| 1. |
- Altmann, Patrick, et al.
(author)
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Increased serum neurofilament light chain concentration indicates poor outcome in Guillain-Barré syndrome.
- 2020
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In: Journal of neuroinflammation. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1742-2094. ; 17:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an autoimmune disease that results in demyelination and axonal damage. Five percent of patients die and 20% remain significantly disabled on recovery. Recovery is slow in most cases and eventual disability is difficult to predict, especially early in the disease. Blood or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers that could help identify patients at risk of poor outcome are required. We measured serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) concentrations from blood taken upon admission and investigated a correlation between sNfL and clinical outcome.Baseline sNfL levels in 27 GBS patients were compared with a control group of 22 patients with diagnoses not suggestive of any axonal damage. Clinical outcome parameters for GBS patients included (i) the Hughes Functional Score (HFS) at admission, nadir, and discharge; (ii) the number of days hospitalised; and (iii) whether intensive care was necessary.The median sNfL concentration in our GBS sample on admission was 85.5pg/ml versus 9.1pg/ml in controls. A twofold increase in sNfL concentration at baseline was associated with an HFS increase of 0.6 at nadir and reduced the likelihood of discharge with favourable outcome by a factor of almost three. Higher sNfL levels upon admission correlated well with hospitalisation time (rs=0.69, p<0.0001), during which transfer to intensive care occurred more frequently at an odds ratio of 2.4. Patients with baseline sNfL levels below 85.5pg/ml had a 93% chance of being discharged with an unimpaired walking ability.sNfL levels measured at hospital admission correlated with clinical outcome in GBS patients. These results represent amounts of acute axonal damage and reflect mechanisms resulting in disability in GBS. Thus, sNfL may serve as a convenient blood-borne biomarker to personalise patient care by identifying those at higher risk of poor outcome.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Daurer, Benedikt J., et al.
(author)
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Experimental strategies for imaging bioparticles with femtosecond hard X-ray pulses
- 2017
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In: IUCrJ. - : INT UNION CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. - 2052-2525. ; 4, s. 251-262
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study explores the capabilities of the Coherent X-ray Imaging Instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source to image small biological samples. The weak signal from small samples puts a significant demand on the experiment. Aerosolized Omono River virus particles of similar to 40 nm in diameter were injected into the submicrometre X-ray focus at a reduced pressure. Diffraction patterns were recorded on two area detectors. The statistical nature of the measurements from many individual particles provided information about the intensity profile of the X-ray beam, phase variations in the wavefront and the size distribution of the injected particles. The results point to a wider than expected size distribution (from similar to 35 to similar to 300 nm in diameter). This is likely to be owing to nonvolatile contaminants from larger droplets during aerosolization and droplet evaporation. The results suggest that the concentration of nonvolatile contaminants and the ratio between the volumes of the initial droplet and the sample particles is critical in such studies. The maximum beam intensity in the focus was found to be 1.9 * 10(12) photons per mu m(2) per pulse. The full-width of the focus at half-maximum was estimated to be 500 nm (assuming 20% beamline transmission), and this width is larger than expected. Under these conditions, the diffraction signal from a sample-sized particle remained above the average background to a resolution of 4.25 nm. The results suggest that reducing the size of the initial droplets during aerosolization is necessary to bring small particles into the scope of detailed structural studies with X-ray lasers.
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| 4. |
- Gleiss, B., et al.
(author)
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Subsumption Demodulation in First-Order Theorem Proving
- 2020
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In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 1611-3349 .- 0302-9743. ; 12166 LNAI, s. 297-315
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Motivated by applications of first-order theorem proving to software analysis, we introduce a new inference rule, called subsumption demodulation, to improve support for reasoning with conditional equalities in superposition-based theorem proving. We show that subsumption demodulation is a simplification rule that does not require radical changes to the underlying superposition calculus. We implemented subsumption demodulation in the theorem prover Vampire, by extending Vampire with a new clause index and adapting its multi-literal matching component. Our experiments, using the TPTP and SMT-LIB repositories, show that subsumption demodulation in Vampire can solve many new problems that could so far not be solved by state-of-the-art reasoners.
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| 5. |
- Rath, Asawari D., et al.
(author)
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Explosion dynamics of sucrose nanospheres monitored by time of flight spectrometry and coherent diffractive imaging at the split-and-delay beam line of the FLASH soft X-ray laser
- 2014
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In: Optics Express. - 1094-4087. ; 22:23, s. 28914-28925
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We use a Mach-Zehnder type autocorrelator to split and delay XUV pulses from the FLASH soft X-ray laser for triggering and subsequently probing the explosion of aerosolised sugar balls. FLASH was running at 182 eV photon energy with pulses of 70 fs duration. The delay between the pump-probe pulses was varied between zero and 5 ps, and the pulses were focused to reach peak intensities above 1016 W/cm2 with an off-axis parabola. The direct pulse triggered the explosion of single aerosolised sucrose nano-particles, while the delayed pulse probed the exploding structure. The ejected ions were measured by ion time of flight spectrometry, and the particle sizes were measured by coherent diffractive imaging. The results show that sucrose particles of 560-1000 nm diameter retain their size for about 500 fs following the first exposure. Significant sample expansion happens between 500 fs and 1 ps. We present simulations to support these observations.
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| 6. |
- Schubert, Jasmin S., et al.
(author)
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Nature of the Active Ni State for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation
- 2023
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In: Advanced Materials Interfaces. - : WILEY. - 2196-7350.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Thermal treatments can have detrimental effects on the photocatalytic hydrogen (H2) evolution performance and impact the formation mechanism of the active state of surface-supported co-catalysts. In this work, a range of Ni-based co-catalysts is investigated immobilized on TiO2, evaluated their H2 evolution rates in situ over 21 h, and analyzed the samples at various stages with a comprehensive set of spectroscopic and microscopy techniques. It is found that achieving the optimal hydrogen evolution (HER) performance requires the right Ni0:Ni2+ ratio, rather than only Ni0, and that Ni needs to be weakly adsorbed on the TiO2 surface to create a dynamic state. Under these conditions, Ni can undergo an efficient redox shuttle, involving the transformation of Ni2+ to Ni0 and back after releasing the accumulated electrons for H+ reduction (i.e., Ni2+ <-> Ni0). Yet, when the calcination temperature of the Ni/TiO2 photocatalysts increases, resulting in stronger coordination/adsorption of Ni on TiO2, this process is gradually inhibited, which ultimately leads to decreased HER performances. This work emphasizes the significance and influence of thermal treatments on the Ni active state formation - a process that can be relevant to other HER co-catalysts. This research underscores the impact of thermal treatment on the formation of Nis active state for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) . For optimal performance, Ni should weakly adsorb onto the substrate, efficiently shuttling between Ni2+ and Ni0 and reversing after H+ reduction (Ni2+ <-> Ni0). However, raising the calcination temperature strengthens Ni coordination/adsorption on the substrate, gradually inhibiting this process and reducing HER performances.image
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