Primjena umjetne toplinske stimulacije kao novi pristup za indukciju tendinopatije u magaraca

Animal models for tendonitis are essential for studying the disease’s mechanism and pathogenesis, and evaluating different therapeutic protocols. The temperature seems to play a significant role in tendinitis initiation. The aim of this study was the generation of a novel, safe and cheap tendinitis model, and validation of its reliability. The effect of microwave diathermy (30 watts for 30 min) on the flexor tendons of donkeys as animal models was investigated after 15, 30 and 60 days. The evaluation was based on geometric analysis, ultrasonography, histomorphometric analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Microwave diathermy was capable of successfully inducing well-defined lesions in the superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT) as well as the deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT). The results showed that all the animals exhibited signs of lameness, starting on day 15 and reaching on maximum on day 30. A significant increase in limb circumference was also detected on day 30 (P<0.05). Furthermore, the geometrical analysis of the proportion of induced lesion (PIL) in correlation with the tendon diameter, revealed that PIL was at the maximum width on day 30 (20.6 ± 1.2% for SDFT and 15.7 ± 0.7% for DDFT), as detected by ultrasound. Moreover, a high number of rounded tenocytes, bleeding, severe matrix disruption, and an increase in fiber thickness were detected by histomorphometric analysis. Also, the matrix alignment was severely disrupted in both SDFT and DDFT by day 30, as confirmed by SEM. In conclusion, using microwave diathermy for induction of tendonitis in donkey is a reliable, minimally invasive, and cost-effective tendonitis model.Uporaba životinjskih modela je neophodna za proučavanje mehanizma bolesti, patogeneze i za procjenu protokola liječenje tendinitisa. Čini se da temperatura igra značajnu ulogu pri nastajanju tendinitisa. Cilj istraživanja bio je stvaranje novog, sigurnog i jeftinog modela za proučavanje tendinitisa te potvrda njegove pouzdanosti. Učinak mikrovalne dijatermije (30 vata tijekom 30 min) na tetive fleksora u magaraca kao životinjskih modela istraživan je nakon 15, 30 i 60 dana. Procjena se temeljila na geometrijskoj analizi, ultrazvuku, histomorfometrijskoj analizi i skenirajućoj elektronskoj mikroskopiji (SEM). Mikrovalna dijatermija uspješno je inducirala dobro definirane lezije u površinskoj digitalnoj tetivi fleksora (SDFT) kao i dubokoj digitalnoj tetivi fleksora (DDFT). Rezultati su pokazali da su sve životinje pokazivale znakove hromosti, počevši od 15. dana i dostižući maksimum 30. dana. Također, 30. dana je uočeno znakovito (P<0,05) povećanje opsega ekstremiteta. Nadalje, uporabom ultrazvuka i primjenom geometrijske analize udjela inducirane lezije (PIL) u korelaciji s promjerom tetive, ustanovljeno je da je PIL bio maksimalne širine 30. dana (20,6 ± 1,2% za SFT i 15,7 ± 0,7% za DDFT). Osim toga, histomorfometrijskom analizom otkriven je povećan broj zaobljenih tenocita, krvarenje, teži poremećaji u matriksu i povećanje debljine vlakana. Do 30. dana, SEM analiza je pokazala izražene poremećaje u poravnavanju matriksa i u SDFT i u DDFT. Zaključno, primjena mikrovalne dijatermije za indukciju tendinitisa kod magaraca je pouzdan, minimalno invazivan i troškovno učinkovit životinjski model za proučavanje ove bolesti

Machine Learning based Stochastic Techniques for Collaborative Privacy in Social Recommender Services

