Three-dimensional echo-planar cine imaging of cerebral blood supply using arterial spin labeling

Objective

Echo-planar imaging (EPI) with CYlindrical Center-out spatiaL Encoding (EPICYCLE) is introduced as a novel hybrid three-dimensional (3D) EPI technique. Its suitability for the tracking of a short bolus created by pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) through the cerebral vasculature is demonstrated.

Materials and methods

EPICYCLE acquires two-dimensional planes of k-space along center-out trajectories. These “spokes” are rotated from shot to shot about a common axis to encode a k-space cylinder. To track a bolus of labeled blood, the same subset of evenly distributed spokes is acquired in a cine fashion after a short period of pCASL. This process is repeated for all subsets to fill the whole 3D k-space of each time frame.

Results

The passage of short pCASL boluses through the vasculature of a 3D imaging slab was successfully imaged using EPICYCLE. By choosing suitable sequence parameters, the impact of slab excitation on the bolus shape could be minimized. Parametric maps of signal amplitude, transit time, and bolus width reflected typical features of blood transport in large vessels.

Conclusion

The EPICYCLE technique was successfully applied to track a short bolus of labeled arterial blood during its passage through the cerebral vasculature.

     

Expression of Connexin43 Stimulates Endothelial Angiogenesis Independently of Gap Junctional Communication In Vitro

Connexins (Cx) form gap junctions (GJ) and allow for intercellular communication. However, these proteins also modulate gene expression, growth, and cell migration. The downregulation of Cx43 impairs endothelial cell migration and angiogenetic potential. Conversely, endothelial Cx43 expression is upregulated in an in vivo angiogenesis model relying on hemodynamic forces. We studied the effects of Cx43 expression on tube formation and proliferation in HUVECs and examined its dependency on GJ communication. Expectedly, intercellular communication assessed by dye transfer was linked to Cx43 expression levels in HUVECs and was sensitive to a GJ blockade by the Cx43 mimetic peptide Gap27. The proliferation of HUVECs was not affected by Cx43 overexpression using Cx43 cDNA transfection, siRNA-mediated knockdown of Cx43, or the inhibition of GJ compared to the controls (transfection of an empty vector, scrambled siRNA, and the solvent). In contrast, endothelial tube and sprout formation in HUVECs was minimized after Cx43 knockdown and significantly enhanced after Cx43 overexpression. This was not affected by a GJ blockade (Gap27). We conclude that Cx43 expression positively modulates the angiogenic potential of endothelial cells independent of GJ communication. Since proliferation remained unaffected, we suggest that Cx43 protein may modulate endothelial cell migration, thereby supporting angiogenesis. The modulation of Cx43 expression may represent an exploitable principle for angiogenesis induction in clinical therapy.     

Design,Synthesis, and Characterization of Macrocyclic Inhibitors of the Proprotein Convertase Furin

The activation of viral glycoproteins by the host protease furin is an essential step in the replication of numerous pathogenic viruses. Thus, effective inhibitors of furin could serve as broad-spectrum antiviral drugs. A crystal structure of an inhibitory hexapeptide derivative in complex with furin served as template for the rational design of various types of new cyclic inhibitors. Most of the prepared derivatives are relatively potent furin inhibitors with inhibition constants in the low nanomolar or even sub-nanomolar range. For seven derivatives the crystal structures in complex with furin could be determined. In three complexes, electron density was found for the entire inhibitor. In the other cases the structures could be determined only for the P6/P5-P1 segments, which directly interact with furin. The cyclic derivatives together with two non-cyclic reference compounds were tested as inhibitors of the proteolytic activation and replication of respiratory syncytial virus in cells. Significant antiviral activity was found for both linear reference inhibitors, whereas a negligible efficacy was determined for the cyclic derivatives.     

ASTM E1989-98 - The New Instrument Control Standard

The new ASTM E1989-98 Laboratory Equipment Control Interface Specification (LECIS) is a robust standard definition of equipment behavior while under remote control. The goal of the standardization effort is to facilitate “plug-and-play” integration of laboratory automation with standard hardware behavior and software interfaces. The LECIS standardizes laboratory equipment behavior and a message passing scheme between the controller and equipment that synchronizes this behavior. Commercial adoption of this new standard is well under way.     

Design of LTCC with High Thermal Expansion

New applications of low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC), such as pressure sensors or integrated functional layers, require materials that possess higher coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). To fabricate LTCC with elevated CTE, two methods of material design are examined: firstly, glass ceramic composites (GCC), which consist of >50 vol% glass in the starting powder, and, secondly, glass-bonded ceramics (GBC), where glass is added as a sintering aid only. The CTE of GBC is mainly determined by the crystalline component. For GCC, the CTE can be well predicted, if CTE and elastic data of each phase in the microstructure are known. A nonlinear characteristic of the CTE versus phase composition was found with increasing E _crystals/ E _glass ratio and absolute CTE difference between the components. The glass composition and glass amount can be used to compensate the fixed properties of a crystalline material in a desired way. However, because the CTE and permittivity of a glass cannot be chosen independently, an optimum glass composition has to be found. For a given LTCC, it is possible to control the devitrification by shifting the glass composition. In this way, the resulting CTE values can be predicted more exactly and tailoring becomes possible. Different LTCC materials, based on the crystalline compounds Ba(La,Nd)₂Ti₄O₁₂, ZrO₂ (Y-TZP), SiO₂ (quartz), and specially developed glasses, possessing an elevated CTE of around 10 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ while showing permittivity ɛ_r between 6 and 63, are introduced.     

Uniform Pointwise Convergence of Finite Difference Schemes Using Grid Equidistribution

A singularly perturbed quasilinear two-point boundary value problem is considered. The problem is discretized using a simple upwind finite difference scheme on adapted meshes using grid equidistribution of monitor functions. We derive sufficient conditions on the monitor function that guarantee uniform convergence in the discrete maximum norm no matter how small the perturbation parameter is. These results can be used to deduce uniform convergence of the scheme for a number of layer-adapted meshes. We also propose an adaptive procedure for the numerical treatment of the boundary value problem. Numerical experiments for the schemes are presented. Received November 12, 1999; revised April 20, 2000     

Response activation in overlapping tasks and the response-selection bottleneck.

The authors investigated the impact of response activation on dual-task performance by presenting a subliminal prime before the stimulus in Task 2 (S2) of a psychological refractory period (PRP) task. Congruence between prime and S2 modulated the reaction times in Task 2 at short stimulus onset asynchrony despite a PRP effect. This Task 2 congruence effect was paralleled by a Task 1 congruence effect and emerged exclusively under conditions of cross talk, whereas it did not occur under dual-task conditions preventing cross talk between tasks. This suggests that response activation operates during the PRP in dual tasks and affects the response times in Task 2 via cross talk between common processing elements at prebottleneck stages but not by directly affecting the postbottleneck stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Der Stand der Ausbildung von Studierenden im Umgang mit Sterbenden und dem Tod an medizinischen Fakultäten in Deutschland: eine explorative Studie von 1994/95

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