| 3611. |
- Kõljalg, Urmas, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a unified paradigm for sequence-based identification of fungi.
- 2013
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Ingår i: Molecular ecology. - : Wiley. - 1365-294X .- 0962-1083. ; 22:21, s. 5271-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region is the formal fungal barcode and in most cases the marker of choice for the exploration of fungal diversity in environmental samples. Two problems are particularly acute in the pursuit of satisfactory taxonomic assignment of newly generated ITS sequences: (i) the lack of an inclusive, reliable public reference data set and (ii) the lack of means to refer to fungal species, for which no Latin name is available in a standardized stable way. Here, we report on progress in these regards through further development of the UNITE database (http://unite.ut.ee) for molecular identification of fungi. All fungal species represented by at least two ITS sequences in the international nucleotide sequence databases are now given a unique, stable name of the accession number type (e.g. Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus|GU586904|SH133781.05FU), and their taxonomic and ecological annotations were corrected as far as possible through a distributed, third-party annotation effort. We introduce the term 'species hypothesis' (SH) for the taxa discovered in clustering on different similarity thresholds (97-99%). An automatically or manually designated sequence is chosen to represent each such SH. These reference sequences are released (http://unite.ut.ee/repository.php) for use by the scientific community in, for example, local sequence similarity searches and in the QIIME pipeline. The system and the data will be updated automatically as the number of public fungal ITS sequences grows. We invite everybody in the position to improve the annotation or metadata associated with their particular fungal lineages of expertise to do so through the new Web-based sequence management system in UNITE.
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| 3612. |
- Koo, Jun Mo, et al.
(författare)
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Nonstop Monomer-to-Aramid Nanofiber Synthesis with Remarkable Reinforcement Ability
- 2019
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Ingår i: Macromolecules. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0024-9297 .- 1520-5835. ; 52:3, s. 923-934
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aramid nanofibers (ANFs), typically produced by exfoliating aramid microfibers (Kevlar) in alkaline media, exhibit excellent mechanical properties and have therefore attracted increased attention as nanoscale building blocks. However, the preparation of aramid microfibers involves laborious and hazardous processes, which limits the industrial-scale use of ANFs. This work describes a facile and direct monomer-to-ANF synthesis via an as-synthesized intermediate low-molecular-weight poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) (PPTA) without requiring the environmentally destructive acids and high-order shearing processes. Under the employed conditions, PPTA immediately dissociates and self-assembles into ANFs within a time period of 15 h, which is much shorter than the time of 180 h (not including the Kevlar preparation time) required for the Kevlar-to-ANF conversion. Interestingly, the fabricated ANFs exhibit nanoscale dimensions and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) reinforcing effects similar to those of Kevlar-derived ANFs; i.e., a 1.5-fold TPU toughness improvement and a maximum ultimate tensile strength of 84 MPa are achieved at an ANF content of only 0.04 wt %. Remarkable reinforcement ability investigated by comprehensive analytical data comes from ANFs, which disturb ordered hydrogen bonding in hard segments and induce strain hardening along the elongation pathway. Thus, the developed approach paves the way to industrial-scale production of ANFs and related nanocomposites.
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| 3613. |
- Kovar, Heinrich, et al.
(författare)
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The first European interdisciplinary ewing sarcoma research summit.
- 2012
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Ingår i: Frontiers in oncology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2234-943X. ; 2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The European Network for Cancer Research in Children and Adolescents (ENCCA) provides an interaction platform for stakeholders in research and care of children with cancer. Among ENCCA objectives is the establishment of biology-based prioritization mechanisms for the selection of innovative targets, drugs, and prognostic markers for validation in clinical trials. Specifically for sarcomas, there is a burning need for novel treatment options, since current chemotherapeutic treatment protocols have met their limits. This is most obvious for metastatic Ewing sarcoma (ES), where long term survival rates are still below 20%. Despite significant progress in our understanding of ES biology, clinical translation of promising laboratory results has not yet taken place due to fragmentation of research and lack of an institutionalized discussion forum. To fill this gap, ENCCA assembled 30 European expert scientists and five North American opinion leaders in December 2011 to exchange thoughts and discuss the state of the art in ES research and latest results from the bench, and to propose biological studies and novel promising therapeutics for the upcoming European EWING2008 and EWING2012 clinical trials.
