Pain is common in life and can be caused by trauma or underlying disease and is mostly temporary, but for some the pain can develop into a chronic pain condition. Pain leads to individual suffering as well as negative impact on the wider society. Especially since pain can start early in life and affect large parts of it. The aim of this thesis was to identify potential risk factors for chronic and

Background: Plaque analysis with coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is a promising tool to identify high risk of future coronary events. The analysis process is time-consuming, and requires highly trained readers. Deep learning models have proved to excel at similar tasks, however, training these models requires large sets of expert-annotated training data. The aims of this study were

Vertebrates capable of powered flight rely on wings, muscles that drive their flapping and sensory inputs to the brain allowing for control of the motor output. In birds, the wings are formed of arrangements of adjacent flight feathers (remiges), whereas the wings of bats consist of double-layered skin membrane stretched out between the forelimb skeleton, body and legs. Bird feathers become worn f

Definitive hematopoiesis emerges via an endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros (AGM) region and placenta. We have recently demonstrated the induction of hematopoietic stem/progenitors (HSPCs) from mouse fibroblasts with a combination of transcription factors progressing through endothelial-like precursors. Here, guided by our in vitro programming experiments we anal

Absorption and emission of light is studied theoretically for excited atoms in coherent superposition of states subjected to isolated attosecond pulses in the extreme ultraviolet range. A gauge-invariant formulation of transient absorption theory is motivated using the energy operator from Yang's gauge theory. The interaction, which simultaneously couples both bound and continuum states, is simula

The inability to culture hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in vitro hinders the full study of physiologic and pathologic hematopoiesis “in a dish.” Recent efforts have been taken to generate HSCs via transcription factor (TF) mediated reprogramming. Most of these studies, however, rely on lentiviruses capable of genomic integration, running the risk of insertional mutagenesis and oncogenesis. Applic

The direct conversion of somatic cells into hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) by ectopic expression of transcription factors (TFs) is a promising approach for regenerative medicine. Our lab demonstrated recently the conversion of mouse fibroblasts into hemogenic cells with just 3 core TFs (Gata2, Gfi-1b, cFos) (Pereira et al 2013). The transduced cells undergo an endothelial-to-hematopoietic transit

Interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation (IPR) is a recommended treatment for people with chronic pain. An inadequate description of the content of IPR programs makes it difficult to draw conclusions regarding their effects. The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions and attitudes of healthcare professionals toward a content description of IPR programs for patients with chronic pain. I

This article looks at upcycling and the library of things from intellectual property law perspective

Immunotherapy has brought hope for cancer treatment, but its clinical success remains limited. Recently, overexpression of the transcription factors PU.1, IRF8 and BATF3 (PIB) was shown to induce direct reprogramming of tumor cells into antigen-presenting type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s), a rare subset of immune cells with pivotal role in anti-cancer immunity. This strategy might open a

We compare the Hilbert series approach with explicit constructions of higher-order Lagrangians for the O(N) nonlinear sigma model. We use the Hilbert series to find the number and type of operators up to mass dimension 16, for spacetime dimension D up to 12 and N up to 12, and further classify the operators into spacetime parity and parity of the internal symmetry group O(N). The explicit construc

Assembly of the functional complexes of the mitochondrial respiratory chain requires sophisticated and efficient regulatory mechanisms. In plants, the subunit composition and assembly factors involved in the biogenesis of cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV) are substantially less defined than in mammals and yeast. In this study, we cloned maize (Zea mays) Small kernel 11 (Smk11) via map-based clonin

Immunotherapy is revolutionizing cancer treatment, but success is limited to a fraction of patients. Tumor immunosurveillance and immunotherapy relies on presentation of tumor-associated antigens by conventional dendritic cells type 1 (cDC1). However, tumors develop mechanisms to avoid immune recognition such as downregulation of antigen presentation and exclusion of cDC1. We have previously demon

People have a well-described advantage in identifying individuals and emotions in their own culture, a phenomenon also known as the other-race and language-familiarity effect. However, it is unclear whether native-language advantages arise from genuinely enhanced capacities to extract relevant cues in familiar speech or, more simply, from cultural differences in emotional expressions. Here, to rul

The objective of this study was to compare the use of hydroxocobalamin (B12a) and a succinate prodrug to evaluate for improvement in mitochondrial function in an in vitro model of cyanide poisoning. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and human aortic smooth muscle cells (HASMC) incubated with 50 mM of sodium cyanide (CN) for five minutes serving as the CN group compared to controls. We inve

Neutralizing anti-factor VIII (FVIII) antibodies, known as FVIII inhibitors, represent a major drawback of replacement therapy in persons with congenital hemophilia A (PwHA), rendering further infusions of FVIII ineffective. FVIII inhibitors can also appear in non-hemophilic individuals causing acquired hemophilia A (AHA). The use of non-FVIII bypassing agents in cases of bleeds or surgery in inhi

Owing to their very large piezoelectric coefficients and spontaneous polarizations, (Sc,Y) x Al1−xN alloys have emerged as a new class of III-nitride semiconductor materials with great potential for high-frequency electronic and acoustic devices. The thermal conductivity of constituent materials is a key parameter for design, optimization, and thermal management of such devices. In this study, tra

Normal birth is a eustress reaction, a beneficial hedonic stress with extremely high catecholamines that protects us from intrauterine hypoxia and assists in the rapid shift to extrauterine life. Occasionally the cellular O2 requirement becomes critical and an O2 deficit in blood (hypoxemia) may evolve to a tissue deficit (hypoxia) and finally a risk of organ damage (asphyxia). An increase in H+ c

Cell fate reprogramming of adult cells towards pluripotency or unrelated somatic cell-types has been explored in the context of regenerative medicine. Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells (APCs) specialized in the recognition, processing and presentation of antigens to T-cells, inducing adaptive immunity. In particular, the mouse conventional DCs type 1 (cDC1) subset or

An important hallmark of cancer is the ability to evade the immune system. Genetic mutations may result in the accumulation of tumor antigens, however, downregulation of antigen presentation in tumor cells results in decreased immunogenicity and immune surveillance evasion. Recently, we demonstrated that enforced expression of PU.1, IRF8 and BATF3 (PIB) imposes a conventional dendritic cell type 1