Journals
2015 EN
Peng Wang · Neal W. Menzies · Enzo Lombi
+8 more
Silver nanoparticles (NPs) are used in more consumer products than any other nanomaterial and their release into the environment is unavoidable. Of primary concern is the wastewater stream in which most silver NPs are transformed to silver sulfide NPs (Ag2S-NPs) before being applied to agricultural soils within biosolids. While Ag2S-NPs are assumed to be biologically inert, nothing is known of their effects on terrestrial plants. The phytotoxicity of Ag and its accumulation was examined in short-term (24 h) and longer-term (2-week) solution culture experiments with cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) exposed to Ag2S-NPs (0-20 mg Ag L(-1)), metallic Ag-NPs (0-1.6 mg Ag L(-1)), or ionic Ag (AgNO3; 0-0.086 mg Ag L(-1)). Although not inducing any effects during 24-h exposure, Ag2S-NPs reduced growth by up to 52% over a 2-week period. This toxicity did not result from their dissolution and release of toxic Ag(+) in the rooting medium, with soluble Ag concentrations remaining below 0.001 mg Ag L(-1). Rather, Ag accumulated as Ag2S in the root and shoot tissues when plants were exposed to Ag2S-NPs, consistent with their direct uptake. Importantly, this differed from the form of Ag present in tissues of plants exposed to AgNO3. For the first time, our findings have shown that Ag2S-NPs exert toxic effects through their direct accumulation in terrestrial plant tissues. These findings need to be considered to ensure high yield of food crops, and to avoid increasing Ag in the food chain.
Journals
2015 EN
Julia Susewind · Cristiane de Souza CarvalhoWodarz · Urška Repnik
+4 more
Oral exposure to nanomaterials is a current concern, asking for innovative biological test systems to assess their safety, especially also in conditions of inflammatory disorders. Aim of this study was to develop a 3D intestinal model, consisting of Caco-2 cells and two human immune cell lines, suitable to assess nanomaterial toxicity, in either healthy or diseased conditions. Human macrophages (THP-1) and human dendritic cells (MUTZ-3) were embedded in a collagen scaffold and seeded on the apical side of transwell inserts. Caco-2 cells were seeded on top of this layer, forming a 3D model of the intestinal mucosa. Toxicity of engineered nanoparticles (NM101 TiO2, NM300 Ag, Au) was evaluated in non-inflamed and inflamed co-cultures, and also compared to non-inflamed Caco-2 monocultures. Inflammation was elicited by IL-1β, and interactions with engineered NPs were addressed by different endpoints. The 3D co-culture showed well preserved ultrastructure and significant barrier properties. Ag NPs were found to be more toxic than TiO2 or Au NPs. But once inflamed with IL-1β, the co-cultures released higher amounts of IL-8 compared to Caco-2 monocultures. However, the cytotoxicity of Ag NPs was higher in Caco-2 monocultures than in 3D co-cultures. The naturally higher IL-8 production in the co-cultures was enhanced even further by the Ag NPs. This study shows that it is possible to mimic inflamed conditions in a 3D co-culture model of the intestinal mucosa. The fact that it is based on three easily available human cell lines makes this model valuable to study the safety of nanomaterials in the context of inflammation.
Journals
2015 EN
Stefano A. Bini · Priscilla H. Chan · Maria C. Inacio
+2 more
Aseptic revisions comprise 80% of revision total knee arthroplasties (TKAs). We determined the incidence of re-revision TKA, the reasons for re-revision, and risk factors associated with these procedures.
Journals
2015 EN
Georgia Kakourou · Christina Vrettou · Antonis Kattamis
+9 more
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select histocompatible siblings to facilitate curative haematopoeitic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is now an acceptable option in the absence of an available human leukocyte antigen (HLA) compatible donor. We describe a case where the couple who requested HLA-PGD, were both carriers of two serious haematological diseases, beta-thalassaemia and sideroblastic anaemia. Their daughter, affected with sideroblastic anaemia, was programmed to have HSCT. A multiplex-fluorescent-touchdown-PCR protocol was optimized for the simultaneous amplification of: the two HBB-gene mutated regions (c.118C> T, c.25-26delAA), four short tandem repeats (STRs) in chr11p15.5 linked to the HBB gene, the SLC25A38 gene mutation (c.726C > T), two STRs in chr3p22.1 linked to the SLC25A38 gene, plus eleven informative STRs for HLA-haplotyping (chr6p22.1-21.3). This was followed by real-time nested PCR and high-resolution melting analysis (HRMA) for the detection of HBB and SLC25A38 gene mutations, as well as the analysis of all STRs on an automatic genetic analyzer (sequencer). The couple completed four clinical in vitro fertilization (IVF)/PGD cycles. At least one matched unaffected embryo was identified and transferred in each cycle. A twin pregnancy was established in the fourth PGD cycle and genotyping results at all loci were confirmed by prenatal diagnosis. Two healthy baby girls were delivered at week 38 of pregnancy. The need to exclude two familial disorders for HLA-PGD is rarely encountered. The methodological approach described here is fast, accurate, clinically-validated, and of relatively low cost.
