Human embryonic stem (hES) cells can differentiate in vitro, forming embryoid bodies (EBs) composed of derivatives of all three embryonic germ layers. Spontaneously contracting outgrowths from these EBs contain cardiomyocytes (CMs); however, the types of human CMs and their functional properties are unknown. This study characterizes the contractions and action potentials (APs) from beating EB o...

A rapid high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay was developed for the routine quantification of colistins A and B and their prodrugs, colistin methanesulfonate (CMS) A and CMS B, respectively, in human plasma and urine by using polymyxin B1 as the internal standard (IS). CMS concentrations were determined indirectly by subtracting the colistin concentrat...

Plasmonic nanoantenna is of promising applications in optical sensing and detection, enhancement of optical nonlinear effect, surface optical spectroscopy, photoemission, etc. Here we show that in a carefully-designed dimer gap-antenna made by two metallic nanorods, the longitudinal plasmon antenna mode (AM) of bonding dipoles can compete with the transverse plasmonic cavity modes (CMs), yieldi...

The Theory of Characteristic Modes provides a convenient tool for designing multi-antennas for MIMO applications, as it enables orthogonal radiation patterns to be excited in a given antenna structure. Moreover, the frequency behavior of the modes reveals interesting wideband properties of the structure. However, the tracking of characteristic modes over frequency remains a challenge, especiall...

Abstract. We prove in the case of minimal Fano threefolds a conjecture stated by Dubrovin at the ICM 1998 in Berlin. The conjecture predicts that the symmetrized/alternated Euler characteristic pairing on K0 of a Fano variety with an exceptional collection expressed in the basis of the classes of the exceptional objects coincides with the intersection pairing of the vanishing cycles in Dubrovin...

BACKGROUND Complementary medicines (CMs) are popular amongst Australians and community pharmacy is a major supplier of these products. This study explores pharmacy customer use, attitudes and perceptions of complementary medicines, and their expectations of pharmacists as they relate to these products. METHODS Pharmacy customers randomly selected from sixty large and small, metropolitan and r...

RATIONALE The lack of measurable single-cell contractility of human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiac myocytes (hiPSC-CMs) currently limits the utility of hiPSC-CMs for evaluating contractile performance for both basic research and drug discovery. OBJECTIVE To develop a culture method that rapidly generates contracting single hiPSC-CMs and allows quantification of cell shortening ...