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The article discusses the potential for targeting systemic inflammation in patients with heart failure through leucocyte immunomodulation. It highlights the high incidence of cardiovascular mortality and hospitalizations for heart failure despite current therapies. The role of inflammation in heart failure is explored, with a focus on the involvement of proinflammatory cytokines and biomarkers. The article introduces a novel approach using a selective cytopheretic device (SCD) to target activated neutrophils and monocytes, which has shown promise in reducing systemic inflammation and improving outcomes in other acute conditions. A case report is presented to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the SCD in bridging patients to left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation. The article concludes by suggesting that further studies are needed to evaluate the use of the SCD and its potential to reduce cardiovascular mortality and hospitalizations in heart failure patients. [Extracted from the article]

Currently described hyperkalemia (HK) animal models are typically acute and cause significant distress and mortality to the animals, warranting new approaches for studying chronic HK in a more appropriate clinical setting. Using the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) model as a more relevant disease template, as well as surgical (unilateral nephrectomy), dietary (3% potassium [K+] supplementation), and pharmacological (amiloride) interventions, we were able to stably induce HK on a chronic basis for up to 12 weeks to serum K+ elevations between 8 and 9 mmol/L, with minimal clinical stress to the animals. Short‐term proof‐of‐concept and long‐term chronic studies in hyperkalemic SHRs showed concomitant increases in serum aldosterone, consistent with the previously reported relationship between serum K+ and aldosterone. Treatment with the K+ binder patiromer demonstrated that the disease model was responsive to pharmacological intervention, with significant abrogation in serum K+, as well as serum aldosterone to levels near baseline, and this was consistent in both short‐term and long‐term 12‐week chronic studies. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of establishing a chronic HK disease state, and this novel HK animal model may be suitable for further evaluating the effects of long‐term, K+‐lowering therapies on effects such as renal fibrosis and end‐organ damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Despite considerable theoretical work, the evolution of population stability has rarely been investigated empirically. Moreover, it is not clear whether different stability properties of a population evolve together, or independently. 2. We investigate the evolution of two aspects of population stability using laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster selected for faster preadult development and early reproduction, and their matched controls. 3. We show that the constancy stability of the selected populations is significantly higher than their controls, confirming a previous observation that population stability can evolve as a by-product of life-history evolution. This enhanced constancy stability is due to a reduced maximal per capita growth rate, brought about by a reduction in fecundity of the selected populations as a result of the trade-off between developmental rate and fecundity. 4. Persistence stability, as reflected by the probability of extinction, does not differ significantly between selected and control populations. 5. We also show how seemingly trivial experimental details, such as the protocol for restarting extinct populations, can interact with life-history traits to alter the manifestation of the stability properties of a population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crystallization kinetics in the glass system (100-x) LiBO2-xNb2O5 (5≤x≤20, in molar ratio) prepared via the conventional metal-plate quenching technique have been studied by isothermal and non-isothermal methods using differential thermal analysis. X-ray powder diffraction studies carried out on heat-treated (500°C) glasses reveal the evolution of lithium niobate crystalline phase along with a minor phase of LiBO2. The exponent n in the Jhonson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) equation applied to the isothermal process is 2.62, which is in excellent agreement with that obtained under the non-isothermal process (2.67). The activation energies for crystal growth obtained from JMA equation under isothermal condition, modified Ozawa and Kissinger equations under non-isothermal conditions, are 293, 311, and 306 kJ/mol, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Les grandes enquětes gouvernementales permettent généralement de produire des statistiques précises au plan national. Pour décroǐtre l'erreur quadratique moyenne des estimations pour les petites régions, c'est-à-dire les secteurs pour lesquels la taille d'échantillon est faible, on a souvent recours à des variables auxiliaires extraites de fichiers administratifs, lesquelles servent de covariables dans un modèle linéaire mixte. On suppose d'habitude que cette information auxiliaire est disponible pour toutes les petites régions. Dans plusieurs cas, toutefois, on ne dispose de tels renseignements que pour certaines d'entre elles, soit par l'intermédiaire d'une autre enquěte ou d'une édition précédente de la měme enquěte. Les auteurs proposent et étudient des estimateurs pour petites régions qui font appel à des modèles multivariés permettant de combiner les données provenant de plusieurs enquětes. Ils présentent des algorithmes de calcul et font état d'une étude de simulation montrant que si les variables des différentes enquětes sont suffisamment corrélées, de substantiels gains d'efficacité sont possibles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bacterial transposon Tn7 utilizes four Tn7-encoded proteins, TnsA, TnsB, TnsC and TnsD, to make insertions at a specific site termed attTn7. This target is selected by the binding of TnsD to attTn7 in a sequence-specific manner, followed by the binding of TnsC and activation of the transposase. We show that TnsD binding to attTn7 induces a distortion at the 5' end of the binding site and TnsC contacts the region of attTn7 distorted by TnsD. Previous work has shown that a target site containing triplex DNA, instead of TnsD-attTn7, can recruit TnsABC and effect sitespecific insertion of Tn7. We propose that the DNA distortion imposed by TnsD on attTn7, like the altered DNA structure via triplex formation, serves as a signal to recruit TnsC. We also show that TnsD primarily contacts the major groove of DNA, whereas TnsC is a minor groove binding protein. The footprint of the TnsC-TnsD-attTn7 nucleoprotein complex includes and extends beyond the Tn7 insertion site, where TnsC forms a platform to receive and activate the transposase to carry out recombination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]