3,347 research outputs found
MEASUREMENT OF CARDIAC FUNCTION USING PRESSURE-VOLUME CONDUCTANCE CATHETER TECHNIQUE IN A NEW RAT MODEL OF CHRONIC MITRAL REGURGITATION
Dreaming of the future of stroke: translation of bench to bed
Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and the most common cause of disability in adults. Remarkable advances in stroke research have been achieved during the past decades. Stroke fatalities have decreased significantly worldwide owing to improved stroke care because of increased public awareness of stroke symptoms, improved acute stroke therapy, and improved stroke prevention approaches. There are currently significant developments in new technologies with the potential to be used daily in clinical practice in patients with stroke. In this review, we have selected and discussed some of the key areas related to stroke, namely big data, artificial intelligence, precision medicine, medical devices, and stem cells
Digital Workflow for Retrofitting a Surveyed Crown Using a Removable Partial Denture as an Antagonist
Digital workflow expedites the procedure of retrofitting a surveyed crown against an existing removable partial denture (RPD). This article describes a simple and straightforward technique of digital workflow where an existing RPD is scanned as an antagonist to design the rest seat, guide plane, and height of contour of a surveyed crown.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156192/2/jopr13187_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156192/1/jopr13187.pd
Intravenous transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells preconditioned with early phase stroke serum: current evidence and study protocol for a randomized trial
Effects on Growth and Osteogenic Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells by the Zinc-Added Sol-Gel Bioactive Glass Granules
Responses of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) cultured with zinc-added (2 and 5%) bioactive glass granules were evaluated in terms of cell growth and osteogenic differentiation. MSCs were cultured with different quantities (3, 10 and 30) of glass granules for up to 21 days in the osteogenic medium. Cell growth was stimulated by a small quantity of glasses, particularly those that contained zinc. Osteogenic differentiation, as assessed by alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) activity, was significantly enhanced by the glasses, particularly with large quantities of glass and for prolonged culturing. Expression of bone-sialo protein (BSP) was significantly up-regulated around the bioactive glass granules. Moreover, the zinc addition significantly altered the ALP and BSP depending on the culture time and glass quantity. Cellular mineralization was improved in all glass samples, and particularly in the 2% zinc-glass. Taken together, the zinc addition to bioactive glass induced the MSCs growth and their osteogenic differentiation, at least to the level of zinc-free glass, and with even higher level observed depending on the quantity and culture time. These findings indicate that the zinc addition to bioactive glass may be useful in development of biomaterials for the stimulation of adult stem cell in bone tissue engineering
Neural Video Compression with Temporal Layer-Adaptive Hierarchical B-frame Coding
Neural video compression (NVC) is a rapidly evolving video coding research
area, with some models achieving superior coding efficiency compared to the
latest video coding standard Versatile Video Coding (VVC). In conventional
video coding standards, the hierarchical B-frame coding, which utilizes a
bidirectional prediction structure for higher compression, had been
well-studied and exploited. In NVC, however, limited research has investigated
the hierarchical B scheme. In this paper, we propose an NVC model exploiting
hierarchical B-frame coding with temporal layer-adaptive optimization. We first
extend an existing unidirectional NVC model to a bidirectional model, which
achieves -21.13% BD-rate gain over the unidirectional baseline model. However,
this model faces challenges when applied to sequences with complex or large
motions, leading to performance degradation. To address this, we introduce
temporal layer-adaptive optimization, incorporating methods such as temporal
layer-adaptive quality scaling (TAQS) and temporal layer-adaptive latent
scaling (TALS). The final model with the proposed methods achieves an
impressive BD-rate gain of -39.86% against the baseline. It also resolves the
challenges in sequences with large or complex motions with up to -49.13% more
BD-rate gains than the simple bidirectional extension. This improvement is
attributed to the allocation of more bits to lower temporal layers, thereby
enhancing overall reconstruction quality with smaller bits. Since our method
has little dependency on a specific NVC model architecture, it can serve as a
general tool for extending unidirectional NVC models to the ones with
hierarchical B-frame coding
Biochemical characterization of a recombinant Japanese encephalitis virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) NS5 is a viral nonstructural protein that carries both methyltransferase and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) domains. It is a key component of the viral RNA replicase complex that presumably includes other viral nonstructural and cellular proteins. The biochemical properties of JEV NS5 have not been characterized due to the lack of a robust <it>in vitro </it>RdRp assay system, and the molecular mechanisms for the initiation of RNA synthesis by JEV NS5 remain to be elucidated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To characterize the biochemical properties of JEV RdRp, we expressed in <it>Escherichia coli </it>and purified an enzymatically active full-length recombinant JEV NS5 protein with a hexahistidine tag at the N-terminus. The purified NS5 protein, but not the mutant NS5 protein with an Ala substitution at the first Asp of the RdRp-conserved GDD motif, exhibited template- and primer-dependent RNA synthesis activity using a poly(A) RNA template. The NS5 protein was able to use both plus- and minus-strand 3'-untranslated regions of the JEV genome as templates in the absence of a primer, with the latter RNA being a better template. Analysis of the RNA synthesis initiation site using the 3'-end 83 nucleotides of the JEV genome as a minimal RNA template revealed that the NS5 protein specifically initiates RNA synthesis from an internal site, U<sub>81</sub>, at the two nucleotides upstream of the 3'-end of the template.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>As a first step toward the understanding of the molecular mechanisms for JEV RNA replication and ultimately for the <it>in vitro </it>reconstitution of viral RNA replicase complex, we for the first time established an <it>in vitro </it>JEV RdRp assay system with a functional full-length recombinant JEV NS5 protein and characterized the mechanisms of RNA synthesis from nonviral and viral RNA templates. The full-length recombinant JEV NS5 will be useful for the elucidation of the structure-function relationship of this enzyme and for the development of anti-JEV agents.</p
Emission Rates of Volatile Organic Compounds Released from Newly Produced Household Furniture Products Using a Large-Scale Chamber Testing Method
The emission rates of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured to investigate the emission characteristics of five types of common furniture products using a 5 m3 size chamber at 25°C and 50% humidity. The results indicated that toluene and α-pinene are the most dominant components. The emission rates of individual components decreased constantly through time, approaching the equilibrium emission level. The relative ordering of their emission rates, if assessed in terms of total VOC (TVOC), can be arranged as follows: dining table > sofa > desk chair > bedside table > cabinet. If the emission rates of VOCs are examined between different chemical groups, they can also be arranged in the following order: aromatic (AR) > terpenes (TER) > carbonyl (CBN) > others > paraffin (PR) > olefin (HOL) > halogenated paraffin (HPR). In addition, if emission strengths are compared between coated and uncoated furniture, there is no significant difference in terms of emission magnitude. Our results indicate that the emission characteristics of VOC are greatly distinguished between different furniture products in terms of relative dominance between different chemicals
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