Bone Marrow Concentrate and Bovine Bone Mineral for Sinus Floor Augmentation: A Controlled, Randomized, Single-Blinded Clinical and Histological Trial-Per-Protocol Analysis

Purpose: The purpose of this work was to evaluate the potential of substituting autogenous bone (AB) by bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC). Both AB and BMAC were tested in combination with a bovine bone mineral (BBM) for their ability of new bone formation (NBF) in a multicentric, randomized, controlled, clinical and histological noninferiority trial. Materials and Methods: Forty-five severely atrophied maxillary sinus from 26 patients were evaluated in a partial cross-over design. As test arm, 34 sinus of 25 patients were augmented with BBM and BMAC containing mesenchymal stem cells. Eleven control sinus from 11 patients were augmented with a mixture of 70% BBM and 30% AB. Biopsies were obtained after a 3-4-month healing period at time of implant placement and histomorphometrically analyzed for NBF. Results: NBF was 14.3%+/- 1.8% for the control and nonsignificantly lower (12.6%+/- 1.7%) for the test (90% confidence interval: -4.6 to 1.2). Values for BBM (31.3%+/- 2.7%) were significantly higher for the test compared with control (19.3%+/- 2.5%) (p < 0.0001). Nonmineralized tissue was lower by 3.3% in the test compared with control (57.6%; p = 0.137). Conclusions: NBF after 3-4 months is equivalent in sinus, augmented with BMAC and BBM or a mixture of AB and BBM. This technique could be an alternative for using autografts to stimulate bone formation.

Using Computer-aided Drug Design and Medicinal Chemistry Strategies in the Fight Against Diabetes

The aim of this work is to present a simple, practical and efficient protocol for drug design, in particular Diabetes, which includes selection of the illness, good choice of a target as well as a bioactive ligand and then usage of various computer aided drug design and medicinal chemistry tools to design novel potential drug candidates in different diseases. We have selected the validated target dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV), whose inhibition contributes to reduce glucose levels in type 2 diabetes patients. The most active inhibitor with complex X-ray structure reported was initially extracted from the BindingDB database. By using molecular modification strategies widely used in medicinal chemistry, besides current state-of-the-art tools in drug design (including flexible docking, virtual screening, molecular interaction fields, molecular dynamics. ADME and toxicity predictions), we have proposed 4 novel potential DPP-IV inhibitors with drug properties for Diabetes control, which have been supported and validated by all the computational tools used herewith.

Computer-aided drug design and ADMET predictions for identification and evaluation of novel potential farnesyltransferase inhibitors in cancer therapy

We have used various computational methodologies including molecular dynamics, density functional theory, virtual screening, ADMET predictions and molecular interaction field studies to design and analyze four novel potential inhibitors of farnesyltransferase (FTase). Evaluation of two proposals regarding their drug potential as well as lead compounds have indicated them as novel promising FTase inhibitors, with theoretically interesting pharmacotherapeutic profiles, when Compared to the very active and most cited FTase inhibitors that have activity data reported, which are launched drugs or compounds in clinical tests. One of our two proposals appears to be a more promising drug candidate and FTase inhibitor, but both derivative molecules indicate potentially very good pharmacotherapeutic profiles in comparison with Tipifarnib and Lonafarnib, two reference pharmaceuticals. Two other proposals have been selected with virtual screening approaches and investigated by LIS, which suggest novel and alternatives scaffolds to design future potential FTase inhibitors. Such compounds can be explored as promising molecules to initiate a research protocol in order to discover novel anticancer drug candidates targeting farnesyltransferase, in the fight against cancer. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PROWESS-SHOCK TRIAL: A PROTOCOL OVERVIEW AND PERSPECTIVES

Sepsis remains a challenge for intensive care physicians, as it keeps up with high mortality rate in spite of the high costs associated with its treatment. Several studies indicate that the infusion of Drotrecogin-alpha activated (DrotAA) reduce mortality in patients at high risk of death when administered early and secured the appropriate initial treatment of sepsis as recommended by Surviving Sepsis Campaign. Europe and United States of America differ regarding the criteria of high risk of death in sepsis, two or more organ dysfunctions and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation 25 or more, respectively. In addition to varied definitions of high risk of death for inclusion of patients in sepsis studies, the possibility of bleeding related to drug use and intrinsic limitations related to study design led the Company to develop a new randomized, multinational, placebo-controlled, double-blind study to assess the effectiveness of drug in patients with septic shock in adults.

