1,354,198 research outputs found
Interview with William Calandro - OH 720
No full textThis interview was conducted by Kennedy Lawrence with William “Bill” Calandro as part of Project 2020: A Collaborative Oral History. Calandro discusses his experience amid the COVID-19 pandemic and other events that transpired during the critical year of 2020 including workplace hurdles, vaccination, social unrest, education, and the 2020 election cycle. He also notes the significance of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as sheds light on the slow return to normalcy, particularly in relation to professional life and his decision to pursue graduate studies in History.
William Fredrick “Bill” Calandro (b. 1994), a native of Tampa, Florida, is a M.A. student and graduate assistant in the Department of History at Winthrop University. He currently resides in Columbia, SC.
Spearheaded by Dr. O. Jennifer Dixon-McKnight, Assistant Professor of History and African American studies, the project is best summarized in her words: “The goal was to conduct interviews that explored the various ways in which Americans were experiencing and being impacted by the various watershed moments that emerged during 2020 (the global pandemic, social unrest, financial challenges, issues with healthcare, etc.).https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/oralhistoryprogram/1638/thumbnail.jp
Intermittent training and improvement of anthropometric parameters and aerobic capacity in youth football
No full textOptimal football training, among many targets, should allow both the improvement of the maximum oxygen intake (VO2max), as well as the body mass index or BMI. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology of intermittent training, in terms of a significant improvement in the performance of the players involved in the study. The study is useful for trainers to reorganize training planning and adapt it to individual players. The method is experimental and involves the usual parameters for performance monitoring. There were 17 young amateur footballers, aged between 16 and 17, who participated in the regional under-17 championship this year. Data were collected over the course of twelve weeks. They were expressed as average ± SD for: height (176.1 ± 8.45), weight (63.3 ± 12.7) and body mass index (20.2 ± 2.5). Gacon intermittent field test was used to determine the VO2max. Statistical data analysis was performed with the t-test to check the differences between pre-test and post-test (at the beginning and end of three months of specific training). Significant differences were fixed at p < .05. Results show that there is a significant difference in performance between pre and post-workout for tests conducted
Development of liposome-based drug delivery system to improve drug-like properties and anticancer activity of tyrosine kinase inhibitors with pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidine structure.
No full textCancer is a multifactorial disease whose causes are still unknown. Frequently, mutations in several genes play an important role in cellular growth processes and, based on their specific roles, they are usually distinguished in proto-oncogenes and oncosuppressors. One of the most studied oncogenes is c-Src, encoding for a non-receptor tyrosine kinase protein that plays a multitude of roles in cell signalling. The activation of c-Src is involved in the control of many functions, including cell adhesion, growth, movement, and differentiation by a different set of cell surface receptors. c-Src is found to be over- expressed and mutationally activated in a wide variety of human cancers. Moreover, c- Src may have an influence on the development of the metastatic phenotype.
Significant progresses in the understanding of cancer biology have prompted extensive research within novel classes of anticancer drugs. A number of tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting the c-Src tyrosine kinase (as well as related tyrosine kinases) have been developed for therapeutic use.
4-aminopyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidines compounds were firstly used as c-Src family kinases (SFKs) inhibitors in 1996 but later demonstrated to inhibit all SFKs members with IC50 values in the low nanomolar range. These compounds have been extensively used for studying the biological pathways of SFKs and, even though they are a class of promising anti-tumor compounds because of their good activity against several cancer cell lines, these molecules showed a poor aqueous solubility, limiting them as clinical drug candidates. In the continuing effort to find new anticancer agents, our group conducted large studies on a series of new c-Src inhibitors with a pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidine scaffold.
