Central mechanisms of offset analgesia

Reduction from a more to a less noxious stimulus intensity produces a disproportionate but transient decrease in perceived pain. Although the relationship between the central nervous system and this offset analgesia has come under investigation using brain imaging, whether offset analgesia is primarily mediated by central rather than peripheral mechanisms has not been established. Here we investigate this question in healthy volunteers using thermal stimuli while recording continuous pain ratings. We constructed a composite stimulus using one Peltier thermode to deliver a constant painful test stimulus while a separate thermode coincidentally delivered a shorter but more intense conditioning stimulus at a distinct location. Three spatial configurations were investigated all delivering stimulation to the ventral forearm either proximally or distally from one another on the same forearm or with thermodes on opposing forearms. We demonstrate a decrease in test stimulus pain levels following offset of an ipsilateral but not contralateral conditioning stimulus. This decrease is comparable in magnitude to that observed during a single thermode classic offset analgesia stimulation. The manifestation of analgesia in one sensory field following cessation of stimulation in a distinct sensory field shows antinociceptive adaptation of primary afferent neurons is unnecessary to produce offset analgesia, and demonstrates central mechanisms are sufficient to achieve temporal filtering of nociceptive information during stimulus offset.2017-08-0

Mutual Mobile Membranes with Timers

A feature of current membrane systems is the fact that objects and membranes are persistent. However, this is not true in the real world. In fact, cells and intracellular proteins have a well-defined lifetime. Inspired from these biological facts, we define a model of systems of mobile membranes in which each membrane and each object has a timer representing their lifetime. We show that systems of mutual mobile membranes with and without timers have the same computational power. An encoding of timed safe mobile ambients into systems of mutual mobile membranes with timers offers a relationship between two formalisms used in describing biological systems

Quantitative Model Refinement as a Solution to the Combinatorial Size Explosion of Biomodels

AbstractBuilding a large system through a systematic, step-by-step refinement of an initial abstract specification is a well established technique in software engineering, not yet much explored in systems biology. In the case of systems biology, one starts from an abstract, high-level model of a biological system and aims to add more and more details about its reactants and/or reactions, through a number of consecutive refinement steps. The refinement should be done in a quantitatively correct way, so that (some of) the numerical properties of the model (such as the experimental fit and validation) are preserved. In this study, we focus on the data-refinement mechanism where the aim is to increase the level of details of some of the reactants of a given model. That is, we analyse the case when a model is refined by substituting a given species by several types of subspecies. We show in this paper how the refined model can be systematically obtained from the original one. As a case study for this methodology we choose a recently introduced model for the eukaryotic heat shock response, [I. Petre, A. Mizera, C. L. Hyder, A. Meinander, A. Mikhailov, R.I. Morimoto, L. Sistonen, J. E. Eriksson, R.-J. Back, A simple mass-action model for the eukaryotic heat shock response and its mathematical validation, Natural Computing, 10(1), 595–612, 2011.]. We refine this model by including details about the acetylation of the heat shock factors and its influence on the heat shock response. The refined model has a significantly higher number of kinetic parameters and variables. However, we show that our methodology allows us to preserve the experimental fit/validation of the model with minimal computational effort

OBESITY – THE CHRONIC DISEASE OF THE 21ˢᵗ CENTURY

Obesity is the scourge of humanity. Even if we aspire to a standard of living increasingly higher and more comfortable, this implies a risk to humanity, risking that through ignorance, to lead the human race from destruction. More than half the world’s population is overweight and the rate increases from year to year. The number of deaths in one year amounts to 3.4 million people. Those who remain with disabilities rises to 3.9%. Recovery costs are huge. The work aims to present how danger is the obesity and ways to prevent it. Attaining those objectives is a close collaboration between medical sciences, sport sciences, sociology, chemistry sciences. Even if exercise cannot always solve stopping and controlling obesity, it is still the least expensive of known treatments. Obezitatea – boala cronică a secolului XXI. Obezitatea reprezintă flagelul omenirii. Chiar dacă tindem spre un nivel de viață din ce în ce mai ridicat și mai confortabil, aceasta presupune un risc pentru umanitate, riscând ca prin ignoranță, să ducem rasa umană la distrugere. Mai bine de jumătate din populația lumii este supraponderală, iar rata crește de la an la an. Numărul deceselor într-un singur an se ridică la 3,4 milioane de oameni. Cei care rămân cu handicap se ridică la 3,9%. Costurile recuperării sunt uriașe. Lucrarea dorește să prezinte pericol ce îl reprezintă obezitatea și mijloacele de prevenire a acesteia. Atingerea obiectivelor este o colaborare strânsă între științele medicinei, științele sportului, ale sociologiei, ale științelor chimiei. Chiar dacă nu întotdeauna exercițiul fizic poate rezolva stoparea și ținerea sub control a obezității, este, totuși, cea mai puțin costisitoare dintre tratamentele cunoscute. Cuvinte-cheie: obezitate, controlul bolii, factori genetici, sport, copii, sănatate

