Search results for " colon."

Clinical significance of macrophage colony stimulating factor levels in acute coronary syndrome.

2009

Aim. The aim of this paper was to ascertain whether macrophage colony stimulating factor (MCSF) serum levels, measured during the acute phase of coronary syndromes (ACS), are useful to predict short term outcomes. Methods. Seventy-four consecutive patients (mean age: 66±12), admitted to the Intensive Coronary Care Unit of Palermo University Hospital (Italy) affected by ACS were observed; 39 patients showed a non ST elevation (NSTEMI) and 35 showed a ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). During the hospital stay, all patients underwent echocardiography and 84% of patients received coronary angiography. Peripheral venous blood samples were collected for the determination of serum levels…

Differential Response of Ant Colonies to Intruders: Attack Strategies Correlate With Potential Threat

2011

Animals are often threatened by predators, parasites, or competitors, and attacks against these enemies are a common response, which can help to remove the danger. The costs of defense are complex and involve the risk of injury, the loss of energy ⁄time, and the erroneous identification of a friend as a foe. Our goal was to study the specificity of defense strategies. We analyzed the aggressive responses of ant colonies by confronting them with workers of an unfamiliar congeneric species, a non-nestmate conspecific, a co-occurring congeneric competitor species, and a social parasite—a slave-making ant. As expected, the latter species, which can inflict dramatic fitness losses to the colony,…

Homodimeric murine interleukin-3 agonists indicate that ligand dimerization is important for high-affinity receptor complex formation.

1994

Homodimeric murine interleukin 3 (mIL-3) agonists were generated by intermolecular cystine-bonding. Steady-state binding assays and association kinetics performed at 4 degrees C using these agonists revealed specific binding to both the high- and low-affinity receptor. DSS-mediated crosslinking studies performed at 4 degrees C with agonist concentrations compatible with high-affinity receptor complex formation allowed to detect protein complexes of the alpha chain, the beta chain(s) and the high-affinity receptor complex migrating with apparent molecular weights of 90 kDa, 140 kDa, and above 180 kDa, respectively. In contrast, monomeric mIL-3 was crosslinked to the alpha chain receptor only…

Acetylcholine and nicotine stimulate the release of granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor from cultured human bronchial epithelial cells.

1998

Primary cultures of human bronchial epithelial cells (HBE-cells) were established to measure granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) release. HBE-cells showed a basal GM-CSF release (82+/-20 ng/well/24 h; 30 donors), which was increased by interleukin-1 beta(IL-1beta, 1 ng/ml) by 270%. This effect was blocked by 1 microM dactinomycin or 10 microM cycloheximide, i.e. the stimulatory effect of IL-1beta depended on de-novo synthesis. Histamine (100 microM) and acetylcholine ( 100 nM) stimulated GM-CSF release more than two-fold above the baseline. Nicotine (1 microM) increased GM-CSF release to a similar extent, and this effect was prevented by 30 microM (+)-tubocurarine. The…

Methods matter: Testing competing models for designing short-scale Big-Five assessments

2015

Abstract Many psychological instruments are psychometrically inadequate because derived person-parameters are unfounded and models will be rejected using established psychometric criteria. One strategy towards improving the psychometric properties is to shorten instruments. We present and compare the following procedures for the abbreviation of self-report assessments on the Trait Self-Description Inventory in a sample of 14,347 participants: (a) Maximizing reliability/main loadings, (b) Minimizing modification indices/cross loadings, (c) the PURIFY Algorithm in Tetrad, (d) Ant Colony Optimization, and (e) a genetic algorithm. Ant Colony Optimization was superior to all other methods in imp…

Angiotensin II positively modulates the spontaneous contractile activity of mouse and human colon via activation of AT1 receptors.

2012

Objective: Angiotensin II (Ang II) is a potent smooth muscle contractile neurohumoral agonist but has not been much investigated with regard to gastrointestinal motor activity. Ang II effects are mediated by specific receptors, the Ang II type 1 (AT1) and the Ang II type 2 (AT2) receptors, which are well expressed in the gut. In this study we evaluated the effects of Ang II on the contractile activity of longitudinal muscle from mouse and human colon and we analysed the subtype(s) of receptors involved in the observed effects. Methods: Mechanical responses to Ang II, in the absence or in the presence of different drugs, were assessed in vitro in colonic longitudinal muscle from mice and hum…

An environment based approach for the ant colony convergence

2020

Abstract Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are a bio inspired solutions which have been very successful in combinatorial problem solving, also known as NP-hard problems, including transportation system optimization. As opposed to exact methods, which could give the best results of a tested problem, this meta-heuristics is based on the stochastic logic but not on theoretical mathematics demonstration (or only on certain well defined applications). According to this, the weak point of this meta-heuristics is his convergence, its termination condition. We can finds many different termination criteria in the scientific literature, yet most of them are costly in resources and unsuitable f…

Towards a multilevel ant colony optimization

2014

Masteroppgave i Informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi IKT590 Universitetet i Agder 2014 Ant colony optimization is a metaheuristic approach for solving combinatorial optimization problems which belongs to swarm intelligence techniques. Ant colony optimization algorithms are one of the most successful strands of swarm intelligence which has already shown very good performance in many combinatorial problems and for some real applications. This thesis introduces a new multilevel approach for ant colony optimization to solve the NP-hard problems shortest path and traveling salesman. We have reviewed different elements of multilevel algorithm which helped us in construction of our proposed mu…

Trauma cranico nel soggetto della necropoli "isolato 83", Messina, Sicilia.

2011

Accumulation of Amphotericin B in Human Macrophages Enhances Activity against Aspergillus fumigatus Conidia: Quantification of Conidial Kill at the S…

1998

ABSTRACT A cytofluorometric assay that allowed assessment of damage to phagocytosed Aspergillus fumigatus conidia at the single-cell level was developed. After ingestion by monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs), conidia were reisolated by treatment of the cells with streptolysin O, a pore-forming toxin with lytic properties on mammalian cells but not on fungi. The counts obtained by staining of damaged conidia with propidium iodide and quantification by cytofluorometry correlated with colony counts. By the use of this method, we demonstrate that MDMs differentiated in vitro by low-dose granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and gamma interferon have only a limited capacity to damage…