ABSTRACT Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) with neutron stars show quite different features that depend on the rate of mass transfer from the donor star. With a high transfer rate, the Z sources are in ...a persistent soft spectral state, and with a moderate transfer rate the transient Atoll sources have outburst cycles like the black hole X-ray binaries. The observations document very long outburst recurrence times for quite a number of sources. We follow with our computations the evolution of the accretion disc until the onset of the ionization instability. For sources with a low mass transfer rate, the accumulation of matter in the disc is essentially reduced due to the continuous evaporation of matter from the disc to the coronal flow. Different mass transfer rates result in nearly the same amount of matter accumulated for the outburst, which means that the outburst properties are similar for sources with short outburst cycles and sources with long outburst cycles, contrary to some expectations. Then, for systems with long recurrence time, less sources will be detected and the total population of LMXBs could be larger than it appears. This would relieve the apparent problem that the observed number of LMXBs as progenitors of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) is too small compared to the number of MSPs. Concerning the few quasi-persistent sources with year-long soft states, we argue that these states are not outbursts, but quasi-stationary hot states as in Z sources.
Objective
To characterize in vivo signatures of pathological diagnosis in a large cohort of patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) variants defined by current diagnostic classification.
...Methods
Extensive clinical, cognitive, neuroimaging, and neuropathological data were collected from 69 patients with sporadic PPA, divided into 29 semantic (svPPA), 25 nonfluent (nfvPPA), 11 logopenic (lvPPA), and 4 mixed PPA. Patterns of gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) atrophy at presentation were assessed and tested as predictors of pathological diagnosis using support vector machine (SVM) algorithms.
Results
A clinical diagnosis of PPA was associated with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) with transactive response DNA‐binding protein (TDP) inclusions in 40.5%, FTLD‐tau in 40.5%, and Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology in 19% of cases. Each variant was associated with 1 typical pathology; 24 of 29 (83%) svPPA showed FTLD‐TDP type C, 22 of 25 (88%) nfvPPA showed FTLD‐tau, and all 11 lvPPA had AD. Within FTLD‐tau, 4R‐tau pathology was commonly associated with nfvPPA, whereas Pick disease was observed in a minority of subjects across all variants except for lvPPA. Compared with pathologically typical cases, svPPA‐tau showed significant extrapyramidal signs, greater executive impairment, and severe striatal and frontal GM and WM atrophy. nfvPPA‐TDP patients lacked general motor symptoms or significant WM atrophy. Combining GM and WM volumes, SVM analysis showed 92.7% accuracy to distinguish FTLD‐tau and FTLD‐TDP pathologies across variants.
Interpretation
Each PPA clinical variant is associated with a typical and most frequent cognitive, neuroimaging, and neuropathological profile. Specific clinical and early anatomical features may suggest rare and atypical pathological diagnosis in vivo. Ann Neurol 2017;81:430–443
Parvalbumin inhibitory interneurons (PVIs) are crucial for maintaining proper excitatory/inhibitory balance and high-frequency neuronal synchronization. Their activity supports critical developmental ...trajectories, sensory and cognitive processing, and social behavior. Despite heterogeneity in the etiology across schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder, PVI circuits are altered in these psychiatric disorders. Identifying mechanism(s) underlying PVI deficits is essential to establish treatments targeting in particular cognition. On the basis of published and new data, we propose oxidative stress as a common pathological mechanism leading to PVI impairment in schizophrenia and some forms of autism. A series of animal models carrying genetic and/or environmental risks relevant to diverse etiological aspects of these disorders show PVI deficits to be all accompanied by oxidative stress in the anterior cingulate cortex. Specifically, oxidative stress is negatively correlated with the integrity of PVIs and the extracellular perineuronal net enwrapping these interneurons. Oxidative stress may result from dysregulation of systems typically affected in schizophrenia, including glutamatergic, dopaminergic, immune and antioxidant signaling. As convergent end point, redox dysregulation has successfully been targeted to protect PVIs with antioxidants/redox regulators across several animal models. This opens up new perspectives for the use of antioxidant treatments to be applied to at-risk individuals, in close temporal proximity to environmental impacts known to induce oxidative stress.
We present experimental studies on ion acceleration from ultrathin diamondlike carbon foils irradiated by ultrahigh contrast laser pulses of energy 0.7 J focused to peak intensities of 5x10(19) ...W/cm2. A reduction in electron heating is observed when the laser polarization is changed from linear to circular, leading to a pronounced peak in the fully ionized carbon spectrum at the optimum foil thickness of 5.3 nm. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations reveal that those C6+ ions are for the first time dominantly accelerated in a phase-stable way by the laser radiation pressure.
