Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the knowledge and attitude of women living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and their associated health benefits and risks. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed among 220 women aged 20-70 years old in the UAE mainly in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. The survey included 21 items; socio-demographic ...

The NMR characteristics of [14-38]Abu, a synthetic variant of BPTI that is partially folded in aqueous buffer near neutral pH, support a model of early folding events which begin with stabilization of the nativelike, slow exchange core [Barbar, E., Hare, M., Daragan, V., Barany, G., and Woodward, C. (1998) Biochemistry 37, 7822-7833 (1)]. In partially folded [14-38]Abu, urea denaturation profil...

To study the structural and functional roles of the cysteine residues at positions 36, 41, and 46 in the transmembrane domain of phospholamban (PLB), we have used Fmoc (N-(9-fluorenyl)methoxycarbonyl) solid-phase peptide synthesis to prepare alpha-amino-n-butyric acid (Abu)-PLB, the analogue in which all three cysteine residues are replaced by Abu. Whereas previous studies have shown that repla...

During asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU), bacteria colonize the urinary tract for extended periods of time without causing symptoms of urinary tract infection. Previous studies indicate that many Escherichia coli (E. coli) strains that cause ABU have evolved from uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) by reductive evolution and loss of the ability to express functional virulence factors. For instance, the p...

Teamwork is becoming increasingly important in a large number of multiagent applications. With the growing importance of teamwork, there is now an increasing need for tools for analysis and evaluation of such teams. We are developing automated techniques for analyzing agent teams. In this paper we present ISAAC, an automated assistant that uses these techniques to perform post-hoc analysis of R...

This paper presents a description of ISAAC, the Immersive Simulation Animation And Construction program designed and built at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). ISAAC is a scene composition application for the interactive construction of virtual worlds. Working directly in a virtual environment, objects can be positioned, oriented and scaled using direct and indirect mani...