1,056 research outputs found
Practitioner perspectives on strategies to promote longer-term benefits of acupuncture or counselling for depression: a qualitative study
Background: Non-pharmacological interventions for depression may help patients manage their condition. Evidence from a recent large-scale trial (ACUDep) suggests that acupuncture and counselling can provide longer-term benefits for many patients with depression. This paper describes the strategies practitioners reported using to promote longer-term benefits for their patients. Methods: A qualitative sub-study of practitioners (acupuncturists and counsellors) embedded in a randomised controlled trial. Using topic guides, data was collected from telephone interviews and a focus group, altogether involving 19 counsellors and 17 acupuncturists. Data were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic content analysis. Results: For longer-term impact, both acupuncturists and counsellors encouraged insight into root causes of depression on an individual basis and saw small incremental changes as precursors to sustained benefit. Acupuncturists stressed the importance of addressing concurrent physical symptoms, for example helping patients relax or sleep better in order to be more receptive to change, and highlighted the importance of Chinese medicine theory-based lifestyle change for lasting benefit. Counsellors more often highlighted the importance of the therapeutic relationship, emphasising the need for careful “pacing” such that the process and tools employed were tailored and timed for each individual, depending on the “readiness” to change. Our data is limited to acupuncture practitioners using the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, and counsellors using a humanistic, non-directive and person-centred approach. Conclusions: Long-term change appears to be an important focus within the practices of both acupuncturists and counsellors. To achieve this, practitioners stressed the need for an individualised approach with a focus on root causes
Performance of new gellan gum hydrogels combined with human articular chondrocytes for cartilage regeneration when subcutaneously implanted in nude mice
Gellan gum is a polysaccharide that has been recently proposed by our group for cartilage tissueengineering
applications. It is commonly used in the food and pharmaceutical industry and has
the ability to form stable gels without the use of harsh reagents. Gellan gum can function as a
minimally invasive injectable system, gelling inside the body in situ under physiological conditions
and efficiently adapting to the defect site. In this work, gellan gum hydrogels were combined with
human articular chondrocytes (hACs) and were subcutaneously implanted in nude mice for 4 weeks.
The implants were collected for histological (haematoxylin and eosin and Alcian blue staining),
biochemical [dimethylmethylene blue (GAG) assay], molecular (real-time PCR analyses for collagen
types I, II and X, aggrecan) and immunological analyses (immunolocalization of collagen types I and
II). The results showed a homogeneous cell distribution and the typical round-shaped morphology
of the chondrocytes within the matrix upon implantation. Proteoglycans synthesis was detected by
Alcian blue staining and a statistically significant increase of proteoglycans content was measured
with the GAG assay quantified from 1 to 4 weeks of implantation. Real-time PCR analyses showed a
statistically significant upregulation of collagen type II and aggrecan levels in the same periods. The
immunological assays suggest deposition of collagen type II along with some collagen type I. The
overall data shows that gellan gum hydrogels adequately support the growth and ECM deposition
of human articular chondrocytes when implanted subcutaneously in nude mice.J. T. Oliveira would like to acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for his grant (SFP,H/BD17135/2004). The authors would like to thank the patients at Hospital de S. Marcos, Braga, Portugal, for the donation of the biological samples and the medical staff for their help and support. The authors would also like to thank the Institute for Health and Life Sciences (ICVS), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, for allowing the use of their research facilities. This work was carried out under the scope of European NoE EXPERTISSUES (Project No. NMP3-CT-2004-500283) and partially supported by the European Project HIPPOCRATES (No. STRP 505758-1)
Magnetite NPs@C with highly-efficient peroxidase-like catalytic activity as an improved biosensing strategy for selective glucose detection
This work reports the novel application of carbon-coated magnetite nanoparticles (mNPs@C) as catalytic nanomaterial included in a composite electrode material (mNPs@C/CPE) taking advantages of their intrinsic peroxidase-like activity. The nanostructured electrochemical transducer reveals an improved enhancement of the charge transfer for redox processes involving hydrogen peroxide. Likewise, mNPs@C/CPE demonstrated to be highly selective even at elevated concentrations of ascorbic acid and uric acid, the usual interferents of blood glucose analysis. Upon these remarkable results, the composite matrix was further modified by the addition of glucose oxidase as biocatalyst in order to obtain a biosensing strategy (GOx/mNPs@C/CPE) with enhanced properties for the electrochemical detection of glucose. GOx/mNPs@C/CPE exhibit a linear range up to 7.5 x 10-3 mol.L-1 glucose, comprising the entirely physiological range and incipient pathological values. The average sensitivity obtained at –0.100 V was (1.62 ± 0.05)x 105 nA.L.mol-1 (R2 = 0.9992), the detection limit was 2.0 x 10-6 M while the quantification limit was 6.1 x 10-6 mol.L-1. The nanostructured biosensor demonstrated to have an excellent performance for glucose detection in human blood serum even for pathological values.submittedVersionFil: Arana, Mercedes. