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Stem and progenitor cells of hematopoietic and mesenchymal lineages reside in the bone marrow under low oxygen (OUsing cell-based assays and transcriptome and proteome data, the authors compared MSC cultures simultaneously grown under a conventional 19.95% OIn 5% OBased on the potential benefits for the growth and metabolism of MSCs, the authors propose the use of 5% O

To perform a pilot evaluation of contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) for screening to determine whether it can improve accuracy and reader confidence in diagnosis.This institutional review board-approved reader study was comprised of 64 de-identified CEM cases acquired from December 1, 2014, to June 7, 2016, including 48 negative, 5 biopsy-proven benign, and 11 biopsy-proven malignancies. Negative cases were followed for at least 2 years without evidence of cancer. Ten breast imagers of varying experience first rated the low-energy (LE) mammogram and then the CEM examination using BI-RADS categories and a 5-point Likert scale for confidence in diagnosis.There were 635 out a total possible 640 complete reader interpretations included in this analysis. The remaining five incomplete interpretations were excluded. Median sensitivity and specificity improved with the addition of CEM (sensitivity: 0.86 [95% confidence interval {CI}: 0.74-0.95] versus 1 [95% CI: 0.83-1.00], specificity: 0.85 [95% CI: 0.64-0.94] versus 0.88 [95% CI: 0.80-0.92]). Individual receiver operating characteristic curves showed significant improvement with CEM (mean area under the curve increase = 0.056 [95% CI: 0.015-0.097], P = .002). The addition of CEM significantly improved average confidence in 5 of 10 readers when compared with LE (P.0001) and improved pooled confidence across all tissue density categories, except the almost entirely fatty category. There was a trend toward improved confidence with increasing tissue density with CEM. Degree of background parenchymal enhancement did not affect readers' level of improvement in confidence when interpreting CEM.CEM improved reader performance and confidence compared with viewing only LE, suggesting a role for CEM in breast cancer screening for which larger trials are warranted.

2-Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPβCD) is a Food and Drug Administration-approved excipient used to improve the stability and bioavailability of drugs. Despite its wide use as a drug delivery vehicle and the recent approval of a clinical trial to evaluate its potential for the treatment of a cholesterol storage disorder, the cellular pathways involved in the adaptive response that is activated upon exposure to HPβCD are still poorly defined. Here, we show that cell treatment with HPβCD results in the activation of the transcription factor EB, a master regulator of lysosomal function and autophagy, and in enhancement of the cellular autophagic clearance capacity. HPβCD administration promotes transcription factor EB-mediated clearance of proteolipid aggregates that accumulate due to inefficient activity of the lysosome-autophagy system in cells derived from a patient with a lysosomal storage disorder. Interestingly, HPβCD-mediated activation of autophagy was found not to be associated with activation of apoptotic pathways. This study provides a mechanistic understanding of the cellular response to HPβCD treatment, which will inform the development of safe HPβCD-based therapeutic modalities and may enable engineering HPβCD as a platform technology to reduce the accumulation of lysosomal storage material.

This paper describes a compact ultra-wideband CPW and microstrip line printed monopole antenna with multi band-rejection characteristics. The small antenna fed by CPW and microstrip line has small volume of 44 mm × 12 mm × 0.8 mm. By adding broken ∩-shaped slot on the tapered radiating patch, the antenna provides band-rejection characteristics. The center frequency of three notched bands centered on 2.4, 3.8, and 5.5 GHz can be adjusted by modifying the length and width of the inserted slot. Good agreement is achieved between the simulated and measured results. The measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna ranges from 2.2 to 11.3 GHz for VSWR ≤ 2, excluding the rejection bands. The omni-directional radiation patterns of the fabricated antenna are presented, which show that the designed antennas are good candidate for various UWB applications. The measured gain variation is less than 3 dB over the operating frequency band.

In this article, we describe two novel types of coplanar wave-guide (CPW) fed monopole and an asymmetric coplanar strip (ACS) fed half monopole UWB antennas to cover the ultra-wideband frequency operation. The proposed antennas consist of a hexagonal shaped patch with small volume ( 18.4 × 21.5 × 1 mm 3 ) and ( 11.4 × 21.5 × 1 mm 3 ), respectively. The band-rejection operation achieve at the WLAN (5.15–5.85 GHz) band by adding defected ground structure (DGS) or slit in the ground plane. The antennas are fabricated on FR4 substrate with a relative dielectric constant of 4.4 and thickness of 1 mm which are fed by a 50 Ω line. The antennas are investigated numerically and experimentally for their impedance matching properties, frequency notched characteristics, and radiation performances. The measured frequency response shows an impedance bandwidth of 13 GHz or 130% over 3–16 GHz for VSWR 2 .

The tish rat is a neurological mutant exhibiting bilateral cortical heterotopia similar to those found in certain epileptic patients. Previous work has shown that thalamocortical fibers originating in the ventroposteromedial nucleus, which in normal animals segregate as ‘barrel’ representations for individual whiskers, terminate in both normotopic and heterotopic areas of the tish cortex (Schottler et al., 1998). Thalamocortical innervation terminates as barrels in layer IV and diffusely in layer VI of the normotopic area. Discrete patches of terminals are also observed in the underlying heterotopic area suggesting that representations of individual vibrissa may be present in the heterotopic somatosensory areas. The present study examines this issue by investigating the organization of the vibrissal somatosensory system in the tish cortex. Staining for cytochrome oxidase or Nissl substance reveals a normal complement of vibrissal barrels in the normotopic area of the tish cortex. Dense patches of cytochrome oxidase staining are also found in the underlying lateral portions of the heterotopic area (i.e. the same area that is innervated by the ventroposteromedial nucleus). Injections of retrograde tracers into vibrissal areas of either the normotopic or heterotopic area produce topographically organized labeling of neurons restricted to one or a small number of barreloids within the ventroposteromedial nucleus of the thalamus. Physical stimulation of a single whisker (D3 or E3) elicits enhanced uptake of [ 14 C]2-deoxyglucose in restricted zones of both the normotopic and heterotopic areas, demonstrating that single whisker stimulation can increase functional activity in both normotopic and heterotopic neurons. These findings indicate that the barrels are intact in the normotopic area and are most consistent with the hypothesis that at least some of the individual vibrissae are ‘dually’ represented in normotopic and heterotopic positions in the primary somatosensory areas of the tish cortex.