Scientists working in areas that are (rightly or wrongly) socially contentious might benefit by perusing readers' comments lodged on online newspaper websites after the appearance of announcements in their fields. On many occasions, they would find not only approving sentiments but also a surprising degree of hostility. The recent announcement of draft sequence coverage of the wheat genome prov...

Directed cell lineage differentiation in vitro combined with genetic modification approaches provides an enormous range of possibilities to treat muscular degenerative diseases such as muscular dystrophies (MDs). Currently, no effective therapy is available to treat any form of MDs, which are characterized by progressive muscle wasting and weakness [1]. The limited efficacy of conventional drug...

this article presents a novel method and development paradigm that proposes a general template for an enterprise information structure and allows for the automatic generation and modification of enterprise workflows. this dynamically integrated workflow development approach utilises a conceptual ontology of domain processes and tasks, enterprise charts, and enterprise entities. it also suggests...

A software system, once deployed into its target environment, might need to be modified for various reasons. The reasons might be specific to that software system, such as failures, or, more general, such as changes in the environment in which the software system is embedded. Depending on the reason, a modification might obviously not only be restricted to a particular software system. It might...

Background: At the outset of the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) process, the chromatin structure of the somatic cell which governs its state of differentiation undergoes dramatic changes, called reprogramming, and is compelled back to the embryonic stage. However, the overall epigenetic makeup of the resultant cloned embryos has been acknowledged far different from the fertilized embryos....

OBJECTIVE AND SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA Because of the shortage of available donor organs, death rates from liver failure remain high. Therefore, several temporary liver-assisting therapies have been developed. This article reviews various approaches to temporary liver support as well as immunologic and metabolic developments toward a solution for this problem. METHODS A literature review was p...

A total of 22 type II restriction endonucleases with 18 distinct specificities have been identified in six Helicobacter pylori strains. Among these 18 specificities are three completely new endonucleases, Hpy178III, Hpy99I, and Hpy188I, that specifically cleave DNA at TCNNGA, CGWCG, and TCNGA sites, respectively. The set of endonucleases identified in each strain varies, but all have four- or f...

The ancient essential process of ribosomal protein synthesis requires twenty sets of aminoacyl-tRNAs (aa-tRNAs), one for each canonical amino acid. Since Crick proposed his adaptor hypothesis (1) it was commonly accepted that all organisms possess twenty aaRSs, each enzyme specific for attaching one amino acid to tRNA. It is now clear that aa-tRNA formation is more varied, as the biosynthetic r...

Sonication process is regularly adopted for dispersing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in an aqueous medium. This can be achieved by either covalent functionalization of SWCNTs with strong acid or by noncovalent functionalization using dispersants that adsorb onto the surface of SWCNTs during dispersion. Because the dispersion process is usually performed using sonication, unintentional...