370 research outputs found
Cutting-edge biotechnological advancement in islet delivery using pancreatic and cellular approaches.
There are approximately 1 billion prediabetic people worldwide, and the global cost for diabetes mellitus (DM) is estimated to be $825 billion. In regard to Type 1 DM, transplanting a whole pancreas or its islets has gained the attention of researchers in the last few decades. Recent studies showed that islet transplantation (ILT) containing insulin-producing β cells is the most notable advancement cure for Type 1 DM. However, this procedure has been hindered by shortage and lack of sufficient islet donors and the need for long-term immunosuppression of any potential graft rejection. The strategy of encapsulation may avoid the rejection of stem-cell-derived allogeneic islets or xenogeneic islets. This review article describes various biotechnology features in encapsulation-of-islet-cell therapy for humans, including the use of bile acids
The fundamental pro-groupoid of an affine 2-scheme
A natural question in the theory of Tannakian categories is: What if you
don't remember \Forget? Working over an arbitrary commutative ring , we
prove that an answer to this question is given by the functor represented by
the \'etale fundamental groupoid \pi_1(\spec(R)), i.e.\ the separable
absolute Galois group of when it is a field. This gives a new definition
for \'etale \pi_1(\spec(R)) in terms of the category of -modules rather
than the category of \'etale covers. More generally, we introduce a new notion
of "commutative 2-ring" that includes both Grothendieck topoi and symmetric
monoidal categories of modules, and define a notion of for the
corresponding "affine 2-schemes." These results help to simplify and clarify
some of the peculiarities of the \'etale fundamental group. For example,
\'etale fundamental groups are not "true" groups but only profinite groups, and
one cannot hope to recover more: the "Tannakian" functor represented by the
\'etale fundamental group of a scheme preserves finite products but not all
products.Comment: 46 pages + bibliography. Diagrams drawn in Tik
Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere
It is news journalism that is commonly considered the practice that reports on the political and invites us to act as citizens. However, there are other media genres, forms and content that may provoke the citizen in us. They not only provide talking points but also facilitate communicative spaces whereby active audiences transform into deliberating publics by bridging their knowledge, identities and experiences to society through everyday, informal political talk. The internet provides a public space whereby this everyday-life politicization can occur bottom-up. This article addresses this process of politicization in the context of political talk and discusses the boundaries between private and public by examining how it emerges in forums dedicated to British popular reality TV programmes. The article pays particular attention to the shift from non-political talk to the lifestyle-based political issues and the more conventional political topics that arise, and explores the triggers of such talk
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Testing of a Model with Latino Patients That Explains the Links Among Patient-Perceived Provider Cultural Sensitivity, Language Preference, and Patient Treatment Adherence
Introduction
Disparities in treatment adherence based on race and ethnicity are well documented but poorly understood. Specifically, the causes of treatment nonadherence among Latino patients living in the USA are complex and include cultural and language barriers.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine whether patients’ perceptions in patient-provider interactions (i.e., trust in provider, patient satisfaction, and patient sense of interpersonal control in patient-provider interactions) mediate any found association between patient-perceived provider cultural sensitivity (PCS) and treatment adherence among English-preferred Latino (EPL) and Spanish-preferred Latino (SPL) patients.
Methods
Data from 194 EPL patients and 361 SPL patients were obtained using questionnaires. A series of language-specific structural equation models were conducted to test the relationship between patient-perceived PCS and patient treatment adherence and the examined mediators of this relationship among the Latino patients.
Results
No significant direct effects of patient-perceived PCS on general treatment adherence were found. However, as hypothesized, several significant indirect effects emerged. Preferred language appeared to have moderating effects on the relationships between patient-perceived PCS and general treatment adherence.
