Effects of state-wide implementation of the Los Angeles Motor Scale for triage of stroke patients in clinical practice.

Background: The prehospital identification of stroke patients with large-vessel occlusion (LVO), that should be immediately transported to a thrombectomy capable centre is an unsolved problem. Our aim was to determine whether implementation of a state-wide standard operating procedure (SOP) using the Los Angeles Motor Scale (LAMS) is feasible and enables correct triage of stroke patients to hospitals offering (comprehensive stroke centres, CSCs) or not offering (primary stroke centres, PSCs) thrombectomy.

Methods: Prospective study involving all patients with suspected acute stroke treated in a 4-month period in a state-wide network of all stroke-treating hospitals (eight PSCs and two CSCs).

Computer-Assisted Measurement of Traumatic Brain Hemorrhage Volume Is More Predictive of Functional Outcome and Mortality than Standard ABC/2 Method: An Analysis of Computed Tomography Imaging Data from the Progesterone for Traumatic Brain Injury Experimental Clinical Treatment Phase-III Trial.

Hemorrhage volume is an important variable in emergently assessing traumatic brain injury (TBI). The most widely used method for rapid volume estimation is ABC/2, a simple algorithm that approximates lesion geometry as perfectly ellipsoid. The relative prognostic value of volume measurement based on more precise hematoma topology remains unknown.

More is not always better: Strategies to regulate negative mood induction in women with borderline personality disorder and depressive and anxiety disorders.

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have difficulties regulating emotions, which may be a consequence of using less effective emotion regulation (ER) strategies to lessen the intensity of their negative emotions. It is not yet known whether people with BPD utilize particular ER strategies to modulate specific mood states and if these strategies are different from those used by individuals with depressive and anxiety disorders. In the present study, 90 participants (30 BPD, 30 anxiety and/or depressive disorders, and 30 healthy controls) underwent a mood induction procedure and specified which ER strategies they used and their perceived difficulty regulating mood following induction.

Detergency and Its Implications for Oil Emulsion Sieving and Separation.

Separating petroleum hydrocarbons from water is an important problem to address in order to mitigate the disastrous effects of hydrocarbons on aquatic ecosystems. A rational approach to address the problem of marine oil-water separation is to disperse the oil with the aid of surfactants in order to minimize the formation of large slicks at the water surface and to maximize the oil-water interfacial area. Here we investigate the fundamental wetting and transport behavior of such surfactant-stabilized droplets and the flow conditions necessary to perform sieving and separation of these stabilized emulsions.

Contactless Transport and Mixing of Liquids on Self-Sustained Sublimating Coatings.

Controlled handling of liquids and colloidal suspensions as they interact with surfaces, targeting a broad palette of related functionalities, is of great importance in science, technology, and nature. When small liquid volumes (drops on the order of microliters or nanoliters) need to be processed in microfluidic devices, contamination on the solid/liquid interface and loss of liquid due to adhesion on the transport channels are two very common problems that can significantly alter the process outcome, for example, the chemical reaction efficiency or the purity and the final concentration of a suspension. It is, therefore, no surprise that both levitation and minimal contact transport methods-including nonwetting surfaces-have been developed to minimize the interactions between liquids and surfaces.

Spontaneous droplet trampolining on rigid superhydrophobic surfaces.

Spontaneous removal of condensed matter from surfaces is exploited in nature and in a broad range of technologies to achieve self-cleaning, anti-icing and condensation control. But despite much progress, our understanding of the phenomena leading to such behaviour remains incomplete, which makes it challenging to rationally design surfaces that benefit from its manifestation. Here we show that water droplets resting on superhydrophobic textured surfaces in a low-pressure environment can self-remove through sudden spontaneous levitation and subsequent trampoline-like bouncing behaviour, in which sequential collisions with the surface accelerate the droplets.

Mixing with herringbone-inspired microstructures: overcoming the diffusion limit in co-laminar microfluidic devices.

Enhancing mixing is of uttermost importance in many laminar microfluidic devices, aiming at overcoming the severe performance limitation of species transport by diffusion alone. Here we focus on the significant category of microscale co-laminar flows encountered in membraneless redox flow cells for power delivery. The grand challenge is to achieve simultaneously convective mixing within each individual reactant, to thin the reaction depletion boundary layers, while maintaining separation of the co-flowing reactants, despite the absence of a membrane.

