OBJECTIVE To define physiologic levels of reactive oxygen species in infertile men and establish a cutoff value of reactive oxygen species level in neat semen with a high sensitivity and specificity to differentiate infertile men from fertile donors (controls). DESIGN Reactive oxygen species levels were measured in the neat semen samples (n = 51) from fertile donors and infertile patients (n ...

BACKGROUND Iron is an essential element for bacterial growth and virulence. Because of its limited bioavailability in the host, bacteria have adapted several strategies to acquire iron during infection. In the human opportunistic bacteria Bacillus cereus, a surface protein IlsA is shown to be involved in iron acquisition from both ferritin and hemoproteins. IlsA has a modular structure consisti...

we introduce a new concept of general $g$-$eta$-monotone operator generalizing the general $(h,eta)$-monotone operator cite{arvar2, arvar1}, general $h-$ monotone operator cite{xiahuang} in banach spaces, and also generalizing $g$-$eta$-monotone operator cite{zhang}, $(a, eta)$-monotone operator cite{verma2}, $a$-monotone operator cite{verma0}, $(h, eta)$-monotone operator cite{fanghuang}...

In ‎the present ‎paper, ‎we ‎introduce the ‎two-wavelet ‎localization ‎operator ‎for ‎the square ‎integrable ‎representation ‎of a‎ ‎homogeneous space‎ with respect to a relatively invariant measure. ‎We show that it is a bounded linear operator. We investigate ‎some ‎properties ‎of the ‎two-wavelet ‎localization ‎operator ‎and ‎show ‎that ‎it ‎is a‎ ‎compact ‎operator ‎and is ‎contained ‎in‎ a...

The network analysis tools (NeAT) (http://rsat.ulb.ac.be/neat/) provide a user-friendly web access to a collection of modular tools for the analysis of networks (graphs) and clusters (e.g. microarray clusters, functional classes, etc.). A first set of tools supports basic operations on graphs (comparison between two graphs, neighborhood of a set of input nodes, path finding and graph randomizat...

The swelling and compressive mechanical behavior as well as the morphology and biocompatibility of composite hydrogels based on Tween® 20 trimethacrylate (T3), N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (NVP) and nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) were assessed in the present study. The chemical structure of T3 was verified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and proton nuclear magnetic resonance, and the degre...

The pathogen Staphylococcus aureus uses iron-regulated surface determinant (Isd) proteins to scavenge the essential nutrient iron from host hemoproteins. The IsdH protein (also known as HarA) is a receptor for hemoglobin (Hb), haptoglobin (Hp), and the Hb-Hp complex. It contains three NEAT (NEAr Transporter) domains: IsdH(N1), IsdH(N2), and IsdH(N3). Here we show that they have different functi...