circadian, or developmental cues. During larval molts, C. elegans undergoes a period of profound behavioral quiescence termed lethargus. Locomotion quiescence during lethargus was abolished in mutants lacking a neuropeptide receptor (NPR-1) and was reduced in mutants lacking NPR-1 ligands (FLP-18 and FLP-...