A new combined bodian-luxol technique for staining unmyelinated axons in semithin, resin-embedded peripheral nerves: a comparison with electron microscopy.

peer reviewedaudience: researcher, professionalQuantitation of unmyelinated fibers (UF) in peripheral nerves has classically relied upon ultrastructural morphometry. Because this method is time-consuming, it is not typically performed in routine analysis of nerve biopsies. We applied the Bodian-Luxol technique to detect unmyelinated axons by light microscopy on semithin sections from resin-embedded nerve tissue. Estimates were compared to ultrastructural counts. The staining appeared highly specific for axons. Excellent correlation was found between optic densities and the population of UF larger than 0.5 microm. The smallest profiles detected by light microscopy had a diameter close to 0.6 microm. This new technique is not a substitute for ultrastructural quantitative morphometry of UF, as very small unmyelinated axons, especially regenerating ones, can not be reliably visualized. However, it provides a valuable light microscopic method for evaluating axonal loss among UF

Completeness of timed mu mu CRL

We provide soundness and completeness results for the extension of muCRL with time put forward by Groote. The specification language muCRL has been designed especially to deal with data in a process algebraic context. Using the features for data, only a minor extension of the language was needed to obtain a very expressive variant of time. The main tool to establish the completeness result is a mapping of timed to untimed muCRL and employing the completeness results obtained for untimed muCRL

064 Temporal trends in prescription rates of recommended treatments in chronic heart failure outpatients: a comparison of three French surveys IMPACT RECO I, II & III

BackgroundRecent registries have shown that recommended drugs for the treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF) remain under-prescribed in daily practice.AimsTo compare prescription rates of CHF drugs in three French surveys Impact Reco I, II and III.MethodsWe included outpatients followed by private cardiologists: 1947 in Impact Reco I (2005), 1974 in Impact Reco II (2005/2006) and 1574 in Impact Reco III (2007), with NYHA class II-IV heart failure and a left ventricular ejection fraction < 40%, and we compared treatment modalities. Recommended treatments and target doses were defined according to ESC guidelines.ResultsThere was an improvement in both the rate of prescription, and in the proportion of patients reaching target dose or 50% of target dose of ACE I, ARBs and beta blockers (see table).ConclusionWe observed an improvement with time in the management of CHF outpatients with an increase in prescription rates of recommended CHF drugs, as well as in the dosage used for ACE-I, ARB and beta-blockers,PrescriptionIMPACT I 2005IMPACT II 2005/2006IMPACT III 2007Global population191719741574ACE INumber patients with prescriptionN (%)1361 (71.0)1349 (68.3)1099 (70.2)Target dose%48.757.3*52.3•50% Target dose%80.484.5*88.4†,•ARBsNumber patients with prescriptionN (%)395 (20.6)592 (30.0)*516 (33.3)†,•Target dose%9.17.420.7†,•50% Target dose%52.949.768.6†,•BetablockersNumber patients with prescriptionN (%)1245 (65.2)1382 (70.0)*1229 (78.3)†,•Target dose%18.423.4*25.7†50% Target dose%47.353.5*59.9†•*: p<0.05 Impact II vs I•: p<0.05 Impact III vs II†: p<0.05 Impact III vs Ialthough there is still room for improvement particularly for beta blockers. These encouraging findings suggest a better awareness and implementation of ESC guidelines by French private cardiologists

Robustness of Equations Under Operational Extensions

Sound behavioral equations on open terms may become unsound after conservative extensions of the underlying operational semantics. Providing criteria under which such equations are preserved is extremely useful; in particular, it can avoid the need to repeat proofs when extending the specified language. This paper investigates preservation of sound equations for several notions of bisimilarity on open terms: closed-instance (ci-)bisimilarity and formal-hypothesis (fh-)bisimilarity, both due to Robert de Simone, and hypothesis-preserving (hp-)bisimilarity, due to Arend Rensink. For both fh-bisimilarity and hp-bisimilarity, we prove that arbitrary sound equations on open terms are preserved by all disjoint extensions which do not add labels. We also define slight variations of fh- and hp-bisimilarity such that all sound equations are preserved by arbitrary disjoint extensions. Finally, we give two sets of syntactic criteria (on equations, resp. operational extensions) and prove each of them to be sufficient for preserving ci-bisimilarity.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS'10, arXiv:1011.601