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| 3614. |
- Kozak Ljunggren, Monika, et al.
(författare)
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Effect of Surgical Technique on Corneal Implant Performance.
- 2014
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Ingår i: Translational Vision Science & Technology. - : Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). - 2164-2591. ; 3:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PURPOSE: Our aim was to determine the effect of a surgical technique on biomaterial implant performance, specifically graft retention.METHODS: Twelve mini pigs were implanted with cell-free, 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethyl aminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC)/N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) cross-linked recombinant human collagen type III (RHCIII) hydrogels as substitutes for donor corneal allografts using overlying sutures with or without human amniotic membrane (HAM) versus interrupted sutures with HAM. The effects of the retention method were compared as well as the effects of collagen concentration (13.7% to 15% RHCIII).RESULTS: All implanted corneas showed initial haze that cleared with time, resulting in corneas with optical clarity matching those of untreated controls. Biochemical analysis showed that by 12 months post operation, the initial RHCIII implants had been completely remodeled, as type I collagen, was the major collagenous protein detected, whereas no RHCIII could be detected. Histological analysis showed all implanted corneas exhibited regeneration of epithelial and stromal layers as well as nerves, along with touch sensitivity and tear production. Most neovascularization was seen in corneas stabilized by interrupted sutures.CONCLUSIONS: This showed that the surgical technique used does have a significant effect on the overall performance of corneal implants, overlying sutures caused less vascularization than interrupted sutures.TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE: Understanding the significance of the suturing technique can aid the selection of the most appropriate procedure when implanting artificial corneal substitutes. The same degree of regeneration, despite a higher collagen content indicates that future material development can progress toward stronger, more resistant implants.
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| 3615. |
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| 3616. |
- Krattinger, Regina, et al.
(författare)
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Chenodeoxycholic acid significantly impacts the expression of miRNAs and genes involved in lipid, bile acid and drug metabolism in human hepatocytes
- 2016
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Ingår i: Life Sciences. - : Elsevier BV. - 0024-3205 .- 1879-0631. ; 156, s. 47-56
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims: Bile acids (BAs) are important gut signaling hormones, influencing lipid, glucose, and energy homeostasis. The exact mechanisms behind these effects are not yet fully understood. Lately, they have come to the fore as putative therapeutics in metabolic diseases, such as e.g. nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We elucidate to what extent BAs impacts on the mRNAome and microRNAome in hepatocytes to gather novel insights into the mechanisms behind metabolic and toxicologic effects of bile acids. Main methods: Five batches of primary human hepatocytes were treated with 50 mu mol/l chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) for 24 or 48 h. Total RNA was extracted, size fractionated and subjected to Next Generation Sequencing to generate mRNA and miRNA profiles. Key findings: Expression of 738 genes and 52 miRNAs were CDCA dependently decreased, whereas 1566 genes and 29 miRNAs were significantly increased in hepatocytes. Distinct gene clusters controlling BA and lipid homeostasis (FGF(R), APO and FABP family members, HMGCS2) and drug metabolism (CYP, UGT and SULT family members) were significantly modulated by CDCA. Importantly, CDCA affected distinct microRNAs, including miR-34a, -505, -885, -1260 and -552 that systematically correlated in expression with gene clusters responsible for bile acid, lipid and drug homeostasis incorporating genes, such as e.g. SLCO1B1, SLC22A7, FGF19, CYP2E1, CYP1A2, APO family members and FOXO3. Significance: Bile acids significantly modulate metabolic and drug associated gene networks that are connected to distinct shifts in the microRNAome These findings give novel insights on how BA enfold metabolic and system toxic effects.
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| 3617. |
- Kristan, Matej, et al.
(författare)
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The Visual Object Tracking VOT2017 challenge results
- 2017
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Ingår i: 2017 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER VISION WORKSHOPS (ICCVW 2017). - : IEEE. - 9781538610343 ; , s. 1949-1972
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Visual Object Tracking challenge VOT2017 is the fifth annual tracker benchmarking activity organized by the VOT initiative. Results of 51 trackers are presented; many are state-of-the-art published at major computer vision conferences or journals in recent years. The evaluation included the standard VOT and other popular methodologies and a new "real-time" experiment simulating a situation where a tracker processes images as if provided by a continuously running sensor. Performance of the tested trackers typically by far exceeds standard baselines. The source code for most of the trackers is publicly available from the VOT page. The VOT2017 goes beyond its predecessors by (i) improving the VOT public dataset and introducing a separate VOT2017 sequestered dataset, (ii) introducing a realtime tracking experiment and (iii) releasing a redesigned toolkit that supports complex experiments. The dataset, the evaluation kit and the results are publicly available at the challenge website(1).
