130,629 research outputs found
The Heterogeneity of Renal Stem Cells and Their Interaction with Bio- and Nano-materials
No full textFor a long time, the kidney has been considered incapable of regeneration. Instead, in recent years, studies have supported the existence of heterogeneity of renal stem/progenitor cells with the ability to regenerate both glomerular and tubular epithelial cells. Indeed, several studies evidence that renal progenitor cells, releasing chemokines, growth factors, microvesicles, and transcription factors through paracrine mechanisms, can induce tissue regeneration and block pathological processes of the kidney. In this chapter the potentiality of the kidney regenerative processes is considered and reviewed, and the main classes of stem/progenitor cells that might contribute to the renal tissue renewal is analyzed. Moreover, we evaluate the role of biomaterials in the regulation of cellular functions, specifically addressing renal stem/progenitor cells. Materials can be synthesized and tailored in order to recreate a finely structured microenvironment (by nanostructures, nanofibers, bioactive compounds, etc.) with which the cells can interact actively. For instance, by patterning substrates in regions that alternately promote or prevent protein adsorption, cell adhesion and spreading processes can be controlled in space. We illustrate the potentiality of nanotechnologies and engineered biomaterials in affecting and enhancing the behavior of renal stem/progenitor cells. Although there are still many challenges for the translation of novel therapeutics, advances in biomaterials and nanomedicine have the potential to drastically change the clinical and therapeutic landscape, even in combination with stem cell biology
Relationship between CYP2D6 genotype and plasma OH-perhexiline/perhexiline concentration ratio in angina patients.
No full textSallustio, BC; Davies, BJL; Coller, JK; James, HM; Gillis, D. and Somogyi, AAhttp://apps.isiknowledge.com/summary.do?qid=1&product=WOS&SID=S138aPlEnpLJ4GkAo19&search_mode=GeneralSearc
Assessing land take by urban development and its impact on carbon storage: findings from two case studies in Italy
No full textLand take due to urbanization triggers a series of negative environmental impacts with direct effects on quality of life for people living in cities. Changes in ecosystem services are associated with land take, among which is the immediate C loss due to land use conversion. Land use change monitoring represents the first step in quantifying land take and its drivers and impacts. To this end, we propose an innovative methodology for monitoring land take and its effects on ecosystem services (in particular, C loss) under multi-scale contexts. The devised approach was tested in two areas with similar sizes, but different land take levels during the time-span 1990-2008 in Central Italy (the Province of Rome and the Molise Region). The estimates of total coverage of built up areas were calculated using point sampling. The area of the urban patches including each sampling point classified as built up areas in the year 1990 and/or in the year 2008 is used to estimate total abundance and average area of built up areas. Biophysical and economic values for carbon loss associated with land take were calculated using InVEST.Although land take was 7-8 times higher in the Province of Rome (from 15.1% in 1990 to 20.4% in 2008) than in Molise region, our findings show that its relative impact on C storage is higher in the latter, where the urban growth consistently affects not only croplands but also semi-natural land uses such as grasslands and other wooded lands. The total C loss due to land take has been estimated in 1.6. million. Mg C, corresponding to almost 355 million €.Finally, the paper discusses the main characteristics of urban growth and their ecological impact leading to risks and challenges for future urban planning and land use policies
Editorial: Tissue Repair and Regenerative Mechanisms by Stem/Progenitor Cells and Their Secretome
No full textTissue Repair and Regenerative Mechanisms by Stem/Progenitor Cells and Their Secretome
Regenerative medicine is a branch of translational research which is energizing and empowering clinical practice. A multitude of novel approaches proposed during the recent years is slowly but dramatically transforming the health care system, harnessing the power of repairing, replacing, restoring, and regenerating human organs and tissues affected by various degenerative disorders and diseases.
During the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of patients with end-stage diseases have been rescued by solid organ transplants as ultimate treatment option. In the past 3 decades, cell-based therapies have been gaining importance since they can contribute to regeneration of failing organs or damaged tissues by direct replacement of the lost cells or by facilitating the body’s natural regenerative processes by removing roadblocks. A growing armamentarium of therapeutic options, spanning from bioartificial organs and tissues, stem and progenitor cells, biomaterials, cell secretome, and extracellular vesicles have become available as medical treatments substituting the standard pharmaceutics.
