In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, sphingolipids are essential for cell growth. Inactivation of sphingolipid biosynthesis, such as by disrupting the serine palmitoyltransferase gene (LCB2), is lethal, but cells can be rescued by supplying an exogenous LCB (long-chain base) like PHS (phytosphingosine) or DHS (dihydrosphingosine). In the present study, supplying SPH (sphingosine), an unnatura...

The finite element method (FEM) is often used as the conventional method in computational geomechanics. However, dealing with the large deformation and failure is generally a difficult task for FEM since this method is suffered from grid distortions. In order to resolve this problem, the development of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate large deformation and failure of geomateria...

We study the deformation and haptic feedback of soft tissue in virtual surgery based on a liver model by using a force feedback device named PHANTOM OMNI developed by SensAble Company in USA. Although a significant amount of research efforts have been dedicated to simulating the behaviors of soft tissue and implementing force feedback, it is still a challenging problem. This paper introduces a ...

Objective. Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) utility in diagnosis in malignant and granulomatous mediastinal disease has been well demonstrated. We propose to examine the role of EBUS transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) in the diagnosis of subacute pulmonary histoplasmosis (SPH) with mediastinal lymphadenopathy in an area where histoplasmosis is endemic. Methods. A retrospective review w...

Previously, we reported that PC12 cells showed increased vulnerability to oxidative stress (OS) induced by H2O2 (as assessed by decrements in calcium recovery, i.e., the ability of cells to buffer Ca(2+) after a depolarization event) when the membrane levels of cholesterol (CHL) and sphingomyelin (SPH) were modified to approximate those seen in the neuronal membranes of old animals. The present...

PURPOSE To investigate quantitative trait loci linked to refractive error, we performed a genome-wide quantitative trait linkage analysis using single nucleotide polymorphism markers and family data from five international sites. METHODS Genomic DNA samples from 254 families were genotyped by the Center for Inherited Disease Research using the Illumina Linkage Panel IVb. Quantitative trait li...

Bacillus anthracis is nonhemolytic, even though it is closely related to the highly hemolytic Bacillus cereus. Hemolysis by B. cereus results largely from the action of phosphatidylcholine-specific phospholipase C (PC-PLC) and sphingomyelinase (SPH), encoded by the plc and sph genes, respectively. In B. cereus, these genes are organized in an operon regulated by the global regulator PlcR. B. an...

Two experiments, each consisting of 2 trials, were conducted to determine the effect of salmon protein hydrolysate (SPH) and spray-dried plasma protein (SDPP) fed during the first week postweaning and their subsequent effect on the growth performance of weanling pigs. Pigs were fed in a 3-phase feeding program with durations of 7 d for phase 1 in both Exp. 1 and 2; 14 or 15 d for phase 2 in Exp...

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a particle method to simulate compressible uids. First we present a brief introduction to SPH, where we focus on an approach to treat the physical viscosity. Then we describe in detail the basic principles of our parallel implementation of the SPH method. The eeciency of the code on Cray T3E and IBM SP2 is discussed. In the last part we present a short i...