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| 3618. |
- Kristensen, Søren L., et al.
(författare)
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Prevalence of Prediabetes and Undiagnosed Diabetes in Patients with HFpEF and HFrEF and Associated Clinical Outcomes
- 2017
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Ingår i: Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0920-3206 .- 1573-7241. ; 31:5/6, s. 545-549
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2017 The Author(s) Purpose: The prevalence and consequences of prediabetic dysglycemia and undiagnosed diabetes is unknown in patients with heart failure (HF) and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and has not been compared to heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Methods: We examined the prevalence and outcomes associated with normoglycemia, prediabetic dysglycemia and diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) among individuals with a baseline glycated hemoglobin (hemoglobin A1c, HbA1c) measurement stratified by HFrEF or HFpEF in the Candesartan in Heart failure Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and morbidity programme (CHARM). We studied the primary outcome of HF hospitalization or cardiovascular (CV) death, and all-cause death, and estimated hazard ratios (HR) by use of multivariable Cox regression models. Results: HbA1c was measured at baseline in CHARM patients enrolled in the USA and Canada and was available in 1072/3023 (35%) of patients with HFpEF and 1578/4576 (34%) patients with HFrEF. 18 and 16% had normoglycemia (HbA1c < 6.0), 20 and 22% had prediabetes (HbA1c 6.0–6.4), respectively. Finally among patients with HFpEF 22% had undiagnosed diabetes (HbA1c > 6.4), and 40% had known diabetes (any HbA1c), with corresponding prevalence among HFrEF patients being 26 and 35%. The rates of both clinical outcomes of interest were higher in patients with undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes, compared to normoglycemic patients, irrespective of HF subtype, and in general higher among HFrEF patients. For the primary composite outcome among HFpEF patients, the HRs were 1.02 (95% CI 0.63–1.65) for prediabetes, HR 1.18 (0.75–1.86) for undiagnosed diabetes and 2.75 (1.83–4.11) for known diabetes, respectively, p value for trend across groups < 0.001. Dysglycemia was also associated with worse outcomes in HFrEF. Conclusions: These findings confirm the remarkably high prevalence of dysglycemia in heart failure irrespective of ejection fraction phenotype, and demonstrate that dysglycemia is associated with a higher risk of adverse clinical outcomes, even before the diagnosis of diabetes and institution of glucose lowering therapy in patients with HFpEF as well as HFrEF.
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| 3619. |
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| 3620. |
- Krumholz, Mark R., et al.
(författare)
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STAR CLUSTER PROPERTIES IN TWO LEGUS GALAXIES COMPUTED WITH STOCHASTIC STELLAR POPULATION SYNTHESIS MODELS
- 2015
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 812:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigate a novel Bayesian analysis method, based on the Stochastically Lighting Up Galaxies (slug) code, to derive the masses, ages, and extinctions of star clusters from integrated light photometry. Unlike many analysis methods, slug correctly accounts for incomplete initial mass function (IMF) sampling, and returns full posterior probability distributions rather than simply probability maxima. We apply our technique to 621 visually confirmed clusters in two nearby galaxies, NGC 628 and NGC 7793, that are part of the Legacy Extragalactic UV Survey (LEGUS). LEGUS provides Hubble Space Telescope photometry in the NUV, U, B, V, and I bands. We analyze the sensitivity of the derived cluster properties to choices of prior probability distribution, evolutionary tracks, IMF, metallicity, treatment of nebular emission, and extinction curve. We find that slug's results for individual clusters are insensitive to most of these choices, but that the posterior probability distributions we derive are often quite broad, and sometimes multi-peaked and quite sensitive to the choice of priors. In contrast, the properties of the cluster population as a whole are relatively robust against all of these choices. We also compare our results from slug to those derived with a conventional non-stochastic fitting code, Yggdrasil. We show that slug's stochastic models are generally a better fit to the observations than the deterministic ones used by Yggdrasil. However, the overall properties of the cluster populations recovered by both codes are qualitatively similar.
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