[Surgical treatment of chronical pulmonary abscesses--contemporary treatment].

Between Jan 1991 and Dec 2000 a total of 67 patients were operated on for chronic primary pulmonary abscesses. They were 57 men and 10 women with mean age of 46.2 (range, 12 to 72) years.

X-linked genes evolve higher codon bias in Drosophila and Caenorhabditis.

Comparing patterns of molecular evolution between autosomes and sex chromosomes (such as X and W chromosomes) can provide insight into the forces underlying genome evolution. Here we investigate patterns of codon bias evolution on the X chromosome and autosomes in Drosophila and Caenorhabditis. We demonstrate that X-linked genes have significantly higher codon bias compared to autosomal genes in both Drosophila and Caenorhabditis.

Substantial regional variation in substitution rates in the human genome: importance of GC content, gene density, and telomere-specific effects.

This study presents the first global, 1-Mbp-level analysis of patterns of nucleotide substitutions along the human lineage. The study is based on the analysis of a large amount of repetitive elements deposited into the human genome since the mammalian radiation, yielding a number of results that would have been difficult to obtain using the more conventional comparative method of analysis. This analysis revealed substantial and consistent variability of rates of substitution, with the variability ranging up to twofold among different regions.

Protein evolution in the context of Drosophila development.

The tempo at which a protein evolves depends not only on the rate at which mutations arise but also on the selective effects that those mutations have at the organismal level. It is intuitive that proteins functioning during different stages of development may be predisposed to having mutations of different selective effects. For example, it has been hypothesized that changes to proteins expressed during early development should have larger phenotypic consequences because later stages depend on them.

Radiation forces on a Rayleigh dielectric sphere in a patterned optical near field.

We report on the study of the radiation forces exerted on a Rayleigh dielectric particle by a patterned optical near-field landscape at an interface decorated with resonant gold nanostructures. This configuration allows for the generation of a large array of surface subwavelength optical traps from an extended collimated beam, which may be of interest for parallel optical manipulation and sorting of submicrometer objects.

Real-time detection of hyperosmotic stress response in optically trapped single yeast cells using Raman microspectroscopy.

Living cells survive environmentally stressful conditions by initiating a stress response. We monitored changes in the Raman spectra of optically trapped Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast cell under normal, heat-treated, and hyperosmotic stress conditions. It is shown that when glucose was used to exert hyperosmotic stress, two chemical substances-glycerol and ethanol-can be monitored in real time in a single cell.

Purifying the masses: integrating prepurification quality control, high-throughput LC/MS purification, and compound plating to feed high-throughput screening.

In this paper we report using a parallel, four-channel HPLC/MUX/MS purification system, the Purification Factory, to purify thousands of compounds destined for high-throughput screening in a single month. The maximum sample throughput during this 20-workday month was 704 samples/day. Since this purification throughput exceeded the postpurification sample and data handling capabilities provided by commercial solutions, a custom-integrated solution was designed to address these shortcomings.

[Surgical treatment of chronic pleural empyema--seven years' experience].

During a 7 years period a total of 112 patients with chronic pleural empyema were operated on. There were 92 male and 20 female with mean age of 48.4 years.

[Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) for treatment of pleural empyema].

During 1996-2003 a total of 359 patients were treated for empyema. Forty eight of them (with parapneumonic empyema) were prospectively randomized into 2 groups of 24 patients who underwent early decortication either by thoracotomy or VATS. Comparing to thoracotomy group, VATS group had a significantly shorter chest tube duration (5.

[Diagnosis and surgical treatment of pulmonary sequestration].

Between Jan. 1988 and Jan. 2003 4 patients (3 male, 1 female, mean age of 20 years) were operated on for lung sequestration.

[Indications for the surgical treatment in bronchiectasis and postoperative results].

During Jan. 1990 and Dec. 2002 a total of 14 patients with bronchiectasis were operated on.

Elevated evolutionary rates in the laboratory strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

By using the maximum likelihood method, we made a genome-wide comparison of the evolutionary rates in the lineages leading to the laboratory strain (S288c) and a wild strain (YJM789) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and found that genes in the laboratory strain tend to evolve faster than in the wild strain. The pattern of elevated evolution suggests that relaxation of selection intensity is the dominant underlying reason, which is consistent with recurrent bottlenecks in the S. cerevisiae laboratory strain population.

[Corection of pectus excavatum with total sternal turnover].

