IgE-binding protein (epsilon BP) is a protein which has affinity for IgE and was originally identified in rat basophilic leukemia (RBL) cells. Subsequently, it was found to be the rat homolog of CBP35, a murine beta-galactoside-specific lectin. This protein is also designated as L-34 and RL-29 and studied independently by several laboratories. More recently, CBP35 (epsilon BP) was found to be e...

Activated fibroblasts, or myofibroblasts, are crucial players in tissue remodeling, wound healing, and various fibrotic disorders, including interstitial lung fibrosis associated with scleroderma. Here we characterize the signaling pathways in normal lung fibroblasts exposed to thrombin as they acquire two of the main features of myofibroblasts: smooth muscle (SM) alpha-actin organization and c...

The structure of a complicated quasicrystal approximant epsilon(16) was predicted from a known and related quasicrystal approximant epsilon(6) by the strong-reflections approach. Electron-diffraction studies show that in reciprocal space, the positions of the strongest reflections and their intensity distributions are similar for both approximants. By applying the strong-reflections approach, t...

For porcine myocardium, ultrasonic regional deformation parameters, systolic strain (epsilon(sys)) and peak systolic strain rate (SR(sys)), were compared with stroke volume (SV) and contractility [contractility index (CI)] measured as the ratio of end-systolic strain to end-systolic wall stress. Heart rate (HR) and contractility were varied by atrial pacing (AP = 120-180 beats/min, n = 7), incr...

Although a variety of methods have become available for the determination of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) subfractions in plasma, a review of published data from nine studies of coronary disease outcomes and 10 investigations of coronary artery disease severity do no suggest that measurement of HDL2-cholesterol (C) and HDL3-C offer any advantage in the prediction of coronary disease over the ...

Gu map-1 is a modified version of GGH map. It uses same ideal lattices for constructing the trapdoors, while the novelty is that no encodings of zero are given. In this short paper we show that Gu map-1 cannot be used for the instance of witness encryption (WE) based on the hardness of 3-exact cover problem. That is, if Gu map-1 is used for such instance, we can break it by soving a combined 3-...

Why does classical equilibrium statistical mechanics work? Malament and Zabell (1980) noticed that, for ergodic dynamical systems, the unique absolutely continuous invariant probability measure is the microcanonical. Earman and Rédei (1996) replied that systems of interest are very probably not ergodic, so that absolutely continuous invariant probability measures very distant from the microcano...

BACKGROUND The risk effect of APOE epsilon 4 allele for Alzheimer's disease is acknowledged, whereas the putative protective effect of epsilon 2 allele remains in debate. OBJECTIVES To investigate whether those inconsistent findings may be attributable to differences in age and sex composition of the study populations. METHODS A community dementia free cohort (n = 985) aged > or =75 years w...

Collagen is a key structural protein in the extracellular matrix of many tissues. It provides biological tissues with tensile mechanical strength and is enzymatically cleaved by a class of matrix metalloproteinases known as collagenases. Collagen enzymatic kinetics has been well characterized in solubilized, gel, and reconstituted forms. However, limited information exists on enzyme degradation...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) replicates by reverse transcription of an RNA intermediate, the pregenomic RNA. The first step of HBV genome replication is the encapsidation of the pregenomic RNA encoding the encapsidation signal, termed epsilon, into the core particles, which is preceded by recognition and binding of HBV DNA polymerase to epsilon. The pregenomic RNA contains two identical epsilon elem...