Modeling the impact of interferon alfa treatment on liver fibrosis progression in chronic hepatitis C: a dynamic view. The Multivirc Group

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Impact of hepatitis C treatment has never taken into account the dynamics of fibrosis progression. This study assessed the impact of interferon on liver fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis C according to 3-month aminotransferase activity response. METHODS: We recruited 287 patients, 185 treated and 102 control, with paired biopsy specimens. Before follow-up, the fibrosis progression rate per year was estimated as the ratio between fibrosis stage in METAVIR units (1 U, 1 stage; 4 U, cirrhosis) and the duration of infection. During follow-up, fibrosis progression was assessed by the observed difference between stages divided by duration between biopsies. RESULTS: The median fibrosis progression rate in treated patients decreased compared with the rate before treatment from 0.103 F METAVIR U/yr (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.087-0.120) to 0.000 (95% CI, 0.000-0.000; P 相似文献   

The effects of repeated experience on children's suggestibility.

The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year old and 6- to 8-year old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical items) as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accurate and less contaminated by false suggestions. For variable items, repeated experience led to a decline in memory of the specific occurrence; however, there was no increase in susceptibility to suggestions about details from nontarget occurrences. Although younger children and children who were interviewed a while after the event were more suggestible, respectively, than older children and those interviewed soon after the event, repeated experience attenuated these effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In vitro and in vivo evidence for a satiating effect of fish protein hydrolysate obtained from blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) muscle

To find appetite suppressive molecules derived from fish protein hydrolysates, both in vitro and in vivo experiments were performed in order to demonstrate that hydrolysates produced from blue whiting muscle (BWMH) possess satiating properties. Here we demonstrated for the first time that a protein hydrolysate obtained from marine source was able to enhance cholecystokinin (CCK) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) secretion in STC-1 cell line. To demonstrate that these in vitro activities also exist in vivo, we investigated the effect of BWMH preload administration in rats and its repercussion on food intake and metabolic plasma marker levels. Results showed that BWMH reduced the short term food intake which was correlated to an increase in the CCK and GLP-1 plasma levels. Moreover it was demonstrated that the chronic administration of BWMH led to a decrease in the body weight gain.     

Migration strategy towards Q3 interfaces of switching systems : a look at France Telecom switches

Future telecommunication management network (TMN) will be based upon object-oriented modelling of interfaces. Nevertheless, in case of public switched telephone network, this process will be long and difficult. However, as current interfaces are not completely satisfactory, some evolution steps from today’s interfaces towards tomorrow’sTMN ones are planned. This paper presents the different steps chosen by France Telecom. At first, introduction of a new protocol as close as possible to the target Q3 is detailed. Unification of the different heterogeneous commands is then shown through creation of standard commands, last, integration toTMN through Q-adaptor is presented.     

On the stability of collocation methods for the two-dimensional Burgers equation — The Fourier case

We investigate Fourier collocation approximations of the evolutionary twodimensional Burgers equation. The numerical schemes are not required to be semi-conservative. We obtain stability estimates in theH ¹() norm that are uniform in time. Our results show that collocation techniques do not yield instability, at least if the resolution is fine enough.     

Temporal reasoning about fuzzy intervals

Traditional approaches to temporal reasoning assume that time periods and time spans of events can be accurately represented as intervals. Real-world time periods and events, on the other hand, are often characterized by vague temporal boundaries, requiring appropriate generalizations of existing formalisms. This paper presents a framework for reasoning about qualitative and metric temporal relations between vague time periods. In particular, we show how several interesting problems, like consistency and entailment checking, can be reduced to reasoning tasks in existing temporal reasoning frameworks. We furthermore demonstrate that all reasoning tasks of interest are NP-complete, which reveals that adding vagueness to temporal reasoning does not increase its computational complexity. To support efficient reasoning, a large tractable subfragment is identified, among others, generalizing the well-known ORD Horn subfragment of the Interval Algebra (extended with metric constraints).     

