Focused ion beam (FIB) techniques are employed widely for nanofabrication and processing of materials and devices. However, ion irradiation often gives rise to severe damage due to atomic displacements that cause defect formation, migration, and clustering within the ion-solid interaction volume. The resulting restructuring degrades the functionality of materials and limits the utility of FIB ablation and nanofabrication techniques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCrit Rev Biotechnol
August 2024
The utilization of microalgae to treat carbon dioxide (CO)-rich industrial off-gas has been suggested as both beneficial for emissions reduction and economically favorable for the production of microalgal products. Common sources of off-gases include coal combustion (2-15% CO), cement production (8-15% CO), coke production (18-23% CO), and ore smelting (6-7% CO). However, industrial off-gas also commonly contains other acid gas components [typically nitrogen oxides (NO) and sulfur dioxide (SO)] and metals that could inhibit microalgae growth and productivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEpistaxis is common, impacting more than half the population, and can require procedural intervention in approximately 10% of cases. With an aging population and increasing use of antiplatelets and anticoagulants, severe epistaxis is likely to increase in frequency significantly over the next two decades. Sphenopalatine artery embolization is rapidly becoming the most common type of procedural intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanoscale fabrication and characterization techniques critically underpin a vast range of fields, including nanoelectronics and nanobiotechnology. Focused ion beam (FIB) techniques are appealing due to their high spatial resolution and widespread use for processing of nanostructured materials. Here, we introduce FIB-induced fluorescence spectroscopy (FIB-FS) as a nanoscale technique for spectroscopic detection of atoms sputtered by an ion beam.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cerebral aneurysm rupture is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Detecting aneurysms at high risk of rupture is critical in management decision making. Rupture risk has traditionally been associated with size-measured as a maximum dimension.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConditional power (CP) is widely used in clinical trial monitoring to quantify the evidence for futility stopping or sample size adaptation during the trial. When planning an interim analysis in vaccine trials for seasonal infectious diseases, CPs calculated under the hypothesized or currently estimated effect sizes may not truly reflect future data due to seasonal variations in disease incidence and/or vaccine efficacy (VE). Relying on these estimates alone could lead to erroneous decisions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cost of microalgae cultivation is one of the largest limitations to achieving sustainable, large-scale microalgae production of commercially desirable lipids. Utilizing CO2 as a 'free' carbon source from waste industrial flue gas emissions can offer wide-ranging cost savings. However, these gas streams typically create acidic environments, in which most microalgae cannot survive due to the concentration of CO2 and the presence of other acidic gasses such as NO2 and SO2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrompt, effective treatment is necessary following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage to prevent recurrent rupture, which is thought to double mortality. Atypical ruptured aneurysms, such as blister or dissecting pseudoaneurysms, or those that are unusually distal in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) are challenging to treat with either open or endovascular options, though the pipeline embolization device (PED) has shown promise in multiple case series. We present a case of a ruptured dissecting pseudoaneurysm in the distal MCA (distal M3/proximal M4) prefrontal division in an healthy young patient (<60 years) successfully treated with a PED.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe outcome of transarterial chemoembolization for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) relies on the appropriate identification of tumor supplying arteries. HCC derives 90% of the blood supply from the hepatic arteries. However, depending on the tumor's size and location, the extrahepatic collateral artery (EHC) can develop and predominantly supply the tumor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor mass culture of photosynthetic green microalgae, industrial flue gases can represent a low-cost resource of CO. However, flue gases are often avoided, because they often also contain high levels of SO and/or NO, which cause significant acidification of media to below pH 3 due to production of sulfuric and nitric acid. This creates an unsuitable environment for the neutrophilic microalgae commonly used in large-scale commercial production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdaptive designs (ADs) allow pre-planned changes to an ongoing trial without compromising the validity of conclusions and it is essential to distinguish pre-planned from unplanned changes that may also occur. The reporting of ADs in randomised trials is inconsistent and needs improving. Incompletely reported AD randomised trials are difficult to reproduce and are hard to interpret and synthesise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Aneurysm recurrence after coiling has been associated with aneurysm growth, (re)hemorrhage, and a greater need for follow-up. The second-generation HydroCoil Embolic System (HES; MicroVention, Inc) consists of a platinum core with integrated hydrogel and was developed to reduce recurrence through enhancing packing density and healing within the aneurysm.
Objective: To compare recurrence between the second-generation HES and bare platinum coil (BPC) in the new-generation Hydrogel Endovascular Aneurysm Treatment Trial (HEAT).
