The goal of this study was to determine how myogenic responses and vascular responses to reduced Po(2) interact to determine vascular smooth muscle (VSM) transmembrane potential and active tone in isolated middle cerebral arteries from Sprague-Dawley rats. Stepwise elevation of transmural pressure led to depolarization of the VSM cells and myogenic constriction, and reduction of the O(2) concen...

The present study tests the hypothesis that vascular cells promote the survival of postganglionic sympathetic neurons in the absence of nerve growth factor (NGF). To test this hypothesis, neurons isolated from superior cervical ganglia of 2- to 4-day-old rat pups were grown in the absence of NGF and in the absence and presence of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSM). Neuronal survival was assesse...

Automatically generating traceability links between software development artifacts existing throughout systems development life cycle, is becoming ever more important for requirements traceability. It remains an open software engineering challenge, especially for legacy systems, when the demand for minimizing human intervention is considered. The Vector Space Model (VSM), a notably known inform...

Genomic data combined with reverse genetic approaches have contributed to the characterization of major virulence factors of Vibrio species; however, these studies have targeted primarily human pathogens. Here, we investigate virulence factors in the oyster pathogen Vibrio splendidus LGP32 and show that toxicity is correlated to the presence of a metalloprotease and its corresponding vsm gene. ...

Background: The structure of human placenta adapts in an uniform manner under different form of hypoxic stress. Anaemia, the common obstetric problem leading to hypoxia alters the structure of placenta. Aim: To compare the incidence of Vasculosyncytial membrane (VSM) in full term placenta of normal and anaemic mothers. Materials and Methods: Hundred (100) term placenta comprising of 50 normal a...

Synapses are composed of a presynaptic active zone in the signaling cell and a postsynaptic terminal in the target cell. In the case of chemical synapses, messages are carried by neurotransmitters released from presynaptic terminals and received by receptors on postsynaptic cells. Our previous research in Caenorhabditis elegans has shown that VSM-1 negatively regulates exocytosis. Additionally,...

Ca sensitization of vascular smooth muscle (VSM) contraction involves Rho-dependent and Rho-kinase– dependent suppression of myosin phosphatase activity. We previously demonstrated that excitatory agonists in fact induce activation of RhoA in VSM. In this study, we demonstrate a novel Ca -dependent mechanism for activating RhoA in rabbit aortic VSM. High KCl-induced membrane depolarization as w...

PURPOSE To introduce a new method of deriving a virtual source model (VSM) of a linear accelerator photon beam from a phase space file (PSF) for Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation. MATERIALS AND METHODS A PSF of a 6 MV photon beam was generated by simulating the interactions of primary electrons with the relevant geometries of a Synergy linear accelerator (Elekta AB, Stockholm, Sweden) and rec...

Monitoring task performance is crucial in team work in order to ensure equal participation of all team members. However, it may be difficult to implement due to team dynamism. One of the approaches that can be adopted when monitoring group work relies on measuring efficiency of each task performed by the team members. Thus, this paper aims to demonstrate application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM...