One of the challenging issues in the domain of C2 in complex and urban terrain is how to assist human combat staff to effectively collaborate and make decisions under multiple contexts, and to help people switch their attentions to the most urgent decision tasks. This paper describes a comprehensive approach that uses RPD-enabled agents to support timely decision-making under multiple contexts....

Contrary to other preservation methods like thermal treatments, high pressure can destroy microorganisms without affecting the nutritional quality, color, or food texture. The firm texture of fish flesh is an important quality parameter. During the refrigerated storage, the tissue becomes softer and the muscle is deteriorated by different proteases. The aim of this study was to study the modifi...

We used 69 steers of varying percentage Brahman (B) breeding (0% B, n = 11; 25% B, n = 13; 37% B, n = 10; 50% B, n = 12; 75% B, n = 12; 100% B, n = 11) to study the relationship between carcass traits, the calpain proteinase system, and aged meat tenderness in intermediate B crosses. Calpains and calpastatin activities were determined on fresh longissimus muscle samples using anion-exchange chr...

Calpastatin is a widely distributed endogenous inhibitor protein specifically acting on calpain (Ca(2+)-dependent proteinase) and is known to interact with the calmodulin-like domain (CaMLD) of the proteinase in a Ca(2+)-dependent fashion. The calpastatin molecule consists of four inhibitory domains (domains 1-4) with mutually homologous sequences in three regions designated as A, B, and C. Aci...

The structural clues of substrate recognition by calpain are incompletely understood. In this study, 106 cleavage sites in substrate proteins compiled from the literature have been analyzed to dissect the signal for calpain cleavage and also to enable the design of an ideal calpain substrate and interfere with calpain action via site-directed mutagenesis. In general, our data underline the impo...

Calpains (calcium-activated neutral proteases) of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) muscle may participate in the degradation of muscle tissue during postmortem storage. These enzymes are regulated by calpastatin, their endogenous specific inhibitor. The objective of this study was to evaluate the changes encountered by the calpain system during the postmortem storage of fish muscle after high...

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding a protein-free diet on mRNA levels of the calpain system in skeletal muscle of growing pigs during a 15-d feeding trial. Twenty crossbred barrows were divided into two dietary treatments: control or protein-free diet (mean initial weight for both groups: 38.3 kg). Daily diets were provided at 2.5 times energy for maintenance (t...

The objective of this study was to compare carcass characteristics of a newly introduced breed, the Waguli (Wagyu x Tuli), with the carcass characteristics of the Brahman breed. Brahman cattle are used extensively in the Southwest of the United States because of their tolerance to adverse environmental conditions. However, Brahman carcasses are discounted according to the height of their humps ...

Calpains are calcium-activated proteases that have biomedical and biotechnological potential. Their activity is tightly regulated by their endogenous inhibitor, calpastatin that binds to the enzyme only in the presence of calcium. Conventional approaches to purify calpain comprise multiple chromatographic steps, and are labor-intensive, leading to low yields. Here we report a new purification p...

Ca(2+) signaling by calpains leads to controlled proteolysis during processes ranging from cytoskeleton remodeling in mammals to sex determination in nematodes. Deregulated Ca(2+) levels result in aberrant proteolysis by calpains, which contributes to tissue damage in heart and brain ischemias as well as neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease. Here we show that activation of the protease core...