Mircrining the injured heart with stem cellderived exosomes: an emerging strategy of cell-free therapy.

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have successfully progressed to phase III clinical trials successive to an intensive in vitro and pre-clinical assessment in experimental animal models of ischemic myocardial injury. With scanty evidence regarding their cardiogenic differentiation in the recipient patients’ hearts post-engraftment, paracrine secretion of bioactive molecules is being accepted as the most probable underlying mechanism to interpret the beneficial effects of cell therapy. Secretion of small non-coding microRNA (miR) constitutes an integral part of the paracrine activity of stem cells, and there is emerging interest in miRs’ delivery to the heart as part of cell-free therapy to exploit their integral role in various cellular processes. MSCs also release membrane vesicles of diverse sizes loaded with a wide array of miRs as part of their paracrine secretions primarily for intercellular communication and to shuttle genetic material. Exosomes can also be loaded with miRs of interest for delivery to the organs of interest including the heart, and hence, exosome-based cell-free therapy is being assessed for cell-free therapy as an alternative to cell-based therapy. This review of literature provides an update on cell-free therapy with primary focus on exosomes derived from BM-derived MSCs for myocardial repair

Efecto de algunos factores fisiológicos en la producción de ácido cítrico por tres aislamientos de Aspergillus niger empleando aserrín hidrolizado como fuente de carbono

Introduction: Citric acid (2-hydroxy-propane-1, 2, 3-tricarboxylic acid) was first isolated from lemon juice in 1784. It is a primary metabolic product which is formed in the tricarboxylic acid (Krebs) cycle. It is estimated that the market value of citric acid will exceed two billion dollars in 2019. About 70% of total citric acid produced globally is utilized in food industry, while about 12% is utilized in pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industries and the remainder in other industrial purposes. The industrial production of citric acid is undertaken by fermentation process in the presence of filamentous fungi for large scale of production. Aspergillus niger is the most efficient fungus due to its ability to produce more citric acid per unit time and ferment different inexpensive raw materials. Materials and Methods: Three isolates of the fungus Aspergillus niger (An1, An2, An3) were used throughout this study using different carbon source concentration in the form of sawdust acid hydrolysis supplemented with different concentration of (NH4)2H2SO4 as a nitrogen source. The effect of hydrogen ion concentration and addition of methanol to the fermentation medium was also investigated. Results and Discussion: The results indicated that the optimization of carbon and nitrogen concentration had stimulatingeffect on citric acid production by the three used isolates. Moreover, addition of methanol at concentration of 1% at pH of 3.5 highly increased citric acid production. Conclusion: we concluded that the agriculture waste was a favorable substrate for the production of citric acid especially it is cost effective and easily obtainable

Estimation of the Genetic Parameters of the Growth Characteristics in Rice Crop (Oryza sativa L.) by Effect of two Methods Irrigation

 نفذت تجربة حقلية للموسم الزراعي 2017 في محافظة بابل/ المسيب – منطقة البوجاسم 35 كم شمال المحافظة بهدف تقويم اداء سبعة تراكيب وراثية من الرز( Oryza sativa L.)  وكذلك دراسة المعالم الوراثية كالتباينات الوراثية والبيئية والمظهرية ونسبة التوريث بالمعنى الواسع ومعاملي الاختلاف الوراثي والمظهري بتأثير طريقتي الري (الغمر والري المتقطع) للتراكيب الوراثية (عنبر33 و دجلة ومشخاب 2 وفرات وبرنامج4 وياسمين وغدير) والتي تم الحصول عليها من محطة ابحاث الرز في المشخاب باستعمال تجربة الالواح المنشقة بتصميم القطاعات الكاملة المعشاة (RCBD) بثلاثة مكرارت ويمكن تلخليص النتائج على النحو الآتي:- اختلفت التراكيب الوراثية معنويا على مستوى احتمال 5% لجميع الصفات المدروسة. تفوق التركيب الوراثي عنبر33 في جميع الصفات المدروسة باستثناء صفة عدد التفرعات الفعالة التي تفوق فيها التركيب الوراثي فرات. تفوقت طريقة الري بالغمر معنوياً لجميع الصفات المدروسة. كانت قيم التباين الوراثي لما يشكله من قيمة التباين الكلي عالية لجميع الصفات باستثناء صفة عدد الافرع .دالية للموقع الاول فقط. اشارت تقديرات قيم التوريث بالمعنى الواسع الى انها كانت عالية لجميع الصفات. كانت قيم معاملي الاختلاف المظهري والوراثي مختلفة بين واطئة لصفات عدد الايام من الزراعة حتى 50% تزهير ومتوسطة لبقية الصفات عدا صفة مساحة ورقة العلم اذ كانت عالية لطريقتي الري وواطئة لصفة عدد الافرع .دالية.Field experiments were carried out for 2017 agricultural season in Babylon / Musaib - Albojasem region 35 km west  north of the governorate to evaluate the performance of seven genotypes of rice (Oryza sativa L.) Genetic, environmental and phenotypic variances, heritability percent in the broad sense, genetic and phenotypic Different Coefficients, effect of irrigation methods (flooding and intermittent irrigation) of the genotypes (Amber33, Dijla, Mashkhab 2, Forat, Pernameg4, Yasmin and Ghadir)  The research center of the rice in Al-Mashkhab using the experiment of split plots in randomized complete Block design (RCBD) with three replicates. The results can be summarized as follows: 1.The genotypes showed significant differences in the 5% probability level for all studied traits. The genotype Amber 33 superior to all other traits except for the number of effective branches for genotype Forat. The method of irrigation by flooding showed significant superiority of all studied traits. The genetic variance values were higher than the environmental variability values of all traits except for the number of branches. 5.The estimates of heritability values in the broad sense indicated that they were high for all traits. 6.The values of the phenotypic and genetic differences were different between low values of the number of days from planting to 50% flowering and medium for the other traits except for the area of the leaf it was high for the irrigation methods and the low of the number of branches. panicle

