Search results for "block"
showing 10 items of 1177 documents
High Performance Bi-Block Sleeper for Improvement the Performances of Ballasted Railway Track
2012
Abstract This article focuses on the performance of an innovative railway sleeper, recently patented in Italy and called “HP-BB” (High Performance Bi-Block sleeper), under different efficiency conditions of the ballast. The research is carried out through a comparative assessment of traditional mono- and bi-block sleepers, evaluating the lateral resistance of the single sleeper thought as independent of the other constituents of the track.
A New Scalable and Cost-Effective Congestion Management Strategy for Lossless Multistage Interconnection Networks
2005
In this paper, we propose a new congestion management strategy for lossless multistage interconnection networks that scales as network size and/or link bandwidth increase. Instead of eliminating congestion, our strategy avoids performance degradation beyond the saturation point by eliminating the HOL blocking produced by congestion trees. This is achieved in a scalable manner by using separate queues for congested flows. These are dynamically allocated only when congestion arises, and deallocated when congestion subsides. Performance evaluation results show that our strategy responds to congestion immediately and completely eliminates the performance degradation produced by HOL blocking whi…
Hypertension treatment in patients with sleep apnea from the European Sleep Apnea Database (ESADA) cohort - towards precision medicine.
2022
We recruited 5,970 patients with hypertension with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) on current antihypertensive treatment from the European Sleep Apnea Database (ESADA) cohort. The group was subdivided into those receiving monotherapy (n = 3,594) and those receiving dual combined therapy (n = 2,376). We studied how major OSA confounders like age, gender, and body mass index as well as the degree of sleep apnea modified office systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Beta-blockers alone or in combination with a diuretic were compared with other antihypertensive drug classes. Monotherapy with beta-blocker was associated with lower systolic blood pressure, particularly in non-obese middle-aged male…
Beta-blockers: Historical Perspective and Mechanisms of Action
2019
Beta-blockers are widely used molecules that are able to antagonize β-adrenergic receptors (ARs), which belong to the G protein-coupled receptor family and receive their stimulus from endogenous catecholamines. Upon β-AR stimulation, numerous intracellular cascades are activated, ultimately leading to cardiac contraction or vascular dilation, depending on the relevant subtype and their location. Three subtypes have been described that are differentially expressed in the body (β1-, β2- and β3-ARs), β1 being the most abundant subtype in the heart. Since their discovery, β-ARs have become an important target to fight cardiovascular disease. In fact, since their discovery by James Black in the …
PINCoC: a Co-Clustering based Method to Analyze Protein-Protein Interaction Networks
2007
Anovel technique to search for functionalmodules in a protein-protein interaction network is presented. The network is represented by the adjacency matrix associated with the undirected graph modelling it. The algorithm introduces the concept of quality of a sub-matrix of the adjacency matrix, and applies a greedy search technique for finding local optimal solutions made of dense submatrices containing the maximum number of ones. An initial random solution, constituted by a single protein, is evolved to search for a locally optimal solution by adding/removing connected proteins that best contribute to improve the quality function. Experimental evaluations carried out on Saccaromyces Cerevis…
Poloxamer/sodium cholate co-formulation for micellar encapsulation of Doxorubicin with high efficiency for intracellular delivery: an in-vitro bioava…
2020
Abstract Hypothesis Doxorubicin hydrochloride (DX) is widely used as a chemotherapeutic agent, though its severe side-effects limit its clinical use. A way to overcome these limitations is to increase DX latency through encapsulation in suitable carriers. However, DX has a high solubility in water, hindering encapsulation. The formulation of DX with sodium cholate (NaC) will reduce aqueous solubility through charge neutralization and hydrophobic interactions thus facilitating DX encapsulation into poloxamer (F127) micelles, increasing drug latency. Experiments DX/NaC/PEO-PPO-PEO triblock copolymer (F127) formulations with high DX content (DX-PMs) have been prepared and characterized by scat…
Role of calcium in E-selectin induced phenotype of T84 colon carcinoma cells
2003
The adhesion of cancer cells to the endothelium during the metastatic process involves the interaction of specific cell-cell adhesion receptors on the cell surface. E-selectin on endothelial cells and sialyl Lewis X carbohydrate component on tumor cells are mainly implicated in the adhesion of colon carcinoma cells to the endothelium of target organ. In this paper we show that binding of E-selectin to T84 colon tumor cells causes approximately a twofold increase in intracellular calcium concentration. In particular, using two inhibitors of receptor operated calcium channels, CAI and SK&F 96365, we present evidences that the augmentation in cytoplasmic calcium originates from ionic influx fr…
Iterative sparse matrix-vector multiplication for accelerating the block Wiedemann algorithm over GF(2) on multi-graphics processing unit systems
2012
SUMMARY The block Wiedemann (BW) algorithm is frequently used to solve sparse linear systems over GF(2). Iterative sparse matrix–vector multiplication is the most time-consuming operation. The necessity to accelerate this step is motivated by the application of BW to very large matrices used in the linear algebra step of the number field sieve (NFS) for integer factorization. In this paper, we derive an efficient CUDA implementation of this operation by using a newly designed hybrid sparse matrix format. This leads to speedups between 4 and 8 on a single graphics processing unit (GPU) for a number of tested NFS matrices compared with an optimized multicore implementation. We further present…
Protocol for Low-level laser therapy in traumatic ulcer after troncular anesthesia: Case report in pediatric dentistry
2020
The aim of this study was to report a protocol of use for low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in traumatic ulcer in the lower lip after inferior alveolar nerve block anesthesia (IANBA). A 3-year-old patient, male, undergoing treatment of carious lesions was submitted to an indirect pulp capping in tooth 74 under IANBA. The procedure was completed without intercurrences, but on next day, the child presented extensive traumatic ulcer in the left lower lip, with complaint of pain. Two sequential applications with LLLT were applied in punctual mode under pressure around the lesion. After 1 week, the mother reported significant improvement. After 30 days, the lesion was fully healed. In conclusion, L…
Research of Complex Forms in Cellular Automata by Evolutionary Algorithms
2004
This paper presents an evolutionary approach for the search for new complex cellular automata. Two evolutionary algorithms are used: the first one discovers rules supporting gliders and periodic patterns, and the second one discovers glider guns in cellular automata. An automaton allowing us to simulate AND and NOT gates is discovered. The results are a step toward the general simulation of Boolean circuits by this automaton and show that the evolutionary approach is a promising technic for searching for cellular automata that support universal computation.