Escherichia coli prlC gene encodes a trypsin-like proteinase regulating the cell cycle

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Mood disorders are common after stroke and may impede physical, functional, and cognitive recovery, making early identification and treatment of potential importance. We aimed to compare the accuracy of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) Scale in detecting psychiatric morbidity after stroke and to determine the most suitable cutoff points for different purposes. METHODS: One hundred five hospital-referred stroke patients completed both the GHQ-30 and HAD Scale 6 months after onset before a blinded psychiatric assessment in which the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia with some supplementary questions was used to determine a DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition) diagnosis. Measures were compared in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and receiver operating characteristic curves. RESULTS: No significant differences were found between the GHQ-30 and the HAD Scale in identifying those patients with any DSM-IV diagnosis (P=0.95), grouped depression (P=0.56), or anxiety (P=0.25) disorders. The previously recommended cutoff points for identifying "cases" for the GHQ (4/5) and for the HAD Scale (8/9 and 11/12) were found to be suboptimal in this population. CONCLUSIONS: The GHQ-30 and HAD scale exhibited similar levels of sensitivity and specificity. Data are presented, taking into account the "cost" of false-positives and negatives, to allow a choice of cutoff points suitable for differing situations.     

Relationship between donor age and the replicative lifespan of human cells in culture: a reevaluation

Normal human diploid fibroblasts have a finite replicative lifespan in vitro, which has been postulated to be a cellular manifestation of aging in vivo. Several studies have shown an inverse relationship between donor age and fibroblast culture replicative lifespan; however, in all cases, the correlation was weak, and, with few exceptions, the health status of the donors was unknown. We have determined the replicative lifespans of 124 skin fibroblast cell lines established from donors of different ages as part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. All of the donors were medically examined and were declared "healthy," according to Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging protocols, at the time the biopsies were taken. Both long- and short-lived cell lines were observed in all age groups, but no significant correlation between the proliferative potential of the cell lines and donor age was found. A comparison of multiple cell lines established from the same donors at different ages also failed to reveal any significant trends between proliferative potential and donor age. The rate of [3H]thymidine incorporation and the initial rates of growth during the first few subcultivations were examined in a subset of cell lines and were found to be significantly greater in fetal lines than in postnatal lines. Cell lines established from adults did not vary significantly either in initial growth rate or in [3H]thymidine incorporation. These results clearly indicate that, if health status and biopsy conditions are controlled, the replicative lifespan of fibroblasts in culture does not correlate with donor age.     

Quantitative analysis of metabolic gases by multichannel Raman spectroscopy: use of a newly designed elliptic-spherical integration type of cell holder

We describe the quantitative analysis of some metabolic gases bymultichannel Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectra were measured forair, acetone, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and mixed gas consisting ofacetone, ammonia, and air. We designed a new elliptic-sphericalintegration type of cell holder to obtain the Raman spectra of gaseswith a high signal-to-noise ratio. Concentrations of acetone, ammonia, and carbon dioxide were determined by the peak intensities ofRaman bands at 2940, 3228, and 1385 cm(-1), respectively. To compensate for the fluctuations of Ramanintensities caused by several factors, such as the fluctuations oflaser power, the peak intensity of a band at 2324 cm(-1) dueto nitrogen gas was used as an internal intensity standard. Thecorrelation coefficient between the corrected Raman intensity at 2940cm(-1) and the concentration of acetone was calculated to be0.984 for a concentration range of 2-12 ppm. The detection limitof acetone gas was found to be 2 ppm.     