General method for extracting the quantum efficiency of dispersive qubit readout in circuit QED

We present and demonstrate a general three-step method for extracting the quantum efficiency of dispersive qubit readout in circuit QED. We use active depletion of post-measurement photons and optimal integration weight functions on two quadratures to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the non-steady-state homodyne measurement. We derive analytically and demonstrate experimentally that the method robustly extracts the quantum efficiency for arbitrary readout conditions in the linear regime. We use the proven method to optimally bias a Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier and to quantify different noise contributions in the readout amplification chain.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Millisecond Coupling of Local Field Potentials to Synaptic Currents in the Awake Visual Cortex

The cortical local field potential (LFP) is a common measure of population activity, but its relationship to synaptic activity in individual neurons is not fully established. This relationship has been typically studied during anesthesia and is obscured by shared slow fluctuations. Here, we used patch-clamp recordings in visual cortex of anesthetized and awake mice to measure intracellular activity; we then applied a simple method to reveal its coupling to the simultaneously recorded LFP. LFP predicted membrane potential as accurately as synaptic currents, indicating a major role for synaptic currents in the relationship between cortical LFP and intracellular activity. During anesthesia, cortical LFP predicted excitation far better than inhibition; during wakefulness, it predicted them equally well, and visual stimulation further enhanced predictions of inhibition. These findings reveal a central role for synaptic currents, and especially inhibition, in the relationship between the subthreshold activity of individual neurons and the cortical LFP during wakefulness

Sense-making strategies in explorative intelligence analysis of network evolutions

Visualising how social networks evolve is important in intelligence analysis in order to detect and monitor issues, such as emerging crime patterns or rapidly growing groups of offenders. It remains an open research question how this type of information should be presented for visual exploration. To get a sense of how users work with different types of visualisations, we evaluate a matrix and a node-link diagram in a controlled thinking aloud study. We describe the sense-making strategies that users adopted during explorative and realistic tasks. Thereby, we focus on the user behaviour in switching between the two visualisations and propose a set of nine strategies. Based on a qualitative and quantitative content analysis we show which visualisation supports which strategy better. We find that the two visualisations clearly support intelligence tasks and that for some tasks the combined use is more advantageous than the use of an individual visualisation

Estimation des niveaux d'inondation pour une crue éclair en milieu urbain : comparaison de deux modèles hydrodynamiques sur la crue de Nîmes d'octobre 1988