Use of an accelerated chest pain assessment protocol in patients at intermediate risk of adverse cardiac events

Objective: To determine the feasibility, safety and effectiveness of a structured clinical pathway for stratification and management of patients presenting with chest pain and classified as having intermediate risk of adverse cardiac outcomes in the subsequent six months. Design: Prospective clinical audit. Participants and setting: 630 consecutive patients who presented to the emergency department of a metropolitan tertiary care hospital between January 2000 and June 2001 with chest pain and intermediate-risk features. Intervention: Use of the Accelerated Chest Pain Assessment Protocol (ACPAP), as advocated by the Management of unstable angina guidelines - 2000 from the National Heart Foundation and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. Main outcome measure: Adverse cardiac events during six-month follow-up. Results: 409 patients (65%) were reclassified as low risk and discharged at a mean of 14 hours after assessment in the chest pain unit. None had missed myocardial infarctions, while three (1%) had cardiac events at six months (all elective revascularisation procedures, with no readmissions with acute coronary syndromes). Another 110 patients (17%) were reclassified as high risk, and 21 (19%) of these had cardiac events (mainly revascularisations) by six months. Patients who were unable to exercise or had non-diagnostic exercise stress test results (equivocal risk) had an intermediate cardiac event rate (8%). Conclusions: This study validates use of ACPAP. The protocol eliminated missed myocardial infarction; allowed early, safe discharge of low-risk patients; and led to early identification and management of high-risk patients.

Electromagnetic tracker feasibility in the design of a dental superstructure for edentulous patients

The success of the osseointegration concept and the Brånemark protocol is highly associated to the accuracy in the production of an implant-supported prosthesis. One of most critical steps for long-term success of these prosthesis is the accuracy obtained during the impression procedure, which is affected by factors such as the impression material, implant position, angulation and depth. This paper investigates the feasibility of 3D electromagnetic motion tracking systems as an acquisition method for modeling full-arch implant-supported prosthesis. To this extent, we propose an implant acquisition method at the patient mouth and a calibration procedure, based on a 3D electromagnetic tracker that obtains combined measurements of implant’s position and angulation, eliminating the use of any impression material. Three calibration algorithms (namely linear interpolation, higher-order polynomial and Hardy multiquadric) were tested to compensate for the electromagnetic tracker distortions introduced by the presence of nearby metals. Moreover, implants from different suppliers were also tested to study its impact on tracking accuracy. The calibration methodology and the algorithms employed proved to implement a suitable strategy for the evaluation of novel dental impression techniques. However, in the particular case of the evaluated electromagnetic tracking system, the order of magnitude of the obtained errors invalidates its use for the full-arch modeling of implant-supported prosthesis.

Communication protocol for the rempli project

The overall goal of the REMPLI project is to design and implement a communication infrastructure for distributed data acquisition and remote control operations using the power grid as the communication medium. The primary target application is remote meter reading with high time resolution, where the meters can be energy, heat, gas, or water meters. The users of the system (e.g. utility companies) will benefit from the REMPLI system by gaining more detailed information about how energy is consumed by the end-users. In this context, the power-line communication (PLC) is deployed to cover the distance between utility company’s Private Network and the end user. This document specifies a protocol for real-time PLC, in the framework of the REMPLI project. It mainly comprises the Network Layer and Data Link Layer. The protocol was designed having into consideration the specific aspects of the network: different network typologies (star, tree, ring, multiple paths), dynamic changes in network topology (due to network maintenance, hazards, etc.), communication lines strongly affected by noise.

