Angiogenesis-dependent and independent phases of intimal hyperplasia.

BACKGROUND: Neointimal vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation is a primary cause of occlusive vascular disease, including atherosclerosis, restenosis after percutaneous interventions, and bypass graft stenosis. Angiogenesis is implicated in the progression of early atheromatous lesions in animal models, but its role in neointimal VSMC proliferation is undefined. Because percutaneous coronary interventions result in induction of periadventitial angiogenesis, we analyzed the role of this process in neointima formation. METHODS AND RESULTS: Local injury to the arterial wall in 2 different animal models induced periadventitial angiogenesis and neointima formation. Application of angiogenesis stimulators vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF-A165) or a proline/arginine-rich peptide (PR39) to the adventitia of the injured artery induced a marked increase in neointimal thickening beyond that seen with injury alone in both in vivo models. Inhibition of either VEGF (with soluble VEGF receptor 1 [sFlt1]) or fibroblast growth factor (FGF) (with a dominant=negative form of FGF receptor 1 [FGF-R1DN]), respectively, signaling reduced adventitial thickening induced by VEGF and PR39 to the level seen with mechanical arterial injury alone. However, neither inhibitor was effective in preventing neointimal thickening after mechanical injury when administered in the absence of angiogenic growth factor. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that adventitial angiogenesis stimulates intimal thickening but does not initiate it

“Business and Human Rights” in Trade: EU’s Missed Chance to be a Global Leader?

As corporations are amongst the major players in global trade, this blog post examines the role of the EU in promoting business and human rights instruments: bilaterally, in its trade agreements; and at the international level, in the context of the recent UN negotiations over a binding treaty on business and human rights. We argue that, while important steps are on their way, the EU’s contribution to this respect is far from satisfactory.https://eutip.eu/business-and-human-rights-in-trade-eus-missed-chance-to-be-a-global-leader-2

Hardware Accelerated Fast FDTD of Time Dependent Maxwell’s Equations on Xilinx RF SoC

Electromagnetics, which govern the fields of wireless communications, radar, and remote sensing, are fully described using four first-order PDEs known as Maxwell’s Equations. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm invented by Yee in 1966 operates on a discrete space-time staggered grid-pair for the electric and magnetic fields, and solutions are obtained via leapfrog update equations. The field of computational electromagnetics makes extensive use of the FDTD algorithm for modeling involving various types of antennas, microwave filters, circuits, aerospace vehicles, and wireless systems. For accurate and dispersion-less solution, the discretization of the spatial and temporal variables require a high degree of over-sampling that is much higher than what is demanded by the Nyquist Sampling Theorem, in order for the discrete domain update equations to represent the behavior of a continuous linear PDE system. The highly-oversampled nature of FDTD results in high computational complexity and therefore long execution times on high-performance computing systems. Hardware acceleration is a technique to accelerate the computation of FDTD using application-specific integrated digital processor arrays that are custom designed for implementing FDTD without using any software at all. The hard-wired parallel computation allows very good acceleration compared to state-of-art computing solutions based on high-performance compute servers, GPU realizations, and cloud computing techniques. The talk reports on a hardware accelerator that supports real-time operation on a Xilinx RF SoC device. Comparison with GPUs are provided (interim results show better than x100)

Are Slope Streaks Indicative of Global-Scale Aqueous Processes on Contemporary Mars?

Acknowledgments We acknowledge the editorial board of Reviews of Geophysics for inviting the submission of this review article. We extend our gratitude to the efforts of the handling editor and the reviewers. We thank NASA, JPL‐Caltech, JPL/Goddard, University of Arizona, Malin Space Science systems, Arizona State University, USGS, ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, and Google Earth for providing various satellite images, maps, and JMARS software free of charge. The paper is theoretical, and no new data have been generated during the work. All the used satellite images of Mars can be rendered on JMARS software using the image ID provided in the respective figure captions, and the image sources have also been duly acknowledged in the respective figure captions. The maps in various figures have been created using ArcGIS version 10.4 (http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/get‐started/setup/arcgis‐desktop‐quick‐start‐guide.htm). Although we have cited all the previous research results used in the paper, we here acknowledge the efforts of all those researchers in providing the essential inputs for our study. A. B. acknowledges the Swedish Research Council for supporting his research in cold arid environments. L. S. acknowledges the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for her PhD scholarship.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Severity of post-operative pain after instrumentation of root canals by XP-Endo and SAF full sequences compared to manual instrumentation: a randomized clinical trial

This investigation aimed to examine the post-operative pain experienced following single-visit root canal treatment using the XP-endo shaper sequence (XPS), full-sequence self-adjusting file (SAF), and manual K-files (HKF). A randomized equivalence parallel design, double-blinded clinical study was conducted on 120 patients with symptomatic irreversible pulpitis, with or without clinical signs of apical periodontitis. Only teeth with fully formed roots and no periapical lesions were incorporated in the study. Patients were apportioned to one of three groups (n = 40) randomly: Group 1—XPS, Group 2—SAF, and Group 3—HKF. Pre- and post-instrumentation pain was rated utilizing Visual Analog Scale (VAS) with a spectrum of 0–100 mm. The descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA with 95% confidence intervals were used for statistical analysis. The mean VAS scores before instrumentation were consistent in all three groups. At 6, 24, 48, and 72 h, patients with root canals instrumented by SAF had the lowest post-instrumentation mean VAS score, followed by XPS. For all time intervals, the patients in the HKF group had the highest VAS score. The full-sequence SAF instrumentation resulted in less post-operative pain than the XP-endo plus protocol, while manual instrumentation with K-files resulted in the highest post-operative pain

Phase diagram for non-axisymmetric plasma balls

Plasma balls and rings emerge as fluid holographic duals of black holes and black rings in the hydrodynamic/gravity correspondence for the Scherk-Schwarz AdS system. Recently, plasma balls spinning above a critical rotation were found to be unstable against m-lobed perturbations. In the phase diagram of stationary solutions the threshold of the instability signals a bifurcation to a new phase of non-axisymmetric configurations. We find explicitly this family of solutions and represent them in the phase diagram. We discuss the implications of our results for the gravitational system. Rotating non-axisymmetric black holes necessarily radiate gravitational waves. We thus emphasize that it would be important, albeit possibly out of present reach, to have a better understanding of the hydrodynamic description of gravitational waves and of the gravitational interaction between two bodies. We also argue that it might well be that a non-axisymmetric m-lobed instability is also present in Myers-Perry black holes for rotations below the recently found ultraspinning instability.Comment: 1+22 pages, 3 figures. v2: minor corrections and improvements, matches published versio

Structure and stability of two polymorphs of creatine and its monohydrate

An experimental search for crystalline forms of creatine including a variable temperature X-ray powder diffraction study has produced three polymorphs and a formic acid solvate. The crystal structures of creatine forms I and II were determined from X-ray powder diffraction data plus the creatine formic acid (1 : 1) solvate structure was obtained by single crystal X-ray diffraction methods. Evidence of a third polymorphic form of creatine obtained by rapid desolvation of creatine monohydrate is also presented. The results highlight the role of automated parallel crystallisation, slurry experiments and VT-XRPD as powerful techniques for effective physical form screening. They also highlight the importance of various complementary analytical techniques in structural characterisation and in achieving better understanding of the relationship between various solid-state forms. The structural relationships between various solid-state forms of creatine using the XPac method provided a rationale for the different relative stabilities of forms I and II of creatine with respect to the monohydrate form