2,304 research outputs found
Non ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome presenting with ST-segment elevation in aVR and dual antiplatelet therapy
No full textFactors influencing the length of the incision and the operating time for total thyroidectomy
No full textBackground: The incision used for thyroid surgery has become shorter over time, from the classical 10 cm long Kocher incision to the shortest 15 mm access achieved with Minimally Invasive Video-Assisted Thyroidectomy. This rather large interval encompasses many different possible technical choices, even if we just consider open surgery. The aim of the study was to assess the correlation between incision length and operation duration with a set of biometric and clinical factors and establish a rationale for the decision on the length of incision in open surgery. Methods: Ninety-seven consecutive patients scheduled for total thyroidectomy were prospectively evaluated. All operations were performed by the same team and the surgeon decided the length of the incision according to his personal judgement. Patients who had previously undergone neck surgery were excluded. Results: The length of the incision was strongly correlated with gender, thyroid volume, neck circumference and clinical diagnosis and weakly correlated with the body mass index. Operation duration was only weakly correlated with gender and neck circumference. Multiple linear regression revealed that the set of factors assessed explained almost 60 % of the variance in incision length but only 20 % of the variance in operation duration. When patients were classified according to the distribution of their thyroid volume, cases within one standard deviation of the mean did not show a significant difference in terms of operation duration with incisions of various lengths. Conclusions: Although thyroid volume was a major factor in driving the decision with respect to the length of the incision, our study shows that it had only minor effect on the duration of the operation. Many more open thyroidectomies could therefore be safely performed with shorter incisions, especially in women. Duration of the operation is probably more closely linked to the inherent technical difficulty of each case
"The love that made hell, paradise." Ouida re-writing the Paolo and Francesca theme in Held in Bondage
No full textThe bestselling Victorian author Ouida reveals in her novels, and, in particular, Held in Bondage, an extraordinary knowledge od Dante, by using characters and themes from the Commedia. The Paolo and Francesca theme actually constitutes part of the plot of the novel and is to be found in many of her other works, short stories and non-fiction writing
HERStory Makers 2023: Francesca Fotheringham
No full textFrancesca Fotheringham is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Edinburgh studying educational psychology with a focus on neurodiversity. She took part in HERStory Makers 2023.What is HERStory Makers?HERStory Makers is a social media competition for female-identifying early career researchers to share their research, their career journeys, and to inspire the next generation. Winners are selected by public vote. HERStory Makers is also part of EXPLORATHON, Scotland's contribution to European Researchers' Night.In 2022-23, EXPLORATHON Francescasupported by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/X020762/1].Author contributions to contentFrancesca conceived, planned, and recorded the video content. Kirsty Ross edited the video content to insert HERStory Maker credits, added subtitles, and reduce video length to below Twitter/X limit of 2 mins and 20 secs.</p
Medicina illuminata. La Biblioteca Lancisiana di Roma
No full textL'articolo presenta i codici miniati della Biblioteca Lancisiana di Roma. La prima parte, del coautore, è dedicata alla Biblioteca. La seconda parte, di F. Manzari, tratta dei manoscritti miniati, costituiti da due codici con le opere di Avicenna e dal Liber fraternitatis della Confraternita dell'Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia a Roma.The article introduces the illuminated manuscripts of the Biblioteca Lancisiana in Rome. The first part of the article, by the co-author, is dedicated to the Library. The second part, by Francesca Manzari, illustrates the manuscipts; these are two manuscripts with the works of Avicenna and the Liber fraternitatis of the Confraternity of the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome
Alpha-Linolenic acid and Linoleic acid in serum and tissues after flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum) oil in vivo administration
No full textEssential fatty acids can be helpful in the prevention of several pathologies. The bioavailability of acute supplementation of different doses of flaxseed oil was studied by analyzing the level of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA) in serum and tissues (adipose, liver) of rats tested at 2, 4, 8 and 16 h after the administration. The amount of flaxseed oil administered at increasing doses corresponded to 1, 2.5 and 5 g ALA/kg of body weight. The corresponding fatty acid methyl esters obtained via direct methylation were quantified using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Serum ALA level increased after 1 or 2.5 g/kg. ALA was increased in both adipose and liver tissue 4 h after the administration of 1 g/kg of flaxseed oil. There was no further increase by using a higher oil dosage. LA did not change in serum at the doses used
A DH-Leavened Musicological Toolbox
No full textGraduate-level training in music research methodologies tends to ignore digital humanities work and overlook the use of digital tools created in support of new forms of reading. Training instead focuses on source material in the student’s area of interest. This material includes secondary and primary (archival) resources, as well as information resources, such as: monuments of music and critical editions; indexes; bibliographies and thematic catalogs; dictionaries and encyclopedias; digital libraries of scores or editions; and databases of period-specific newspapers or journals. Graduate students taking research methods courses already have a toolbox built from their experiences as musicians and students of music, including the ability to read and interpret music notation, to understand theoretical and analytical concepts in music, as well as a command of music history, including the canon of musical works.
