Apoptosis as a cause of death in measles virus-infected cells

To determine the mechanism of measles virus-induced cell death, we studied the infection of Vero cells and monocytic cell lines with wild-type (Chicago-1) and vaccine (Edmonston) strains of measles virus. DNA fragmentation indicative of apoptosis was apparent by flow cytometry, agarose gel electrophoresis, and electron microscopy. Within syncytia, DNA strand breaks were demonstrated by end labeling with terminal transferase and then by visualization.     

Adaptive control of arterial blood pressure with a learningcontroller based on multilayer neural networks

The authors discuss a two-model multilayer neural network controller for adaptive control of mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) using sodium nitroprusside. A model with an autoregressive moving average (ARMA), representing the dynamics of the system, and a modified backpropagation training algorithm are used to design the control system to meet specified objectives of design (settling time and undershoot/overshoot) and clinical constraints. The controller is associated with a weighting-determinant unit (WDU) to determine and update the output weighting factor of the parallel two-model neural network for adequate control action and a control-signal modification unit (CMU) to comply with clinical constraints and to suppress the effect of adverse noise and to improve the WDU performance. Extensive computer simulations indicate satisfactory performance and robustness of the proposed controller in the presence of much noise, over the full range of plant parameters, uncertainties, and large variations of parameters     

Erbium-doped fiber amplifier second-order distortion in analog links and electronic compensation

The authors study the second-order distortion when an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is used to amplify the analog optical AM cable TV (CATV) multiple carrier signal from a directly modulated distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser. Experimentally, it was seen that this second order distortion depends critically on the gain of the EDFA fiber amplifier. The authors attribute this distortion to the interaction between the frequency chirping of the DFB laser and the variable gain with wavelength of the amplifier. The authors describe an electronic predistorter that compensates the nonlinearity produced by the DFB-laser-EDFA combination. As a result, the high power advantage of the EDFA can be fully realized in spite of the potential for second-order distortion in the system.<>     

Single nucleotide polymorphism data analysis - State-of-the-art review on this emerging field from a signal processing viewpoint

The basic structural units of the genome are nucleotides. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a mutation at a single nucleotide position. This paper discusses several major problems in SNP data analysis and review some existing solutions in this work. Generally speaking, a rich set of SNP analysis problems are cast in the signal processing framework. Our objective is to offer a state-of-the art review on this topic from a signal processing viewpoint so that researchers in the signal processing field can grasp the important domain knowledge to overcome the barrier between the two fields     

IL-1 in gingival crevicular fluid following closed root planing and papillary flap debridement

Interleukin (IL)-1 alpha and beta are cytokines which can mediate inflammatory, bone resorbing, and reparative effects in the periodontium, but few longitudinal data exist exploring their role following periodontal therapy. This study examined gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) concentrations of IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta at sites with shallow sulci (SS) or inflamed moderate/advanced pockets (M/AP) before and 6 months after treatment with closed scaling/root planing (SC/RP) or papillary flap debridement (PFD), all in the same subject (n = 14 patients). No significant differences were noted in IL-1 alpha or beta concentrations (determined with two-site enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays) between SS and M/AP sites at baseline. While both therapies improved clinical parameters of periodontal disease, IL-1 alpha concentration increased significantly (p < 0.05) in M/AP-PFD sites 6 months after treatment, but were unchanged in other groups. IL-1 beta concentrations were numerically lower after therapy, except for a significant increase (p < 0.05) in M/AP-PFD sites. These data suggest that surgical wound healing in an inflamed, plaque-infected site (M/AP-PFD) results in prolonged production of IL-1, which may be a reflection of the extent of tissue trauma and delayed wound healing. In spite of increased IL-1 levels, these sites demonstrated significant short-term improvement in clinical attachment level (+ 1.8 mm, p < or = 0.001) postoperatively.