Search results for " EVA"

Protocol for a systematic review of guidelines for rigour in the design, conduct and analysis of biomedical experiments involving laboratory animals

2018

Objective Within the last years, there has been growing awareness of the negative repercussions of unstandardized planning, conduct and reporting of preclinical and biomedical research. Several initiatives have set the aim of increasing validity and reliability in reporting of studies and publications, and publishers have formed similar groups. Additionally, several groups of experts across the biomedical spectrum have published experience and opinion-based guidelines and guidance on potential standardized reporting. While all these guidelines cover reporting of experiments, an important step prior to this should be rigours planning and conduction of studies. The aim of this systematic revi…

In Vivo Cardiotoxicity Induced by Sodium Aescinate in Zebrafish Larvae

2016

Sodium aescinate (SA) is a widely-applied triterpene saponin product derived from horse chestnut seeds, possessing vasoactive and organ-protective activities with oral or injection administration in the clinic. To date, no toxicity or adverse events in SA have been reported, by using routine models (in vivo or in vitro), which are insufficient to predict all aspects of its pharmacological and toxicological actions. In this study, taking advantage of transparent zebrafish larvae (Danio rerio), we evaluated cardiovascular toxicity of SA at doses of 1/10 MNLC, 1/3 MNLC, MNLC and LC10 by yolk sac microinjection. The qualitative and quantitative cardiotoxicity in zebrafish was assessed at 48 h p…

2021

The biological activities of shancigusin C (1) and bletistrin G (2), natural products isolated from orchids, are reported along with their first total syntheses. The total synthesis of shancigusin C (1) was conducted by employing the Perkin reaction to forge the central stilbene core, whereas the synthesis of bletistrin G (2) was achieved by the Wittig olefination followed by several regioselective aromatic substitution reactions. Both syntheses were completed by applying only renewable starting materials according to the principles of xylochemistry. The cytotoxic properties of shancigusin C (1) and bletistrin G (2) against tumor cells suggest suitability as a starting point for further str…

Comparative evaluation of bioactive cements on biomimetic remineralization of dentin

2020

Background This study was designed to quantitatively compare the presence of apatite peaks on demineralized dentin to induced bio-mimetically by bioactive commercial materials. Material and methods Dentin slice specimens (n=6) were prepared and demineralized by by17% EDTA for 2 hours. Each disks materials (Theracal, Biodentine, CPP-ACP) were freshly prepared and was maintained in close contact with a demineralized dentin specimen immersed in PBS solution during one week. To evaluation of bioactivity, cements disks (n=6) were prepared from each material and immersed in PBS solution for one week. The bioactivity and remineralization ability was evaluated using FTIR spectroscopy and Scanning E…

Relationships among residents' image, evaluation of the stay and post-purchase behaviour

2005

Scholars have approached the analysis of the host community from a supply perspective rather than a demand one. This paper focuses on the study of residents when acting as tourists in their own region. In this sense, the present work aims to fill the gap existing in the literature about residents' tourist behaviour, analysing the influence of the image of their province on their evaluation of their travel experience and their future behaviour intentions. To accomplish this objective, a path analysis is carried out to test jointly the set of relationships among image, perceived quality, satisfaction, intention to return and willingness to recommend.

Deep neural attention-based model for the evaluation of italian sentences complexity

2020

In this paper, the Automatic Text Complexity Evaluation problem is modeled as a binary classification task tackled by a Neural Network based system. It exploits Recurrent Neural Units and the Attention mechanism to measure the complexity of sentences written in the Italian language. An accurate test phase has been carried out, and the system has been compared with state-of-art tools that tackle the same problem. The computed performances proof the model suitability to evaluate sentence complexity improving the results achieved by other state-of-the-art systems.

Multi-class Text Complexity Evaluation via Deep Neural Networks

2019

Automatic Text Complexity Evaluation (ATE) is a natural language processing task which aims to assess texts difficulty taking into account many facets related to complexity. A large number of papers tackle the problem of ATE by means of machine learning algorithms in order to classify texts into complex or simple classes. In this paper, we try to go beyond the methodologies presented so far by introducing a preliminary system based on a deep neural network model whose objective is to classify sentences into more of two classes. Experiments have been carried out on a manually annotated corpus which has been preprocessed in order to make it suitable for the scope of the paper. The results sho…

Assessing the costs and cost-effectiveness of ICare internet-based interventions (protocol)

2019

Background: Mental health problems are common and place a burden on the individual as well as on societal resources. Despite the existence of evidence-based treatments, access to treatment is often prevented or delayed due to insufficient health care resources. Effective internet-based self-help interventions have the potential to reduce the risk for mental health problems, to successfully bridge waiting time for face-to-face treatment and to address inequities in access. However, little is known about the cost-effectiveness of such interventions. This paper describes the study protocol for the economic evaluation of the studies that form the ICare programme of internet-based interventions …

A reliability generalization meta‐analysis of self‐report measures of muscle dysmorphia

2020

This study is a reliability generalization meta‐analysis that reviews continuous measures used to assess muscle dysmorphia (MD): The Muscle Appearance Satisfaction Scale, Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory, four different versions of the Muscle Dysmorphia Inventory, Adonis Complex Questionnaire, and the Modified Dysmorphia Symptoms Questionnaire. A total of 15,156 individuals from 61 studies provided 73 reliability estimates (alpha coefficients and/or test–retest reliability coefficients) for this meta‐analysis. Random‐ and mixed‐effects models were applied in the statistical analyses. We present the average reliability estimates for each measure, moderator analysis of reliability estimat…

Social Difficulties As Risk and Maintaining Factors in Anorexia Nervosa: A Mixed-Method Investigation

2018

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a serious psychiatric disorder characterized by severe restriction of energy intake and dangerously low body weight. Other domains of functioning are affected, including social functioning. Although difficulties within this domain have started to be acknowledged by the literature, some important gaps remain to be filled. Do social difficulties predate the onset of the illness? What difficulties in particular are relevant for the development and maintenance of the illness? The aim of this study is to combine the use of quantitative and qualitative methods to answer these questions. Ninety participants with lifetime AN (88 women and 2 men) completed an online survey a…