Endothelial cells inhibit smooth muscle cell secretion of hyaluronanic acid

Initiation of apopotosis requires the conversion of procaspases to mature caspases. Here we show that oligomerization of pro-caspases is sufficient to induce proteolytic generation of mature caspase subunits and activation of their cell death activity. Deletion of the protein interaction motif DED from pro-caspase-8 greatly suppresses its apoptotic activity. Cell death activity can be restored by oligomerization of pro-caspase-8 protease domains by two heterologous inducible oligomerization systems. Induced oligomerization also activates the apoptotic activity of pro-caspase-1 but not pro-caspase-3. In vitro, oligomerization leads to pro-caspase processing to from the mature caspase subunits; this processing requires the intrinsic caspase activity of zymogens and proceeds via a novel order of cleavage events.     

Alumina supported copper nanoparticles for aziridination and cyclopropanation reactions

Alumina supported copper (Cu–Al₂O₃) nanoparticles were prepared and applied for the aziridination of olefins employing [N-(p-tolylsulfonyl)imino]phenyliodinane (PhI = NTs) as nitrene source to afford the corresponding 3-membered cyclic compounds in moderate to excellent yields. Cyclopropanation of several olefins was also carried out by using Cu–Al₂O₃ nanoparticles and ethyl diazoacetate as a carbene source. The catalyst was recovered by simple centrifugation and reused for four cycles.     

Unified analysis of switched diversity systems in independent andcorrelated fading channels

The moment generating function (MGF) of the signal power at the output of dual-branch switch-and-stay selection diversity (SSD) combiners is derived. The first-order derivative of the MGF with respect to the switching threshold is also derived. These expressions are obtained for the general case of correlated fading and nonidentical diversity branches, and hold for any common fading distributions (e.g., Rayleigh, Nakagami-m, Rician, Nakagami-q). The MGF yields the performance (bit or symbol error probability) of a broad class of coherent, differentially coherent and noncoherent digital modulation formats with SSD reception. The optimum switching threshold (in a minimum error rate sense) is obtained by solving a nonlinear equation which is formed by using the first-order derivative of the MGF. This nonlinear equation can be simplified for several special cases. For independent and identically distributed diversity branches, the optimal switching threshold in closed form is derived for three generic forms of the conditional error probability. For correlated Rayleigh or Nakagami-m fading with identical branches, the optimal switching threshold in closed form is derived for the noncoherent binary modulation formats. We show previously published results as special cases of our unified expression. Selected numerical examples are presented and discussed     

Effect of air leak on long term performance of air heater

In this paper, the effect of an air leak on the air heater performance is investigated. “Air leaking in” and “air leaking out” systems are examined. The effect of various parameters like leakage rate, mass flow rate, solar insolation, plate length and ambient temperature has been studied. The possibility that air leakage can take place from any where along the length of the collector has been incorporated in the model. It is found that, for “air leaking in” systems, efficiency goes up, while for “air leaking out” systems, efficiency decreases from the no-leak situation, and it depends on the position of the leak.     

Fast track thrombolysis in acute myocardial infarction: a quality improvement project

To understand the clinical efficacy of traditional anti-rheumatic herbal medicines on acute and severe arthritis or immune diseases, four herbal formulas and one herb were tested in vitro to determine their effects on prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and interleukin 2 (IL2). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy subjects were incubated with different concentrations of four herbal formulas including Shaur Yau Gan Tsao Tang (SYGTT), Shang Jong Shiah Tong Yong Tong Feng Wan (SJSTY), Shu Jin Lih An Saan (SJLAS), Ma Shing Yih Gan Tang (MSYGT) and one herb, Tripterygium wilfordii (T2) with and without mitogen stimulation. PGE2 and IL2 from culture supernatant were measured by enzyme immunoassay. The results showed that SYGTT, SJSTY, SJLAS at concentration of 100 microg and MSYGT at 500 microg/ml can significantly inhibit PGE2 release (P < 0.05) from mononuclear cells. However, T2 at 2 microg/ml expressed the same response. For the inhibition of IL2, the concentration of SYGTT, SJSTY and SJLAS must exceed 100 symbol microg/ml. MSYGT failed to inhibit IL2 at even concentrations of 500 microg/ml but T2 at a very low concentration (0.6 microg/ml) could strongly inhibit it. The findings suggest that the majority of traditional anti-rheumatic herbal formulas or herbs, except for T2, should not be used to treat acute and critical arthritis or immune diseases.     

Polynomials for guided scrambling line codes

Guided scrambling (GS) is a line coding technique developed specifically for high bit rate fiber optic transmission systems. This paper continues the development of GS coding by introducing more scrambling polynomials that can be used with this technique. First, a method is presented for constructing polynomials which can be used with balanced encoding. Then it is shown that these polynomials can be used as bases for large families of polynomials, an expansion whose usefulness is demonstrated with the presentation of power spectra for several code configurations. These results indicate that polynomials can be selected from these families to exercise control over average as well as worst-case statistics of the encoded bit stream, a property not available with any other single efficient, balanced line coding technique developed to date. Criteria for polynomial selection are given, and polynomials are recommended for several GS code configurations