Trp64Arg mutation of beta 3-adrenergic receptor and insulin sensitivity in subjects with glucose intolerance

We investigated the relationship between the Trp64Arg mutation in the beta 3-adrenergic receptor gene and insulin sensitivity, which was evaluated by the euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic-clamp technique, in 54 patients with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) who were not receiving insulin therapy. The frequencies of Trp/Trp, Trp/Arg, and Arg/Arg genotypes in the patients were 63.0, 33.3, and 3.7%, respectively, which did not differ significantly from those of the 227 controls (67.0, 33.3, and 3.7%, respectively, which did not differ significantly from those of the 227 controls (67.0, 31.3, and 1.8%, respectively). The mean glucose infusion rate of the 34 patients with Trp/Trp did not differ from that of the 18 patients with Trp/Arg (4.3 +/- 2.2 and 5.3 +/- 2.4 mg/kg/min, respectively); while that of the 2 patients with Arg/Arg was 11.5 mg/kg/min. There were no differences in the BMI or fat distribution in the abdomen between each genotype of patients, although the frequency of the Arg64 allele tended to increase with body mass index (BMI) in the control subjects under 60 years of age, which suggests that the mutation is involved in weight gain.     

板级式屏蔽有利于噪音环境

今天越来越多的便携式设备使用板级式屏蔽,这些屏蔽主要是防止电磁干扰的接地金属保护外壳,它们一般装在干扰电路上并直接被焊在PCB板上。这样,电路板从外部环境中所受到的干扰就会大大的减小或者消除。手提产品的尺寸要求越来越小而成本又要下降,所以必然大量的采用板级式屏蔽。对于频率大于或接近1GHz的系统,电磁兼容性能将会通过屏蔽而得以提高,是一个高效而经济的方法。然而,为了系统性能得到最大的提高,设计时必须考虑尽可能多的因素。设计时首先要放弃一些很多设计者曾学过的屏蔽理论。但是记住一些知识还是必要的,如反射/吸收的定…     

Photoluminescence and scintillation properties of Eu2O3–BaO–Nb2O5–TeO2 glass and glass ceramics

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - 1Eu2O3–3BaO–20Nb2O5–76TeO2 glass and the corresponding glass-ceramics were synthesized with the aim to investigate the...     

Cyclosporin A inhibits the decrease of CD4/CD8 expression induced by protein kinase C activation

Cyclosporin A (CsA) is a powerful immunosuppressive drug widely used in transplantation medicine. A major effect of CsA is inhibition of the differentiation of immature double-positive (DP) CD4+ CD8+ thymocytes into mature single-positive (SP) CD4+ CD8- or CD4- CD8+ thymocytes. The mechanisms underlying the changes in CD4/CD8 expression during normal differentiation of thymocytes and the way CsA interferes with this differentiation process are still unknown. Here we show that protein kinase C (PKC) activation by phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) causes a decrease of both CD4 and CD8 expression at the cell surface level and at the mRNA level in a CD4+ CD8+ T cell line and in freshly isolated thymocytes. A PKC inhibitor, staurosporin, interferes with the differentiation from DP to SP in fetal thymus organ culture system. These data suggest that the alternation of CD4/CD8 expression from DP to SP is dependent on PKC activation. CsA blocks this decrease of CD4/CD8 expression by PMA in vitro. Moreover, this PMA effect is also blocked by treatment with cycloheximide. These results suggest that the reduction of CD4/CD8 expression requires de novo synthesis of a protein(s) induced in response to a signal conveyed by activated PKC. CsA may block the transition from DP to SP by inhibition of CD4/CD8 down-regulation induced by PKC activation.     

Potential based routing as a secondary best-effort routing for Information Centric Networking (ICN)

One challenge to the retrieval process of ICN is to take advantage of largely distributed copies in in-network caches. This paper proposes Potential Based Routing (PBR) as a secondary best-effort routing mechanism to boost availability of copies in ICN architectures. The control overhead issue of the PBR is evaluated through both theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. In addition, the paper provides the PBR with a recovery mechanism from a failure, which can reduce the control overhead traffic by at least 40% in the simulation environment. Lastly, it is demonstrated how an ICN architecture can benefit from this PBR in terms of cache hit and delay reduction ratios.     

IL-5 receptor positive B cells, but not eosinophils, are functionally and numerically influenced in mice carrying the X-linked immune defect

Mouse IL-5 (mIL-5) acts on B cells and eosinophils to induce growth and differentiation through the mIL-5 specific receptor (mIL-5R). The functional high-affinity mIL-5R is a heterodimer composed of alpha and beta chains. We investigated the expression of mIL-5R and the responsiveness of B cells and eosinophils to mIL-5 in X-linked immunodeficient (xid) mice. mIL-5R expression analyzed by using mAbs specific for alpha and beta chains revealed that xid B cells had fewer mIL-5R alpha +mIL-5R beta + than BALB/c B cells. In particular, a decrease in the number of peritoneal mIL-5R+ B cells among Ly-1 B cells (known as B-1 cells) was remarkable. Furthermore, the frequency of precursors of mIL-5 responsive B cells in xid mice was approximately 100-fold lower than that of BALB/c mice. Interestingly, sorted mIL-5R+ peritoneal B cells from xid mice displayed a low response to mIL-5. Intraperitoneal injection of mIL-5 into BALB/c mice induced polyclonal IgM production and an increase in the number of eosinophils. The same regimen failed to induce an increase in the same parameters in xid mice. However, xid mice showed mIL-5-induced eosinophilia in peripheral blood to a similar extent as BALB/c mice. Eosinophils from mIL-5-injected xid mice expressed both alpha and beta chains of mIL-5, and responded to mIL-5 with prolonged in vitro survival.     

Effects of lecithinized superoxide dismutase on rat spinal cord injury

T cell interaction with antigenic peptides leads to signal transduction and activation events in the effector cells. Recent studies of T cell responses to subtle variants of antigenic peptides can lead to alterations in the activation state of T cells. A variety of physiological roles for altered peptide ligands have recently been postulated, and their potential therapeutic applications have generated considerable interest. This review summarizes progress made in understanding the T cell signal transduction pathways and the nature of T cell responses to altered peptide ligands. Our recent observation of a self peptide as a partial agonist for a cytotoxic T cell clone directed to a foreign antigen suggests that naturally occurring altered peptide ligands may be important in regulating T cell mediated immune response.     

Optical implementation of spectral filtering for the enhancement of skin color discrimination

Light reflected from an object contains a range of information about its physical and chemical properties. Changes in the physical properties of an object can sometimes be evident as barely detectable changes of color. Our earlier study (Proceedings of the 15th Color Imaging Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2007. p 195–200) proposed a method for designing a spectral filter to enhance visual discrimination. Two filters were designed: one to discriminate skin and vein colors on human arms, and other to discriminate human facial colors in the presence and absence of cosmetics. In this study, the filters with theoretically designed spectral transmittances were implemented as real optical filters. Visual inspection of RGB color images taken with a digital camera through the developed optical filters showed clear enhancement of discrimination of two preselected colors. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2012     

Tl-concentration dependence of photoluminescence and scintillation properties in Tl-doped RbI single crystals

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Photoluminescence and scintillation properties of RbI single crystals with various Tl-concentrations (0.1%, 0.3%, 1%, and 3%) were...