Effects of Circulating and Local Uteroplacental Angiotensin II in Rat Pregnancy.

The renin-angiotensin (Ang) system is important during placental development. Dysregulation of the renin-Ang system is important in preeclampsia (PE). Female rats transgenic for the human angiotensinogen gene crossed with males transgenic for the human renin gene develop the PE syndrome, whereas those of the opposite cross do not. We used this model to study the role of Ang II in trophoblast invasion, which is shallow in human PE but deeper in this model. We investigated the following groups: PE rats, opposite-cross rats, Ang II–infused rats (1000 ng/kg per day), and control rats. Ang II infusion increased only circulating Ang II levels (267.82 pg/mL), opposite cross influenced only uteroplacental Ang II (13.52 fmol/mg of protein), and PE increased both circulating (251.09 pg/mL) and uteroplacental (19.24 fmol/mg of protein) Ang II. Blood pressure and albuminuria occurred in the models with high circulating Ang II but not in the other models. Trophoblast invasion increased in PE and opposite-cross rats but not in Ang II–infused rats. Correspondingly, uterine artery resistance index increased in Ang II–infused rats but decreased in PE rats. We then studied human trophoblasts and villous explants from first-trimester pregnancies with time-lapse microscopy. Local Ang II dose-dependently increased migration by 75%, invasion by 58%, and motility by 282%. The data suggest that local tissue Ang II stimulates trophoblast invasion in vivo in the rat and in vitro in human cells, a hitherto fore unrecognized function. Conceivably, upregulation of tissue Ang II in the maternal part of the placenta represents an important growth factor for trophoblast invasion and migration

A novel quantitative arousal-associated EEG-metric to predict severity of respiratory distress in obstructive sleep apnea patients

Respiratory arousals (RA) on polysomnography (PSG) are an important predictor of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) disease severity. Additionally, recent reports suggest that more global indices of desaturation such as the hypoxic burden, namely the area under the curve (AUC) of the oxygen saturation (SaO2) PSG trace may better depict the desaturation burden in OSA. Here we investigated possible associations between a new metric, namely the AUC of the respiratory arousal electroencephalographic (EEG) recording, and already established parameters as the apnea/hypopnea index (AHI), arousal index and hypoxic burden in patients with OSA. In this data-driven study, polysomnographic data from 102 patients with OSAS were assessed (32 female; 70 male; mean value of age: 52 years; mean value of Body-Mass-Index-BMI: 31 kg/m2). The marked arousals from the pooled EEG signal (C3 and C4) were smoothed and the AUC was estimated. We used a support vector regressor (SVR) analysis to predict AHI, arousal index and hypoxic burden as captured by the PSG. The SVR with the arousal-AUC metric could quite reliably predict the AHI with a high correlation coefficient (0,58 in the training set, 0,65 in the testing set and 0,64 overall), as well as the hypoxic burden (0,62 in the training set, 0,58 in the testing set and 0,59 overall) and the arousal index (0,58 in the training set, 0,67 in the testing set and 0,66 overall). This novel arousal-AUC metric may predict AHI, hypoxic burden and arousal index with a quite high correlation coefficient and therefore could be used as an additional quantitative surrogate marker in the description of obstructive sleep apnea disease severity

The effectiveness of interventions in workplace health promotion as to maintain the working capacity of health care personal

