Instruments for optical fiber measurements, such as the Fiber Quality Analyzer (FQA), are widely used to measure various properties of pulp samples. For the evaluation of market pulps, the pulp properties of interest are fiber length, coarseness, and fines content. Fiber length and coarseness are often used to determine which pulps are suitable for producing particular products. The objectives ...

The Jamming Avoidance Response, or JAR, in the weakly electric fish has been analyzed at all levels of organization, from 9 whole-organism behavior down to specific ion channels. Nevertheless, a parsimonious description of the JAR behavior in terms of 10 a dynamical system model has not been achieved at least in part due to the fact that “avoidance” behaviors are both intrinsically 11 unstable ...

The optimization of enterokinase fermentation was performed with a recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The maximum enterokinase yield and specific yield were obtained when the ratio of yeast extract to bacto peptone was 5:5. However, the fraction of plasmid-containing cells was approximately 65% for most nitrogen source ratios. From batch cultures, the minimum DOT level was found to be a key ...

The leaves and stems of Perilla frutescens var. acuta Kudo (PF) have been used to prevent threatened abortion in traditional medicine in the East Asian countries. Because reduced receptivity of endometrium is a cause of abortion, we analyzed the action of PF on the endometrial receptivity. PF increased the level of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), a major cytokine regulating endometrial recept...

Preeclampsia is a severe pregnancy complication in part due to insufficient implantation. This study aimed at elucidating the mechanism of action of dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV) in preeclampsia. Small activating RNAs (saRNA) were used to upregulate DPPIV expression in human trophoblast JAR cells. The DPPIV expression level was analyzed by real-time quantitative PCR and western blot and its a...

A Java application is built of a large number of Java class files, which are collected and compressed in Java archive (jar) files. But the jar files typically shrink original class files by only fifty percent. Various projects have pursued ever smaller class files and they achieved very impressive results, but these results come at the cost of complicated and slow transformations. The class arc...

BACKGROUND Antibodies to factor H (fH)-binding protein (fHBP), a meningococcal vaccine antigen, activate classical complement pathway serum bactericidal activity (SBA) and block binding of the complement inhibitor fH. METHODS To understand these 2 functions in protection, we investigated the interactions of human complement and 2 anti-fHBP monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) with encapsulated Neisse...

INTRODUCTION Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) is a heterogeneous group of pregnancy-related disorders. Hydatidiform mole (HM) is the most common type of GTD, whereas gestational choriocarcinoma is the most aggressive. Non-receptor tyrosine kinase c-Src contributes to the transformation to a malignant phenotype in various cancers. However, the role of c-Src in the pathogenesis of GTD rema...

the efficiency of existing municipal wastewater treatment plants has been affected by the increase of incoming organic load caused by the expansions in developing countries. in the present investigation, the effect of chemically enhanced primary treatment (cept) process was studied on the enhancement efficiency of a municipal wastewater treatment plant in tehran, iran. jar test results showed a...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Although polymicrobial infections involving both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria are very common in diabetic foot ulcers, in many centres of developing countries, anaerobes are rarely isolated due to technical difficulties. This can be overcome by using a new simple, innovative technique of a combination of candle combustion and use of acidified copper-coated steel wool, ...