SHAPE BASED IMAGE RECONSTRUCTION USING LINEARIZED DEFORMATIONS.

We introduce a reconstruction framework that can account for shape related a priori information in ill-posed linear inverse problems in imaging. It is a variational scheme that uses a shape functional defined using deformable templates machinery from shape theory. As proof of concept, we apply the proposed shape based reconstruction to 2D tomography with very sparse measurements, and demonstrate strong empirical results.

Relationship between two estrogen receptor-alpha gene polymorphisms and angiographic coronary artery disease.

Objective: To investigate the association of estrogen receptor-alpha PvuII and BtgI polymorphisms with angiographic presence and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD).

Methods: Our cross-sectional study included 140 patients with >or=50% coronary stenoses (CAD group) and 47 patients with normal angiograms (CAD-free group) (total n=187, age 59.6+/- 13.

DNA repair gene XRCC1 and XPD polymorphisms and their association with coronary artery disease risks and micronucleus frequency.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a multifactorial process that appears to be caused by the interaction of environmental risk factors with multiple predisposing genes. In this study, we investigated the effects of the XPD Lys751Gln and XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphisms on the presence and the severity of CAD. We also investigated the presence of DNA damage in the peripheral lymphocytes of patients with CAD by using the micronucleus (MN) test and the effect of XPD Lys751Gln and XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphisms on this damage.

A novel approach to the detection of genomic approximate tandem repeats in the Levenshtein metric.

An efficient algorithm for detecting approximate tandem repeats in genomic sequences is presented. The algorithm is based on innovative statistical criteria to detect candidate regions which may include tandem repeats; these regions are subsequently verified by alignments based on dynamic programming. No prior information about the period size or pattern is needed.

Preliminary study showing the relationship between platelet fibronectin, sialic acid, and ADP-induced aggregation levels in coronary heart disease.

Several studies indicate that thrombosis plays an important role in the pathogenesis of coronary heart disease (CHD). Fibronectin is a multifunctional protein in plasma, other body fluids, and cell surface and plays an important role in platelet functions, including mediation of cell-cell and cell-surface interactions. Sialic acid is a regular constituent of glycoproteins and gangliozides in the outer cell membrane of mammalian cells.