Bactericidal effect of the Nd:YAG laser in in vitro root canals

The spatio-temporal patterns of neural activity evoked by electrical stimuli to the antennal nerve (AN) in male cockroach antennal lobes (ALs) in vivo were analyzed by optical imaging using a voltage-sensitive dye. The response pattern was initially a depolarization on the AN and subsequently a depolarization followed by a hyperpolarization on the whole area of macroglomerulus (MG) and a part of ordinary glomerulus (OG). It was suggested by the pharmacological results that the depolarizing responses on the AL consist of both a presynaptic response, representing synchronous compound action potentials from the AN, and a postsynaptic response, representing synchronous compound excitatory postsynaptic potentials and action potentials from neurites of AL neurons, and that the inhibitory responses of GABAergic local interneurons in the AN are different in time course from that in the AL.     

Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: good initial steroid response allows early prediction of a favorable treatment outcome

Among 4,760 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients enrolled from 1986 to 1995 in two subsequent trials of the BFM and AIEOP study group, 61 patients were found to have Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) ALL. These patients were analyzed for presenting features and treatment outcome to identify specific prognostic factors. Treatment stratification was based on initial cell mass and early response as determined by blast count in peripheral blood after a 7-day induction prephase with prednisone and one dose of intrathecal methotrexate on day 1. All patients were treated by similar intensive Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (BFM) protocols. The median age of Ph+ patients was 7.5 years, the median white blood cell count (WBC) was 75 x 10(9)/L, 77% of patients had common ALL, and 29% coexpressed myeloid markers. After a median observation time of 4.2 years, 29 of 61 patients are alive (survival probability [pSUR] at 4 years, 0.49; standard error [SE], 0.06), and 24 of 61 are in first complete remission (CR1; probability of event-free survival [pEFS] at 4 years, 0.38; SE, 0.06). Twenty (35%) of 57 evaluable patients had >/=1,000 leukemic blasts per microliter of blood on day 8 of induction (defined as prednisone-poor-response [PPR]). These patients were older (10.0 v 6.88 years; P = .02) and had a higher WBC (144 v 29 x 10(9)/L; P = .0016) as compared with patients with prednisone good response (PGR; <1,000 blasts/microL at day 8). Only 2 of 20 patients (10%) with PPR remained in CR1 and alive: 6 patients with PPR did not survive after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) due to recurring disease (n = 3) and toxicity (n = 3), and 12 nontransplanted patients died due to progression (n = 5) or relapse (n = 7). In contrast, 26 (70%) of the 37 patients with PGR are alive. Of 18 patients transplanted by allo-BMT, 1 relapsed (now in CR2) and 4 died after BMT. Among the 19 patients with PGR treated by chemotherapy alone, 8 remained in CR1 and 11 relapsed, of which 4 are in CR2 or CR3. The prednisone response emerged as the only independent prognostic factor for survival in Cox regression analysis. Thus, two thirds of Ph+ childhood ALL cases can be identified early by PGR, which, when treated with intensive BFM chemotherapy, with or without BMT, have a significantly lower risk of treatment failure. With a median continuous complete remission (CCR) time of 4.1 years, pEFS for PGR is 0.55 (SE, 0.08) compared with 0.10 (SE, 0.07) in patients with PPR (P = .0001). PGR is also an indicator for treatment responsiveness and durable second remission after relapse, which in turn may provide a second chance for BMT.     

