Baclofen: intestinal absorption mechanism in mice

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystem organ disease, and involvement of the gastrointestinal system is relatively rare. We describe a 13-year-old girl who presented initially with abdominal pain, diarrhea, edema, and hypoalbuminemia. She was diagnosed with protein losing enteropathy (PLE) based on the significant increase of alpha 1-antitrypsin clearance in the stool. Two weeks after admission she developed clinical and serological findings that fulfilled the ACR criteria for SLE. Over 22 cases of lupus associated PLE have now been reported, but only 3 in children. Children with PLE should be evaluated for SLE. In addition, PLE should be suspected as a possible cause of unexplained edema and/or hypoalbuminemia in SLE.     

Antitubercular activity of lomefloxacin in an experiment

The effect of lomefloxacin was studied on mice with experimental infection due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The antibiotic was administered in doses of 100 and 200 mg/kg. It was shown that the use of lomefloxacin for a month provided a lower death rate of the animals with progressing acute generalized tuberculosis, a lower level of the lesions in the internal organs and a lower number of the Mycobacterium isolates from them. The efficacy of the treatment depended on the drug dose. When lomefloxacin was used in a dose of 200 mg/kg, the survival rate was much higher and the number of the epithelial unicellular granulomas in the tissue of the lung and spleen was markedly decreased while with the lower dose the indices did not differ from those in the control.     

Recombination-induced variants of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 with increased solvent production

Three sporulation-specific genes (orfA, sigE, sigG) from clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 are arranged in a cluster, encoding the putative sigma E-processing enzyme, sigma E, and sigma sigma G respectively. When they were transformed into Clostridium acetobutylicum while on a plasmid functional in this organism, transformants did not survive. Three kinds of recombinations were then attempted with nonreplicative plasmids: duplication of orfA and sigE, replacement of all of the three genes, and inactivation of orfA. While the wild-type strain ceased to grow and produce solvents in batch cultures after approximately 24 h, mutant strains were isolated that showed sustained growth for a much longer time and produced a threefold increase in acetone and butanol in test tube cultures. In addition, one of the derived strains showed a significantly higher growth rate. Features of the restriction maps of the recombinants did not correlate with expected maps, indicating possible complications occurring during the recombination events.     

Conversion of acrylonitrile-based precursors to carbon fibres

The progress of stabilization of two compositions of acrylic fibres with various orientations has been followed by a variety of techniques. The thermooxidative treatments for stabilization have been carried out in a continuous process and also in a batch process under free shrinkage, constant length and constant tension conditions. The morphological model of acrylic fibres consists of an alternating sequence of laterally ordered and laterally disordered regions along the fibre direction. This structure is consistent with the observations based on small-angle X-ray scattering of copper- impregnated precursor fibres and thermomechanical response, thermal stress development, calorimetry, wide- and small-angle X-ray scattering and sonic modu-lus measured at different extents of stabilization. Lateral as well as orientational order in these fibres can be increased markedly through a high-temperature deformation process prior to stabilization. An increase in perfection and extent of order is observed in the early stages of stabilization. There is also a simultaneous decrease in the orientation of the disordered phase at this stage and the extent of this decrease depends on the axial constraints imposed on the fibre. Little difference in the rate of stabilization is observed as measured by density or oxygen uptake for fibres with different extents of orientation, lateral order or restraint. Fibres containing itaconic add, a stabilization catalyst did show an increased rate of stabilization. Inferences have been drawn regarding additional research pertaining to achieving high order in precursor fibres, minimizing orientational relaxation during oxidative stabilization, and the techniques for monitoring the extents of the stabilization treatment and the changes in relevant morphological parameters.     

