The purpose of this study was to investigate the Prostate-Health-Index (PHI) for pathological outcome prediction following radical prostatectomy and also for biochemical recurrence prediction in comparison to established parameters such as Gleason-score, pathological tumor stage, resection status (R0/1) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Out of a cohort of 460 cases with preoperative PHI-meas...

The inclusion of specific amino acids in conventional culture media has been shown to enhance mammalian embryo development in vitro. Amino acids have been shown to confer their benefits to the preimplantation embryo in a number of different ways. However, their ability to buffer intracellular pH (pHi) has not been investigated. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine if amino acids regulat...

In this paper we study the concept of ph-biatness ofa Banach algebra A, where ph is a continuous homomorphism on A.We prove that if ph is a continuous epimorphism on A and A hasa bounded approximate identity and A is ph- biat, then A is ph-amenable. In the case where ph is an isomorphism on A we showthat the ph- amenability of A implies its ph-biatness.

The cohomology of a group G with coefficients in a left G–module M is denoted H .GIM /. We are primarily interested in the case where M is the group ring, ZG . Since ZG is a G–bimodule, H .GIZG/ inherits the structure of a right G– module. When G is discrete and acts properly and cocompactly on a contractible CW complex , there is a natural topological interpretation for this cohomology group:...

Background Post-herpetic itch (PHI) is a neuropathic itch syndrome following herpes zoster. It has been reported that PHI is occasionally sufficiently severe to compromise patients' quality of life and frequently refractory to treatment. Here, we present a case of severe chronic PHI successfully treated with supraorbital nerve block using a high concentration of tetracaine dissolved in bupivaca...

Kawarabayashi proved that for any integer k ≥ 4, every k-connected graph contains two triangles sharing an edge, or admits a k-contractible edge, or admits a k-contractible triangle. This implies Thomassen’s result that every triangle-free k-connected graph contains a k-contractible edge. In this paper, we extend Kawarabayashi’s technique and prove a more general result concerning k-contractibl...

BACKGROUND Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) depresses contractility in left ventricular myocytes. Its expression is upregulated in pressure-overloaded hypertrophied hearts; however, the effects of ANP on contractility in hypertrophied myocytes are not known. Our aims were (1) to examine the cellular mechanisms of this depression in contractility in normal myocytes and (2) to test the hypothesis...

One can define what it means for a compact manifold with corners to be a “contractible manifold with contractible faces.” Two combinatorially equivalent, contractible manifolds with contractible faces are diffeomorphic if and only if their 4-dimensional faces are diffeomorphic. It follows that two simple convex polytopes are combinatorially equivalent if and only if they are diffeomorphic as ma...