The anterolateral approach (ALA) enables access to the mid and lower clivus, jugular foramen (JF), craniocervical junction, and cervical spine with added anterior and lateral exposure than the ...extreme lateral and endoscopic endonasal approach, respectively. We describe the microsurgical anatomy of ALA with cadaveric specimens and report our clinical experience for benign JF tumors with predominant extracranial extension.
A stepwise and detailed microsurgical neurovascular anatomy of ALA was explored with cadaveric specimens. Then, the clinical results of 7 consecutive patients who underwent ALA for benign JF tumors with predominant extracranial extension were analyzed.
A hockey stick skin incision is made along the superior nuchal line to the anterior edge of the sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM). ALA involves layer-by-layer muscle dissection of SCM, splenius capitis, digastric, longissimus capitis, and superior oblique muscles. The accessory nerve runs beneath SCM and is found at the posterior edge of the digastric muscle. The internal jugular vein (IJV) is lateral to and at the level of the accessory nerve. The occipital artery passes over the longissimus capitis muscle and IJV and into the external carotid artery, which is lateral and superficial to IJV. The internal carotid artery (ICA) is more medial and deeper than external carotid artery and is in the carotid sheath with the vagus nerve and IJV. The hypoglossal and vagus nerves run along the lateral and medial side of ICA, respectively. Prehigh cervical carotid, prejugular, and retrojugular surgical corridors allow deep and extracranial access around JF. In the case series, gross and near-total resections were achieved in 6 (85.7%) patients without newly developed cranial nerve deficits.
ALA is a traditional and invaluable neurosurgical approach for benign JF tumors with predominant extracranial extension. The anatomic knowledge of ALA increases competency in adding anterior and lateral exposure of extracranial JF.
Existing cellular technologies in unlicensed band such as license assisted access (LAA)-LTE do not capture inter-cell interference (ICI) management which becomes more important in modern small cell ...network environments. Moreover, existing ICI management techniques not only can be operated in only licensed frequency band due to their centralized properties, but also have high computational complexities. In this paper, by invoking distributed optimization, we propose a fully distributed base station (BS) activation and user scheduling framework which can be operated in even unlicensed band because of its competition properties. Our simulation results demonstrate that (i) proposed competition-based BS activation and user scheduling framework (CBA) increases throughput of cell edge users by 112%-335% compared to conventional algorithms, (ii) the CBA properly catches up with the performance of optimal algorithm up to 93% in terms of overall performance and up to 95% in terms of edge user throughput, and (iii) the CBA also provides higher performance gains in the larger ratio of edge users and the smaller cell size, which indicates that the CBA well adapts to cellular network trend where cells are gradually smaller and densely deployed.
Fabricating high‐quality thin films on a 3D structured polymer substrate is crucial in realizing high‐performance flexible electronics. Herein, simple yet effective twofold strategies are ...demonstrated to directly fabricate flexible thin film capacitors on polymer substrate: the crystallization of high‐k TiO2 film by plasma‐assisted atomic layer annealing at low temperature (80 °C) on nanostructured polycarbonate (PC) substrates fabricated by simple dynamic nanoinscribing (DNI) technique. Plasma‐induced amorphous‐to‐anatase phase transformation occurs in PEALD TiO2/ZrO2 bilayer thin films, resulting in the capacitance density increase by 30%. The DNI patterning of PC substrates in two directions further increases the surface area by 35% and the capacitance density by 37%, leading to the flexible capacitor of a record‐high capacitance density (24.2 nF mm−2) with mechanical stability.
Simple yet effective twofold strategies are demonstrated to directly fabricate flexible thin film capacitors on polymer: the crystallization of high‐k TiO2 film by plasma‐assisted atomic layer annealing at low temperature (80 °C) on nanostructured polycarbonate substrates fabricated by dynamic nanoinscribing technique. Combined effects result in the flexible capacitor of a record‐high capacitance density of 24.2 nF mm−2 with mechanical stability.
