Aortic cross-clamping influences regional net release and uptake rates of tissue-type plasminogen activator in pigs

BACKGROUND: The key regulator of intravascular fibrinolysis, tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), is released from a dynamic endothelial storage pool. The aim of the study was to investigate regional t-PA net release and uptake rates in response to infra-renal aortic cross-clamping (AXC) and declamping (DC). METHODS: Anesthetized pigs were studied during 5 min of AXC, followed by a 35-min declamping (DC) period. Arterio-venous concentration gradients of total and active t-PA, as well as respective plasma flows, were simultaneously obtained across the preportal, hepatic, coronary and pulmonary vascular beds. Plasma levels of total t-PA (ELISA with purified porcine t-PA as standard), and active t-PA (spectrophotometric functional assay) were determined. RESULTS: Prior to AXC, we found a high net release rate of total t-PA across the preportal vascular bed (1700 ng.min-1 P < 0.001), and a high hepatic net uptake (4900 ng.min-1, P < 0.001), while coronary and pulmonary t-PA net fluxes were small and variable. AXC per se did not induce significant alterations in net fluxes of t-PA. Following DC, preportal and coronary net releases of total t-PA increased (to 2900 ng.min-1 and 60 ng.min-1, respectively). Despite an increase in hepatic net uptake of total t-PA (to 6100 ng.min-1) after DC, a significant increase in hepatic venous total t-PA occurred. CONCLUSIONS: The release and uptake of t-PA is indicated to be dynamic and organ-specific. DC induces an acute profibrinolytic reaction in preportal organs. The high hepatic t-PA uptake capacity restricts preportal profibrinolytic events to affect the systemic circulation.     

Analysis of regioisomers of triacylglycerols of northern currant seed oil by tandem mass spectrometry

Currant oils have special health properties due to their moderate contents of α‐linolenic, γ‐linolenic and stearidonic acids. The distribution of fatty acids (FA) in the triacylglycerols (TAG) may affect the beneficial effects. Seed oils of wild northern red currant (NRC) (Ribes spicatum L.) from Northern Finland and of wild alpine currant (AC) (R. alpinum L.) from the South‐West coast of Finland were investigated. The purified TAG were analysed by tandem mass spectrometry by applying the ammonia negative ion chemical ionisation – collision‐induced dissociation method. Molecular weight fractions rich in C18:3 FA and C18:4 FA were investigated. Of the total oil, the molecular weight species 54:7 (ACN:DB), 54:8 and 54:9 were more abundant in NRC than in AC, being 21.0%, 15.8%, 7.4% and 16.2%, 11.2%, 4.8%, respectively (p <0.05). The species 52:6 was more abundant in AC (3.1%) than in NRC (2.6%) (p <0.05). The preferential order of FA to be in the sn‐2 position in both berries was typically C18:1 > C18:2 > C18:4 > C18:3. No difference was observed between relative locations of C16:0 FA and C18:3 FA in either of the oils. Within the TAG consisting of FA combinations C18:3/C18:3/C18:1 (54:7), C18:1 was more preferentially in the sn‐2 position (p <0.05) in AC (93.2%) than in NRC (74.6%), and in the case of C18:3, the preference was vice versa. Within the molecular weight species 54:9, FA combination C18:4/C18:3/C18:2, linoleic acid preferentially occupied the secondary position (p <0.005) in both berries, and the proportion of the TAG regioisomer pair sn‐C18:3‐C18:4‐C18:2 + sn‐C18:2‐C18:4‐C18:3 was more abundant (30.2%) in NRC than in AC (15.3%). Within the TAG species 52:6, proportions of all the existing combinations, C16:0/C18:3/C18:3, C16:0/C18:4/C18:2 and C16:1/C18:3/C18:2, varied between the two berry species (p <0.005).     

Estimation of Rock Aggregates Quality Using Analyses of Drill Cuttings

There is a need for an effective method to estimate the quality of crushed rock aggregates and its usability in the early stages of project planning, e.g., for road and railway constructions and quarry prospecting. The proposed method is based on mineralogical and petrographic analyses of drill cuttings and analysis of the coarse fraction to estimate the homogeneity/heterogeneity of the bedrock. The geological analyses are followed by an estimation of the rock materials’ mechanical properties and their potential technical usability. Development and practical applicability (field and laboratory) of the method have been performed and correlated to three road projects from regions of different geological and climatic zones in Sweden. The study confirms the capability of the proposed method as a surveying tool.     