Optimized hydrogen positions for aluminium and iron containing hydroxide minerals

The structures of a number of hydroxide and oxyhydroxide minerals have previously been reported without the hydrogen positions explicitly defined. Here we use two atomic scale computer simulation techniques, one based on classical ionic potentials, the other on density functional theory (DFT), to predict these positions. The aim is not only to provide data that can be used as the basis for future experimental structure optimizations but also model parameters that can be used to predict complex hydroxide structures. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated through the comparison of predicted and experimental data for minerals whose hydrogen positions are known.     

Spotlight mode SAR stereo technique for height computation

This paper examines the feasibility of extracting three-dimensional (3-D) or topographic information in spotlight mode stereo synthetic aperture radar (SAR). A display of a SAR (intensity) image has two axes: range and cross-range. Elevated scatterers appear closer in range; this phenomenon is called radar image layover. How the height of each scatterer can be computed from the difference in its layover between two images is investigated. This is analogous to computing height from disparity distance (triangulation) in optical stereo. The same procedure can be applied on pixel by pixel basis for terrain elevation mapping. A general expression is derived for the accuracy of the height estimate as a function of the range resolution and the angular difference between the image planes. Accuracy increases as the angle between the image planes increases, but the bright scatterers in one image tend to fade in the other image. This limited angular persistence of radar scatterers is also discussed. Trajectories for data collection are examined that provide near-optimal height estimates while eliminating the scatterer persistency problem.     

Regulation in the heart field of zebrafish

In many vertebrates, removal of early embryonic heart precursors can be repaired, leaving the heart and embryo without visible deficit. One possibility is that this 'regulation' involves a cell fate switch whereby cells, perhaps in regions surrounding normal progenitors, are redirected to the heart cell fate. However, the lineage and spatial relationships between cells that are normal heart progenitors and those that can assume that role after injury are not known, nor are their molecular distinctions. We have adapted a laser-activated technique to label single or small patches of cells in the lateral plate mesoderm of the zebrafish and to track their subsequent lineage. We find that the heart precursor cells are clustered in a region adjacent to the prechordal plate, just anterior to the notochord tip. Complete unilateral ablation of all heart precursors with a laser does not disrupt heart development, if performed before the 18-somite stage. By combining extirpation of the heart precursors with cell labeling, we find that cells anterior to the normal cardiogenic compartments constitute the source of regulatory cells that compensate for the loss of the progenitors. One of the earliest embryonic markers of the premyocardial cells is the divergent homeodomain gene, Nkx2.5. Interestingly, normal cardiogenic progenitors derive from only the anterior half of the Nkx2.5-expressing region in the lateral plate mesoderm. The posterior half, adjacent to the notochord, does not include cardiac progenitors and the posterior Nkx2.5-expressing cells do not contribute to the heart, even after ablation of the normal cardiogenic region. The cells that can acquire a cardiac cell fate after injury to the normal progenitors also reside near the prechordal plate, but anterior to the Nkx2.5-expressing domain. Normally they give rise to head mesenchyme. They share with cardiac progenitors early expression of GATA 4. The location of the different elements of the cardiac field, and their response to injury, suggests that the prechordal plate supports and/or the notochord suppresses the cardiac fate.     

Inference and retrieval of facial images

Attempts have been made to extend SQL to work with multimedia databases. We are reserved on the representation ability of extended SQL to cope with the richness in content of multimedia data. In this paper we present an example of a multimedia database system, Computer Aided Facial Image Inference and Retrieval system (CAFIIR). The system stores and manages facial images and criminal records, providing necessary functions for crime identification. We would like to demonstrate some core techniques for multimedia database with CAFIIR system. Firstly, CAFIIR is a integrated system. Besides database management, there are image analysis, image composition, image aging, and report generation subsystems, providing means for problem solving. Secondly, the richness of multimedia data urges feature-based database for their management. CAFIIR is feature-based. A indexing mechanism,iconic index, has been proposed for indexing facial images using hierarchical self-organization neural network. The indexing method operates on complex feature measures and provides means for visual navigation. Thirdly, special retrieval methods for facial images have been developed, including visual browsing, similarity retrieval, free text retrieval and fuzzy retrieval.