Mitochondrial Membrane Intracellular Communication in Healthy and Diseased Myocardium.

Research efforts in the twenty-first century have been paramount to the discovery and development of novel pharmacological treatments in a variety of diseases resulting in improved life expectancy. Yet, cardiac disease remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Over time, there has been an expansion in conditions such as atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF).

Liquid relaxation: A new Parodi-like relation for nematic liquid crystals.

We put forward a hydrodynamic theory of nematic liquid crystals that includes both anisotropic elasticity and dynamic relaxation. Liquid remodeling is encompassed through a continuous update of the shear-stress free configuration. The low-frequency limit of the dynamical theory reproduces the classical Ericksen-Leslie theory, but it predicts two independent identities between the six Leslie viscosity coefficients.

Anisotropic wave propagation in nematic liquid crystals.

Despite the fact that quantitative experimental data have been available for more than forty years now, nematoacoustics still poses intriguing theoretical and experimental problems. In this paper, we prove that the main observed features of acoustic wave propagation through a nematic liquid crystal cell - namely, the frequency-dependent anisotropy of sound velocity and acoustic attenuation - can be explained by properly accounting for two fundamental features of the nematic response: anisotropy and relaxation. The latter concept - new in liquid crystal modelling - provides the first theoretical explanation of the structural relaxation process hypothesised long ago by Mullen and co-workers [Mullen et al.

PROTO-PLASM: parallel language for adaptive and scalable modelling of biosystems.

This paper discusses the design goals and the first developments of PROTO-PLASM, a novel computational environment to produce libraries of executable, combinable and customizable computer models of natural and synthetic biosystems, aiming to provide a supporting framework for predictive understanding of structure and behaviour through multiscale geometric modelling and multiphysics simulations. Admittedly, the PROTO-PLASM platform is still in its infancy. Its computational framework--language, model library, integrated development environment and parallel engine--intends to provide patient-specific computational modelling and simulation of organs and biosystem, exploiting novel functionalities resulting from the symbolic combination of parametrized models of parts at various scales.

Alteration of chemoattractant receptor expression regulates human neutrophil chemotaxis in vivo.

Objective: To elucidate the mechanisms that regulate human neutrophil delivery in vivo, as well as the mechanisms that lead to observed reduction in polymorphonuclear (PMN) delivery to remote sites in septic patients.

Methods: Alterations in human PMN chemoattractant receptor expression and chemotactic function in vivo were evaluated in two distinct experiments: exudate PMNs (PMNs that have undergone transmigration to skin window blisters in controls) and septic PMNs (circulating PMNs from septic patients in the intensive care unit) were both separately compared with control circulating PMNs.

Results: Exudate PMNs displayed increased C5a receptors and C5a chemotaxis, and reduced interleukin-8 receptors (both IL-8 RA and IL-8 RB) and IL-8 chemotaxis.