Incorporation of human recombinant tropoelastin into silk fibroin membranes with the view to repairing Bruch’s membrane

Bombyx mori silk fibroin membranes provide a potential delivery vehicle for both cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) components into diseased or injured tissues. We have previously demonstrated the feasibility of growing retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE) on fibroin membranes with the view to repairing the retina of patients afflicted with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The goal of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of incorporating the ECM component elastin, in the form of human recombinant tropoelastin, into these same membranes. Two basic strategies were explored: (1) membranes prepared from blended solutions of fibroin and tropoelastin; and (2) layered constructs prepared from sequentially cast solutions of fibroin, tropoelastin, and fibroin. Optimal conditions for RPE attachment were achieved using a tropoelastin-fibroin blend ratio of 10 to 90 parts by weight. Retention of tropoelastin within the blend and layered constructs was confirmed by immunolabelling and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). In the layered constructs, the bulk of tropoelastin was apparently absorbed into the initially cast fibroin layer. Blend membranes displayed higher elastic modulus, percentage elongation, and tensile strength (p < 0.01) when compared to the layered constructs. RPE cell response to fibroin membranes was not affected by the presence of tropoelastin. These findings support the potential use of fibroin membranes for the co-delivery of RPE cells and tropoelastin.

Bat species comparisons based on external morphology: A test of traditional versus geometric morphometric approaches

External morphology is commonly used to identify bats as well as to investigate flight and foraging behavior, typically relying on simple length and area measures or ratios. However, geometric morphometrics is increasingly used in the biological sciences to analyse variation in shape and discriminate among species and populations. Here we compare the ability of traditional versus geometric morphometric methods in discriminating between closely related bat species – in this case European horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae, Chiroptera) – based on morphology of the wing, body and tail. In addition to comparing morphometric methods, we used geometric morphometrics to detect interspecies differences as shape changes. Geometric morphometrics yielded improved species discrimination relative to traditional methods. The predicted shape for the variation along the between group principal components revealed that the largest differences between species lay in the extent to which the wing reaches in the direction of the head. This strong trend in interspecific shape variation is associated with size, which we interpret as an evolutionary allometry pattern.

Who Rules Japan? Popular Participation in the Japanese Legal Process

"The dramatic growth of the Japanese economy in the postwar period, and its meltdown in the 1990s, has attracted sustained interest in the power dynamics underlying the management of Japan’s administrative state. Scholars and commentators have long debated over who wields power in Japan, asking the fundamental question: who really governs Japan? This important volume revisits this question by turning its attention to the regulation and design of the Japanese legal system. With essays covering the new lay-judge system in Japanese criminal trials, labour dispute resolution panels, prison policy, gendered justice, government lawyers, welfare administration and administrative transparency, this comprehensive book explores the players and processes in Japan’s administration of justice."--publisher website

Popular participation in labour law: The new labour dispute resolution tribunal

The Labour Tribunal Law (No. 45 of 2004) ushered in a new court-annexed dispute resolution system for industrial relations disputes in Japan (outlined generally in Sugeno, 2004). Similar to the lay judge system for criminal trials (Johnson and Shinomiya, Chapter 2), the new tribunal adopts an adjudicative model that blends professional and lay expertise with decisions heard by a tripartite panel comprising a professional judge and two lay judges recommended by management and labour unions respectively. The new tribunal system came into operation on 1 April 2006.

The vertebral venous system in healthy and scoliotic adolescent spines - a 3D MRI investigation

Introduction. The venous drainage system within vertebral bodies (VBs) has been well documented previously in cadaveric specimens. Advances in 3D imaging and image processing now allow for in vivo quantification of larger venous vessels, such as the basivertebral vein. Differences between healthy and scoliotic VB veins can therefore be investigated. Methods. 20 healthy adolescent controls and 21 AIS patients were recruited (with ethics approval) to undergo 3D MRI, using a 3 Tesla, T1-weighted 3D gradient echo sequence, resulting in 512 slices across the thoraco-lumbar spine, with a voxel size of 0.5x0.5x0.5mm. Using Amira Filament Editor, five transverse slices through the VB were examined simultaneously and the resulting observable vascular network traced. Each VB was assessed, and a vascular network recorded when observable. A local coordinate system was created in the centre of each VB and the vascular networks aligned to this. The length of the vascular network on the left and right sides (with a small central region) of the VB was calculated, and the spatial patterning of the networks assessed level-by-level within each subject. Results. An average of 6 (range 4-10) vascular networks, consistent with descriptions of the basivertebral vein, were identifiable within each subject, most commonly between T10-L1. Differences were seen in the left/right distribution of vessels in the control and AIS subjects. Healthy controls saw a percentage distribution of 29:18:53 across the left:centre:right regions respectively, whereas the AIS subjects had a slightly shifted distribution of 33:25:42. The control group showed consistent spatial patterning of the vascular networks across most levels, but this was not seen in the AIS group. Conclusion. Observation and quantification of the basivertebral vein in vivo is possible using 3D MRI. The AIS group lacked the spatial pattern repetition seen in the control group and minor differences were seen in the left/right distribution of vessels.

