BACKGROUND Vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) migrate from the arterial media to the intima in the progression of atherosclerosis, and dysfunction of SMCs leads to enhanced atherogenesis. A soluble form of the LDL receptor relative with 11 ligand-binding repeats (sLR11) is produced by the intimal SMCs, and the circulating concentrations of sLR11 likely reflect the pathophysiological condition ...

Three fractions of rye-grass (Lolium perenne) pollen extract have been isolated by preparative isoelectric focusing (i.e.f.) and characterized in terms of physicochemical and immunochemical properties. The purified components were designated 'R7' and 'R14' on the basis of their positions in relation to other rye-grass pollen extract components on SDS/polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis and their...

BACKGROUND Fluoroquinolones have been used broadly since the end of the 1980s and have been recommended for Neisseria meningitidis prophylaxis since 2005 in China. The aim of this study was to determine whether and how N. meningitidis antimicrobial susceptibility, serogroup prevalence, and clonal complex (CC) prevalence shifted in association with the introduction and expanding use of quinolone...

We propose a spatial disaggregation tool to help researchers make the best use of aggregated data in studies of land use. The proposed approach uses parcel-level agricultural data in conjunction with biophysical processes to break down agricultural regional data to the pixel level. It is a two-step procedure. First, we estimate a landuse model using a multinomial logit model. Second, we disaggr...

We conduct a national-scale analysis of the determinants of agricultural land values. The theoretical basis for the study is a spatial city model with stochastic returns to future land development. The empirical model of agricultural land prices is estimated with a crosssection on approximately three thousand counties in the contiguous US. The results provide evidence that option values associa...

Literature from several phases of the career of Masahisa Fujita is surveyed chronologically, with a view toward future contributions in these areas. First we address the economic structure of the interior of a city with mobile consumers, adding production. Next we provide a critical discussion of the New Economic Geography, in particular distinguishing between recent approaches employing two re...

This study examines how the value of residential land and structures evolved during the great housing boom and bust using data on more than a million residential properties that were sold in ten metropolitan areas between 1998 and 2009. We use a hedonic estimator to disentangle the market value of land and structures at a local (census tract) level. Our estimates reveal substantial heterogeneit...

Forests provide non-market goods and services that people are implicitly willing to pay for through hedonic housing and labor markets. But it is unclear if compensating differentials arise in these markets at the regional level. This empirical question is addressed in a study of Arizona and New Mexico. Hedonic regressions of housing prices and wages using census and geographic data show that fo...

For decades, rapid urban expansion has led to concerns over the loss of cultivated land in rural China. Less well known is the fact that development of newly cultivated land has in fact consistently exceeded land conversion from 1999-2006. This paper provides an analytical model that makes sense of this observation, featuring fiscal decentralization, local governments as custodians of land use ...

Most Proteus lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) contain uronic acids or their amides with different amino acids, which together with other negatively charged components account for the acidic character of such LPS molecules. Previous studies have shown the significance of an amide of galacturonic acid with lysine [D-GalA(L-Lys)] for serological specificity of O-antigens from few P. mirabilis strains. I...