Expert-based development of a standard in CO2 sequestration monitoring technology

Bureau of Economic Geolog

Bifid and secondary superior nasal turbinates

The lateral nasal wall contains the nasal turbinates (conchae) which are used as landmarks during functional endoscopic surgery. Various morphological pos- sibilities of turbinates were reported, such as bifidity of the inferior turbinate and extra middle turbinates, such as the secondary middle turbinate. During a retrospective cone beam computed tomography study of nasal turbinates in a patient we found previously unreported variants of the superior nasal turbina- tes. These had, bilaterally, ethmoidal and sphenoidal insertions. On the right side we found a bifid superior turbinate and on the left side we found a secondary superior turbinate located beneath the normal/principal one, in the superior nasal meatus. These demonstrate that if a variant morphology is possible for a certain turbinate, it could occur in any nasal turbinate but it has not been yet observed or reported.

A new ornithopod dinosaur, Transylvanosaurus platycephalus gen. et sp. nov. (Dinosauria: Ornithischia), from the Upper Cretaceous of the Haţeg Basin, Romania

Rhabdodontid dinosaurs were a group of medium-sized iguanodontian ornithopods from the Late Cretaceous of Europe. The uppermost Cretaceous continental deposits from the Haţeg Basin of western Romania yielded a very rich assemblage of vertebrates including abundant rhabdodontid remains, which have been exclusively referred to the genus Zalmoxes thus far. Here we describe a new rhabdodontid dinosaur, Transylvanosaurus platycephalus gen. et sp. nov., from the uppermost Cretaceous of the Haţeg Basin. The holotype of the new taxon was discovered in early–late Maastrichtian strata near Pui in the eastern part of the basin and comprises the articulated basicranium and both frontals. Transylvanosaurus differs from all previously reported rhabdodontids in having particularly wide and crested frontals, elongated and straight paroccipital processes that make only a gentle lateral curve and project mostly posterolaterally, prominent and massive prootic processes that extend mainly anterolaterally and ventrally, wide and crest-like basal tubera that meet the long axis of the braincase at a very flat angle, widely splayed basipterygoid processes that extend mainly ventrolaterally and slightly anteriorly, as well as a well-developed notch on the lateral side of the basicranium that is continuous, straight, and inclined anteroventrally. Phylogenetic analyses employing two different datasets consistently recovered the new taxon within the Rhabdodontidae, at the base of the iguanodontian radiation. Based on the morphological comparisons presented herein, we propose a particularly close relationship between Transylvanosaurus and Rhabdodon from southern France, which in turn provides evidence for a more complex biogeographic history of the Rhabdodontidae than previously thought

A Unified Theoretical Description of the Thermodynamical Properties of Spin Crossover with Magnetic Interactions

After the discovery of the phenomena of light-induced excited spin state trapping (LIESST), the functional properties of metal complexes have been studied intensively. Among them, cooperative phenomena involving low spin-high spin (spin-crossover) transition and magnetic ordering have attracted interests, and it has become necessary to formulate a unified description of both phenomena. In this work, we propose a model in which they can be treated simultaneously by extending the Wajnflasz-Pick model including a magnetic interaction. We found that this new model is equivalent to Blume-Emery-Griffiths (BEG) Hamiltonian with degenerate levels. This model provides a unified description of the thermodynamic properties associated with various types of systems, such as spin-crossover (SC) solids and Prussian blue analogues (PBA). Here, the high spin fraction and the magnetization are the order parameters describing the cooperative phenomena of the model. We present several typical temperature dependences of the order parameters and we determine the phase diagram of the system using the mean-field theory and Monte Carlo simulations. We found that the magnetic interaction drives the SC transition leading to re-entrant magnetic and first-order SC transitions.Comment: 30pages, 11figure

Increased risk of chronic kidney disease and mortality in a cohort of people diagnosed with metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease with hepatic fibrosis

