Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
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Ice-binding proteins that aid the survival of freeze-avoiding, cold-adapted organisms by inhibiting the growth of endogenous ice crystals are called antifreeze proteins (AFPs). The binding of AFPs to ice causes a separation between the melting point and the freezing point of the ice crystal (thermal hysteresis, TH). TH produced by hyperactive AFPs is an order of magnitude higher than that produced by a typical fish AFP. ⋯ Nevertheless, the accumulation of this ice adhesion protein and the two hyperactive AFPs on the basal plane of ice is distinct and extensive, but not detectable for moderately active AFPs. Basal ice plane binding is the distinguishing feature of antifreeze hyperactivity, which is not strictly needed in fish that require only approximately 1°C of TH. Here, we found a correlation between the accumulation kinetics of the hyperactive AFP at the basal plane and the time sensitivity of the measured TH.
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Multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings are becoming the model of care for cancer patients worldwide. While MDTs have improved the quality of cancer care, the meetings impose substantial time pressure on the members, who generally attend several such MDTs. We describe Lung Cancer Assistant (LCA), a clinical decision support (CDS) prototype designed to assist the experts in the treatment selection decisions in the lung cancer MDTs. ⋯ On the other hand, the exact and partial concordance rates achieved with probabilistic results are relatively poorer with 0.27 and 0.76. However, probabilistic decision support fulfils a complementary role in providing accurate survival estimations. Compared to recorded treatments, both CDS approaches promote higher resection rates and multimodality treatments.
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This work focuses on the size distribution of sneeze droplets exhaled immediately at mouth. Twenty healthy subjects participated in the experiment and 44 sneezes were measured by using a laser particle size analyser. Two types of distributions are observed: unimodal and bimodal. ⋯ The geometric mean of the droplet size of all the subjects is 360.1 µm for unimodal distribution and 74.4 µm for bimodal distribution with geometric standard deviations of 1.5 and 1.7, respectively. For the two peaks of the bimodal distribution, the geometric mean (the geometric standard deviation) is 386.2 µm (1.8) for peak 1 and 72.0 µm (1.5) for peak 2. The influences of the measurement method, the limitations of the instrument, the evaporation effects of the droplets, the differences of biological dynamic mechanism and characteristics between sneeze and other respiratory activities are also discussed.
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In the rubber hand illusion, tactile stimulation seen on a rubber hand, that is synchronous with tactile stimulation felt on the hidden real hand, can lead to an illusion of ownership over the rubber hand. This illusion has been shown to produce a temperature decrease in the hidden hand, suggesting that such illusory ownership produces disownership of the real hand. Here, we apply immersive virtual reality (VR) to experimentally investigate this with respect to sensitivity to temperature change. ⋯ Moreover, the change in sensitivity was significantly correlated with the subjective illusion of virtual arm ownership but modulated by the illusion of ownership over the full VB. This suggests that a full body ownership illusion results in a unification of the virtual and real bodies into one overall entity-with proprioception and tactile sensations on the real body integrated with the visual presence of the VB. The results are interpreted in the framework of a 'body matrix' recently introduced into the literature.
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The endothelial glycocalyx is a thin layer of polysaccharide matrix on the luminal surface of endothelial cells (ECs), which contains sulphated proteoglycans and glycoproteins. It is a mechanotransducer and functions as an amplifier of the shear stress on ECs. It controls the vessel permeability and mediates the blood-endothelium interaction. ⋯ It covers predominantly the edge of cells initially and appears on the apical membrane of cells as time progresses. The Young's modulus of the glycocalyx is deduced from Young's moduli of cell membranes with and without the glycocalyx layer. Our results show the glycocalyx on cultured HUVECs has a Young's modulus of approximately 0.39 kPa.