Carotid endarterectomy and the risk of perioperative stroke: The importance of chronic ischaemic lesions and small vessel disease.

Background And Purpose: Perioperative stroke is a well-recognized complication of carotid endarterectomy (CEA), but well-performing prediction models do not exist for it. Our aim was to identify novel predictors for perioperative ischaemic cerebrovascular events (iCVEs), emphasizing cerebrovascular imaging and potential biomarkers for stroke in carotid stenosis (CS) patients in a well-characterized prospective CS cohort.

Methods: Helsinki Carotid Endarterectomy Study 2 is an observational prospective and consecutive cohort study of CS patients subjected to CEA during 2012-2015.

Hydrogen-bonded multi-mode liquid crystal elastomer actuators.

As biomimicry advances, liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are gaining attention for their (multi-)stimuli-responsiveness and reversible shape morphing. Introduction of dynamic bonds into the LCEs provides versatile means towards programmable shape morphing and adaptation to environmental cues, and new designs for dynamic LCEs are actively sought for. Here, we present a supramolecular LCE that integrates shape memory programming, humidity sensitivity, and photochemical actuation.

Human Footprint and Forest Disturbance Reduce Space Use of Brown Bears (Ursus arctos) Across Europe.

Three-quarters of the planet's land surface has been altered by humans, with consequences for animal ecology, movements and related ecosystem functioning. Species often occupy wide geographical ranges with contrasting human disturbance and environmental conditions, yet, limited data availability across species' ranges has constrained our understanding of how human pressure and resource availability jointly shape intraspecific variation of animal space use. Leveraging a unique dataset of 758 annual GPS movement trajectories from 375 brown bears (Ursus arctos) across the species' range in Europe, we investigated the effects of human pressure (i.

Impact of Sheath Type on Vascular and Bleeding Complications After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: A Post Hoc Analysis From the MARVEL Registry Study.

Background: Vascular and bleeding complications remain a concern after transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). The impact of the sheath type on these complications remains unclear.

Methods: The prospective MARVEL registry study analyzed enrolled 500 patients undergoing large-bore transfemoral procedures and arteriotomy closure with the MANTA vascular closure device from 10 hospitals in Europe and Canada.

The Future Hospital in Global Health Systems: The Future Hospital as an Entity.

Health care is changing rapidly. Hospitals are, and will remain, an essential setting to deliver it. We discuss how to maximise the benefits of hospitals in the future in different geographic and health system settings, highlighting a series of cross-cutting issues.

Spectral optimization of supercontinuum shaping using metaheuristic algorithms, a comparative study.

Supercontinuum generation in optical fiber involves complex nonlinear dynamics, making optimization challenging, and typically relying on trial-and-error or extensive numerical simulations. Machine learning and metaheuristic algorithms offer more efficient optimization approaches. We report here an experimental study of supercontinuum spectral shaping by tuning the phase of the input pulses, different optimization approaches including a genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimizer, and simulated annealing.

Mercury (II) adsorption process from an aqueous solution through activated carbon blended with fresh pistachio green shell powder.

In this research, fresh pistachio green shell as an agricultural waste was blended with activated carbon to study the adsorption process of mercury (II) from several aqueous solutions with various concentrations. Central Composite Design under Response Surface Methodology was statistically used to consider the independent variables involving pH, contact time, fresh pistachio green shell powder dosage, initial concentration of mercury (II) and activated carbon dosage effects on the mercury (II) removal. pH of 6.

Radiocarbon monoxide indicates increasing atmospheric oxidizing capacity.

Hydroxyl (OH) is the atmosphere's main oxidant removing most pollutants including methane. Its short lifetime prevents large-scale direct observational quantification. Abundances inferred using anthropogenic trace gas measurements and models yield conflicting trend estimates.

Overlapping qubits from non-isometric maps and de Sitter tensor networks.

The emergence of a local effective theory from a more fundamental theory of quantum gravity with seemingly fewer degrees of freedom is a major puzzle of theoretical physics. A recent approach to this problem is to consider general features of the Hilbert space maps relating these theories. In this work, we construct approximately local observables, or overlapping qubits, from such non-isometric maps.

European consensus on endoscopic surgery for bilateral vocal fold immobility: classification and nomenclature.

Introduction: There are inconsistencies in how different endoscopic procedures to manage Bilateral Vocal Fold Immobility (BVFI) have been described in the literature. This limits our ability to compare functional outcomes. There is no unifying international terminology available that precisely describes the anatomical boundaries and extent of the different types of treatment.

Adipose tissue eQTL meta-analysis highlights the contribution of allelic heterogeneity to gene expression regulation and cardiometabolic traits.