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Arana, Mercedes. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Tettamanti, Cecilia Soledad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Fisicoquímica; Argentina.Fil: Tettamanti, Cecilia Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Fisicoquímica de Córdoba; Argentina.Fil: Bercoff, Paula Gabriela. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Bercoff, Paula Gabriela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Rodríguez, Marcela Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Fisicoquímica; Argentina.Fil: Rodríguez, Marcela Cecilia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica. Instituto de Investigaciones en Fisicoquímica de Córdoba; Argentina.Otras Ciencias Física
Five Easy Pieces: The Dynamics of Quarks in Strongly Coupled Plasmas
We revisit the analysis of the drag a massive quark experiences and the wake
it creates at a temperature T while moving through a plasma using a gravity
dual that captures the renormalisation group runnings in the dual gauge theory.
Our gravity dual has a black hole and seven branes embedded via Ouyang
embedding, but the geometry is a deformation of the usual conifold metric. In
particular the gravity dual has squashed two spheres, and a small resolution at
the IR. Using this background we show that the drag of a massive quark receives
corrections that are proportional to powers of log T when compared with the
drag computed using AdS/QCD correspondence. We use the perturbation produced by
the quark strings to compute the wake and compare with the results obtained
using AdS/QCD correspondence. We also study the shear viscosity with running
couplings, analyze the viscosity to entropy ratio and compare the result with
the known bound. In the presence of higher order curvature square corrections
from the back-reactions of the embedded D7 branes, we argue the possibility of
the entropy to viscosity bound being violated. Finally, we show that our set-up
could in-principle allow us to study a family of gauge theories at the boundary
by cutting off the dual geometry respectively at various points in the radial
direction. All these gauge theories can have well defined UV completions, and
more interestingly, we demonstrate that any thermodynamical quantities derived
from these theories would be completely independent of the cut-off scale and
only depend on the temperature at which we define these theories. Such a result
would justify the holographic renormalisabilities of these theories which we,
in turn, also demonstrate. We give physical interpretations of these results
and compare them with more realistic scenarios.Comment: 130 pages, 12 eps figures, LaTex; v4: final version with corrected
typos, numerous additional references and enlargement of some sections. The
published version, that appears in Nucl. Phys. B, differs slightly in section
3 where there is more emphasis on holographic renormalisabilty and less on
the wake, compared to this versio
The personalized advantage index: Translating research on prediction into individualized treatment recommendations. A demonstration
Background: Advances in personalized medicine require the identification of variables that predict differential response to treatments as well as the development and refinement of methods to transform predictive information into actionable recommendations. Objective: To illustrate and test a new method for integrating predictive information to aid in treatment selection, using data from a randomized treatment comparison. Method: Data from a trial of antidepressant medications (N = 104) versus cognitive behavioral therapy (N = 50) for Major Depressive Disorder were used to produce predictions of post-treatment scores on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) in each of the two treatments for each of the 154 patients. The patient's own data were not used in the models that yielded these predictions. Five pre-randomization variables that predicted differential response (marital status, employment status, life events, comorbid personality disorder, and prior medication trials) were included in regression models, permitting the calculation of each patient's Personalized Advantage Index (PAI), in HRSD units. Results: For 60% of the sample a clinically meaningful advantage (PAI≥3) was predicted for one of the treatments, relative to the other. When these patients were divided into those randomly assigned to their "Optimal" treatment versus those assigned to their "Non-optimal" treatment, outcomes in the former group were superior (d = 0.58, 95% CI .17-1.01). Conclusions: This approach to treatment selection, implemented in the context of two equally effective treatments, yielded effects that, if obtained prospectively, would rival those routinely observed in comparisons of active versus control treatments. © 2014 DeRubeis et al
Morphometric and gene expression analyses of stromal expansion during development of the bovine fetal ovary
