A new species of Colostethus (Anura, Dendrobatidae) from French Guiana with a redescription of Colostethus beebei (Noble, 1923) from its type locality

A new species of Colostethus, long mistaken for Colostethus beebei, is described from French Guiana. The new species can be distinguished from congeners by absence of median lingual process, first finger longer than second, third finger not distinctly swollen in males, differences in tadpole morphology, coloration and pattern (e.g. absence of dorsolateral stripe), bioacoustics, and reproductive behavior. A complete redescription of Colostethus beebei plus description of its tadpole and call is provided on the basis of recently collected topotypic specimens. The range of C. beebei is restricted to the Kaieteur plateau, Pakaraima Mountains, Guyana

2-Arachidonoylglycerol mobilizes myeloid cells and worsens heart function after acute myocardial infarction.

Myocardial infarction (MI) leads to an enhanced release of endocannabinoids and a massive accumulation of neutrophils and monocytes within the ischaemic myocardium. These myeloid cells originate from haematopoietic precursors in the bone marrow and are rapidly mobilized in response to MI. We aimed to determine whether endocannabinoid signalling is involved in myeloid cell mobilization and cardiac recruitment after ischaemia onset. Intravenous administration of endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) into wild type (WT) C57BL6 mice induced a rapid increase of blood neutrophil and monocyte counts as measured by flow cytometry. This effect was blunted when using cannabinoid receptor 2 knockout mice. In response to MI induced in WT mice, the lipidomic analysis revealed significantly elevated plasma and cardiac levels of the endocannabinoid 2-AG 24 h after infarction, but no changes in anandamide, palmitoylethanolamide, and oleoylethanolamide. This was a consequence of an increased expression of 2-AG synthesizing enzyme diacylglycerol lipase and a decrease of metabolizing enzyme monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL) in infarcted hearts, as determined by quantitative RT-PCR analysis. The opposite mRNA expression pattern was observed in bone marrow. Pharmacological blockade of MAGL with JZL184 and thus increased systemic 2-AG levels in WT mice subjected to MI resulted in elevated cardiac CXCL1, CXCL2, and MMP9 protein levels as well as higher cardiac neutrophil and monocyte counts 24 h after infarction compared with vehicle-treated mice. Increased post-MI inflammation in these mice led to an increased infarct size, an impaired ventricular scar formation assessed by histology and a worsened cardiac function in echocardiography evaluations up to 21 days. Likewise, JZL184-administration in a myocardial ischaemia-reperfusion model increased cardiac myeloid cell recruitment and resulted in a larger fibrotic scar size. These findings suggest that changes in endocannabinoid gradients due to altered tissue levels contribute to myeloid cell recruitment from the bone marrow to the infarcted heart, with crucial consequences on cardiac healing and function

Manganese pigmented anodized copper as solar selective absorber

The study concerns the optical and structural properties of layers obtained by a new efficient surface treatment totally free of chromium species. The process is made up of an anodic oxidation of copper in an alkaline solution followed by an alkaline potassium permanganate dipping post-treatment. Coatings, obtained at the lab and pilot scales, are stable up to 220 °C in air and vacuum, present low emissivity (0.14 at 70 °C) and high solar absorptivity (0.96), i.e. a suitable thermal efficiency (0.84 at 70 °C)

Een recht op een steunfiguur voor jeugdigen in de Jeugdwet?

Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

Implications of MMP9 for Blood Brain Barrier Disruption and Hemorrhagic Transformation Following Ischemic Stroke.

Numerous studies have documented increases in matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), specifically MMP-9 levels following stroke, with such perturbations associated with disruption of the blood brain barrier (BBB), increased risk of hemorrhagic complications, and worsened outcome. Despite this, controversy remains as to which cells release MMP-9 at the normal and pathological BBB, with even less clarity in the context of stroke. This may be further complicated by the influence of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) treatment. The aim of the present review is to examine the relationship between neutrophils, MMP-9 and tPA following ischemic stroke to elucidate which cells are responsible for the increases in MMP-9 and resultant barrier changes and hemorrhage observed following stroke

Unsupervised White Matter Fiber Clustering and Tract Probability Map Generation: Applications of a Gaussian Process framework for White Matter Fibers

With the increasing importance of fiber tracking in diffusion tensor images for clinical needs, there has been a growing demand for an objective mathematical framework to perform quantitative analysis of white matter fiber bundles incorporating their underlying physical significance. This paper presents such a novel mathematical framework that facilitates mathematical operations between tracts using an inner product based on Gaussian processes, between fibers which span a metric space. This metric facilitates combination of fiber tracts, rendering operations like tract membership to a bundle or bundle similarity simple. Based on this framework, we have designed an automated unsupervised atlas-based clustering method that does not require manual initialization nor an a priori knowledge of the number of clusters. Quantitative analysis can now be performed on the clustered tract volumes across subjects thereby avoiding the need for point parametrization of these fibers, or the use of medial or envelope representations as in previous work. Experiments on synthetic data demonstrate the mathematical operations. Subsequently, the applicability of the unsupervised clustering framework has been demonstrated on a 21 subject dataset

