Bibliografia

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Remark on a Browder's fixed point theorem

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Bibliography

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Adhesion and proliferation of human dental pulp stem cells on a laser micro textured implant surface: An in vitro study

The roughness of the implant surface and its chemistery and toporaphy were demonstrated to impact cells biological properties. A moderate roughness seems to allow better and faster adhesion and proliferation and to accelerate the biological processes. The different physical and chemical procedures used to obtain a certain microtopography modify the surface chemical composition and, in consequence of it, can affect the biological cell behavior. The ideal surface shuold be obtained through processes that do not modify the chemical composition maintaining a right roughness and microtopography. The aim of this investigation was to study the morphology, proliferation and pattern of distribution of human Dental Pulp Stem Cells (hDPSCs) after 5 days of growth on a laser micro-grooved implant surface (Laser-Lock, Bio Horizons IPH, Inc. Birmingham, AL 35244, USA) characterized by a micro geometric design obtained by computer-aided laser ablation without any chemical treatment. Data from SEM surface observation and XPS chemical analysis have highlighted the absence of contaminating chemical elements. The results from cell cultures indicated that the hDPSCs maintained a good morphology and well proliferated following the microgrooves direction

The Role of Lysine 63-Linked Ubiquitylation in Health and Disease

A specific subfamily within the E2 protein family is involved in the synthesis of noncanonical poly-ubiquitin chains, linked through lysine 63 residues. The role of lysine 63-linked polyubiquitylation in diseases has emerged only recently. Under physiological conditions, this process does not seem to be involved in the classical protein degradation by the proteasome, but it is involved in the regulation of intracellular signaling, DNA damage response, cellular trafficking, and lysosomal targeting. The alteration of this process has been described in a number of pathological conditions, including immune disorders, diabetes, and cancer. In this chapter, we will describe the role of lysine 63-linked ubiquitylation in the regulation of diverse signaling pathways involved in cell behavior. We will also describe some pathological conditions in which altered lysine 63-linked ubiquitylation has been referred to play an important role

RootSkin: From Soil to Soil

Food and architecture have always been intertwined. When humans started to build settlements, we began to dictate where the food would be grown. Simultaneously, natural resources such as water, light and nutrients dictate how a plant grows. When a climbing plant or vines are planted, humans begin to plan the route for the plant to grow, forcing it to take on certain forms. Is it possible to control the plant below the surface of the soil as it is above the soil? Plant roots seek out and grow towards the water source, posing the possibility to control the network of roots that are often hidden deep within the soil. Today architects are working with nature to create an architecture that is both responsive to and harmonious with nature. As resources, in particular land, become increasingly scarce and our human population continues to grow, we have to find new solutions for both food production and housing. Our cities provide us with new opportunities to reshape the urban fabric while responding to these current issues. While plants provide food, they can also potentially provide other resources that could be used in architectural applications. Plants already provide us with many benefits such as food, medicine, and cleaning the air, to name but a few. Often, once the fruit or seed is removed and the plant no longer fruits, the plant is removed from the soil and discarded - hopefully composted. This poses the question; is it possible to simultaneously harvest other elements of the plants and make use of them before they biodegrade and end up back in the soil? RootSkin is a research developed to explore the creation of biodegradable textiles made from the roots of plants as well as producing food during the “growth” of the textile. The aim being that these textiles can then form part of architectural installations such as skins for pavilions or buildings, for example. In addition, the natural biodegradation allows for an element of change to be incorporated into design

Recurrent Neural-Linear Posterior Sampling for Nonstationary Contextual Bandits

An agent in a nonstationary contextual bandit problem should balance between exploration and the exploitation of (periodic or structured) patterns present in its previous experiences. Handcrafting an appropriate historical context is an attractive alternative to transform a nonstationary problem into a stationary problem that can be solved efficiently. However, even a carefully designed historical context may introduce spurious relationships or lack a convenient representation of crucial information. In order to address these issues, we propose an approach that learns to represent the relevant context for a decision based solely on the raw history of interactions between the agent and the environment. This approach relies on a combination of features extracted by recurrent neural networks with a contextual linear bandit algorithm based on posterior sampling. Our experiments on a diverse selection of contextual and noncontextual nonstationary problems show that our recurrent approach consistently outperforms its feedforward counterpart, which requires handcrafted historical contexts, while being more widely applicable than conventional nonstationary bandit algorithms. Although it is very difficult to provide theoretical performance guarantees for our new approach, we also prove a novel regret bound for linear posterior sampling with measurement error that may serve as a foundation for future theoretical work

