Bone regeneration with adipose derived stem cells in a rabbit model

It has been shown that stem cells are able to calcify both in vitro and in vivo once implanted under the skin, if conveniently differentiated. Nowadays, however, a study on their efficiency in osseous regeneration does not exist in scientific literature and this very task is the real aim of the present experimentation. Five different defects of 6 mm in diameter and 2 mm in depth were created in the calvaria of 8 white New Zealand rabbits. Four defects were regenerated using 2 different conveniently modified scaffolds(Bio-Oss Block and Bio-Oss Collagen, Geistlich),with and without the aid of stem cells. After the insertion, the part was covered with a collagen membrane fixed by 5 modified titan pins(Altapin). The defect in the front was left empty on purpose as an internal control to each animal.Two animals were sacrificed respectively after 2, 4, 6, 10 weeks. The samples were evaluated with micro-CT and histological analysis. Micro-CT analysis revealed that the quantity of new bone for samples with Bio-Oss Block and stem cells was higher than for samples with Bio-Oss Block alone. Histological analysis showed that regeneration occurred in an optimal way in every sample treated with scaffolds. The findings indicated that the use of adult stem cells combined with scaffolds accelerated some steps in normal osseous regeneration.

The role of defects association in structural and transport properties of the Ce_(1-x)(Nd_(0.74)Tm_(0.26))_xO_(2-x/2) system

An experimental investigation of the crystallographic,Raman and transport properties of the Ce_(1-x)(Nd_(0.74)Tm_(0.26))_xO_(2-x/2)(0.1≤x≤0.6) doped ceria system was performed with the aim of setting out correlations between structural features and ionic conductivity of the material.The chosen composition ensures that the average size of the Nd^(3+) and Tm^(3+) doping ions coincides with the one of Sm^(3+);even so,the studied system presents larger cell parameters and a wider compositional extent of the CeO_(2)-based solid solution than Sm-doped ceria.Moreover,the occurrence of two different activation energies to ionic conduction below and above ~750 K determines the existence of two distinct conduction regimes.The described experimental results agree with the formation below the threshold temperature of1 V_O2 Tm'_(Ce) trimers,which promote the incorporation of Nd'_(Ce) isolated defects into the CeO_(2)-based solid solution.In the high temperature range the dissociation of trimers induces the appearance of a lower activation energy;the extrapolation of its value at infinite dilution provides a result in good accordance with the expected binding energy of 1 V_ORE'_(Ce) dimers,pointing at their stability even in the high temperature conduction regime.

Alterations in Low-Z Elements Distribution in Heart Tissue after Treatments to Breast Cancer Using LEXRF Technique

Data from Global Cancer Statistics show that breast cancer (BC) is the most common type of cancer among women, leading the number of deaths caused by cancer. The developments in diagnosis and treatment techniques for the BC, including chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, increased the survival rates for this type of cancer. One late complication induced by BC treatment is the cardiotoxicity. This term comprises different cardiotoxic side effects, which include blood pressure alterations, myocardial ischemia, congestive heart failure and other damages. This study aimed to evaluate the cardiac alterations induced by radiotherapy and chemotherapy, simulating a treatment for BC in Wistar rats. It is, therefore, important to understand the mechanisms involved in the cardiotoxicity, in order to prevent women from this late effect, when they undergo BC treatments. The major interests in this work are in Low atomic weight elements as Sodium, because it is strongly related to cardiomyocyte contraction;Magnesium, because it is important in the cardiac metabolism;and Iron, because BC treatment induced cardiotoxicity can be associated to the oxidative stress. Changes that occur in unhealthy tissues in case to cardiovascular damages can be better understood when elemental compounds and structures of healthy tissues are known. Low Energy X-ray Fluorescence (LEXRF) technique was used to obtain elemental maps of low Z-elements providing a semi-quantitative analysis of the tissues evaluated under different conditions. Through the technique LEXRF we obtained elemental and absorption maps. The results showed more damages when associating chemotherapy and radiotherapy in comparison to myocardium healthy. Those images taken together with light microscopy, X-ray absorption and phase contrast images, satisfactorily characterize the cardiac tissue for the first time in the literature, from the structural and morphological points of view. LEXRF was carried out at TwinMic beamline in the ELETTRA Synchrotron Fa-cility, at the beamline TwinMic, in Trieste, Italy.

