Bone grafts and substitutes in small animal orthopaedic reconstrutive surgery: a breaf review

We present here an overview of the scientific literature concerning the clinical application of autografts and allografts of the skeletal tissues and of the natural and synthetic bone graft substitutes available in small animal orthopedic surgery for resolution of congenital, traumatic and tumoral etiology situations or for reconstructive artroplastic surgeries. This article focuses the terminology, definitions and characteristics of the bone grafts and bone graft substitutes based in their functions and composition, the process of incorporation of the bone grafts and bone graft substitutes, the collection of autogenous cancellous or corticocancellous bone for grafting, the available commercial forms of bone graft or bone graft substitutes and the biologic/synthetic composite grafts, other accessible options in small animal orthopedic surgery with osteogenic and/ or osteoindutive characteristics (ex. collection and use of the autogenous bone marrow or platelet rich plasma), the principal clinical indications and surgical techniques in which are recommended the use of bone graft and/or bone graft substitutes and how to select the best option for each specific clinical case. At last, the future perspectives in reconstructive orthopedic surgery are also pointed, namely the tissue engineering of bone and cartilage tissues and the medical three dimensional biomodulation.Neste artigo pretendeu realizar-se uma revisão da literatura científica da informação disponível sobre os vários tipos de auto- e aloenxertos do sistema musculo-esquelético e substitutos ósseos naturais e sintéticos do tecido ósseo para utilização em cirurgia ortopédica dos animais de companhia com vista à resolução cirúrgica de situações clínicas do foro da traumatologia e ortopedia de etiologia congénita, traumática, tumoral ou em implantações artroplásticas. Abordam-se assim os conceitos gerais sobre a terminologia, definições e classificação dos enxertos e substitutos ósseos com base nas suas funções e composição, o processo de incorporação dos enxertos e substitutos ósseos, os principais locais de obtenção e a correta técnica de transplante de enxertos ósseos autógenos, os principais tipos de enxertos e substitutos ósseos comercializados e os enxertos compostos, outras abordagens autógenas acessíveis em animais de companhia com potencial osteogénico e/ou osteoindutor (ex. obtenção e utilização de medula óssea autógena ou plasma enriquecido em plaquetas), as principais situações clínicas e técnicas cirúrgicas em que se recomenda a utilização de enxertos e/ou substitutos ósseos e como selecionar em cada caso clínico a melhor opção disponível. Por fim, são também abordadas as perspetivas futuras em cirurgia ortopédica reconstrutiva, nomeadamente a engenharia do tecido ósseo e cartilagem e a biomodelação tridimencional médica

Massive right atrial myxoma presenting as syncope and exertional dyspnea: case report

Primary heart neoplasms are rare occurring with an estimated incidence of 0.0017-0.19%. Myxoma is the most prevalent primary heart tumor. The right atrium is an unusual localization, occurring only in 15-20% of myxoma cases. We report a rare case of a massive right atrial myxoma causing tricuspid valve obstruction and presenting as syncope and exertional dyspnea. This case illustrates the influence of myxoma's size, position and mobility as well as patient's body posture and respiration to the development of signs and symptoms. Three-dimensional echocardiography proved useful in surgery planning, allowing a better definition of the tumor outline and attachment

Novel hydroxyapatite/chitosan bilayered scaffold for osteochondral tissue-engineering applications : scaffold design and its performance when seeded with goat bone marrow stromal cells

Recent studies suggest that bone marrow stromal cells are a potential source of osteoblasts and chondrocytes and can be used to regenerate damaged tissues using a tissue-engineering (TE) approach. However, these strategies require the use of an appropriate scaffold architecture that can support the formation de novo of either bone and cartilage tissue, or both, as in the case of osteochondral defects. The later has been attracting a great deal of attention since it is considered a difficult goal to achieve. This work consisted on developing novel hydroxyapatite/chitosan (HA/CS) bilayered scaffold by combining a sintering and a freeze-drying technique, and aims to show the potential of such type of scaffolds for being used in TE of osteochondral defects. The developed HA/CS bilayered scaffolds were characterized by Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, micro-computed tomography, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Additionally, the mechanical properties of HA/CS bilayered scaffolds were assessed under compression. In vitro tests were also carried out, in order to study the water-uptake and weight loss profile of the HA/CS bilayered scaffolds. This was done by means of soaking the scaffolds into a phosphate buffered saline for 1 up to 30 days. The intrinsic cytotoxicity of the HA scaffolds and HA/CS bilayered scaffolds extract fluids was investigated by carrying out a cellular viability assay (MTS test) using Mouse fibroblastic-like cells. Results have shown that materials do not exert any cytotoxic effect. Complementarily, in vitro (phase I) cell culture studies were carried out to evaluate the capacity of HA and CS layers to separately, support the growth and differentiation of goat marrow stromal cells (GBMCs) into osteoblasts and chondrocytes, respectively. Cell adhesion and morphology were analysed by SEM while the cell viability and proliferation were assessed by MTS test and DNA quantification. The chondrogenic differentiation of GBMCs was evaluated measuring the glucosaminoglycans synthesis. Data showed that GBMCs were able to adhere, proliferate and osteogenic differentiation was evaluated by alkaline phosphatase activity and immunocytochemistry assays after 14 days in osteogenic medium and into chondrocytes after 21 days in culture with chondrogenic medium. The obtained results concerning the physicochemical and biological properties of the developed HA/CS bilayered scaffolds, show that these constructs exhibit great potential for their use in TE strategies leading to the formation of adequate tissue substitutes for the regeneration of osteochondral defects

