Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) has been shown to reduce hypoxia-induced pulmonary vascular leak in vivo, but no explanation of a mechanism has been offered other than its vasodilatory and natriuretic actions. Recently, data have shown that ANP can protect endothelial barrier functions in TNF-alpha-stimulated human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Therefore, we hypothesized that ANP actions w...

1. Plasma levels of immunoreactive N-terminal proatrial natriuretic peptide (N-terminal ANP) have been measured in 25 normal subjects, 29 patients with essential hypertension, six cardiac transplant recipients, seven patients with dialysis-independent chronic renal failure and 1 1 patients with haemodialysis-dependent chronic renal failure. Plasma was extracted on Sep-Pak cartridges and N-termi...

The aim of the current study was to investigate the therapeutic effect of Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F multiglycosides (TWG) on gut barrier dysfunction in rats with acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP). ANP was induced in rats using 3.5% sodium taurocholate. The rats were divided into 3 groups: the sham operation (SO), ANP and ANP+TWG groups. Biochemical and pathological change of pancreatic t...

In this paper, a novel rating based fuzzy analytic network process (F-ANP) model is proposed for the evaluation of ship maneuverability and the improvement of maneuverability standards. By incorporating the F-ANP technique into the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) maneuverability standards, the proposed model is able to solve the problem of mutual dependencies of the maneuvering factors inhere...