Morphofunctional Changes in Oral Mucosa Vessels when Healing a Wound Defect Using a Polymer Membrane

This works aims to study morphofunctional changes in the vessels of the oral mucosa during regeneration of a wound defect with and without a polymer membrane.An experiment was carried out on 35 white Wistar rats divided into three groups: control, experimental 1 and experimental 2. To form a wound defect, a flap of the oral mucosa was excised, which was covered by a polymeric piezoelectric membrane in the rats of group 2. Histological examination was carried out on the 3rd, 7th and 12th days: the control material was taken, histological preparations were made according to the standard method. In the lesion focus and surrounding tissues, specific areas and numerical densities of arterioles, venules and capillaries were determined; the pericapillary diffusion index, Kernogan index and arterio-venular ratio were calculated.On the 3rd day, all indicators in all experimental groups did not significantly differ from each other, but had significant differences from the control group. On the 7th day of the study, in the 1st group, the numerical density of open arterioles and venules corresponded to the control group. In group 2, the numerical density of capillaries and altered venules, as well as the index of pericapillary diffusion, significantly differed from the control. On the 12th day of the study, the numerical density of open venules reached control values in the uncoated group. In the 2nd group, all indicators corresponded to the control values.Protection of the wound defect from microbial contamination and re-traumatization, the presence of piezoelectric properties of the membrane under study contributed to a more effective restoration of vessels. This confirms the efficacy of the membrane under study when used as a wound covering.

D* from diffusion MRI reveals a correspondence between ventricular cerebrospinal fluid volume and flow in the ischemic rodent model

Quantitative measurement of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow and volume and longitudinal monitoring of CSF dynamics provide insights into the compensatory characteristics of post-stroke CSF. In this study, we compared the MRI pseudo-diffusion index ( D*) of live and sacrificed rat brains to confirm the effect of ventricular CSF flow on diffusion signals. We observed the relationship between the CSF peak velocities and D* through Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to further understand the source of D* contrast. We also determined the dominant CSF flow using D* in three directions. Finally, we investigated the dynamic evolutions of ventricular CSF flow and volume in a stroke rat model ( n = 8) from preoperative to up to 45 days after surgery and determined the correlation between ventricular CSF volume and flow. MC simulations showed a strong positive correlation between the CSF peak velocity and D* ( r = 0.99). The dominant CSF flow variations in the 3D ventricle could be measured using the maximum D* map. A longitudinal positive correlation between ventricular CSF volume and D* was observed in the lateral ( r = 0.74) and ventral-third ( r = 0.81) ventricles, respectively. The directional D* measurements provide quantitative CSF volume and flow information, which would provide useful insights into ischemic stroke with diffusion MRI.

Impact of Atmospheric Optical Properties on Net Ecosystem Productivity of Peatland in Poland

Peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle due to the high carbon storage in the substrate. Ecosystem production depends, for example, on the solar energy amount that reaches the vegetation, however the diffuse component of this flux can substantially increase ecosystem net productivity. This phenomenon is observed in different ecosystems, but the study of the atmosphere optical properties on peatland production is lacking. In this paper, the presented methodology allowed us to disentangle the diffuse radiation impact on the net ecosystem production (NEP) of Rzecin peatland, Poland. It allowed us to assess the impact of the atmospheric scattering process determined by the aerosol presence in the air mass. An application of atmospheric radiation transfer (ART) and ecosystem production (EP) models showed that the increase of aerosol optical thickness from 0.09 to 0.17 caused NEP to rise by 3.4–5.7%. An increase of the diffusion index (DI) by 0.1 resulted in an NEP increase of 6.1–42.3%, while a DI decrease of 0.1 determined an NEP reduction of −49.0 to −10.5%. These results show that low peatland vegetation responds to changes in light scattering. This phenomenon should be taken into account when calculating the global CO2 uptake estimation of such ecosystems.

Analysis of the Dissemination Index of the Information of the Different Players of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in the Valencian Community

The main objective of this research is to calculate the diffusion index of entrepreneurship to the different actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. For this, 57 organizations, both private and public, belonging to the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Valencian community have been analyzed. Among the results are stresses the importance of the optimal use of information and communication technology in current and future generations, as well as the dissemination of entrepreneurship. In addition, the best practices carried out by the different agents of the entrepreneurial ecosystem have been identified.

Prosociality in the economic Dictator Game is associated with less parochialism and greater willingness to vote for intergroup compromise

Is prosociality parochial or universalist? To shed light on this issue, we examine the relationship between the amount of money given to a stranger (giving in an incentivized Dictator Game) and intergroup attitudes and behavior in the context of randomly assigned teams (a minimal group paradigm) among N = 4,846 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. Using a set of Dynamic Identity Diffusion Index measures, we find that participants who give more in the Dictator Game show less preferential identification with their team relative to the other team, and more identification with all participants regardless of team. Furthermore, in an incentivized Voter Game, participants who give more in the Dictator Game are more likely to support compromise by voting for the opposing team in order to avoid deadlock. Together, these results suggest that – at least in this subject pool and using these measures – prosociality is better characterized by universalism than parochialism.