Efficacy and safety of adalimumab in patients with non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis: Results of a randomised placebo-controlled trial (ABILITY-1)

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of adalimumab in patients with non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA). Methods: Patients fulfilled Assessment of Spondyloarthritis international Society (ASAS) criteria for axial spondyloarthritis, had a Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) score of ≥ 4, total back pain score of ≥ 4 (10 cm visual analogue scale) and inadequate response, intolerance or contraindication to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs); patients fulfilling modified New York criteria for ankylosing spondylitis were excluded. Patients were randomised to adalimumab (N=91) or placebo (N=94). The primary endpoint was the percentage of patients achieving ASAS40 at week 12. Efficacy assessments included BASDAI and Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS). MRI was performed at baseline and week 12 and scored using the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) index. Results: Significantly more patients in the adalimumab group achieved ASAS40 at week 12 compared with patients in the placebo group (36% vs 15%, p<0.001). Significant clinical improvements based on other ASAS responses, ASDAS and BASDAI were also detected at week 12 with adalimumab treatment, as were improvements in quality of life measures. Inflammation in the spine and sacroiliac joints on MRI significantly decreased after 12 weeks of adalimumab treatment. Shorter disease duration, younger age, elevated baseline C-reactive protein or higher SPARCC MRI sacroiliac joint scores were associated with better week 12 responses to adalimumab. The safety profile was consistent with what is known for adalimumab in ankylosing spondylitis and other diseases. Conclusions: In patients with nr-axSpA, adalimumab treatment resulted in effective control of disease activity, decreased inflammation and improved quality of life compared with placebo. Results from ABILITY-1 suggest that adalimumab has a positive benefit-risk profile in active nr-axSpA patients with inadequate response to NSAIDs.

Comparison of oropharyngeal and oral cavity squamous cell cancer incidence and trends in New Zealand and Queensland, Australia

Background Increases in the incidence of squamous cell oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) have been reported from some countries, but have not been assessed in Australia or New Zealand. This study examines trends for squamous cell OPC and squamous cell oral cavity cancer (OCC) in two similarly sized populations, New Zealand and Queensland, Australia. Methods Incidence data for 1982–2010 were obtained from the respective population-based cancer registries for squamous cell OPC and OCC, by subsite, sex, and age. Time trends and annual percentage changes (APCs) were assessed by joinpoint regression. Results The incidence rates of squamous cell OPC in males in New Zealand since 2005 and Queensland since 2006 have increased rapidly, with APCs of 11.9% and 10.6% respectively. The trends were greatest at ages 50–69 and followed more gradual increases previously. In females, rates increased by 2.1% per year in New Zealand from 1982, but by only 0.9% (not significant) in Queensland. In contrast, incidence rates for OCC decreased by 1.2% per year in males in Queensland since 1982, but remained stable for females in Queensland and for both sexes in New Zealand. Overall, incidence rates for both OCC and OPC were substantially higher in Queensland than in New Zealand. In males in both areas, OPC incidence is now higher than that of OCC. Conclusions Incidence rates of squamous cell OPC have increased rapidly in men, while rates of OCC have been stable or reducing, showing distinct etiologies. This has both clinical and public health importance, including implications for the extension of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination to males.

UWB channel measurement and data transfer analysis for multiuser Infostation applications

In this paper, the results of the time dispersion parameters obtained from a set of channel measurements conducted in various environments that are typical of multiuser Infostation application scenarios are presented. The measurement procedure takes into account the practical scenarios typical of the positions and movements of the users in the particular Infostation network. To provide one with the knowledge of how much data can be downloaded by users over a given time and mobile speed, data transfer analysis for multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) is presented. As expected, the rough estimate of simultaneous data transfer in a multiuser Infostation scenario indicates dependency of the percentage of download on the data size, number and speed of the users, and the elapse time.

