Summary
The aims of the current study were to update the inclusion list of relevant neuroimaging studies, meta‐analyse the neuroimaging data and thus synthesize a brain map showing locations with ...differential activations between men and women. Published studies to 2017 were retrieved and included into the analysis if they evaluated patients' brain responses to food or eating stimuli with functional magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography and reported activation differences between the sexes in the form of brain coordinates based on whole‐brain analysis. Eight studies that comprised a total of 231 participants fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Men had larger neural responses to food stimuli than women in the anterior and middle cingulate, which are related to emotion regulation. Meanwhile, women had larger neural responses to food stimuli than men in the parahippocampus, the thalamus and the precuneus, which are collectively relevant in the context of promotion of eating. The differential brain responses to food or eating stimuli between men and women may shed light on the neurobiology to help explain the sex differences in eating behaviour.
Dentistry is a technically oriented profession, and the health care sector is significantly influenced by the ubiquitous trend of digitalization. Some of these digital developments have the potential ...to result in disruptive changes for dental practice, while others may turn out to be just a pipedream. This Discovery! essay focuses on innovations built on artificial intelligence (AI) as the center-technology influencing 1) dental eHealth data management, 2) clinical and technical health care applications, and 3) services and operations. AI systems enable personalized dental medicine workflows by analyzing all eHealth data gathered from an individual patient. Besides dental-specific data, this also includes genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic information and therefore facilitates optimized and personalized treatment strategies and risk management. Based on the power of AI, the triangular frame of “data”/“health care”/“service” is supplemented by technological advancements in the field of social media, Internet of things, augmented and virtual reality, rapid prototyping, and intraoral optical scanning as well as teledentistry. Innovation continues to be critical to tackle dental problems until its routine implementation based on sound scientific evidence. Novel technologies must be viewed critically in relation to the cost-benefit ratio and the ethical implications of a misleading diagnosis or treatment produced by AI algorithms. Highly sensitive eHealth data must be handled responsibly to enable the immense benefits of these technologies to be realized for society. The focus on patient-centered research and the development of personalized dental medicine have the potential to improve individual and public health, as well as clarify the interconnectivity of disease in a more cost-effective way.
The “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA) principle is largely followed in the radiology field. The current article provided a historical overview on the evolution and development of the ALARA ...principle and its related concepts. Meanwhile, the scientific impact of papers dealing with the ALARA principle was largely unknown. The current study aimed to identify the body of literature dealing with the ALARA principle, which of them were cited the most, and which of their references were cited the most. The Web of Science database hosted by Clarivate Analytics was accessed. Relevant papers were identified and analyzed. The search identified 979 relevant publications. Six journals (Health Physics, Pediatric Radiology, Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Fusion Engineering and Design, and American Journal of Roentgenology) have accounted for nearly one-fifth of these publications. The most cited publications and references mainly related to two patient groups, children and pregnant women. It is important to adhere to the ALARA principle whenever a decision is made to irradiate a patient, because the exact effect of radiation on the patient health is not yet totally understood and predictable.
Background
Pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) using radiofrequency catheter ablation is a widely accepted therapy for drug‐refractory atrial fibrillation patients. Elimination of the negative component ...of the local unipolar electrogram (UEGM) during PVI is a marker of transmural lesion formation. The ablation index (AI) can predict the quality of ablation lesion. Combining these two parameters could make PVI safer and efficient. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the correlation between UEGM modification characteristics of the different target areas of left atrium and the associated AI values during PVI.
Methods
We analyzed 10 patients who underwent PVI using radiofrequency energy. The local electrophysiological properties and ablation parameters of 15 designated areas of interest in the left atria targeted by radiofrequency catheter ablation were collected.
Results
Out of the 10 patients, six were men (mean age 66 years) and 80% had paroxysmal AF. The mean time to achieve the UEGM modification in the posterior wall was shorter than that of the anterior wall (8.9 seconds vs. 11.1 s, respectively). The UEGM modification for every lesion was achieved at significantly lower AI values than conventional AIs (p < .001).
Conclusion
During PVI, the AIs deduced according to the local UEGM modification are markedly shorter than those generally recommended AIs in contemporary practice. This indicates that conventionally recommended AIs could be safely reduced while ensuring the efficacy and quality of radiofrequency ablation during PVI. This approach would probably reduce to risk of collateral thermal injuries.
Advancements in tissue engineering have taken aim at treating tissue types that have difficulty healing naturally. In order to achieve improved healing conditions, the balance of exogenous matrix, ...cells, and different factors must be carefully controlled. This review seeks to explore the aspects of tissue engineering in specific tissue types treated in sports medicine and advanced wound management from the perspective of the matrix component. While the predominant material to be discussed is collagen I, it would be remiss not to mention its relation to the other contributing factors to tissue engineered healing. The main categories of materials summarized here are (1) reconstituted collagen scaffolds, (2) decellularized matrix tissue, and (3) non-decellularized tissue. These three groups are ordered by their increase in additional components beyond simply collagen.
Aurora B kinase is an important mitotic kinase involved in chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. It is overexpressed in many cancers and thus may be an important molecular target for chemotherapy. ...AZD1152 is the prodrug for AZD1152-HQPA, which is a selective inhibitor of Aurora B kinase activity. Preclinical antineoplastic activity of AZD1152 against acute myelogenous leukemia, multiple myeloma and colorectal cancer has been reported. However, this compound has not been evaluated in breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women.
The antineoplastic activity of AZD1152-HQPA in six human breast cancer cell lines, three of which overexpress HER2, is demonstrated. AZD1152-HQPA specifically inhibited Aurora B kinase activity in breast cancer cells, thereby causing mitotic catastrophe, polyploidy and apoptosis, which in turn led to apoptotic death. AZD1152 administration efficiently suppressed the tumor growth in a breast cancer cell xenograft model. In addition, AZD1152 also inhibited pulmonary metastatic nodule formation in a metastatic breast cancer model. Notably, it was also found that the protein level of Aurora B kinase declined after inhibition of Aurora B kinase activity by AZD1152-HQPA in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Investigation of the underlying mechanism suggested that AZD1152-HQPA accelerated protein turnover of Aurora B via enhancing its ubiquitination.
It was shown that AZD1152 is an effective antineoplastic agent for breast cancer, and our results define a novel mechanism for posttranscriptional regulation of Aurora B after AZD1152 treatment and provide insight into dosing regimen design for this kinase inhibitor in metastatic breast cancer treatment.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Because of unfavourable economic conditions, organizations worldwide have to constantly reconstruct their business strategies in order to survive. Recent studies have stressed the importance of ...supply quality management (SQM) for the general competitiveness of manufacturers. However, very little empirical research has been carried out that specifically examines how SQM practices lead to improvements in quality across an organization. To scrutinise the impact of SQM practices, a survey was conducted of 138 leading manufacturing companies in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), a manufacturing hub in southern China dubbed 'the factory floor of the world'. By using path analytic techniques, a model was constructed to portray the relationships among SQM practices and organizational quality performance. This model could act as a tool of reference for companies seeking to improve their SQM systems, and help them in their efforts to raise quality across the company. This paper demonstrates that quality-conscious management practices speed up the implementation of SQM practices. This paper finally reveals the influential effect of SQM practices on both supply quality and organizational quality performance.
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