Fluorescent heterogeneities in turbid media: limits for detection, characterization, and comparison with absorption

The fundamental limits for detection and characterization of fluorescent (phosphorescent) inhomogeneities embedded in tissuelike highly scattering turbid media are investigated. The absorption and fluorescence contrast introduced by exogenous fluorophores are also compared. Both analyses are based on practical signal-to-noise ratio considerations. For an object with fivefold fluorophore concentration and lifetime contrast with respect to the background tissue, we find the smallest detectable fluorescent object at 3-cm depth in tissuelike turbid media to be ~0.25 cm in radius, whereas the smallest characterizable object size is ~0.75 cm in radius, given a model with 1% amplitude and 0.5 degrees phase noise. We also find that, for fluorescence extinction coefficients epsilon 相似文献   

Retroreflective grating generation and analysis for surface measurement

An efficient system for retroreflective grating generation andanalysis has been constructed to measure the derivative and the contourof specular surfaces. In this system, a new optical configurationhas been provided to generate and capture a grating image with aretroreflective screen. Tests show that the system can detectindents and outdents with a maximum depth of less than 10mum. The method can be developed for automated industrialinspection and machine vision.     

Resolution improvement in microscopic imaging through turbid media based on differential polarization gating

We report a new method for microscopic imaging of an object embedded in a turbid medium, based on the differential polarization-gating mechanism. It is demonstrated that with this method, image resolution through optically thick milk suspensions can be improved by as much as 30% compared with no-gating methods. An image resolution of tens of micrometers is achieved in an optically thick turbid medium, which is approximately 10 times better than that achieved in transillumination imaging in a similar medium.     

Algorithm for the extraction of page-formatted binary digital data

We present an algorithm for fast and reliable extraction of page-formatted binary digital data. The advantages of the algorithm include a low raw bit-error rate, fast extraction speed, the use of a simple and density-efficient coding scheme, and large tolerance to a change of the signal-to-noise ratio. We used this algorithm to analyze shot-noise-limited binary data that had large interpage and intrapage intensity variations and obtained an improvement in the bit-error rate of 3-4 orders of magnitude compared with that in a single-threshold-detection scheme. Implications of our results for the development of high-speed, high-density holographic memories are discussed.     

Neural-network method applied to the stereo image correspondence problem in three-component particle image velocimetry

The successful application of a recurrent neural network of the Hopfield type to the solution of the stereo image-pair reconciliation problem in stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (PIV) in the tracking mode is described. The results of applying the network to both virtual-flow and physical-flow PIV data sets are presented, and the usefulness of this novel approach to PIV stereo image analysis is demonstrated. A partner-particle image-pair density (PPID) parameter is defined as the average number of potential particle image-pair candidates in the search window in the second view corresponding to a single image pair in the first view. A quantitative assessment of the performance of the method is then made from groups of 100 synthetic flow images at various values of the PPID. The successful pairing of complementary image points is shown to vary from 100% at a PPID of 1 and to remain greater than 97% successful for PPID's up to 5. The application of the method to a hydraulic flow is also described, with in-line stereo images presented, and the application of the neural-matching method is demonstrated for a typical data set.     

Graphic analysis of the effective reflectivity of antireflection-coated films on diode facets

The wavelength dependence of the reflectivity of AR-coated facets and carrier density in relation to peak wavelength of the gain profile have been taken into consideration to study a one-facet AR-coated semiconductor diode laser. A graphic analysis method is developed to study cases in which analytical expressions of the reflectivity curves cannot be extracted. Results show that the upper bound of the carrier density that can be established inside the diode is generally (sometimes to a considerable degree) smaller than that determined by the claimed minimum reflectivity if the spectral width of the reflectivity curve cannot be regarded as infinite. This implies that the effective reflectivity of the AR-coated facet is generally larger than the claimed minimum reflectivity. To increase the effectiveness of AR film, it is essential to maintain tight control of the wavelength at which the reflectivity curve is minimum.     

Generalized spin filtering and an improved derivative-sign binary image method for the extraction of fringe skeletons

Generalized spin filters, including several directional filters such as the directional median filter and the directional binary filter, are proposed for removal of the noise of fringe patterns and the extraction of fringe skeletons with the help of fringe-orientation maps (FOM's). The generalized spin filters can filter off noise on fringe patterns and binary fringe patterns efficiently, without distortion of fringe features. A quadrantal angle filter is developed to filter off the FOM. With these new filters, the derivative-sign binary image (DSBI) method for extraction of fringe skeletons is improved considerably. The improved DSBI method can extract high-density skeletons as well as common density skeletons.