Smart implants as a novel strategy to regenerate well-founded cartilage

Here we explore a new generation of smart, living implants, combining not only active therapeutics but also stem cells, as a novel strategy to regenerate stabilised cartilage and avoid prostheses. This process can regenerate the subchondral bone foundation, which is currently difficult in the clinic

Emotional Capital in Family Businesses: Decisions from Human Resource Management Perspective

Nowadays, family businesses (FBs) have become a distinctive organizational model, not only for preserving the values of their founders in times of technological, political and economical changes but also for fostering a different kind of organization surrounded by emotional ties. This is particularly interesting to the human resource management (HRM) area, because managers must take decisions aimed at achieving economic and financial goals, which often affect the emotional stability of family members. Regarding this issue, the term emotional capital (EC) appears as a set of assets based on the emotions that the organization has developed over time with their employees. This chapter examines, from the HRM perspective, how human resource choices can be affected in order to preserve a positive EC for organizations. Due to the social implications emotions have in HRM, the chapter also links corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an important management strategy, focused on meeting employees and social concerns, as a way to strengthen the emotional bonds in companies. The literature review and institutional reports pointed the characteristics of FB in Spain, describing how companies could design human resource policies and practices aimed at keeping EC. Finally, the configurational approach of HRM is used to explain the design of the best possible human resource practices adapted to a particular context like FB

Risk Analysis of DP Incidents During Drilling Operations

This paper aims to present a method to determine the type of dynamic positioning (DP) incidents that have a more significant risk during drilling operations in the period 2007-2015, according to the element or the type of failure that causes the DP system to fail. Two different classifications are made: 1) according to the element that produces the incident (which has been the traditional classification in the industry) and 2) according to the type of error that arises, the latter being an alternative classification proposed in this paper. The predictable financial losses for each level of severity are used to define the resulting consequences for each case. A risk analysis is performed with the data obtained, showing the potentially more dangerous incidents, either because of their higher number of occurrences or because their consequences are remarkable. According to the classification proposed, the main causes with the higher risk results were power and environmental, according to the traditional classification, and fault/failure. Thus, the power segment’s combination of failures is the riskiest cause during the DP drilling operations

Resuming hip and knee arthroplasty after COVID-19: ethical implications for wellbeing, safety and the economy

Reinstating elective hip and knee arthroplasty services presents significant challenges. We need to be honest about the scale of the obstacles ahead and realise that the health challenges and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are potentially devastating. We must also prepare to make difficult ethical decisions about restarting elective hip and knee arthroplasty. These decisions should be based on the existing evidence-base, reliable data, the recommendations of experts, and regional circumstance

Bacterial adhesion on biomedical surfaces covered by yttria stabilized zirconia

The aim of this study was to compare the bacterial adhesion of Staphylococcus spp. on Ti-6Al-4V with respect to Ti-6Al-V modified alloys with a set of Cubic yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) and Ag-YSZ nanocomposite films. Silver is well known to have a natural biocidal character and its presence in the surface predicted to enhance the antimicrobial properties of biomedical surfaces. Microbial adhesion tests were performed using collection strains and twelve clinical strains of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis. The adherence study was performed using a previously published protocol by Kinnari et al. Both collection strains and clinical isolates have shown lower bacterial adhesion to materials modified with respect to the alloy Ti-6Al-4V and the modification with silver reduced the bacterial adhesion for most of all the strains studied. Moreover the percentage of dead bacteria have been evaluated, demonstrating increased proportion of dead bacteria for the modified surfaces. Nanocrystalline silver dissolves releasing both Ag+ and Ag-0 whereas other silver sources release only Ag+. We can conclude that YSZ with nanocrystalline silver coating may lead to diminished postoperative infections and to increased corrosion and scratch resistance of YSZ incorporating alloys Ti-6Al-4V.Peer reviewe

Effect of surface roughness and sterilization on bacterial adherence to ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene

AbstractSterilization with ethylene oxide (EO) and gas plasma (GP) are well-known methods applied to ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) surfaces in the belief that they prevent major material changes caused by gamma irradiation. However, the influence of these surface sterilization methods on bacterial adherence to UHMWPE is unknown. UHMWPE samples with various degrees of roughness (0.3, 0.8 and 2.0 µm) were sterilized with either GP or EO. The variations in hydrophobicity, surface free energy and surface functional groups were investigated before and after sterilization. Sterilized samples were incubated with either Staphylococcus aureus or Staphylococcus epidermidis in order to study bacterial adherence to these materials. Fewer bacteria adhered to UHMWPE after sterilization with EO than after sterilization with GP, especially to the smoothest surfaces. No changes in chemical composition of the UHMWPE surface due to sterilization were observed using X-ray photoemission spectroscopy analysis. The decreased bacterial adherence to UHMWPE found at the smoothest surfaces after sterilization with EO was not directly related to changes in chemical composition. Increased bacterial adherence to rougher surfaces was associated with increased polar surface energy of EO-sterilized surfaces

Towards Whole Placenta Segmentation At Late Gestation Using Multi-View Ultrasound Images

We propose a method to extract the human placenta at late gestation using multi-view 3D US images. This is the first step towards automatic quantification of placental volume and morphology from US images along the whole pregnancy beyond early stages (where the entire placenta can be captured with a single 3D US image). Our method uses 3D US images from different views acquired with a multi-probe system. A whole placenta segmentation is obtained from these images by using a novel technique based on 3D convolutional neural networks. We demonstrate the performance of our method on 3D US images of the placenta in the last trimester. We achieve a high Dice overlap of up to 0.8 with respect to manual annotations, and the derived placental volumes are comparable to corresponding volumes extracted from MR.Wellcome Trust IEH Award; EPSRC Centre for Medical Engineering; National Institute for Health Research (NIHR); King’s College London; NHS Foundation Trus

ALS/FTD‐associated FUS activates GSK‐3β to disrupt the VAPB–PTPIP51 interaction and ER–mitochondria associations

Defective FUS metabolism is strongly associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia (ALS/FTD), but the mechanisms linking FUS to disease are not properly understood. However, many of the functions disrupted in ALS/FTD are regulated by signalling between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria. This signalling is facilitated by close physical associations between the two organelles that are mediated by binding of the integral ER protein VAPB to the outer mitochondrial membrane protein PTPIP51, which act as molecular scaffolds to tether the two organelles. Here, we show that FUS disrupts the VAPB–PTPIP51 interaction and ER–mitochondria associations. These disruptions are accompanied by perturbation of Ca2+ uptake by mitochondria following its release from ER stores, which is a physiological read‐out of ER–mitochondria contacts. We also demonstrate that mitochondrial ATP production is impaired in FUS‐expressing cells; mitochondrial ATP production is linked to Ca2+ levels. Finally, we demonstrate that the FUS‐induced reductions to ER–mitochondria associations and are linked to activation of glycogen synthase kinase‐3β (GSK‐3β), a kinase already strongly associated with ALS/FTD

Osteonecrosis of the femoral head safely healed with autologous, expanded, bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells in a multicentric trial with minimum 5 years follow-up

10.3390/jcm10030508

High-order 3D Voronoi tessellation for identifying Isolated galaxies, Pairs and Triplets

Geometric method based on the high-order 3D Voronoi tessellation is proposed for identifying the single galaxies, pairs and triplets. This approach allows to select small galaxy groups and isolated galaxies in different environment and find the isolated systems. The volume-limited sample of galaxies from the SDSS DR5 spectroscopic survey was used. We conclude that in such small groups as pairs and triplets the segregation by luminosity is clearly observed: galaxies in the isolated pairs and triplets are on average two times more luminous than isolated galaxies. We consider the dark matter content in different systems. The median values of mass-to-luminosity ratio are 12 M_sol/L_sol for the isolated pairs and 44 M_sol/L_sol for the isolated triplets; 7 (8) M_sol/L_sol for the most compact pairs (triplets). We found also that systems in the denser environment have greater rms velocity and mass-to-luminosity ratio.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Accepted 2008 October 25 in MNRA