During ovarian development stroma from the mesonephros penetrates and expands into the ovarian primordium and thus appears to be involved, at least physically, in the formation of ovigerous cords, follicles and surface epithelium. Cortical stromal development during gestation in bovine fetal ovaries (n = 27) was characterised by immunohistochemistry and by mRNA analyses. Stroma was identified by immunostaining of stromal matrix collagen type I and proliferating cells were identified by Ki67 expression. The cortical and medullar volume expanded across gestation, with the rate of cortical expansion slowing over time. During gestation, the proportion of stroma in the cortex and total volume in the cortex significantly increased (P 0.05). The expression levels of 12 genes out of 18 examined, including osteoglycin (OGN) and lumican (LUM), were significantly increased later in development (P < 0.05) and the expression of many genes was positively correlated with other genes and with gestational age. Thus, the rate of cortical stromal expansion peaked in early gestation due to cell proliferation, whilst late in development expression of extracellular matrix genes increased.M.D. Hartanti, A K. Hummitzsch, H.F. Irving-Rodgers, W.M. Bonner, K.J. Copping, R.A. Anderson, I.C. McMillen, V.E.A. Perry and R.J. Rodger
Antidepressant Response in Major Depressive Disorder: A Meta-Regression Comparison of Randomized Controlled Trials and Observational Studies
To compare response to antidepressants between randomized controlled trials
(RCTs) and observational trials.Published and unpublished studies (from 1989 to 2009) were searched for by 2
reviewers on Medline, the Cochrane library, Embase, clinicaltrials.gov,
Current Controlled Trial, bibliographies and by mailing key organisations
and researchers. RCTs and observational studies on fluoxetine or venlafaxine
in first-line treatment for major depressive disorder reported in English,
French or Spanish language were included in the main analysis. Studies
including patients from a wider spectrum of depressive disorders (anxious
depression, minor depressive episode, dysthymia) were added in a second
analysis. The main outcome was the pre-/post-treatment difference on
depression scales standardised to 100 (17-item or 21-item Hamilton Rating
Scale for Depression or Montgomery and Åsberg Rating Scale) in each
study arm. A meta-regression was conducted to adjust the comparison between
observational studies and RCTs on treatment type, study characteristics and
average patient characteristics. 12 observational studies and 109 RCTs
involving 6757 and 11035 patients in 12 and 149 arms were included in the
main analysis. Meta-regression showed that the standardised treatment
response in RCTs is greater by a magnitude of 4.59 (2.61 to 6.56). Study
characteristics were related to standardised treatment response, positively
(study duration, number of follow-up assessments, outpatients versus
inpatients, per protocol analysis versus intention to treat analysis) or
negatively (blinded design, placebo design). At patient level, response
increased with baseline severity and decreased with age. Results of the
second analysis were consistent with this.Response to antidepressants is greater in RCTs than in observational studies.
Observational studies should be considered as a necessary complement to
RCTs
Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube
We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles
moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root
relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped
pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of
a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production
associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational
probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets
containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass
energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The
measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1.
The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary
decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from
the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is
used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive
b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the
range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet
cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the
range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets
and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are
compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed
between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG +
Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet
cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive
cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse
momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version published in European Physical Journal
Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS
We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a
significant distance from their production point into a final state containing
charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is
conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV
and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS
detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles
is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We
observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of
supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the
neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino
masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version to appear in Physics Letters
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