Energy and nutrient intakes among Sri Lankan adults

Introduction The epidemic of nutrition related non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity has reached to epidemic portion in the Sri Lanka. However, to date, detailed data on food consumption in the Sri Lankan population is limited. The aim of this study is to identify energy and major nutrient intake among Sri Lankan adults. Methods A nationally-representative sample of adults was selected using a multi-stage random cluster sampling technique. Results Data from 463 participants (166 Males, 297 Females) were analyzed. Total energy intake was significantly higher in males (1913 ± 567 kcal/d) than females (1514 ± 458 kcal/d). However, there was no significant gender differences in the percentage of energy from carbohydrate (Male: 72.8 ± 6.4%, Female: 73.9 ± 6.7%), fat (Male: 19.9 ± 6.1%, Female: 18.5 ± 5.7%) and proteins (Male: 10.6 ± 2.1%, Female: 10.9 ± 5.6%). Conclusion The present study provides the first national estimates of energy and nutrient intake of the Sri Lankan adult population.

The dependence of computed tomography number to relative electron density conversion on phantom geometry and its impact on planned dose

A computed tomography number to relative electron density (CT-RED) calibration is performed when commissioning a radiotherapy CT scanner by imaging a calibration phantom with inserts of specified RED and recording the CT number displayed. In this work, CT-RED calibrations were generated using several commercially available phantoms to observe the effect of phantom geometry on conversion to electron density and, ultimately, the dose calculation in a treatment planning system. Using an anthropomorphic phantom as a gold standard, the CT number of a material was found to depend strongly on the amount and type of scattering material surrounding the volume of interest, with the largest variation observed for the highest density material tested, cortical bone. Cortical bone gave a maximum CT number difference of 1,110 when a cylindrical insert of diameter 28 mm scanned free in air was compared to that in the form of a 30 × 30 cm2 slab. The effect of using each CT-RED calibration on planned dose to a patient was quantified using a commercially available treatment planning system. When all calibrations were compared to the anthropomorphic calibration, the largest percentage dose difference was 4.2 % which occurred when the CT-RED calibration curve was acquired with heterogeneity inserts removed from the phantom and scanned free in air. The maximum dose difference observed between two dedicated CT-RED phantoms was ±2.1 %. A phantom that is to be used for CT-RED calibrations must have sufficient water equivalent scattering material surrounding the heterogeneous objects that are to be used for calibration.

Modeling meat yield based on measurements of body traits in genetically improved giant freshwater prawn (GFP) Macrobrachium rosenbergii

A single-generation dataset consisting of 1,730 records from a selection program for high growth rate in giant freshwater prawn (GFP, Macrobrachium rosenbergii) was used to derive prediction equations for meat weight and meat yield. Models were based on body traits [body weight, total length and abdominal width (AW)] and carcass measurements (tail weight and exoskeleton-off weight). Lengths and width were adjusted for the systematic effects of selection line, male morphotypes and female reproductive status, and for the covariables of age at slaughter within sex and body weight. Body and meat weights adjusted for the same effects (except body weight) were used to calculate meat yield (expressed as percentage of tail weight/body weight and exoskeleton-off weight/body weight). The edible meat weight and yield in this GFP population ranged from 12 to 15 g and 37 to 45 %, respectively. The simple (Pearson) correlation coefficients between body traits (body weight, total length and AW) and meat weight were moderate to very high and positive (0.75–0.94), but the correlations between body traits and meat yield were negative (−0.47 to −0.74). There were strong linear positive relationships between measurements of body traits and meat weight, whereas relationships of body traits with meat yield were moderate and negative. Step-wise multiple regression analysis showed that the best model to predict meat weight included all body traits, with a coefficient of determination (R 2) of 0.99 and a correlation between observed and predicted values of meat weight of 0.99. The corresponding figures for meat yield were 0.91 and 0.95, respectively. Body weight or length was the best predictor of meat weight, explaining 91–94 % of observed variance when it was fitted alone in the model. By contrast, tail width explained a lower proportion (69–82 %) of total variance in the single trait models. It is concluded that in practical breeding programs, improvement of meat weight can be easily made through indirect selection for body trait combinations. The improvement of meat yield, albeit being more difficult, is possible by genetic means, with 91 % of the variation in the trait explained by the body and carcass traits examined in this study.

