Cardiac patches are an effective way to deliver therapeutics to the heart. However, such procedures are normally invasive and difficult to perform. Here, we develop and test a method to utilize the ...pericardial cavity as a natural "mold" for in situ cardiac patch formation after intrapericardial injection of therapeutics in biocompatible hydrogels. In rodent models of myocardial infarction, we demonstrate that intrapericardial injection is an effective and safe method to deliver hydrogels containing induced pluripotent stem cells-derived cardiac progenitor cells or mesenchymal stem cells-derived exosomes. After injection, the hydrogels form a cardiac patch-like structure in the pericardial cavity, mitigating immune response and increasing the cardiac retention of the therapeutics. With robust cardiovascular repair and stimulation of epicardium-derived cells, the delivered therapeutics mitigate cardiac remodeling and improve cardiac functions post myocardial infarction. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility of minimally-invasive intrapericardial injection in a clinically-relevant porcine model. Collectively, our study establishes intrapericardial injection as a safe and effective method to deliver therapeutic-bearing hydrogels to the heart for cardiac repair.
Abstract Objective Computer-tailored interventions have become increasingly common for facilitating improvement in behaviors related to chronic disease and health promotion. A sufficient number of ...outcome studies from these interventions are now available to facilitate the quantitative analysis of effect sizes, permitting moderator analyses that were not possible with previous systematic reviews. Method The present study employs meta-analytic techniques to assess the mean effect for 88 computer-tailored interventions published between 1988 and 2009 focusing on four health behaviors: smoking cessation, physical activity, eating a healthy diet, and receiving regular mammography screening. Effect sizes were calculated using Hedges g . Study, tailoring, and demographic moderators were examined by analyzing between-group variance and meta-regression. Results Clinically and statistically significant overall effect sizes were found across each of the four behaviors. While effect sizes decreased after intervention completion, dynamically tailored interventions were found to have increased efficacy over time as compared with tailored interventions based on one assessment only. Study effects did not differ across communication channels nor decline when up to three behaviors were identified for intervention simultaneously. Conclusion This study demonstrates that computer-tailored interventions have the potential to improve health behaviors and suggests strategies that may lead to greater effectiveness of these techniques.
Some elementary particles used for experiments of fundamental physics have properties useful to the treatments of patients affected by oncological pathologies. They are protons and carbon ions, ...collectively named hadrons, hence the term hadron therapy. Hadrons, in particular carbon ions, are more precise on the target than conventional X-rays and possess radiobiological characteristics suited to treat radioresistant or inoperable tumors. Italy is at the forefront of these techniques, and in Pavia a clinical facility called CNAO (Italian acronym that stands for National Centre for Oncological Hadron therapy) has treated so far more than 2800 patients with very good results. The CNAO was created by the Health Ministry and was realized by the CNAO Foundation in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), CERN, GSI and other institutions in Italy and abroad. The facility in Pavia delivers beams of hadrons in three treatment rooms with four fixed beam ports: three horizontal and one vertical. A new room, with an horizontal beamline and multiple isocenters, was completed and will be fully devoted to research applications. The CNAO has also launched a development programe to add a new single room for proton therapy with a gantry and a dedicated accelerator. Attention is also devoted to the most interesting aspects of research and development in the hadron therapy domain, like the creation of a new BNCT (Boron Neutron Capture Therapy) facility and the design of a novel gantry for carbon ions.
The status of CNAO Rossi, S.
European physical journal plus,
08/2011, Letnik:
126, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The CNAO (Italian acronym that stands for National Centre for Oncological Hadrontherapy) has been realised in Pavia, Italy. It is a clinical facility created and financed by the Italian Ministry of ...Health and conceived to supply hadrontherapy treatments to patients recruited all over the Country. A qualified network of clinical and research institutes, the CNAO Collaboration, has been created to build and to run the centre. This organizational model turned out to be very efficient and fruitful to reach the goal of introducing the most advanced techniques and procedures of hadrontherapy. Three treatment rooms with four beam ports (three horizontal and one vertical) are operational and one experimental room has been built. Beams of protons with kinetic energies up to 250MeV and beams of carbon ions with maximum kinetic energy of 400MeV/u are transported and delivered by active scanning systems. The machine operation started in 2009 with the commissioning of the high-technology components that form the acceleration chain from the sources to the patient. The dosimetry and radiobiology tests have been completed with proton beams and CNAO obtained the authorisation to start treating patients. Statistics from the Italian Association of Radiotherapists and Oncologists (AIRO) have estimated that more than 3% of the overall Italian radiotherapy annual patients,
i.e.
more than 3000 new patients per year, would preferably be treated with hadrontherapy, but this number is steadily increasing. Pre-selection criteria are defined on the basis of established clinical protocols and the hospitals and the clinics in the network will address to the CNAO those patients that satisfy the criteria. This paper outlines the project development, the technical aspects of the realisation and commissioning and the clinical issues relevant for the patients treatments at CNAO.
