The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Toward increasing the diagnostic ability of wireless capsule endoscopy, we propose a method to wirelessly insufflate the Gastrointestinal Tract. By increasing the viewable surface area, it appears likely that capsule-based insufflation may reduce the number of false negative diagnoses made by endoscopic capsules. Our approach to wireless insufflation is to utilize controlled phase transition of a...
This paper demonstrates initial results with a novel instrument for nanoparticle detection and quantization, called the “qNano.” The qNano instrument provides a label-free method for detection of charged particles passing through a nanopore (a nanopore scale channel that separates two volumes) via electrophoresis. The instrument incorporates an elastomeric membrane in which a nano-scale pore has been...
microRNAs (miRNA) play important roles in regulating immunity. Here we utilize the systems biology approach to predict the regulatory network of miRNAs among the most down-regulated genes by the lipopolysaccharides (LPS) treatment in the macrophage RAW267.4 cell line. We combine the proteome and transcriptome data sets to define 200 target genes that are significantly down-regulated by the LPS treatment...
Bioprinted tissue test systems show promise as a powerful tool for studying cell-cell interaction in heterogeneous, tissue-like co-culture. Several challenges were encountered while attempting to consistently fabricate samples with high viability and pattern fidelity. This paper evaluates four methods for processing samples after bioprinting but prior to adding media for incubation. These methods,...
Paired-pulse stimulation is a standard protocol that has been used for decades to characterize dynamic systems: the differences in responses to two sequential identical stimuli as a function of inter-stimulus interval provide quantitative information on the dynamics of the system. In neuroscience, the paired-pulse protocol is also widely used at multiple levels of analysis, from behavioral conditioning...
Kv2.1 are voltage gated potassium channels that form long-lived clusters on the surface of mammalian cells. We have used single molecule tracking to study the interesting dynamics of these channels in live HEK cells. Both the channels inside the clusters and non-clustering channels are found to follow anomalous subdiffusion. The effect of actin cytoskeleton on the diffusion properties of the channels...
The resting energy expenditure (REE) and substrate utilization are computed by indirect calorimetry technique (ICT). The REE represents 80-85% of the total energy expenditure (TEE) but only accounts for the 7% of the actual body weight (ABW). The TEE is produced by the organs plus muscles, whereas the REE accounts only for the main organs. An important problem comes up when the REE is computed throughout...
The accreditation criteria for engineering programs require that the curriculum introduce students to the ethical, social, economics and safety issues arising from the practice of engineering. This paper presents the assessment of moral judgment of biomedical engineering, dentistry and biochemistry students through the standardized Defining Issues Test (DIT). Results show that college students, as...
The potential of producing patterned, bioactive coatings with Human Elastin-Like Polypeptides (HELPs) has been investigated. The physicochemical features of these compounds have evidenced some differences between the two recombinantly expressed products. By a device-free, simple route and avoiding the use of chemically unfriendly compounds, micropatterned surfaces with the ability to control cell...
Intradyalitic exercise programas are important to improve patient's hemodynamic stability. Blood pressure and metabolic changes are correlated when heat accumulation is due to increment of the body core temperature (+1.0°C). However, increase in temperature could be controlled by lowering dialysate's temperature using two main modalities techniques (isothermic and thermoneural) with different patient's...
Nicotine, an addictive substance in cigarette, triggers glutamatergic synaptic plasticity on ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons. The functional coupling between prefrontal cortex (PFC) and VTA has been demonstrated, but little is known how PFC mediates nicotinic modulation in VTA DA neurons. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that systemic exposure to nicotine significantly increases...
Construction of signaling pathway maps and identification of drug effects are major challenge for pharmaceutical industries. Signaling maps are usually obtained from manual literature search, automated text mining algorithms, or canonical pathway databases (i.e. Reactome, KEGG, STKE, Pathway Studio, Ingenuity etc.) and in some cases they are used in combination with gene expression or mass spec data...
The design of novel antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is an important problem given the rise of drug-resistant bacteria. However, the large size of the sequence search space, combined with the time required to experimentally test or simulate AMPs at the molecular level makes computational approaches based on sequence analysis attractive. We propose a method for designing novel AMPs based on learning from...
Exploiting ontologies, provides clues regarding the involvement of certain molecular processes in the cellular phenotypic manifestation. However, identifying individual molecular actors (genes, proteins, etc.) for targeted biological validation in a generic, prioritized, fashion, based in objective measures of their effects in the cellular physiology, remains a challenge. In this work, a new meta-analysis...
We used reciprocal derivative chronopotentiometry (RDC) with platinum electrodes of 50 μm diameter in 0.15 M phosphate buffered saline solution to identify the various electrochemical processes occurring at the electrode during biphasic current pulsing. RDC allowed to determine the limits of water hydrolysis based on the specific (dt/dE)-E data representation employed in this technique resulting in...
The stratified architecture of the epidermis makes it an ideal system in which to investigate intracellular signaling pathways within the context of a native tissue. We have applied quantitative imaging protocols to investigate the expression of 13 total-proteins and 4 phosphorylated-proteins across human epidermis. Plasma membrane, nuclear and/or cytoplasmic protein expression levels were measured...
Based on some reported clinical data, we attempt to apply the allometric law for evaluating the probability of ventricular fibrillation when electrocardiographic ST-segment deviations are determined. The deviation is measured in millimeters at the standard calibration of 1mV = 10mm and the probability in percent. Using the equation VFP = δ + β (ST) in log-log representation, the fitting procedure...
Mid-infrared (MIR) laser with a specific wavelength can excite the corresponding biomolecular site to regulate chemical, thermal and mechanical interactions to biological molecules and tissues. In laser surgery and medicine, tunable MIR laser irradiation can realize the selective and less-invasive treatments and the special diagnosis by vibrational spectroscopic information. This paper showed a novel...
The foreign body reaction that the neural tissue develops around an implanted electrode contributes to insulate the probe and enhances the electrical and mechanical mismatch. It is a complex interaction among cells and soluble mediators and the knowledge of this phenomenon can benefits of formal and analytical methods that characterize the mathematical models. This work offers a lumped component model,...
Neural interfaces are aimed at creating an intimate contact with neural cells, either to stimulate the nerves or to record neural signals. This would allow the development of neurocontrolled artificial devices. The quality of these systems can be improved by increasing the selectivity of the neural interfaces used to stimulate or to record the activity of specific subsets of cells. Hence selectivity...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.