The control of IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) and MOSFET (metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor) is of great interest nowadays as they are widely used in electric vehicles, photovoltaic applications, and a multitude of systems. The field of power electronics and their correct activation ensures that the transistors are operated without being destroyed. In this work, a double resonant transformer was built and used to produce very high currents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo function effectively as an integrated system, the transcriptional and post-transcriptional machineries must communicate through mechanisms that are still poorly understood. Here, we focus on the zinc-finger Sfp1, known to regulate transcription of proliferation-related genes. We show that Sfp1 can regulate transcription either by binding to promoters, like most known transcription activators, or by binding to the transcribed regions (gene bodies), probably via RNA polymerase II (Pol II).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBoar semen analysis includes sperm motility, concentration, morphology and other more complex analyses such as membrane integrity, DNA damage and seminal plasma components. This study aims to summarize these numerous data by linear combinations of them, to classify ejaculates in several categories (clusters) and to investigate the potential differences among clusters on fertility and prolificacy. Young Pietrain boars (23 ± 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Health disparities have been highlighted among patient with prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD) due to ethnicity. Mexican men present a more aggressive disease than other patients resulting in less favorable treatment outcome. We aimed to identify the mutational landscape which could help to reduce the health disparities among minority groups and generate the first genomics exploratory study of PRAD in Mexican patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeterogeneity in gene expression largely stems from the discontinuous nature of transcription, with transcripts being produced in bursts with defined frequencies. This cell-to-cell variability in transcription within isogenic cell populations is a known phenomenon across numerous genes. Multiple gene regulatory and epigenetic factors have been identified as key contributors to this pulsatile gene activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroorganisms typically used to produce food and pharmaceuticals are now being explored as medicines and agricultural supplements. However, maintaining high viability from manufacturing until use remains an important challenge, requiring sophisticated cold chains and packaging. Here we report synthetic extremophiles of industrially relevant gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli Nissle 1917, Ensifer meliloti), gram-positive bacteria (Lactobacillus plantarum) and yeast (Saccharomyces boulardii).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Surgery for the very elderly is a progressively important paradigm as life expectancy continues to rise. Patients with glioblastoma multiforme often undergo surgery, radiotherapy (RT), and chemotherapy (CT) to prolong overall survival (OS). However, the efficacy of these treatment modalities in patients aged 80 years and older has yet to be fully assessed in the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiabetic wound healing is uniquely challenging to manage due to chronic inflammation and heightened microbial growth from elevated interstitial glucose. Carbon monoxide (CO), widely acknowledged as a toxic gas, is also known to provide unique therapeutic immune modulating effects. To facilitate delivery of CO, we have designed hyaluronic acid-based CO-gas-entrapping materials (CO-GEMs) for topical and prolonged gas delivery to the wound bed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Chordomas are rare malignant bone tumors whose location in the skull base or spine, invasive surgical treatment, and accompanying adjuvant radiotherapy may all lead patients to experience poor quality of life (QOL). Limited research has been conducted on specific demographic and clinical factors associated with decreased QOL in chordoma survivors. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate several potential variables and their impact on specific QOL domains in these patients as well the frequencies of specific QOL challenges within these domains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) cause retinal thinning that is detectable in vivo using optical coherence tomography (OCT). To date, no papers have compared the two diseases in terms of the structural differences they produce in the retina. The purpose of this study is to analyse and compare the neuroretinal structure in MS patients, AD patients and healthy subjects using OCT.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeripheral nerve sheath tumors (PNST) comprise schwannomas and neurofibromas. The finding of increased adipose tissue around benign PNSTs has been described as the "split fat sign" on magnetic resonance imaging exams, which is suggestive of an intramuscular or intermuscular location of the tumor. However, few studies have described this sign as a salient ultrasound feature of PNSTs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
July 2023
Methylsulfone derivatized poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG) macromers can be biofunctionalized with thiolated ligands and cross-linked with thiol-based cross-linkers to obtain bioactive PEG hydrogels for cell encapsulation. Methylsulfonyl-thiol (MS-SH) reactions present several advantages for this purpose when compared to other thiol-based cross-linking systems. They proceed with adequate and tunable kinetics for encapsulation, they reach a high conversion degree with good selectivity, and they generate stable reaction products.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Gliosarcoma (GSM) is a variant of glioblastoma, 1 of the most common and aggressive primary brain tumors in adults. Our study seeks to analyze a large cohort of patients with GSM in the National Cancer Database (NCDB) to elucidate clinical predictors of overall survival (OS).
Methods: Data was collected on patients diagnosed with histologically-confirmed GSM using the NCDB (2004-2016).
Background: Chordomas are a rare form of aggressive bone cancer and are associated with poor quality of life (QOL). The present study sought to characterize demographic and clinical characteristics associated with QOL in chordoma co-survivors (caregivers of patients with chordoma) and assess whether co-survivors access care for QOL challenges.
Methods: The Chordoma Foundation Survivorship Survey was electronically distributed to chordoma co-survivors.
Objective: Pineoblastomas (PBLs) are rare high-grade tumors treated variably with surgery and/or radiation. The role of surgical extent of resection and radiotherapy (RT) in adult PBL remains unclear. We queried the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to assess these variables' effects on overall survival (OS) in adult PBL.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: In recent years, frailty indices such as the 11- and 5-factor modified frailty indices (mFI-11 and mFI-5), American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status classification, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) have been shown to be effective predictors of various postoperative outcomes in neurosurgical patients. The Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS) is a well-validated tool for assessing frailty; however, its utility has not been evaluated in intracranial tumor surgery. In the present study, the authors investigated the accuracy of the HFRS in predicting outcomes following intracranial tumor resection and compared its utility to those of other validated frailty indices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHydrogel precursors that crosslink within minutes are essential for the development of cell encapsulation matrices and their implementation in automated systems. Such timescales allow sufficient mixing of cells and hydrogel precursors under low shear forces and the achievement of homogeneous networks and cell distributions in the 3D cell culture. The previous work showed that the thiol-tetrazole methylsulfone (TzMS) reaction crosslinks star-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels within minutes at around physiological pH and can be accelerated or slowed down with small pH changes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF