RNA content in motor and sensory neurons and surrounding neuroglia of mouse spinal cord under conditions of hypodynamia and following normalization

The differences in the dynamics of reparative processes in RNA metabolism within the neuron-neuroglia unit after the cessation of hyper- and hypodynamia is dicussed. The role of neuroglia is stressed in compensatory, reparative and trophic processes in the nervous system as well as the possibility in an adaptation at the cellular level

RNA content in motor and sensory neurons and surrounding neuroglia of mouse spinal cord under conditions of hypodynamia and following normalization

Male white mice were subjected to two and three week hypodynamia and then decapitated. Cytoplasmic RNA content per cell was measured by means of ultraviolet cytospectrometry. Changes in RNA content are shown, and the dynamics of the reparative processes of cells are discussed

Topochemical differences in the amount of RNA in the motoneurons of the spinal chord in hypoxia and hypokinesia

Reactions to hypoxia and hypoknesia were compared by measuring charges in the amount of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the cytoplasm of neurons of the intumescentia cervicalis and lumbalis. Animals were subjected to hypoxia, hypokinesia and both combined and a control group to neither. A total of two groups of motoneurons were compared, one innervating the respiratory musculature, the other the musculature of the lower extremities, so that hypoxic hypoxia would probably affect the first group primarily and hypokinesia the second. Results indicate that neither affect the amount of RNA in the neurons of the first group but a significant increase is noted in neurons of the second group. Other significant results are reported

Structural and Functional Organization of the Vestibular Apparatus in Rats Subjected to Weightlessness for 19.5 Days Aboard the Kosmos-782 Satellite

The vestibular apparatus was investigated in rats subjected to weightlessness for 19.5 days. The vestibular apparatus was removed and its sections were fixed in a glutaraldehyde solution for investigation by light and electron microscopes. Structural and functional charges were noted in the otolith portions of the ear, with the otolith particles clinging to the utricular receptor surface and with the peripheral arrangement of the nucleolus in the nuclei of the receptor cells. It is possible that increased edema of the vestibular tissue resulted in the destruction of some receptor cells and in changes in the form and structure of the otolith. In the horizontal crista, the capula was separated

An Early Look at a Time-Lapse 3D VSP

In 2007 Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) started a project to evaluate the available technology for monitoring the movement of CO2 in an underground reservoir. In stage one of this project CO2 and methane are being produced in a nearby well, then the CO2/CH4 is being injected back down a second well into a depleted gas sand. The movement of the CO2 up-dip needs to be remotely monitored. One of the technologies being evaluated to monitor the movement of the CO2 is 3D VSP. The CRC-1 injector well is instrumented with 10 3C downhole accelerometers. A baseline 3D VSP survey was shot around this well in late 2007 and was followed by a repeat survey in 2010. We hope to monitor the movement of CO2 around the CRC-1 well by observing changes in the time-lapse signature

Limited Lifespan of Fragile Regions in Mammalian Evolution

An important question in genome evolution is whether there exist fragile regions (rearrangement hotspots) where chromosomal rearrangements are happening over and over again. Although nearly all recent studies supported the existence of fragile regions in mammalian genomes, the most comprehensive phylogenomic study of mammals (Ma et al. (2006) Genome Research 16, 1557-1565) raised some doubts about their existence. We demonstrate that fragile regions are subject to a "birth and death" process, implying that fragility has limited evolutionary lifespan. This finding implies that fragile regions migrate to different locations in different mammals, explaining why there exist only a few chromosomal breakpoints shared between different lineages. The birth and death of fragile regions phenomenon reinforces the hypothesis that rearrangements are promoted by matching segmental duplications and suggests putative locations of the currently active fragile regions in the human genome

