Beta-galactosidase-labelled relay neurons of homotopic olfactory bulb transplants establish proper afferent and efferent synaptic connections with host neurons

The vertebrate olfactory system has long been an attractive model for studying neuronal regeneration and adaptive plasticity due to the continuous neurogenesis and synaptic remodelling throughout adult life in primary and secondary olfactory centres, its precisely ordered synaptic network and accessibility for manipulation. After homotopic transplantation of fetal olfactory bulbs in bulbectomized neonatal rodents, newly regenerated olfactory neurons form glomeruli within the graft, and the efferent mitral/tufted cells of the transplant innervate the host brain, terminating in higher olfactory centres. However, the synaptic connections of the transplanted relay neurons within the graft and/or host's olfactory centres could not be characterized mainly because of lack of suitable cell-specific markers for these neurons. In this study, we have used olfactory bulbs from transgenic fetuses, in which the majority of the mitral/tufted cells express the bacterial enzyme beta-galactosidase, for homotopic olfactory bulb transplantation following complete unilateral bulbectomy. In the transplants, the cell bodies and terminals of the donor mitral/tufted cells were identified by beta-galactosidase histochemistry and immunocytochemistry at both light and electron microscope levels. We demonstrate that transplanted relay neurons re-establish specific synaptic connections with host neurons of the periphery, source of the primary signal and central nervous system, thereby providing the basis for a functional recovery in the lesioned olfactory system.     

The Effect of the Ionizing Radiation on Hydroxyapatite–Polydimethylsiloxane Layers

The bio hydroxyapatite (HAp) was used from a long time in different medical and environmental applications. The HAp layers with a uniform surface were used for various medical applications such as orthopedic and dental metal implants. In this work, we reported on the influence of X‐ray radiation on the structural and morphological properties of composite layers based on HAp and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) deposited on titanium substrates. The HAp:PDMS layers were investigated by different complementary methods such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and glow discharge optical emission spectrometry (GDOES). FTIR spectral analysis showed that the molecular structure of the coatings was not changed after their irradiation even though, the depth profile analysis performed by GDOES indicated a depletion of Ca and P elements from the HAp:PDMS irradiated samples. By SEM, we showed that the morphological features of the coatings were also changed, as the irradiated layers are delaminated. The biological assays confirmed that the antibacterial activity of HAp:PDMS composite layers increased after irradiation. The results obtained in this study highlighted that the biological properties of HAp:PDMS layers could be influenced by irradiation. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:2406–2412, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Fine-Grain Interoperability of Scientific Workflows in Distributed Computing Infrastructures

Today there exist a wide variety of scientific workflow management systems, each designed to fulfill the needs of a certain scientific community. Unfortunately, once a workflow application has been designed in one particular system it becomes very hard to share it with users working with different systems. Portability of workflows and interoperability between current systems barely exists. In this work, we present the fine-grained interoperability solution proposed in the SHIWA European project that brings together four representative European workflow systems: ASKALON, MOTEUR, WS-PGRADE, and Triana. The proposed interoperability is realised at two levels of abstraction: abstract and concrete. At the abstract level, we propose a generic Interoperable Workflow Intermediate Representation (IWIR) that can be used as a common bridge for translating workflows between different languages independent of the underlying distributed computing infrastructure. At the concrete level, we propose a bundling technique that aggregates the abstract IWIR representation and concrete task representations to enable workflow instantiation, execution and scheduling. We illustrate case studies using two real-workflow applications designed in a native environment and then translated and executed by a foreign workflow system in a foreign distributed computing infrastructure.