Background: The increasing proportion of elderly people with respective care requirements and within the total population stands against aging personnel and staff reduction in the field of health care where employees are exposed to high load factors. Health promotion interventions may be a possibility to improve work situations and behavior. Methods: A systematic literature search is conducted in 32 databases limited to English and German publications since 1990. Moreover, internet-searches are performed and the reference lists of identified articles are scanned. The selection of literature was done by two reviewers independently according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data extraction and tables of evidence are verified by a second expert just like the assessment of risk of bias by means of the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool. Results: We identified eleven intervention studies and two systematic reviews. There were three randomized controlled trials (RCT) and one controlled trial without randomization (CCT) on the improvement of physical health, four RCT and two CCT on the improvement of psychological health and one RCT on both. Study duration ranged from four weeks to two years and the number of participants included from 20 to 345, with a median of 56. Interventions and populations were predominantly heterogeneous. In three studies intervention for the improvement of physical health resulted in less complaints and increased strength and flexibility with statistically significant differences between groups. Regarding psychological health interventions lead to significantly decreased intake of analgesics, better stress management, coping with workload, communication skills and advanced training. Discussion: Taking into consideration the small to very small sample sizes, other methodological flaws like a high potential of bias and poor quality of reporting the validity of the results has to be considered as limited. Due to the heterogeneity of health interventions, study populations with differing job specializations and different lengths of study durations and follow-up periods, the comparison of results would not make sense. Conclusions: Further research is necessary with larger sample sizes, with a sufficient study duration and follow-up, with a lower risk of bias, by considering of relevant quality criteria and with better reporting in publications

ВДОСКОНАЛЕННЯ УПРАВЛІННЯ ФІНАНСУВАННЯМ ІННОВАЦІЙНО-ІНВЕСТИЦІЙНОЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ НА ПРОМИСЛОВИХ ПІДПРИЄМСТВАХ

Метою статті є дослідження особливостей фінансових аспектів управління інноваційно-інвестиційною діяльністю промислових підприємств і визначення шляхів підвищення ефективності фінансування ІІДРозкрито сутність і зміст системи управління фінансуванням інноваційно-інвестиційної діяльності на промислових підприємства

TDP-43 condensation properties specify its RNA binding and regulation

Summary: Mutations causing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) often affect the condensation properties of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs). However, the role of RBP condensation in the specificity and function of protein-RNA complexes remains unclear. We created a series of TDP-43 C-terminal domain (CTD) variants that exhibited a gradient of low to high condensation propensity, as observed in vitro and by nuclear mobility and foci formation. Notably, a capacity for condensation was required for efficient TDP-43 assembly on subsets of RNA-binding regions, which contain unusually long clusters of motifs of characteristic types and density. These “binding-region condensates” are promoted by homomeric CTD-driven interactions and required for efficient regulation of a subset of bound transcripts, including autoregulation of TDP-43 mRNA. We establish that RBP condensation can occur in a binding-region-specific manner to selectively modulate transcriptome-wide RNA regulation, which has implications for remodeling RNA networks in the context of signaling, disease, and evolution

The Randomized Shortened Dental Arch Study: Tooth Loss

The evidence concerning the management of shortened dental arch (SDA) cases is sparse. This multi-center study was aimed at generating data on outcomes and survival rates for two common treatments, removable dental prostheses (RDP) for molar replacement or no replacement (SDA). The hypothesis was that the treatments lead to different incidences of tooth loss. We included 215 patients with complete molar loss in one jaw. Molars were either replaced by RDP or not replaced, according to the SDA concept. First tooth loss after treatment was the primary outcome measure. This event occurred in 13 patients in the RDP group and nine patients in the SDA group. The respective Kaplan-Meier survival rates at 38 months were 0.83 (95% CI: 0.74-0.91) in the RDP group and 0.86 (95% CI: 0.78-0.95) in the SDA group, the difference being non-significant

Sleep stage classification using spectral analyses and support vector machine algorithm on C3- and C4-EEG signals [Abstract]