Digital humanities has become a major area of academic endeavor at the “interface of technological development, epistemological change and methodological concerns." An important characteristic of digital humanities research has been its interdisciplinarity. We argue that graduate training in musicology needs to include coverage of methodologies applied by digital humanists in support of new forms of reading, not only to broaden the canon of research topics in musicology, but also to build common ground with researchers of other disciplines. We propose that librarians are well positioned to provide this expertise and training
Flaxseed oil: acute and chronic supplementation increases serum and tissue concentrations of omega fatty acids in rats
No full textWe studied the bioavailability of acute supplementation of scalar doses of flaxseed oil by analysing the level of Linolenic acid (ALA, -3) and Linoleic acid (-6) in serum and tissues (adipose, liver and brain) of rats tested at 2-4-8-16 h after the administration. The amount of flaxseed oil administered by oral rate was 1.9, 4.7, 9.5 mL/kg corresponding to 1, 2.5, 5 g ALA/kg. Two techniques of lipid extraction were investigated to achieve maximal free fatty acids recovery in a reasonably short time. The corresponding fatty acid methyl esters obtained with direct methylation with MeOH/HCl, were quantified by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) technique. GC-MS analyses were performed on a Gas-Chromatograph Varian 3400 on a HP-INNOWAX column (30 m x 0.25 mm; 0.25 m film thickness). Mass spectra were acquired on a Finnigan MAT SSQ 710A mass spectrometer in the electron impact (EI) mode.Serum ALA levels at 1 g/kg after 2h in the flaxseed oil group increased by 70% from 0.067 ± 0.007 to 0.096 ± 0.008 mg/mL (P<0.001 Anova) whereas no significant increase occurred in the flaxseed oil group at 2.5 g/kg (0.142 ± 0.009) or at 5 g/kg after 2 h (0.140 ± 0.008) when compared with the value obtained after 1 g/kg. A statistically significant increase of ALA was found in adipose tissue and in liver 4 h after the administration of 1 g/kg of ALA whereas higher doses (2.5-5 g/kg) did not produce any significant changes. Concerning linoleic acid (-6) no significant increased concentrations were found in serum at the three doses studied confirming that flaxseed oil is mainly a source of -3 fatty acids
Metabolic Dysregulations and Epigenetics: A Bidirectional Interplay that Drives Tumor Progression
No full textCancer has been considered, for a long time, a genetic disease where mutations in key regulatory genes drive tumor initiation, growth, metastasis, and drug resistance. Instead, the advent of high-throughput technologies has revolutionized cancer research, allowing to investigate molecular alterations at multiple levels, including genome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome and showing the multifaceted aspects of this disease. The multi-omics approaches revealed an intricate molecular landscape where different cellular functions are interconnected and cooperatively contribute to shaping the malignant phenotype. Recent evidence has brought to light how metabolism and epigenetics are highly intertwined, and their aberrant crosstalk can contribute to tumorigenesis. The oncogene-driven metabolic plasticity of tumor cells supports the energetic and anabolic demands of proliferative tumor programs and secondary can alter the epigenetic landscape via modulating the production and/or the activity of epigenetic metabolites. Conversely, epigenetic mechanisms can regulate the expression of metabolic genes, thereby altering the metabolome, eliciting adaptive responses to rapidly changing environmental conditions, and sustaining malignant cell survival and progression in hostile niches. Thus, cancer cells take advantage of the epigenetics-metabolism crosstalk to acquire aggressive traits, promote cell proliferation, metastasis, and pluripotency, and shape tumor microenvironment. Understanding this bidirectional relationship is crucial to identify potential novel molecular targets for the implementation of robust anti-cancer therapeutic strategies
BRAF Inhibitors in Thyroid Cancer: Clinical Impact, Mechanisms of Resistance and Future Perspectives
No full textThe Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (RAS)/v-raf-1 murine leukemia viral oncogene homolog 1 (RAF)/mitogen-activated protein kinase 1 (MAPK) signaling cascade is the most important oncogenic pathway in human cancers. Tumors leading mutations in the gene encoding for v-raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B (BRAF) serine-threonine kinase are reliant on the MAPK signaling pathway for their growth and survival. Indeed, the constitutive activation of MAPK pathway results in continuous stimulation of cell proliferation, enhancement of the apoptotic threshold and induction of a migratory and metastatic phenotype. In a clinical perspective, this scenario opens to the possibility of targeting BRAF pathway for therapy. Thyroid carcinomas (TCs) bearing BRAF mutations represent approximately 29–83% of human thyroid malignancies and, differently from melanomas, are less sensitive to BRAF inhibitors and develop primary or acquired resistance due to mutational events or activation of alternative signaling pathways able to reactivate ERK signaling. In this review, we provide an overview on the current knowledge concerning the mechanisms leading to resistance to BRAF inhibitors in human thyroid carcinomas and discuss the potential therapeutic strategies, including combinations of BRAF inhibitors with other targeted agents, which might be employed to overcome drug resistance and potentiate the activity of single agent BRAF inhibitors
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