Although current photorealistic rendering techniques can produce very impressive images, the rendered objects are often too clean and shiny. Thus, the resulting images look unnatural. This paper proposes a physically-based model to simulate the appearance of patinas on ancient Chinese bronzes. Buried in the soil for thousands of years, many patinas are found on the surface of ancient bronzes as...

A new species of Acroperus Baird, 1843 (Cladocera: Chydoridae) is described based on the material from Lake Tana, Ethiopia and two water bodies in Eastern Cape, Republic of South Africa. In Africa, Acroperus africanus sp. nov. had a chance to be confused by previous authors with Palearctic A. harpae (Baird, 1834) and A. angustatus Sars, 1863, but it could be easily distinguished from the latter...

Two genes encoding Na(+)-ATPases from Debaryomyces hansenii were cloned and sequenced. The genes, designated ENA1 from D. hansenii (DhENA1) and DhENA2, exhibited high homology with the corresponding genes from Schwanniomyces occidentalis. DhENA1 was expressed in the presence of high Na(+) concentrations, while the expression of DhENA2 also required high pH. A mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae ...

Background: Polarized cells are key to the process of differentiation. Xenopus oocyte is a polarized cell that has complete blue-print to differentiate 3 germ layers following fertilization, as key determinant molecules (Proteins and RNAs) are asymmetrically localized. The objective of this work was to localize Na+, K+-ATPase activity along animal-vegetal axis of polarized Xenopus oocyte and fo...

In order to evaluate responses of a pistachio seedling rootstock (Pistacia vera L. cv. Ghazvini) to NaCl induced salinity stress and potential protective role of exogenous spermine and spermidine on NaCl induced salinity stress, a greenhouse experiment was conducted during growing season of 2009. The NaCl treatments, involving 800, 1600, and 3200 mg NaCl per Kg of soil for 90 days, suppressed g...

The blocking efficacy of 4,9-anhydro-TTX (4,9-ah-TTX) and TTX on several isoforms of voltage-dependent sodium channels, expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes, was tested (Na(v1.2), Na(v1.3), Na(v1.4), Na(v1.5), Na(v1.6), Na(v1.7), and Na(v1.8)). Generally, TTX was 40-231 times more effective, when compared with 4,9-ah-TTX, on a given isoform. An exception was Na(v1.6), where 4,9-ah-TTX in nanomol...

We have examined the question of how the level of expression of sodium channel Na(v)1.8 affects the function of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons that also express Na(v)1.7 channels and, conversely, how the level of expression of sodium channel Na(v)1.7 affects the function of DRG neurons that also express Na(v)1.8, using computer simulations. Our results demonstrate several previously undescr...

background nicotinamide (na), the active form of vitamin-b3, is hypothesized to have positive effects on the process of wound healing; it has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory properties, as well as an epithelization inducing action. objectives in the present study, we aimed to determine the effects of topical administration of na on skin wounds, based on histomorphometrical ...