3D Atrial Strain for Predicting Recurrence of Atrial Fibrillation after Pulmonary Vein Isolation.

Aims: Association of two-(2D) and three-dimensional (3D) left atrial strain (LAS) and low-voltage area (LVA) with recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF) after pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) was assessed.

Methods And Results: 3D LAS, 2D LAS, and LVA were obtained in 93 consecutive patients undergoing PVI and recurrence of AF was analyzed prospectively. AF recurred in 12 patients (13%).

Lateral Heterostructured Vis-NIR Photodetectors with Multimodal Detection for Rapid and Precise Classification of Glioma.

Precise diagnosis of the boundary and grade of tumors is especially important for surgical dissection. Recently, visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) absorption differences of tumors are demonstrated for a precise tumor diagnosis. Here, a template-assisted sequential printing strategy is investigated to construct lateral heterostructured Vis-NIR photodetectors, relying on the up-conversion nanoparticles (UCNPs)/perovskite arrays.

Printable Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Film with Outstanding Thermal Conductivity and Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Performance.

Ultrathin, lightweight, and flexible aligned single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) films are fabricated by a facile, environmentally friendly, and scalable printing methodology. The aligned pattern and outstanding intrinsic properties render "metal-like" thermal conductivity of the SWCNT films, as well as excellent mechanical strength, flexibility, and hydrophobicity. Further, the aligned cellular microstructure promotes the electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding ability of the SWCNTs, leading to excellent shielding effectiveness (SE) of ~ 39 to 90 dB despite a density of only ~ 0.

Absorption of iron from edible house crickets: a randomized crossover stable-isotope study in humans.

Background: Edible insects are a novel source of animal protein. Moreover, edible insects contain iron concentrations similar to meat, potentially making them a valuable iron source for human consumers. Yet, it is unknown to what extent iron from insects is absorbed in humans.

The peroxisome: an up-and-coming organelle in immunometabolism.

Peroxisomes are essential metabolic organelles, well known for their roles in the metabolism of complex lipids and reactive ionic species. In the past 10 years, peroxisomes have also been cast as central regulators of immunity. Lipid metabolites of peroxisomes, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), are precursors for important immune mediators, including leukotrienes (LTs) and resolvins.

All-printed point-of-care immunosensing biochip for one drop blood diagnostics.

Designing and preparing a fast and easy-to-use immunosensing biochip are of great significance for clinical diagnosis and biomedical research. In particular, sensitive, specific, and early detection of biomarkers in trace samples promotes the application of point-of-care testing (POCT). Here, we demonstrate an all-printed immunosensing biochip with the characteristics of hydrodynamic enrichment and photonic crystal-enhanced fluorescence.

Meroterpenoids Possibly Produced by a Bacterial Endosymbiont of the Tropical Basidiomycete .

A mycelial culture of the African basidiomycete cf. was studied for biologically active secondary metabolites, and four compounds were isolated from its crude extract derived from shake flask fermentations, using preparative high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The pure metabolites were identified using extensive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS).

Information dynamics of price and liquidity around the 2017 Bitcoin markets crash.

We study information dynamics between the largest Bitcoin exchange markets during the bubble in 2017-2018. By analyzing high-frequency market microstructure observables with different information-theoretic measures for dynamical systems, we find temporal changes in information sharing across markets. In particular, we study time-varying components of predictability, memory, and (a)synchronous coupling, measured by transfer entropy, active information storage, and multi-information.

Incremental Prognostic Value of Coronary Artery Calcium Score for Predicting All-Cause Mortality after Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement.

Background Current risk models show limited performances for predicting all-cause mortality after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Purpose To determine the prognostic value of coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring for predicting 30-day and 1-year mortality in patients undergoing TAVR. Materials and Methods In this single-center institutional review board-approved secondary analysis of prospectively collected data (SwissTAVI Registry), the authors evaluated participants who, before TAVR, underwent CT that included a nonenhanced electrocardiography-gated cardiac scan between May 2008 and September 2019 and who had not undergone previous coronary revascularization.