Collagen-based biomaterials with possible therapeutic effects

Epidermolysis bullosa (EB) is a rare, serious genetic disease, incurable through the current means. Apart from this initial definition, there was later some ease in the definition of the disease, including the manifestations of toxic epidermal necrolysis and Stevens Johnson syndrome in this entity. In medical practice, there are cases that do not overlap with the description in the literature, thus the treatment must be adapted and personalized to the particularities. We present the case of a female new-born, with de novo mutation for the early-onset antenatal epidermolysis and our personalized therapeutic management, based on collagen from bovine corneas by enzymatic process. The histological examination showed that the collagen membranes serve as a support for the epithelial cells that formed a surface monolayer after 48 hours. Therefore. this case report shows that collagen-based biomaterials could be used to accelerate the dermal-epidermal healing in various conditions of the child, such as Stevens Johnson syndrome, bullous epidermolysis and widespread burns

SOME NEW SPECIMENS FOR ZOOLOGICAL TEACHING COLLECTIONS INTRODUCED FROM MOROCCO IN THE FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE -U.A.S.V.M. BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

Abstract Completing the collections for a zoology laboratory, as part of obligatory student 's instruction, prove

THE TRAINING TO IMPROVE SPEED YOSHINKAN AIKIDO

Introduction. Aikido, “the way of harmony and love, containing techniques for developing balance, coordination body (joint techniques, throwing, pivot)”. It is approached at early ages, being a branch of sport much favored by children at young ages 6-10 years. This sub-branch of martial arts, due to exoticism, of how it is perceived by the little children produce emulation attracts to practice of a lots of children. On the on the one hand because of the “mysteries” that accompany this sport, on the other hand due to the instructive accompanying it. Among the many branches of martial arts, where some have the tendency more strongly to only focus on technical training, ignoring physical training, other martial arts ignore even preparing locomotor system, to practice safely this art, some even preparing musculoskeletal the practice safely this art. Current Aikido (Aikido Yoshinkan and Takemutsu) maintained in the training program and attaches the utmost importance of physical training: by approaching varied means of physical training for all age levels. Even for young children, a fact demonstrated in the pilot experiment conducted in 2012, the first program launched in Romania in the private school “Happy Kids”, today “Transylvania College, Cambridge International School-Cluj”. This article proposes practitioners a set of athletics exercises in order to strengthen speed, with its forms of expression. By practicing these means of athletic, 2-3 times a week, can obtain high values of this quality (if there is genetic determinations), while in generally, give positive results in improving the biometric qualities, but also the correction of some posts balance or even fighting techniques. Antrenamentul pentru perfecționarea vitezei în Yoshinkan aikido. Yoshinkan Aikido este o ramură a aikido-ului care urmărește, pe lângă pregătirea tehnică, și perfecționarea calităților motrice de bază și specifice. Scopul acestui studiu a fost de a stabilii raportul de performanță între elevii care practică sistematic forme de pregătire specifice atletismului (alergare de viteză) și cei care practică doar tehnicile aikido-ului. Materiale și metode. 20 de elevi voluntari din fosta școala “Happy Kids”, astăzi “Transylvania College, Cambridge International School-Cluj”. Au fost executate măsurători antropometrice (greutate, înălțime). Toți subiecții au efectuat două teste: 1. Testul „Transfer” 2. Testul „Bip” în urma căruia s-a constatat că viteza era cuprinsă între 18 și 48 de secunde la primul test, în timp ce la al doilea test fiind de 1,3 și 3,6 secunde, la grupul de control. La testul final, grupa de control a obținut un rezultat superior, înregistrând chiar și 10 secunde mai puțin decât la prima testare. Concluzii: creșterea vitezei de reacție, deosebit de importantă în artele marțiale a fost vizibil superioară odată cu introducerea alergării de viteză din atletism. Totuși, un punct negativ al acestei cercetări este că cercetarea a fost realizată pentru o perioadă scurtă de timp (3 luni) și nu știm în ce măsură aceste îmbunătățiri ale vitezei se pot menține în timp. De asemenea ar fi important de cercetat efectul antrenamentelor de acest tip și la adulți, unde parametrii ar trebui să fie diferiți. Cuvinte cheie: Viteză, forță, rezistență, aikido, Saito sensei, Kata, Koshi-nage, disciplină, echilibru, coordonare

Distributed Control Systems for a Wastewater Treatment Plant: Architectures and Advanced Control Solutions

This chapter is focused on the development and implementation of a distributed and hierarchized control system for the wastewater treatment plant (WTP) Calafat, Romania. The primary control loops for both treatment lines (water and activated sludge) are developed and analyzed. Also, the distributed control system (DCS) architecture of the wastewater treatment plant is presented, and the advantages of the proposed control structure are highlighted. In order to increase the performance of the overall control system, some advanced control solutions are investigated. More precisely, multivariable adaptive and robust control algorithms are proposed for the activated sludge bioprocess. Several realistic simulation experiments are performed, and the obtained results are analyzed