BACKGROUNDThe latent reservoir of Human Immunodificiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) has been a major barrier to the complete eradication of HIV-1 and the development of HIV therapy. Long-term non-progressors ...(LTNPs) are a rare group of patients with HIV-1 who can spontaneously control HIV-1 replication without antiretroviral therapy. Transcriptome analysis is necessary to predict the pathways involved in the natural control of HIV-1, elucidate the mechanisms involved in LTNPs, and find biomarkers for HIV-1 reservoir therapy. MATERIALS AND METHODSIn this study, we obtained peripheral blood mononuclear cells from two LTNP subjects at multiple time points and performed RNA-sequencing analyses. RESULTSWe found that LTNPs and normal subjects had different transcriptome profiles. Functional annotation analysis identified that differentially expressed genes in LTNPs were enriched in several biological pathways such as cell cycle-related pathways and the transforming growth factor-beta signaling pathway. However, genes that were downregulated in LTNPs were associated with immune responses such as the interferon response and IL2-STAT5 signaling. Protein-protein interaction network analysis showed that CD8A, KLRD1, ASGR1, and MLKL, whose gene expression was upregulated in LTNPs, directly interacted with HIV-1 proteins. The network analysis also found that viral proteins potentially regulated host genes that were associated with immune system processes, metabolic processes, and gene expression regulation. CONCLUSIONOur longitudinal transcriptome analysis of the LTNPs identified multiple previously undescribed pathways and genes that may be useful in the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers.
Cerium oxide (CeO2) shows superior surface exchange, and therefore is widely used for the cathode interlayer coating material to reduce the activation loss in low temperature solid oxide fuel cell ...(LT-SOFC). Here, we report on the application of the high growth-rate atomic layer deposition (ALD) process of CeO2 thin films as cathodic interlayers for LT-SOFCs. We demonstrate that the maximum power density of the SOFC with pure CeO2 interlayer increases by 45% compared to the one without interlayer at 450 °C. More importantly, the performance degradation rate of the ALD CeO2 interlayered cell improves by 25 times compared to the cell without interlayer during 24 h operation at 450 °C.
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In this paper, we consider a legitimate proactive eavesdropping scenario where a central monitor tries to intercept the information exchanged between a pair of suspicious entities through ...amplify-and-forward full- duplex relays and a cooperative jammer. Specifically, the eavesdropping relays simultaneously listen to the suspicious transmitter and forward the eavesdropped information to the central monitor. At the same time, the jammer broadcasts the jamming signal to maintain the suspicious data rate below the channel capacity of the central monitor so that the eavesdropped information can be successfully decoded by the central monitor. In this system, we jointly design the relay precoders at the eavesdropping relays and the transmit covariance matrix at the jammer to maximize the eavesdropping rate by a two-layer semi-definite relaxation approach. Simulation results verify the efficiency of our proposed solution and show considerable performance gains over conventional schemes.
Depression is a disease with increasing prevalence worldwide, and it is necessary to develop a therapeutic agent with better efficacy than existing antidepressant drugs. Antidepressants that act on ...the glutamatergic nervous system, such as ketamine, have a rapid-onset antidepressant effect and are effective against treatment-resistant depression. However, because of the addictive potential of ketamine, alternative substances without psychological side effects are recommended. In particular, many natural compounds have been tested for their antidepressant effects. The antidepressant effects of Nelumbinis semen (NS) have been tested in many studies, along with the various actions of NS on the glutamatergic system. Thus, it was expected that NS might have a rapid-onset antidepressant effect. To test the antidepressant potential, despair and anhedonic behaviors were measured after administering NS to mice exposed to social hierarchy stress (SHS), and biochemical changes in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus were analyzed. NS reduced despair-like responses in the forced swim test and tail suspension test. Mice exposed to SHS showed depression-like responses such as increased despair, reduced hedonia, and an anxiety-like response in the novelty suppressed feeding test. NS, but not fluoxetine, improved those depression-like behaviors after acute treatment, and NBQX, an AMPA receptor blocker, inhibited the antidepressant-like effects of NS. The antidepressant-like effect of NS was related to enhanced phosphorylation of mTOR in the prefrontal cortex and dephosphorylation of GluR1 S845 in the hippocampus. Since NS has shown antidepressant-like potential in a preclinical model, it may be considered as a candidate for the development of antidepressants in the future.
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