Play rehab

A Rehabilitation centre for children with cerebral palsy is the proposed project undertaken in this dissertation. This theme was chosen after the author had been involved with New Hope School in fundraising projects for the past 3 years. The author recognized the need of a dedicated rehabilitation facility for children with cerebral palsy as well as better accommodation for rehabilitation purposes. Spending time with cerebral palsied children, the need for basic education becomes evident. Over protectiveness from parents could prevent these children from sensory experiences, which can only be evolved through touching, smelling, seeing hearing and tasting. This early childhood experience of sensory development usually involves play. Play is the ultimate form of exploration for any child and when disabled, free play is usually non-associative with everyday activities. Without free play, children will have a handicap in natural development of social, mental, physical and sensory skills. Through harmless play, even a lion cub learns to become a hunter. The aim of this project would be to create a center where play would be used to rehabilitate children with cerebral palsy. New Hope School is situated in the Menlopark area, Pretoria. The proposed site for the rehabilitation centre would be consolidated to the north western corner of the existing school grounds and thus engaging this project as an addition to the existing New Hope School. The architecture used, should be of simplistic nature which merges the interiors of the building with nature. By achieving this, the children would get a basic form of sensory development while rehabilitating in the building. CopyrightDissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010.Architectureunrestricte

The profitability of green retrofitting the building envelope of commercial buildings in Cape Town

A notion exists that the operational savings stemming from Deep Energy Retrofits are not sufficient to justify its capital outlay. This notion has focused property developers' attention on the construction of new green buildings, rather than optimizing existing building stock. Producing new buildings, while many existing properties are utilized on a sub-optimal level, with low rental income and high vacancies is not only resource inefficient, but also contributes to a much greater carbon footprint. The aim of this research is to establish whether retrofitting is a viable means of optimizing energy consumption in buildings based on investment return. The literature reveals that the façade is the most significant variable in energy optimisation in buildings and concluded that over-cladding strategies are generally the most efficient means to reduce heat transfer and control lighting levels. The research have been conducted by means of a two tiered methodology involving a case study approach, along with an experimental design, which was conducted through a simulation. A hypothetical building, representative of Cape Town's building stock was modeled and a number of façade over-clad strategies simulated to derive the most optimal solution. The simulation is conducted in DOE Energy Plus and COMFEN GUI. Capital cost data was collected and compared to energy cost savings in order to determine payback values. It was found that over-clad strategies may be economically feasible, which delivered payback periods of between 5 and 19 years, depending on the strategy. A partial retrofit, involving only the East and West facades was found to be the most feasible from an investment point of view, where woven mesh screens delivered the best results

SASOM steps up support to members in the era of COVID-19

Since July, SASOM has been offering its members webinars dedicated to various aspects of COVID-19, aligned with the topics of interest that have been requested by its members. This online programme came about because SASOM’s annual congress for 2020 was cancelled due to the global pandemic. The webinars are accredited by the South African Medical Association (SAMA) for Continuing Professional Development (CPD points/CEUnits) for all participants, and the presentations are available on the SASOM website, for members to access.http://www.occhealth.co.zaam2021School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH

BLTR1 and CD36 Expressing Microvesicles in Atherosclerotic Patients and Healthy Individuals

Aims: Monocytes/macrophages play a crucial role in the development, progression, and complication of atherosclerosis. In particular, foam cell formation driven by CD36 mediated internalization of oxLDL leads to activation of monocytes and subsequent release of microvesicles (MVs) derived from monocytes (MMVs). Further, pro-inflammatory leukotriene B4 (LTB4) derived from arachidonic acid promotes atherosclerosis through the high-affinity receptor BLTR1. Thus, we aimed to investigate the correlation between different MMV phenotypes (CD14+ MVs) on the one hand, and arachidonic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid contents in different compartments including atherosclerotic plaques, plasma, and granulocytes on the other.Methods and Results: Samples from patients with femoral atherosclerosis and healthy controls were analyzed on an Apogee A60 Micro-PLUS flow cytometer. Platelet-poor plasma was labeled with lactadherin-FITC, anti-CD14-APC, anti-CD36-PE, and anti-BLTR1-AF700. Eicosapentaenoic acid and arachidonic acid content in different compartments in patients were analyzed using gas chromatography. Compared to controls, patients had lower levels of BLTR1+ MVs (p = 0.007), CD14+BLTR1+ MVs (p = 0.007), and CD14+BLTR1+CD36+ MVs (p = 0.001). Further, in patients CD14+ MVs and CD14+CD36+ MVs correlated inversely with arachidonic acid in granulocytes (r = −0.302, p = 0.039 and r = −0.322, p = 0.028, respectively). Moreover, CD14+CD36+ MVs correlated inversely with arachidonic acid in plasma phospholipids in patients (r = −0.315, p = 0.029), and positively with triglyceride in both patients (r = 0.33, p = 0.019) and controls (r = 0.46, p = 0.022).Conclusion: This is the first study of its kind and thus the results are explorative and only indicative. BLTR1+ MVs and CD14+CD36+ MVs has potential as markers of atherosclerosis pathophysiology, but this needs further investigation

Zoom in on antibody aggregates:A potential pitfall in the search of rare EV populations

High-resolution flow cytometers (hFCM) are used for the detection of extracellular vesicles (EV) in various biological fluids. Due to the increased sensitivity of hFCM, new artifacts with the potential of interfering with data interpretation are introduced, such as detection of antibody aggregates. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent of aggregates in labels commonly used for the characterization of EVs by hFCM. Furthermore, we aimed to compare the efficacy of centrifugation and filtering treatments to remove aggregates, as well as to quantify the effect of the treatments in reducing aggregates. For this purpose, we labeled phosphate buffered saline (PBS) with fluorescently conjugated protein labels and antibodies after submitting them to 5, 10, or 30 min centrifugation, filtering or washed filtering. We investigated samples by hFCM and quantified the amount of aggregates found in PBS labeled with untreated and pre-treated labels. We found a varying amount of aggregates in all labels investigated, and further that filtering is most efficient in removing all but the smallest aggregates. Filtering protein labels can reduce the extent of aggregates; however, how much remains depends on the specific labels and their combination. Therefore, it is still necessary to include appropriate controls in a hFCM study of EVs