Digitally enabled health service for the integrated management of hypertension: A participatory user-centred design process

This article describes a user-centred approach taken by a group of five procurers to set specifications for the procurement of value-based research and development services for IT-sup-ported integrated hypertension management. The approach considered the unmet needs of patients and health systems of the involved regions. The procurers established a framework for requirements and a solution design consisting of nine building blocks, divided into three domains: service delivery, devices and integration, and health care organisation. The approach included the development of questionnaires, capturing patients’ and professionals’ views on possible system functionalities, and a template collecting information about the organisation of healthcare, professionals involved and existing IT systems at the procurers’ premises. A total of 28 patients diagnosed with hypertension and 26 professionals were interviewed. The interviewees identified 98 functional requirements, grouped in the nine building blocks. A total of nine use cases and their corresponding process models were defined by the procurers’ working group. As result, a digitally enabled integrated approach to hypertension has been designed to allow citizens to learn how to prevent the development of hypertension and lead a healthy lifestyle, and to receive comprehensive, individualised treatment in close collaboration with healthcare professionals

Effects of Interleukin-1β in Glycinergic Transmission at the Central Amygdala

Indexación ScopusInterleukin-1β (IL-1β) is an important cytokine that modulates peripheral and central pain sensitization at the spinal level. Among its effects, it increases spinal cord excitability by reducing inhibitory Glycinergic and GABAergic neurotransmission. In the brain, IL-1β is released by glial cells in regions associated with pain processing during neuropathic pain. It also has important roles in neuroinflammation and in regulating NMDA receptor activity required for learning and memory. The modulation of glycine-mediated inhibitory activity via IL-1β may play a critical role in the perception of different levels of pain. The central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) participates in receiving and processing pain information. Interestingly, this nucleus is enriched in the regulatory auxiliary glycine receptor (GlyR) β subunit (βGlyR); however, no studies have evaluated the effect of IL-1β on glycinergic neurotransmission in the brain. Hence, we hypothesized that IL-1β may modulate GlyR-mediated inhibitory activity via interactions with the βGlyR subunit. Our results show that the application of IL-1β (10 ng/ml) to CeA brain slices has a biphasic effect; transiently increases and then reduces sIPSC amplitude of CeA glycinergic currents. Additionally, we performed molecular docking, site-directed mutagenesis, and whole-cell voltage-clamp electrophysiological experiments in HEK cells transfected with GlyRs containing different GlyR subunits. These data indicate that IL-1β modulates GlyR activity by establishing hydrogen bonds with at least one key amino acid residue located in the back of the loop C at the ECD domain of the βGlyR subunit. The present results suggest that IL-1β in the CeA controls glycinergic neurotransmission, possibly via interactions with the βGlyR subunit. This effect could be relevant for understanding how IL-1β released by glia modulates central processing of pain, learning and memory, and is involved in neuroinflammation. © Copyright © 2021 Solorza, Oliva, Castillo, Amestica, Maldifassi, López-Cortés, Barra, Stehberg, Piesche, Sáez-Briones, González, Arenas-Salinas and Mariqueo.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.613105/ful

Post-imperialism, postcolonialism and beyond: towards a periodisation of cultural discourse about colonial legacies

Taking German history and culture as a starting point, this essay suggests a historical approach to reconceptualising different forms of literary engagement with colonial discourse, colonial legacies and (post-) colonial memory in the context of Comparative Postcolonial Studies. The deliberate blending of a historical, a conceptual and a political understanding of the ‘postcolonial’ in postcolonial scholarship raises problems of periodisation and historical terminology when, for example, anti-colonial discourse from the colonial period or colonialist discourse in Weimar Germany are labelled ‘postcolonial’. The colonial revisionism of Germany’s interwar period is more usefully classed as post-imperial, as are particular strands of retrospective engagement with colonial history and legacy in British, French and other European literatures and cultures after 1945. At the same time, some recent developments in Francophone, Anglophone and German literature, e.g. Afropolitan writing, move beyond defining features of postcolonial discourse and raise the question of the post-postcolonial

Kontrapunktische Studien zu Schwarzsein und Schwarzem Europa - Das Schwarze queer-feministische Magazin Afrekete als Wissensarchiv

Die Zeitschrift Afrekte war ein zentrales Wissens-, Bildungs- und Diskursarchiv Schwarzer feministischer Bewegung und Auseinandersetzung; sie wurde lokal in Deutschland produziert, sie war jedoch zugleich transnational - was die Verwobenheit schwarzfeministischer Kontexte zeigt. Der Beitrag besteht aus einer dreistimmigen Perspektivierung des kollektiven Wissens und der Archivbildung dieser Zeitschrift sowie des seit 35 Jahren bestehenden queer*feministischen Organisationsraumes Adefra, Schwarze Frauen in Deutschland. Untersucht und vorgestellt, werden kollektive Prozesse, der Gegennarrative, Ent-Normalisierung und Gegen-Archive. Verdeutlicht werden Schwarze lesbische, Liebes- und Lebensweisen, die sich in Gedichten, analytischen Artikeln, Zeichnungen und Bildern in der Zeitschrift Afrekete wiedergefunden haben. Verdeutlicht wird ein Prozess der kollektiven Auseinandersetzung mit Rassismus, institutionalisiertem Weiß-sein und heteronormen Strukturen, die der Kollektivraum Adefra durch das Herstellen der Zeitschrift Afrekte erfährt.The magazine Afrekte was a central knowledge, education, and discourse archive of Black feminist movement and contestation; it was produced locally in Germany, but it was transnational at the same time - this shows the interconnectedness of Black feminist contexts. The paper consists of a three-part perspectivization of the collective knowledge and archival formation of this journal as well as of the queer*feminist organizational space Adefra, Black Women in Germany, which has existed for 35 years. Examined and presented are collective processes, of counter-narratives, de-normalization, and counter-archives. Illustrated are Black lesbian, love, and lifestyles found in poems, analytical articles, drawings, and images in the journal Afrekete. Exemplified is a process of collective engagement with racism, institutionalized whiteness, and heteronormative structures that the collective space of Adefra renders through the making of Afrekte magazine