Background: Adequate reporting of adaptive designs (ADs) maximises their potential benefits in the conduct of clinical trials. Transparent reporting can help address some obstacles and concerns relating to the use of ADs. Currently, there are deficiencies in the reporting of AD trials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSynthesis of Co9S8, Ni3S2, Co and Ni nanowires by solventless thermolysis of a mixture of metal(ii) acetate and cysteine in vacuum is reported. The simple precursor system enables the nanowire phase to be tuned from pure metal (Co or Ni) to metal sulfide (Co9S8, Ni3S2) by varying the relative concentration of the metal(ii) acetate. The growth environment facilitates new insights through in situ characterization using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and thermogravimetric analysis with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TGA-GC-MS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBottom-up fabrication of nanowire-based devices is highly attractive for oxide photonic devices because of high light extraction efficiency; however, unsatisfactory electrical injection into ZnO and poor carrier transport properties of nanowires severely limit their practical applications. Here, we demonstrate that ZnO nanorods doped with Ga donors by in situ dopant incorporation during vapour-solid growth exhibit superior optoelectronic properties that exceed those currently synthesised by chemical vapour deposition, and accordingly can be electrically integrated into Si-based photonic devices. Significantly, the doping method was found to improve the nanorod quality by decreasing the concentration of point defects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPbS submicron crystals were formed by thermolysis of two different lead dithiocarbamate complexes. These precursors were readily synthesized and fully characterized, and in situ synchrotron powder diffraction experiments were performed to characterize their decomposition. The structure and purity of resultant PbS was examined using scanning electron and transmission electron microscopies, powder X-ray diffraction, and infrared spectroscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNerve growth factor (NGF), a member of the neurotrophin family, is known to regulate the development and survival of a select population of neurons through the binding and activation of the TrkA receptor. Elevated levels of NGF have been associated with painful pathologies such as diabetic neuropathy and fibromyalgia. However, completely inhibiting the NGF signal could hold significant side effects, such as those observed in a genetic condition called congenital insensitivity to pain and anhidrosis (CIPA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Blister aneurysms at non-branching sites of the dorsal internal carotid artery (dICA) are fragile, rare, and often difficult to treat. The purpose of this study is to address the demographics, treatment modalities, and long-term outcome of patients treated for dICA blister aneurysms. A retrospective review of medical records identified all consecutive patients who presented with a blister aneurysm from 2002 to 2011 at our institution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
June 2017
Background: The target group for severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease prevention is infants under 6 months of age. Vaccine boosting of antibody titres in pregnant mothers could protect these young infants from severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) associated disease. Quantifying protective levels of RSV-specific maternal antibody at birth would inform vaccine development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA common question in clinical studies is how to use historical data from earlier studies, leveraging relevant information into the design and analysis of a new study. Bayesian approaches are particularly well-suited to this task, with their natural ability to borrow strength across data sources. In this paper, we propose an eMAP approach for incorporating historical data into the analysis of clinical studies, and we discuss an application of this method to the analysis of observational safety studies for a class of products for patients with hemophilia A.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetal and metal alloy nanowires have applications ranging from spintronics to drug delivery, but high quality, high density single crystalline materials have been surprisingly difficult to fabricate. Here we report a versatile, template-free, self-assembly method for fabrication of single crystalline metal and metal alloy nanowires (Co, Ni, NiCo, CoFe, and NiFe) by reduction of metal nitride precursors formed in situ by reaction of metal salts with a nitrogen source. Thiol reduction of the metal nitrides to the metallic phase at 550-600 °C results in nanowire growth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNerve growth factor (NGF), a member of the neurotrophin family, acts to influence the survival and differentiation of neurons in both the central and peripheral nervous systems via its binding to the p75(NTR) and TrkA receptors. Its precursor, proNGF, has been shown to be the dominant form of NGF in the central nervous system, suggesting a biological function beyond its role as a precursor. Like NGF, proNGF is known to bind the p75(NTR) receptor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNerve growth factor (NGF) is critical for the proliferation, differentiation, and survival of neurons through its binding to the p75(NTR) and TrkA receptors. Dysregulation of NGF has been implicated in several pathologies, including neurodegeneration (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall-molecule inhibitors have been previously investigated to identify possible therapeutics for the treatment of chronic pain. In the present study, known nerve growth factor (NGF) inhibitors identified by (125)I-NGF binding were characterized using affinity and binding evaluations by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy. A novel strategy for characterizing NGF inhibitors was used to determine the binding affinity (KD) and saturation ability of each compound with immobilized NGF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF