Proteolytic activities of ventral muscle and intestinal content of North Sea herring (Clupea harengus) with full and emptied stomachs

The aim of the work was to examine the effect of allowing herring (Clupea harengus) to empty the stomachs prior to being taken on board the fishing vessels, on the proteolytic activities in extracts of ventral muscle and of intestinal content. The proteolytic activities were examined by gelatin zymography and by incubating the extracts with isolated myosin heavy chain (MHC) protein. Extracts from herring with full stomachs showed strong gelatinolytic and MHC degrading activities particularly in extracts from intestinal contents. Extracts from fish that had been allowed to empty their digestive system for 19 h had reduced activities, which was most noticeable in the ventral muscle extracts. The activities from the ventral muscle did not originate endogenously post-mortem, as shown by the fact that ice storage for 24 h of isolated ventral muscle did not display the activities, while ventral muscle extract from ice-stored whole fish for 24 h did.     

ICT implementation in the health-care sector: effective stakeholders’ engagement as the main precondition of change sustainability

As modern information and communication technologies (ICT) now offer new possibilities for improving almost every aspect of health care, their implementation is a very relevant and fast accelerating process around Europe and internationally. The processes themselves vary greatly from scattered single initiatives of various IT solutions to large national programmes. Often treated as purely technical in nature, ICT implementation in health care should gravitate towards the “softer/complex” i.e. people-related issues end of the change. The approach taken by the Informing Healthcare programme in Wales broadens understanding on the value that engagement of stakeholders can bring to the process.

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The effects of Si and expanded PTFE substrates on formation and hydrogenation of Mg and Mg–Ti films

In this work, we investigated how DC and pulsed DC Ar gas plasma treatment changes surface topography and chemical composition of silicon and expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) substrates and how different surface pretreatment techniques can affect the formation and hydrogenation of Mg and Mg–Ti films. It is observed that pre-treating Si and ePTFE substrates with different plasma modes results in significant changes of microstructures of as-deposited Mg and Mg–Ti films. After the hydrogenation of Mg films at 20 bar H₂ pressure and 180 °C temperature the formation of crystalline MgH₂ phase is observed only for the films deposited on plasma non-treated Si substrates which had the films with smallest dimensions of its columnar structure. It is known that, usually, Ti additives has positive effect on hydrogenation properties of Mg, but in this study independently of the used substrate pre-treatment technique after the hydrogenation of Mg–Ti films their XRD analysis showed no peaks of the crystalline hydride phase. However, depending on the surface properties of the substrate after hydrogenation Mg–Ti films also have several disparities which are discussed and attributed to the potentially related substrate features.     

Polyaniline fibres as electrodes.: Electrochemical characterisation in acid solutions

Polyaniline fibre microelectrodes prepared from a doped solution of polyaniline protonated with 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulphonic acid in dichloracetic acid were characterized electrochemically for the first time. Low scan rate cyclic voltammetry was used for characterisation in different acid electrolyte solutions, hydrochloric, nitric, perchloric, sulphuric and phosphoric, at low pH values with varying positive potential limits. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was also utilised. The electrochemical behaviour of polyaniline (PANI) fibres was found to be similar to that of PANI films obtained by electropolymerisation on metallic electrode substrates. The conduction potential window was found to be from +0.20 to +0.60 V versus SCE, with small variations in the different acid solutions as well as with pH. The standard electrochemical redox couple hexacyanoferrate(III), was found to behave quasi-reversibly in the conduction potential region and rate constants were evaluated.     

Quality-focused resource allocation for resilient 5G network

Photonic Network Communications - The upcoming 5G cellular wireless network brings new challenges and problematic issues in providing services with different quality of service (QoS) requirements...     

Effects of polyglycolic acid and polypropylene meshes on postoperative adhesion formation in mice

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of polyglycolic acid (PGA), an absorbable (ABS) mesh, and polypropylene (PP), a nonabsorbable (NA) mesh, on intestinal adhesion formation. Altogether 72 mice were divided into a control group of 24, an ABS mesh group of 23, and an NA mesh group of 25. All three groups were divided into two subgroups for evaluation of adhesion severity at postoperative (po) days 5 and 90. Adhesion severity was measured with adhesion grading and tissue hydroxyproline (OHP) levels. Adhesion degree was minimal (1) in all subjects on day 5. Also there was no difference in tissue OHP levels between three groups on day 5 (p > 0.05). Adhesion degree and tissue OHP levels as determinants of adhesion severity were higher in the PGA mesh group than the control group and the PP mesh group on day 90 (p < 0.001). There was no difference between the control group and the PP mesh groups (p > 0.05). Adhesion degree was higher on day 90 than on day 5 in the control group and the PGA mesh group (p < 0.05), whereas tissue OHP level was higher on day 90 than on day 5 in all three groups (p < 0.001). Also there was linear correlation between adhesion degree and tissue OHP levels (r = 0.86, p < 0.001). The study demonstrates that ABS PGA mesh has higher potential for adhesion formation than the NA PP mesh, probably related to the increased foreign body and inflammatory reactions during the absorption process of the mesh.