The iconic and the critical

Theodor Adorno was opposed to the cinema because he felt it was too close to reality, and ipso facto an extension of ideological Capital, as he wrote in 1944 in Dialectic of Enlightenment. What troubled Adorno was the iconic nature of cinema – the semiotic category invented by C. S. Peirce where the signifier (sign) does not merely signify, in the arbitrary capacity attested by Saussure, but mimics the formal-visual qualities of its referent. Iconicity finds its perfect example in the film’s ingenuous surface illusion of an unmediated reality – its genealogy (the iconic), since classical antiquity, lay in the Greek term eikōn which meant “image,” to refer to the ancient portrait statues of victorious athletes which were thought to bear a direct similitude with their parent divinities. For the postwar, Hollywood-film spectator, Adorno said, “the world outside is an extension of the film he has just left,” because realism is a precise instrument for the manipulation of the mass spectator by the culture industry, for which the filmic image is an advertisement for the world unedited. Mimesis, or the reproduction of reality, is a “mere reproduction of the economic base.” It is precisely film’s iconicity, then, its “realist aesthetic . . . [that] makes it inseparable from its commodity character.”...

Degradability of creatinine under sewer conditions affects its potential to be used as biomarker in sewage epidemiology

Creatinine was proposed to be used as a population normalising factor in sewage epidemiology but its stability in the sewer system has not been assessed. This study thus aimed to evaluate the fate of creatinine under different sewer conditions using laboratory sewer reactors. The results showed that while creatinine was stable in wastewater only, it degraded quickly in reactors with the presence of sewer biofilms. The degradation followed first order kinetics with significantly higher rate in rising main condition than in gravity sewer condition. Additionally, daily loads of creatinine were determined in wastewater samples collected on Census day from 10 wastewater treatment plants around Australia. The measured loads of creatinine from those samples were much lower than expected and did not correlate with the populations across the sampled treatment plants. The results suggested that creatinine may not be a suitable biomarker for population normalisation purpose in sewage epidemiology, especially in sewer catchment with high percentage of rising mains.

Behavior of simetryn and thiobencarb in rice paddy lysimeters and the effect of excess water storage depth in controlling herbicide run-off

Eight small-scale lysimeters with different excess water storage depths (EWSDs) were used to investigate the behavior of two herbicides, simetryn and thiobencarb, under paddy conditions. The concentration of simetryn dissipated similarly in all the lysimeters, while the thiobencarb concentration varied significantly because thiobencarb can adsorb onto the dissolved organic matter in a manure slurry, which was applied to six of the lysimeters. The herbicide losses (the percentage of the applied mass) from the lysimeters were reversely proportional with the EWSD. The correlation was stronger for simetryn than for thiobencarb. An appropriate EWSD is required to effectively prevent herbicide run-off from the paddy field, especially when a rainfall event occurs soon after herbicide application.

Health-related quality of life of individuals with transfemoral amputation fitted with the Transcutaneous Bone Anchoring Prosthesis following the OGAAP

Background The benefits and safety transcutaneous bone anchored prosthesis relying on a screw fixation are well reported.[1-17] However, most of the studies on press-fit implants and joint replacement technology have focused on surgical techniques.[3, 18-23] One European centre using this technique has reported on health related quality of life (HRQOL) for a group of individuals with transfemoral amputation (TFA).[3] Data from other centres are needed to assess the effectiveness of the technique in different settings. Aim This study aimed at reporting HRQOL data at baseline and up to 2-year follow-up for a group of TFAs treated by Osseointegration Group of Australia who followed the Osseointegration Group of Australia Accelerated Protocol (OGAAP), in Sydney between 08/12/2011 and 09/04/2014. Method A total of 16 TFAs (7 females and 9 males, age 51 ± 12 y, height 1.73 ± 0.12 m, weight 83 ±18 kg) participated in this study. The cause of amputation was trauma or congenital limb deficiency for 11 (69%) and 5 (31%) participants, respectively. A total of 12 (75%) participants were prosthetic users while 4(25%) were wheelchair bound prior the surgery. The HRQOL were obtained from Questionnaire for Persons with Transfemoral Amputation (Q-TFA) using the four main scales (i.e., Prosthetic use, Mobility, Problem, Global) one year before and between 6.5 and 24 months after the Stage 1 of the surgeries for the baseline and follow-up, respectively. Results The lapse of time before and after Stage 1 was -6.19±3.54 and 10.83±3.58 months respectively. The raw score and percentage of improvement are presented in Figures 1 and 2, respectively. Discussion & Conclusion The average results demonstrated an improvement in each domain, particularly in the reduction of problems and an increase in global state. Furthermore, 56%, 75%, 94% and 69% of the participants reported an improvement in Prosthetic use, Mobility, Problem, Global scales, respectively. These results were comparable to previous studies relying of screwed fixation confirming that press-fit implantation is a viable alternative for bone-anchored prostheses.[1, 7, 8]