Artrite e movimento

Bewegen ist ein zentrales Element für einen erfolgreichen Umgang mit einer rheumatoiden Arthritis (RA). Bewegen reduziert Schmerzen, Einschränkungen an Gelenken und Muskulatur, verbessert die Alltagsbewältigung, steigert allgemein die Gesundheit, das Wohlbefinden und die Fitness und hat damit einen grossen Einfluss auf die Lebensqualität. Gemäss neuer Forschung kann Bewegen sogar die Entzündung direkt positiv beeinflussen. Bewegen ist Medizin!Bouger est un élément essentiel pour bien gérer la polyarthrite rhumatoïde (PR). L’activité physique atténue les douleurs, améliore la motricité au niveau des muscles et des articulations, ainsi que la gestion du quotidien ou encore la santé, le bien-être et la forme en général, ce qui a donc une grande influence sur la qualité de vie. Selon les recherches récentes, le fait de bouger pourrait même avoir un effet positif directement sur l’inflammation. Bouger, c’est soigner!Il movimento è un tassello fondamentale per gestire efficacemente l’artrite reumatoide (AR). Muoversi riduce i dolori, le limitazioni articolari e muscolari, semplifica lo svolgimento delle attività quotidiane, migliora le condizioni generali di salute, il benessere e la forma fisica ed è pertanto determinante per la qualità di vita. Le più recenti ricerche mostrano che il movimento può addirittura influenzare direttamente e positivamente la flogosi. Muoversi è un toccasana

Characterization of the murine cytomegalovirus genes encoding the major DNA binding protein and the ICP18.5 homolog

In several herpesviruses the genes for the major DNA binding protein (MDBP), a putative assembly protein, the glycoprotein B (gB), and the viral DNA polymerase (pol) coliocate. In murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV), two members of this gene block, pol (Elliott, Clark, Jaquish, and Spector, 1991, Virology 185, 169-186) and gB (Rapp, Messerle, BOhler, Tannheimer, Keil, and Koszinowski, 1992, J. Virol., 66,4399-4406) have been characterized. Here the two other MCMV genes are characterized, the gene encoding the MDBP and the ICP18.5 homolog encoding a putative assembly protein. Like in human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) the genes order is pol, gB, ICP18.5, and MDBP. The 4.2-kb MDBP mRNA is expressed first in the early phase, whereas the 3.0-kb ICP18.5 mRNA is a late transcript. The open reading frame of the MDBP gene has the capacity of encoding a protein of 1191 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 131.7 kDa. The MCMV ICP18.5 ORF is translated into a polypeptide of 798 amino acids with a calculated molecular mass of 89.1 kDa. Comparison of the amino acid sequences of the predicted proteins of MCMV with the respective proteins of HCMV, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and herpes simplex virus type-1 (HSV-1) reveals a striking homology ranging from 72% (HCMV), 50% (EBV), to 45% (HSV-1) for the MDBP sequence and from 74% (HCMV), 51 % (EBV), to 49% (HSV-1) for the ICP18.5 sequence. These results establish the elose relationship of the two cytomegaloviruses, and underline the usefulness of the murine model for studies on the biology of the CMV infection

Transfer of knowledge and skills : learning portfolio in the master of science in physiotherapy (MScPT)

