Natural killer (NK) cells belong to the innate arm of the immune system and though activated NK cells can modulate immune responses through the secretion of cytokines, their primary effector function is through target cell lysis. Accordingly, cytotoxicity assays are central to studying NK cell function. The 51Chromium release assay, is the "gold standard" for cytotoxicity assay, however, due to...

In this study, we examined the usefulness of various markers on blood cell populations in the diagnosis of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). We also evaluated bone marrow specimens, which generally are considered less suitable than blood owing to variable expression of glycosyl phosphatidylinositol (GPI)-linked antigens during hematopoietic cell differentiation. All 15 patients in our ...

Coloured surfaces in the normal environment may be brighter or dimmer than the mean adaptation level. Changes in the firing rate of cells of the parvocellular layers of macaque lateral geniculate nucleus were studied with such stimuli; chromatic mixtures briefly replaced a white adaptation field. This paradigm is therefore one of successive contrast. Families of intensity-response curves for di...

Temperature dependency of rate constants of edible oil's autoxidation was estimated. One of us showed"' that the rate process of autoxidation of edible oils was expressed by an equation as below, and that the effects of brightness on the rate constants, ko, k,, k2, and k3, in the equation could be measured individually. dP/dt=k0M+k1MP-2k2P2-k3P Here, P is the concentration [mmol/kg-oil] of pero...

Received ; accepted – 2 – ABSTRACT We use a Monte Carlo technique and assumed spatial distributions of dust and supernova (SN) progenitors in a simple model of a characteristic SN–producing disk galaxy to explore the effects of extinction on the radial distributions of SN properties in their parent galaxies. The model extinction distributions and projected radial number distributions are presen...

Contrast media (CM) are frequently used in diagnostic radiology and in radiotherapy as a diagnostic tool and in treatment planning. Previous studies have demonstrated that these compounds induce chromosomal aberrations. This study evaluates the mutagenic effects induced by the contrast medium Urografina® 292 (meglumine amidotrizoate and sodium-ionic dimmer) in bone marrow cells (BMC) of mice in...

Home automation is an exciting area of technology that is gaining momentum every day. Current implementations of home automation systems often utilize devices that are designed for other uses. A common example of this includes the use of a lighting dimmer that has the capacity of a 1000 watt load while only driving one or two 100 watt light bulbs. Other examples include inferior wireless and po...

Hypomyelination with atrophy of the basal ganglia and cerebellum (H-ABC) is a rare leukoencephalopathy presenting in the infantile period and characterized by diffuse cerebral hypomyelination, and atrophy of the basal ganglia and cerebellum. As patients with H-ABC lack remarkable laboratory findings, the diagnosis is based on brain magnetic resonance imaging findings alone. Only eight cases hav...

[1] The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data set obtained over two campaigns in 2007 is used to determine the long-term variability of the different components of Jupiter’s auroras. Three regions on the planet’s disc are defined: the main oval, the low-latitude auroras, and the high-latitude auroras. The UVauroral power emitted from these regions is extracted and compared to estimated solar wind c...

The results of a series of ab initio (3-21G) and semiempirical (PM3) molecular orbital (MO) calculations on neutral, zwitterionic and cationic forms of dopamine [1,2-benzenediol-4(2-aminoethyl)] are reported. In particular, optimised geometries, relative stabilities, dipole moments and electron charge distributions for the relevant conformational states of the studied molecules are presented an...