BANMAC: an opportunistic MAC protocol for reliable communications in body area networks

We consider reliable communications in Body Area Networks (BAN), where a set of nodes placed on human body are connected using wireless links. In order to keep the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) as low as possible for health safety reasons, these networks operate in low transmit power regime, which however, is known to be error prone. It has been observed that the fluctuations of the Received Signal Strength (RSS) at the nodes of a BAN on a moving person show certain regularities and that the magnitude of these fluctuations are significant (5 - 20 dB). In this paper, we present BANMAC, a MAC protocol that monitors and predicts the channel fluctuations and schedules transmissions opportunistically when the RSS is likely to be higher. The MAC protocol is capable of providing differentiated service and resolves co-channel interference in the event of multiple co-located BANs in a vicinity. We report the design and implementation details of BANMAC integrated with the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol stack. We present experimental data which show that the packet loss rate (PLR) of BANMAC is significantly lower as compared to that of the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC. For comparable PLR, the power consumption of BANMAC is also significantly lower than that of the IEEE 802.15.4. For co-located networks, the convergence time to find a conflict-free channel allocation was approximately 1 s for the centralized coordination mechanism and was approximately 4 s for the distributed coordination mechanism.

A traffic differentiation add-on to the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol: implementation and experimental validation over a real-time operating system

The IEEE 802.15.4 is the most widespread used protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and it is being used as a baseline for several higher layer protocols such as ZigBee, 6LoWPAN or WirelessHART. Its MAC (Medium Access Control) supports both contention-free (CFP, based on the reservation of guaranteed time-slots GTS) and contention based (CAP, ruled by CSMA/CA) access, when operating in beacon-enabled mode. Thus, it enables the differentiation between real-time and best-effort traffic. However, some WSN applications and higher layer protocols may strongly benefit from the possibility of supporting more traffic classes. This happens, for instance, for dense WSNs used in time-sensitive industrial applications. In this context, we propose to differentiate traffic classes within the CAP, enabling lower transmission delays and higher success probability to timecritical messages, such as for event detection, GTS reservation and network management. Building upon a previously proposed methodology (TRADIF), in this paper we outline its implementation and experimental validation over a real-time operating system. Importantly, TRADIF is fully backward compatible with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, enabling to create different traffic classes just by tuning some MAC parameters.

Design and implementation of a behaviorally typed programming system for web services

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática.

Design of a Mobile Application for Eye Signs Screening

Mestrado em Engenharia Computação e Instrumentação Médica

A Random Access Protocol incorporating Multi-Packet Reception, Retransmission Diversity and Successive Interference Cancellation

8th International Workshop on Multiple Access Communications (MACOM2015), Helsinki, Finland.

Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.6 Contention-based MAC Protocol

IEEE International Conference on Communications (IEEE ICC 2015). 8 to 12, Jun, 2015, IEEE ICC 2015 - Communications QoS, Reliability and Modeling, London, United Kingdom.

Type-based protocol conformance and aliasing control in concurrent java programs

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Environment and Health in Children Day Care Centres (ENVIRH) - Study Rationale and Protocol

Background: Indoor air quality (IAQ) is considered an important determinant of human health. The association between exposure to volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, house dust mite, molds and bacteria in day care centers (DCC) is not completely clear. The aim of this project was to study these effects. Methods --- study design: This study comprised two phases. Phase I included an evaluation of 45 DCCs (25 from Lisbon and 20 from Oporto, targeting 5161 children). In this phase, building characteristics, indoor CO2 and air temperature/relative humidity, were assessed. A children’s respiratory health questionnaire derived from the ISAAC (International Study on Asthma and Allergies in Children) was also distributed. Phase II encompassed two evaluations and included 20 DCCs selected from phase I after a cluster analysis (11 from Lisbon and 9 from Oporto, targeting 2287 children). In this phase, data on ventilation, IAQ, thermal comfort parameters, respiratory and allergic health, airway inflammation biomarkers, respiratory virus infection patterns and parental and child stress were collected. Results: In Phase I, building characteristics, occupant behavior and ventilation surrogates were collected from all DCCs. The response rate of the questionnaire was 61.7% (3186 children). Phase II included 1221 children. Association results between DCC characteristics, IAQ and health outcomes will be provided in order to support recommendations on IAQ and children’s health. A building ventilation model will also be developed. Discussion: This paper outlines methods that might be implemented by other investigators conducting studies on the association between respiratory health and indoor air quality at DCC.