Recent biological advances make it possible to discover new peptides associated with hypertension. The cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) is a known factor in appetite and feeding behaviour. Various lines of evidence suggest that this peptide participates not only in control of feeding behaviour but also in the regulation of the cardiovascular and sympathetic systems and blood...

In a text-to-speech system, the duration of each phone may be predicted by a duration model. This model is usually trained using a database of phones with known durations; each phone (and the context it appears in) is characterised by a feature vector that is composed of a set of linguistic factor values. We describe the use of a graphical model – a Bayesian network – for predicting the duratio...

BACKGROUND Inherited variability in genes that influence androgen metabolism has been associated with risk of prostate cancer. The objective of this analysis was to evaluate interactions for prostate cancer risk by using classification and regression tree (CART) models (i.e., decision trees), and to evaluate whether these interactive effects add information about prostate cancer risk prediction...

Methods Using the French Hospital Database on HIV (FHDHANRS Co4), 439 antiretroviral (ARV)-naive patients with undetectable viral load (VL) who switched from a first boosted PI-containing cART to a combination including EFV (n=196), NVP (n=123) or ABC (n=120) were selected. Each patient was matched with 3 patients who did not change their cART on the basis of sex, age, CD4 cell count, VL and da...

INTRODUCTION The optimal management of infants born to HIV-positive mothers who are untreated or have detectable viral load prior to delivery remains controversial. Despite the increasing use of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) of neonates at high risk of HIV infection, there is little safety and pharmacokinetic data to support this approach. The obj...

Combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) effectively suppresses viral load in HIV-infected individuals, but it is not a cure. Bone marrow transplants using HIV-resistant stem cells have renewed hope that cure is achievable but key questions remain e.g., what percentage of stem cells must be HIV-resistant to achieve cure?. As few patients have undergone transplants, we built a mechanistic model...

The multifunctional neuropeptide Cocaine and Amphetamine Regulated Transcript (CART) is secreted from hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal gland and pancreas. It also can be found in circulatory system. This feature suggests a general role for CART in different cells. In the present study, we demonstrate that CART protects mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), cellular proteins and lipids against the oxidativ...

BACKGROUND CD4 cell count is a strong predictor of the subsequent risk of AIDS or death in HIV-infected patients initiating combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). It is not known whether the rate of CD4 cell decline prior to therapy is related to prognosis and should, therefore, influence the decision on when to initiate cART. METHODS AND FINDINGS We carried out survival analyses of patie...

OBJECTIVE To explain differences in survival in the first three years of combination anti-retroviral therapy (cART) between HIV treatment centres in The Netherlands. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We developed a mathematical simulation model, parameterised using data from the ATHENA cohort that describes patients entering care, being monitored and starting cART. Three scenarios were used to r...

To identify the stand attributes that best explain variability in wood density, Pinus radiata plantations located Chilean coastal sector were studied and modeled. The study area corresponded to stands sedimentary soil between zones of Constituci on Cobquecura. Within each sampling sector, individual tree variables recorded most relevant parameters estimated. Fifty trees sampled obtaining from o...