ADIPOSE-DERIVED MULTIPOTENT STROMAL CELLS IN REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

Beside adipose tissue had been considered a discard product for many years, recently its role as regenerative agent has been widely recognized. Adipose tissue is a connective tissue constituted of adipocytes interspersed with collagen fibers and stromal vascular fraction (SVF), composed of adipose-derived multipotent stromal cells (ASCs), pre-adipocytes, fibroblasts, vascular endothelial cells and immune cells. The regenerative role is played specifically by the SVF and, inside it, especially by the ASCs, by secreting angiogenetic, anti-apoptotic, antiinflammatory and immunomodulatory growth factors. Surgeons use different strategies to reconstruct or repair damaged tissues and organs through adipose tissue. Among them, the most effective are the autologous fat transfer and tissue engineering. In the autologous fat transfer, autologous adipose tissue is harvested from one part of the body, purified through some processing techniques and reinjected where necessary. In tissue engineering, some scaffolds made of natural or synthetic materials are used in combination with ASCs and, sometimes, growth factors to repair or reconstruct tissues. The first experimental part of this doctoral thesis analyzes the in vitro performances of one automated closed device and two different disposable kits to process adipose tissue in comparison with the enzymatic digestion, which is the gold-standard technique. All three methods produce micrografts rich of ASCs. Parameters such as ASCs phenotype, viability, growth and replicative rate have been observed. The second experimental part of this thesis analyzes the in vitro and in vivo performances of different formulations of hyaluronic acid, a natural and very promising material to regenerate tissues, when combined with ASCs. Parameters such as ASCs viability, interaction with the hyaluronic acid material and adipogenesis have been observed

Cost and benefits of rent control in Kumasi, Ghana

Over the past forty years, rent control has been a feature of housing in Ghana. This study focusses on the housing market in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. The authors examine the characteristics of the rent control regime in force there, and assess the costs and benefits of rent control, on landlords and on tenants, and its effect on the housing stock. Rent control has been successful in ensuring that housing is very inexpensive for most households, in both absolute terms and in the proportion of income devoted to rent. Thesecontrols have deprived landlords of economic returns on their property, causing them to withdraw stock from renting to use for their own family members and to reduce maintenance. However, rent control is not the only constraint on the housing market, in Kumasi or in Ghana. The paper also describes other supply side and regulatory constraints; such as those affecting land, finance, and choice of building design and materials. A number of options for relaxation/decontrol are studied with the aid of a simple present value model. Along with decontrol of new construction it is recommended that floating up and out of controls over a five year period should be considered, along with policy changes to ensure ready supplies of land, finance, and building materials. Such policies are essential, given that private housing investment provides the great majority of rooms in Ghanaian urban areas.Non Bank Financial Institutions,Banks&Banking Reform,Housing Finance,Housing&Human Habitats,Economic Theory&Research

The Application of Macro- and Microfossils to Identify Paleoearthquakes in Sumatra, Indonesia and to Characterize Geomorphic and Ecological Succession on a Marsh Platform After Hurricane Isabel in North Carolina, USA