A study on overhead glare in office lighting conditions

Abstract— High‐intensity light sources illuminating the human eye may create discomfort glare, or at higher intensities even disability glare. In many office lighting conditions, light from overhead luminaires in the ceiling may deliver stray light into human eyes, and as such create discomfort glare, generally referred to as overhead glare. In this paper, overhead glare for a LED luminaire comprising a matrix array of small LED sources using subjective evaluation methodologies and theoretical models, commonly accepted to evaluate glare, were investigated. The perceived overhead glare of the LED luminaire is evaluated at various luminance levels and at different angles (i.e., between 55 and 90°) with respect to the line of sight of the viewer. The results show that a luminaire comprising a matrix of high‐intensity point sources can cause overhead glare and can become glary at lower averaged luminance levels than a luminaire with a uniform light source even at high evaluation angles with respect to the line of sight of the viewer. In addition, the conventional UGR model for predicting discomfort glare needs adaptation for a reliable prediction of perceived overhead glare of complex LED luminaires consisting of a matrix of small‐sized high‐intensity light sources.     

Proteomic analysis of BRCA1-depleted cell line reveals a putative role for replication protein A2 up-regulation in BRCA1 breast tumor development

Purpose : Germline mutations in BRCA1 result in a strong predisposition to breast cancer, with frequent loss of heterozygosity of the remaining wild‐type allele. The development of BRCA1 tumors is likely to depend on additional genetic alterations and gene expression changes which follow growth and DNA repair defects associated with BRCA1 deficiency. The identification of these modifications offers an opportunity to find surrogate markers of BRCA1 tumors. Here, we sought to identify differentially expressed proteins related to BRCA1 depletion. Experimental design : We used isogenic HeLa cells either stably knocked‐down or not for BRCA1 (BRCA1^KD) and compared protein profiles of these cells by DIGE. Results : We detected increased levels of Replication protein A2 (RPA2) in BRCA1^KD cells as compared to control cells. RPA2 is an essential protein required for DNA replication and repair. We further demonstrated that depletion of RPA2 subunit delays growth of BRCA1^KD respect to isogenic control cells. Strikingly, elevated levels of RPA2 were more frequently observed in BRCA1 tumors when triple‐negative tumors from BRCA1 mutation carriers (n=13) and non‐carriers (n=36) were stained in situ for RPA2. Conclusions and clinical relevance : RPA2 up‐regulation may thus be involved in the growth and/or survival of BRCA1 tumor cells and useful in immunohistochemical discrimination of triple‐negative BRCA1 tumors.     

Molecular Regulation of Canalicular ABC Transporters

The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters expressed at the canalicular membrane of hepatocytes mediate the secretion of several compounds into the bile canaliculi and therefore play a key role in bile secretion. Among these transporters, ABCB11 secretes bile acids, ABCB4 translocates phosphatidylcholine and ABCG5/G8 is responsible for cholesterol secretion, while ABCB1 and ABCC2 transport a variety of drugs and other compounds. The dysfunction of these transporters leads to severe, rare, evolutionary biliary diseases. The development of new therapies for patients with these diseases requires a deep understanding of the biology of these transporters. In this review, we report the current knowledge regarding the regulation of canalicular ABC transporters’ folding, trafficking, membrane stability and function, and we highlight the role of molecular partners in these regulating mechanisms.     

The interfacial reaction of modified poly (arylether sulfone)s and polyaramides

It is shown that a fracture test using an asymmetric double cantilever beam test geometry is a powerful tool to study the effect of interfacial reactions on the improvement of the interfacial fracture toughness (G_c) of immiscible polymer systems. The G_c values between a partially aromatic polyamide (PA) and a poly(arylether sulfone) (PSU) can be increased significantly when reactive PSUs are used which are obtained by grafting with maleic anhydride by introducing pyromellitic anhydride end-groups or by introducing carboxylic acid groups via copolymerization. Optical and atomic force microscopy investigations of the fracture surfaces show different failure mechanisms for weak and strong interfaces. For weak interfaces it was possible to determine the crack opening geometry using interference microscopy. For significantly reinforced interfaces rib marking lines on the PSU fracture surface can be observed. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements reveal that with increasing toughness of the interface more and more cohesive failure of the PA occurs. This results in an increasing amount of nitrogen detected on the PSU fracture surface and simultaneously no sulfur is detected on the PA fracture surface. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polm Sci 65: 567–579, 1997