Clinical and Experimental Advances in Regeneration of Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the major disabilities dealt with in clinical rehabilitation settings and is multifactorial in that the patients suffer from motor and sensory impairments as well as many other complications throughout their lifetimes. Many clinical trials have been documented during the last two decades to restore damaged spinal cords. However, only a few pharmacological therapies used in clinical settings which still have only limited effects on the regeneration, recovery speed, or retraining of the spinal cord. In this paper, we will introduce recent clinical trials, which performed pharmacological treatments and cell transplantations for patients with SCI, and evaluate recent in vivo studies for the regeneration of injured spinal cord, including stem-cell transplantation, application of neurotrophic factors and suppressor of inhibiting factors, development of biomaterial scaffolds and delivery systems, rehabilitation, and the combinations of these therapies to evaluate what can be appropriately applied in the future to the patients with SCI

An overview of tissue engineering approaches for management of spinal cord injuries

Severe spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to devastating neurological deficits and disabilities, which necessitates spending a great deal of health budget for psychological and healthcare problems of these patients and their relatives. This justifies the cost of research into the new modalities for treatment of spinal cord injuries, even in developing countries. Apart from surgical management and nerve grafting, several other approaches have been adopted for management of this condition including pharmacologic and gene therapy, cell therapy, and use of different cell-free or cell-seeded bioscaffolds. In current paper, the recent developments for therapeutic delivery of stem and non-stem cells to the site of injury, and application of cell-free and cell-seeded natural and synthetic scaffolds have been reviewed

Gebiedsrapportage Eiland van Dordrecht

Voor deze dijkring is het kostenefficienter om gericht maatwerk toe te passen op de dijkvakken met de grootste risicobijdrage dan om de dijkring in zijn geheel te versterken. Voor deze oplossing is echter een differentiatie naar dijktrajecten nodig, waarbij het mogelijk is om bepaalde dijktrajecten een veel hogere norm te geven (tot Deltadijk niveau van bijvoorbeeld 1/100.000 per jaar). Op dit moment ontbreekt een bestuurlijk kader hiervoor (zogenaamd afwegingskader deltadijken), waardoor transformatie van de Kop van \u92t Land naar een deltadijk niet kan worden meegenomen in de besluitvorming omtrent de dijkversterking in HWBP2. Dit is een belangrijk knelpunt om deze dijkversterking in een keer goed aan te pakken (meekoppelen) en toekomstige versterkingen (elders) overbodig te maken. Naast differentiatie in de norm voor de dijk is het formaliseren van bestaande grijze en groene infrastructuur, zoals regionale keringen, voorlanden en vloedschotten, nodig voor maatwerk. Tot slot kan met lokale maatregelen in laag 2 en 3 een relatief goedkope en beheersbare situatie worden gecreëerd voor de Voorstraat bij eventueel falen van één of meerdere schotten. Om deze oplossing mogelijk te maken is een omwisselbesluit nodig. Het Eiland van Dordrecht zal binnen het Delta Programma fungeren als \u91testcase MLV\u92 voor het nieuwe waterveiligheidsbeleid. Aansluitend starten gemeente Dordrecht en Waterschap Hollandse Delta samen het traject Delta-Experiment waarin van mei 2013 t/m februari 2014 de maatschappelijke en bestuurlijke haalbaarheid en uitvoerbaarheid van de kansrijke maatregelen zal worden getoetst. Daarnaast zal de concrete invulling van dit beleid en van private zelfredzaamheidinitiatieven worden vormgegeven en ondersteund in de context van het zogenaamde Dordt Deltalab. Dordt Deltalab staat voor het aanbieden van experimenteerruimte voor klimaatadaptatie (o.a. meerlaagsveiligheid), door de realisatie van showcases (bv. Stadswerven, Deltadijk Kop van 't Land). Een aantal showcases zal worden uitgewerkt en uitgevoerd in het Europese Life+ project Delta-Life (nog niet goedgekeurd) en het Interreg IVB Noordzee regio project CAMINO (nog niet goedgekeurd). De realisatie van Dordt Deltalab draagt bij aan de versterking van de concurrentiepositie van Nederlandse watersector en sluit goed aan op de ambitie \u93Leefbaar en Sociaal Dordrecht\u94 en de locale duurzaamheidambitie.Deltaprogramm

Direct current in public lighting for improvement in LED performance and costs

Public lighting’s primary purpose is nighttime visibility for security and safety. How to meet so many requirements of so many stakeholders? The key to developing a good plan is to relate lighting to functions of public spaces, because street lighting is more than a technical requirement, a security need, or a design element. It can be thought of and utilized in terms of how the type, placement, and wattage affect how a street is perceived and used. With present-day used street lighting systems however, flexibility is expensive, as is maintenance and energy consumption. A new solution is to use LED lighting with a Direct Current power system. Advantages are a decrease in: energy conversions; material use; amount of switch- boxes; components; labour costs and environmental comfort. The overall implementation of LED and DC will result in better control and efficient maintenance due to integrated bidirectional communication. A challenge is the relatively high investment for these new solutions. Another challenge; DC is not a standard yet in rules and regulations. In the paper the transition to direct current public lighting system will be described with all the pros and cons. A new concept of public ownership, to overcome financial challenges will be discussed. M Hulsebosch1, P Willigenburg2 ,J Woudstra2 and B Groenewald3 1CityTec b.v., Alblasserdam, The Netherlands 2The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands 3Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa 10.1109/ICUE.2014.690418

Ernstige en soms fatale gevolgen van hoogtelongoedeem

Three women aged 25, 34 and 22 years respectively, experienced high-altitude pulmonary oedema during a climbing holiday. The first patient presented with complaints arising from a fast ascent to high altitude and was treated with acetazolamide and rapid descent. She recovered without any complications. The second patient developed symptoms during the night, which were not recognised as high-altitude pulmonary oedema. The next morning she died while being transported down on a stretcher without having received any medication or oxygen. The third case was not a specific presentation of high-altitude pulmonary oedema but autopsy revealed pulmonary oedema. This woman had already been higher up on the mountain before she developed complications. The cases illustrate the seriousness of this avoidable form of high altitude illness. The current Dutch national guidelines advise against the use of medication by lay people. A revision is warranted: travellers to high altitude should be encouraged to carry acetazolamide, nifedipine and corticosteroids on the trip. Travel guides ought to be trained to use these drugs. In addition climbing travellers should be encouraged to adopt appropriate preventive behaviour and to start descending as soon as signs of high-altitude pulmonary oedema develop