To investigate the Ca2+-dependent plasticity of sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) function in vascular smooth muscle, transient responses to agents releasing intracellular Ca2+ by either ryanodine (caffeine) or D-myo-inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate [IP3; produced in response to norepinephrine (NE), 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), arginine vasopressin (AVP)] receptors in rat tail arterial rings were evaluated a

The present article seeks to advance the theoretical knowledge of entrepreneurial learning by reviewing and synthesizing available research into a conceptual framework that explains the process of entrepreneurial learning as an experiential process. The framework identifies three main components in the process of entrepreneurial learning: entrepreneurs' career experience, the transformation proces

We recently established that two midgestation-derived stromal clones--UG26-1B6, urogenital ridge-derived, and EL08-1D2, embryonic liver-derived--support the maintenance of murine adult bone marrow and human cord blood hematopoietic repopulating stem cells (HSCs). In this study, we investigate whether direct HSC-stroma contact is required for this stem cell maintenance. Adult bone marrow ckit+ Ly-6

The notion of "global warming" has become a major public-domain concept as an environmental threat to our future on earth. Independently of the accuracy of existing prediction of combustion emissions on the climate on earth, the concept of reducing combustion emissions has been an important political driving force in imposing more and more severe restrictions on harmful emissions from combustion.

The breeding biology of a southern population of the little-known Savi’s Warbler Locustella luscinioides is described and compared with other parts of its distribution and other species. Males arrived at the Salreu marshlands, Portugal, in the second week of March whereas females arrived 6–10 days later. Early-arriving males bred earlier and had greater mating and breeding success. Female breeding

Heterogeneous clusters created by doping Ar host clusters with Kr or Xe are shown to have radically different structures from the mixed clusters of the same type created by co-expansion of Ar-Kr or Ar-Xe gas mixtures. In contrast to the co-expansion case, the doped mixed clusters can be produced with Kr or Xe on the surface and Ar in the bulk. With the doping technique it is thus possible to contr

The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the cultural functions of a sacred motif have changed over the years by means of intermedial transformation. The object of study is an ekphrastic poem, "Theotokos", by the Swedish poet Ingemar Leckius. A couple of medieval Orthodox icon paintings - The Vladimir Madonna and The Virgin of the Sign - have served as sources of inspiration for the poet. A myt

Ethical issues in modern obstetrics commonly relate to a conflict between the rights and possibilities of the fetus versus those of the mother. After delivery, when the fetus by definition is a child, all legal rights are granted to this new individual. Whether any rights should be given or offered to the fetus is dependent on the prevailing situation. General rules are difficult to give due to th

Using the fixed point method we prove an existence result for positive solutions of nonlinear second order ordinary differential equations. An application to semilinear Schrodinger equations in exterior domains is also presented.

This report describes the results obtained from fire tests in a 1/3-scale room. The aim of the study was to investigate how changes in external radiation and oxygen supply affect the production of smoke and toxic gases. The ventilation was varied to simulate under- and well-ventilated fires. The thermal exposure to the materials was varied to simulate fires of different sizes. Fifty-nine tests wer

The JastAdd Extensible Java Compiler is a high quality Java compiler that is easy to extend with new analyses as well as new language constructs. In this demonstration we show how the existing framework for name analysis and type checking can be extended when adding new language constructs to Java. The same techniques have been used to implement all language features of Java 5 as modular extension

Detection of posttranslational modifications is expected to be one of the major future experimental challenges for proteomics. We describe herein a mass spectrometric procedure to screen for protein modifications by peptide mass fingerprinting that is based on post-data acquisition improvement of the mass accuracy by exporting the peptide mass values into analytical software for multipoint recalib

Human factors certification criteria are being developed for large civil aircraft with the objective of reducing the incidence of design-induced error on the flight deck. Many formal error identification techniques currently exist which have been developed in nonaviation contexts but none have been validated for use to this end. This paper describes a new human error identification technique (HET

Excited states in the nucleus Tc-89 have been identified for the first time by measuring evaporated particle-gamma-gamma-coincidences via the fusion reaction Ni-58 + Ar-36 at 149 MeV. Nine gamma-ray transitions built upon the (9/2+) ground state have been found, reaching up to a probable spin of (33/2+) at 5.3MeV excitation energy. The levels are interpreted with the shell model.

Soft tissue and skeletal chondromas are rare entities, and only 21 cases with abnormal karyotypes have been reported. A survey of these, and 10 new cases reported herein, showed that the 12q13-15 segment is nonrandomly involved in structural rearrangements in chondromas. The HMGA2 (HMGI-C) locus in 12q15 is frequently rearranged in other benign mesenchymal tumors, and this study aimed at character

Breast carcinoma is thought to arise because of multiple successive changes in the genome of the normal epithelial cells. However, little is known of the order of appearance of different types of genetic aberrations We studied the ERBB2 (Her-2/neu) and CCND1 (cyclin D1) oncogene amplification in flow cytometrically sorted diploid and nondiploid tumor cell populations by fluorescence in situ hybrid