BACKGROUND : A recent systematic review found early laparoscopic cholecystectomy (ELC) to be safe and to shorten total hospital stay compared with delayed laparoscopic cholecystectomy (DLC) for acute cholecystitis. The cost-effectiveness of ELC versus DLC for acute cholecystitis is unknown. METHODS : A decision tree model estimating and comparing costs to the UK National Health Service (NHS) ...

Cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) inhibits nerve growth factor (NGF) withdrawal apoptosis in differentiated PC12 cells. The inhibition of apoptosis by COX-2 was concomitant with prevention of caspase 3 activation. To understand how COX-2 prevents apoptosis, we used cDNA expression arrays to determine whether COX-2 regulates differential expression of apoptosis-related genes. The expression of dynein lig...

In this study, we investigated the frictional behavior of both hydrogenated and hydrogen-free diamondlike carbon (DLC) films in high vacuum (10 Pa) at room temperature. Water was also introduced into the vacuum chamber to elucidate its effects on DLC film tribology. The hydrogen-free DLC (also referred to as tetrahedral amorphous carbon, or ta-C) was produced by an arc-PVD process, and the high...

The main obstacle for the application of high quality diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings has been the lack of adhesion to the substrate as the coating thickness is increased. The aim of this study was to improve the filtered pulsed arc discharge (FPAD) method. With this method it is possible to achieve high DLC coating thicknesses necessary for practical applications. The energy of the carbon i...

The role of sandwich Cu layer in and effect of self-bias on structural and nanomechanical properties of Cu/DLC bilayer films have been explored. Cu/DLC bilayer filmswere grown, under varied self-bias from−125 to−225V, using hybrid system involving radiofrequency(RF-) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and RF-sputtering units. Surface topography and mean roughness was studied by atomic fo...

Piston rings (PR) are known for almost a quarter of the friction losses in internal combustion engines. This research work aims to improve tribological performance PR by recently developed variant Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) coatings deposited mixture Ar and Ne plasma atmosphere (Ne-DLC) high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS). For benchmark, widely used Chromium Nitride (CrN) DLCs pure ...

The isolation of genes involved in cancer development is critical for uncovering the molecular basis of cancer. We report here the isolation of the full-length cDNA and chromosomal localization of a new gene frequently deleted in liver cancer (DLC-1) that was identified by representational difference analysis. Loss of heterozygosity was detected for DLC-1 in 7 of 16 primary hepatocellular carci...

DLC-type layers offer a good potential for application in medicine, due to their excellent tribological properties, chemical resistance, and bio-inert character. The presented study has verified the possibility of alloying DLC layers with titanium, with coatings containing three levels of titanium concentration prepared. Titanium was present on the surface mainly in the form of oxides. Its incr...

Distribution Line Communications technology allows the usage of electrical power supply networks for communications purposes and, today, also broadband communication services. The main idea behind DLC is the reduction in operational costs and expenditure for realization of new telecommunications networks. Using electrical supply networks for telecommunications has also been known since the begi...

Ig heavy chain variable region (VH) genes expressed by human diffuse large-cell lymphoma (DLC) and follicular lymphoma (FL) were identified and analyzed with respect to germline gene families. In 67 cases of FL, VH region genes were expressed in a pattern similar to that of normal B cells, with a predominance of the large VH3 gene family being used. In contrast, of the 17 cases of DLC, there wa...