Mindfulness as a tool for hoteliers in enhancing well-being guest experiences

The struggle of individuals to balance work and personal life and the high levels of stress in today’s society lead to an increased search for well-being. Consumers are now looking for companies that can assist them in their pursuit of well-being, resulting in the emergence of such offerings in various sectors, particularly tourism and hospitality. Hotels are increasingly prioritizing the enhancement of guest well-being experiences. In this article, we propose that socio-cognitive mindfulness, which refers to actively processing information within one's surrounding context, could be used by hotels, especially those in the luxury segment, to improve perceived guest well- being and overall guest experience. Four propositions are provided and implications for research and practice are discussed

Evaluation of the effects of gonadotropin-relasing hormone antagonist (GnRH-ant) and agonist (GnRH-a) in the prevention of postoperative adhesion formation in a rat model with immunohistochemical analysis

Objective: To investigate the effects of GnRH antagonist (GnRH-ant) and agonist (GnRH-a) in the prevention of postoperative pelvic adhesions by a visual scoring system and immunohistochemical methods in a rat uterine horn model

Optimization of Different Surface Modifications for Binding of Tumor Cells in a Microfluidic Systems

Objectives:Microfluidic technology is a fast-growing area and provide high-efficient MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) sensor integration platform that helps to advance healthcare systems. Due to proper the chemical and mechanical properties of polymers, PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) (6) and PMMA (Poly-methyl-methacrylate), they became on the best candidate for health care studies in microfluidic studies (7). Besides, they perform great optical properties for observation of living cell experiments. To increase their performance, surface interactions works with cells, modification techniques are widely used in microfluidic chips. In this paper, our primary purpose is to modify such polymers and glass with matrigel, PDA and APTES so as to increase cell-surface interaction

Immunosuppressive Treatment in C3 Glomerulopathy: Is it Really Effective?

Background: C3 glomerulopathy (C3GP) is a recently identified and described disease that has a high risk of progressing into end-stage renal disease. We aimed to evaluate the effects of various immunosuppressive regimens on C3GP progression because there are conflicting data on the treatment modalities. Methods: In this retrospective study of 66 patients with C3GP, 27 patients received mycophenolate mofetil (MMF)-based treatment, 23 received non-MMF-based treatment (prednisolone or cyclophosphamide), and 16 received conservative care. The study groups were compared with each other with specific focus on primary outcomes defined as (1) kidney failure and (2) estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decline >= 50% from the baseline value. Results: Overall, 17 (25.8%) patients reached the primary outcome after a median period of 28 months. The number of patients who reached the primary outcome were similar among the study groups (MMF-based: 8/27 [29.6%], non-MMF-based: 4/23 [17.4%], and conservative care: 5/16 [31.3%], p = 0.520). In the Cox regression analysis, age (HR 0.912, p = 0.006), eGFR (HR 0.945, p = 0.001), and proteinuria levels (HR 1.418, p = 0.015) at the time of biopsy, percentage of crescentic (HR 1.035, p = 0.001) and sclerotic glomeruli (HR 1.041, p = 0.006), severity of interstitial fibrosis (HR 1.981, p = 0.048), as well as no remission of proteinuria (HR 2.418, p = 0.002) predicted the primary outcome. Conclusion: Although patients receiving immunosuppressive treatments had higher proteinuria and lower serum albumin at baseline, there were no differences between these patients and those receiving conservative care alone in proteinuria remission or in the decline of renal function. Younger age, higher proteinuria, lower eGFR, and the presence of crescentic and sclerotic glomeruli, severity of interstitial fibrosis, and no remission of proteinuria predicted the progression of kidney disease. (C) 2017 S. Karger AG, Base