Physics of icing and rational design of surfaces with extraordinary icephobicity.

Icing of surfaces is commonplace in nature and technology, affecting everyday life and sometimes causing catastrophic events. Understanding (and counteracting) surface icing brings with it significant scientific challenges that requires interdisciplinary knowledge from diverse scientific fields such as nucleation thermodynamics and heat transfer, fluid dynamics, surface chemistry, and surface nanoengineering. Here we discuss key aspects and findings related to the physics of ice formation on surfaces and show how such knowledge could be employed to rationally develop surfaces with extreme resistance to icing (extraordinary icephobicity).

Carbon nanotube network ambipolar field-effect transistors with 10(8) on/off ratio.

Polymer wrapping is a highly effective method of selecting semiconducting carbon nanotubes and dispersing them in solution. Semi-aligned semiconducting carbon nanotube networks are obtained by blade coating, an effective and scalable process. The field-effect transistor (FET) performance can be tuned by the choice of wrapping polymer, and the polymer concentration modifies the FET transport characteristics, leading to a record on/off ratio of 10(8) .

On the nanoengineering of superhydrophobic and impalement resistant surface textures below the freezing temperature.

The superhydrophobic behavior of nano- and microtextured surfaces leading to rebound of impacting droplets is of great relevance to nature and technology. It is not clear however, if and under what conditions this behavior is maintained when such surfaces are severely undercooled possibly leading to the formation of frost and icing. Here we elucidate key aspects of this phenomenon and show that the outcome of rebound or impalement on a textured surface is affected by air compression underneath the impacting drop and the time scale allowing this air to escape.

Frost halos from supercooled water droplets.

Water freezing on solid surfaces is ubiquitous in nature. Even though icing/frosting impairs the performance and safety in many processes, its mechanism remains inadequately understood. Changing atmospheric conditions, surface properties, the complexity of icing physics, and the unorthodox behavior of water are the primary factors that make icing and frost formation intriguing and difficult to predict.

Mechanism of supercooled droplet freezing on surfaces.

Understanding ice formation from supercooled water on surfaces is a problem of fundamental importance and general utility. Superhydrophobic surfaces promise to have remarkable 'icephobicity' and low ice adhesion. Here we show that their icephobicity can be rendered ineffective by simple changes in environmental conditions.

Dye-terminated, hyperbranched polytruxenes and polytruxene-block-polythiophene multiblock copolymers made in an "AB2 + A" approach.

Novel dye-terminated, hyperbranched polytruxenes and polytruxene-block-polythiophene multiblock copolymers have been synthesized in a simple "AB(2) + A" approach. Photoexcitation into the higher energy polytruxene absorption band results in an efficient excitation energy transfer to the peripheral dye or polythiophene blocks.

Ternary photovoltaic blends incorporating an all-conjugated donor-acceptor diblock copolymer.

We present a new fully conjugated diblock copolymer, P3HT-b-PFTBTT, containing donor and acceptor blocks with suitably positioned energy levels for use in a solar cell. This is the first block copolymer to be based on an existing high-performance polymer:polymer blend. We observe phase separation of the blocks and self-assembly behavior.

Are superhydrophobic surfaces best for icephobicity?

Ice formation can have catastrophic consequences for human activity on the ground and in the air. Here we investigate water freezing delays on untreated and coated surfaces ranging from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic and use these delays to evaluate icephobicity. Supercooled water microdroplets are inkjet-deposited and coalesce until spontaneous freezing of the accumulated mass occurs.

Detection of Meningeosis neoplastica by real-time quantitation of telomerase activity.

Background: Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to discriminate between benign and malignant conditions is of fundamental importance for the physician and the patient because of the differential therapeutic options and resulting morbidity and mortality. Most human tumours demonstrate increased telomerase activity (TA). Recent technical advances in the detection of TA allow for sensitive and specific detection within 4 h.

Autoantigen specific T cells inhibit glutamate uptake in astrocytes by decreasing expression of astrocytic glutamate transporter GLAST: a mechanism mediated by tumor necrosis factor-alpha.

