Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a newly identified regulator of the renin-angiotensin system. This type I membrane-anchored protein has a catalytically active ectodomain that undergoes shedding. Tumor necrosis factor alpha-converting enzyme (TACE) has been shown to be involved in ACE2 shedding. Although pathophysiological significance of ACE2 shedding has been suggested, regulation of...

Reconfigurable hardware resources are very expensive, and yet can be underutilized. This paper describes a middleware capable of discovering underutilized computing nodes with FPGA-based accelerator boards in a networked environment. Using an extended Job management system (JMS), this middleware permits sharing reconfigurable resources at least among the members of the same organization. Tradit...

The LSF/Grainyhead transcription factor family is involved in many important biological processes, including cell cycle, cell growth and development. In order to investigate the evolutionary conservation of these biological roles, we have characterized two new family members in Caenorhabditis elegans and Xenopus laevis. The C.elegans member, Ce-GRH-1, groups with the Grainyhead subfamily, while...

Visual object processing may follow a coarse-to-fine sequence imposed by fast processing of low spatial frequencies (LSF) and slow processing of high spatial frequencies (HSF). Objects can be categorized at varying levels of specificity: the superordinate (e.g. animal), the basic (e.g. dog), or the subordinate (e.g. Border Collie). We tested whether superordinate and more specific categorizatio...

Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is increased in lung lavages from patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome, and administering IL-1 intratracheally causes neutrophil accumulation and a neutrophil-dependent oxidative leak in lungs of rats. In the present study, we found that rats pretreated intraperitoneally with lisofylline [(R)-1-(5-hydroxyhexyl)-3, 7-dimethylxanthine (LSF)], an inhibitor of ...

I MPAIRED MUCOSAL barrier function with resultant bacterial translocation (BT) are closely associated with infectious complications found in the intensive care unit and in transplanted patients. Lisofyllille [( R)-l-( 5-hydroxyhexyl)-3.7-dimethylxanthine 1 (LSF) selectively inhibits generation of phosphatidic acid. I which is a common second messenger to several pro-inflammatory mediators such ...