Conclusion
These results suggest that interventions to promote treatment adherence among Latino patients should likely include provider training to foster patient-defined PCS, trust in provider, and patient satisfaction with care. Furthermore, this training needs to be customized to be suitable for providing care to Latino patients who prefer speaking Spanish and Latino patients who prefer speaking English
Efficacy of Memantine for Agitation in Alzheimer’s Dementia: A Randomised Double-Blind Placebo Controlled Trial
Agitation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is common and associated with poor patient life-quality and carer distress. The best evidence-based pharmacological treatments are antipsychotics which have limited benefits with increased morbidity and mortality. There are no memantine trials in clinically significant agitation but post-hoc analyses in other populations found reduced agitation. We tested the primary hypothesis, memantine is superior to placebo for clinically significant agitation, in patients with moderate-to-severe AD
Accumulation of Endogenous LITAF in Aggresomes
LITAF is a 161 amino acid cellular protein which includes a proline rich N-terminus and a conserved C-terminal domain known as the simple-like domain. Mutations in LITAF have been identified in Charcot-Marie tooth disease, a disease characterized by protein aggregates. Cells transfected with cellular LITAF reveal that LITAF is localized to late endosomes/lysosomes. Here we investigated the intracellular localization of endogenous LITAF. We demonstrated that endogenous LITAF accumulates at a discrete cytoplasmic site in BGMK cells that we identify as the aggresome. To determine the domain within LITAF that is responsible for the localization of LITAF to aggresomes, we created a construct that contained the C-terminal simple-like domain of LITAF and found that this construct also localizes to aggresomes. These data suggest the simple-like domain is responsible for targeting endogenous LITAF to the aggresome
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An Ultra Deep Field survey with WFIRST
Studying the formation and evolution of galaxies at the earliest cosmic
times, and their role in reionization, requires the deepest imaging possible.
Ultra-deep surveys like the HUDF and HFF have pushed to mag \mAB30,
revealing galaxies at the faint end of the LF to 911 and
constraining their role in reionization. However, a key limitation of these
fields is their size, only a few arcminutes (less than a Mpc at these
redshifts), too small to probe large-scale environments or clustering
properties of these galaxies, crucial for advancing our understanding of
reionization. Achieving HUDF-quality depth over areas 100 times larger
becomes possible with a mission like the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope
(WFIRST), a 2.4-m telescope with similar optical properties to HST, with a
field of view of 1000 arcmin, 100 the area of the
HST/ACS HUDF.
This whitepaper motivates an Ultra-Deep Field survey with WFIRST, covering
100300 the area of the HUDF, or up to 1 deg, to
\mAB30, potentially revealing thousands of galaxies and AGN at the
faint end of the LF, at or beyond \,\,910 in the epoch of
reionization, and tracing their LSS environments, dramatically increasing the
discovery potential at these redshifts.
(Note: This paper is a somewhat expanded version of one that was submitted as
input to the Astro2020 Decadal Survey, with this version including an Appendix
(which exceeded the Astro2020 page limits), describing how the science drivers
for a WFIRST Ultra Deep Field might map into a notional observing program,
including the filters used and exposure times needed to achieve these depths.
Neurotrophic requirements of human motor neurons defined using amplified and purified stem-cell derived cultures
Neurotrophic requirements of human motor neurons defined using amplified and purified stem-cell derived culturesHuman motor neurons derived from embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells (hESCs and hiPSCs) are a potentially important tool for studying motor neuron survival and pathological cell death. However, their basic survival requirements remain poorly characterized. Here, we sought to optimize a robust survival assay and characterize their response to different neurotrophic factors. First, to increase motor neuron yield, we screened a small-molecule collection and found that the Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) inhibitor Y-27632 enhances motor neuron progenitor proliferation up to 4-fold in hESC and hiPSC cultures. Next, we FACS-purified motor neurons expressing the Hb9::GFP reporter from Y-27632-amplified embryoid bodies and cultured them in the presence of mitotic inhibitors to eliminate dividing progenitors. Survival of these purified motor neurons in the absence of any other cell type was strongly dependent on neurotrophic support. GDNF, BDNF and CNTF all showed potent survival effects (EC(50) 1-2 pM). The number of surviving motor neurons was further enhanced in the presence of forskolin and IBMX, agents that increase endogenous cAMP levels. As a demonstration of the ability of the assay to detect novel neurotrophic agents, Y-27632 itself was found to support human motor neuron survival. Thus, purified human stem cell-derived motor neurons show survival requirements similar to those of primary rodent motor neurons and can be used for rigorous cell-based screening.This work was funded by Project A.L.S., P2ALS and NYSTEM grant number CO24415. The work of N.J.L. was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology SFRH/BD/33421/2008 and the Luso-American Development Foundation. B.J.-K. was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). L.R. was supported by the Swedish Brain Foundation/Hjarnfonden. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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