Nature plays a crucial role in providing ecosystem services (ESs) essential for human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation in rural areas. However, existing paradigms often lack an integrative approach towards rural livelihoods and wellbeing, highlighting the need for a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between human wellbeing (HWB) and ESs. The area around the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) offers such ESs to indigenous people who rely heavily on these natural resources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe low thickness of plastic films poses a challenge when using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as it affects the spectral quality and classification. This research focuses on offering a solution to the challenge of classifying multilayer plastic film materials with a focus on polyolefin multilayer plastics. It presents the importance of spectral quality on accurate classification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCD206 is a common marker of a putative immunosuppressive "M2" state in tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). We made a novel conditional CD206 (Mrc1) knock-in mouse to specifically visualize and/or deplete CD206+ TAMs. Early depletion of CD206+ macrophages and monocytes (Mono/Macs) led to the indirect loss of conventional type I dendritic cells (cDC1), CD8 T cells, and NK cells in tumors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeparating copper from iron scrap is a critical operation in metal recycling and achieving this with low cost sensoric equipment like RGB cameras instead of XRF/XRT is becoming increasingly attractive. In this article, the groundwork for creating an image classification model to separate copper from iron scrap has been performed. Twenty of the most common and most easily available CNN architectures were trained on 2200 metal scrap specimens and evaluated inline on a sensor-based sorting rig for their prediction accuracy and their inference latency to mimic real circumstances in an industrial setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTop Companion Anim Med
December 2024
Discovering the role of fibroblasts residing in the tumor microenvironment (TME) requires controlled, localized perturbations because fibroblasts play critical roles in regulating immunity and tumor biology at multiple sites. Systemic perturbations can lead to unintended, confounding secondary effects, and methods to locally genetically engineer fibroblasts are lacking. To specifically investigate murine stromal cell perturbations restricted to the TME, we developed an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based method to target any gene-of-interest in fibroblasts at high efficiency (>80%).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe influence of the geographical location on the chemical composition of commercial Sauvignon Blanc wines was investigated. The assay was carried out on Sauvignon Blanc wines from three cold-climate valleys in Central Chile, Casablanca, Leyda, and San Antonio. The analyses revealed clear variations in some chemical parameters, especially in titratable acidity, which was higher in the geographical areas closest to the Pacific Ocean, such as the Leyda and San Antonio valleys.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOtolaryngol Head Neck Surg
November 2024
Objective: The multimodal treatments for pediatric head and neck (H&N) malignancies can have significant long-term functional consequences for growing patients. This systematic review aims to analyze the current knowledge of functional outcomes for pediatric H&N cancer survivors.
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Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by the presence of proteinaceous alpha-synuclein (α-syn) inclusions (Lewy bodies), markers of neuroinflammation and the progressive loss of nigrostriatal dopamine (DA) neurons. These pathological features can be recapitulated in vivo using the α-syn preformed fibril (PFF) model of synucleinopathy. We have previously determined that microglia proximal to PFF-induced nigral α-syn inclusions increase in soma size, upregulate major-histocompatibility complex-II (MHC-II) expression, and increase expression of a suite of inflammation-associated transcripts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Heart valve disease is commonly treated by minimally invasive procedures with guide wires and catheterization. The main purpose of this study is to find out whether an extension of the guide wire with a sensor can support the surgeon within the blood vessel to reduce X-ray necessity.
Methods: A smart guide wire is developed by an extension with a flex-bending sensor to evaluate the sensor signal with and without "blood" flow at a constant compression force.
Soft tissue tumors/sarcomas (STSs) in felines, encompassing a variety of mesenchymal tumors with similar histomorphological features, present diagnostic challenges due to their diverse cellular origins and the overlap with other tumor types such as feline sarcoid. This study aimed to delineate the clinical, histomorphological, and immunohistochemical characteristics of 34 feline facial spindle cell tumors affecting 29 cats, including testing for bovine papillomavirus type 14 (BPV14), the virus causing feline sarcoids. Only five out of 12 tumors previously diagnosed as feline sarcoids based on histomorphology were confirmed by PCR for BPV14, underscoring the importance of comprehensive diagnostic approaches to accurately distinguish between STSs and feline sarcoids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although studies have demonstrated that implementation leadership and climate are important constructs in predicting evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation, concrete descriptions of how they operate during organizational implementation efforts are lacking. This case study fills that gap through an in-depth description of an organization with effective implementation leadership that successfully built a strong implementation climate. This case study provides an illustration of implementation leadership and climate in tangible, replicable terms to assist managers, practitioners, and researchers in addressing the organizational context in their own implementation projects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurons in the mouse superior colliculus ("colliculus") are arranged in ordered spatial maps. While orientation-selective (OS) neurons form a concentric map aligned to the center of vision, direction-selective (DS) neurons are arranged in patches with changing preferences across the visual field. It remains unclear whether these maps are a consequence of feedforward input from the retina or local computations in the colliculus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the accumulation of misfolded alpha-synuclein (α-syn) protein, forming intraneuronal Lewy body (LB) inclusions. The α-syn preformed fibril (PFF) model of PD recapitulates α-syn aggregation, progressive nigrostriatal degeneration and motor dysfunction; however, little is known about the time course of PFF-induced alterations in basal and evoked dopamine (DA). In vivo microdialysis is well suited for identifying small changes in neurotransmitter levels over extended periods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Loneliness is a widespread phenomenon associated with a number of negative health outcomes. Older individuals may constitute one important target group with a need for effective interventions. However, despite evidence showing that addressing maladaptive social cognition (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImproving the sortability of plastic packaging film waste (PPFW) is crucial for increasing the recycling rate in Austria as they account for 150,000 t of the annually produced 300,000 t of plastic packaging waste. Currently PPFW is thermally recovered, as it is impossible to separate the mechanically recyclable monomaterial films from the non mechanically-recyclable multimaterial films. In this study, machine learning models capable of classifying inline into monolayer and multilayer films of PPFW according to their spectral fingerprint taken in transflection were created.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are frequently categorized as being 'M1' or 'M2' polarized, even as substantial data challenges this binary modeling of macrophage cell state. One molecule consistently referenced as a delineator of a putative immunosuppressive 'M2' state is the surface protein CD206. We thus made a novel conditional CD206 () knock-in mouse to specifically visualize and/or deplete CD206+ 'M2-like' TAMs and assess their correspondence with pro-tumoral immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAt present, sensor-based sorting machines are usually not operated at the optimal operation point but are either overrun or underrun depending on the availability of waste streams. Mathematical approaches for predefined ideal mixtures can be found based on the input stream composition and the throughput rate. This scientific article compares whether and under what conditions these approaches can be applied to sensor-based sorting machines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBehavioral flexibility requires directing feedforward sensory information to appropriate targets. In the superior colliculus, divergent outputs orchestrate different responses to visual threats, but the circuit organization enabling the flexible routing of sensory information remains unknown. To determine this structure, we focused on inhibitory projection (Gad2) neurons.
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