@font-face { font-family: Verdana ; }@font-face { font-family: Cambria ; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 200%; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times New Roman ; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } In this research I revealed evidence for two buried soils in the Aceh Province, Sumatra. I focused on the litho- and biostratigraphy of the lower buried soil, which is indicative of coseismic subsidence from a paleoearthquake estimated to have occurred ca. 6500-7000 years BP. Approximately 1-3 m above the lower buried soil sequence is an upper buried soil with an age of ca. 5500-6000 years BP. I used a multi-proxy method that included pollen, foraminifera, and the gastropod Cerithidea cingulata (Gmelin, 1791) to identify the lower buried soil, establish the preseismic and postseismic paleoenvironments, and estimate the amount of coseismic subsidence to be 0.4 ± 0.3 m. Using our own distribution study and previous work, I determined the indicative meaning of C. cingulata in the modern environment. I then used this species as a sea-level indicator in the lower buried soil sequence to determine the elevation of the postseismic land surface and constrain the age of the paleoearthquake. I calibrated the 14C age of a C. cingulata shell in the postseismic unit of the lower soil by incorporating a species-specific regional correction (ΔR) to the marine reservoir effect. I developed the correction from 11 shells of known age collected prior to 1950 from sites across southeast Asia. Hurricane Isabel deposited overwash sand on a back-barrier salt marsh of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina on September 18th 2003. Data collected annually between May 2004 and October 2010 showed changes in the elevation, geomorphology, and the ecological evolution of the overwash deposit. The results indicated that marsh foraminifera and plants did not recolonize until the surface of the overwash deposit was eroded to an elevation within the intertidal zone. Once this elevation was crossed, recolonization occurred in less than one year. The erosion of the overwash deposit suggests that the stratigraphic record of storm-driven overwash is likely not representative of the actual number of landfalling hurricanes in environments such as the Outer Banks of North Carolina

An Overview of the Use of Neural Networks for Data Mining Tasks

In the recent years the area of data mining has experienced a considerable demand for technologies that extract knowledge from large and complex data sources. There is a substantial commercial interest as well as research investigations in the area that aim to develop new and improved approaches for extracting information, relationships, and patterns from datasets. Artificial Neural Networks (NN) are popular biologically inspired intelligent methodologies, whose classification, prediction and pattern recognition capabilities have been utilised successfully in many areas, including science, engineering, medicine, business, banking, telecommunication, and many other fields. This paper highlights from a data mining perspective the implementation of NN, using supervised and unsupervised learning, for pattern recognition, classification, prediction and cluster analysis, and focuses the discussion on their usage in bioinformatics and financial data analysis tasks

A problem with inclusion in learning disability research.

People with severe learning disability are particularly difficult to include in the research process. As a result, researchers may be tempted to focus on those with learning disability who can be included. The problem is exacerbated in this field as the political agenda of inclusion and involvement is driven by those people with learning disability who are the higher functioning. To overcome this we should first detach the notion of consent from ideas about autonomy and think instead of it as a way to avoid wronging others; this fits the original historical use of consent in research. This allows us to think in terms of including participants to the best of their abilities rather than in terms of a threshold of autonomy. Researchers could then use imaginative ways to include the least able and to ensure they are not wronged in research or by exclusion from it

Pre-operative optimisation employing dopexamine or adrenaline for patients undergoing major elective surgery: a cost-effectiveness analysis

<b>Objective</b>: To compare the cost and cost-effectiveness of a policy of pre-operative optimisation of oxygen delivery (using either adrenaline or dopexamine) to reduce the risk associated with major elective surgery, in high-risk patients. <b>Methods</b>: A cost-effectiveness analysis using data from a randomised controlled trial (RCT). In the RCT 138 patients undergoing major elective surgery were allocated to receive pre-operative optimisation employing either adrenaline or dopexamine (assigned randomly), or to receive routine peri-operative care. Differential health service costs were based on trial data on the number and cause of hospital in-patient days and the utilisation of health care resources. These were costed using unit costs from a UK hospital. The cost-effectiveness analysis related differential costs to differential life-years during a 2 year trial follow-up. <b>Results</b>: The mean number of in-patient days was 16 in the pre-optimised groups (19 adrenaline; 13 dopexamine) and 22 in the standard care group. The number (%) of deaths, over a 2 year follow-up, was 24 (26%) in the pre-optimised groups and 15 (33%) in the standard care group. The mean total costs were EUR 11,310 in the pre-optimised groups and EUR 16,965 in the standard care group. Life-years were 1.68 in the pre-optimised groups and 1.46 in the standard care group. The probability that pre-operative optimisation is less costly than standard care is 98%. The probability that it dominates standard care is 93%. Conclusions: Based on resource use and effectiveness data collected in the trial, pre-operative optimisation of high-risk surgical patients undergoing major elective surgery is cost-effective compared with standard treatment