The importance of climatic change on the establishment and differentiation of high-latitude species is largely unknown. Biological effects of historic climate change can be determined from historic signals in genetic data. The rock sandpiper (Calidris ptilocnemis) is a good test case for examining these biological effects because it has a known sister species, the purple sandpiper (Calidris mar...

Listeria monocytogenes is an intracellular bacterial pathogen that causes life-threatening disease. The mechanisms used by L. monocytogenes to invade non-professional phagocytic cells are not fully understood. In addition to the requirement of bacterial determinants, host cell conditions profoundly influence infection. Here, we have shown that inhibition of the RhoA/ROCK pathway by pharmacologi...

The Kazhdumi Formation of the Bangestan Group is a well-known and important source rock in most oil-fields in the Zagros Basin. In order to examine productivity of this formation in southwestern Iran, and to correlate petrographical and palynological data with geochemical properties, one of the best outcrops of this formation, located in Tange-Maghar 45 km northwest of Behbahan city, was sampl...

The propensity of human embryonic stem cells to die upon enzymatic disaggregation or low-density plating is an obstacle to their isolation and routine use in drug discovery and basic research. Equally, the very low rate of establishment of implanted cells hinders cell therapy. In the present study we have developed a high-content assay for human embryonic stem cell survival and used this to scr...

the main rock mass classification systems make use of similar rock mass parameters. due to lack of comprehensive estimation systems, determining the real specifications of jointed rocks faces some difficulties. a vast number of parameters with various degrees of impact are involved in such definitions. combination impact of all the effective parameters is to be figured out in order to come up w...

The regulated assembly and disassembly of focal adhesions and adherens junctions contributes to cell motility and tumor invasion. Pivotal in this process is phosphorylation of myosin light chain-2 (MLC2) by Rho kinase (ROCK) downstream of Rho activation, which generates the contractile force necessary to drive disassembly of epithelial cell-cell junctions and cell-matrix adhesions at the rear o...

Purpose The deregulation of the Def6-ROCK2-IRF4 axis in murine models results in both lupus-like and rheumatoid arthritis-like disease characterized by increased IL-17 and IL-21 production that is ameliorated by ROCK inhibition. A known beneficial pleiotropic effect of statins is inhibition of ROCK activation via their effect on RhoA activation. Statins have also been reported to decrease IL-17...

Field, laboratory, and modeling studies of fractured rock have generated great interest from both fundamental and applied perspectives. Many practical applications of these studies are crucial for the exploitation of petroleum and geothermal reservoirs, the safe environmental management of groundwater, the isolation of radioactive waste in under­ ground repositories, cleanup technologies for ot...

Internal anal sphincter (IAS) tone plays an important role in rectoanal incontinence (RI). IAS tone may be compromised during aging, leading to RI in certain patients. We examined the influence of oxidative stress in the aging-associated decrease in IAS tone (AADI). Using adult (4-6 mo old) and aging (24-30 mo old) rats, we determined the effect of oxidative stress on IAS tone and the regulator...

In this paper, robust UDE-based linear control strategy is developed for a class of second-order nonlinear uncertain systems with disturbances. After revealing the control structure and performing stability analysis, the robust control strategy is used to suppress wing rock motion. The approach is based on the uncertainty and disturbance estimator,which calculates and robustly cancels system un...