The Current Use of Stem Cells in Bladder Tissue Regeneration and Bioengineering.

Many pathological processes including neurogenic bladder and malignancy necessitate bladder reconstruction, which is currently performed using intestinal tissue. The use of intestinal tissue, however, subjects patients to metabolic abnormalities, bladder stones, and other long-term sequelae, raising the need for a source of safe and reliable bladder tissue. Advancements in stem cell biology have catapulted stem cells to the center of many current tissue regeneration and bioengineering strategies. This review presents the recent advancements in the use of stem cells in bladder tissue bioengineering

The evolutionary importance of cell ratio between notochordal and nucleus pulposus cells: an experimental 3-D co-culture study

Introduction: Notochordal cells and nucleus pulposus cells are co-existing in the intervertebral disc at various ratios among different mammalians. This fact rises the question about the interactions and the evolutionary relevance of this phenomenon. It has been described that these relatively large notochordal cells are mainly dominant in early lifetime of all vertebrates and then differences occur with ageing. Human, cattle, sheep, and goat lose the cells with age, whereas rodents and lagomorphs maintain these throughout their lifetime. Materials and methods: Here, we addressed the importance of cell ratio using alginate bead 3-D co-culture of bovine nucleus pulposus cells (bNPC) and porcine notochordal cells (pNCs) for 14days using culture inserts. Result: We found a significant stimulation of bNPC in the presence of pNC in terms of cell activity and glycosaminoglycan production, but not for proliferation (DNA content). Relative gene expression was significantly stimulated for collagen type 2 and aggrecan. Conclusion: The stimulating effect of NC was confirmed and the ideal ratio of NPC: NC was found to be ~50:50. This has direct implications for tissue-engineering approaches, which aim to repopulate discs with NP-like precursor cell

Erratum to: The effects of dynamic loading on the intervertebral disc

Loading is important to maintain the balance of matrix turnover in the intervertebral disc (IVD). Daily cyclic diurnal assists in the transport of large soluble factors across the IVD and its surrounding circulation and applies direct and indirect stimulus to disc cells. Acute mechanical injury and accumulated overloading, however, could induce disc degeneration. Recently, there is more information available on how cyclic loading, especially axial compression and hydrostatic pressure, affects IVD cell biology. This review summarises recent studies on the response of the IVD and stem cells to applied cyclic compression and hydrostatic pressure. These studies investigate the possible role of loading in the initiation and progression of disc degeneration as well as quantifying a physiological loading condition for the study of disc degeneration biological therapy. Subsequently, a possible physiological/beneficial loading range is proposed. This physiological/beneficial loading could provide insight into how to design loading regimes in specific system for the testing of various biological therapies such as cell therapy, chemical therapy or tissue engineering constructs to achieve a better final outcome. In addition, the parameter space of ‘physiological' loading may also be an important factor for the differentiation of stem cells towards most ideally ‘discogenic' cells for tissue engineering purpos

Examining Intra-and Inter-Personal Emotion Regulation, Psychopathology, Well-Being, and Relationship Quality in Emerging Adulthood

Identifying components of emotion regulation (ER) that contribute to emerging adults (18-29 years) psychosocial outcomes is crucial to promoting their development. This study aimed to identify emerging adults intra- and inter-personal ER strategy use and explore the associations between their ER strategy use and difficulties and psychosocial outcomes, including internalizing symptoms (depressive and anxiety symptoms and perceived stress), well-being (subjective happiness and flourishing), and relationship quality. Results showed that emerging adults utilized a range of intra- (e.g., acceptance,) and inter-personal (e.g., enhancing positive affect) ER strategies. The structural equation modelling results indicated that emotion dysregulation was the strongest predictor of emerging adults psychosocial outcomes. Some ER strategies (e.g., positive reappraisal, enhancing positive affect) were more strongly associated with emerging adults psychosocial outcomes than other strategies. The findings highlight the links between intra- and inter-personal ER and emerging adults psychosocial outcomes and can inform mental health intervention programs for emerging adults

