Left orthotopic lung transplant in rats: the learning process.

INTRODUCTION: The orthotopic left lung transplantation model in rats has been developed to answer a variety of scientific questions in transplant immunology and in the related fields of respiratory diseases. However, its widespread use has been hampered by the complexity of the procedure. AIM OF THE RESEARCH: Our purpose is to provide a detailed description of the procedure of this technique, including the complications and difficulties from the very first microsurgical step until the ultimate successful completion of the transplant procedure. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The transplant procedures were performed by two collaborating transplant surgeons with microsurgical and thoracic surgery skills. A total of 150 left lung transplants in rats were performed. Twenty-seven syngeneic (Lewis to Lewis) and 123 allogeneic (Brown-Norway to Lewis) lung transplants were performed using the cuff technique. RESULTS: In first 50 transplant procedures, post-transplant survival rate was 74% of which 54% reached the end-point of 3 or 7 days post-transplant; whole complication rate was 66%. In the subsequent 50 transplant surgeries (from 51 to 100) post-transplant survival rate increased to 88% of which 56% reached the end-point; whole complication rate was 32 %. In the final 50 transplants (from 101 to 150) post-transplant survival rate was confirmed to be 88% of which 74% reached the end-point; whole complication rate was again 32 %. CONCLUSIONS: One hundred-fifty transplants can represent a reasonable number of procedures to obtain a satisfactory surgical outcome. Training period with simpler animal models is mandatory to develop anesthesiological and microsurgical skills required for successfully develop this model. The collaboration between at least two microsurgeons is mandatory to perform all the simultaneous procedures required for completing the transplant surgery

Acquired tracheoesophageal fistula repair, due to prolonged mechanical ventilation, in patient with double incomplete aortic arch

We report a case of the repair of an acquired benign tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF) after prolonged mechanical invasive ventilation. Patient had an unknown double incomplete aortic arch determining a vascular ring above trachea and esophagus. External tracheobronchial compression, caused by the vascular ring, increasing the internal tracheoesophageal walls pressure determined by endotracheal and nasogastric tubes favored an early TEF development. The fistula was repaired through an unusual left thoracotomy and vascular ring dissection. TEFs are a heterogeneous group of diseases affecting critically ill patients. Operative closure is necessary to avoid further complications related to this condition. Pre-operative study is mandatory to plan an adequate surgical approach

Design, synthesis and antimycobacterial activity of benzoxazinone derivatives and open-ring analogues: preliminary data and computational analysis

This study examines in depth benzoxazine nucleus for antimycobacterial property. We synthesized some benzoxazin-2-one and benzoxazin-3-one derivatives, which were tested for activity against a panel of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) strains, including H37Ra, H37Rv and some resistant strains. Several compounds displayed a high antimycobacterial activity and the three isoniazid analogue derivatives 8a-c exhibited a MIC range of 0.125-0.250 \u3bcg/mL (0.37-0.75 \u3bcM) against strain H37Ra, therefore lower than the isoniazid reference drug. Two benzoxazin-2-one derivatives, 1c and 5j, together with isoniazid-analogue compound 8a, also revealed low MIC values against resistant strains and proved highly selective for mycobacterial cells, compared to mammalian Vero cells. To predict whether molecule 8a is able to interact with the active site of InhA, we docked it into the crystal structure; indeed, during the molecular dynamic simulation the compound never left the protein pocket. The more active compounds were predicted for ADME properties and all proved to be potentially orally active in humans

Auxetic Foams for Sport Safety Applications

Auxetic materials offer potential to be applied to sports safety equipment. This work reports quasi-static and impact testing of auxetic open-cell polyurethane foam - fabricated with a compression and heat treatment process - in comparison to its conventional counterpart. The foam was compressed to 70% of its original dimension along each dimension during the conversion process. Quasi-static compression testing confirmed the converted foam to be auxetic, with a Poisson's ratio of -0.08. Impact testing was performed for energies up to 5.6 J with an instrumented drop rig and high-speed video. Peak accelerations were ∼3 times lower for the auxetic foams, because they prevented bottoming. This work has shown further potential for auxetic foam to be applied to sports safety devices. Future work should look to optimise foam selection and the conversion process, while comparing auxetic foam with existing materials and products

Integration of control, communication, computation, com- plexity and energy considerations in a coherent design strategy

This report is an overview of the research activities regarding WP06 (C4E co-design) of the FeedNetBack project. The objective of WP6 of Feed- NetBack is to propose a co-design framework, which allows the integration of control-estimation, communication, computation, complexity, and energy considerations in networked control systems. In this report we outline gen- eral guidelines for co-design and illustrate their applicability to the following case studies: (i) surveillance systems using a network of smart cameras and (ii) eets of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs).