Background: The three-year part-time MSc programme at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (UAS Zurich) provides physiotherapists with competencies for working as clinical specialists in a specific clinical focus area (e.g. musculoskeletal, paediatrics) and for tasks in evidence-based physiotherapy development and in research. The students transfer the acquired knowledge in research methods and extended physiotherapy skills into practice by completing three 150-hours internships, i.e. in a research setting, in the field of physiotherapy development and in a clinical setting. These internships provide important learning opportunities. To foster the learning process, the students are required to create and manage a learning portfolio, supported by a personal mentor, with whom they meet up over two years, once a semester, for 60-90 minutes per session. In the first meeting the mentor guides the student in analysing his/her own learning process, setting individual goals and developing an action plan in order to reach the goals in the following period. Subsequently the student implements the planned actions on his/her own and reflects on the transfer of his/her knowledge and skills into practice. In the following meetings the student and mentor (re )assess the progress in the attainment of the individual goals, discuss possible barriers and facilitators, individual strengths and weaknesses. Together they set new goals and develop an appropriate action plan for the next semester. The overall average time expenditure per student for the learning portfolio is about 16 hours. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the learning portfolio and the personal mentorship are adequate methods for supporting the students in their individual learning process. Methods: An online survey, using EvaSys, was performed. The graduates who completed the learning portfolio in 2018 (n=19) were asked to judge the framework of the learning portfolio, i.e. the concept of guided and autonomous learning, the number of meetings with the mentor, the expenditure of time, and its usefulness on a 4-point scale (1=very adequate, 2=adequate, 3= little adequate, 4=not at all adequate). Results: In total, 13 students (68%) answered the questionnaire. Eleven students (84.6%) judged the concept ‘very adequate’ or ‘adequate’. Ten students (76.9%) considered the number of meetings with the mentor as ‘very adequate’ or ‘adequate’. Nine students (69.2%) judged the expenditure of time for the learning portfolio as ‘very adequate’ or ‘adequate’. Ten students (76.9%) rated the usefulness of the learning portfolio with ‘very adequate’ or ‘adequate’. Conclusions: The learning portfolio together with a personal mentor seems to be a powerful tool for the majority of the students. It helps them to reflect on the acquired knowledge and skills and to develop strategies for transferring theory into practice. Implications: The internships and the learning portfolio play an important role in the MSc programme. They contribute to the development of the students and the PT profession alike. In order to increase the number of students who consider the learning portfolio as useful, certain adaptations, e.g. more flexibility regarding the amount of meetings with the mentor, are needed

Spin-dependent electronic hybridization in a rope of carbon nanotubes

We demonstrate single electron addition to different strands of a carbon nanotube rope. Anticrossings of anomalous conductance peaks occur in quantum transport measurements through the parallel quantum dots forming on the individual strands. We determine the magnitude and the sign of the hybridization as well as the Coulomb interaction between the carbon nanotube quantum dots, finding that the bonding states dominate the transport. In a magnetic field the hybridization is shown to be selectively suppressed due to spin effects.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Recombinant Measles Viruses Defective for RNA Editing and V Protein Synthesis Are Viable in Cultured Cells

AbstractThe measles virus (MV) phosphoprotein (P) gene encodes three proteins, P, C, and V. The V protein is synthesized by pseudo-templated transcription, also designated as RNA editing: during P gene transcription one G residue is inserted at a defined position in about 50% of the mRNAs. To study the importance of sequence elements for the nontemplated G insertion, we generated recombinant MVs in which six different mutations were introduced within the region where editing occurs (3′ UUUUUCCC, template strand). These viruses were then analyzed for their ability to edit their P mRNA and to produce V protein. Single U to C changes within the U stretch abolished editing. Extending the template by three C residues at the site of G insertion resulted in a less precise editing phenotype and overproduction of V. None of these mutants were impaired in their multiplication behavior when analyzed in cultured cells. However, the syncytia of a recombinant MV overproducing V protein were in general smaller and lysed 1 to 2 days later than usual

Mobile Activism, Material Imaginings, and the Ethics of the Edible: Framing Political Engagement through the Buycott App

In this article, we explore the discursive constructions of Buycott, a free mobile app that provides a platform for user-generated ethical consumption campaigns. Unlike other ethical consumption apps, Buycott’s mode of knowledge production positions the app itself as neutral, with app users generating activist campaigns and providing both data and judgment. Although Buycott is not a dedicated food activism app, food features centrally in its campaigns, and the app seems to provide a mobile means of extending, and perhaps expanding, alternative food network (AFN) action across geographies and constituencies. Thus, as a case study, Buycott unveils contemporary possibilities for citizen participation and the formation of activist consumer communities, both local and trans-national, through mobile technologies. Our analysis shows, however, that despite the app’s user-generated format, the forms of activism it enables are constrained by the app’s binary construction of action as non/consumption and its guiding ‘mission’ of ‘voting with your wallet’. Grounded in texts concerning Buycott’s two largest campaigns (Demand GMO Labeling and Long live Palestine boycott Israel), our analysis delineates how Buycott, its campaigns, and its modes of action take shape in user, media, and app developer discourses. We find that, as discursively framed, Buycott campaigns are commodity-centric, invoking an ‘ethics of care’ to be enacted by atomized consumers, in corporate spaces and through mainstream, barcode-bearing, retail products. In user discourses, this corporate spatiality translates into the imagined materializing of issues in products, investing commodities with the substance of an otherwise ethereal cause. This individualized, commodity-centric activism reinforces tenets of the neoliberal market, ultimately turning individual users into consumers not only of products, but also of the app itself. Thus, we suggest, the activist habitus constructed through Buycott is a neoliberal, consumer habitus