The intelligent help system COMFOHELP

The paper is concerned with the question of whether and under what conditions active help systems with plan recognition components that have been developed in the environment of artificial intelligence research are able to prove their value in the real context of commercial application programs. The question is investigated using the development of the COMFOHELP intelligent help system as an example. COMFOHELP supports the COMFOTEX graphical text processing program and has been developed by the Linguistic Information Science Group at the University of Regensburg since 1988. The system recognizes erroneous and suboptimal plans pursued by the user by analyzing the dialog history and comparing them with the correct plan for achieving the user's goal.Section 2 discusses the research situation and elaborates on those problems which up to now prevented research concepts for plan recognition and intelligent help systems from being practically applied. Testing error situations empirically is a first prerequisite since potential erroneous plans can only be established in real-world tests. The second prerequisite is a special system architecture which counteracts the problem of ambiguities in plan recognition. Section 3 introduces a first still restricted prototype version of COMFOHELP whose efficiency was verified in a statistical hypothesis test. The users performing their text processing tasks with the support of COMFOHELP came off significantly better than members of a reference group working without the intelligent help. Section 4 shows that the proposed COMFOHELP system architecture is reconfirmed by the results of extensive empirical investigations (with more than 100 users) of erroneous plans when using a more complex version of COMFOTEX. The architecture still proves to be worthwhile even when functionality is increased by a factor of three to four.     

An optimal nonorthogonal separation of the anisotropic Gaussian convolution filter.

We give an analytical and geometrical treatment of what it means to separate a Gaussian kernel along arbitrary axes in R(n), and we present a separation scheme that allows us to efficiently implement anisotropic Gaussian convolution filters for data of arbitrary dimensionality. Based on our previous analysis we show that this scheme is optimal with regard to the number of memory accesses and interpolation operations needed. The proposed method relies on nonorthogonal convolution axes and works completely in image space. Thus, it avoids the need for a fast Fourier transform (FFT)-subroutine. Depending on the accuracy and speed requirements, different interpolation schemes and methods to implement the one-dimensional Gaussian (finite impulse response and infinite impulse response) can be integrated. Special emphasis is put on analyzing the performance and accuracy of the new method. In particular, we show that without any special optimization of the source code, it can perform anisotropic Gaussian filtering faster than methods relying on the FFT.     

Effects of practice on speed of information processing in children and adults: Age sensitivity and age invariance.

In 2 experiments, children and adults were exposed to 4 different information-processing tasks. Consistent with the global trend hypothesis, age-sensitive linear relations were observed between child and adult latencies, and 10- and 11-yr-olds were approximately 1.7 and 1.6 times slower than 19-yr-olds as predicted by R. Kail's (see record 1991-20909-001) growth function. In Exp 1, the relation between child and adult latencies did not change over 4 sessions of practice, implying that practice has equivalent effects on corresponding processing steps in children and adults. In both experiments, an age-invariant linear relation between dispersion and central tendency was observed, indicating that children's greater within-S variability is entirely due to their slower speed of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feasibility of the use of chilean nitrate as a nitrogen source for the growth of Chlorella pyrenoidosa

Potassic Chilean nitrate, a cheap natural product of northern Chile, was found to support the growth of the unicellular green alga Chlorella pyrenoidosa, a possible sheep fodder supplement in this region. Comparisons with conventional media containing urea or KNO₃ were favourable.     

Retrospective patient dose analysis of a digital radiography system in routine clinical use

The log files generated in the flat-panel detector based digital radiography systems (Philips Digital Diagnost) at 11 different hospitals were used to acquire data regarding the dose-area product (DAP) and the entrance air kerma (EAK) for all X-ray examinations performed in routine clinical use. A retrospective statistical analysis of the data with respect to the dose levels was performed for several examination types. The resulting average dose levels were compared with the diagnostic reference levels (DRLs). While for the same type of examination the median dose level at different hospitals could differ by up to a factor of 5, almost all the dose levels were found to be much below the published DRL. Only in one hospital for one type of examination (Thorax PA) the DRL for the DAP was slightly exceeded, while for the same site and examination the EAK was still below the DRL. In conclusion, examination log files can be used for retrospective dose analysis and correlation with DRLs.     