The aim of this thesis was to improve the solubility profile and the pharmacokinetic properties of selected compounds, chosen on the base of their inhibitory activity on c- Src. To overcome the poor water solubility of these molecules, pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidines compounds were encapsulated in liposomes formulations. Liposomes were prepared and characterized for size, ζ potential distribution and polydispersity index (PDI) by dynamic light scattering in order to obtain a homogeneous population of small unilamellar vesicles (SUV); subsequently, fluorescent liposomes were prepared to assess the ability of liposomes to interact with neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) and glioblastoma (U87) cells by confocal microscopy; finally, encapsulation efficiency and activity by cellular assays were studied to determine cytotoxicity, showing that
liposomes loaded with pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidine compounds determine a cytotoxic effect in SH-SY5Y (Neuroblastoma) or U87 (Glioblastoma) cell line equal to or higher than the free compound solubilised in DMSO. Moreover, biodistribution of liposomes loaded with pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidine was evaluated in male Sprague Dawley rats after 24h of treatment. Altogether, the obtained data strongly indicate that the encapsulation of pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidine compounds in liposomes represent an effective method to improve the biodistribution of pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidines and attribute a therapeutic efficacy to this novel formulation.
During my Ph.D. period, I also focused on the study of active targeting of liposomes against tumor areas that overexpress plasmin. The plasminogen/plasmin system plays a key role in tumor development and, in particular, in progression and metastasis. The aim of my project was to functionalize the surface of stealth liposomes encapsulating pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidines with a peptide able to bind plasmin. Since plasmin is overexpressed in tumor areas, the bond between plasmin and the peptide in liposomes surface would lead to a destabilization of the liposomes and consequently to a greater drug release in the tumor site. The obtained liposomes were characterized after purification evaluating the size, the ζ potential distribution, the polydispersity index (PDI) and the encapsulation efficiency (EE). Furthermore, several tests to quantify the peptide bound to liposomes were performed, unfortunately with poor results. Moreover, peptide-bearing fluorescent liposomes were also prepared and tested on hepatocarcinoma cell line HepG2 to investigate any change in the cellular uptake. In addition, cytotoxicity assays on HepG2 cells were performed to test the efficacy of liposomes conjugated with the peptide with respect to non-conjugated liposomes, both encapsulating the selected compounds. Liposomes functionalized with the peptide resulted more stable and with better physicochemical properties than non-functionalized liposomes. Furthermore, confocal microscopy of fluorescent liposomes highlighted the ability of liposomes with the peptide to penetrate in hepatocarcinoma cells after 1h of treatment with respect to non-functionalized liposomes, not able to be internalized after the same time. Finally, cytotoxicity data showed that liposomes with the peptide have lower IC50 values than non-functionalized liposomes.
In conclusion, data obtained showed that it was obtained a good functionalized liposomal formulation able to be recognized by hepatocarcinoma cells secreting
plasmin. Further in vivo tests will be performed to study the ability of these liposomes to release the compound in tumor areas over-expressing plasmin
Relationship between nurse staffing and nursing outcomes: a narrative review of literature
No full textThree workouts compared: interval training, intermittent training and steady state training for the improvement of VO2 max and BMI
No full textGoing Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Quality of life and disability assessment in neuropathy: a multicenter study
No full textBACKGROUND: pain is a common symptom of peripheral neuropathies that may severely affect patients' Quality of Life. Pain questionnaires, based on verbal descriptors, are a useful way to investigate it.
METHODS: we performed a multicentre study through validated measures to characterize pain in a sample of consecutive patients affected by immune-mediated neuropathies.
RESULTS: ninety-three patients were enrolled in 16 Italian centres. Based on the numeric rating scale, almost half of the patients complained of moderate pain and one-third of the patients severe pain. Overall, up to 50% of our patients with immune-mediated neuropathies complained of neuropathic pain. The most common neuropathic symptoms were paraesthesia/dysesthesia and superficial spontaneous pain. Surprisingly, also patients with neuropathies commonly thought to be painless (such as multifocal motor neuropathy) reported discomfort and painful symptoms.
CONCLUSIONS: pain questionnaires should be considered in the clinical evaluation of immune-mediated neuropathies, also when evaluating therapy efficacy, because they may provide clinicians with useful information on painful symptoms and patients' quality of life
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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