A number of large studies have reported that environmental pollutants from fossil fuel combustion can cause deleterious effects to the immune system, resulting in an allergic reaction leading to respiratory tract damage. In this study, we investigated the effect of motorcycle exhaust particles (MEP), a major pollutant in the Taiwan urban area, on airway inflammation and airway hyperresponsivene...

BACKGROUND The maximum static respiratory pressures, namely the maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP) and maximum expiratory pressure (MEP), reflect the strength of the respiratory muscles. These measures are simple, non-invasive, and have established diagnostic and prognostic value. This study is the first to examine the maximum respiratory pressures within the Brazilian population according to t...

We investigate the Minimum Evolution Problem (MEP), an NP-hard network design problem arising from computational biology. TheMEP consists in finding aweighted unrooted binary tree having n leaves, minimal length, and such that the sum of the edge weights belonging to the unique path between each pair of leaves is greater than or equal to a prescribed value. We study the polyhedral combinatorics...

OBJECTIVE To describe and to compare MIP and MEP in primigravidae and nulligravidae in the 20-29 year age bracket and paired by age. METHODS We included 120 primigravidae with low obstetric risk (5th-40th week of gestation) and 40 nulligravidae. All of the participants were of normal weight and none exercised regularly. All were recruited from the metropolitan area of Recife, Brazil. Measurem...

INTRODUCTION The Maximal Inspiratory Pressure (MIP) and Maximal Expiratory Pressure (MEP) are global measures of the maximal strength of the respiratory muscles. OBJECTIVES To determine the values of MIP and MEP in healthy subjects aged 20 years old from the urban area of Manizales, Colombia and to correlate them with sociodemographic and anthropometric variables. METHODS This is an observa...

It has been suggested that the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle, or MEP hypothesis, could be an interesting tool to compute climatic variables like temperature. In this climatological context, a major limitation of MEP is that it is generally assumed to be applicable only for stationary systems. It is therefore often anticipated that critical climatic features like the seasonal cycle ...

Natural rubber is synthesized as rubber particles in the latex, the fluid cytoplasm of laticifers, of Hevea brasiliensis. Although it has been found that natural rubber is biosynthesized through the mevalonate pathway, the involvement of an alternative 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway is uncertain. We obtained all series of the MEP pathway candidate genes by analyzing expressed...

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can induce short-term reorganization of human motor cortex. Here, we investigated the effect of rTMS during relaxation and weak voluntary muscle contraction on motor cortex excitability and hand function. Subjects (n = 60) participated in one of four studies. Single transcranial magnetic stimuli were delivered over the motor area of the first ...

Due to the growing complexity of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) designs rules that govern them, performing rule checks manually has become expensive. However, MEP-based checking not received adequate attention compared automated in other domains. Based on Knowledge Management Building Information Modeling (BIM), an system integrated knowledge base management (KBMS) for model informa...