Materials science at Swiss universities of applied sciences

Copyright ©Swiss Chemical Society: CHIMIA, Volume 73, Numbers 7-8, August 2019, pp. 645-655(11)In the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences, several research institutes are involved in Materials Science, with different approaches and applications fields. A few examples of recent projects from different groups of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) are given

Routine patient surveys: Patients' preferences and information gained by healthcare providers.

BackgroundPatient feedback after contact with a hospital is regarded as an important source of information for the improvement of local healthcare services. Routine patient surveys are in widespread use to obtain such feedback. While general principles for the composition of this kind of surveys have been described in the literature, it is unknown which method of contact and topics of feedback are important to patients in postcontact healthcare surveys.Material and methodsWe invited 2931 consecutive patients who had in- or outpatient contact with the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the University Hospital Basel to an anonymous survey. They were asked whether they were generally in favor of feedback surveys. They also had the opportunity to state their preferred form of contact (text message, app, email, online or letter) and provide up to three topics that they regarded as specifically important in patient surveys.ResultsA total of 745 patients participated in the survey (25.4%), of these 61.9% expressed the preference to be surveyed, and 69.1% selected `letter' as one of the preferred forms of contact. Favoring only `letter' contact increased substantially with age. Overall 54.6% of patients stated at least one topic that they wished to give feedback on. The most frequent topics were related to treatment and rather general aspects regarding staff and overall impression. The wish to include suggestions for improvements was rarely mentioned as specific topic.ConclusionsThe majority of patients seem to be rather indifferent to the existence and content of patient surveys. They mention a wide range of topics from general to specific ones, but do not express interest in the opportunity to suggest changes. There is a need to effectively engage patients in healthcare planning using new approaches to obtain valuable feedback on patients' hospital stay and contact experiences. These new approaches should ideally be more informative and cost-effective than the current practice

Praxis und Forschung - wie tief ist der Graben? : erste Erfahrungen in der Schweiz, beurteilt nach Prinzipien des Participatory Research

Einleitung: Das Anheben der Ergotherapie-Ausbildung auf Fachhochschul-Niveau in der Schweiz erfordert neben der Aus- und Weiterbildung neu auch die Forschung. Diese soll stark auf die Bedürfnisse der Praxis ausgerichtet sein und zu praxisrelevanten Ergebnissen führen. Eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit der Praxis ist deshalb unumgänglich. Ziel: Um Erfahrungen mit angewandte Forschung fest zu halten, wurde die Zusammenarbeit einer Projektgruppe zwischen einem Universitätsspital und der Fachhochschule evaluiert. Methode: Im Hinblick auf die Forschungsfrage "Wie beurteilen Beteiligte der Forschungs-Kooperation zwischen der Ergotherapie, PUK Zürich, und dem Institut für Ergotherapie, ZHAW, ihre Zusammenarbeit in Bezug auf die Merkmale eines Participatory Research-Projektes"? hatten alle Projektmitglieder der Forschungsgruppe einen Fragebogen mit überwiegend offenen Fragen ausgefüllt. Die Antworten wurden anonymisiert und mittels meaning condensation analysiert. Die Ergebnisse werden – an den Kriterien von Participatory Research orientiert – dargestellt. Zusammenfassend wurden durch die Analyse der Antworten verschiedene förderliche und hinderliche Faktoren in Bezug auf Merkmale eines Participatory-Research-Projekts offensichtlich. Diskussion und Schlussfolgerung: Die Anwendung von Participatory Research stellt sehr hohe Anforderungen an alle Beteiligten. Ungeachtet des grossen Aufwands an Zeit und Geld versucht diese Form von mitwirkender Forschung, den Graben zwischen Forschung und Praxis zu verkleinern. Ergotherapeutische Forschung in der Schweiz ist derzeit Pionierarbeit, in deren Rahmen noch viele Hindernisse überwunden werden müssen. Notwendig ist der direkte Diskurs zwischen praktisch tätigen Ergotherapeuten, Vertretern des Berufsverbands, Ausbildungsinstitutionen und Forschenden, welche Form der Zusammenarbeit und Forschungstätigkeit gewünscht und realisierbar ist. Introduction: Due to the raising of the occupational therapy education onto the level of universities of applied sciences in Switzerland research is now also required besides education and further training. Research should strongly be connected to the needs of practice and one expects research to generate practice-relevant results. A close co-operation with practice is therefore inevitable. Purpose: In order to explore experiences with applied research, the co-operation of a project group between a university hospital and a university of applied sciences was evaluated. Method: To answer the research question ”How do persons involved in a research co-operation between the department of Occupational Therapy, PUK Zurich, and the Institute of Occupational Therapy, ZHAW, evaluate their collaboration with regard to the principles of Participatory Research?” a questionnaire was constructed. The questionnaire mainly contained open questions. The members of the project group filled it in. The answers were made anonymous and analyzed by means of meaning condensation. Results: Results are presented in accordance to the principles of Participatory Research. Analysis revealed different promoting and preventing factors regarding the principles of a Participatory Research project. Discussion and conclusion: The use of Participatory Research makes very high demands on all persons involved. Despite large expenditure (time and money) this form of research tries to make the gap smaller between research and practice. During this phase of pioneer work of occupational therapy research in Switzerland still many obstacles must be overcome. The direct discourse is needed between practically active occupational therapists, representatives of the professional association, as well as institutions for education and research. One has to discuss, which kind of co-operation and research work is desired and realizable