Lors des crues extrêmes en ville, une forte part des écoulements reste en surface. Pour simuler ces inondations, deux modèles sont présentés : le logiciel REM2 U unidimensionnel a pour objectif de simuler la propagation des débits de crue dans l'ensemble d'un réseau de rues alors que le logiciel Rubar 20 bidimensionnel vise à fournir plus d'information sur ces écoulements. Des calculs avec ces deux logiciels ont été menés sur la crue d'octobre 1988 dans un quartier de Nîmes. Lors de cet événement, les hauteurs d'eau maximales ont dépassé deux mètres en certains points et les vitesses 2 m/s ce qui entraînait des passages en régime torrentiel. A partir des données rassemblées sur les sections en travers des rues, des maillages de calcul limités au réseau de rues ont été construits pour les deux logiciels afin de permettre un calcul détaillé. La comparaison des résultats avec les laisses de crue montre des situations très contrastées d'un point à un autre pour une hauteur d'eau maximale moyenne sur l'ensemble de la zone inondée correctement simulée. L'écart sur cette hauteur est, en moyenne, de 1 m ce qui provient des incertitudes sur les observations, sur la topographie et sur les conditions aux limites, des approximations lors de la modélisation et de particularités locales non décrites. Entre les deux logiciels, l'évolution des hauteurs et des vitesses est généralement très proche bien que, comme pour la comparaison avec les laisses de crue, des différences locales importantes sont observées.The hydraulic models that are used to simulate floods in rural areas are not adapted to model floods through urban areas, because of details that may deviate flows and create strong discontinuities in the water levels, and because of the possible water flow running in the sewage network. However, such modelling is strongly required because damage is often concentrated in urban areas. Thus, it is necessary to develop models specifically dedicated to such floods. In the southern part of France, rains may have a high intensity but floods generally last a few hours. During extreme events such as the October 1988 flood in the city of Nîmes, most of the flow remained on the ground with high water depths and high velocities, and the role of sewage network can be neglected. A 1-D model and a 2-D model were used to calculate such flows, which may become supercritical. On the catchments of the streams which cross the city of Nîmes, the rainfall was estimated as 80 mm in one hour and 250 mm in six hours in October 1988, although some uncertainties remain. The return period can be estimated between 150 and 250 years. The zone selected to test the models was an area 1.2 km long and less than 1 km wide in the north-eastern part of the city. It includes a southern part with a high density of houses. The slope from the North (upstream) to the South (downstream) was more than 1 % on average and was decreasing from North to South. Various topographical and hydrological data were obtained from the local Authorities. The basic data were composed of 258 cross sections of 69 streets with 11 to 19 points for each cross section. Observations of the limits of the flooded areas and of the peak water levels at more than 80 points can be used to validate the calculation results. The inputs consisted of two discharge hydrographs, estimated from a rainfall-discharge model from rains with a return period of 100 years, which may result in an underestimate of these inputs. These two hydrographs correspond to the two main structures that cross the railway embankment, which constitutes an impervious upstream boundary of the modelled area. Whereas the western and eastern boundaries are well delimitated by hills above maximum water levels, the downstream southern boundary is somewhat more questionable because of possibilities of backwater and inflows from neighbouring areas.The 1-D software REM2U solved the Saint Venant equations on a meshed network. At crossroads, continuities of discharge and of water heads were set. The hydraulic jump was modelled by a numerical diffusion applied wherever high water levels were found. The Lax Wendroff numerical scheme was implemented. It included a prediction step and a correction step, which implied precise solving of these very unsteady and hyperbolic problems. The software was validated on numerous test cases (Al Mikdad, 2000) which proved the adaptation to problems of calculations in a network of streets.The 2-D software Rubar 20 solves 2-D shallow water equations by an explicit second-order Van Leer type finite volume scheme on a computational grid made from triangles and quadrilaterals (Paquier, 1998). The discontinuities (hydraulic jumps for instance) are treated as ordinary points through the solving of Riemann problems. For the Nîmes case, the grid was built from the cross sections of the streets. Four grids were built with respectively 4, 5, 7 or 11 points for every cross section and these points correspond to the main characteristics of the cross section: the walls of the buildings, the sidewalks, the gutters and the middle point. The simplest crossroads were described from the crossings of the lines corresponding to these points, which provide respectively 16, 25, 49 or 121 computational cells. The space step was about 25 metres along the streets but went as low as 0.1 m in the crossroads; due to the explicit scheme, which implies that the Courant number was limited to 1, the time step was very small and a long computational time was required.The computations were performed with a uniform Strickler coefficient of 40 m1/3/s. Both 1-D and 2-D models provided results that agreed well with observed water levels. The limits of the flooded area were also quite well simulated. However, locally, the differences between calculated and observed maximum water depths were high, resulting in an average deviation of about 1 metre. The reasons for such deviations could come from three main causes. First, the uncertainty of topographical data is relatively high, because of the interpolation between measured cross sections without a detailed complementary DEM (digital elevation model). Second, the observed levels were also uncertain and reveal local situations that are not reconstructed by the hydraulic models which provided maximum water levels averaged on one cell which may not coincide with the exact location of the observations. Finally, modelling means a simplification of the processes, which implies cancelling the level variations due to some obstacles, such as cars, which are not simple to identify.In conclusion, both software packages can model a flood, even a flash flood, in an urbanised area. Research is still necessary to develop methods to fully use urban databases in order to define details more precisely. The improvements to the 1-D software should include a better modelling of storage and of crossroads with an integration of adapted relations for the head losses. 2-D software has a greater potential but the difficulty to build an optimal computational grid means a long computational time, which limits the use of such software to small areas. For both software packages, methods still need to be developed in order to represent exchanges with the sewage network, storage inside buildings and inputs directly coming from rainfall

ν(νˉ)\nu(\bar\nu)-208^{208}Pb deep inelastic scattering

Nuclear-medium effects in the weak structure functions $F_2(x,Q^2)$ and $F_3(x,Q^2)$ in the charged current neutrino and antineutrino induced deep inelastic reactions in $^{208}$Pb have been studied. The calculations have been performed in a theoretical model using relativistic nuclear spectral functions which incorporate Fermi motion, binding and nucleon correlations. We also consider the pion and rho meson cloud contributions calculated from a microscopic model for meson-nucleus self-energies. Using these structure functions, the results for the differential cross section have been obtained and compared with the CERN Hybrid Oscillation Research apparatUS (CHORUS) data. The results for the ratios $\frac{2F_{i}^{Pb}}{208F_i^D}$, $\frac{4F_{i}^{Pb}}{208F_i^{He}}$, $\frac{12F_{i}^{Pb}}{208F_i^C}$, $\frac{16F_{i}^{Pb}}{208F_i^O}$, and $\frac{56F_{i}^{Pb}}{208F_i^{Fe}}$ (i=2,3) have also been obtained and a few have been compared with some of the phenomenological fits.Comment: 19Pages, 12 Fig