The precise and conceptual insight of circulating endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) kinetics is hampered by the absence of an assay system capable of evaluating the EPC differentiation cascade. An assay system for EPC colony formation was developed to delineate circulating EPC differentiation. EPC colony-forming assay using semisolid medium and single or bulk CD133(+) cells from umbilical cord ...

INTRODUCTION Previously, we demonstrated that children with active systemic vasculitis (SV) have higher circulating CD34 + CD133 + KDR+ endothelial progenitor cells (EPC); the function of these EPCs, and their relationship with disease activity in vasculitis remains largely unexplored. We hypothesized that although EPC numbers are higher, EPC function is impaired in active SV of the young. The ...

Recent UK-based studies have shown a performance gap between the energy performance of buildings calculated using tabulated thermophysical properties of solid walls and that estimated from in-situ measurements. Solid-walled buildings have been targeted by UK Government policies and incentive schemes to meet climate change mitigation targets and improve the efficiency of the building stock, as t...

In this study exergy and exergoeconomic analyses of a refrigeration system with two evaporators and an internal heat exchanger were performed. The analysis of the whole system included various thermodynamics parameters such as sustainability index, exergetic improvement potential, ratio of the thermodynamic losses(energetic and exergetic losses) to the capital cost, relative irreversibility for...

Feature selection aims to select the smallest subset of features for a specified level of performance. The opti­ mal achievable classification performance on a feature subset is summarized by its Receiver Operating Curve (ROC). When infinite data is available, the Neyman­ Pearson (NP) design procedure provides the most effi­ cient way of obtaining this curve. In practice the design procedure is...

Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) can help the European Union (EU) in accelerating cost-effective renovation of existing building stock. However, there are many risks and barriers that inhibit application EPC. These include uncertainty about data, lack quality assurance regarding post-renovation energy performance, process complexity. In order to cross these barriers, this paper presents Mod...