Probing the S100 protein family through genomic and functional analysis

The EF-hand superfamily of calcium binding proteins includes the S100, calcium binding protein, and troponin subfamilies. This study represents a genome, structure, and expression analysis of the S100 protein family, in mouse, human, and rat. We confirm the high level of conservation between mammalian sequences but show that four members, including S100A12, are present only in the human genome. We describe three new members of the S100 family in the three species and their locations within the S100 genomic clusters and propose a revised nomenclature and phylogenetic relationship between members of the EF-hand superfamily. Two of the three new genes were induced in bone-marrow-derived macrophages activated with bacterial lipopolysaccharide, suggesting a role in inflammation. Normal human and murine tissue distribution profiles indicate that some members of the family are expressed in a specific manner, whereas others are more ubiquitous. Structure-function analysis of the chemotactic properties of murine S100A8 and human S100A12, particularly within the active hinge domain, suggests that the human protein is the functional homolog of the murine protein. Strong similarities between the promoter regions of human S100A12 and murine S100A8 support this possibility. This study provides insights into the possible processes of evolution of the EF-hand protein superfamily. Evolution of the S100 proteins appears to have occurred in a modular fashion, also seen in other protein families such as the C2H2-type zinc-finger family. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Optimization of pipeline transport for CO2 sequestration

Coal fired power generation will continue to provide energy to the world for the foreseeable future. However, this energy use is a significant contributor to increased atmospheric CO2 concentration and, hence, global warming. Capture and disposal Of CO2 has received increased R&D attention in the last decade as the technology promises to be the most cost effective for large scale reductions in CO2 emissions. This paper addresses CO2 transport via pipeline from capture site to disposal site, in terms of system optimization, energy efficiency and overall economics. Technically, CO2 can be transported through pipelines in the form of a gas, a supercritical. fluid or in the subcooled liquid state. Operationally, most CO2 pipelines used for enhanced oil recovery transport CO2 as a supercritical fluid. In this paper, supercritical fluid and subcooled liquid transport are examined and compared, including their impacts on energy efficiency and cost. Using a commercially available process simulator, ASPEN PLUS 10.1, the results show that subcooled liquid transport maximizes the energy efficiency and minimizes the Cost Of CO2 transport over long distances under both isothermal and adiabatic conditions. Pipeline transport of subcooled liquid CO2 can be ideally used in areas of cold climate or by burying and insulating the pipeline. In very warm climates, periodic refrigeration to cool the CO2 below its critical point of 31.1 degrees C, may prove economical. Simulations have been used to determine the maximum safe pipeline distances to subsequent booster stations as a function of inlet pressure, environmental temperature and ground level heat flux conditions. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Health system reform in Mexico 5: Assessing the effect of the 2001-06 Mexican health reform: an interim report card

Since 2001, Mexico has been designing, legislating, and implementing a major health-system reform. A key component was the creation of Seguro Popular, which is intended to expand insurance coverage over 7 years to uninsured people, nearly half the total population at the start of 2001. The reform included five actions: legislation of entitlement per family affiliated which, with full implementation, will increase public spending on health by 0.8-1.0% of gross domestic product; creation of explicit benefits packages; allocation of monies to decentralised state ministries of health in proportion to number of families affiliated; division of federal resources flowing to states into separate funds for personal and non-personal health services; and creation of a fund to protect families against catastrophic health expenditures. Using the WHO health-systems framework, we used a wide range of datasets to assess the effect of this reform on different dimensions of the health system. Key findings include: affiliation is preferentially reaching the poor and the marginalised communities; federal non-social security expenditure in real per-head terms increased by 38% from 2000 to 2005; equity of public-health expenditure across states improved; Seguro Popular affiliates used more inpatient and outpatient services than uninsured people; effective coverage of 11 interventions has improved between 2000 and 2005-06; inequalities in effective coverage across states and wealth deciles has decreased over this period; catastrophic expenditures for Seguro Popular affiliates are lower than for uninsured people even though use of services has increased. We present some lessons for Mexico based on this interim evaluation and explore implications for other countries considering health reforms.

Benchmarking of performance of Mexican states with effective coverage

Benchmarking of the performance of states, provinces, or districts in a decentralised health system is important for fostering of accountability, monitoring of progress, identification of determinants of success and failure, and creation of a culture of evidence. The Mexican Ministry of Health has, since 2001, used a benchmarking approach based on the World Health Organization (WHO) concept of effective coverage of an intervention, which is defined as the proportion of potential health gain that could be delivered by the health system to that which is actually delivered. Using data collection systems, including state representative examination surveys, vital registration, and hospital discharge registries, we have monitored the delivery of 14 interventions for 2005-06. Overall effective coverage ranges from 54.0% in Chiapas, a poor state, to 65.1% in the Federal District. Effective coverage for maternal and child health interventions is substantially higher than that for interventions that target other health problems. Effective coverage for the lowest wealth quintile is 52% compared with 61% for the highest quintile. Effective coverage is closely related to public-health spending per head across states; this relation is stronger for interventions that are not related to maternal and child health than those for maternal and child health. Considerable variation also exists in effective coverage at similar amounts of spending. We discuss the implications of these issues for the further development of the Mexican health-information system. Benchmarking of performance by measuring effective coverage encourages decision-makers to focus on quality service provision, not only service availability. The effective coverage calculation is an important device for health-system stewardship. In adopting this approach, other countries should select interventions to be measured on the basis of the criteria of affordability, effect on population health, effect on health inequalities, and capacity to measure the effects of the intervention. The national institutions undertaking this benchmarking must have the mandate, skills, resources, and independence to succeed.

Matching commercial clips from TV streams using a unique, robust and compact signature

One of critical challenges in automatic recognition of TV commercials is to generate a unique, robust and compact signature. Uniqueness indicates the ability to identify the similarity among the commercial video clips which may have slight content variation. Robustness means the ability to match commercial video clips containing the same content but probably with different digitalization/encoding, some noise data, and/or transmission and recording distortion. Efficiency is about the capability of effectively matching commercial video sequences with a low computation cost and storage overhead. In this paper, we present a binary signature based method, which meets all the three criteria above, by combining the techniques of ordinal and color measurements. Experimental results on a real large commercial video database show that our novel approach delivers a significantly better performance comparing to the existing methods.