Cranioplasty: why throw the bone flap out?

Patients who undergo decompressive craniectomy for intracranial hypertension often require interval cranioplasty. Many cranioplasty agents are currently in use. The authors suggest that storage of the patient's own bone flap in the subcutaneous tissue of the abdominal wall, is a safe, efficacious and cost-effective alternative to use of synthetic cranioplasty materials.

Vasodilator-Stimulated Phosphoprotein Regulates Inside-Out Signaling of beta(2) Integrins in Neutrophils

The monomeric GTPase Rap1 controls functional activation of beta2 integrins in leukocytes. In this article, we describe a novel mechanism by which the chemoattractant fMLP activates Rap1 and inside-out signaling of beta2 integrins. We found that fMLP-induced activation of Rap1 in human polymorphonuclear leukocytes or neutrophils and differentiated PLB-985 cells was blocked by inhibitors of the NO/guanosine-3',5'-cyclic monophosphate-dependent protein kinase (cGKI) pathway [N-(3-(aminomethyl)benzyl)acetamidine, 1H-[1,2,4]oxadiazolo[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one, DT-3 peptide, 8-(4-chlorophenylthio)guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphothioate, Rp-isomer triethylammonium salt-guanosine-3',5'-cyclic monophosphate], indicating that the downstream signaling events in Rap1 activation involve the production of NO and guanosine-3',5'-cyclic monophosphate, as well as the activation of cGKI. Silencing the expression of vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP), a substrate of cGKI, in resting PLB-985 cells or mice neutrophils led to constitutive activation of Rap1. In parallel, silencing VASP in differentiated PLB-985 cells led to recruitment of C3G, a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Rap1, to the plasma membrane. Expression of murine GFP-tagged phosphodeficient VASP Ser235Ala mutant (murine serine 235 of VASP corresponds to human serine 239) in PLB-985 cells blunted fMLP-induced translocation of C3G to the membrane and activation of Rap1. Thus, bacterial fMLP triggers cGKI-dependent phosphorylation of human VASP on serine 239 and, thereby, controls membrane recruitment of C3G, which is required for activation of Rap1 and beta2 integrin-dependent antibacterial functions of neutrophils.

Security governance in transition: The compartmentalising, crowding out and corralling of policing and security in Northern Ireland

The article suggests that while the report of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP) provides a police reform blueprint for Northern Ireland and elsewhere, it can also be seen as an attempt to engage more elliptically with contemporary debates in security governance vis-a-vis the increasingly fragmented nature of late-modern policing and the role of the state. A decade into the reform process in Northern Ireland and in spite of the networked approach postulated by the ICP, the public police continue to enjoy a pre-eminent place and little evidence exists of any significant weakening of state steering and rowing of security. The discussion proposes a tentative typology explaining the continued colonization of security spaces by the State using constituent attendant processes of compartmentalizing, crowding out and corralling.

Getting off the escalator? A study of Scots out-migration from a global city region

Something new is happening to reverse the historical trend of skilled Scots moving to London for career progression. The Scottish population of London and the South East is falling and this despite Scots enjoying continued occupational success within the South East labour market. The authors ask why Scots are leaving the UK's main escalator region and then investigate how these migration changes can best be theorised relative to literature on the mobility of the 'new service class'. Building on Fielding's escalator region hypothesis, the authors report on recent research on longer distance flows out of the UK's main escalator region. They advance the critique of the escalator region hypothesis set out by Findlay et al and ask why people would leave a global city offering good opportunities for occupational mobility. Demographic regime change provides only a partial answer. Other explanations can be found in the changing mobilities of the new service class as they engage in what Smith has defined as 'translocal' and 'transnational' urbanism. The authors argue that Scotland's changing relationship with London and the South East may be representative of a wider set of changes in migration linkages between regional economies and global cities.

Out of tune: the dangers of aligning proxy archives

Tuning is a widespread technique to combine, date and interpret multiple fossil proxy archives through aligning supposedly synchronous events between the archives. The approach will be reviewed by discussing a number of literature examples, ranging from peat and tephra layers to orbital tuning and d¹⁸O series from marine and ice deposits. Potential problems will be highlighted such as the dangers of circular reasoning and unrecognised chronological uncertainties, and some solutions suggested. Fossil proxy research could become enhanced if tuning were approached in a more quantitative, reliable and objective way, and especially if individual proxy archives were non-tuned and kept on independent time-scales.

Out-of-field cell survival following exposure to intensity-modulated radiation fields

PURPOSE:
To determine the in-field and out-of-field cell survival of cells irradiated with either primary field or scattered radiation in the presence and absence of intercellular communication.
METHODS AND MATERIALS:
Cell survival was determined by clonogenic assay in human prostate cancer (DU145) and primary fibroblast (AGO1552) cells following exposure to different field configurations delivered using a 6-MV photon beam produced with a Varian linear accelerator.
RESULTS:
Nonuniform dose distributions were delivered using a multileaf collimator (MLC) in which half of the cell population was shielded. Clonogenic survival in the shielded region was significantly lower than that predicted from the linear quadratic model. In both cell lines, the out-of-field responses appeared to saturate at 40%-50% survival at a scattered dose of 0.70 Gy in DU-145 cells and 0.24 Gy in AGO1522 cells. There was an approximately eightfold difference in the initial slopes of the out-of-field response compared with the a-component of the uniform field response. In contrast, cells in the exposed part of the field showed increased survival. These observations were abrogated by direct physical inhibition of cellular communication and by the addition of the inducible nitric oxide synthase inhibitor aminoguanidine known to inhibit intercellular bystander effects. Additional studies showed the proportion of cells irradiated and dose delivered to the shielded and exposed regions of the field to impact on response.
CONCLUSIONS:
These data demonstrate out-of-field effects as important determinants of cell survival following exposure to modulated irradiation fields with cellular communication between differentially irradiated cell populations playing an important role. Validation of these observations in additional cell models may facilitate the refinement of existing radiobiological models and the observations considered important determinants of cell survival.