Cellular and Molecular Targets for Non-Invasive,Non-Pharmacological Therapeutic/Rehabilitative Interventions in Acute Ischemic Stroke

BACKGROUND: Cerebral circulation delivers the blood flow to the brain through a dedicated network of sanguine vessels. A healthy human brain can regulate cerebral blood flow (CBF) according to any physiological or pathological challenges. The brain is protected by its self-regulatory mechanisms, which are dependent on neuronal and support cellular populations, including endothelial ones, as well as metabolic, and even myogenic factors. OBJECTIVES: Accumulating data suggest that “non-pharmacological” approaches might provide new opportunities for stroke therapy, such as electro-/acupuncture, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, hypothermia/cooling, photobiomodulation, therapeutic gases, transcranial direct current stimulations, or transcranial magnetic stimulations. We reviewed the recent data on the mechanisms and clinical implications of these non-pharmaceutical treatments. METHODS: To present the state-of-the-art for currently available non-invasive, non-pharmacological-related interventions in acute ischemic stroke, we accomplished this synthetic and systematic literature review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Principles Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). RESULTS: The initial number of obtained articles was 313. After fulfilling the five steps in the filtering/selection methodology, 54 fully eligible papers were selected for synthetic review. We enhanced our documentation with other bibliographic resources connected to our subject, identified in the literature within a non-standardized search, to fill the knowledge gaps. Fifteen clinical trials were also identified. DISCUSSION: Non-invasive, non-pharmacological therapeutic/rehabilitative interventions for acute ischemic stroke are mainly holistic therapies. Therefore, most of them are not yet routinely used in clinical practice, despite some possible beneficial effects, which have yet to be supplementarily proven in more related studies. Moreover, few of the identified clinical trials are already completed and most do not have final results. CONCLUSIONS: This review synthesizes the current findings on acute ischemic stroke therapeutic/rehabilitative interventions, described as non-invasive and non-pharmacological.     

The use of the neural networks in the recognition of the austenitic steel types

The work shows the results obtained in recognition of different types of austenitic steels with an ultrasonic system that provides the necessary data towards two different neural networks. One of the neural networks (RNAU) used as input a vector containing processed data (propagation velocity and ultrasonic attenuation). The second neural network (AUFRAN) used the amplitude of digitized radio-frequency signal and its numerical Fourier transform as input vector.Two thirds of data obtained from three kinds of steels (W.1.4541, W.1.6903 and HP50) were used in the learning process. The last third of acquired data on these samples were used in the testing process. The obtained classification probabilities were above 98.3%. As a supplement, the testing process was extended to three other types of austenitic steels having different chemical compositions than those used in the learning process.     

Solving a weak NP-complete problem in polynomial time by using mutual mobile membrane systems

Mutual mobile membrane systems represent a variant of mobile membrane systems in which endocytosis and exocytosis work whenever the involved membranes ??agree?? on the movement by using mutual complement objects placed in membranes. We provide a semi-uniform polynomial solution for a weak NP-complete problem (namely partition problem) by means of mutual mobile membrane systems.     

Simulating Microstructural Evolution and Electrical Transport in Ceramic Gas Sensors

An integrated computational approach to microstructural evolution and electrical transport in ceramic gas sensors has been proposed. First, the particle-flow model and the continuum-phase-field method are used to describe the microstructural development during the sintering of a prototype two-dimensional film. Then, the conductivity of the sintering samples is calculated concurrently as the microstructure evolves, using both resistor lattice models and effective medium theory for electrical transport in porous aggregates of lightly sintered particles. This approach, when combined with the modeling of resistivity at the grain–grain contacts as a function of neck geometry, ambient gas concentration and temperature, could facilitate the development and optimization of novel microstructures for advanced ceramic gas sensors.     

Enhanced Mobile Membranes: Computability Results

The enhanced mobile membranes is a variant of membrane systems which has been proposed for describing some biological mechanisms of the immune system. In this paper, we study the computational power of the enhanced mobile membranes. In particular, we focus on the power of mobility given by the operations endo, exo, fendo and fexo. The computational universality is obtained with 12 membranes, while systems with 8 membranes subsume PsET0L, and those with 3 membranes are contained in PsMAT.     

General patterns of interaction in stochastic fusion

A stochastic version of the fusion calculus is presented. The stochastic nature is evident in the labelled transition system providing the operational semantics of stochastic fusion calculus, where labels represent the rates corresponding to exponential distributions. We extend the notion of hyperbisimulation to stochastic fusion calculus, and prove that the stochastic hyperequivalence is a congruence. A complete axiomatic system for the stochastic hyperbisimulation is defined. Some examples inspired by gene regulation illustrate the general patterns of interactions by using stochastic fusion calculus.     

Structural Characterization and Magnetic Properties of Iron Oxides Biological Polymers

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONs) coated with different biological (dextran, sucrose) polymers have been synthesized by the coprecipitation method. Biological polymers coated iron oxide nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Zero field cooled and field cooled magnetizations measurements are also reported. We present a preliminary study of the influence of biological polymer on the interaction effects in powders. The temperature, T _max, of the maximum, increased from 25 K (dextran) to 52 K (sucrose). These values are due to the decrease of interparticle interactions, mainly as a result of the interparticle distance increase.     

Polyurethane doped with low‐concentration erbium

Polyurethane (PU) with lactate structures in its conformation can be used as a biological and biodegradable polymer. Polyurethane lactate (PUL) was doped with small quantities of an erbium (Er³⁺) complex, which hindered the N?N group. 2,2′‐Dihydroxyazobenzene was used as a ligand for the Er³⁺ complex. PUL in the presence of the used Er³⁺ complex caused water from the complex to be replaced by the polar structures from the polymer. These structures acted as crystallization germs for the structuration of the PU matrix. As a consequence, both the mechanical and thermal properties of the polymer were improved. The sample with the highest mechanical properties contained only 0.064 μmol of Er³⁺ complex/g of sample. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 659–669, 2007     

Viologen capped by nucleobase—building blocks for functional materials: synthesis and structure–properties relationship

Journal of Materials Science - The current study presents a new class of functional derivatives (1–3) consisting of a dicationic viologen (4,4’-bipyridinium unit) (V2+) capped by...