Amino acid composition of nanofibrillar self-assembling peptide hydrogels affects responses of periodontal tissue cells in vitro

Background: The regeneration of tissue defects at the interface between soft and hard tissue, eg, in the periodontium, poses a challenge due to the divergent tissue requirements. A class of biomaterials that may support the regeneration at the soft-to-hard tissue interface are self-assembling peptides (SAPs), as their physicochemical and mechanical properties can be rationally designed to meet tissue requirements. Materials and methods: In this work, we investigated the effect of two single-component and two complementary β-sheet forming SAP systems on their hydrogel properties such as nanofibrillar architecture, surface charge, and protein adsorption as well as their influence on cell adhesion, morphology, growth, and differentiation. Results: We showed that these four 11-amino acid SAP (P11-SAP) hydrogels possessed physicochemical characteristics dependent on their amino acid composition that allowed variabilities in nanofibrillar network architecture, surface charge, and protein adsorption (eg, the single-component systems demonstrated an ~30% higher porosity and an almost 2-fold higher protein adsorption compared with the complementary systems). Cytocompatibility studies revealed similar results for cells cultured on the four P11-SAP hydrogels compared with cells on standard cell culture surfaces. The single-component P11-SAP systems showed a 1.7-fold increase in cell adhesion and cellular growth compared with the complementary P11-SAP systems. Moreover, significantly enhanced osteogenic differentiation of human calvarial osteoblasts was detected for the single-component P11-SAP system hydrogels compared with standard cell cultures. Conclusion: Thus, single-component system P11-SAP hydrogels can be assessed as suitable scaffolds for periodontal regeneration therapy, as they provide adjustable, extracellular matrix-mimetic nanofibrillar architecture and favorable cellular interaction with periodontal cells

Engineering of large osteogenic grafts with rapid engraftment capacity using mesenchymal and endothelial progenitors from human adipose tissue

We investigated whether the maintenance in culture of endothelial and mesenchymal progenitors from the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of human adipose tissue supports the formation of vascular structures in vitro and thereby improves the efficiency and uniformity of bone tissue formation in vivo within critically sized scaffolds. Freshly-isolated human SVF cells were seeded and cultured into hydroxyapatite scaffolds (1 cm-diameter, 1 cm-thickness) using a perfusion-based bioreactor system, which resulted in maintenance of CD34(+)/CD31(+) endothelial lineage cells. Monolayer-expanded isogenic adipose stromal cells (ASC) and age-matched bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC), both lacking vasculogenic cells, were used as controls. After 5 days in vitro, SVF-derived endothelial and mesenchymal progenitors formed capillary networks, which anastomosed with the host vasculature already 1 week after ectopic nude rat implantation. As compared to BMSC and ASC, SVF-derived cells promoted faster tissue ingrowth, more abundant and uniform bone tissue formation, with ossicles reaching a 3.5 mm depth from the scaffold periphery after 8 weeks. Our findings demonstrate that maintenance of endothelial/mesenchymal SVF cell fractions is crucial to generate osteogenic constructs with enhanced engraftment capacity. The single, easily accessible cell source and streamlined, bioreactor-based process makes the approach attractive towards manufacturing of clinically relevant sized bone substitute grafts