Alpha 1-antichymotrypsin (ACT) inhibits chymotrypsin-like enzymes, particularly neutrophil cathepsin G. Moreover, ACT in its native form suppresses chemotaxis of neutrophils and decreases neutrophil production of superoxide radicals. We recently showed that Moraxella catarrhalis ubiquitous surface protein (Usp) A1 is able to specifically bind ACT in the context of a novel virulence mechanism. In t

A straightforward attempt to estimate the influence of the first vertex correction for a homogeneous electron gas is made. The approximation scheme is also tested on a solvable model of a core electron coupled to an electron gas.(12 refs)

The authors present a custom chip for use in digital predistortion linearisation of RF power amplifiers. The chip is mainly implemented with systolic arrays. At maximum clock-rate, 130 MHz, the throughput is 16 Msamples/s with a 5 V supply voltage and power consumption of 1 W. A throughput of 2 Msamples/s is achieved at a 1.2 V supply voltage with 6 mW power consumption

OBJECTIVES: Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is an important limiting factor for healing in neuroischemic or ischemic diabetic foot ulcer. The purpose of this study was to identify factors related to healing in patients with diabetes with foot ulcers and severe PVD. METHODS: Patients with diabetes with a foot ulcer, consecutively presenting at a multidisciplinary foot center with a systolic toe p

Churches, geometry and nonsense: A critical reply on Erling Haagensens article “Churches, geometry and statictics” in META 2002: 2.

We consider a cooperative wireless network where a set of nodes cooperate to relay in parallel the information from a source to a destination using a decode-and-forward approach. The source broadcasts the data to the relays, some or all of which cooperatively beamform to forward the data to the destination. We generalize the standard approaches for cooperative communications in two key respects: (

To evaluate measurement properties of 2 brief outcome measures for carpal tunnel syndrome: the 6-item carpal tunnel symptoms scale (CTS-6) and the 2-item palmar pain scale (measuring severity of pain in the scar/palm and pain-related activity limitation). Our hypothesis was that the CTS-6 is responsive to change in symptoms after surgical treatment and the pain scale is a valid measure of surgery-

Abstract not available.

The 20 or so galectins expected to be found in man, and their many possible functional effects promise a rich and fruitful research field in the future. At present, the biomedically most promising areas for use of galectins or their ligands are in inflammation, immunity, and cancer. Many good stories can be formulated, but the field lacks the cohesion of knowing basic galectin function. The only b