A Functional SMAD2/3 Binding Site in the β Promoter Identifies a Role for TGFβ in Peroxisome Proliferation in Humans.

In mammals, peroxisomes perform crucial functions in cellular metabolism, signaling and viral defense which are essential to the viability of the organism. Molecular cues triggered by changes in the cellular environment induce a dynamic response in peroxisomes, which manifests itself as a change in peroxisome number, altered enzyme levels and adaptations to the peroxisomal morphology. How the regulation of this process is integrated into the cell's response to different stimuli, including the signaling pathways and factors involved, remains unclear.

Polymer-Assisted Fabrication of Silver Nanowire Cellular Monoliths: Toward Hydrophobic and Ultraflexible High-Performance Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Materials.

Metal nanofibers with excellent electrical conductivity and superior mechanical flexibility have great potentials for fabrication of lightweight, flexible, and high-performance electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding architectures. The weak interactions and large contact resistance among the wires, however, hinder their assembly into robust and high-performance EMI shielding monoliths. In this work, we used low fractions of polymers to assist the construction of lightweight, flexible, and highly conductive silver nanowire (AgNW) cellular monoliths with significantly enhanced mechanical strength and EMI shielding effectiveness (SE).

Nanocellulose-MXene Biomimetic Aerogels with Orientation-Tunable Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Performance.

Designing lightweight nanostructured aerogels for high-performance electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding is crucial yet challenging. Ultrathin cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) are employed for assisting in building ultralow-density, robust, and highly flexible transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes) aerogels with oriented biomimetic cell walls. A significant influence of the angles between oriented cell walls and the incident EM wave electric field direction on the EMI shielding performance is revealed, providing an intriguing microstructure design strategy.

Patterns of Focal- and Large-Scale Synchronization in Cognitive Control and Inhibition: A Review.

Neural synchronization patterns are involved in several complex cognitive functions and constitute a growing trend in neuroscience research. While synchrony patterns in working memory have been extensively discussed, a complete understanding of their role in cognitive control and inhibition is still elusive. Here, we provide an up-to-date review on synchronization patterns underlying behavioral inhibition, extrapolating common grounds, and dissociating features with other inhibitory functions.

Non-Lithography Hydrodynamic Printing of Micro/Nanostructures on Curved Surfaces.

A key issue of micro/nano devices is how to integrate micro/nanostructures with specified chemical components onto various curved surfaces. Hydrodynamic printing of micro/nanostructures on three-dimensional curved surfaces is achieved with a strategy that combines template-induced hydrodynamic printing and self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs). Non-lithography flexible wall-shaped templates are replicated with microscale features by dicing a trench-shaped silicon wafer.

Ultralight, Flexible, and Biomimetic Nanocellulose/Silver Nanowire Aerogels for Electromagnetic Interference Shielding.

Ultralight and highly flexible biopolymer aerogels, composed of biomimetic cellular microstructures formed from cellulose nanofibers and silver nanowires, are assembled a convenient and facile freeze-casting method. The lamellar, honeycomb-like, and random porous scaffolds are successfully achieved by adjusting freezing approaches to modulate the relationships between microstructures and macroscopic mechanical and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performances. Combining the shielding transformation arising from compression and the controlled content of building units, the optimized lamellar porous biopolymer aerogels can show a very high EMI shielding effectiveness (SE), which exceeds 70 or 40 dB in the X-band while the density is merely 6.

Structure-function relationships of HDL in diabetes and coronary heart disease.

High-density lipoproteins (HDL) contain hundreds of lipid species and proteins and exert many potentially vasoprotective and antidiabetogenic activities on cells. To resolve structure-function-disease relationships of HDL, we characterized HDL of 51 healthy subjects and 98 patients with diabetes (T2DM), coronary heart disease (CHD), or both for protein and lipid composition, as well as functionality in 5 cell types. The integration of 40 clinical characteristics, 34 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) features, 182 proteins, 227 lipid species, and 12 functional read-outs by high-dimensional statistical modeling revealed, first, that CHD and T2DM are associated with different changes of HDL in size distribution, protein and lipid composition, and function.

