Search results for "Macro"

An update on the relationships between rheumatoid arthritis and atherosclerosis

2010

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease. Cardiovascular events are the most important cause of mortality and morbidity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Beyond the traditional cardiovascular risk factors, chronic systemic inflammation has been shown to be a crucial factor in atherosclerosis development and progression from endothelial dysfunction to plaque rupture and thrombosis. Many studies have shown that atherosclerosis is not a passive event like accumulation of lipids in the vessel walls; by contrast, it represents an active inflammation of the vessels. Inflammatory cells such as macrophages, monocytes and T cells play important roles in the development of both rhe…

Ritz Solution for Transient Analysis of Variable-Stiffness Shell Structures

2020

The dynamic response of thin-walled structures is driven by mass and stiffness distribution. As such, variable-stiffness (VS) composites offer opportunities to tune structural dynamic responses. To this extent, efficient analysis tools become increasingly important for structural analysis and design purposes. In this work, an efficient and versatile Ritz method for free vibrations and linear transient analysis of VS doubly curved shell structures is presented. VS shell structures are modeled as an assembly of shell-like domains. The shell kinematics is based on the first-order shear deformation theory, and no further assumption is made on the shallowness or on the thinness of the structure.…

CMC is more than a measure of corticospinal tract integrity in acute stroke patients

2021

In healthy subjects, motor cortex activity and electromyographic (EMG) signals from contracting contralateral muscle show coherence in the beta (15-30 Hz) range. Corticomuscular coherence (CMC) is considered a sign of functional coupling between muscle and brain. Based on prior studies, CMC is altered in stroke, but functional significance of this finding has remained unclear. Here, we examined CMC in acute stroke patients and correlated the results with clinical outcome measures and corticospinal tract (CST) integrity estimated with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). During isometric contraction of the extensor carpi radialis muscle, EMG and magnetoencephalographic oscillatory signals were re…

Correlative histologic and arthroscopic evaluation in rheumatoid knee joints.

1992

The correlation between arthroscopic observations and histologic changes in rheumatoid arthritis is still controversial. Synovial samples of 21 knee joints in rheumatoid arthritis patients were comparatively investigated by endoscopy and histology. Biopsies were scored by an endoscopist and subsequently dissected. Different histochemical and immunocytochemical staining techniques were used to define inflammatory activity. Arthroscopic and histological values were compared by rating scales and variance analysis. Our study indicates that synovial biopsy is of diagnostic value in rheumatoid arthritis. However, its usefulness depends on the histochemical methods used. The results revealed highl…

Patient-specific computational evaluation of stiffness distribution in ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm

2021

Quantifying local aortic stiffness properties in vivo is acknowledged as essential to assess the severity of an ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (ATAA). Recently, the LESI (local extensional stiffness identification) methodology has been established to quantify non-invasively local stiffness properties of ATAAs using electrocardiographic-gated computed tomography (ECG-gated CT) scans. The aim of the current study was to determine the most sensitive markers of local ATAA stiffness estimation with the hypothesis that direct measures of local ATAA stiffness could better detect the high-risk patients. A cohort of 30 patients (12 BAV and 18 TAV) referred for aortic size evaluation by ECG-gated…

L'inquietante primum italiano del macrotoponimo America

2019

This article is focused on macrotoponimo America.

Narratives of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analysis

2016

Abstract Background The aim of this meta-analysis was to analyze the narrative performance of children and adolescents with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in terms of microstructure, macrostructure and internal state language. Method A systematic literature search yielded 24 studies that met the predetermined inclusion criteria. Effect sizes for each study were calculated for eight variables and analyzed using a random effects model. Intellectual ability, age and type of narrative were considered as potential moderators. Results Results revealed that the children with ASD performed significantly worse than their peers on all the variables considered. Conclusions Findings a…

Ecological impacts of invasive signal crayfish in large boreal lakes

2012

Targeting GSK3 and Associated Signaling Pathways Involved in Cancer

2020

Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK-3) is a serine/threonine (S/T) protein kinase. Although GSK-3 originally was identified to have functions in regulation of glycogen synthase, it was subsequently determined to have roles in multiple normal biochemical processes as well as various disease conditions. GSK-3 is sometimes referred to as a moonlighting protein due to the multiple substrates and processes which it controls. Frequently, when GSK-3 phosphorylates proteins, they are targeted for degradation. GSK-3 is often considered a component of the PI3K/PTEN/AKT/GSK-3/mTORC1 pathway as GSK-3 is frequently phosphorylated by AKT which regulates its inactivation. AKT is often active in human cancer a…

Blends of Semiflexible Polymers: Interplay of Nematic Order and Phase Separation

2021

Mixtures of semiflexible polymers with a mismatch in either their persistence lengths or their contour lengths are studied by Density Functional Theory and Molecular Dynamics simulation. Considering lyotropic solutions under good solvent conditions, the mole fraction and pressure is systematically varied for several cases of bending stiffness κ (the normalized persistence length) and chain length N. For binary mixtures with different chain length (i.e., NA=16, NB=32 or 64) but the same stiffness, isotropic-nematic phase coexistence is studied. For mixtures with the same chain length (N=32) and large stiffness disparity (κB/κA=4.9 to 8), both isotropic-nematic and nematic-nematic unmixing oc…