RestTestGen: An Extensible Framework for Automated Black-box Testing of RESTful APIs

Over the past few years, several novel black-box testing approaches targeting RESTful APIs have been proposed. In order to assess their effectiveness, such testing strategies had to be implemented as a prototype tool and validated on empirical data. However, developing a testing tool is a time-consuming task, and reimplementing from scratch the same common basic features represents a waste of resources that causes a remarkable overhead in the "time to market" of research results.In this paper, we present RestTestGen, an extensible framework for implementing new automated black-box testing strategies for RESTful APIs. The framework provides a collection of commonly used components, such as a robust OpenAPI specification parser, dictionaries, input value generators, mutation operators, oracles, and others. Many of the provided components are customizable and extensible, enabling researchers and practitioners to quickly prototype, deploy, and evaluate their novel ideas. Additionally, the framework facilitates the development of novel black-box testing strategies by guiding researchers, by means of abstract components that explicitly identify those parts of the framework requiring a concrete implementation.As an adoption example, we show how we can implement nominal and error black-box testing strategies for RESTful APIs, by reusing primitives and features provided by the framework, and by concretely extending very few abstract components.RestTestGen is open-source, actively maintained, and publicly available on GitHub at https://github.com/SeUniVr/RestTestGe

Empirical Comparison of Black-box Test Case Generation Tools for RESTful APIs

In literature, we can find research tools to automatically generate test cases for RESTful APIs, addressing the specificity of this particular programming domain. However, no direct comparison of these tools is available to guide developers in deciding which tool best fits their REST API project. In this paper, we present the results of an empirical comparison of automated black-box test case generation approaches for REST APIs. We surveyed the available black-box testing tools that have been proposed in recent literature, finding four usable prototypes: RestTestGen, RESTler, bBOXRT and RESTest. We used these tools to generate test cases for 14 real-world REST services. Then, testing results have been analyzed and compared in terms of robustness (i.e., success rate) and test coverage. Among the considered tools, RESTler appears to be the most solid, able to successfully test all case studies (the other tools experienced crashes). Conversely, test cases generated by RestTestGen scored the highest coverage, suggesting that its testing strategy is the most effective in testing REST APIs

Restats: A Test Coverage Tool for RESTful APIs

Test coverage is a standard measure used to evaluate the completeness of a test suite. Coverage is typically computed on source code, by assessing the extent of source code entities (e.g., statements, data dependencies, control dependencies) that are exercised when running test cases. When considering REST APIs, an alternative perspective to assess test suite completeness is with respect to the service definition. This paper presents Restats, a test coverage tool for REST APIs that supports eight state-of-the-art test coverage metrics with a black-box perspective, i.e., only relying on the OpenAPI interface specification of the REST API under test. In fact, metrics are computed by only observing the HTTP requests and responses occurring at testing time, and no access to source/compiled code of the REST API is required. These coverage metrics come in handy for: (i) developers and test engineers working at development and maintenance tasks; (ii) stakeholders and customers who want to evaluate the completeness of acceptance tests; (iii) researches interested in comparing different automated test case generation strategies

New findings in the diagnosis and treatment of primary angle-closure glaucoma

Glaucoma is the second cause of blindness worldwide. In the next years, approximately one-fourth of all glaucoma cases will be angle-closure types. Older age, female sex, and Asian ethnicities are described risk factors as well as shorter axial length, shallow anterior chamber depth, lens position, and thickness. New findings suggest iris volume and choroidal thickness to have a key role in the mechanisms of angle closure. Classical clinical conditions are acute, intermittent, and chronic forms. Ultrasound biomicroscopy and anterior segment optical coherence tomography contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of angle closure, helping the ophthalmologists in the diagnosis and treatment. The therapy includes laser iridotomy, argon laser peripheral iridoplasty, lens extraction, goniosynechialysis, filtering surgery, drainage implant, and cyclodestruction