Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), the exaggerated response to constrictor agonists in asthmatic subjects, is incompletely understood. Changes in either the quantity or properties of airway smooth muscle (ASM) are possible explanations for AHR. Morphometric analyses demonstrate structural changes in asthmatic airways, including subepithelial fibrosis, gland hyperplasia/hypertrophy, neovasculariz...

In C. elegans, the highly conserved DAF-2/insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor signaling (IIS) pathway regulates longevity, metabolism, reproduction and development. In mammals, acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) is an enzyme that hydrolyzes sphingomyelin to produce ceramide. ASM has been implicated in CD95 death receptor signaling under certain stress conditions. However, the involvement of ...

BACKGROUND Niemann Pick disease (NP) is a rare, lysosomal storage disorder due to deficiency of the intra-lysosomal enzyme acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) resulting in intracellular accumulation of sphingomyelin. We evaluated a tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) method to analyze ASM activity in dried blood spots (DBS) that may be suitable for laboratory diagnosis of NP including high throughput scre...

eosinophils when compared with medium alone. Interestingly, blocking the activity of cysteinyl Leukotries using antagonists inhibited eosinophil-derived ASM proliferation. Conclusions: Eosinophils enhances the proliferation of ASM cells. This role of eosinophil does not seem to depend on ASM derived ECM proteins nor on Eosinophil derived TGF-b or TNF-a. Eosinophil seems to induce ASM proliferat...

In introducing this special ASM issue of J.UCS we point out the particular role this Journal played in the short history of the ASM method and add some reflections on its current status. 1 J.UCS and the ASM Method The Journal of Universal Computer Science has marked some important steps of the development of the Abstract State Machines (ASM) method for a rigorous design and the mathematical ana...

Image segmentation methods may be classified into two categories: purely image based and model based. Each of these two classes has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, we propose a novel synergistic combination of the image based graph-cut (GC) method with the model based ASM method to arrive at the GC-ASM method for medical image segmentation. A multi-object GC cost function i...

Airway hyperresponsiveness and obstruction are cardinal features of asthma. Compelling evidence now suggests that the key features of asthma in part are due to intrinsic differences in airway smooth muscle (ASM) function. Inflammatory mediators alter ASM phenotype, which directly modulates ASM hyperresponsiveness and promotes airway remodeling that further contributes to amplified airway obstru...