We conclude that endothelial progenitor cells can be isolated from human adult peripheral and umbilical cord blood and developed into EC cultures as a source of cells for vascular graft seeding and gene therapy.

No abstract

Adherence of genetically modified endothelial cells to small-diameter expanded polytetrafluoroethylene grafts in an in vivo physiologic flow model is significantly improved when cells have a more prolonged recovery from G418 selection, when the graft lumen is more uniformly coated with fibronectin before EC seeding, and when seeded grafts are left longer in culture before implantation to develop cell lining stability. The short-term patency rate of these seeded grafts is not affected by increased cell retention; long-term graft patency data and luminal healing require further evaluation.

No abstract

Chains containing side groups were generated with up to 102 bonds in the backbone for both iso-and syndiotactic arrangements. The mean-square end-to-end distance

, the mean-square radius of gyration and the ratios /<112> of the axes of inertia were investigated. It could be shown that the mean size and shape of such chains are not influenced by the kind of stereoregularity.

No abstract

SUMMARYThe spectral region from 700 to 3600 cm" is subdivided into several wave number intervals. The peaks in each interval are summarized by means of three encoding algorithms. Using a factor model of kcommon factors, the total extractable variance (corn) of a given set of intervals is calculated and correlated with the redundancy of information in all these intervals. The value of corn is verified by analysis of the factor loadings a, (factor pattern). Finally, the information content of some chosen sets of intervals coded by the three selected feature algorithms will be correlated to the probability of information flow through a serial-parallel network. The encoding using only wave numbers was found to be the most effective.

No abstract