Search results for "Context"

Blame game or dialogue? Financial, professional and democratic accountabilities in a complex health care setting

2018

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the complexity of the network governance setting affects accountability practices. The authors pay particular attention to the organizational characteristics that may enable a common understanding of multiple accountability relationships, or lead to problems in reconciling competing forms of accountability, thereby appearing as blame game-type behavior. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a case study with 31 semi-structured interviews in a Finnish health care organization (FHC) that offers basic public health care services. The organization represents a co-operative arrangement with the main city and three smaller munic…

Automated approach for indirect immunofluorescence images classification based on unsupervised clustering method

2018

Autoimmune diseases (ADs) are a collection of many complex disorders of unknown aetiology resulting in immune responses to self-antigens and are thought to result from interactions between genetic and environmental factors. ADs collectively are amongst the most prevalent diseases in the U.S., affecting at least 7% of the population. The diagnosis of ADs is very complex, the standard screening methods provides seeking and recognizing of Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA) by Indirect ImmunoFluorescence (IIF) based on HEp-2 cells. In this paper an automatic system able to identify and classify the Centromere pattern is presented. The method is based on the grouping of centromeres present on the cell…

Data from: Sex ratio at mating does not modulate age fitness effects in D. melanogaster

2019

Understanding the effects of male and female age on reproductive success is vital to explain the evolution of life history traits and sex-specific ageing. A general prediction is that pre/post-meiotic ageing processes will lead to a decline in the pre- and post-copulatory abilities of both males and females. However, inasmuch as sexes have different strategies to optimize their fitness, the decline of reproductive success late in life can be modulated by social context, such as sex ratio, in a sex-specific manner. In this study, we used Drosophila melanogaster to investigate whether sex ratio at mating modulates age effects on male and female reproductive success. As expected, male and fema…

Flow Cytometry in Cancer Immunotherapy: Applications, Quality Assurance, and Future

2014

Cancer immunotherapy seeks to elicit or augment the antitumor immune response in a patient in order to enlist the help of the patient’s own immune system for tumor control. In this context, immune monitoring provides evidence of immunogenicity, guides the choice and dosage of antigens, assesses the effects of immune modulators and therapy combinations, and has the potential to reveal early biomarkers of clinical efficacy. In view of their role in the anticancer immune response, the quantity and quality of tumor antigen-specific effector CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are of particular interest, and characterization of regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells is increasingly relevant. …

A Combined Behavioral and Neuroimaging Battery to Test Positive Appraisal Style Theory of Resilience in Longitudinal Studies

2018

AbstractResilience is the maintenance or rapid recovery of mental health during and after stressor exposure. It is becoming increasingly clear that resilience results from a complex and dynamic process of adaptation to stressors involving the biological, psychological and social levels. Positive appraisal style theory of resilience (PASTOR) claims that the common final pathway to maintained mental health lies in the non-negative (non-catastrophizing, non-pessimistic) appraisal of potential stressors, permitting the organism to fine-tune stress responses to optimal levels, thus avoiding unnecessary stress, inefficient deployment of resources and concomitant deleterious allostatic load effect…

Anti-inflammatory agents from plants: Progress and potential

2011

The identification of substances that can promote the resolution of inflammation in a way that is homeostatic, modulatory, efficient, and well-tolerated by the body is of fundamental importance. Traditional medicines have long provided front-line pharmacotherapy for many millions of people worldwide. Medicinal extracts are a rich source of therapeutic leads for the pharmaceutical industry. The use of medicinal plant therapies to treat chronic illness, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), is thus widespread and on the rise.The aim of this review is to present recent progress in clinical anti-inflammatory studies of plant extracts and compound leads such a…

Essential Oil Composition of Alluaudia procera and in Vitro Biological Activity on Two Drug-Resistant Models

2019

Drug resistance is a major obstacle in antibiotic and antitumor chemotherapy. In response to the necessity to find new therapeutic strategies, plant secondary metabolites including essential oils (EOs) may represent one of the best sources. EOs in plants act as constitutive defenses against biotic and abiotic stress, and they play an important role in the pharmacology for their low toxicity, good pharmacokinetic and multitarget activity. In this context, natural products such as EOs are one of the most important sources of drugs used in pharmaceutical therapeutics. The aim of this paper was to identify the chemical composition of the essential oil of Alluaudia procera leaves, obtained by hy…

Domains of the E1 Protein of Human Papillomavirus Type 33 Involved in Binding to the E2 Protein

1996

Papillomavirus E1 and E2 proteins are essential for the initiation of viral DNA replication. We have now analyzed the interaction of E1 and E2 of human papillomavirus type 33, which is associated with cervical carcinoma. When synthesized in insect cells using the baculovirus expression system, the E1 and E2 proteins interacted efficiently at 4 degree. A monoclonal antibody recognizing E1 amino acids 584--600 inhibited the binding of E2 and vice versa, indicating that these amino acids are involved in E2 binding. To confirm this result, a mutational analysis of E1 was performed. The E2 binding activity of E1 deletion and point mutant proteins was assayed using glutathione S-transferase E1 fu…

2018

Background: In the primary and secondary prevention of civilization diseases, regular physical activity is recommended in international guidelines to improve disease-related symptoms, delay the progression of the disease, or to enhance postoperative outcomes. In the preoperative context, there has been a paradigm shift in favor of using preconditioning concepts before surgery. Web-based interventions seem an innovative and effective tool for delivering general information, individualized exercise recommendations, and peer support. Objective: Our first objective was to assess feasibility of our Web-based interventional concept and analyze similarities and differences in a sustained exercise …

Materials for Respiratory Masks in the Context of COVID 19 Pandemic

2021

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of protective equipment worldwide, we aimed to study the literature for finding guidelines in the 3D manufacture of respiratory masks. We have searched for papers in CI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH, ESCI, CCR-EXPANDED, IC, using 3D printing materials sterilization and 3D printing materials disinfection keywords. From 80 results in databases, after refining, we selected six papers. We have also searched for manufacturers information regarding 3D printing materials sterilization or disinfection. We have found seven materials that are suitable for 3D printing and sterilization, with regards to multiple utili…