The influence of porous silicon on axonal outgrowth in vitro.

xonal outgrowth on smooth and porous silicon surfaces was studied in organ culture. The pore size of the silicon substrata varied between 100 and 1500 nm. We found that axons preferred to grow and elongate on porous silicon surfaces only when pores of (150-500 nm) are available.     

Calculated thermal expansion of the actinide elements

The linear thermal expansion coefficient is calculated for the early actinides thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium, and plutonium for a hypothetical fcc crystal structure. The relativistic spin-orbit interaction is included in these calculations. We show that the spin-orbit splitting of the 5f band gives rise to a considerable increase in the thermal expansion and, to a large extent, explains the anomalously large thermal expansion for these elements.Paper presented at the Tenth International Thermal Expansion Symposium, June 6–7, 1989, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.     

Reconstruction of nonuniformly sampled bandlimited signals by means of digital fractional delay filters

This paper considers the problem of reconstructing a class of nonuniformly sampled bandlimited signals of which a special case occurs in, e.g., time-interleaved analog-to-digital converter (ADC) systems due to time-skew errors. To this end, we propose a synthesis system composed or digital fractional delay filters. The overall system (i.e., nonuniform sampling and the proposed synthesis system) can be viewed as a generalization of time-interleaved ADC systems to which the former reduces as a special case. Compared with existing reconstruction techniques, our method has major advantages from an implementation point of view. To be precise, (1) we can perform the reconstruction as well as desired (in a certain sense) by properly designing the digital fractional delay filters, and (2) if properly implemented, the fractional delay filters need not be redesigned in case the time skews are changed. The price to pay for these attractive features is that we need to use a slight oversampling. It should be stressed, however, that the oversampling factor is less than two as compared with the Nyquist rate. The paper includes error and quantization noise analysis. The former is useful in the analysis of the quantization noise and when designing practical fractional delay filters approximating the ideal filters.     

Realization of an active inductance for a low power high bandwidth DC power line communication network transceiver

An active inductor based on an improved gyrator circuit is proposed. The active inductor is developed to be implemented in a high impedance transceiver for a wearable DC power line communication network where requirements such as low power consumption, high bandwidth and numerous nodes support are prioritized. A load isolation step is introduced to ensure the stability of the active inductance's size on different load currents. The proposed gyrator circuit is analyzed and optimized by means of theoretical calculations. The theoretical results are then verified by simulations and experiments in the frequency range up to 10 MHz.     

Two Classes of Cosine-Modulated IIR/IIR and IIR/FIR NPR Filter Banks

This paper introduces two classes of cosine-modulated causal and stable filter banks (FBs) with near perfect reconstruction (NPR) and low implementation complexity. Both classes have the same infinite-length impulse response (IIR) analysis FB but different synthesis FBs utilizing IIR and finite-length impulse response (FIR) filters, respectively. The two classes are preferable for different types of specifications. The IIR/FIR FBs are preferred if small phase errors relative to the magnitude error are desired, and vice versa. The paper provides systematic design procedures so that PR can be approximated as closely as desired. It is demonstrated through several examples that the proposed FB classes, depending on the specification, can have a lower implementation complexity compared to existing FIR and IIR cosine-modulated FBs (CMFBs). The price to pay for the reduced complexity is generally an increased delay. Furthermore, two additional attractive features of the proposed FBs are that they are asymmetric in the sense that one of the analysis and synthesis banks has a lower computational complexity compared to the other, which can be beneficial in some applications, and that the number of distinct coefficients is small, which facilitates the design of FBs with large numbers of channels.     

Effects of flour from different barley varieties on barley sour dough bread

Twenty flours from 16 different barley varieties cultivated in 1990 and 1992, and a Swedish reference flour, were fermented by Lactobacillus plantarum A1 to sour doughs. Barley breads (40% barley/60% wheat flour) from each flour type were baked with and without an admixture of barley sour dough in order to investigate how the sour dough admixture would affect the baking properties. A trained panel carried out sensory evaluation by conventional profiling on breads made from three of the barley varieties and the Swedish reference flour, made with and without sour dough admixture.

The barley varieties influenced both the sour dough properties and the properties of the barley bread. The pH of bread with sour dough ranged from 4.6 to 4.8 as compared to 5.4 to 5.6 in bread without sour dough. The acidity of the breads with sour dough ranged from 4.1 to 5.0 ml NaOH/ 10 g bread crumb as compared to 2.4 to 3.6 in breads without sour dough. In 14 of the twenty bread types an addition of sour dough lowered the bread volume. Breads with a sour dough admixture scored higher for total taste and acidulous taste than breads without sour dough. The β-glucan content of the flours had no significant influence on the sour dough or the sensory characteristics of the bread, except for the breadcrumb colour.