Introduction Sleep stage classification currently relies largely on visual classification methods. We tested a new pipeline for automated offline classification based upon power spectrum at six different frequency bands. The pipeline allowed sleep stage classification and provided whole-night visualization of sleep stages. Materials and methods 102 subjects (69 male; 53.74 ± 12.4 years) underwent full-night polysomnography. The recording system included C3- and C4-EEG channels. All signals were measured at sampling rate of 200 Hz. Four epochs (30 seconds each) of each sleep stage (N1, N2, N3, REM, awake) were marked in the visually scored recordings of each one of the 102 patients. Scoring of sleep stages was performed according to AASM 2007-criteria. In total 408 epochs for each sleep stage were included in the sleep stage classification analyses. Recordings of all these epochs were fed into the pipeline to estimate the power spectrum at six different frequency bands, namely from very low frequency (VLF, 0.1-1 Hz) to gamma frequency (30-50 Hz). The power spectrum was measured with a method called multitaper method. In this method the spectrum is estimated by multiplying the data with K windows (i.e tapers).The estimated parameters were given as input to the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm to classify the five different sleep stages based on the mean power amplitude estimated from six different frequency bands. The SVM algorithm was trained with 51 subjects and the testing was done with the other 51 subjects. In order to avoid bias of the training dataset, a 10-fold cross validation was additionally done to check the performance of the SVM algorithm Results The estimated testing accuracy of prediction of the sleep stages was 84.1% for stage N1 using the mean power amplitude from the delta frequency band. Accuracy was 67.8% for stage N2 from the delta frequency band and 74.9% for stage N3 from the VLF. Accuracy was 79.7% for REM stage from the delta frequency band and 84,8% for the wake stage from the theta frequency band. Conclusions We were able to successfully classify the sleep stages using the mean power amplitude at six different frequency bands separately and achieved up to 85% accuracy using the electrophysiological EEG signals. The delta and theta frequency bands gave the best accuracy of classification among all sleep stages

EEG-EMG-coherence in SDB patients with utilization of a support vector machine-algorithm [Poster Abstract]

Background We investigated whether the EEG-EMG-coherence allows a differentiation between patients with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) without OSA and SDB-patients with mild, moderate or severe OSA. Methods Polysomnographic recordings of 102 patients with SDB (33 female; age: 53,± 12,4 years) were analyzed with the multitaper coherence method (MTM). Recordings contained 2 EEG-channels (C3 and C4) and a chin EMG-channel for one night. Four epochs (each 30 seconds, classified manually by AASM 2007 criteria) of each sleep stage were marked (1632 epochs in total), which were included in the classification analysis. The collected data sets were supplied to the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm to classify OSA severity. Twenty patients had a mild (RDI ≥10/h and < 15/h), 30 patients had a moderate (RDI ≥15/h and < 30/h) and 27 patients had a severe OSA (RDI ≥30/h). 25 patients had a RDI < 10/h. The AUC (area under the curve) value was calculated for each receiver operator curve (ROC) curve. Results EEG-EMG coherence was able to distinguish between the SDB-patients without OSA and SDB-patients with OSA in each of the 3 severity groups using an SVM algorithm. In mild OSA, the AUC was 0.616 (p = 0.024), in moderate OSA the AUC was 0.659 (p = 0.003), and in severe OSA the AUC was 0.823 (p < 0.001). Conclusions SDB patients with OSA can be differentiated from SDB patients without OSA on the basis of EEG-EMG coherence by using the Multitaper Coherence Method (MTM) and SVM algorithm

Longitudinal grey and white matter changes in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease

Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia are characterised by progressive brain atrophy. Longitudinal MRI volumetry may help to characterise ongoing structural degeneration and support the differential diagnosis of dementia subtypes. Automated, observer-independent atlas-based MRI volumetry was applied to analyse 102 MRI data sets from 15 bvFTD, 14 AD, and 10 healthy elderly control participants with consecutive scans over at least 12 months. Anatomically defined targets were chosen a priori as brain structures of interest. Groups were compared regarding volumes at clinic presentation and annual change rates. Baseline volumes, especially of grey matter compartments, were significantly reduced in bvFTD and AD patients. Grey matter volumes of the caudate and the gyrus rectus were significantly smaller in bvFTD than AD. The bvFTD group could be separated from AD on the basis of caudate volume with high accuracy (79% cases correct). Annual volume decline was markedly larger in bvFTD and AD than controls, predominantly in white matter of temporal structures. Decline in grey matter volume of the lateral orbitofrontal gyrus separated bvFTD from AD and controls. Automated longitudinal MRI volumetry discriminates bvFTD from AD. In particular, greater reduction of orbitofrontal grey matter and temporal white matter structures after 12 months is indicative of bvFTD