BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Antibodies specific to donor human leucocyte antigen (HLA) play a critical role in graft rejection and graft loss. In recent years, techniques for their detection have evolved significantly providing an ever-increasing degree of sensitivity and specificity, from the conventional cell-based assays to the advanced solid-phase system based on the Luminex platform. Consensus...

not small savers—defined here as the half of all savings clients of a microfinance institution (MFI) with the smallest deposit account balances— contribute to or undermine the sustainability of the MFI. MFI sustainability has long been accorded a place of central importance in microfinance for reasons that are well known. Perhaps because of the necessary focus of microfinance for so many years ...

This study evaluated lumbar spine muscle volume and Muscle Fatty Infiltrate (MFI) across two age groups of healthy adults. Twenty-four participants (young group - YG: age 18-25, n = 12; mature group - MG: age 45-60, n = 12) without low back pain underwent T1-weighted axial MRI. Muscle volume and MFI were obtained from the left and right lumbar erector spinae (ES), multifidus (M), rectus abdomin...

We propose a RF-pilot aided modulation format identification (MFI) technique to enable a hitless flexible coherent transceiver with fast format switching. For the MFI, modulation format information is encoded to the amplitude of the RF-pilot, which can be simultaneously used for the compensation of both laser phase noise and fiber nonlinearity. The proposed MFI technique is able to identify arb...

The number of couples seeking consultation for infertility problems has steadily increased over the past decade, affecting 10%-15% of the sexually active population. Abnormal semen production, a male factor infertility (MFI), is thought to be the cause of up to 50% of all infertilities in developed countries. There are potentially many different causes of male infertility, including hormonal, a...

The pathogenesis of fetal death associated with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is hypothesized to be a consequence of PRRS virus-induced apoptosis at the maternal-fetal interface (MFI). The objectives of this study were to evaluate distribution and degree of apoptosis in the uterine and fetal placental tissues during the experimental type 2 PRRS virus (PRRSV) infection and...

The permeability of reverse osmosis membranes is limited by the diffusive transport of water across a non-porous polyamide active layer. Alternatively, fabricating a microporous active layer capable of rejecting salt ions while allowing for water transport would increase the permeability while maintaining high salt rejection. Zeolites provide a model porous network which is capable of performin...

We propose a hitless flexible coherent transceiver enabled by a novel modulation format identification (MFI) scheme for dynamic agile optical networks. The modulation format transparent digital signal processing (DSP) is realized by a block-wise decision-directed least-mean-square (DD-LMS) equalizer for channel tracking, and a pilot symbol aided superscalar phase locked loop (PLL) for carrier p...

BACKGROUND Exposure to ozone activates innate immune function and causes neutrophilic (PMN) airway inflammation that in some individuals is robustly elevated. The interplay between immuno-inflammatory function and genomic signaling in those with heightened inflammatory responsiveness to ozone is not well understood. OBJECTIVES Determine baseline predictors and post exposure discriminators for...

The expression of P53, Bcl-2, Bax, Bag-1, and Mcl-1 proteins in CD5/CD20-positive B-chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) cells from 30 typical CLL patients was evaluated before and after 48 h of incubation with 10(-6) M fludarabine using multiparametric flow cytometric analysis. Protein expression was correlated with annexin V expression, Rai modified clinical staging, lymphocyte doubling time,...