Journals
2015 EN
David Jensson · Thorir Audolfsson · Maria Mani
+1 more
We report the sequential use of a pedicled fillet foot flap in a clinical case of complex bilateral lower extremity trauma to achieve stable wound closure, maximizing length preservation and gait rehabilitation. In addition, we perform a literature review of the use of fillet foot flaps in lower extremity trauma.
Journals
2015 EN
E.A. Gazola · Marcos Augusto do Rego · William Cunha Brandt
+2 more
Objective : The aim of this study was to evaluate the Knoop hardness number (KHN) of methacrylate (MC) and silorane (SC) composites after being submitted to erosion and abrasion processes. Material and methods : Forty samples were made with each composite: MC and SC. The samples were divided into eight groups ( n = 10) according to the type of composite (G1-G4, MC; G5-G8, SC) and the beverages involved in the erosion process (G1 and G5 - Control (C), without erosion, with abrasion; G2 and G6 - Orange Juice (OJ), abrasion; G3 and G7 - Smirnoff Ice® (SI), abrasion; G4 and G8 - Gatorade® (GA), abrasion). The KHN test was performed 24 h after the last cycle of erosion/abrasion. Results : The MC groups showed smaller KHN values for the SI group ( p < 0.05) when compared to the Control and OJ groups; however, for the SC groups, no differences were found ( p > 0.05). Conclusion : Methacrylate composite when submitted to acidic beverages erosive challenge combined with abrasive process might alter its surface microhardness. However, the beverages used in the present study were not able to interfere in silorane composite surface microhardness.
Journals
2015 EN
Martin Lagging · Rune Wejstål · Gunnar Norkrans
+5 more
In a recent expert meeting, Swedish recommendations for the treatment of HCV infection were updated. An interferon-free combination of direct-acting antiviral agents was recommended as the first line standard-of-care treatment for chronic HCV infection. Interferon-based therapy should be considered as a second line option after an individual benefit-risk assessment. Treatment is strongly recommended for HCV infected patients with bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis (Metavir stages F3-4), before and after liver transplantation, and in the presence of extra-hepatic manifestations. Additionally, patients with moderate liver fibrosis (stage F2) as well as women in need of in vitro fertilisation should be prioritised for therapeutic intervention. Treatment indications for people who inject drugs, children, chronic kidney disease and HIV co-infection are also discussed.
Journals
2015 EN
Pirjo Aunio · Riikka Mon · Anu Laine
+8 more
In November 2014 we had a wonderful possibility to organize a seminar International Seminar on Mathematical Learning Difficulties with our international colleagues in the field of mathematical learning difficulties. One of the main aims was to provide open lectures for the staff members and students in University of Helsinki. The meeting was supported by the Teachers’ Academy in University of Helsinki. We have collected extensive summaries of the presentations to form this special issue. The summaries are found in both English and Finnish. To sum up the main ideas from the presentations. Firstly, although mathematical learning difficulties are common, we do need more research to be able to understand the possible cognitive precursors or environmental issues affecting learning and causing problems. Secondly, we need more studies about intervention programmes designed to support the mathematical skills development in children having problems in learning mathematics. Thirdly, we also need more studies validating the positive findings in individual studies, using the same assessment and intervention tools.
Conference Proceedings
2015 EN
Maria Pershina · Yifan He · Ralph Grishman
The task of Named Entity Disambiguation is to map entity mentions in the document to their correct entries in some knowledge base. We present a novel graph-based disambiguation approach based on Personalized PageRank (PPR) that combines local and global evidence for disambiguation and effectively filters out noise introduced by incorrect candidates. Experiments show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches by achieving 91.7% in microand 89.9% in macroaccuracy on a dataset of 27.8K named entity mentions.
Conference Proceedings
2015 EN
Alina Maria Ciobanu · Liviu P. Dinu
Identifying the type of relationship between words provides a deeper insight into the history of a language and allows a better characterization of language relatedness. In this paper, we propose a computational approach for discriminating between cognates and borrowings. We show that orthographic features have discriminative power and we analyze the underlying linguistic factors that prove relevant in the classification task. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt of this kind.