BACKGROUND Plain pneumococcal polysaccharide (PPS) booster administered during second year of life has been shown to cause hyporesponsiveness. We assessed the effects of PPS booster on splenic memory B cell responses and persistence of PPS-specific long-lived plasma cells in the bone marrow (BM). METHODS Neonatal mice were primed subcutanously (s.c.) or intranasally (i.n.) with pneumococcal c...

Although an increasing number of hospitals are reporting net losses from the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS) for inpatient care, overall hospital facility profit rates remain stable. Hospitals that reported net profits in the Medicare inpatient PPS sector in PPS 7 (1990) had smaller increases in Medicare expenses than hospitals that reported PPS losses in PPS 7. Medicare PPS inpatient...

Pine polyphenols (PPs) are bioactive dietary constituents that enhance health and help prevent diseases through antioxidants. Antioxidants reduce the level of oxidative damages caused by ionizing radiation (IR). The main purpose of this paper is to study the protective effect of PPs on peripheral blood, liver and spleen injuries in mice induced by IR. ICR (Institute of Cancer Research) male mic...

Periodic elements play important roles in genomic structures and functions, yet some complex periodic elements in genomes are difficult to detect by conventional methods such as digital signal processing and statistical analysis. We propose a periodic power spectrum (PPS) method for analyzing periodicities of DNA sequences. The PPS method employs periodic nucleotide distributions of DNA sequenc...

0. Introduction This paper addresses one of the linking problems involving prepositional phrases (PPs) especially those involving beneficiary for, and argues that such PPs are best analyzed as adjunct PPs. In this paper I propose that external predication is more appropriate for these PPs than Wechsler's (1995) argument-annexing approach. The argument and analysis put forth in this paper assume...

BACKGROUND The Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) was first introduced in1996 as a new tool for measurement of performance status in palliative care. PPS has been used in many countries and has been translated into other languages. METHODS This study evaluated the reliability and validity of PPS. A web-based, case scenarios study with a test-retest format was used to determine reliability. Fi...

Pentosan polysulfate sodium (PPS) has a heparin-like structure and is purificated from the plant of European beech wood. PPS has been used for the treatment of interstitial cystitis for human patients. Recent years, it was newly recognised that PPS reduce pain and inflammation of OA. The molecular biological mechanism of PPS to express its clinical effects is not fully understood. The purpose o...