Subarachnoid haemorrhage secondary to traumatic intracranial aneurysm of the posterior cerebral circulation: case series and literature review

Background To identify the clinical features, rebleed risk, timing and method of diagnosis, complications and outcome for subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) from traumatic intracranial aneurysm (TICA) of the posterior circulation. Subjects included 26 patients aged 3–54 (mean 24.8). Methods Case series and literature search to identify all reported cases. Results In our series, two of three cases were fatal as a result of rebleed, and one case had a good outcome with no deficit, following prompt diagnosis and embolisation. Our key findings from the literature review were: 30.7 % of patients were age 16 and under; 88 % had an acute drop in consciousness, 46 % in a delayed manner; the mean time to diagnosis was 7.5 days; initial cerebrovascular imaging was normal in 23 %; the rebleed rate was 23 %; 61 % required emergency diversion of cerebrospinal fluid; 11 % developed vasospasm requiring treatment; 19.2 % had deficits that rendered them unable to live independently. The mortality rate was 27 %. Conclusions SAH from ruptured posterior circulation TICA is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. A high index of suspicion as well as prompt diagnosis, repeat imaging in selected cases, and treatment of any associated TICA can be crucial to a favourable outcome

Analysis of pollution removal from wastewater by Ceratophyllum demersum

Water is one of the most stable and abundant complexes on nature that can be polluted with natural and human factors. Polluted water is harmful to human health and need to purify. One of the economic and rapid methods for elements removal is displacement of metals by biosorption. Two treatments in four replications for the purpose of purifying wastewater by Ceratophyllum demersum were designed. The treatments included raw municipal wastewater (RMW) and treated municipal wastewater (TMW). The experiment was performed at the open air of Khorasgan University area for 18 days without aeration. Result of the COD indicated that the COD of RMW and TMW were decreased from 664 to 152.75 mg/l and 260 to 64.5 mg/l, respectively. Also, this investigation demonstrated that the amount of ammonium in RMW and TMW decreased from135 to 15 meq/l and 90 to 10 meq/l, respectively. The amount of nitrate in RMW and TMW had a similar decreased from 60 to 30 meq/l as well as 4.48 to 0.53 meq/l, respectively and the amount of phosphorous in RMW and TMW declined from 13.68 to 1.15 meq/l and 4.48 to 0.53 meq/l, respectively. It could be concluded from these results that a significant amount of these macro elements were absorbed by C. demersum. The other factor that was measured in this study was the electrical conductivity (EC). Results of this factor indicated that the EC of treated municipal wastewater (from 1.34 to 0.95 ds/m) and the EC of raw municipal wastewater (from 2.68 to 2.12 ds/m) were reduced. The variation for NH4, NO3, COD and EC were < 5%. Therefore it was concluded that C. demersum can be used for refining wastewater

Knee joint kinetics in response to multiple three-dimensional printed, customised foot orthoses for the treatment of medial compartment knee osteoarthritis