Assessment of the reliability of the motor unit size index (MUSIX) in single subject “round-robin” and multi-centre settings

Objective The motor unit size index (MUSIX) is incorporated into the motor unit number index (MUNIX). Our objective was to assess the intra-/inter-rater reliability of MUSIX in healthy volunteers across single subject “round robin” and multi-centre settings. Methods Data were obtained from i). a round-robin assessment in which 12 raters (6 with prior experience and 6 without) assessed six muscles (abductor pollicis brevis, abductor digiti minimi, biceps brachii, tibialis anterior, extensor digitorum brevis and abductor hallucis) and ii). a multi-centre study with 6 centres studying the same muscles in 66 healthy volunteers. Intra/inter-rater data were provided by 5 centres, 1 centre provided only intra-rater data. Intra/inter-rater variability was assessed using the coefficient of variation (COV), Bland-Altman plots, bias and 95% limits of agreement. Results In the round-robin assessment intra-rater COVs for MUSIX ranged from 7.8% to 28.4%. Inter-rater variability was between 7.8% and 16.2%. Prior experience did not impact on MUSIX values. In the multi-centre study MUSIX was more consistent than the MUNIX. Abductor hallucis was the least reliable muscle. Conclusions The MUSIX is a reliable neurophysiological biomarker of reinnervation. Significance MUSIX could provide insights into the pathophysiology of a range of neuromuscular disorders, providing a quantitative biomarker of reinnervation

Impact of flu on hospital admissions during 4 flu seasons in Spain, 2000–2004

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Seasonal flu epidemics in the European region cause high numbers of cases and deaths. Flu-associated mortality has been estimated but morbidity studies are necessary to understand the burden of disease in the population. Our objective was to estimate the excess hospital admissions in Spain of diseases associated with influenza during four epidemic influenza periods (2000 – 2004).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Hospital discharge registers containing pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, heart failure and flu from all public hospitals in Spain were reviewed for the years 2000 to 2004. Epidemic periods were defined by data from the Sentinel Surveillance System. Excess hospitalisations were calculated as the difference between the average number of weekly hospitalisations/100,000 in epidemic and non-epidemic periods. Flu epidemics were defined for seasons 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A(H3N2) was the dominant circulating serotype in 2001/2002 and 2003/2004. Negligible excess hospitalisations were observed during the 2002/2003 epidemic where A(H1N1) was circulating. During 2000/2001, flu activity remained below threshold levels and therefore no epidemic period was defined. In two epidemic periods studied a delay between the peak of the influenza epidemic and the peak of hospitalisations was observed. During flu epidemics with A(H3N2), excess hospitalisations were higher in men and in persons <5 and >64 years higher than 10 per 100,000. Pneumonia accounted for 70% of all flu associated hospitalisations followed by chronic bronchitis. No excess flu-specific hospitalisations were recorded during all seasons.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Flu epidemics have an impact on hospital morbidity in Spain. Further studies that include other variables, such as temperature and humidity, are necessary and will deepen our understanding of the role of each factor during flu epidemics and their relation with morbidity.</p

Stable Isotope Metabolic Labeling with a Novel 15N-Enriched Bacteria Diet for Improved Proteomic Analyses of Mouse Models for Psychopathologies

The identification of differentially regulated proteins in animal models of psychiatric diseases is essential for a comprehensive analysis of associated psychopathological processes. Mass spectrometry is the most relevant method for analyzing differences in protein expression of tissue and body fluid proteomes. However, standardization of sample handling and sample-to-sample variability are problematic. Stable isotope metabolic labeling of a proteome represents the gold standard for quantitative mass spectrometry analysis. The simultaneous processing of a mixture of labeled and unlabeled samples allows a sensitive and accurate comparative analysis between the respective proteomes. Here, we describe a cost-effective feeding protocol based on a newly developed 15N bacteria diet based on Ralstonia eutropha protein, which was applied to a mouse model for trait anxiety. Tissue from 15N-labeled vs. 14N-unlabeled mice was examined by mass spectrometry and differences in the expression of glyoxalase-1 (GLO1) and histidine triad nucleotide binding protein 2 (Hint2) proteins were correlated with the animals' psychopathological behaviors for methodological validation and proof of concept, respectively. Additionally, phenotyping unraveled an antidepressant-like effect of the incorporation of the stable isotope 15N into the proteome of highly anxious mice. This novel phenomenon is of considerable relevance to the metabolic labeling method and could provide an opportunity for the discovery of candidate proteins involved in depression-like behavior. The newly developed 15N bacteria diet provides researchers a novel tool to discover disease-relevant protein expression differences in mouse models using quantitative mass spectrometry