Poor glycaemic control in Brazilian patients with type 2 diabetes attending the public healthcare system a cross-sectional study

Objectives: To describe the clinical profile of Brazilian patients with type 2 diabetes attending the public healthcare system and identify factors associated with poor glycaemic control.Design: Cross-sectional study.Setting: 14 centres in five regions of Brazil, including primary care units and outpatient clinics of University Hospitals.Participants: Patients with type 2 diabetes attending outpatient clinics of public healthcare system.Main outcome measured: Glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), centrally measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program certified).Results: A total of 5750 patients aged 61 10 years, with 11 8 years of diabetes duration (66% women, 56% nonwhite, body mass index: 28.0 5.3 kg/m(2)) were analysed. Mean HbA1c was 8.6 +/- 2.2%, and median HbA1c was 8.1% (6.9% to 9.9%). HbA1c 8%.Conclusions: the majority of Brazilian patients with type 2 diabetes attending the public healthcare system had HbA1c levels above recommended targets. the recognition of Northeast residents and non-white patients as vulnerable populations should guide future policies and actions to prevent and control diabetes.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundo de Incentivo a Pesquisa (FIPE) of Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA)Pfizer PharmaceuticalHosp Clin Porto Alegre, Endocrine Div, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilUniv Fed Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilHosp Getulio Vargas, Endocrine Div, Manaus, Amazonas, BrazilUniv Fed Amazonas, Manaus, Amazonas, BrazilFed Univ Para, BR-66059 Belem, Para, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Endocrine Div, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Endocrine Div, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Characterization of a natural surfactant from an essential oil from neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) for textile industry applications

Surfactants are multipurpose active compounds and are ubiquitously present in detergents. Detergent demand spiked due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, further alerting to the need to replace petrochemical synthetic surfactants with natural and renewable surfactants to mitigate further environmental damage. The neem tree (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) is a fast-growing tree that provides a multitude of commodities, namely neem oil. Neem oil possesses insecticidal and medicinal activity. This work reports the extraction and characterization of a surfactant from neem oil (SNO), displaying a yield of approximately 100%. SNO exhibited suitable detergent characteristics with a high potential to be used as a cleansing agent for textile applications, such as high pH value (10.1), suitable foaming of 1.5 cm and a critical micelle concentration of nearly 0.12 g mL−1. In addition, SNO showed a moderate bactericidal activity against Escherichia coli and bacteriostatic activity against Staphylococcus aureus, both common nosocomial pathogens. Therefore, SNO has a good potential to be used in medical textile applications due to its detergent and bactericidal properties. Finally, an economical overview of the SNO production process was assessed, underscoring its viability.This work was supported by the Brazilian Coordenac¸~ao de Aperfei¸oamento de Pessoal de N ıvel Superior and by the Portuguese Fundac¸~ao para Cieˆncia e a Tecnologia, Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional and Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizac¸~ao in the frame of the Portugal 2020 program for the project PLASMAMED PTDC/CTM-TEX/28295/2017