The knee adduction moment is consistently used as a surrogate measure of medial compartment loading. Foot orthoses are designed to reduce knee adduction moment via lateral wedging. The 'dose' of wedging required to optimally unload the affected compartment is unknown and variable between individuals. This study explores a personalised approach via three-dimensional printed foot orthotics to assess the biomechanical response when two design variables are altered: orthotic length and lateral wedging. Foot orthoses were created for 10 individuals with symptomatic medial knee osteoarthritis and 10 controls. Computer-aided design software was used to design four full and four three-quarter-length foot orthoses per participant each with lateral posting of 0° 'neutral', 5° rearfoot, 10° rearfoot and 5° forefoot/10° rearfoot. Three-dimensional printers were used to manufacture all foot orthoses. Three-dimensional gait analyses were performed and selected knee kinetics were analysed: first peak knee adduction moment, second peak knee adduction moment, first knee flexion moment and knee adduction moment impulse. Full-length foot orthoses provided greater reductions in first peak knee adduction moment (p = 0.038), second peak knee adduction moment (p = 0.018) and knee adduction moment impulse (p = 0.022) compared to three-quarter-length foot orthoses. Dose effect of lateral wedging was found for first peak knee adduction moment (p < 0.001), second peak knee adduction moment (p < 0.001) and knee adduction moment impulse (p < 0.001) indicating greater unloading for higher wedging angles. Significant interaction effects were found for foot orthosis length and participant group in second peak knee adduction moment (p = 0.028) and knee adduction moment impulse (p = 0.036). Significant interaction effects were found between orthotic length and wedging condition for second peak knee adduction moment (p = 0.002). No significant changes in first knee flexion moment were found. Individual heterogeneous responses to foot orthosis conditions were observed for first peak knee adduction moment, second peak knee adduction moment and knee adduction moment impulse. Biomechanical response is highly variable with personalised foot orthoses. Findings indicate that the tailoring of a personalised intervention could provide an additional benefit over standard interventions and that a three-dimensional printing approach to foot orthosis manufacturing is a viable alternative to the standard methods.Full Tex

Electric field-modulated non-ohmic behavior of carbon nanotube fibers in polar liquids.

We report a previously unseen non-ohmic effect in which the resistivity of carbon nanotube fibers immersed in polar liquids is modulated by the applied electric field. This behavior depends on the surface energy, dielectric constant, and viscosity of the immersion media. Supported by synchrotron SAXS and impedance spectroscopy, we propose a model in which the gap distance, and thus the conductance, of capacitive interbundle junctions is controlled by the applied field.JT acknowledges generous financial support from: The Cambridge Commonwealth European and International Trust, CONACyT (Mexico), Dyson Ltd, and Pembroke College Cambridge. JJV acknowledges support from MINECO (Spain) and FP7-People-Marie Curie Action-CIG.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ACS at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn5030835

Detection of regulator genes and eQTLs in gene networks

Genetic differences between individuals associated to quantitative phenotypic traits, including disease states, are usually found in non-coding genomic regions. These genetic variants are often also associated to differences in expression levels of nearby genes (they are "expression quantitative trait loci" or eQTLs for short) and presumably play a gene regulatory role, affecting the status of molecular networks of interacting genes, proteins and metabolites. Computational systems biology approaches to reconstruct causal gene networks from large-scale omics data have therefore become essential to understand the structure of networks controlled by eQTLs together with other regulatory genes, and to generate detailed hypotheses about the molecular mechanisms that lead from genotype to phenotype. Here we review the main analytical methods and softwares to identify eQTLs and their associated genes, to reconstruct co-expression networks and modules, to reconstruct causal Bayesian gene and module networks, and to validate predicted networks in silico.Comment: minor revision with typos corrected; review article; 24 pages, 2 figure

Exploring the relationship between video game expertise and fluid intelligence

Hundreds of millions of people play intellectually-demanding video games every day. What does individual performance on these games tell us about cognition? Here, we describe two studies that examine the potential link between intelligence and performance in one of the most popular video games genres in the world (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas: MOBAs). In the first study, we show that performance in the popular MOBA League of Legends' correlates with fluid intelligence as measured under controlled laboratory conditions. In the second study, we also show that the age profile of performance in the two most widely-played MOBAs (League of Legends and DOTA II) matches that of raw fluid intelligence. We discuss and extend previous videogame literature on intelligence and videogames and suggest that commercial video games can be useful as 'proxy' tests of cognitive performance at a global population level

