The rocks are formed through very complex processes and the complex behaviour of rock masses is dominated by the planes of weaknesses . Rock mass consists of intact rock and discontinuities. Many rocks show strain softening behaviour under loads. In this paper, the constitutive models for intact rocks and rock joints are presented. These form the basis for the development of constitutive models...

Phylogeographic studies indicate that many marine invertebrates lacking autonomous dispersal ability are able to achieve trans-oceanic colonization by rafting on buoyant macroalgae. However, less is known about the impact of rafting on on-going population-genetic connectivity of intertidal species associated with buoyant macroalgae. We hypothesize that such species will have higher levels of po...

Study of the interaction between uplift and erosion is a major theme of our science, but our understanding of their interplay is often limited by a lack of quantitative data. A classic example is the Colorado Plateau, for which the starting and ending points are well known: The region was at sea level in the Late Cretaceous, and now, the deeply eroded land surface is at ~2 km. The path of the l...

Force generation in smooth muscle is driven by phosphorylation of myosin light chains (MYL), which is regulated by the equilibrium between the activities of myosin light chain kinase (MYLK) and myosin phosphatase (MYLP). MYLK is activated by Ca(2+)-calmodulin whereas MYLP is inhibited by phosphorylation of its myosin-binding subunit (MYPT1) by Ca(2+)-independent mechanisms, leading to generatio...

Aluminum (Al) is a neurotoxicant and is implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). In AD brains, one of the pathological hallmarks is the extracellular deposition of senile plaques, which are mainly composed of aggregated amyloid-beta (Abeta). Endoproteolysis of the amyloid-beta precursor protein (AbetaPP) by the beta-secretase and the gamma-secretase ...

XEphA4 is a cellular receptor that functions to regulate cell and tissue interactions in amphibian embryos via a repulsive mechanism that involves actin cytoskeleton reorganization. Ectopic EphA4 signaling in Xenopus embryos results in a loss of cell-adhesion and rounded cell morphology, and this phenotype is consistent with EphA4 signaling in cultured A6 cells. How EphA4 achieves its effects o...

In the classical approach to digital topology (see e.g. [12] and [13]), graph theoretic tools are used for structuring Z, namely the well-known binary relations of 4-adjacency and 8-adjacency. But neither 4adjacency nor 8-adjacency itself allows an analogue of the Jordan curve theorem (cf. [9]) and, therefore, one has to use a combination of the two adjacencies. To overcome this disadvantage, a...

335. Infrequent Air Contamination with Acinetobacter baumannii Surrounding Known Colonized/Infected patients Clare Rock, MD; Anthony D. Harris, MD, MPH; J. Kristie Johnson, PhD; Werner Bischoff; Kerri Thom, MD, MS; Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; Department of Pathology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore,...

Rho-Rho kinase (Rho-ROCK) triggers an intracellular signalling cascade that regulates cell survival, death, adhesion, migration, neurite outgrowth and retraction and influences the generation and development of several neurological disorders. Although Fasudil, a ROCK inhibitor, effectively suppressed encephalomyelitis (EAE), certain side effects may limit its clinical use. A novel and efficient...