Toro: A Web-based Tool to Search, Explore, Screen, Compare and Visualize Literature

We present TORO (https://www.toro.ac.nz/), a web-based application that aims to simplify the time-consuming literature research process by providing an easy way of searching, exploring, screening, and comparing literature inside a visual paper graph. Unlike many automated tools, the user actively explores papers and constructs the graph. Users can add papers by searching across different publishers or pasting DOI links and bib-files. Users can analyse relations between papers in one view, look up common keywords, access paper details and categorize them easily. Expanding references allows exploring interesting streams of literature and performing search strategies like snowballing easily across platforms. To manage large numbers of papers and identify interesting work, users can define filters and highlighting criteria. We present our initial design and implementation and discuss the results of a preliminary user study with 18 researchers. The results indicate that TORO already helps researchers\u27 exploration process and highlights opportunities for future work

The contribution of sleep to cognitive function in children with epilepsy

Cognitive impairment is the major co-morbidity in childhood epilepsy, and in many cases will have a larger long-term impact than the seizures themselves. However, the mechanisms contributing to this are poorly understood, precluding targetted intervention. Sleep is crucial for intelllectual functioning. Yet sleep in children with epilepsy, and its impact on intellectual function has scarcely been studied. This thesis aims to examine the structure and regulation of sleep in children with epilepsy, and to provide direct evidence of the impact of sleep on cognitive function by correlating neurophysiological characteristics with performance on sleep dependent neuropsychological tasks administered over the same interval as the sleep recorded. To examine sleep architecture in children with epilepsy, I developed a modified system for visual sleep scoring, taking into account nocturnal seizures and interictal activity. This was validated in a pilot sample, then applied to the scoring of 52 recordings from children with epilepsy. Based on established memory consolidation tasks and open-source psycholinguistic data, I developed and piloted a memory consolidation task battery suitable for testing school-aged English-speaking children, comprising parallel versions of a visuospatial and a verbal task. With these tools, I performed a prospective, within-subject comparison of memory retention across similar length intervals with or without sleep, in order to determine the contribution of sleep to memory consolidation. I compared results from patient (n=22) and healthy control (n=21) samples, finding – contrary to expectations – that sleep benefits memory consolidation in children with epilepsy to the same degree as controls. However, the benefit of sleep showed an inverse relationship to the nocturnal interictal discharge load. I also employed quantitative EEG analysis of slow wave activity to examine sleep homeostasis in patients with epilepsy, studying a retrospective sample (n=16) who had undergone partial sleep deprivation. Sleep homeostasis was fundamentally intact in these patients, who had similar clinical characteristics to the prospective sample. Findings from this thesis provide the first direct evidence that sleep benefits intellectual functioning in children with epilepsy, particularly where its structure and regulation is intact. Sleep-related memory consolidation may represent a compensatory mechanism, perhaps accounting for the relative cognitive preservation in this cohort of children with epilepsy with a structural aetiology, despite the early onset of seizures

#LetThemStay: : Visual Representations of Protests and Community Mobilization for Asylum Seekers in Australia

This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC). Users may reproduce, disseminate, display, or adapt this article for non-commercial purposes, provided the author is properly cited. See https:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.The indefinite mandatory detention on the mainland and in offshore processing centers of asylum seekers applying for protection in Australia is particularly controversial due to the government’s notoriously harsh policy. In response, large-scale public protests have been staged across the country in recent years to register popular dissent and convey concerns to decision-makers. However, dominant media representations of protests have historically been largely negative, often cast as ineffectual at best, and at worst, violent clashes that alienate the broader population from the cause in question. This paper outlines a visual analysis of media representations of protests that took place in February 2016 against the proposed deportation of 267 asylum seekers from the Australian mainland as part of the #LetThemStay campaign. Through the analysis of four photographs from a range of media outlets, we found that depicting peaceful protests methods and community mobilization complicated dominant understandings of protests and protesters. Indeed, #LetThemStay demonstrated the political power of compassionate solidarity between participants afforded the privilege of safe residency and citizenship, and those forcibly absent who are denied such rights. As such, the paper highlights the impact of peaceful protesting, while also recognizing its limitations in changing Australia’s punitive asylum seeker policies.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Empirical Analysis of Body Constitution and Food Intake in Persons with Type 2 Diabetes from a TCM Perspective