Automatic Frame Selection Using MLP Neural Network in Ultrasound Elastography

Ultrasound elastography estimates the mechanical properties of the tissue from two Radio-Frequency (RF) frames collected before and after tissue deformation due to an external or internal force. This work focuses on strain imaging in quasi-static elastography, where the tissue undergoes slow deformations and strain images are estimated as a surrogate for elasticity modulus. The quality of the strain image depends heavily on the underlying deformation, and even the best strain estimation algorithms cannot estimate a good strain image if the underlying deformation is not suitable. Herein, we introduce a new method for tracking the RF frames and selecting automatically the best possible pair. We achieve this by decomposing the axial displacement image into a linear combination of principal components (which are calculated offline) multiplied by their corresponding weights. We then use the calculated weights as the input feature vector to a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classifier. The output is a binary decision, either 1 which refers to good frames, or 0 which refers to bad frames. Our MLP model is trained on in-vivo dataset and tested on different datasets of both in-vivo and phantom data. Results show that by using our technique, we would be able to achieve higher quality strain images compared to the traditional methods of picking up pairs that are 1, 2 or 3 frames apart. The training phase of our algorithm is computationally expensive and takes few hours, but it is only done once. The testing phase chooses the optimal pair of frames in only 1.9 ms

Therapeutically relevant structural and functional mechanisms triggered by physical and cognitive exercise

Corrected by: Erratum: Molecular Psychiatry (2016) 21, 1645–1645; doi:10.1038/mp.2016.57; published online 19 April 2016. Following publication of the above article, the authors noticed that the second author’s name was presented incorrectly. The author’s name should have appeared as M Fiatarone Singh. The publisher regrets the error.Physical and cognitive exercise may prevent or delay dementia in later life but the neural mechanisms underlying these therapeutic benefits are largely unknown. We examined structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain changes after 6 months of progressive resistance training (PRT), computerized cognitive training (CCT) or combined intervention. A total of 100 older individuals (68 females, average age=70.1, s.d.±6.7, 55-87 years) with dementia prodrome mild cognitive impairment were recruited in the SMART (Study of Mental Activity and Resistance Training) Trial. Participants were randomly assigned into four intervention groups: PRT+CCT, PRT+SHAM CCT, CCT+SHAM PRT and double SHAM. Multimodal MRI was conducted at baseline and at 6 months of follow-up (immediately after training) to measure structural and spontaneous functional changes in the brain, with a focus on the hippocampus and posterior cingulate regions. Participants' cognitive changes were also assessed before and after training. We found that PRT but not CCT significantly improved global cognition (F(90)=4.1, P<0.05) as well as expanded gray matter in the posterior cingulate (Pcorrected <0.05), and these changes were related to each other (r=0.25, P=0.03). PRT also reversed progression of white matter hyperintensities, a biomarker of cerebrovascular disease, in several brain areas. In contrast, CCT but not PRT attenuated decline in overall memory performance (F(90)=5.7, P<0.02), mediated by enhanced functional connectivity between the hippocampus and superior frontal cortex. Our findings indicate that physical and cognitive training depend on discrete neuronal mechanisms for their therapeutic efficacy, information that may help develop targeted lifestyle-based preventative strategies.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 22 March 2016; doi:10.1038/mp.2016.19.C Suo, M Fiatarone Singh, N Gates, W Wen, P Sachdev, H Brodaty, N Saigal, GC Wilson, J Meiklejohn, N Singh, BT Baune, M Baker, N Foroughi, Y Wang, Y Mavros, A Lampit, I Leung, and MJ Valenzuel

Application of PLGA nano/microparticle delivery systems for immunomodulation and prevention of allotransplant rejection

Introduction: Allograft transplantation is an effective end-point therapy to replace the function of an impaired organ. The main problem associated with allotransplantation is the induction of immune responses that results in acute and chronic graft rejection. To modulate the response of the immune system, transplant recipients generally take high dose immunosuppressant drugs for life. These drugs are associated with serious side effects such as infection with opportunistic pathogens and the development of neoplasia. Areas covered: We reviewed the obstacles to successful transplantation and PLGA-based strategies to reduce immune-mediated allograft rejection. Expert opinion: Biomaterial-based approaches using micro- and nanoparticles such as poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) can be used to achieve controlled release of drugs. This approach decreases the required effective dose of drugs and enables local delivery of these agents to specific tissues and cells, whilst decreasing systemic effects