An abstract of a study by Jung et al on the effects of complex direct-fed microbial supplementation in different basal diets on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood profiles, fecal ...microbial shedding and noxious gas emission in growing pigs is presented. They conclude that B. subtilis and S. cerevisae complex could provide positive effect on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, intestinal microflora, and fecal gas emissions in growing pigs. Moreover, the use of probiotics in non-PKE containing diet was more favorable than in PKE containing diet.
A very simple and successful design for an endfire directional tapered slot antenna with ultra-wideband characteristic using CPW to wide-slot transition is presented. By widening the slot width in ...the transition, ultra-wideband characteristic and directivity enhancement to the endfire direction of the antenna are obtained. To verify this characteristic, the electric field distributions in the transition are presented, and comparisons between simulated and measured results are demonstrated.
We use higher-order quantum chromodynamics calculations to extract the mass of the top quark from the tt¯ cross section measured in the lepton + jets channel in pp¯ collisions at s=1.96 TeV using 5.3 ...fb−1 of integrated luminosity collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The extracted top quark pole mass and MS¯ mass are compared to the current Tevatron average top quark mass obtained from direct measurements.
We investigated outcomes according to a new clinical grading system for chronic graft-versus-host disease (chronic GVHD) in 38 patients who developed chronic GVHD after an allogeneic hematopoietic ...stem cell transplantation. We categorized the patients into three grade groups, namely, grade I, grade II and grade III, according to the presence of three risk factors: extensive skin involvement, thrombocytopenia (TP) and progressive type of onset. Sixteen patients were classified into grade 1, 19 into grade II and three into grade III. The probability of withdrawal of systemic immunosuppression (IST) at 1, 2 and 3 years was 61, 76 and 87%, respectively. Patients with grades 2 or 3 chronic GVHD had prolonged duration of systemic IST compared to grade 1 (P=0.043). The probability of GVHD-specific survival (GSS) at 5 years was 52%. Twenty-two of 38 patients with chronic GVHD were still alive and the estimated 3-year overall survival (OS) rate was 60%, whereas that for the group with chronic GVHD grade I and grade II+III was 64 and 48% (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that prior occurrence of acute GVHD, chronic GVHD grade, serum bilirubin over 1.5 mg/dl, date of diagnosis of chronic GVHD (<day 150 versus >day 150) and transplantation-risk factor were independent prognostic factors for GSS and OS.
Atmospheric Aluminum measured in northern Taiwan from 2003 to 2006 is used as a dust tracer, from which dust concentrations are derived, and major Asian dust events are determined. The source ...locations for the major dust events are traced back and identified, and the processes leading to the southeastward transport of Asian dust is investigated. The derived dust concentrations are compared to the local PM
10 (particle with size less than 10
μm) concentrations, and the impacts of Asian dust on the air quality of Taiwan are quantified.
According to the backward trajectory and dust observation analyses, most of the southeastward transport of major Asian dust events originate from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia in northern China, and only one out of 16 events is generated from western China. Modeling studies and weather analyses of dust events suggest that the southeastward transport of Asian dust is usually generated behind a surface front and transported downwind behind the associated upper level trough. The associated upper level trough is usually deep, in which the northwesterly wind behind the trough favors the southeastward transport of dust to lower latitudes. Dust transported to Taipei generally occur during periods of large-scale subsidence.
Asian dust contributes about 15
μg
m
−3 of aerosol particles to northern Taiwan during winter monsoon, which accounts for about 24–30% of the PM
10 concentrations to the northern Taiwan. The contributions of Asian dust are raised pronouncedly to about 60–70% during major dust events. The impacts of Asian dust on Taiwan's air quality are most substantial in December. The Asian dust impacts decrease in other months, but still remain at around 30% in the late winter to early spring.
Proposed is a novel method to improve the bandwidth of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed tapered slot antenna (TSA) using a stub with multi-transformation characteristics for ultra-wideband ...applications. By inserting multipaths inside a conventional circular slotline open stub, the necessary condition for multi-transformation characteristics for bandwidth enhancement is fulfilled. To verify this characteristic, the equivalent models of TSAs including the stub are presented, and the performance of each TSA is experimentally demonstrated.
A biomolecular photoreceptor consisting of bacteriorhodopsin (bR)-based complex Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) films was developed for color image detection. By mimicking the functions of the pigments in ...retina of human visual system, biomolecules with photoelectric conversion function were chosen and used as constituents for an artificial photoreceptor. bR and flavin were deposited onto the patterned (9-pixelized) ITO glass by LB technique. A 9-pixel biomolecular photoreceptor was fabricated with a sandwich-type structure of ITO/LB films/electrolyte gel/Pt. Since each functional molecule shows its own response characteristic according to the light illumination in the visible region, the simplified knowledge-based algorithm for interpretation of the incident light wavelength (color) was proposed based on the basic rule describing the relationship between the photoelectric response characteristics and the incident light wavelength. When simple color images were projected onto the photoreceptor, the primary colors in visible light region, red, green, and blue were clearly recognized, and the projected color images were fairly well reproduced onto the color monitor by the proposed photoreceptor with the knowledge-based algorithm. It is concluded that the proposed device has a capability of recognizing the color images and can be used as a model system to simulate the information processing function of the human visual system.
Caspase-8 is the most receptor-proximal, upstream caspase in the caspase cascade and plays a key role in cell death triggered by various death receptors. Here, we addressed the role of endogenous ...caspase-8 in tumor necrosis factor (TNF)- alpha -induced activation of NF- Kappa B. Direct targeting of caspase-8 with siRNA and antisense (AS) approaches abolished TNF- alpha -induced activation of NF- Kappa B in NIH3T3, HeLa, and HEK293 cells as determined with luciferase reporter gene and cell fractionation assays. Reconstitution of caspase-8-deficient C33A cells with processing-defective (P/D) mutant of caspase-8 sensitized the cells to TNF- alpha for NF- Kappa B activation. In contrast to wild-type caspase-8, death effector domain mutant replacing Asp73 with Ala (caspase-8 (D73A)) failed to activate NF- Kappa B and to bind FLICE-associated huge protein (FLASH) in vitro and in vivo. Instead, caspase-8 (D73A) mutant bound to caspase-8 and blocked NF- Kappa B activation triggered by TNF- alpha and caspase-8. In addition, expression of an NF- Kappa B-activating domain-deletion mutant of FLASH or transfection of FLASH AS oligonucleotides abolished TNF- alpha and caspase-8, but not phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate, -induced activation of NF- Kappa B. Further, immunoprecipitation assays showed that caspase-8 formed triple complex with TRAF2 and FLASH. Taken together, these results suggest that endogenous caspase-8 mediates TNF- alpha -induced activation of NF- Kappa B via FLASH.
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