A case of 23-year-old man with Pectus Excavatum (grade II) is reported on. The functional cardiorespiratory impairment was a leading symptom. The technique of sternal turnover with preservation of a vascular supply based on the internal mammary pedicle is introduced for the first time in Bulgaria.

[Pleural tent after high partial lung resection--prospective randomised research].

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the role of the pleural tent in prophylactics of prolonged alveolar air leakage and apical residual pleural cavity formation after upper lobectomy/bilobectomy.

Methods: A total of 40 patients, who underwent upper lobectomy/bilobectomy were prospectively randomized into two homogeneous groups: (1) with pleural tent--20 pts and (2) control group without pleural tent--20 pts. The multivariate analyses were used to compare the chest tubes duration, the length of the hospital stay, the mean quantity of postoperative extravasation and the need of additional interventions to treat the persistent postoperative alveolar leak.

The large genome constraint hypothesis: evolution, ecology and phenotype.

Background And Aims: If large genomes are truly saturated with unnecessary 'junk' DNA, it would seem natural that there would be costs associated ith accumulation and replication of this excess DNA. Here we examine the available evidence to support this hypothesis, which we term the 'large genome constraint'. We examine the large genome constraint at three scales: evolution, ecology, and the plant phenotype.

Three-boson problem near a narrow Feshbach resonance.

We consider a three-boson system with resonant binary interactions and show that for sufficiently narrow resonances three-body observables depend only on the resonance width and the scattering length. The effect of narrow resonances is qualitatively different from that of wide resonances revealing novel physics of three-body collisions. We calculate the rate of three-body recombination to a weakly bound level and the atom-dimer scattering length and discuss implications for experiments on Bose-Einstein condensates and atom-molecule mixtures near Feshbach resonances.

Genomic heterogeneity of background substitutional patterns in Drosophila melanogaster.

Mutation is the underlying force that provides the variation upon which evolutionary forces can act. It is important to understand how mutation rates vary within genomes and how the probabilities of fixation of new mutations vary as well. If substitutional processes across the genome are heterogeneous, then examining patterns of coding sequence evolution without taking these underlying variations into account may be misleading.

Reduction of postprandial hyperglycemia in patients with type 2 diabetes reduces NF-kappaB activation in PBMCs.

Aims/hypothesis: Short-lasting hyperglycemia results in activation of the transcription factor NF-kappaB in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We therefore studied whether the postprandial increase in glucose is sufficient to induce mononuclear NF-kappaB activation and whether blunting postprandial hyperglycemia with the alpha-glucosidase inhibitor acarbose reduces NF-kappaB activation.

Methods: 20 patients with type 2 diabetes were included in a double-blind randomized trial receiving 100 mg acarbose or placebo three times a day over a period of eight weeks.

Weakly bound dimers of fermionic atoms.

We discuss the behavior of weakly bound bosonic dimers formed in a two-component cold Fermi gas at a large positive scattering length a for the interspecies interaction. We find the exact solution for the dimer-dimer elastic scattering and obtain a strong decrease of their collisional relaxation and decay with increasing a. The large ratio of the elastic to inelastic rate is promising for achieving Bose-Einstein condensation of the dimers and cooling the condensed gas to very low temperatures.

Enhancer choice in cis and in trans in Drosophila melanogaster: role of the promoter.

Eukaryotic enhancers act over very long distances, yet still show remarkable specificity for their own promoter. To better understand mechanisms underlying this enhancer-promoter specificity, we used transvection to analyze enhancer choice between two promoters, one located in cis to the enhancer and the other in trans to the enhancer, at the yellow gene of Drosophila melanogaster. Previously, we demonstrated that enhancers at yellow prefer to act on the cis-linked promoter, but that mutation of core promoter elements in the cis-linked promoter releases enhancers to act in trans.

Protective efficacy of IgA monoclonal antibodies to O and H antigens in a mouse model of intranasal challenge with Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis.

Protective properties of immunoglobulin A (IgA) monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directed against O and H antigens of Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis (S. enteritidis) were evaluated in a model of generalized infection after intranasal (i.n.

Preferential duplication of conserved proteins in eukaryotic genomes.

A central goal in genome biology is to understand the origin and maintenance of genic diversity. Over evolutionary time, each gene's contribution to the genic content of an organism depends not only on its probability of long-term survival, but also on its propensity to generate duplicates that are themselves capable of long-term survival. In this study we investigate which types of genes are likely to generate functional and persistent duplicates.