Deficiency of inducible nitric oxide synthase attenuates immobilization-induced skeletal muscle atrophy in mice.

The present study examined the effects of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) deficiency on skeletal muscle atrophy in single leg-immobilized iNOS knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice. The left leg was immobilized for 1 wk, and the right leg was used as the control. Muscle weight and contraction-stimulated glucose uptake were reduced by immobilization in WT mice, which was accompanied with increased iNOS expression in skeletal muscle.

Epidemiology and demographics of slipped capital femoral epiphysis in Korea: a multicenter study by the Korean Pediatric Orthopedic Society.

Background: In 1979, slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) was rarely reported in Korea, although it is the most common hip disorder of adolescence in Western nations. However, because the number of reported cases of SCFE in Korea has increased a great deal since then, we performed a nationwide survey to ascertain its epidemiology and demographics in Korea.

Methods: We reviewed the discharge databases for the period between January 1989 and December 2003 from 19 university hospitals across Korea.

Designed strength identification of concrete by ultrasonic signal processing based on artificial intelligence techniques.

This paper presents a pattern recognition method to identify the designed strength of concrete by evidence accumulation based on artificial intelligence techniques with multiple feature parameters. Concrete specimens in this experiment, which were designed to have the strengths of 180, 210, 240, 300, and 400 kg/cm2, respectively, have been considered. Variance, zero-crossing, mean frequency, autoregressive (AR) model coefficients, and linear cepstrum coefficients are extracted as feature parameters from ultrasonic signals of concretes.