Great strides have been made in recent years towards understanding the roles of natural killer (NK) cells in immunity to tumours and viruses. NK cells are cytotoxic innate lymphoid cells that produce ...inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. By lysing transformed or infected cells, they limit tumour growth and viral infections. Whereas T cells recognize peptides presented by MHC molecules, NK cells display receptors that recognize stress-induced autologous proteins on cancer cells. At the same time, their functional activity is inhibited by MHC molecules displayed on such cells. The enormous potential of NK cells for immunotherapy for cancer is illustrated by their broad recognition of stressed cells regardless of neoantigen presentation, and enhanced activity against tumours that have lost expression of MHC class I owing to acquired resistance mechanisms. As a result, many efforts are under way to mobilize endogenous NK cells with therapeutics, or to provide populations of ex vivo-expanded NK cells as a cellular therapy, in some cases by equipping the NK cells with chimeric antigen receptors. Here we consider the key features that underlie why NK cells are emerging as important new additions to the cancer therapeutic arsenal.
When choosing between options, whether menu items or career paths, we can evaluate how rewarding each one will be, or how congruent it is with our current choice goal (e.g., to point out the best ...option or the worst one.). Past decision-making research interpreted findings through the former lens, but in these experiments the most rewarding option was always most congruent with the task goal (choosing the best option). It is therefore unclear to what extent expected reward vs. goal congruency can account for choice value findings. To deconfound these two variables, we performed three behavioral studies and an fMRI study in which the task goal varied between identifying the best vs. the worst option. Contrary to prevailing accounts, we find that goal congruency dominates choice behavior and neural activity. We separately identify dissociable signals of expected reward. Our findings call for a reinterpretation of previous research on value-based choice.
To compare central retinal thickness (CRT) measurements in healthy eyes by different commercially available OCT instruments and to compare the intersession reproducibility of such measurements.
Six ...different OCT instruments (Stratus OCT Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc. Dublin, CA, SOCT Copernicus Reichert/Optopol Technology, Inc., Depew, NY, Spectral OCT/SLO Opko/OTI, Inc., Miami, FL, RTVue-100 Optovue Corp., Fremont, CA, Spectralis HRA+OCT Heidelberg Engineering, Inc., Heidelberg, Germany, and Cirrus HD-OCT Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc.) were used to assess CRT in both eyes of healthy subjects. Measurements were performed in two different sessions on the same day with each of the systems. From these measurements, the mean CRT was calculated. For the assessment of the intersession reproducibility of the instruments, we calculated the coefficient of the variation of test-retest variation.
Twenty healthy subjects were included in the study. Compared with the Stratus OCT all spectral OCT instruments showed significantly higher CRTs. The Spectralis HRA+OCT and Cirrus HD-OCT showed similar CRT values but significantly higher values than did all other instruments. The coefficients of variation for repeated measurements was 3.33% for the Stratus OCT, 0.46% for the Spectralis HRA+OCT, 3.09% for the Cirrus HD-OCT, 2.23% for the OCT/SLO, 2.77% for the RTVue-100 OCT, and for the SOCT 3.5%, respectively. discussion. The six OCT systems provided different results for CRT. The measurements with the Stratus OCT showed the lowest thicknesses, whereas those with the Cirrus HD-OCT and Spectralis HRA+OCT yielded the highest ones. These discrepancies can be explained by the differences in the retinal segmentation algorithms used by the various OCT systems. Whereas the Spectralis HRA+OCT and Cirrus HD-OCT include the RPE layer in the retinal segmentation, the other instruments do not. The data imply that the different OCT systems cannot be used interchangeably for the measurement of macular thickness.
Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has undergone 30 years of development. Functional chest examinations with this technology are considered clinically relevant, especially for monitoring regional ...lung ventilation in mechanically ventilated patients and for regional pulmonary function testing in patients with chronic lung diseases. As EIT becomes an established medical technology, it requires consensus examination, nomenclature, data analysis and interpretation schemes. Such consensus is needed to compare, understand and reproduce study findings from and among different research groups, to enable large clinical trials and, ultimately, routine clinical use. Recommendations of how EIT findings can be applied to generate diagnoses and impact clinical decision-making and therapy planning are required. This consensus paper was prepared by an international working group, collaborating on the clinical promotion of EIT called TRanslational EIT developmeNt stuDy group. It addresses the stated needs by providing (1) a new classification of core processes involved in chest EIT examinations and data analysis, (2) focus on clinical applications with structured reviews and outlooks (separately for adult and neonatal/paediatric patients), (3) a structured framework to categorise and understand the relationships among analysis approaches and their clinical roles, (4) consensus, unified terminology with clinical user-friendly definitions and explanations, (5) a review of all major work in thoracic EIT and (6) recommendations for future development (193 pages of online supplements systematically linked with the chief sections of the main document). We expect this information to be useful for clinicians and researchers working with EIT, as well as for industry producers of this technology.
Exposure to ambient air pollution may be associated with impaired mental health, including depression. However, evidence originates mainly from animal studies and epidemiological studies in specific ...subgroups. We investigated the association between air pollution and depressed mood in four European general population cohorts.
