Infections involving Staphylococcus aureus are often more severe and difficult to treat when the organism assumes a biofilm mode of growth. The polysaccharide poly-N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG), also known as polysaccharide intercellular adhesin, is synthesized by the products of the intercellular adhesin (ica) locus and plays a key role in biofilm formation. Numerous conditions and exogenous fact...

The importance of economics for owning hybrid green power systems (HGPS) warrants development of optimization methodologies with more effective search capabilities for determination of global minimum for costs. The objective of this study is to present several newly developed enhancements for imperialistic competitive algorithm (ICA) for design optimization of an autonomous HGPS with considerat...

on resting-state connectivity and Balsters et al. (2013) assess the correlation between BOLD spectral power and working memory performance. The ICA applications featured in this Research Topic range from clinical resting-state studies with patients suffering from schizophrenia (Manoliu et al., 2013; Sui et al., 2013) and neurological patients performing chin and hand motor tasks (Robinson et al...

Voltage dependent calcium currents in cultured frog embryonic skeletal myocytes at stages of development ranging from 2 to 9 days were studied using the whole-cell patch clamp technique at 19-21 degrees C. Membrane currents were recorded in the presence of 2 mmol/l Ca2+ (outside), and 60 mmol/l CsCl and 50 mmol/l TEACl (inside). In the absence of sodium current two components of inward current ...

This paper addresses the relative usefulness of Independent Component Analysis (ICA) for Face Recognition. Comparative assessments are made regarding (i) ICA sensitivity to the dimension of the space where it is carried out, and (ii) ICA discriminant performance alone or when combined with other discriminant criteria such as Bayesian framework or Fisher’s Linear Discriminant (FLD). Sensitivity ...

the imperialist competitive algorithm (ica) that was recently introduced has shown its good performance in optimization problems. this algorithm is inspired by competition mechanism among imperialists and colonies, in contrast to evolutionary algorithms. this paper presents optimization of bead geometry in welding process using of ica. therefore, two case studies from literature are presented t...

Combined electrophysiological and imaging techniques were used to study calcium currents (ICa) and their sites of origin at rod bipolar cells in rat retinal slices. We report here for the first time the successful whole-cell patch-clamp recording from presynaptic boutons that were compared with somatic recordings. TTX-resistant inward currents were elicited in response to depolarization. The ki...

Major aspects of neuronal function are regulated by Ca(2+) including neurotransmitter release, excitability, developmental plasticity, and gene expression. We reported previously that sensory neurons isolated from a mouse model with a heterozygous mutation of the Nf1 gene (Nf1+/-) exhibited both greater excitability and evoked release of neuropeptides compared to wildtype mice. Furthermore, aug...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We sought to investigate the relation between collateral flow via different pathways and hemodynamic parameters measured by dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MRI in patients with severe carotid artery disease. METHODS Dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MRI was performed in 66 patients and 33 control subjects. Patients had severe stenosis (>70%, n=12), unila...

AIM Nitric oxide (NO) synthesized by cardiomyocytes plays an important role in the regulation of cardiac function. Here, we studied the impact of NO signalling on calcium influx in human right atrial myocytes and its relation to atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS AND RESULTS Right atrial appendages (RAAs) were obtained from patients in sinus rhythm (SR) and AF. The biotin-switch technique was ...