Developing Regenerative Treatments for Developmental Defects, Injuries, and Diseases Using Extracellular Matrix Collagen-Targeting Peptides.

Collagen is the most widespread extracellular matrix (ECM) protein in the body and is important in maintaining the functionality of organs and tissues. Studies have explored interventions using collagen-targeting tissue engineered techniques, using collagen hybridizing or collagen binding peptides, to target or treat dysregulated or injured collagen in developmental defects, injuries, and diseases. Researchers have used collagen-targeting peptides to deliver growth factors, drugs, and genetic materials, to develop bioactive surfaces, and to detect the distribution and status of collagen. All of these approaches have been used for various regenerative medicine applications, including neovascularization, wound healing, and tissue regeneration. In this review, we describe in depth the collagen-targeting approaches for regenerative therapeutics and compare the benefits of using the different molecules for various present and future applications

What\u27s Sex Got to Do with It? Challenges for Incorporating Sexuality into Family Planning Programs

In February 1996, IPPF/WHR and the Population Council’s Ebert Program on Critical Issues in Reproductive Health jointly hosted a meeting on the challenge of incorporating sexuality into family planning. This report was compiled after organizers concluded that the ideas and strategies presented during the meeting merited wider recognition and debate within the family planning field. The meeting examined five myths that have prevented family planning and reproductive health services from dealing directly with issues of sexuality and gender. The report draws principally on the discussions from the meeting as well as on the perspectives of the organizers. The authors hope that this report will encourage others in the field to think about how to offer family planning and reproductive health services in ways that promote individuals’ ability to identify and meet their sexual health needs and in ways that enhance equality between intimate partners. By dealing more openly with issues such as pleasure and power, family planning and reproductive health programs will better serve their current clients and attract many new ones

Extrapyramidal Signs Before and After Diagnosis of Incident Alzheimer Disease in a Prospective Population Study

Background: Extrapyramidal signs (EPSs) are commonly accepted as a feature of Alzheimer disease (AD) and may influence both the profile of impairment and prognosis. Objective: To examine rates of occurrence and risk factors for all types of EPSs and to describe the impact of EPSs over time on the clinical course of AD. Design: Longitudinal study. Setting: The Washington Heights Hamilton Heights Inwood Columbia Aging Project. Patients: A total of 388 patients with incident AD (mean age, 79 years; 71.4% female). Outcome Measures: Extrapyramidal signs rated by means of a standardized portion of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale; prevalence and incidence rates and cumulative risk for non–drug-induced EPSs; and rates of change in EPSs over time, taking into account potential covariates. Results: Extrapyramidal signs were detected in 12.3% of patients at first evaluation and 22.6% at last evaluation. In a multivariate-adjusted generalized estimating equation model of change, total EPS score increased at an annual rate of 1.3%. Women (relative risk [RR], 1.57; P = .03), older patients (RR, 1.03; P = .02), and those with EPSs at baseline (RR, 2.07; P = .001) had greater rates of cognitive decline. Conclusions: Extrapyramidal signs occur frequently and progress significantly in AD. Patients with incident AD and concomitant EPSs have a greater rate of cognitive decline than do patients with incident AD but without EPSs

Agency and Interaction What We Are and What We Do in Formal Epistemology

Abstract Formal epistemology is the study of crucial concepts in general or mainstream epistemology including knowledge, belief (-change), certainty, rationality, reasoning, decision, justification, learning, agent interaction and information processing using a spread of different formal tools. These formal tools may be drawn from fields such as logic, probability theory, game theory, decision theory, formal learning theory, and distributed computing -such variety is typical in formal epistemology, a field in which interaction with topics outside of philosophy proper is the rule rather than the exception. Practitioners of formal epistemology include philosophers, computer scientists, social scientists, cognitive psychologists, theoretical economists, mathematicians, and theoretical linguists. The interdisciplinary nature of formal epistemology can make it difficult for those new to the field to have a sense of some of its basic agendas, actors, and issues. What follows is a breezy overview of formal epistemology as organized around notions of agency and interaction