Urine testing for designer steroids by liquid chromatography with androgen bioassay detection and electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry identification

New anabolic steroids show up occasionally in sports doping and in veterinary control. The discovery of these designer steroids is facilitated by findings of illicit preparations, thus allowing bioactivity testing, structure elucidation using NMR and mass spectrometry, and final incorporation in urine testing. However, as long as these preparations remain undiscovered, new designer steroids are not screened for in routine sports doping or veterinary control urine tests since the established GC/MS and LC/MS/MS methods are set up for the monitoring of a few selected ions or MS/MS transitions of known substances only. In this study, the feasibility of androgen bioactivity testing and mass spectrometric identification is being investigated for trace analysis of designer steroids in urine. Following enzymatic deconjugation and a generic solid-phase extraction, the samples are analyzed by gradient LC with effluent splitting toward two identical 96-well fraction collectors. One well plate is used for androgen bioactivity detection using a novel robust yeast reporter gene bioassay yielding a biogram featuring a 20-s time resolution. The bioactive wells direct the identification efforts to the corresponding well numbers in the duplicate plate. These are subjected to high-resolution LC using a short column packed with 1.7-microm C18 material and coupled with electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC/QTOFMS) with accurate mass measurement. Element compositions are calculated and used to interrogate electronic substance databases. The feasibility of this approach for doping control is demonstrated via the screening of human urine samples spiked with the designer anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone. Application of the proposed methodology, complementary to the established targeted urine screening for known anabolics, will increase the chance of finding unknown emerging designer steroids, rather then being solely dependent on findings of the illicit preparations themselves.     

Nondegradative additive manufacturing of medical grade copolyesters of high molecular weight and with varied elastic response

Although additive manufacturing through melt extrusion has become increasingly popular as a route to design scaffolds with complex geometries the technique if often limited by the reduction in molecular weight and the viscoelastic response when degradable aliphatic polyesters of high molecular weight are used. Here we use a melt extruder and fused filament fabrication printer to produce a reliable nondegradative route for scaffold fabrication of medical grade copolymers of L-lactide, poly(ε-caprolactone-co-L-lactide), and poly(L-lactide-co-trimethylene carbonate). We show that degradation is avoided using filament extrusion and fused filament fabrication if the process parameters are deliberately chosen based upon the rheological behavior, mechanical properties, and polymer composition. Structural, mechanical, and thermal properties were assessed throughout the process to obtain comprehension of the relationship between the rheological properties and the behavior of the medical grade copolymers in the extruder and printer. Scaffolds with a controlled architecture were achieved using high-molecular-weight polyesters exhibiting a large range in the elastic response causing negligible degradation of the polymers. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020 , 137, 48550.     

Lamin-Related Congenital Muscular Dystrophy Alters Mechanical Signaling and Skeletal Muscle Growth

Laminopathies are a clinically heterogeneous group of disorders caused by mutations in the LMNA gene, which encodes the nuclear envelope proteins lamins A and C. The most frequent diseases associated with LMNA mutations are characterized by skeletal and cardiac involvement, and include autosomal dominant Emery–Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 1B, and LMNA-related congenital muscular dystrophy (LMNA-CMD). Although the exact pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for LMNA-CMD are not yet understood, severe contracture and muscle atrophy suggest that mutations may impair skeletal muscle growth. Using human muscle stem cells (MuSCs) carrying LMNA-CMD mutations, we observe impaired myogenic fusion with disorganized cadherin/β catenin adhesion complexes. We show that skeletal muscle from Lmna-CMD mice is unable to hypertrophy in response to functional overload, due to defective fusion of activated MuSCs, defective protein synthesis and defective remodeling of the neuromuscular junction. Moreover, stretched myotubes and overloaded muscle fibers with LMNA-CMD mutations display aberrant mechanical regulation of the yes-associated protein (YAP). We also observe defects in MuSC activation and YAP signaling in muscle biopsies from LMNA-CMD patients. These phenotypes are not recapitulated in closely related but less severe EDMD models. In conclusion, combining studies in vitro, in vivo, and patient samples, we find that LMNA-CMD mutations interfere with mechanosignaling pathways in skeletal muscle, implicating A-type lamins in the regulation of skeletal muscle growth.