Aquaporin-11: A channel protein lacking apparent transport function expressed in brain

Background  

The aquaporins are a family of integral membrane proteins composed of two subfamilies: the orthodox aquaporins, which transport only water, and the aquaglyceroporins, which transport glycerol, urea, or other small solutes. Two recently described aquaporins, numbers 11 and 12, appear to be more distantly related to the other mammalian aquaporins and aquaglyceroporins.     

Cannabinoids in oral fluid by on-site immunoassay and by GC-MS using two different oral fluid collection devices

Oral fluid (OF) enables non-invasive sample collection for on-site drug testing, but performance of on-site tests with occasional and frequent smokers’ OF to identify cannabinoid intake requires further evaluation. Furthermore, as far as we are aware, no studies have evaluated differences between cannabinoid disposition among OF collection devices with authentic OF samples after controlled cannabis administration. Fourteen frequent (≥4 times per week) and 10 occasional (less than twice a week) adult cannabis smokers smoked one 6.8 % ?⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cigarette ad libitum over 10 min. OF was collected with the StatSure Saliva Sampler, Oral-Eze, and Draeger DrugTest 5000 test cassette before and up to 30 h after cannabis smoking. Test cassettes were analyzed within 15 min and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry cannabinoid results were obtained within 24 h. Cannabinoid concentrations with the StatSure and Oral-Eze devices were compared and times of last cannabinoid detection (t _last) and DrugTest 5000 test performance were assessed for different cannabinoid cutoffs. 11-nor-9-Carboxy-THC (THCCOOH) and cannabinol concentrations were significantly higher in Oral-Eze samples than in Stat-Sure samples. DrugTest 5000 t _last for a positive cannabinoid test were median (range) 12 h (4–24 h) and 21 h (1–?≥?30 h) for occasional and frequent smokers, respectively. Detection windows in screening and confirmatory tests were usually shorter for occasional than for frequent smokers, especially when including THCCOOH ≥20 ng L^?1 in confirmation criteria. No differences in t _last were observed between collection devices, except for THC ≥2 μg L^?1. We thus report significantly different THCCOOH and cannabinol, but not THC, concentrations between OF collection devices, which may affect OF data interpretation. The DrugTest 5000 on-site device had high diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency for cannabinoids.     

Semi‐analytical method for departure point determination

A new method for departure point determination on Cartesian grids, the semi‐analytical upwind path line tracing (SUT) method, is presented and compared to two typical departure point determination methods used in semi‐Lagrangian advection schemes, the Euler method and the four‐step Runge–Kutta method. Rigorous comparisons of the three methods were conducted for a severely curving hypothetical flow field and for advective transport in the rotation of a Gaussian concentration hill. The SUT method was shown to have equivalent accuracy to the Runge–Kutta method but with significantly improved computational efficiency. Depending on the case being simulated, the SUT method provides either far greater or equivalent computational efficiency and more certain accuracy than the Euler method. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An extension of the Kreiss stability theorem to families of matrices of unbounded order

The Kreiss matrix theorem asserts three necessary and sufficient conditions for a family of matrices of fixed finite order to be L₂-stable: a resolvent condition (R), a triangularization condition (S) and a Hermitian norm condition (H). We extend the Kreiss theorem to families of matrices of finite but unbounded order with the restriction that the degrees of the minimal polynomials of all matrices in the family are less than a fixed constant. For such matrix families, we show that (R) and (H) remain necessary and sufficient for L₂-stability, while (S) must be replaced by a somewhat stronger “block triangularization” condition (S′). This extended Kreiss theorem permits a corresponding extension of the Buchanan stability theorem.