Knowledge of ovine mesenchymal stromal cells (oMSCs) is currently expanding. Tissue engineering combining scaffolding with oMSCs provides promising therapies for the treatment of osteochondral ...diseases.
The aim was to isolate and characterize oMSCs from bone marrow aspirates (oBMSCs) and to assess their usefulness for osteochondral repair using β-tricalcium phosphate (bTCP) and type I collagen (Col I) scaffolds.
Cells isolated from ovine bone marrow were characterized morphologically, phenotypically, and functionally. oBMSCs were cultured with osteogenic medium on bTCP and Col I scaffolds. The resulting constructs were evaluated by histology, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy studies. Furthermore, oBMSCs were cultured on Col I scaffolds to develop an in vitro cartilage repair model that was assessed using a modified International Cartilage Research Society (ICRS) II scale.
oBMSCs presented morphology, surface marker pattern and multipotent capacities similar to those of human BMSCs. oBMSCs seeded on Col I gave rise to osteogenic neotissue. Assessment by the modified ICRS II scale revealed that fibrocartilage/hyaline cartilage was obtained in the in vitro repair model.
The isolated ovine cells were demonstrated to be oBMSCs. oBMSCs cultured on Col I sponges successfully synthesized osteochondral tissue. The data suggest that oBMSCs have potential for use in preclinical models prior to human clinical studies.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Economic growth in Spain has largely relied on certain water-intensive sectors including construction, leisure, and agriculture; but considerable heterogeneity is found across the country’s regions, ...both in terms of water stress and economic structure. Using Data Envelopment Analysis and a panel Tobit model, we analyze the determinants of water efficiency in Spain, differentiating by groups of agents (companies, households, and municipalities) and paying particular attention to inter-regional differences and specifically the sectoral structure of the various regions. To the best of our knowledge, such an analysis has never before been conducted with a focus on Spain’s economy. Moreover, we emphasize the importance of considering the circular aspects of water management by including treated wastewater and recycled water in our analysis. We argue that this approach provides more credible and accurate measures of efficiency as well as more robust results around the key driving and explanatory factors. Our analysis reveals that water efficiency has a very significant inertia component with respect to one-year and even two-year lags, and this is found to react positively to water scarcity. Moreover, water efficiency depends on income in a nonlinear way, and it is sensitive to the economic structures of the diverse regions, with more efficient regions tending to export more at the national level. In terms of policy implications, our results provide an empirical basis from which to advocate for water tariffication as a means to spur efficiency.
Adaptive optics reconstructors are needed to remove the effects of atmospheric distortion in optical systems of large telescopes. The use of reconstructors based on neural networks has been proved ...successful in recent times. Some of their properties require a specific characterization. A procedure, based in time series clustering algorithms, is presented to characterize the relationship between temporal structure of inputs and outputs, through analyzing the data provided by the system. This procedure is used to compare the performance of a reconstructor based in Artificial Neural Networks, with one that shows promising results, but is still in development, in order to corroborate its suitability previously to its implementation in real applications. Also, this procedure could be applied with other physical systems that also have evolution in time.
The main objective of an Adaptive Optics (AO) system is to correct the aberrations produced in the received wavefronts, caused by atmospheric turbulence. From some measures taken by ground-based ...telescopes, AO systems must reconstruct all the turbulence traversed by the incoming light and calculate a correction. The turbulence is characterized as a phenomenon that can be modeled as several independent, random, and constantly changing layers. In the case of Solar Single-Conjugated Adaptive Optics (Solar SCAO), the key is to reconstruct the turbulence on-axis with the direction of the observation. Previous research has shown that ANNs are a possible alternative when they have been trained in the Sun’s regions where they must make the reconstructions. Along this research, a new solution based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is proposed to predict the atmospheric turbulence from the data obtained by the telescope sensors that can generalize recovering wavefronts in regions of the sun completely unknown previously. The presented results show the quality of the reconstructions made by this new technique based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), specifically the Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP).
The omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of SARS-CoV-2 has increased capacity to elude immunity and cause breakthrough infections. The aim of this study was to estimate the effectiveness of mRNA-based vaccine ...boosters (third dose) against infection with the omicron variant by age, sex, time since complete vaccination, type of primary vaccine, and type of booster.
In this nationwide cohort study, we linked data from three nationwide population registries in Spain (Vaccination Registry, Laboratory Results Registry, and National Health System registry) to select community-dwelling individuals aged 40 years or older, who completed their primary vaccine schedule at least 3 months before the start of follow-up, and had not tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 since the start of the pandemic. On each day between Jan 3, and Feb 6, 2022, we matched individuals who received a booster mRNA vaccine and controls of the same sex, age group, postal code, type of vaccine, time since primary vaccination, and number of previous tests. We estimated risk of laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared groups using risk ratios (RR) and risk differences. Vaccine effectiveness was calculated as one minus RR.