Examples of “classical” cellular therapies are peripheral blood stem cell or stromal cell transplantations, and more recently, allogenic hepatocyte or pancreatic islet transplants.
While pancreas transplantation remains the gold standard in diabetes patients where the insulin injection fails to control symptoms, transplantation of islets of Langerhans has been recognized as a successful cell-based treatment in type 1 diabetes. The mechano-enzymatic separation of endocrine tissue from the exocrine pancreatic parenchyma required several decades to become a standardized clinical approach approved by Medical Product Agencies worldwide
Ischemic stroke: From acute treatment to long-term recovery
No full textIschemic stroke (IS) is due to the sudden occlusion of a cerebral artery with the consequence of a critical reduction in cerebral blood flow in a localized region (rCBF) of the brain. It represents the second cause of death and the leading cause of neurological disability in developed countries. Primarily due to the resulting economic burden, IS is considered a world-wide challenge. Different strategies can be identified to face this challenge: acute treatment, primary and secondary prevention, rehabilitation. For several years acute IS treatment has been based on the use of the only current drug approved in the first 3 hours from symptom onset: recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA). However, mainly due to the short therapeutic window, a low percentage of patients can be actually treated by rtPA. Thus, with improving diffusion of more accurate diagnostic tools and of prognostic informations in different clinical scenarios, new treatment strategies in the acute phase have been developed such as intra-arterial and mechanical thrombolysis. Prevention plays a crucial role in counteracting the economic burden of IS through life-style changes, vascular risk factors control (with arterial hypertension being the main one for IS) and antiplatelet therapy. Moreover prevention therapy has been enriched by the introduction, in the last few years, of new drugs with pleiotropic effects such as statins and ACE-inhibitors. Also potential pleiotropic effects of antidiabetic drugs are currently under investigation. New insights in secondary prevention come from the use of phosphodiesterase inhibitors such as dipyridamole (in combination with aspirine) and cilostazol. The latter demonstrated to be more effective than aspirin in reducing the risk of recurrent stroke with the advantage of dramatically reducing the risk of haemorrhagic events as compared to aspirin. Rehabilitation strategies are weighted, together with acute IS treatment, by most of stroke physicians and patients expectations. Among them transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a new tool able to explore and affect critical aspects of neural plasticity, thus being of great importance in the understanding and treatment of those fundamental functional recovery mechanisms triggered after stroke. The present chapter will focus on standard, current and new potential treatments of acute phase, prevention and rehabilitation of IS. © 2013 Nova Scicence Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved
Phonetic complexity, speech accuracy and intelligibility assessment of Italian dysarthric speech
No full textSoil organic carbon in Italian forests and agroecosystems: Estimating current stock and future changes with a spatial modelling approach
No full textThe soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest carbon pool in the terrestrial biosphere, second only to oceans, containing twice as much carbon as the atmosphere and three times that stored in global vegetation. Climate change (CC) is expected to impact this carbon pool. To date, large uncertainties still persist on the effects of CC on SOC stocks. In addition, a shortage of data related to regional SOC quantities of tree-covered areas and future changes under CC conditions is recognized. In this work, we used a spatial-explicit modelling approach to estimate the current SOC stock (at 2005) and future changes (at 2095) under CC conditions of the whole forest, tree crop, grassland, and pasture covered areas of Italy. A methodology was preliminarily implemented to obtain spatialized SOC estimates at a regional scale by using the CENTURY 5 model coupled with spatialized vegetation, soil, and climate data. We ran both moderate (RCP4.5) and extreme (RCP8.5) climatic scenarios, and used three Global Circulation Models for each one of the four ecosystems described above. The current SOC stock estimates range from 51.3 (orchards) to 129.5 Mg carbon ha−1 (coniferous forests) and we found an overall SOC stock in Italy ranging from 1320.1 to 1425.1 Tg. SOC projections under CC showed a moderate carbon loss suggesting that forest, grassland, and permanent crop soils could provide an important contribution to climate change mitigation
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Editorial: Repair and regenerative mechanisms by stem/progenitor cells and secretome: The golden twenties of translational medicine
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
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