NEW SCREENING TESTS IN EARLY PREGANCY: DIAGNOSIS AND PREVENTION

Distinction between fetal growth restriction and small for gestational age newborn weight enhances the prognostic value of low PAPP-A in the first trimester. Conserva V, Signaroldi M, Mastroianni C, Stampalija T, Ghisoni L, Ferrazzi E. Prenat Diagn. 2010 Oct;30(10):1007-9 Objective Low levels of PAPP-A in maternal blood may become an early marker of obstetrical complications. The aim of this article was to sort out those outcomes consistently related to an abnormal placental vascular function and to evaluate their association with low levels of maternal serum PAPP-A in early pregnancy Methods We analyzed retrospectively a database of the first trimester combined screening of an Italian biotech company and investigated the correlation between PAPP-A value < 5th percentile, 0.40 multiples of the median (MoM), and infants with birthweight below the 10th percentile for gestational age (small for gestational age SGA), preterm delivery, GH and PE not associated with intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR), IUGR isolated with an abnormal umbilical PI or associated with maternal GH-PE, placental abruption and intra-uterine fetal demise (IUFD) after 22 weeks of gestation. Results 1687 patients were analyzed. Overall pregnancy complications were observed in 31.4% of women with low PAPP-A and in 21.1% women with a PAPP-A value >0.4 MoM (P < 0.0001). Severe and early fetal growth restriction (<34 weeks) with abnormal umbilical PI or maternal PE, was significantly associated with low levels of PAPP-A (OR= 10, 95% CI 1.0\u201397, P = 0.02). No relationship was observed between SGA newborns and low PAPP-A. Weak association was observed in with GH and PE not associated with fetal growth restriction (OR = 1.9, 95% CI 1.1\u20133, P = 0.01). We also observed a correlation between low PAPP-A and preterm delivery (OR = 1.8, 95% CI 1.1\u20132,9, P = 0.01). Because of the small number of cases, the OR for placental abruption and IUFD were not calculated Conclusions. Low values of PAPP-A are associated with abnormal obstetrical outcome. Evaluating separately growth-restricted fetuses and small for gestational age fetuses we observe that only growth-restricted fetuses are significantly associated with low values of PAPP-A, whereas SGA newborns, simply defined by their percentile rank, are not predicted by this test in the first trimester of pregnancy. \u2003 Recurrence and severity of abnormal pregnancy outcome in patients treated by low-molecular-weight-heparin: a prospective pilot study. Conserva V, Muggiasca M, Arrigoni L, Mantegazza V, Edoardo Rossi E, Ferrazzi E J Matern Fetal Neonatal Med. 2011 Nov 29 Objective This prospective pilot study assesses the recurrence rate and severity of abnormal pregnancy outcome (APO), excluding early pregnancy complications, in pregnant patients, without acquired thrombophilia, treated by prophylactic doses of LMWH, independently from their congenital thrombophilic condition. Methods We recruited a cohort of 128 pregnant patients with previous APO; 100 of whom with APO and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and 28 with maternal APO only. LMWH treatment was started at recruitment. Composite cross over recurrence rate IUGR, gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, HELLP, abruptio was analyzed. The main outcome measure was severe APOs with iatrogenic delivery 64 32 weeks of gestation. Results Median gestational age at LMWH treatment was 20 weeks. Severe APO decreased in treated pregnancies from 45% to 4% (R.R.=0.3, CI .95=0.2-0.8). This value was not significantly different in thrombophilic and non thrombophilic patients. When severe and minor complications were analyzed altogether the recurrence rate was 28%. In patients with APO and FGR in the index pregnancy, newborn weights were significantly better in the treated pregnancy: 1090g (1035-1145) vs. 850g (535-1200), P<0,01) Conclusions. Prophylactic regimen of LMWH significantly reduced the recurrence rate of severe composite APO in pregnancies affected in the index pregnancy by APO and fetal growth restriction or SGA newborns. This result was independent from the patients\u2019 inherited thrombophilic conditions.\u200

Un teorema di punto fisso per trasformazioni su uno spazio uniforme di Hausdorff con una iterata contrattiva in ogni punto

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