Complete characterization of the genetic effects on gene expression is needed to elucidate tissue biology and the etiology of complex traits. In the present study, we analyzed 2,344 subcutaneous adipose tissue samples and identified 34,774 conditionally distinct expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) signals at 18,476 genes. Over half of eQTL genes exhibited at least two eQTL signals.

The impact of common and rare genetic variants on bradyarrhythmia development.

To broaden our understanding of bradyarrhythmias and conduction disease, we performed common variant genome-wide association analyses in up to 1.3 million individuals and rare variant burden testing in 460,000 individuals for sinus node dysfunction (SND), distal conduction disease (DCD) and pacemaker (PM) implantation. We identified 13, 31 and 21 common variant loci for SND, DCD and PM, respectively.

Efficiently accelerated bioimage analysis with NanoPyx, a Liquid Engine-powered Python framework.

The expanding scale and complexity of microscopy image datasets require accelerated analytical workflows. NanoPyx meets this need through an adaptive framework enhanced for high-speed analysis. At the core of NanoPyx, the Liquid Engine dynamically generates optimized central processing unit and graphics processing unit code variations, learning and predicting the fastest based on input data and hardware.

Direct specification of lymphatic endothelium from mesenchymal progenitors.

During embryogenesis, endothelial cells (ECs) are generally described to arise from a common pool of progenitors termed angioblasts, which diversify through iterative steps of differentiation to form functionally distinct subtypes of ECs. A key example is the formation of lymphatic ECs (LECs), which are thought to arise largely through transdifferentiation from venous endothelium. Opposing this model, here we show that the initial expansion of mammalian LECs is primarily driven by the in situ differentiation of mesenchymal progenitors and does not require transition through an intermediate venous state.

A 13-level switched-capacitor-based multilevel inverter with reduced components and inrush current limitation.

This paper proposed a hybrid switched-capacitor inverter to reduce the number of components and achieve automatic capacitor balancing. The proposed structure combines a switched capacitor (SC) unit with a flying capacitor (FC). Significant advantages of the proposed design include a reduced number of components, simple control, voltage boosting capability, and limitation of the inrush current during capacitor charging.

New formyl indole derivatives based on thiobarbituric acid and their nano-formulations; synthesis, characterization, parasitology and histopathology investigations.

New formyl indole derivatives based on thiobarbituric acid were designed for targeting parasitological applications. The new compounds (5-((1H-indol-3-yl)methylene)-2-thioxodihydropyrimidine-4,6(1H,5H)-dione (3a), and 5-((1-benzyl-1H-indol-3-yl)methylene)-2-thioxodihydropyrimidine-4,6(1H,5H)-dione (3b) were synthesized as thioxodihydropyrimidine derivatives via aldol condensation reaction. The structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed based on their spectral data via FT-IR, H and C NMR spectral characterization.

Intratumor heterogeneity of EGFR expression mediates targeted therapy resistance and formation of drug tolerant microenvironment.

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors are commonly used to treat non-small cell lung cancers with EGFR mutations, but drug resistance often emerges. Intratumor heterogeneity is a known cause of targeted therapy resistance and is considered a major factor in treatment failure. This study identifies clones of EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung tumors expressing low levels of both wild-type and mutant EGFR protein.

Genome-wide characterization of 54 urinary metabolites reveals molecular impact of kidney function.

Dissecting the genetic mechanisms underlying urinary metabolite concentrations can provide molecular insights into kidney function and open possibilities for causal assessment of urinary metabolites with risk factors and disease outcomes. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics provides a high-throughput means for urinary metabolite profiling, as widely applied for blood biomarker studies. Here we report a genome-wide association study meta-analysed for 3 European cohorts comprising 8,011 individuals, covering both people with type 1 diabetes and general population settings.

Beyond visible: giant bulk photovoltaic effect for broadband neuromodulation.

The giant bulk photovoltaic effect in tellurene nanomaterials has been harnessed to enable broadband infrared neuromodulation, expanding the potential for safe, non-invasive neural stimulation and highlighting the importance of material innovation in advancing infrared photonic applications.

Alterations in LDL and HDL after an ischemic stroke associated with carotid atherosclerosis are reversed after 1 year.

Approximately 20% of ischemic strokes are attributed to the presence of atherosclerosis. Lipoproteins play a crucial role in the development of atherosclerosis, with LDL promoting atherogenesis and HDL inhibiting it. Therefore, both their concentrations and their biological properties are decisive factors in atherosclerotic processes.

Developmental Dynamics of School and Sport Burnout From Upper Secondary School to Early Adulthood Among Student-Athletes.

Burnout is a significant concern for student-athletes, affecting both their academic and athletic performance. This study examined the developmental dynamics of school and sport burnout among Finnish student-athletes across upper secondary school and into early adulthood. Using a structural equation modeling framework with the Cholesky decomposition method, we found that higher levels of school burnout at the beginning of upper secondary school predicted higher levels of sport burnout at later time points.