Growth and differentiation factor 5 (GDF-5) belongs to the large TGF-beta superfamily of secreted signalling proteins and plays a pivotal role in skeletal development during embryogenesis. The gene for human GDF-5 was cloned, expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. Crystals were obtained that diffracted to 2.2 A resolution. A native data set was acquired, showing that the cry...

Ensemble models—built by methods such as bagging, boosting, and Bayesian model averaging—appear dauntingly complex, yet tend to strongly outperform their component models on new data. Doesn’t this violate “Occam’s razor”—the widespread belief that “the simpler of competing alternatives is preferred”? We argue no: if complexity is measured by function rather than form—for example, according to g...

In this paper we find an exact formula for the eigenvalues of the iteration matrix of the Generalized Diffusion method (GDF) used in load balancing. This provides us with the optimum value of the extrapolation parameter, i.e. the parameter endowing GDF with extra flexibility compared to other iterative methods. We apply our technique to the broad class of n-D torus interconnection topologies an...

Abstract Aims Heart failure (HF) remains a major therapeutic and diagnostic challenge. In this study we aimed to analyze the predictive potential of four novel cardiovascular biomarkers – soluble urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR), vascular cell adhesion molecule (CAM-1), heart-type fatty acid binding Protein (H-FABP) growth/differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) in detecting car...

Unpredictable wireless channel errors may cause applications with real-time traffic to receive degraded quality of services due to packet losses. In the presence of such errors, a challenging problem is how to schedule packets to achieve fairness among real-time flows and to maximize the overall system throughput simultaneously. We capture fairness by minimizing the maximum degradation in servi...

Abstract Objective Epidermal stem cells (EpSCs) can self-renew, which are responsible for the long-term maintenance of skin, and it also plays a critical role in wound re-epithelization, but mechanism underlying EpSCs proliferation is unclear. GDF-5, known as BMP-14, member BMP family be used self-renewal supporter. Here, we studied effects GDF-5 on mouse healing. Methods Firstly, was tested by...

Objective(s): Several researchers have reported the relationship between infertility in male and varicocele for so many years but the implication of varicocele in female patients is remains elusive. Here, we aim to examine the effects of unilateral varicose ovarian vein on antioxidant capacity and oocyte quality of rat ovary after the experimental creation of varicocele in female rats. Material...

Objective Paracrine disruption of growth factors in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome results in production of low quality oocyte, especially following ovulation induction. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of metformin (MET), N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and their combination on the hormonal levels and expression profile of GDF-9, BMP-15 and c-Kit, as hallmarks of oocyte qual...