Stress alters the expression of aquaporins in cultured rat intestinal epithelial cells.

Aquaporins (AQPs) are widely-expressed small water channel proteins that provide the major route for water transport across plasma membranes in various cell types. Although the quantity of water transported in the intestinal tract is second only to that in the kidney, the precise role of AQPs in this organ remains largely uncertain. The present study reports the effects of hypertonic stress and ischemia/reperfusion injury on the expression of AQPs in intestinal epithelial cells.

Color Doppler echocardiographic assessment of valvular regurgitation in normal infants.

Background/purpose: Despite valvular regurgitation being a common finding in children, its prevalence in infants is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the presence and severity of valvular regurgitation in normal infants using echocardiographic screening.

Methods: Two-dimensional (2D) color Doppler echocardiography was performed on 420 consecutive infants (aged 1-12 months) with structurally normal hearts.

Impact of measurement precision and noise on superresolution image reconstruction.

The performance of uniform and nonuniform detector arrays for application to the PANOPTES (processing arrays of Nyquist-limited observations to produce a thin electro-optic sensor) flat camera design is analyzed for measurement noise environments including quantization noise and Gaussian and Poisson processes. Image data acquired from a commercial camera with 8 bit and 14 bit output options are analyzed, and estimated noise levels are computed. Noise variances estimated from the measurement values are used in the optimal linear estimators for superresolution image reconstruction.

A novel mutation of transferrin receptor 2 in a Taiwanese woman with type 3 hemochromatosis.

Hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) is very rare in Asia. Here, we describe a Taiwanese woman presenting with fully developed characteristics of HH including bronze skin, DM, decreased MRI T2 signal intensity over liver and pituitary gland. Biochemistry of iron profile indicated a severe status of iron overload by serum iron: 194 microg/dL, serum ferritin: 6640 microg/L, transferrin saturation: 92.