Background and aims: Metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) increases the risk of incident chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, the relative risk of CKD associated with increasing hepatic fibrosis, and consequent mortality risk, remains underexplored in real-world cohorts. In this study, we sought to establish whether hepatic fibrosis is associated with increased CKD risk and explore differences in mortality risk in a cohort of people living with MASLD, contingent on liver fibrosis and CKD status.Methods: This was an observational study of people who underwent routine liver function testing in Tayside, Scotland. MASLD was defined as: elevated ALT (>30 U/L) or GGT (>73 U/L); presence of diabetes, and/or hypertension, and/or obesity; weekly alcohol consumption <14 units (112g (+/-8g) alcohol); and negative screen for other aetiologies. Data was collected from digital health records. We used log-binomial models to quantify the risk of CKD among those with and without fibrosis, and Cox regression models to estimate differences in mortality risk dependent on fibrosis and CKD.Results: In our cohort (n = 2,046), 1,448 (70.8%) people had MASLD without fibrosis and 598 (29.2%) with fibrosis; 161 (11.1%) and 117 (19.6%) respectively also had CKD. After excluding individuals with structural, autoimmune, or malignant CKD (n = 22), liver fibrosis (n = 593; 18.9% with CKD) was associated with increased CKD risk (aRR = 1.31, 1.04–1.64, p = 0.021). Increased mortality risk was observed for those with liver fibrosis (aHR = 2.30, 1.49–3.56, p = <0.001) and was higher again among people with both fibrosis and CKD (aHR = 5.07, 3.07–8.39, p = <0.014).Conclusions: Liver fibrosis was an independent risk factor for CKD in this cohort of people living with MASLD. Furthermore, those with MASLD with liver fibrosis had higher risk for mortality and this risk was further elevated among those with co-morbid CKD. Given the increased risk of CKD, and consequent mortality risk, among people living with MASLD fibrosis, renal function screening should be considered within liver health surveillance programmes and guidelines

Tims and maldi tof of endohedral 99mTc@C60 metallofullerene

Mass spectral studies (both TIMS – thermal ionization and MALDI TOF – matrixassisted laser desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometry) of the endohedral metallofullerenes, 99mTc@C60 and 99mTc@C70, provided detailed structural and reactivity information about these unusual species. MS experiment revealed that both fullerenes and endohedral metallofullerenes fragment by multiple C2 loss. However, a difference in the terminal fragmentation products was observed for metallofullerene relative to C60, suggesting that the encapsulation metal strongly impacts the fragmentation product. Singly charged cations of the metallofullerenes (M@Cn + ) were completely unreactive in the gas phase with oxygenated compounds such as ethylene oxide: however, the corresponding neutral species appear to react readily with oxygenated species. Collisional dissociation of the ionized endohedral fullerenes listed above revealed multiple C2 loss (either as sequential C2 loss or larger C2n eliminations) to generate similar terminal fragmentation products, which might be predicted due to the similar ionic radii of the encapsulated metals. The observed ionization energies of endohedral molecules were, 5.1 ± 0.1 eV and 5.3 ± 0.1 eV, respectively.Physical chemistry 2006 : 8th international conference on fundamental and applied aspects of physical chemistry; Belgrade (Serbia); 26-29 September 200

Lysozyme-induced transcriptional regulation of tnf-\u3b1 pathway genes in cells of the monocyte lineage

Lysozyme is one of the most important anti-bacterial effectors in the innate immune system of animals. Besides its direct antibacterial enzymatic activity, lysozyme displays other biological properties, pointing toward a significant anti-inflammatory effect, many aspects of which are still elusive. Here we investigate the perturbation of gene expression profiles induced by lysozyme in a monocyte cell line in vitro considering a perspective as broad as the whole transcriptome profiling. The results of the RNA-seq experiment show that lysozyme induces transcriptional modulation of the TNF-\u3b1/IL-1\u3b2 pathway genes in U937 monocytes. The analysis of transcriptomic profiles with IPA\uae identified a simple but robust molecular network of genes, in which the regulation trends are fully consistent with the anti-inflammatory activity of lysozyme. This study provides the first evidence in support of the anti-inflammatory action of lysozyme on the basis of transcriptomic regulation data resulting from the broad perspective of a whole-transcriptome profiling. Such important effects can be achieved with the supplementation of relatively low concentrations of lysozyme, for a short time of exposure. These new insights allow the potential of lysozyme in pharmacological applications to be better exploited