Safe and complete contig assembly via omnitigs

Contig assembly is the first stage that most assemblers solve when reconstructing a genome from a set of reads. Its output consists of contigs -- a set of strings that are promised to appear in any genome that could have generated the reads. From the introduction of contigs 20 years ago, assemblers have tried to obtain longer and longer contigs, but the following question was never solved: given a genome graph $G$ (e.g. a de Bruijn, or a string graph), what are all the strings that can be safely reported from $G$ as contigs? In this paper we finally answer this question, and also give a polynomial time algorithm to find them. Our experiments show that these strings, which we call omnitigs, are 66% to 82% longer on average than the popular unitigs, and 29% of dbSNP locations have more neighbors in omnitigs than in unitigs.Comment: Full version of the paper in the proceedings of RECOMB 201

Space-efficient merging of succinct de Bruijn graphs

We propose a new algorithm for merging succinct representations of de Bruijn graphs introduced in [Bowe et al. WABI 2012]. Our algorithm is based on the lightweight BWT merging approach by Holt and McMillan [Bionformatics 2014, ACM-BCB 2014]. Our algorithm has the same asymptotic cost of the state of the art tool for the same problem presented by Muggli et al. [bioRxiv 2017, Bioinformatics 2019], but it uses less than half of its working space. A novel important feature of our algorithm, not found in any of the existing tools, is that it can compute the Variable Order succinct representation of the union graph within the same asymptotic time/space bounds.Comment: Accepted to SPIRE'1

Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design

Analysing users in their context of work and finding out how and why they use different information resources is essential to provide interactive visualisation systems that match their goals and needs. Designers should actively involve the intended users throughout the whole process. This chapter presents a user-centered approach for the design of interactive visualisation systems. We describe three phases of the iterative visualisation design process: the early envisioning phase, the global specification hase, and the detailed specification phase. The whole design cycle is repeated until some criterion of success is reached. We discuss different techniques for the analysis of users, their tasks and domain. Subsequently, the design of prototypes and evaluation methods in visualisation practice are presented. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges in design and evaluation of collaborative visualisation environments. Our own case studies and those of others are used throughout the whole chapter to illustrate various approaches

Efficacy and safety of left atrial appendage closure in patients with atrial fibrillation and high thromboembolic and bleeding risk

Aim. To compare the incidence of thromboembolic and hemorrhagic events after left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) or without prevention of thromboembolic events (TEEs) during prospective follow-up of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and a high risk of ischemic stroke (IS) who have contraindications to long-term anticoagulant therapy.Material and methods. The study included 134 patients with AF, a high risk of IS, and contraindications to long-term anticoagulation. Patients were divided into 2 groups as follows: the first group included patients who underwent LAAO (n=74), while the second one — those who did not undergo any TEE prevention (n=60). The follow-up period was 3 years. The cumulative rate of all-cause mortality, IS, transient ischemic attacks (TIA), and systemic embolism (SE) was taken as the primary efficacy endpoint. The primary safety endpoint included major bleeding according to GARFIELD registry criteria.Results.  The rate of composite efficacy endpoint in the LAAO group was significantly lower than in the group without thromboembolic prophylaxis (5,2 vs 17,4 per 100 patient-years; adjusted odds ratio (OR), 4,08; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1,7-9,5; p=0,001). The rate of major bleeding was comparable in both groups (2,4 in the LAAO group vs 1,3 per 100 patient-years in the group without thromboembolic prophylaxis; adjusted OR, 0,55; 95% CI: 0,1-3,09; p=0,509). In addition, the event rate of net clinical benefit (all-cause mortality + ischemic stroke/TIA/SE + major bleeding) in the LAAO group was also significantly lower (5,9 vs 18,2 per 100 patient-years; adjusted OR, 3,0; 95% CI: 1,47-6,36; p=0,003).Conclusion. Among patients with AF and contraindications to long-term anticoagulation after 3 years of follow-up, LAAO demonstrated the significant reduction of cumulative rate of all-cause mortality and non-fatal thromboembolic events. At the same time, the frequency of major bleeding was comparable between the groups, even taking into account access-site bleeding and postoperative antithrombotic therapy (ATT)-associated bleeding in the LAAO group. Further randomized clinical trials are required to confirm these data