Inflammation and trauma lead to enhanced pain sensitivity (hyperalgesia), which is in part due to altered sensory processing in the spinal cord. The synaptic hypothesis of hyperalgesia, which postulates that hyperalgesia is induced by the activity-dependent long-term potentiation (LTP) in the spinal cord, has been challenged, because in previous studies of pain pathways, LTP was experimentally induced by nerve stimulation at high frequencies ( approximately 100 hertz). This does not, however, resemble the real low-frequency afferent barrage that occurs during inflammation. We identified a synaptic amplifier at the origin of an ascending pain pathway that is switched-on by low-level activity in nociceptive nerve fibers. This model integrates known signal transduction pathways of hyperalgesia without contradiction.

The objective of this study is to evaluate multidetector CT (MDCT) in detecting and characterizing anomalous coronary arteries. Forty-four patients with anomalies of the coronaries were selected from a total of 1758 individuals examined with ECG-gated 4- and 16-row MDCT including thinMIP, MPR and VRT post-processing. Twenty-eight patients showed origin and course anomalies of the central coronary segments, and in this subgroup 13 were judged as "malignant" because of interarterial courses between the aortic root and the pulmonary trunk, either of the right coronary artery (n=11) or the left coronary artery (n=2). Twelve non-hemodynamic anomalies were found, affecting the coronary origins only (n=10) or the peripheral vessels courses (n=2). Four arteriovenous fistulas were present, all of them with complex arterial feeders. Regardless of vessel anatomy, coronary opacification was always possible by means of the systemic contrast agent, and the aberrant coronary arteries were visualized synoptically in direct relation to the great mediastinal vessels. In contrast to MDCT, selective cannulation and final diagnosis was possible in only 11 of the 20 catheter angiograms performed (accuracy of 55.0%). In conclusion, its non-invasiveness and precise visualization makes MDCT the standard of reference for evaluating anomalous coronary arteries.

E d it o r s : Fr é d é r ic Th ie s s e • fr e der i c .t hie s se @uni sg.c h Fl o r i a n M ic h a h e ll e s • fmi c ha he l le s@et hz .c h The advancement of ubiquitous computing technologies, 1 such as wireless networks and mobile devices, has greatly increased the availability of digital information and services in our daily lives and changed how we access and use them. Another technology that extends digital resources to the real world is the Internet of Things, 2 which connects such resources with everyday objects by augmenting the latter with RFID or Near Field Communication (NFC) tags. 3 This way, real-world objects get digital identities and can then be integrated into a network and associated with digital information or services. These objects can facilitate access to digital resources and support interaction with them -for example, through mobile devices that feature technologies for discovering, capturing, and using information from tagged objects.Physical mobile interaction (PMI) 4,5 takes advantage of mobile devices that physically interact with tagged objects to facilitate interaction with associated information and services. Simply by touching or pointing at objects, users can interact with them -for example, touching NFC tags or taking pictures of visual markers with their mobile phones. Due to its increased simplicity and directness, physical interaction can make mobile interaction with "people, places, and things" 6 more convenient and intuitive. Tagged objects can serve as physical user interfacesThe advancement of ubiquitous computing technologies has greatly improved the availability of digital resources in the real world. Here, the authors investigate mobile interaction with tagged, everyday objects and associated information that's based on the Internet of Things and its technologies. Their framework for integrating Web services and mobile interaction with physical objects relies on information typing to increase interoperability. Two prototypes for mobile interaction with smart posters build upon this framework to realize multi-tag interaction with physical user interfaces. The authors' evaluation identifies usability issues regarding the design of physical mobile interactions, interfaces, and applications. An increasing number of applications are adopting mobile interaction with tagged objects for service discovery and invocation, information retrieval, ticketing, or mobile payment. Tagging technologies' advancement and increasing dissemination have facilitated a movement from the original, simple interactions with single tags to more complex multitag interaction (MTI) 7,8 with multiple tags and objects (Figure 1), shifting interaction's focus from mobile devices to tagged objects serving as physical user interfaces, respectively.To leverage mobile interaction with physical objects and digital resources from, for example, the Internet of Things, the Pervasive Service Interaction (Perci) project (see www.hcilab.org/ projects/perci) has examined different aspects of PMI. It ha...

High-level ab initio calculations (MP4sdtq/6-31 l+G**//MP2/6-31G*) predict classical stmctures for monomeric lithioborane and the dimethyl, diamino, and difluoro derivatives. A structure with the lithium cation bridging one boron oxygen bond is computed as the most stable structure for dihydroxylithioborane. For this compound, an "inverted" structure is indicated to be viable. The singlet state of the boryl anion is only marginally more stable than the triplet at levels up to CCSD(T)/6-311 +G(3df,2pd), but interaction with a lithium cation stabilizes the singlet more than the triplet by about 20 kcal/mol. Reaction of lithioboranes with formaldehyde, as a model for carbonyl compounds, is predicted to proceed via nucleophilic attack of the boryl anion moiety, through a very early transition structure, to give a B-C-O three-membered-ring product.

Our preliminary results show that brain MR imaging complemented by a black bone sequence is a promising nonionizing alternative to head CT for the assessment of skull fractures in children. However, accuracy in the detection of linear fractures in young children and fractures of aerated bone remains limited.