Evaluating Patient Safety And Ease Of Use Of A Novel Connection-Assist Device For Peritoneal Dialysis.

Introduction: It is estimated that there are currently over 3 million patients receiving dialysis treatment worldwide. With effective pre-dialysis counselling, a majority of patients choose the home-based therapy peritoneal dialysis (PD) but only approximately 11% of prevalent dialysis patients use this modality. Connection-assist devices can overcome the challenges posed by decreased manual dexterity and/or visual acuity, and can allow more patients to be treated with home-based therapies.

Rapid Shifts in Bacterial Community Assembly under Static and Dynamic Hydration Conditions in Porous Media.

The complexity of natural soils presents a challenge to the systematic identification and disentanglement of governing processes that shape natural bacterial communities. Studies have highlighted the critical role of the soil aqueous phase in shaping interactions among soil bacterial communities. To quantify and improve the attributability of soil aqueous-phase effects, we introduced a synthetic and traceable bacterial community to simple porous microcosms and subjected the community to constant or dynamic hydration conditions.

The impact of ambient air pollution on hospital admissions.

Ambient air pollution is the environmental factor with the most significant impact on human health. Several epidemiological studies provide evidence for an association between ambient air pollution and human health. However, the recent economic literature has challenged the identification strategy used in these studies.

Role of the nucleotidyl cyclase helical domain in catalytically active dimer formation.

Nucleotidyl cyclases, including membrane-integral and soluble adenylyl and guanylyl cyclases, are central components in a wide range of signaling pathways. These proteins are architecturally diverse, yet many of them share a conserved feature, a helical region that precedes the catalytic cyclase domain. The role of this region in cyclase dimerization has been a subject of debate.

A new parallel closing mechanism for the laminectomy rongeur makes it significantly more precise: a biomechanical and mechanical comparison study.

Purpose: To prove that a modified closing mechanism of the rongeur gives better precision compared to the old Kerrison rongeur.

Methods: Forty persons from the departments of orthopaedic surgery, urology and neurosurgery (35 orthopaedic, 2 urology and 3 neurosurgery) took part in the study. All participants were asked to punch ten times in a first step with either the old Kerrison rongeur with the scissors-like handle or the modified punch with a new parallel closing mechanism.

Non-destructive measurement of soybean leaf thickness via X-ray computed tomography allows the study of diel leaf growth rhythms in the third dimension.

Present-day high-resolution leaf growth measurements provide exciting insights into diel (24-h) leaf growth rhythms and their control by the circadian clock, which match photosynthesis with oscillating environmental conditions. However, these methods are based on measurements of leaf area or elongation and neglect diel changes of leaf thickness. In contrast, the influence of various environmental stress factors to which leaves are exposed to during growth on the final leaf thickness has been studied extensively.

Impact of MicroRNA Levels, Target-Site Complementarity, and Cooperativity on Competing Endogenous RNA-Regulated Gene Expression.

Expression changes of competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) have been proposed to influence microRNA (miRNA) activity and thereby regulate other transcripts containing miRNA-binding sites. Here, we find that although miRNA levels define the extent of repression, they have little effect on the magnitude of the ceRNA expression change required to observe derepression. Canonical 6-nt sites, which typically mediate modest repression, can nonetheless compete for miRNA binding, with potency ∼20% of that observed for canonical 8-nt sites.

Developmental Relations Between ADHD Symptoms and Reactive Versus Proactive Aggression Across Childhood and Adolescence.

Past research has provided some preliminary evidence that ADHD and reactive aggression have overlapping neurocognitive bases. Based on this, we tested the hypothesis that ADHD symptoms are closely coupled in developmental terms with reactive aggression, more so than with proactive aggression with which it has been postulated to be only indirectly linked. We used latent growth curve analysis to estimate the developmental relations between ADHD symptoms and subtypes of aggressive behavior in a normative sample of 1,571 youth (761 female, 810 male) measured from ages 7 to 15.