Abstract
Fluid intelligence (gf) represents a crucial component of human cognition, as it correlates with academic achievement, successful aging, and longevity. However, it has strong resilience ...against enhancement interventions, making the identification of gf enhancement approaches a key unmet goal of cognitive neuroscience. Here, we applied a spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP)-inducing brain stimulation protocol, named cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (cc-PAS), to modulate gf in 29 healthy young subjects (13 females—mean ± standard deviation, 25.43 years ± 3.69), based on dual-coil transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Pairs of neuronavigated TMS pulses (10-ms interval) were delivered over two frontoparietal nodes of the gf network, based on individual functional magnetic resonance imaging data and in accordance with cognitive models of information processing across the prefrontal and parietal lobe. cc-PAS enhanced accuracy at gf tasks, with parieto-frontal and fronto-parietal stimulation significantly increasing logical and relational reasoning, respectively. Results suggest the possibility of using SPTD-inducing TMS protocols to causally validate cognitive models by selectively engaging relevant networks and manipulating inter-regional temporal dynamics supporting specific cognitive functions.
We propose a stabilization method for linear tetrahedral finite elements, suitable for the implicit time integration of the equations of nearly and fully incompressible nonlinear elastodynamics. In ...particular, we derive and discuss a generalized framework for stabilization and implicit time integration that can comprehensively be applied to the class of all isotropic hyperelastic models. In this sense the presented development can be considered an important extension and complement to the stabilization approach proposed by the authors in previous work, which was instead focused on explicit time integration and simple neo-Hookean models for nearly-incompressible elasticity. With the goal of computational efficiency, we also present a two-step block Gauss–Seidel strategy for the time update of displacements, velocities and pressures. Specifically, a mixed system of equations for the velocity and pressure is updated implicitly in a first stage, and the displacements are updated explicitly in a second stage. The proposed mixed formulation is then embedded in Newton-type strategies for the nonlinear solution of the equations of motion. Various implicit time integration strategies are considered, and, particularly, we focus on high-frequency dissipation time integrators, which are preferable in transient mechanics applications. An extensive set of numerical computations with linear tetrahedral elements is presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.
Microalgae and other phototrophic microorganisms can be cultivated to produce food and valuable bioproducts, also allowing to remove nutrients from wastewater and CO2 from biogas or polluted gas ...streams. Among other environmental and physico-chemical parameters, microalgal productivity is strongly influenced by the cultivation temperature. In this review, cardinal temperatures identifying the thermal response, i.e., the optimal growth condition (TOPT), and the lower and upper limits for microalgae cultivation (TMIN and TMAX), have been included in a structured and harmonized database. Literature data for 424 strains belonging to 148 genera of green algae, cyanobacteria, diatoms, and other phototrophs were tabulated and analysed, with a focus on the most relevant genera that are currently cultivated at the industrial scale in Europe. The dataset creation aimed at facilitating the comparison of different strain performances for different operational temperatures and assisting in the process of thermal and biological modelling, to reduce energy consumption and biomass production costs. A case study was presented, to illustrate the effect of temperature control on the energetic expenditure for cultivating different Chorella sp. strains under a greenhouse located in different European sites.
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•Review of temperature effects on microalgae, cyanobacteria, and other phototrophs•Minimum, maximum, and optimal temperature comparison for 424 strains and 148 genera•Harmonized electronic database for optimal strain identification and data selection•Applications to thermal and biological modelling of industrially-relevant strains•Preliminary assessment of energy consumption for different locations and strains
Intention-Based EMG Control for Powered Exoskeletons Lenzi, Tommaso; De Rossi, Stefano Marco Maria; Vitiello, Nicola ...
IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering,
08/2012, Letnik:
59, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Electromyographical (EMG) signals have been frequently used to estimate human muscular torques. In the field of human-assistive robotics, these methods provide valuable information to provide ...effectively support to the user. However, their usability is strongly limited by the necessity of complex user-dependent and session-dependent calibration procedures, which confine their use to the laboratory environment. Nonetheless, an accurate estimate of muscle torque could be unnecessary to provide effective movement assistance to users. The natural ability of human central nervous system of adapting to external disturbances could compensate for a lower accuracy of the torque provided by the robot and maintain the movement accuracy unaltered, while the effort is reduced. In order to explore this possibility, in this paper we study the reaction of ten healthy subjects to the assistance provided through a proportional EMG control applied by an elbow powered exoskeleton. This system gives only a rough estimate of the user muscular torque but does not require any specific calibration. Experimental results clearly show that subjects adapt almost instantaneously to the assistance provided by the robot and can reduce their effort while keeping full control of the movement under different dynamic conditions (i.e., no alterations of movement accuracy are observed).
Highlights • High-frequency, imperceptible, electrical stimulation of the motor cortex affects visuo-motor coordination. • 80 Hz stimulation enhances performance just after sudden changes in tracking ...trajectory. • Effects take place between 200 and 500 ms after the onset of a new unexpected motor program. • Response to tACS suggests a functional role for gamma activity in the motor cortex.
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