Ensembles of jittered association rule classifiers

The ensembling of classifiers tends to improve predictive accuracy. To obtain an ensemble with N classifiers, one typically needs to run N learning processes. In this paper we introduce and explore Model Jittering Ensembling, where one single model is perturbed in order to obtain variants that can be used as an ensemble. We use as base classifiers sets of classification association rules. The two methods of jittering ensembling we propose are Iterative Reordering Ensembling (IRE) and Post Bagging (PB). Both methods start by learning one rule set over a single run, and then produce multiple rule sets without relearning. Empirical results on 36 data sets are positive and show that both strategies tend to reduce error with respect to the single model association rule classifier. A bias–variance analysis reveals that while both IRE and PB are able to reduce the variance component of the error, IRE is particularly effective in reducing the bias component. We show that Model Jittering Ensembling can represent a very good speed-up w.r.t. multiple model learning ensembling. We also compare Model Jittering with various state of the art classifiers in terms of predictive accuracy and computational efficiency.This work was partially supported by FCT project Rank! (PTDC/EIA/81178/2006) and by AdI project Palco3.0 financed by QREN and Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER), and also supported by Fundacao Ciencia e Tecnologia, FEDER e Programa de Financiamento Plurianual de Unidades de I & D. Thanks are due to William Cohen for kindly providing the executable code for the SLIPPER implementation. Our gratitude goes also to our anonymous reviewers who have helped to significantly improve this paper by sharing their knowledge and their informed criticism with the authors

Evaluation of bone turnover markers and serum minerals variations for predicting fracture healing versus non-union processes in adult sheep as a model for orthopedic research

Bone turnover markers (BTMs) have been considered as an auxiliary method of following the fracture healing process and for early prediction of impaired bone healing. A better understanding of the potential of BTMs in this application could allow for earlier interventions and improved patient care. The aim of this study with a large animal experimental model was to assess the variation of bone formation markers SOH namely the total alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and its bone-specific isoform (BALP), serum concentration of intact osteocalcin (OC), N-terminal propeptide type III procollagen (PIIINP) and of bone resorption markers â  namely tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) and deoxypyridinoline crosslink (DPD) during the first stages of a normal fracture healing process and of a segmental critical size defect (CSD), which progresses to a non-union process. Thirty healthy female sheep (Portuguese Churra-da-Terra- Quente breed), approximately 4-years-old, were enrolled in this study. Jugular venous blood samples were collected pre-operatively and at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 post-operative weeks. The animals of the CSD group showed significant lower serum levels of BALP, OC and significant higher serum PIIINP levels at early stages of the fracture healing process, compared with animals that progressed in a normal fracture healing process. Serum BALP, OC and PIIINP levels could be useful as non-invasive auxiliary tools with other complementary methods for predicting the outcome of traumatic bone fractures.Cristina P. Sousa acknowledges the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for her PhD scholarship (Grant No SFRH/BD/45018/2008).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ancestral Origin of the ATTCT Repeat Expansion in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 10 (SCA10)

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 10 (SCA10) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease characterized by cerebellar ataxia and seizures. The disease is caused by a large ATTCT repeat expansion in the ATXN10 gene. The first families reported with SCA10 were of Mexican origin, but the disease was soon after described in Brazilian families of mixed Portuguese and Amerindian ancestry. The origin of the SCA10 expansion and a possible founder effect that would account for its geographical distribution have been the source of speculation over the last years. To unravel the mutational origin and spread of the SCA10 expansion, we performed an extensive haplotype study, using closely linked STR markers and intragenic SNPs, in families from Brazil and Mexico. Our results showed (1) a shared disease haplotype for all Brazilian and one of the Mexican families, and (2) closely-related haplotypes for the additional SCA10 Mexican families; (3) little or null genetic distance in small normal alleles of different repeat sizes, from the same SNP lineage, indicating that they are being originated by a single step mechanism; and (4) a shared haplotype for pure and interrupted expanded alleles, pointing to a gene conversion model for its generation. In conclusion, we show evidence for an ancestral common origin for SCA10 in Latin America, which might have arisen in an ancestral Amerindian population and later have been spread into the mixed populations of Mexico and Brazil

OT Modeling: The Enterprise Beyond IT

Enterprises are composed of an enormous number of elements (e.g., organizational units, human resources, production processes, and IT systems) typically classified in the business or the IT domain. However, some crucial elements do not belong in either group: they are directly responsible for producing and delivering the company’s goods and services and include all the elements that support day to day operations. Collectively, these elements have been called operational technologies (OT) and have been conspicuously excluded from enterprise modeling (EM) approaches which traditionally have focused on the business and IT dimensions. Evidence of this is the absence of OT elements in languages and metamodels for EM. This is in line with the historical division between IT and OT in organizations that has led to information silos, independent teams, and disparate tech- nologies that only recently have started to be reconciled. Considering that OT is critical to most productive organi- zations, and the benefits that EM brings to its understand- ing and improvement, it makes sense to expand EM to include OT. For that purpose, this paper proposes an extension to ArchiMate 3.0 which includes crucial OT elements. On top of that, this paper also proposes an approach to further expand ArchiMate to address specific industries where more specific OT elements are required. This is illustrated in the paper with an extension for the Oil and Gas case that was validated with experts belonging to five companies in the sector