A variety of online social services have been developed over the last decade. They have all had a profound effect on today’s society. With the emergence of Web 2.0 and the popularity of social media, there has been a growing demand to provide services supporting social network platforms. New services are constantly being develpoed, where an increasing volume of personal data is being processed in return for personally tailored services. This result in creating mature systems to satisfy users’ needs is referred to as social recommender services that create an inevitable trend driven by mutual benefits. The penetration of these services has been relatively slow recently since there still exists different viewpoints regarding the exploitation (and thus potential) of those services amongst researchers and users. One major concern regarding their adoption lies in privacy considerations of the users while using these services. With the increasing amount of personal data that users distribute over different services, there is an increased probability for identity fraud, profiling and linkability attacks, that not only poses a threat to those people’s personal dignity and affects different aspects of their lives, but also to societies as a whole. In most cases, this can prevent users from fully embracing these services whereas most of the “privacy-concerned” systems that have been developed so far, are either based on a trusted third-party model or on some generalized architecture. This thesis focuses primarily on social recommender services which are of great interest. On the one hand, they lay the groundwork for new innovative applications but on the other hand they pose numerous unique challenges to privacy. We studied the privacy problem faced by people in sharing their profiles’ preferences within various scenarios of social recommender services. We proposed and developed a collaborative privacy approach for preserving users’ profile privacy and we have applied this approach to representative scenarios: (I.) Recommender service for IPTV content providers; (II.) Data Mash-up services for IPTV recommender services and (III.) Community discovery and recommendation services for implicit social groups (conference organization and university campus). Location based recommendation services, mobile jukebox content recommender services and pervasive healthcare services were studied and enhanced as well in order to show the applicability of our approach. We discussed how our approach could handle the privacy problem in these scenarios. In Addition, the proposed collaborative privacy framework was developed as a middleware that hosts a set of components to execute a two stage concealment process with novel stochastic techniques. Each stage in the two stage concealment process is carried out by completely different parties depending on their role in the coalition. The proposed middleware as well as the set of components and techniques that is employed in its implementation, permit the end-users to control the privacy of their released data while interacting with social recommender services. This kind of approach is quite flexible and can easily be adopted in conventional social recommender services because it is executed on the user side and takes advantage of the social structure that is offered by the online social service without the need for significant modifications at the service provider side. The attained accuracy and privacy levels for the data concealed using the proposed stochastic techniques in different scenarios were evaluated. Moreover, attacks on such concealed data were presented to demonstrate the stability of our proposed techniques against such attacks. Finally, we applied off-the-shelf recommendation techniques to make referrals as a show case. Therefore, the experimental results show that the proposed approach obtains accurate results similar to unsecured services, while at the same time meeting users’ privacy concerns

Iodoacetate and allogenous cartilage particles as models for arthritis induction in equine

Experimental models of osteoarthritis (OA) have been widely developed in different animal species, because of the high incidence of osteoarthritis diseases in humans and animals. To date, no ideal OA animal model has been reported. The present study compare different osteoarthritis models to determine which one is suitable for inducing experimental equine OA. Fifteen donkeys were divided into three equal groups (n = 5). The radio carpal joints of the right forelimb of 15 donkeys were injected with 25 mg monoiodoacetate (MIA) (group A), 50 mg allogenous cartilage particles (ACP) (group B), or vehicle solution (group C) over a period of 70 days. Osteoarthritis induction was evaluated weekly through lameness score, carpal circumference, joint flexion angel, synovial fluid analysis (total protein and WBC count), and radiology. Animal were euthanized and joints histopathology were performed at 70 days. Lameness score and joint circumference was increased in both group A and B however joint flexion angel was decreased compared to group C (p < 0.05). Osteophytes were observed in MIA injected joints only accompanied with subchondral bone sclerosis. Cartilage damage was observed grossly and histologically in Group A together with synovial membrane fibrosis. Group B had on cartilage damage grossly however histological examination revealed some cartilage surface discontinuity with synovial membrane edema. Injection of monoiodoacetate in the donkey is a successful model to create the acute clinical signs of joint disease as well as cartilage damage. However, allogenous cartilage particles injection need more investigation to be applied

Standard measurement of the normal forelimb claw dimensions in Egyptian buffalo cows (Bubalus Bubalis) before and after functional trimming: a post-mortem study

The aim of this study was to compare forelimb claw dimensions in buffalo cows, and to establish a reference values for functional claw trimming. Medial and lateral healthy front feet claws were evaluated from 20 young (YB) and 20 mature (MB) Egyptian buffalo cows. The dorsal wall length (TL), dorsal wall angle (TA), heel length (HBL), height (HBH) and width (HBW), sole (SL) and claw length (CL) and sole width (SW) were measured. Differences between YB and MB were evaluated using ANOVA test, while those between the lateral and medial claws with a paired t test. Before and after trimming, the HBL, HBW, HBH, SL and CL were significantly higher for both claws in MB, while the TA was significantly lower. Before trimming the lateral HBW and HBH were significantly higher than the medial, while the SL and CL of the medial claw were significantly higher than the lateral claw. After trimming, the lateral claw HBL was significantly higher in MB. The SW of the lateral claw was significantly higher than the medial claw in both YB and MB, and it did not change after trimming. These results can be considered as a guidance during front feet trimming in buffaloes