How the optical timing system,the longitudinal diagnostics and the associated feedback systems provide femtosecond stable operation at the FERMI free electron laser

FERMI, the seeded free electron laser(FEL) in operation in Italy, is providing the User Community with unique fully coherent radiation, in the wavelength range 100–4 nm. FERMI is the first FEL fully synchronized by means of optical fibers. The optical timing system ensures an ultra-stable phase reference to its distributed clients. Several femtosecond longitudinal diagnostics verify the achieved performance; the bunch length monitor(BLM) and the bunch arrival monitor(BAM) will be presented in this paper. Feedback systems play a crucial role to guarantee the needed longterm electron beam stability. A real-time infrastructure allows shot-to-shot communication between front-end computers and the servers. Orbit feedbacks are useful in machine tuning, whereas longitudinal feedbacks control electron energy,compression and arrival time. A flexible software framework allows a rapid implementation of heterogeneous multiinput–multi-output(MIMO) longitudinal loops simply by selecting the appropriate sensors and actuators.

There is life after coking for Ir nanocatalyst superlattices

Achieving superior performance of nanoparticle systems is one of the biggest challenges in catalysis.Two major phenomena,occurring during the reactions,hinder the development of the full potential of nanoparticle catalysts:sintering and contamination with carbon containing species,sometimes called coking.Here,we demonstrate that Ir nanocrystals,arranged into periodic networks on hexagonal boron nitride(h-BN)supports,can be restored without sintering after contamination by persistent carbon.This restoration yields the complete removal of carbon from the nanocrystals,which keep their crystalline structure,allowing operation without degradation.These findings,together with the possibility of fine tuning the nanocrystals size,confer this nanoparticle system a great potential as a testbed to extract key information about catalysis-mediated oxidation reactions.For the case of the CO oxidation by O2,reaction of interest in environmental science and green energy production,the existence of chemical processes not observed before in other nanoparticle systems is demonstrated.

Transient measurement of phononic states with covariance-based stochastic spectroscopy

We present a novel approach to transient Raman spectroscopy,which combines stochastic probe pulses and a covariance-based detection to measure stimulated Raman signals in alpha-quartz.A coherent broadband pump is used to simultaneously impulsively excite a range of different phonon modes,and the phase,amplitude,and energy of each mode are independently recovered as a function of the pump-probe delay by a noisy-probe and covariance-based analysis.Our experimental results and the associated theoretical description demonstrate the feasibility of 2D-Raman experiments based on the stochastic-probe schemes,with new capabilities not available in equivalent mean-value-based 2D-Raman techniques.This work unlocks the gate for nonlinear spectroscopies to capitalize on the information hidden within the noise and overlooked by a mean-value analysis.

Non-linear self-driven spectral tuning of Extreme Ultraviolet Femtosecond Pulses in monoatomic materials

Self-action nonlinearity is a key aspect either as a foundational element or a detrimental factor of several optical spectroscopies and photonic devices.Supercontinuum generation,wavelength converters,and chirped pulse amplification are just a few examples.The recent advent of Free Electron Lasers(FEL)fostered building on nonlinearity to propose new concepts and extend optical wavelengths paradigms for extreme ultraviolet(EUV)and X-ray regimes.No evidence for intrapulse dynamics,however,has been reported at such short wavelengths,where the light-matter interactions are ruled by the sharp absorption edges of core electrons.Here,we provide experimental evidence for self-phase modulation of femtosec ond FEL pulses,which we exploit for fine self-driven spectral tun ability by interaction with sub-micrometric foils of selected monoatomic materials.Moving the pulse wavelength across the absorption edge,the spectral profile changes from a non-linear spectral blue-shift to a red-shifted broadening.These findings are rationalized account!ng for ultrafast ionization and delayed thermal response of highly excited electrons above and below threshold,respectively.

Modeling of ultrafast X-ray induced magnetization dynamics in magnetic multilayer systems

In this work,we report on modeling results obtained with our recently developed simulation tool enabling nanoscopic description of electronic processes in X-ray irradiated ferromagnetic materials.With this tool,we have studied the response of Co/Pt multilayer system irradiated by an ultrafast extreme ultraviolet pulse at the M-edge of Co(photon energy~60 eV).It was previously investigated experimentally at the FERMI free-electron-laser facility,using the magnetic small-angle X-ray scattering technique.Our simulations show that the magnetic scattering signal from cobalt decreases on femtosecond timescales due to electronic excitation,relaxation,and transport processes both in the cobalt and in the platinum layers,following the trend observed in the experimental data.The confirmation of the predominant role of electronic processes for X-ray induced demagnetization in the regime below the structural damage threshold is a step toward quantitative control and manipulation of X-ray induced magnetic processes on femtosecond timescales.