This study examined the correlations between body constitution (BC) and food intake in a sample of persons with Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM) from a perspective of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Past research on BC of persons with diabetes (DM) from a TCM perspective revealed imbalanced state of Yin and Yang in terms of Yin-deficiency (YID), Yang-deficiency (YAD), and Yin-Yang-deficiency (YYD). However, no studies have attempted to find out if daily food intake has an influence on Yin-Yang balance. The present study adapted a mixed method, which constituted of two phases. Phase one involved an exploratory case study (n=18) conducted between May and June 2011 and phase two, a descriptive correlation study (n=210) between October and December 2013. Results showed that in phase-one, three cases showed YID and higher food intake in hot/warm nature, 12 cases with YAD and higher food intake in cold/cool nature while three cases with Yin-Yang-deficiency (YYD) and extremely high food intake in cold/cool nature. In phase-two, Spearman's correlation coefficient between food intake and YID presentations (YIDPs) (hot/warm food: rho=0.34, p=0.000; cold/cool food: rho= 0.18, p=0.006); YAD presentations (YADPs) (hot/warm food: rho=0.18, p=0.008; cold/cool food: rho=0.2, p=0.006); and YYD presentations (YYDPs) (hot/warm food: rho=0.29, p=0.006; cold/cool food: rho=0.2, p=0.003) have been noted. The findings concluded that persons with T2DM and YIDPs, YADPs, or YYDPs tend to have food intakes higher in hot/warm nature or cold/cool natur

The survey on mobile library services in Hong Kong and Singapore academic libraries

The captioned survey wasco-organized by libraries of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The City University of Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological University and The University of Hong Kong in October 2011. The primary objectives of this survey are: 1. To identify the needs and preferences of students with regard to mobile library services; and 2. To recommend a suite of pertinent mobile library services for students. In this survey, the mobile library services are referring to library online contents and resources, which can be delivered and accommodated for display in mobile devices. We hope that the results and responses to this survey will be useful to participating libraries in order to plan and deliver pertinent mobile library services. Thank you to colleagues fromthe participatinglibraries who contributed and helped with this important survey. Last but not least, we would like to express our gratitude to Annie Talve and Monica Redden, our facilitators of Next Gen /Next Decade 2011–the Staff development programme for university librarians in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. This project could not have happened without Annie and Monica’s inspirations and encouragementto bring four academic libraries from two cities to work together on this survey

The effects of dynamic loading on the intervertebral disc

Loading is important to maintain the balance of matrix turnover in the intervertebral disc (IVD). Daily cyclic diurnal assists in the transport of large soluble factors across the IVD and its surrounding circulation and applies direct and indirect stimulus to disc cells. Acute mechanical injury and accumulated overloading, however, could induce disc degeneration. Recently, there is more information available on how cyclic loading, especially axial compression and hydrostatic pressure, affects IVD cell biology. This review summarises recent studies on the response of the IVD and stem cells to applied cyclic compression and hydrostatic pressure. These studies investigate the possible role of loading in the initiation and progression of disc degeneration as well as quantifying a physiological loading condition for the study of disc degeneration biological therapy. Subsequently, a possible physiological/beneficial loading range is proposed. This physiological/beneficial loading could provide insight into how to design loading regimes in specific system for the testing of various biological therapies such as cell therapy, chemical therapy or tissue engineering constructs to achieve a better final outcome. In addition, the parameter space of 'physiological' loading may also be an important factor for the differentiation of stem cells towards most ideally 'discogenic' cells for tissue engineering purpose