Palmitoyl-protein thioesterase (PPT) deficiency was recently shown to be the primary defect in infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (INCL). The available enzyme assay is complicated and impractical for diagnostic use and is, in practice, unavailable. We have developed a new fluorimetric assay for PPT based on the sensitive fluorochrome 4-methylumbelliferone. This PPT assay is simple, sensit...

Communications via Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT for short) documents are commonplace, so it is crucial to take advantage of PPT documents for information security and digital forensics. In this paper, we propose a new method of text steganography, called MIMIC-PPT, which combines text mimicking technique with characteristics of PPT documents. Firstly, a dictionary and some sentence templates are a...

Positive psychotherapy (PPT) is an established psychological intervention initially validated with people experiencing symptoms of depression. PPT is a positive psychology intervention, an academic discipline that has developed somewhat separately from psychotherapy and focuses on amplifying well-being rather than ameliorating deficit. The processes targeted in PPT (e.g., strengths, forgiveness...

Recently, elevated dioxin levels, over 5 parts per trillion (ppt) 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), from Agent Orange was reported in 95% of 43 selected residents of Bien Hoa City, a city in southern Vietnam near a former air base used for Agent Orange-spraying missions. Agent Orange herbicide, contaminated with TCDD, was sprayed in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 primarily for use as a...

Retroviral polypurine tracts (PPTs) serve as primers for plus-strand DNA synthesis during reverse transcription. The generation and removal of the PPT primer requires specific cleavages by the RNase H activity of reverse transcriptases; removal of the PPT primer defines the left end of the linear viral DNA. We replaced the endogenous PPT from RSVP(A)Z, a replication-competent shuttle vector bas...

COND In order to construct a motion model for the endoscope camera that moves freely in the 3D tracheo-bronchial tree, a second order auto-regressive (AR) model is used. For a Kthorder auto-regressive model, the following equation applies: Flexible fiber-optic bronchoscopy is performed on patients who are fully awake or with light conscious sedation. The procedure can entail considerable discom...

In this contribution we solve the following problem. Let Hnm be a Hilbert space of dimension nm, and let A be a positive semidefinite self-adjoint linear operator on Hnm. Under which conditions on the spectrum has A a positive partial transpose (is PPT) with respect to any partition Hn⊗Hm of the space Hnm as a tensor product of an n-dimensional and an m-dimensional Hilbert space? We show that t...

Wnt genes play important roles in regulating patterning and morphogenesis during vertebrate gastrulation. In zebrafish, slb/wnt11 is required for convergence and extension movements, but not cell fate specification during gastrulation. To determine if other Wnt genes functionally interact with slb/wnt11, we analysed the role of ppt/wnt5 during zebrafish gastrulation. ppt/wnt5 is maternally prov...

A deficiency of palmitoyl protein thioesterase (PPT) leads to the neurodegenerative disease infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (INCL), which is characterized by an almost complete loss of cortical neurons. PPT expressed in COS-1 cells is recognized by the mannose-6-phosphate receptor (M6PR) and is routed to lysosome, but a substantial fraction of PPT is secreted. We have here determined t...

Intracellular signaling mechanisms within the pedunculopontine tegmental (PPT) nucleus for the regulation of recovery rapid eye movement (REM) sleep following REM sleep deprivation remain unknown. This study was designed to determine the role of PPT intracellular cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (cAMP-PKA) in the regulation of recovery REM sleep in freely moving rats. The results show that a bri...