Human dental pulp contains precursor cells termed dental pulp stem cells (DPSC) that show self-renewal and multilineage differentiation and also secrete multiple proangiogenic and antiapoptotic factors. To examine whether these cells could have therapeutic potential in the repair of myocardial infarction (MI), DPSC were infected with a retrovirus encoding the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and expanded ex vivo. Seven days after induction of myocardial infarction by coronary artery ligation, 1.5 ؋ 10 6 GFP-DPSC were injected intramyocardially in nude rats. At 4 weeks, cell-treated animals showed an improvement in cardiac function, observed by percentage changes in anterior wall thickening left ventricular fractional area change, in parallel with a reduction in infarct size. No histologic evidence was seen of GFP ؉ endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, or cardiac muscle cells within the infarct. However, angiogenesis was increased relative to control-treated animals. Taken together, these data suggest that DPSC could provide a novel alternative cell population for cardiac repair, at least in the setting of acute MI. STEM CELLS 2008;26:638 -645 Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.
The Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) approach is being used worldwide for nuclear power plants licensing. This method relies on the use of best estimate models to simulate sequences, evaluating the uncertainties involved. To assess these uncertainties, several methodologies have been developed such as the nonparametric Wilks/Wald method, parametric methods that reconstruct a distribution from the data, or the binomial approach. Additionally, sensitivity analyses can be performed to obtain the correlation of the output-inputs. Finally, a variability analysis of the most influential parameters made to find a combination of parameters that can lead to damage is also useful. In this paper, all previous techniques are described, studied and applied by performing a large Monte Carlo set of simulations of a loss of coolant accident in a pressurized water reactor assessing two figures of merit. The comparison of the different methods show that the most conservative is the Wilks/Wald method; the least conservative is the parametric approach, and in between, the binomial one. The impact of the sample size is also studied for all methods, showing different behaviors for the different approaches.
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