Interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) has been called a "master switch" for its ability to determine whether cells mount proinflammatory or anti-inflammatory responses. Accordingly, IRF5 should be an attractive target for therapeutic drug development. Here we report on the development of a novel decoy peptide inhibitor of IRF5 that decreases myocardial inflammation and improves vascular endothe...

In this paper, subtractive clustering method is combined with least squares estimation algorithms to pre-identify a type-1 Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy model from input/output data. Then the type-2 fuzzy theory is used to expand the type-1 model to a type-2 model. A sensitivity analysis is used to ascertain how a type-1 TSK model output depends upon the pre-initialized parameters and determin...

OBJECTIVE To assess the association of CD40/CD40 ligand (CD40L) interactions with the development of skin fibrosis and autoimmunity in tight-skin (TSK/+) mouse, which is a mouse model for human systemic sclerosis. METHODS Newly born TSK/+ mice were treated with murine anti-CD40L monoclonal antibody (100 microg intraperitoneally weekly). Hypodermal thickness of 8-week-old female mice (defined ...

Abstract: This paper discusses short-term electricity-load forecasting using an extreme learning machine (ELM) with automatic knowledge representation from a given input-output data set. For this purpose, we use a Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK)-based ELM to develop a systematic approach to generating if-then rules, while the conventional ELM operates without knowledge information. The TSK-ELM design ...

Anthropogenic noise has a negative impact on a variety of animals. However, many bat species roost in places with high levels of anthropogenic noise. Here, we tested the hypothesis that torpid bats are insensitive to anthropogenic noise. In a laboratory experiment, we recorded skin temperature (Tsk) of bats roosting individually that were subjected to playbacks of different types of noise. We f...

BACKGROUND Radiation therapy is generally contraindicated for cancer patients with collagen vascular diseases (CVD) such as scleroderma due to an increased risk of fibrosis. The tight skin (TSK) mouse has skin which, in some respects, mimics that of patients with scleroderma. The skin radiation response of TSK mice has not been previously reported. If TSK mice are shown to have radiation sensit...

UNLABELLED The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of an abbreviated version of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK) in a clinical sample of patients with chronic pain. Chronic pain patients (n = 276) seeking treatment at an interdisciplinary treatment center completed self-report questionnaires including the TSK-13, and 2 tests of physical functioning. Four comp...

Cardiovascular mortality increases in cold weather in older adults, and physical activity may impart even greater cardiovascular risk than cold exposure alone. Human aging is associated with exaggerated pressor responses to whole body cooling; however, the sympathetic response to cold stress alone and in combination with isometric exercise is unknown. We hypothesized that cold stress would 1) i...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the degree of kinesiophobia in patients with chronic pain, to examine differences in kinesiophobia and other pain-related characteristics between men and women, and to examine differences in pain-related characteristics between patients with high and low levels of kinesiophobia. DESIGN Postal survey. SUBJECTS/PATIENTS Eighty-eight men and 173 women with chronic musc...