Holographic Cell Stiffness Mapping Using Acoustic Stimulation

Accurate assessment of stiffness distribution is essential due to thecritical role of single cell mechanobiology in the regulation of many vitalcellular processes such as proliferation, adhesion, migration, and motility.Cell stiffness is one of the fundamental mechanical properties of the cell andis greatly affected by the intracellular tensional forces, cytoskeletalprestress, and cytoskeleton structure. Herein, we propose a novel holographicsingle-cell stiffness measurement technique that can obtain the stiffnessdistribution over a cell membrane at high resolution and in real-time. Theproposed imaging method coupled with acoustic signals allows us to assess thecell stiffness distribution with a low error margin and label-free manner. Wedemonstrate the proposed technique on HCT116 (Human Colorectal Carcinoma) cellsand CTC-mimicked HCT116 cells by induction with transforming growth factor-beta(TGF-\b{eta}). Validation studies of the proposed approach were carried out oncertified polystyrene microbeads with known stiffness levels. Its performancewas evaluated in comparison with the AFM results obtained for the relevantcells. When the experimental results were examined, the proposed methodologyshows utmost performance over average cell stiffness values for HCT116, andCTC-mimicked HCT116 cells were found as 1.08 kPa, and 0.88 kPa, respectively.The results confirm that CTC-mimicked HCT116 cells lose their adhesion abilityto enter the vascular circulation and metastasize. They also exhibit a softerstiffness profile compared to adherent forms of the cancer cells. Hence, theproposed technique is a significant, reliable, and faster alternative forin-vitro cell stiffness characterization tools. It can be utilized for variousapplications where single-cell analysis is required, such as disease modeling,drug testing, diagnostics, and many more

Acousto-holographic reconstruction of whole-cell stiffness maps

Accurate assessment of cell stiffness distribution is essential due to the critical role of cell mechanobiology in regulation of vital cellular processes like proliferation, adhesion, migration, and motility. Stiffness provides critical information in understanding onset and progress of various diseases, including metastasis and differentiation of cancer. Atomic force microscopy and optical trapping set the gold standard in stiffness measurements. However, their widespread use has been hampered with long processing times, unreliable contact point determination, physical damage to cells, and unsuitability for multiple cell analysis. Here, we demonstrate a simple, fast, label-free, and high-resolution technique using acoustic stimulation and holographic imaging to reconstruct stiffness maps of single cells. We used this acousto-holographic method to determine stiffness maps of HCT116 and CTC-mimicking HCT116 cells and differentiate between them. Our system would enable widespread use of whole-cell stiffness measurements in clinical and research settings for cancer studies, disease modeling, drug testing, and diagnostics.ISSN:2041-172

Daptomycin vs. glycopeptides in the treatment of febrile neutropenia: results of the Izmir matched cohort study

WOS: 000462946100012PubMed ID: 30498901PurposeIn this multicentre, retrospective, matched cohort study we aimed to evaluate the outcomes of neutropenic fever cases that were treated with daptomycin or a glycopeptide (vancomycin or teicoplanin).MethodsData and outcomes of adult (aged>18-years old) patients with neutropenic fever [(1) without clinical and radiological evidence of pneumonia, (2) who were treated with daptomycin or a glycopeptide (teicoplanin or vancomycin) for any reason and for at least 72 h] were extracted from the hospital databases. Matching was performed with all of the three following criteria: (1) underlying disease, (2) reason for starting daptomycin or glycopeptide (microbiologic evidence vs. microbiologic evidence, clinical infection vs. clinical infection and empirical therapy vs. empirical therapy) and (3) neutropenic status.ResultsOverall 128 patients [(69/123) (56.1%) in the daptomycin cohort (D) and 59/123 (48%) in the glycopeptide cohort (G)] had a resolution of fever at the end of 72h antibiotic treatment (p=0.25). There was no significant difference in cured, improved and (cured+improved) rates between (D) and (G) cohorts as well as fever of unknown origin cases or microbiologically confirmed infections or clinically defined infections subgroups (p>0.05). There was also no significant difference (p>0.05), in terms of persistent response in the (D) versus (G) cohorts,ConclusionsThese findings suggest that although not better, daptomycin efficacy is comparable to vancomycin if used as empiric therapy in the treatment of adult febrile neutropenia. We conclude that daptomycin may be used at least as a salvage therapy alternative to glycopeptides in the treatment of adult febrile neutropenia cases. A large, randomized-controlled trial may further consolidate the evidence related to this question