Glutamate excitotoxicity is increasingly being recognized as a pathogenic mechanism in autoimmune inflammatory disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). Astrocytes are the predominant players in clearing the extracellular space from glutamate and normally have extensive spare capacities in terms of glutamate uptake. We asked what might be the basis of glutamate accumulation in T cell triggered autoimmune inflammation.

Lipooligosaccharide of Campylobacter jejuni prevents myelin-specific enteral tolerance to autoimmune neuritis--a potential mechanism in Guillain-Barre syndrome?

Campylobacter jejuni-induced enteritis is the most common infection preceding Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), an immune-mediated polyradiculoneuritis. The acute autoimmune attack is thought to be based on C. jejuni antigens which may mimick antigens of the peripheral nervous system.

Dopamine exerts no acute effects on Kv1.3 in activated encephalitogenic T cells.

Apart from a central function in the extrapyramidal motor system, dopamine has been suggested to play a role in neuroimmune interactions. Particularly in diseases of the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis, alterations in dopamine homeostasis might have immunological consequences. We investigated potential effects of dopamine stabilized by ascorbic acid on specifically activated encephalitogenic T cells at the peak of activation.

Interaction with antigen-specific T cells regulates expression of the lactate transporter MCT1 in primary rat astrocytes: specific link between immunity and homeostasis.

Monocarboxylates like lactate are provided by astrocytes and can be used as fuel by neurons and oligodendrocytes. In an autoimmune inflammatory environment, homeostatic functions of astrocytes are incompletely understood. In primary Lewis rat astrocytes, co-culture with MHC class II-restricted myelin basic protein (MBP)-specific T cells in the presence of MBP resulted in a marked upregulation of the astrocytic lactate transporter MCT1 that is to export lactate into the extracellular space.

Chronically stimulated microglial cells do no longer alter their immune functions in response to the phagocytosis of apoptotic cells.

In an autoimmune inflammatory setting, ingestion of apoptotic T cells leads to a down-regulation of microglial immune functions. Recent studies have indicated that microglia can be matured by exposure to GM-CSF. GM-CSF stimulation led to a differentiated microglial phenotype and enhanced antigen-presenting capabilities.

Modulation of effector cell functions in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis by leflunomide--mechanisms independent of pyrimidine depletion.

Leflunomide inhibits de novo pyrimidine synthesis and is a novel, immunosuppressive agent that has been successfully used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Here, we investigated the efficacy of leflunomide and its mode of action in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), which is a T helper cell type 1 cell-borne disease model to simulate inflammatory aspects of multiple sclerosis and was induced in Lewis rats by adoptive transfer of myelin basic protein (MBP)-specific T line cells. Given in vivo for 7 days after cell transfer, leflunomide suppressed clinical signs of disease even in uridine-substituted animals.

Vinyl and carbene ruthenium(II) complexes from hydridoruthenium(II) precursors.

The reactions of the hydrido compounds [RuHCl(CO)(L)2][L = PiPr3 (1), PCy3 (2)] with HC(triple bond)CR (R = H, Ph, tBu) afforded by insertion of the alkyne into the Ru-H bond the corresponding vinyl complexes [RuCl(CHCHR)(CO)(L)2], 3-8, which upon protonation with HBF4 gave the cationic five-coordinated ruthenium carbenes [RuCl(CHCH2R)(CO)(L)2]BF4, 9-14. Subsequent reactions of the carbene complexes with PR3(R = Me, iPr) and CH3CN led either to deprotonation and re-generation of the vinyl compounds or to cleavage of the ruthenium-carbene bond and the formation of the six-coordinated complexes [RuCl(CO)(CH3CN)2(PiPr3)2]BF4, 17, and [RuH(CO)(CH3CN)2(PiPr3)2]X, 18a,b. The acetato derivative [RuH(2-O2CCH3)(CO)(PCy3)2], 19, also reacted with acetylene and phenylacetylene by insertion to yield the related vinyl complexes [Ru(CHCHR)(kappa2-O2CCH3)(CO)(PCy3)2], 20, 21, of which that with R = H was protonated with HBF4 to yield the corresponding cationic ruthenium carbene 22.