The Role of Scanning Electron Microscopy in Periodontal Research

During recent years a great amount of research has led to a better understanding of the etiology, pathogenesis and pattern of progression of periodontal diseases. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has contributed to this improvement, mainly with respect to histology of periodontal tissues, the description of the morphology and distribution of bacteria on the exposed root surface, analysis of the host-parasite interactions on the gingival pocket wall, and morphological evaluation of root treatment. This review deals with all these topics. Unusual types of SEM research are also described and discussed. Uncommon sample preparation techniques for SEM in periodontal research are described. SEM in periodontal research should be of great application in the near future. Cathodoluminescence, backscattered emission and immunolabelling techniques will be formidable tools in this field of dentistry

Preconditioning and Cellular Engineering to Increase the Survival of Transplanted Neural Stem Cells for Motor Neuron Disease Therapy

Despite the extensive research effort that has been made in the field, motor neuron diseases, namely, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophies, still represent an overwhelming cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Exogenous neural stem cell-based transplantation approaches have been investigated as multifaceted strategies to both protect and repair upper and lower motor neurons from degeneration and inflammation. Transplanted neural stem cells (NSCs) exert their beneficial effects not only through the replacement of damaged cells but also via bystander immunomodulatory and neurotrophic actions. Notwithstanding these promising findings, the clinical translatability of such techniques is jeopardized by the limited engraftment success and survival of transplanted cells within the hostile disease microenvironment. To overcome this obstacle, different methods to enhance graft survival, stability, and therapeutic potential have been developed, including environmental stress preconditioning, biopolymers scaffolds, and genetic engineering. In this review, we discuss current engineering techniques aimed at the exploitation of the migratory, proliferative, and secretive capacity of NSCs and their relevance for the therapeutic arsenal against motor neuron disorders and other neurological disorders

Silence superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1): a promising therapeutic target for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and incurable neurodegenerative disorder that targets upper and lower motor neurons and leads to fatal muscle paralysis. Mutations in the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) gene are responsible for 15% of familial ALS cases, but several studies have indicated that SOD1 dysfunction may also play a pathogenic role in sporadic ALS. SOD1 induces numerous toxic effects through the pathological misfolding and aggregation of mutant SOD1 species, hence a reduction of the levels of toxic variants appears to be a promising therapeutic strategy for SOD1-related ALS. Several methods are used to modulate gene expression in vivo; these include RNA interference, antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) and CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Areas covered: This paper examines the current approaches for gene silencing and the progress made in silencing SOD1 in vivo. It progresses to shed light on the key results and pitfalls of these studies and highlights the future challenges and new perspectives for this exciting research field. Expert opinion: Gene silencing strategies targeting SOD1 may represent effective approaches for familial and sporadic ALS-related neurodegeneration; however, the risk of off-target effects must be minimized, and effective and minimally invasive delivery strategies should be fine-tuned

Glial cells involvement in spinal muscular atrophy: Could SMA be a neuroinflammatory disease?

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a severe, inherited disease characterized by the progressive degeneration and death of motor neurons of the anterior horns of the spinal cord, which results in muscular atrophy and weakness of variable severity. Its early-onset form is invariably fatal in early childhood, while milder forms lead to permanent disability, physical deformities and respiratory complications. Recently, two novel revolutionary therapies, antisense oligonucleotides and gene therapy, have been approved, and might prove successful in making long-term survival of these patients likely. In this perspective, a deep understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms and of their impact on the interactions between motor neurons and other cell types within the central nervous system (CNS) is crucial. Studies using SMA animal and cellular models have taught us that the survival and functionality of motor neurons is highly dependent on a whole range of other cell types, namely glial cells, which are responsible for a variety of different functions, such as neuronal trophic support, synaptic remodeling, and immune surveillance. Thus, it emerges that SMA is likely a non-cell autonomous, multifactorial disease in which the interaction of different cell types and disease mechanisms leads to motor neurons failure and loss. This review will introduce the different glial cell types in the CNS and provide an overview of the role of glial cells in motor neuron degeneration in SMA. Furthermore, we will discuss the relevance of these findings so far and the potential impact on the success of available therapies and on the development of novel ones

Seedling emergence and yield performance of wheat cultivars depending on seed vigor and sowing density.

Título em português: Emergência de plântulas e desempenho produtivo de cultivares de trigo em função do vigor de sementes e densidades de semeadura

Region-of-Interest Based Neural Video Compression

Humans do not perceive all parts of a scene with the same resolution, but rather focus on few regions of interest (ROIs). Traditional Object-Based codecs take advantage of this biological intuition, and are capable of non-uniform allocation of bits in favor of salient regions, at the expense of increased distortion the remaining areas: such a strategy allows a boost in perceptual quality under low rate constraints. Recently, several neural codecs have been introduced for video compression, yet they operate uniformly over all spatial locations, lacking the capability of ROI-based processing. In this paper, we introduce two models for ROI-based neural video coding. First, we propose an implicit model that is fed with a binary ROI mask and it is trained by de-emphasizing the distortion of the background. Secondly, we design an explicit latent scaling method, that allows control over the quantization binwidth for different spatial regions of latent variables, conditioned on the ROI mask. By extensive experiments, we show that our methods outperform all our baselines in terms of Rate-Distortion (R-D) performance in the ROI. Moreover, they can generalize to different datasets and to any arbitrary ROI at inference time. Finally, they do not require expensive pixel-level annotations during training, as synthetic ROI masks can be used with little to no degradation in performance. To the best of our knowledge, our proposals are the first solutions that integrate ROI-based capabilities into neural video compression models.Comment: Updated arxiv version to the camera-ready version after acceptance at British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) 202

In vitro models of multiple system atrophy from primary cells to induced pluripotent stem cells

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rare neurodegenerative disease with a fatal outcome. Nowadays, only symptomatic treatment is available for MSA patients. The hallmarks of the disease are glial cytoplasmic inclusions (GCIs), proteinaceous aggregates mainly composed of alpha-synuclein, which accumulate in oligodendrocytes. However, despite the extensive research efforts, little is known about the pathogenesis of MSA. Early myelin dysfunction and alpha-synuclein deposition are thought to play a major role, but the origin of the aggregates and the causes of misfolding are obscure. One of the reasons for this is the lack of a reliable model of the disease. Recently, the development of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology opened up the possibility of elucidating disease mechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases including MSA. Patient specific iPSC can be differentiated in glia and neurons, the cells involved in MSA, providing a useful human disease model. Here, we firstly review the progress made in MSA modelling with primary cell cultures. Subsequently, we focus on the first iPSC-based model of MSA, which showed that alpha-synuclein is expressed in oligodendrocyte progenitors, whereas its production decreases in mature oligodendrocytes. We then highlight the opportunities offered by iPSC in studying disease mechanisms and providing innovative models for testing therapeutic strategies, and we discuss the challenges connected with this technique

POLA PEMBINAAN NARAPIDANA UNTUK MELATIH KEMANDIRIAN BERWIRAUSAHA DI LEMBAGA PEMASYARAKATAN KLAS IIB KLATEN

OCTAVIA TRIA ABATI (131221105), Pola Pembinaan Narapidana untuk Melatih Kemandirian Berwirausaha Di Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Klas IIB Klaten. Skripsi: Jurusan Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam, Fakultas Ushuluddin dan Dakwah, Institut Agama Islam Negeri Surakarta. Salah satu hambatan sosialisasi narapidana adalah permasalahan yang berhubungan dengan pekerjaan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan jawaban tentang pola pembinaan narapidana untuk melatih kemandirian berwirausaha di Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Klas IIB Klaten. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif deskriptif. Lokasi penelitian di Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Klas IIB Klaten dengan fokus penelitian terletak pada melatih kemandirian narapidana. Data diperoleh melalui kajian pustaka, sumber arsip dan dokumen dari LP dan penelitian lapangan. Data yang diperoleh dianalisis secara deskriptif untuk memperoleh pemahaman tentang pola pembinaan narapidana untuk melatih kemandirian berwirausaha di Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Klas IIB Klaten. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah observasi, wawancara tidak terstruktur, dan dokumentasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dalam pembinaan narapidana di Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Klas IIB Klaten melalui pola pembinaan dalam membantu narapidana dapat terlaksana sesuai dengan pola pembinaan yang direncanakan melalui penetapan tujuan, menetapkan metode dan materi, serta menetapkan peserta dalam pembinaan kemandirian. pelaksanaan kegiatan pembinaan di LP berupa praktek langsung dalam ketrampilan mengerjakan suatu barang. Pola pembinaan yang dilaksanakan ini akan di evaluasi dan dinilai seberapa jauh narapidana dalam mengikuti kegiatan pembinaan. Sementara itu kegiatan pembinaan ketrampilan Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Klas IIB Klaten berkerjasama dengan Balai Pelatihan Kerja Surakarta (BLK). Dalam melatih kemandirian narapidana juga diberikan bekal kepercayaan dirinya agar mampu dan bertanggungjawab atas pekerjaan yang akan dilakukan setelah keluar dari lembaga. Kata kunci : Pembinaan Narapidana, kemandiria

Soybean cultivars subjected to narrow row spacing and plant populations in early sowing in subtropical region in southern Brazil.

Título em português: Cultivares de soja submetidas ao espaçamento reduzido e populações de plantas em semeadura antecipada em região subtropical no sul do Brasil