Effects of dietary protein restriction on nephron number in the mouse.

In rats, maternal protein restriction reduces nephron endowment and often leads to adult hypertension. Sex differences in these responses have been identified. The molecular and genetic bases of these phenomena can best be identified in a mouse model, but effects of maternal protein restriction on kidney development have not been examined in mice.

Aortic stiffness affects the coronary blood flow response to percutaneous coronary intervention.

We examined the hypothesis that a stiff aorta is associated with reduced coronary blood flow (CBF) and CBF response to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Aortic mechanical properties are thought to affect CBF, with increased stiffness associated with decreased coronary perfusion. Animal studies are conflicting, and human evidence is lacking.

VDUP1: a potential mediator of expansion-induced lung growth and epithelial cell differentiation in the ovine fetus.

The degree of fetal lung expansion is a critical determinant of fetal lung growth and alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) differentiation, although the mechanisms involved are unknown. As VDUP1 (vitamin D3-upregulated protein 1) can modulate cell proliferation, can induce cell differentiation, and is highly expressed in the lung, we have investigated the effects of fetal lung expansion on VDUP1 expression and its relationship to expansion-induced fetal lung growth and AEC differentiation in fetal sheep. Alterations in fetal lung expansion caused profound changes in VDUP1 mRNA levels in lung tissue.

Predominant postglomerular vascular resistance response to reflex renal sympathetic nerve activation during ANG II clamp in rabbits.

We have shown previously that a moderate reflex increase in renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA) elevated glomerular capillary pressure, whereas a more severe increase in RSNA decreased glomerular capillary pressure. This suggested that the nerves innervating the glomerular afferent and efferent arterioles could be selectively activated, allowing differential control of glomerular capillary pressure. A caveat to this conclusion was that intrarenal actions of neurally stimulated ANG II might have contributed to the increase in postglomerular resistance.

Modulation of V1-receptor-mediated renal vasoconstriction by epoxyeicosatrienoic acids.

This study examined the effects of renal arterial infusion of a selective cytochrome P-450 epoxygenase inhibitor, N-methylsulfonyl-6-(2-propargyloxyphenyl)hexanamide (MS-PPOH; 2 mg/kg plus 1.5 mg.kg(-1).

Skeletal muscle LIM protein 1 (SLIM1/FHL1) induces alpha 5 beta 1-integrin-dependent myocyte elongation.

Skeletal muscle LIM protein 1 (SLIM1/FHL1) contains four and a half LIM domains and is highly expressed in skeletal and cardiac muscle. Elevated SLIM1 mRNA expression has been associated with postnatal skeletal muscle growth and stretch-induced muscle hypertrophy in mice. Conversely, SLIM1 mRNA levels decrease during muscle atrophy.

Changes in alveolar epithelial cell proportions during fetal and postnatal development in sheep.

Basal lung expansion is an important determinant of alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) phenotype in the fetus. Because basal lung expansion increases toward term and is reduced after birth, we hypothesized that these changes would be associated with altered proportions of AECs. AEC proportions were calculated with electron microscopy in fetal and postnatal sheep.

A novel technique for the pre-concentration and extraction of inositol hexakisphosphate from soil extracts with determination by phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance.

Inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6) is often the dominant form of soil organic phosphorus (P), but is rarely investigated because of the analytical difficulties encountered in its extraction, separation, and detection in environmental samples. In particular, recent advances in the study of soil organic P with 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) have been of limited use for the study of IP6, because the technique does not discriminate between IP6 and other forms of P. This was addressed by developing a novel analytical procedure using the retentive properties of gel-filtration gels for IP6, which allows the combined selective extraction and pre-concentration of IP6 from soil extracts with determination by 31P NMR.

An argument for abandoning the travelling salesman problem as a neural-network benchmark.

In this paper, a distinction is drawn between research which assesses the suitability of the Hopfield network for solving the travelling salesman problem (TSP) and research which attempts to determine the effectiveness of the Hopfield network as an optimization technique. It is argued that the TSP is generally misused as a benchmark for the latter goal, with the existence of an alternative linear formulation giving rise to unreasonable comparisons.

A neural-network contention controller for packet switching networks.

A novel approach to solving the output contention in packet switching networks with synchronous switching mode is presented. A contention controller has been designed based on the K-winner-take-all neural-network technique with a speedup factor to achieve a real-time computation of a nonblocking switching high-speed high-capacity packet switch without packet loss. Simulation results for evaluation of the performance of the K-winner network controller with 10 neurons are presented to study the constraints of the "frozen state" as well as those of same initial state.

Activating point mutations of the Neu oncogene in schwannomas induced by ethylnitrosourea exposure to day-15 and day-18 fetal rats.

Single transplacental exposure of day 15 fetal rats to the carcinogen ethylnitrosourea (ENU) primarily induces tumours of neuroectodermal origin, whereas exposure to ENU at neonatal and adult stages results in tumours arising predominantly from secretory epithelial tissue. Expression of the neu gene is found in fetal neural tissue up until day 16 of gestation, but predominantly only in secretory epithelium after this time. The presence of an activating mutation in the neu oncogene has been associated with these ENU induced neuroectodermal tumours, and on this basis it has been proposed that only the transcriptionally active neu gene is susceptible to ENU induced mutation.

Cell-loss concealment techniques for layered video codecs in an ATM network.

A layered video coding scheme with its inherent cell loss resilience has been considered as a means for transporting reliably integrated video services over an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) based network such as the broadband-ISDN. This paper presents some data concealment techniques that can be implemented in the coding of video data at the encoder, in the ATM adaptation layer (AAL) functionality of network realization and at the decoder to improve the performance of a layered codec under different conditions of video packet loss. The performance of these techniques are verified by software simulations.

Influence of nucleotides flanking the ggaa core sequence on ets1 and ets2 DNA-binding activity and the mechanism of ets1 autoregulation.

The Ets family of genes encode nuclear proteins that activate transcription by binding to a specific purine-rich (GGAA) ets binding sequence (EBS) present in promoters/enhancers of various genes. We have previously shown that over-expression of ets1 via transfection of ets1 expression vectors into NIH3T3 cells induced the expression of the endogenous Ets1 gene. Here we report that the autoregulation occurs as a result of the ets1 protein binding to the EBS-core located in its own promoter.

Predictive classified vector quantization.

A vector quantization scheme based on the classified vector quantization (CVQ) concept, called predictive classified vector quantization (PCVQ), is presented. Unlike CVQ where the classification information has to be transmitted, PCVQ predicts it, thus saving valuable bit rate. Two classifiers, one operating in the Hadamard domain and the other in the spatial domain, were designed and tested.