Unpublished Mediterranean and Black Sea records of marine alien, cryptogenic, and neonative species

To enrich spatio-temporal information on the distribution of alien, cryptogenic, and neonative species in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, a collective effort by 173 marine scientists was made to provide unpublished records and make them open access to the scientific community. Through this effort, we collected and harmonized a dataset of 12,649 records. It includes 247 taxa, of which 217 are Animalia, 25 Plantae and 5 Chromista, from 23 countries surrounding the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Chordata was the most abundant taxonomic group, followed by Arthropoda, Mollusca, and Annelida. In terms of species records, Siganus luridus, Siganus rivulatus, Saurida lessepsianus, Pterois miles, Upeneus moluccensis, Charybdis (Archias) longicollis, and Caulerpa cylindracea were the most numerous. The temporal distribution of the records ranges from 1973 to 2022, with 44% of the records in 2020–2021. Lethrinus borbonicus is reported for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea, while Pomatoschistus quagga, Caulerpa cylindracea, Grateloupia turuturu, and Misophria pallida are first records for the Black Sea; Kapraunia schneideri is recorded for the second time in the Mediterranean and for the first time in Israel; Prionospio depauperata and Pseudonereis anomala are reported for the first time from the Sea of Marmara. Many first country records are also included, namely: Amathia verticillata (Montenegro), Ampithoe valida (Italy), Antithamnion amphigeneum (Greece), Clavelina oblonga (Tunisia and Slovenia), Dendostrea cf. folium (Syria), Epinephelus fasciatus (Tunisia), Ganonema farinosum (Montenegro), Macrorhynchia philippina (Tunisia), Marenzelleria neglecta (Romania), Paratapes textilis (Tunisia), and Botrylloides diegensis (Tunisia).peer-reviewe

Coronary artery stent design for challenging disease: insights into patient specific modelling

In the last two decades, numerical methods have been a widely recognised tool for investigating stenting procedures. Initially, computer models of stenting were restricted to ideal vessels and in some cases by two dimensional analysis due to limited computational capabilities and resources. Nevertheless, nowadays, the increased computational power along with the development of solid imaging processing techniques, have launched a new category in computational stenting, that of imaged-based computational modelling.Recent clinical evidence has shown that new generation stents are better in terms of in-stent restenosis and stent thrombosis. However, improving stent performance regarding one factor can impair others and, as a result, a compromised approach is likely to be necessary. This fact seems to be more evident in challenging anatomies where a long and flexible stent has to be implanted. Challenging anatomies can be characterised by long and tortuous geometry, comprising non-focal and highly calcified plaque. Common complications of percutaneous coronary intervention in such anatomies include stent malapposition and stent longitudinal deformation.The aims of this doctoral work were (i) to reconstruct diseased patient-specific coronary artery segments, (ii) simulate the deployment of state of the art stents into these segments following model validation and verification, (iii) assess the degree of stent malapposition and stent longitudinal deformation, (iv) design stent systems to mitigate the risk of stent malapposition and longitudinal deformation in these segments and (v) analyse optimum stent deployments according to a patient-specific vessel.Patient-specific cases were reconstructed by combining coronary angiography and ultrasonography to an acceptable accuracy level for the computational purposes of this project. Then, after generating contemporary virtual stent/balloon models, they were validated/calibrated against experimental data. In addition, novel varying diameter balloon models and a modified stent were generated to mitigate the risk of stent malapposition and longitudinal deformation, respectively. After developing an inexpensive numerical methodology for image-based stenting simulations, numerous patient-specific structural simulations were carried out to investigate the effect of i) different stent design in stent malapposition and longitudinal deformation and ii) different dilation system design in stent malapposition. Finally, a multi-objective optimisation framework was presented to investigate the optimum dilation protocol in a patient-specific segment via structural and surrogate modelling.Results indicate that stent malapposition, for the simulated patient specific cases, is dependent on the so-called “reference diameter”. Remarkably, the proposed balloon models demonstrated superior results of performance especially as far as stent malapposition is concerned. In particular, they led to an approximately 40% reduction in malapposed struts when compared with the baseline models, whilst maintaining a relatively low stressed mechanical environment. As for stent longitudinal deformation, the outcomes indicated that (i) it is significantly different between the stent platforms in a manner consistent with physical testing in a laboratory environment, (ii) there was a smaller range of variation for simulations of in vivo performance relative to models of in vitro experiments, and (iii) the modified stent design demonstrated considerably higher longitudinal integrity. Interestingly, it was shown that stent longitudinal stability may differ significantly after a localised in vivo force compared to a distributed in vitro force. Lastly, the multi-objective optimisation study demonstrated that given a patient-specific vessel, different optimum dilation strategies could be extracted according to the interventional cardiologist’s preference.Significantly, this work computationally investigates stent longitudinal deformation and stent malapposition of patient-specific reconstructed vessels. Such numerical models can provide three dimensional qualitative and quantitative information in the investigated clinical problems. Moreover, they may represent a potentially valuable tool for predicting stent malapposition, avoiding stent deformations and, consequently, optimising the interventional protocol according to any patient-specific case

