117 research outputs found
Partial versus general compulsory solidarity: an experimental analysis
We focus on ways and means of solidarity and their more or less voluntary and involuntary character. Alternative ways of redistribution are modeled by combining redistribution as emergent from a non-discriminatory voluntary contribution mechanism, VCM, with an outside option for a “super-rich”, R, participant to donate to VCM participants. The outsider may discriminate between participants of the VCM on the basis of information accessible at a cost to her. Inclusion in and exclusion from the VCM are involuntary while contributions in it are voluntary. How involuntary inclusion of R in VCM affects her discriminatory voluntary donations and contribution behavior is explored experimentally
Hypertension in adult Fabry's disease: is cardiotrophin-1 a diagnostic biomarker?
Background: Cardiotrophin-1 (CT-1), a cytokine produced by cardiomyocytes and non-cardiomyocytes in conditions of stress, can be used as a biomarker of left ventricular hypertrophy and dysfunction in hypertensive patients. Hypertension is one of the main adverse events in the third and last phase of Fabry's disease (FD). We measured CT-1 in order to examine its correlation with the vascular and cardiac alterations at different ages and assess its potential for use as a biomarker of hypertension in FD.
Findings: The level of CT-1 was clearly higher in hypertensive adults than in adult FD patients. FD patients show a small, non-significant decrease in plasma CT-1 with age, while in hypertensive patients CT-1 in plasma rises strongly and highly significantly with age.
Conclusions: CT-1 can be considered a good biomarker of the progression of hypertension with age, but particular care is needed when following hypertension in FD patients, since CT-1 does not correlate the same way with this disease
Make-Up and Suspicion in Acquiring-a-Company. An experiment controlling for gender and gender constellations
The privately informed seller of a company sends a value message to the
uninformed potential buyer who then proposes a price for the company.
“Make-up” is measured by how much the true value is overstated,
“Suspicion” by how much the price offer differs from the value message. Treatments vary in information about gender via (not ) informing about the
gender constellation and inembeddedness of gender information. Female participants engage more in “make-up”, i .e. overstate more the value of the company, but are not more “suspicious”. Furthermore, homogeneous
female constellations make up more
Evaluation of circulating sRAGE in osteoporosisaccording to BMI, adipokines and fracture risk: a pilot observational study
Background: Osteoporosis is a systemic metabolic disease based on age-dependent imbalance between the rates of bone formation and bone resorption. Recent studies on the pathogenesis of this disease identified that bone remodelling impairment, at the base of osteoporotic bone fragility, could be related to protein glycation, in association to oxidative stress. The glycation reactions lead to the generation of glycation end products (AGEs) which, in turn, accumulates into bone, where they binds to the receptor for AGE (RAGE). The aim of this study is to investigate the potential role of circulating sRAGE in osteoporosis, in particular evaluating the correlation of sRAGE with the fracture risk, in association with bone mineral density, the fracture risk marker FGF23, and lipid metabolism.
Results: Circulating level of soluble RAGE correlate with osteopenia and osteoporosis level. Serum sRAGE resulted clearly associated on the one hand to bone fragility and, on the other hand, with BMI and leptin. sRAGE is particularly informative because serum sRAGE is able to provide, as a single marker, information about both the aspects of osteoporotic disease, represented by bone fragility and lipid metabolism.
Conclusions: The measure serum level of sRAGE could have a potential diagnostic role in the monitoring of osteoporosis progression, in particular in the evaluation of fracture risk, starting from the prevention and screening stage, to the osteopenic level to osteoporosis
Plasmatic soluble receptor for advanced glycation end products (SRAGE) as a new oxidative stress biomarker in patients with prosthetic-joint-associated infections
Activity of human erythrocyte membrane-bound glycohydrolases is related to Plasmodium Falciparum products
Plasmatic Soluble Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products as a New Oxidative Stress Biomarker in Patients with Prosthetic-Joint-Associated Infections?
Prosthetic joint infection (PJI) is the most common cause of failure of total joint arthroplasty, but a gold standard for PJI diagnosis
is still lacking. Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are proinflammatory molecules inducing intracellular oxidative stress
(OS) after binding to their cell membrane receptors (RAGE). The aim of this study was to evaluate plasmatic soluble receptor
for advanced glycation end products (sRAGE), as a new OS and infection marker correlating sRAGE to the level of OS and
antioxidant defenses, in PJI, in order to explore the possible application of this new biomarker in the early diagnosis of PJI.
Plasmatic sRAGE levels (by ELISA assay), plasma antioxidant total defenses (by lag time method), plasma reactive oxygen
species (ROS), and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) levels (by colorimetric assay) were evaluated in 11 PJI
patients and in 30 matched controls. ROS and TBARS were significantly higher (p < 0 001) while plasma total antioxidant
capacity and sRAGE were significantly lower (p < 0 01) in patients with PJI compared to controls. Our results confirm the OS in
PJI and show a strong negative correlation between the level of sRAGE and oxidative status, suggesting the plasmatic sRAGE as
a potential marker for improving PJI early diagnosis
Targeting the minor pocket of C5aR for the rational design of an oral allosteric inhibitor for inflammatory and neuropathic pain relief
Chronic pain resulting from inflammatory and neuropathic disorders causes considerable economic and social burden. In particular in the orthopaedic field, musculoskeletal pain is one of the most predominant kinds of chronic pain and its prevalence is increasing. Pharmacological therapies currently available for certain types of pain are only partially effective and may cause severe adverse side effects.
Pharmacological results of this study support that the allosteric blockade of the C5aR represents a highly promising therapeutic approach to control chronic inflammatory and neuropathic pain
Acute phase of aortic dissection: a pilot study on CD40L, MPO, and MMP-1, -2, 9 and TIMP-1 circulating levels in elderly patients
Make-up and suspicion in bargaining with cheap talk: An experiment controlling for gender and gender constellation
This paper explores gender differences in "make- up" and "suspicion" in
a bargaining game in which the privately informed seller of a company
sends a value message to the uninformed potential buyer who then pro-
poses a price for the company. "Make-up" is measured by how much
the true value is overstated, "suspicion" by how much the price offer
differs from the value message. We run different computerized treat-
ments varying in information about the gender (constellation) and in
embeddedness of gender information. The asymmetry of the game and
of information allows for a robust assessment of gender (constellation)
effects. We report here the results from just one shot round decision
since we expect such effects to be more pronounced for inexperienced
participants. We mainly find an effect of gender constellation: when fe-
male sellers are aware to confront a female buyer, they overstate more,
i.e. there is more "make-up". However, we cannot confirm gender (con-
stellation) effects for suspicion.This paper explores gender differences in "make-up" and "suspicion" in a bargaining game in which the privately informed seller of a company sends a value message to the uninformed potential buyer who then proposes a price for the company. "Make-up" is measured by how much the true value is overstated, "suspicion" by how much the price offer differs from the value message. We run different computerized treatments varying in information about the gender (constellation) and in embeddedness of gender information. The asymmetry of the game and of information allows for a robust assessment of gender (constellation) effects. We report here the results from just one shot round decision since we expect such effects to be more pronounced for inexperienced participants. We mainly find an effect of gender constellation: when female sellers are aware to confront a female buyer, they overstate more, i.e. there is more "make-up". However, we cannot confirm gender (constellation) effects for suspicion
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