Background: Various variance reduction techniques such as forced detection (FD) have been implemented in Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of nuclear medicine in an effort to decrease the simulation time while keeping accuracy. However most of these techniques still result in very long MC simulation times for being implemented into routine use. Materials and Methods: Convolution-based force...

A pixel-based motion compensation (MC) technique where a motion vector is determined at every pixel is investigated. Image sequence compression using the present MC technique will require less bits for prediction error than that using conventional block-based MC techniques. One of the main problem of pixel-based MC is how to save the number of bits for the motion vectors. For this problem, some...

Mast cell carboxypeptidase A (Mc-cpa) is a highly conserved secretory granule protease. The onset of expression in mast cell progenitors and lineage specificity suggest an important role for Mc-cpa in mast cells. To address the function of Mc-cpa, we generated Mc-cpa-null mice. Mc-cpa-/- mast cells lacked carboxypeptidase activity, revealing that Mc-cpa is a nonredundant enzyme. While Mc-cpa-/-...

Microcystins (MCs) are cyclic hepatotoxic heptapeptides produced by cyanobacteria that can be toxic to aquatic and terrestrial organisms. MC synthesis and degradation are thought to be influenced by several different physical and environmental parameters. In this study, the effects of different intensities of UV-B radiation on MC biosynthesis in Microcystis cells and on its extracellular degrad...

Diagnostic utility of E-cadherin (E-CD) and cytokeratin (CK) subtype profiling in effusion cytology was investigated, employing immunocytochemistry on cellblock sections available from 211 metastatic carcinomas (MC), 6 mesotheliomas and 73 reactive mesothelial hyperplasias (MH). E-CD and monoclonal carcinoembryonic antigen (mCEA) stained 85% (120/141) and 65% (138/211) of MC, respectively. E-CD...

The aim of the present study is to analyze outcomes after laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) and minilaparotomy cholecystectomy (MC) for gallstone disease and determine the algorithm of treatment for different groups of patients according to the age, severity of disease and comorbid conditions. This is a multicenter retrospective review of 2997 patients who underwent LC or MC between January 1, ...

the aim of the present work was to assess the feasibility of accononmc8-2ep/nf as a bioadhesive material for developing controlled release gastroretentive microsponges of loratadine. modified emulsion-solvent diffusion method was employed for the preparation of microsponges (f1-f9) based on 32 factorial design. the amount of ethyl cellulose (ec) and polyvinyl alcohol (pva) were selected as inde...

one of the most important parameters used for determining the performance of tunnel boring machines (tbms) is their penetration rate. the parameters affecting the penetration rate can be divided in two categories. the first category is the controllable parameters such as the tbm technical characteristics, and type and geometry of the tunnel, and the second one is the uncontrollable parameters s...

We report that the clinically used antitumor drug mitomycin C is reductively activated in vitro by simple thiols; a mechanism for this activation is proposed based on kinetic data and the identification of mitosene metabolites. The biological implications of these findings are discussed. Introduction Mitomycin C (MC, 1) 1 is a natural antitumour antibiotic used in anticancer therapy 2 that requ...