Evaluation of α(MZ2)\alpha(M_{\rm Z}^2) and (g−2)μ(g-2)_\mu

This talk summarizes the recent developments in the evaluation of the leading order hadronic contributions to the running of the QED fine structure constant $\alpha(s)$, at $s=M_{\rm Z}^2$, and to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon $(g-2)_\mu$. The accuracy of the theoretical prediction of these observables is limited by the uncertainties on the hadronic contributions. Significant improvement has been achieved in a series of new analyses which is presented historically in three steps: (I), use of $\tau$ spectral functions in addition to $e^+e^-$ cross sections, (II), extended use of perturbative QCD and (III), application of QCD sum rule techniques. The most precise values obtained are: $\Delta\alpha_{\rm had}(M_{\rm Z}^2)$, $=(276.3\pm1.6)\times10^{-4}$, yielding $\alpha^{-1}(M_{\rm Z}^2)=128.933\pm0.021$, and $a_\mu^{\rm had}=(692.4\pm6.2)\times 10^{-10}$ with which one finds for the complete Standard Model prediction $a_\mu^{\rm SM}=(11 659 159.6\pm6.7)\times10^{-10}$. For the electron $(g-2)_e$, the hadronic contribution is $a_e^{\rm had}=(187.5\pm1.8)\times 10^{-14}$.Comment: 13 page

The Annotators Did Not Agree on Some of the Guidelines Examples

International audienceWe propose the annotation of 7 sentences out of the 31 provided in the ISA-17 shared task, according to our understanding of the guidelines. We include here several remarks to improve the annotation and provide some tools to make the task easier

Hybrid integration of silicon photonics circuits and InP lasers by photonic wire bonding

Efficient coupling of III-V light sources to silicon photonic circuits is one of the key challenges of integrated optics. Important requirements are low coupling losses, as well as small footprint and high yield of the overall assembly, along with the ability to use automated processes for large-scale production. In this paper, we demonstrate that photonic wire bonding addresses these challenges by exploiting direct-write two-photon lithography for in-situ fabrication of three-dimensional freeform waveguides between optical chips. In a series proof-of-concept experiments, we connect InP-based horizontal-cavity surface emitting lasers (HCSEL) to passive silicon photonic circuits with insertion losses down to 0.4 dB. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most efficient interface between an InP light source and a silicon photonic chip that has so far been demonstrated. Our experiments represent a key step in advancing photonic wire bonding to a universal integration platform for hybrid photonic multi-chip assemblies that combine known-good dies of different materials to high-performance hybrid multi-chip modules.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Quantification Annotation in ISO 24617-12, Second Draft

International audienceThis paper describes the continuation of a project that aims at establishing an interoperable annotation scheme for quantification phenomena as part of the ISO suite of standards for semantic annotation, known as the Semantic Annotation Framework. After a break, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the project was relaunched in early 2022 with a second working draft, which deals with certain issues in the annotation of quantification in a more satisfactory way than the original first working draft

Efficacy of α-Blockers on Hemodynamic Control during Pheochromocytoma Resection: A Randomized Controlled Trial

CONTEXT: Pretreatment with α-adrenergic receptor blockers is recommended to prevent hemodynamic instability during resection of a pheochromocytoma or sympathetic paraganglioma (PPGL). OBJECTIVE: To determine which type of α-adrenergic receptor blocker provides the best efficacy. DESIGN: Randomized controlled open-label trial (PRESCRIPT; ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01379898). SETTING: Multicenter study including 9 centers in The Netherlands. PATIENTS: 134 patients with nonmetastatic PPGL. INTERVENTION: Phenoxybenzamine or doxazosin starting 2 to 3 weeks before surgery using a blood pressure targeted titration schedule. Intraoperative hemodynamic management was standardized. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary efficacy endpoint was the cumulative intraoperative time outside the blood pressure target range (ie, SBP >160 mmHg or MAP <60 mmHg) expressed as a percentage of total surgical procedure time. Secondary efficacy endpoint was the value on a hemodynamic instability score. RESULTS: Median cumulative time outside blood pressure targets was 11.1% (interquartile range [IQR]: 4.3-20.6] in the phenoxybenzamine group compared to 12.2% (5.3-20.2)] in the doxazosin group (P = .75, r = 0.03). The hemodynamic instability score was 38.0 (28.8-58.0) and 50.0 (35.3-63.8) in the phenoxybenzamine and doxazosin group, respectively (P = .02, r = 0.20). The 30-day cardiovascular complication rate was 8.8% and 6.9% in the phenoxybenzamine and doxazosin group, respectively (P = .68). There was no mortality after 30 days. CONCLUSIONS: The duration of blood pressure outside the target range during resection of a PPGL was not different after preoperative treatment with either phenoxybenzamine or doxazosin. Phenoxybenzamine was more effective in preventing intraoperative hemodynamic instability, but it could not be established whether this was associated with a better clinical outcome