A matching pursuit approach to the geophysical inverse problem of seismic travel time tomography under the ray theory approximation

Seismic travel time tomography is a geophysical imaging method to infer the 3-D interior structure of the solid Earth. Most commonly formulated as a linear(ized) inverse problem, it maps differences between observed and expected wave travel times to interior regions where waves propagate faster or slower than the expected average. The Earth's interior is typically parametrized by a single kind of localized basis function. Here we present an alternative approach that uses matching pursuits on large dictionaries of basis functions. Within the past decade the (Learning) Inverse Problem Matching Pursuits ((L)IPMPs) have been developed. They combine global and local trial functions. An approximation is built in a so-called best basis, chosen iteratively from an intentionally overcomplete set or dictionary. In each iteration, the choice for the next best basis element reduces the Tikhonov-Phillips functional. This is in contrast to classical methods that use either global or local basis functions. The LIPMPs have proven its applicability in inverse problems like the downward continuation of the gravitational potential as well as the MEG-/EEG-problem from medical imaging. Here, we remodel the Learning Regularized Functional Matching Pursuit (LRFMP), which is one of the LIPMPs, for travel time tomography in a ray theoretical setting. In particular, we introduce the operator, some possible trial functions and the regularization. We show a numerical proof of concept for artificial travel time delays obtained from a contrived model for velocity differences. The corresponding code is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8227888 under the licence CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 DE

Emerging Disease-Modifying Therapies in Neurodegeneration With Brain Iron Accumulation (NBIA) Disorders

Neurodegeneration with Brain Iron Accumulation (NBIA) is a heterogeneous group of progressive neurodegenerative diseases characterized by iron deposition in the globus pallidus and the substantia nigra. As of today, 15 distinct monogenetic disease entities have been identified. The four most common forms are pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN), phospholipase A2 group VI (PLA2G6)-associated neurodegeneration (PLAN), beta-propeller protein-associated neurodegeneration (BPAN) and mitochondrial membrane protein-associated neurodegeneration (MPAN). Neurodegeneration with Brain Iron Accumulation disorders present with a wide spectrum of clinical symptoms such as movement disorder signs (dystonia, parkinsonism, chorea), pyramidal involvement (e.g., spasticity), speech disorders, cognitive decline, psychomotor retardation, and ocular abnormalities. Treatment remains largely symptomatic but new drugs are in the pipeline. In this review, we discuss the rationale of new compounds, summarize results from clinical trials, provide an overview of important results in cell lines and animal models and discuss the future development of disease-modifying therapies for NBIA disorders. A general mechanistic approach for treatment of NBIA disorders is with iron chelators which bind and remove iron. Few studies investigated the effect of deferiprone in PKAN, including a recent placebo-controlled double-blind multicenter trial, demonstrating radiological improvement with reduction of iron load in the basal ganglia and a trend to slowing of disease progression. Disease-modifying strategies address the specific metabolic pathways of the affected enzyme. Such tailor-made approaches include provision of an alternative substrate (e.g., fosmetpantotenate or 4 '-phosphopantetheine for PKAN) in order to bypass the defective enzyme. A recent randomized controlled trial of fosmetpantotenate, however, did not show any significant benefit of the drug as compared to placebo, leading to early termination of the trials' extension phase. 4 '-phosphopantetheine showed promising results in animal models and a clinical study in patients is currently underway. Another approach is the activation of other enzyme isoforms using small molecules (e.g., PZ-2891 in PKAN). There are also compounds which counteract downstream cellular effects. For example, deuterated polyunsaturated fatty acids (D-PUFA) may reduce mitochondrial lipid peroxidation in PLAN. In infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy (a subtype of PLAN), desipramine may be repurposed as it blocks ceramide accumulation. Gene replacement therapy is still in a preclinical stage