Multi-objective optimisation of stent dilation strategy in a patient-specific coronary artery via computational and surrogate modelling

Although contemporary stents have been shown to improve short and long term clinical outcomes, the optimum dilation protocol is still uncertain in challenging cases characterised by long, highly calcified and tortuous anatomy. Recent clinical studies have revealed that in these cases, sub-optimal delivery can result in stent thrombosis (ST) and/or neointimal thickening as a result of stent malapposition (SM) and/or severe vessel trauma. One of the major contributors to vessel trauma is the damage caused by balloon dilation during stent deployment. In the present work, a Kriging based response surface modelling approach has been implemented to search for optimum stent deployment strategies in a clinically challenging, patient specific diseased coronary artery. In particular, the aims of this study were: (i) to understand the impact of the balloon pressure and unpressurised diameter on stent malapposition, drug distribution and wall stresses via computer simulations and (ii) obtain potentially optimal dilation protocols to simultaneously minimise stent malapposition and tissue wall stresses and maximise drug diffusion in the tissue. The results indicate that SM is inversely proportional to tissue stresses and drug deliverability. After analytical multi-objective optimisation, a set of “non-dominated” dilation scenarios was proposed as a post-optimisation methodology for protocol selection. Using this method, it has been shown that, for a given patient specific model, optimal stent expansion can be predicted. Such a framework could potentially be used by interventional cardiologists to minimise stent malapposition and tissue stresses whilst maximising drug deliverability in any patient-specific case

AFM induced diffusion of large scale mobile HOPG defects

Defects on crystal and/or thin film surfaces play an important role in their physical and chemical properties. Diffusion or motion of such structures results in microstructural dynamic changes. The diffusion of single atom/point defects were previously reported, due to the difficulty of observation, the motion of large-scale defects (the defect consist of multiple missing atoms) using combination of consecutive images has not been possible since today. For the first time, the diffusion of three mobile large-scale highly oriented pyrolytic graphite monolayer defect domains is reported using non-contact atomic force microscopy in ultra-high vacuum conditions. It was suspected that the diffusion of the defects was triggered by the rastering motion of the tip of atomic force microscope. It was evidenced that the diffusion of large defects is shown to be size-dependent, with smaller defects moving with higher speeds than larger defects. The diffusion results fit well with the models previously reported for the diffusion of particles for varying sizes and indicates that the diffusion of defects and particles show similar behaviours.Kirklareli University Scientific Research Office [KLUBAP115]Part of this project was funded by Kirklareli University Scientific Research Office with project number of KLUBAP115. Finally, we are also thankful Dr Klaus von Haeften and Prof Chris Bins for allowing us to use their microscope facility at University of Leicester.WOS:0004895976000052-s2.0-8507325916

Unpublished Mediterranean and Black Sea records of marine alien, cryptogenic, and neonative species

To enrich spatio-temporal information on the distribution of alien, cryptogenic, and neonative species in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, a collective effort by 173 marine scientists was made to provide unpublished records and make them open access to the scientific community. Through this effort, we collected and harmonized a dataset of 12,649 records. It includes 247 taxa, of which 217 are Animalia, 25 Plantae and 5 Chromista, from 23 countries surrounding the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Chordata was the most abundant taxonomic group, followed by Arthropoda, Mollusca, and Annelida. In terms of species records, Siganus luridus, Siganus rivulatus, Saurida lessepsianus, Pterois miles, Upeneus moluccensis, Charybdis (Archias) longicollis, and Caulerpa cylindracea were the most numerous. The temporal distribution of the records ranges from 1973 to 2022, with 44% of the records in 2020–2021. Lethrinus borbonicus is reported for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea, while Pomatoschistus quagga, Caulerpa cylindracea, Grateloupia turuturu, and Misophria pallida are first records for the Black Sea; Kapraunia schneideri is recorded for the second time in the Mediterranean and for the first time in Israel; Prionospio depauperata and Pseudonereis anomala are reported for the first time from the Sea of Marmara. Many first country records are also included, namely: Amathia verticillata (Montenegro), Ampithoe valida (Italy), Antithamnion amphigeneum (Greece), Clavelina oblonga (Tunisia and Slovenia), Dendostrea cf. folium (Syria), Epinephelus fasciatus (Tunisia), Ganonema farinosum (Montenegro), Macrorhynchia philippina (Tunisia), Marenzelleria neglecta (Romania), Paratapes textilis (Tunisia), and Botrylloides diegensis (Tunisia)