Data were obtained from LifeLines (the Netherlands), KORA (Germany), HUNT (Norway), and FINRISK (Finland). Residential exposure to particles (PM2.5, PM2.5absorbance, PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was estimated using land use regression (LUR) models developed for the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) and using European wide LUR models. Depressed mood was assessed with interviews and questionnaires. Logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the cohort specific associations between air pollution and depressed mood.
A total of 70,928 participants were included in our analyses. Depressed mood ranged from 1.6% (KORA) to 11.3% (FINRISK). Cohort specific associations of the air pollutants and depressed mood showed heterogeneous results. For example, positive associations were found for NO2 in LifeLines (odds ratio OR=1.34; 95% CI: 1.17, 1.53 per 10μg/m3 increase in NO2), whereas negative associations were found in HUNT (OR=0.79; 95% CI: 0.66, 0.94 per 10μg/m3 increase in NO2).
Our analyses of four European general population cohorts found no consistent evidence for an association between ambient air pollution and depressed mood.
The success of CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs is largely controlled by interfacial phenomena among fluid phases and rock pore spaces. Particularly, the ...wettability of the rock matrix has a strong effect on capillary pressure, relative permeability, and the distribution of phases within the pore space and thus on the entire displacement mechanism and storage capacity. Precise understanding of wettability behavior is therefore fundamental when injecting CO2 into geological formations to sequestrate CO2 and/or to enhance gas/oil production. In this study, the contact angles of Bentheimer sandstone/water/CO2 or flue gas have been evaluated experimentally using the captive-bubble technique in the pressure range from 0.2 to 15 MPa. The experiments were conducted using different compositions of aqueous phase with respect to CO2, i.e., unsaturated and fully saturated. It has been shown that a reliable contact-angle determination needs to be conducted using a pre-equilibrated aqueous phase to eliminate dissolution effects. In the fully saturated aqueous phase, the Bentheimer sandstone/water system is (and remains) water-wet even at high pressures against CO2 and/or flue gas. In these systems, the data of the stable contact angle demonstrate a strong dependence on the bubble size, which can be mainly explained by the gravity (buoyancy) effect on bubble shape. However, the surface nonideality and roughness have significant influence on the reliability of the contact-angle determination. The results of this study prove that in order to avoid the dependency of the contact angle on the bubble size in these systems, the effect of gravity (buoyancy) on bubble shape has to be considered by calculation of the Bond number; for systems characterized by Bond numbers less than 0.9, the influence of the bubble radius on the contact angle becomes insignificant. The experimental results show that, in contrast to quartz, the phase transition of CO2 from subcritical to supercritical has no effect on the wettability of the Bentheimer sandstone/water system, which originates from differences in the surface charges of quartz and Bentheimer sandstone. In an unsaturated system, two dissolution regimes are observed, which may be explained by density-driven natural convection and molecular diffusion.
Myocardial ischaemia resulting from obstructive coronary artery disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is the ...gold-standard treatment in many patients with complex multivessel coronary artery disease or left main disease. Despite substantial improvements in the outcome of patients undergoing CABG surgery in the past decade, graft patency remains the 'Achilles' heel' of this procedure. Whereas the use of the left internal mammary artery as a conduit is associated with the highest 10-year patency rate (>90%), saphenous vein grafts - the most commonly used conduit in CABG surgery - fail in 40-50% of treated patients by 10 years after surgery. Vein graft disease (VGD) and failure result from complex pathophysiological processes that can lead to complete occlusion of the graft, affecting long-term clinical outcomes. Optimal harvesting techniques, intraoperative preservation strategies and intraoperative patency control have important roles in the prevention of VGD. In addition, several studies published in the past decade have reported similar mid-term patency rates between vein grafts and arterial grafts when veins are used as a composite graft based on the internal mammary artery. In this Review, we present the latest evidence on the utilization of saphenous vein grafts for CABG surgery and provide an overview of the current practices for the prevention of VGD and vein graft failure.
New techniques to determine distributions of cleat aperture, cleat orientation and cleat spacing from CT scans have been developed. For cleat orientation and spacing distributions, two different coal ...blocks were scanned. The CT scans have been analyzed for the three orthogonal directions. Histograms of the cleat orientations are bimodal, expressing the typical cleat texture of face and butt cleats and bedding perpendicular relaxation fractures. Deviations up to 20° from the peak values in the cleat orientation distributions were used as input for automated image analysis of cleat spacing. Distributions of the cleat spacing measurements are related to the face and butt cleat directions. The term “relevant cleat length” is introduced as a measure to extract the amount of cleat length involved with the cleat spacing measurements. The ratio ranges from 0.03 to 0.38 and expresses the difference in cleat texture in both samples. Cleat spacing versus relevant cleat length shows sample specific patterns for face cleat, butt cleat and bedding. To describe cleat aperture quantitatively, peak height and missing attenuation have been used. The image of a cleat was seen as a convolution of a rectangular fracture profile with a Gaussian point spread function.
Classical or quantum systems that stem from a basic symmetry are seen to be special in having several important properties. The harmonic oscillator and the Bohr system are such. Recent research into ...the Zernike system provides reasons to include it in this privileged class. Here we show that free motion on the 3-sphere can be projected down to produce classical orbits or complete and orthogonal bases for wavefronts in a circular pupil. This line of inquiry has been pursued in company with N.M. Atakishiyev, G.S. Pogosyan, C. Salto-Alegre, and A. Yakhno.
PDF