Microglia rely on their ability to proliferate in the brain parenchyma to sustain brain innate immunity and participate in the reaction to brain damage. We now studied the influence of different ...danger signals activating microglia, both internal (typified by glutamate, associated with brain damage) and external (using a bacterial lipopolysaccharide, LPS), on the proliferation of microglia cells. We found that LPS (100 ng/mL) increased, whereas glutamate (0.5 mM) decreased proliferation. Notably, LPS decreased whereas glutamate increased the extracellular levels of ATP. In contrast, LPS increased whereas glutamate decreased the extracellular catabolism of ATP into adenosine through ecto‐nucleotidases and ecto‐5’‐nucleotidase. Finally, apyrase (degrades extracellular ATP) abrogated glutamate‐induced inhibition of microglia proliferation; conversely, inhibitors of ecto‐nucleotidases (ARL67156 or α,β‐methylene ADP) and adenosine deaminase (degrades extracellular adenosine) abrogated the LPS‐induced increase of microglia proliferation, which was blocked by a selective A2A receptor antagonist, SCH58261 (50 nM). Overall, these results highlight the importance of the extracellular purinergic metabolism to format microglia proliferation and influence the spatio‐temporal profile of neuroinflammation in different conditions of brain damage. GLIA 2015;63:1636–1645
Main Points
LPS decreased, whereas glutamate increased extracellular ATP levels by oppositely impaction on the extracellular catabolism of ATP into adenosine through ecto‐nucleotidases.
LPS increased, whereas glutamate decreased microglia proliferation.
Removing extracellular ATP abrogates glutamate‐induced inhibition of proliferation, whereas blocking ecto‐nucleotidases abrogated the LPS‐induced increase of proliferation.
Background
A critical appraisal of the benefits of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is needed, but is lacking. This study examined the associations between MIS and 30‐day postoperative outcomes ...including complications graded according to the Clavien–Dindo classification, unplanned readmissions, hospital stay and mortality for five common surgical procedures.
Methods
Patients undergoing appendicectomy, colectomy, inguinal hernia repair, hysterectomy and prostatectomy were identified in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. Non‐parsimonious propensity score methods were used to construct procedure‐specific matched‐pair cohorts that reduced baseline differences between patients who underwent MIS and those who did not. Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons was applied and P < 0·006 was considered significant.
Results
Of the 532 287 patients identified, 53·8 per cent underwent MIS. Propensity score matching yielded an overall sample of 327 736 patients (appendicectomy 46 688, colectomy 152 114, inguinal hernia repair 59 066, hysterectomy 59 066, prostatectomy 10 802). Within the procedure‐specific matched pairs, MIS was associated with significantly lower odds of Clavien–Dindo grade I–II, III and IV complications (P ≤ 0·004), unplanned readmissions (P < 0·001) and reduced hospital stay (P < 0·001) in four of the five procedures studied, with the exception of inguinal hernia repair. The odds of death were lower in patients undergoing MIS colectomy (P < 0·001), hysterectomy (P = 0·002) and appendicectomy (P = 0·002).
Conclusion
MIS was associated with significantly fewer 30‐day postoperative complications, unplanned readmissions and deaths, as well as shorter hospital stay, in patients undergoing colectomy, prostatectomy, hysterectomy or appendicectomy. No benefits were noted for inguinal hernia repair.
Generally better outcomes after laparoscopic surgery
We compare the atomic dynamics of the glass to that of the relevant crystal. In the spectra of inelastic scattering, the boson peak of the glass appears higher than the transverse acoustic (TA) ...singularity of the crystal. However, the density of states shows that they have the same number of states. Increasing pressure causes the transformation of the boson peak of the glass towards the TA singularity of the crystal. Once corrected for the difference in the elastic medium, the boson peak matches the TA singularity in energy and height. This suggests the identical nature of the two features.
We investigated a case of human infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) after exposure to infected camels. Analysis of the whole human-derived virus and 15% of the ...camel-derived virus sequence yielded nucleotide polymorphism signatures suggestive of cross-species transmission. Camels may act as a direct source of human MERS-CoV infection.
Cells respond to environments by regulating gene expression to exploit resources optimally. Recent advances in technologies allow for measuring the abundances of RNA, proteins, lipids and ...metabolites. These highly complex datasets reflect the states of the different layers in a biological system. Multi-omics is the integration of these disparate methods and data to gain a clearer picture of the biological state. Multi-omic studies of the proteome and metabolome are becoming more common as mass spectrometry technology continues to be democratized. However, knowledge extraction through the integration of these data remains challenging.
Connections between molecules in different omic layers were discovered through a combination of machine learning and model interpretation. Discovered connections reflected protein control (ProC) over metabolites. Proteins discovered to control citrate were mapped onto known genetic and metabolic networks, revealing that these protein regulators are novel. Further, clustering the magnitudes of ProC over all metabolites enabled the prediction of five gene functions, each of which was validated experimentally. Two uncharacterized genes, YJR120W and YDL157C, were accurately predicted to modulate mitochondrial translation. Functions for three incompletely characterized genes were also predicted and validated, including SDH9, ISC1 and FMP52. A website enables results exploration and also MIMaL analysis of user-supplied multi-omic data.
The website for MIMaL is at https://mimal.app. Code for the website is at https://github.com/qdickinson/mimal-website. Code to implement MIMaL is at https://github.com/jessegmeyerlab/MIMaL.
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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