Between Jan 3, and Feb 6, 2022, 3 111 159 matched pairs were included in our study. Overall, the estimated effectiveness from day 7 to 34 after a booster was 51·3% (95% CI 50·2–52·4). Estimated effectiveness was 52·5% (51·3–53·7) for an mRNA-1273 booster and 46·2% (43·5–48·7) for a BNT162b2 booster. Effectiveness was 58·6% (55·5–61·6) if primary vaccination had been with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford–AstraZeneca), 55·3% (52·3–58·2) with mRNA-1273 (Moderna), 49·7% (48·3–51·1) with BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech), and 48·0% (42·5–53·7) with Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen). Estimated effectiveness was 43·6% (40·0–47·1) when the booster was administered between 151 days and 180 days after complete vaccination and 52·2% (51·0–53·3) if administered more than 180 days after primary scheduled completion.
Booster mRNA vaccine-doses were moderately effective in preventing infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 for over a month after administration, which indicates their suitability as a strategy to limit the health effects of COVID-19 in periods of omicron variant domination. Estimated effectiveness was higher for mRNA-1273 compared with BNT162b2 and increased with time between completed primary vaccination and booster.
None.
Medical instruments detection in laparoscopic video has been carried out to increase the autonomy of surgical robots, evaluate skills or index recordings. However, it has not been extended to ...surgical gauzes. Gauzes can provide valuable information to numerous tasks in the operating room, but the lack of an annotated dataset has hampered its research. In this article, we present a segmentation dataset with 4003 hand-labelled frames from laparoscopic video. To prove the dataset potential, we analyzed several baselines: detection using YOLOv3, coarse segmentation, and segmentation with a U-Net. Our results show that YOLOv3 can be executed in real time but provides a modest recall. Coarse segmentation presents satisfactory results but lacks inference speed. Finally, the U-Net baseline achieves a good speed-quality compromise running above 30 FPS while obtaining an IoU of 0.85. The accuracy reached by U-Net and its execution speed demonstrate that precise and real-time gauze segmentation can be achieved, training convolutional neural networks on the proposed dataset.
Many of the next generation of adaptive optics systems on large and extremely large telescopes require tomographic techniques in order to correct for atmospheric turbulence over a large field of ...view. Multi-object adaptive optics is one such technique. In this paper, different implementations of a tomographic reconstructor based on a machine learning architecture named "CARMEN" are presented. Basic concepts of adaptive optics are introduced first, with a short explanation of three different control systems used on real telescopes and the sensors utilised. The operation of the reconstructor, along with the three neural network frameworks used, and the developed CUDA code are detailed. Changes to the size of the reconstructor influence the training and execution time of the neural network. The native CUDA code turns out to be the best choice for all the systems, although some of the other frameworks offer good performance under certain circumstances.
Objective
We analyze the processing sequence involved in the manufacture of a skull‐cup and the manipulation of human bones from the Early Neolithic of Cueva de El Toro (Málaga, Spain).
Materials and ...methods
The Early Neolithic material studied includes human remains found in two separate assemblages. Assemblage A consists of one skull‐cup, a non‐manipulated adult human mandible, and four ceramic vessels. Assemblage B contains manipulated and non‐manipulated human remains that appeared mingled with domestic waste. Using a taphonomic approach, we evaluate the skull‐cup processing and the anthropogenic alteration of human bones.
Results
The skull‐cup was processed by careful paring away of skin, fragmentation of the facial skeleton and base of the skull, and controlled percussion of the edges of the calotte to achieve a regular shape. It was later boiled for some time in a container that caused pot polish in a specific area. The other human bones appeared scattered throughout the living area, mixed with other remains of domestic activity. Some of these bones show cut marks, percussion damage for marrow extraction, and tooth/chewing marks.
Discussion
Evidence from Cueva de El Toro suggests that cannibalism was conducted in the domestic sphere, likely following ritualized practices where the skull‐cup could have played a part. Interpretation of this evidence suggests two hypotheses: (a) aggressive cannibalism relates to extreme inter‐group violence; and (b) funerary cannibalism is a facet of multi‐stage burial practices. Similar evidence has been found in other Neolithic sites of this region and suggests that cannibalism and skull‐cups were elements widespread in these communities. These practices may be linked to significant transformations associated with the end of the Early Neolithic in southern Iberia.
Correcting atmospheric turbulence effects in light with Adaptive Optics is necessary, since it produces aberrations in the wavefront of astronomical objects observed with telescopes from Earth. These ...corrections are performed classically with reconstruction algorithms; between them, neural networks showed good results. In the context of solar observation, the usage of Adaptive Optics on solar differs from nocturnal operations, bringing up a challenge to correct the image aberrations. In this work, a convolutional approach is given to address this issue, considering SCAO configurations. A reconstruction algorithm is presented, "Shack-Hartmann reconstruction with deep learning on solar-prototype" (proto-HELIOS), to correct on fixed solar images, achieving an average 85.39% of precision in the reconstruction. Additionally, results encourage to continue working with these techniques to achieve a reconstruction technique for all the regions of the sun.
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