Recently, Choudhury and Metiya [Fixed points of weak contractions in cone metric spaces, Nonlinear Analysis 72 (2010) 1589-1593] proved some fixed point theorems for weak contractions in cone metric spaces. Weak contractions are generalizations of the Banach's contraction mapping, which have been studied by several authors. In this paper, we introduce the notion of $f$-weak contractions and als...

Kidney tubular epithelial cell (TEC) death may be dependent on the number and activation state of macrophages (M phi) during inflammation. Our prior studies indicate that activated M phi release soluble mediators that incite TEC death, and reducing intrarenal M phi during kidney disease diminishes TEC apoptosis. CSF-1 is required for M phi proliferation and survival. We hypothesized that in the...

A novel bacteriophage defense system, based on an inducible suicide gene, was challenged with a lactococcal bacteriophage to investigate the potential for phage adaptation. The defense system was encoded by pTRK414H, a high-copy-number replicon encoding a tightly regulated phi 31p trigger promoter fused to the lethal LlaIR+ restriction endonuclease cassette. Repeated transfers of Lactococcus la...

Data are lacking regarding age-related modifications of phase I (PhI) of pulmonary Vo(2) on-kinetics during moderate-intensity exercise. We studied three groups (aged 20-30, 40-50, and 60-70 years) of 10 normal subjects, who underwent one incremental and four below-gas exchange threshold constant-power cardiopulmonary exercise tests. Data from constant-power tests were time-aligned and averaged...

Phytophthora plurivora causes severe damage on Fagus sylvatica and is responsible for the extensive decline of European Beech throughout Europe. Unfortunately, no effective treatment against this disease is available. Phosphite (Phi) is known to protect plants against Phytophthora species; however, its mode of action towards P. plurivora is still unknown. To discover the effect of Phi on root i...

Prespore gene expression in Dictyostelium is induced by the interaction of cAMP with cell surface cAMP receptors. We investigated whether intracellular pH (pHi) changes mediate the induction of prespore gene expression by cAMP. It was found that cAMP induces a 0.15 unit increase in pHi within 45 min after stimulation. The cAMP-induced pHi increase precedes the induction of prespore gene express...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Prostate-Health-Index (PHI) for pathological outcome prediction following radical prostatectomy and also for biochemical recurrence prediction in comparison to established parameters such as Gleason-score, pathological tumor stage, resection status (R0/1) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Out of a cohort of 460 cases with preoperative PHI-meas...

Phosphatase holoenzyme inhibitor (PHI)-1 is one of the newest members of the family of protein phosphatase inhibitor proteins. In isolated enzyme systems, several kinases, including PKC and rho kinase (ROCK), have been shown to phosphorylate PHI-1. However, it is largely unknown whether PHI-1 is phosphorylated in response to agonist stimulation in intact cells. We investigated this question in ...

At least 18 lipopolysaccharide (LPS) extraction methods are available, and no single method is universally applicable. Here, the LPSs from four R.etli, one R.leguminosarum bv. trifolii mutant, 24AR, and the R.etli parent strain, CE3, were isolated by hot phenol/water (phi;/W), and phenol/EDTA/triethylamine (phi/EDTA/TEA) extraction. The LPS in various preparations was quantified, analyzed by de...

Using standard numerical Monte Carlo lattice methods, we study non-universal properties of the phase transition of three-dimensional straight phi(4) theory of a two-component real field phi=(phi(1),phi(2)) with O(2) symmetry. Specifically, we extract the renormalized values of /u and r/u(2) at the phase transition, where the continuum action of the theory is integral d(3)x[1/2/inverted ...