Menopausal women experience musculoskeletal changes such as muscle atrophy, muscle weakness and osteoporosis-symptoms associated with advancing age coupled with depletion of the female sex hormone, estrogen. Estrogen is important in the maintenance of the integrity of the musculoskeletal system and its reduction in the circulation due to menopausal transition results in reduced resting metabolic rate, lowered energy expenditure, increase in fat mass, and central adipose tissue accumulation.

Mechanical neck pain is one of the common musculoskeletal disorders. Muscle energy technique (MET) may be a useful intervention for treating such disorder.

Healthy diet counselling is an important concept in health promotion. Physiotherapists are well positioned to initiate or support healthy nutrition in addition to physical activity counselling, in routine patient consultation.

The aim of the present study was to examine nitrite concentration responses following eccentric resistance exercise (ERE) in elderly obese women. We also investigated the existence of high (HR) and low responders (LR) for nitrite and the possible differences with respect to creatine kinase (CK) response, metabolic and body composition variables.

This paper describes a theoretical estimation of the geometry of negative epoxy-resist microneedles prepared via inclined/rotated ultraviolet (UV) lithography based on spatially controlled UV exposure doses. In comparison with other methods based on UV lithography, the present method can create microneedle structures with high scalability. When negative photoresist is exposed to inclined/rotated UV through circular mask patterns, a three-dimensional, needle-shaped distribution of the exposure dose forms in the irradiated region. Controlling the inclination angles and the exposure dose modifies the photo-polymerized portion of the photoresist, thus allowing the variation of the heights and contours of microneedles formed by using the same mask patterns. In an experimental study, the dimensions of the fabricated needles agreed well with the theoretical predictions for varying inclination angles and exposure doses. These results demonstrate that our theoretical approach can provide a simple route for fabricating microneedles with on-demand geometry. The fabricated microneedles can be used as solid microneedles or as a mold master for dissolving microneedles, thus simplifying the microneedle fabrication process. We envision that this method can improve fabrication accuracy and reduce fabrication cost and time, thereby facilitating the practical applications of microneedle-based drug delivery technology.

The goal of this review was to investigate the relationship between cognitive impairment and assistive device use in elderly persons.

Flexible polymers such as poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) can be patterned at the micro- and nanoscale by casting, for a variety of applications. This replication-based fabrication process is relatively cheap and fast, yet injection molding offers an even faster and cheaper alternative to PDMS casting, provided thermoplastic polymers with similar mechanical properties can be used. In this paper, a thermoplastic polyurethane is evaluated for its patterning ability with an aim to forming the type of flexible structures used to measure and modulate the contractile forces of cells in tissue engineering experiments. The successful replication of grating structures is demonstrated with feature sizes as low as 100 nm and an analysis of certain processing conditions that facilitate and enhance the accuracy of this replication is presented. The results are benchmarked against an optical storage media grade polycarbonate.

Oral drug delivery systems provide the most convenient, noninvasive, readily acceptable alternatives to parenteral systems. In the current work, eggshell-derived calcium carbonate (CaCO3) nanoparticles were used to develop enteric drug delivery system in the form of tablets. CaCO3 nanoparticles were manufactured using top-down ball-milling method and characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and loaded with 5-fluorouracil as a model drug. Tablets with varying CaCO3 core and binder compositions were fabricated and coated with Eudragit S100 or Eudragit L100. Suitability for enteric delivery of the tablets was tested by oral administration to rabbits and radiography. Radiograph images showed that the tablet remained in the stomach of the rabbit for up to 3 hours. Further modifications of these biomaterial-derived nanoparticles and the coatings will enable manufacturing of stable formulations for slow or controlled release of pharmaceuticals for enteric delivery.

Pulmonary rehabilitation is recommended to restore chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients' abilities to the highest level of independency and functionality. Telehealth has the potential to improve rehabilitation programs and to enhance patients' participation. However, little is known about the potential benefits of using telehealth in providing rehabilitation for COPD patients at home. The purpose of this review was to provide a narrative synthesis of literature of studies, which use telehealth with video components to provide real-time pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients. An electronic database search was performed in the Ovid Medline, CINAHL, and PubMed databases. Seven eligible studies were included based on the inclusion criteria. Based on the included studies, using telehealth to provide real-time interactive pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients at home is feasible and acceptable, and can provide clinical and social positive benefits. A knowledge gap regarding feasibility, acceptance, and benefits of using telehealth to provide real-time pulmonary rehabilitation services still exists.

The ability to learn about regularities in the environment and to make predictions about future events is fundamental for adaptive behaviour. We have previously shown that people can implicitly encode statistical regularities and detect violations therein, as reflected in neuronal responses to unpredictable events that carry a unique prediction error signature. In the real world, however, learning about regularities will often occur in the context of competing cognitive demands. Here we asked whether learning of statistical regularities is modulated by concurrent cognitive load. We compared electroencephalographic metrics associated with responses to pure-tone sounds with frequencies sampled from narrow or wide Gaussian distributions. We showed that outliers evoked a larger response than those in the centre of the stimulus distribution (i.e., an effect of surprise) and that this difference was greater for physically identical outliers in the narrow than in the broad distribution. These results demonstrate an early neurophysiological marker of the brain's ability to implicitly encode complex statistical structure in the environment. Moreover, we manipulated concurrent cognitive load by having participants perform a visual working memory task while listening to these streams of sounds. We again observed greater prediction error responses in the narrower distribution under both low and high cognitive load. Furthermore, there was no reliable reduction in prediction error magnitude under high-relative to low-cognitive load. Our findings suggest that statistical learning is not a capacity limited process, and that it proceeds automatically even when cognitive resources are taxed by concurrent demands.

This study reported the clinicopathological features, treatment and prognosis of nine cases of noncalcifying and Langerhans cell (LC)-rich calcifying epithelial odontogenic tumor (CEOT) collected from the English literature. Of the nine cases, seven were intraosseous and two were extraosseous. All nine tumors were found in Asian patients. The age of the nine patients ranged from 20 years to 58 years with a mean age of 41 years. There were five female and four male patients. The seven intraosseous cases included six in the anterior and premolar region of the maxilla and one in the posterior region and ascending ramus of the mandible. The two extraosseous cases were located at the upper lateral incisor and premolar gingivae, respectively. Of the seven intraosseous cases, five showed unilocular and two multilocular radiolucency without foci of calcification. Six of the seven intraosseous cases showed resorption of the tooth roots in the tumor-involved region. Histologically, noncalcifying and LC-rich CEOTs were composed of small nests and thin strands of tumor epithelial cells with a relatively high number of LCs among them. This was the reason why we classed these nine cases as noncalcifying and LC-rich CEOTs. Two extraosseous cases received total excision of the gingival mass. For the seven intraosseous cases, four accepted partial maxillectomy or mandibulectomy, two received total excision or enucleation, and one underwent curettage. The six cases with the follow-up information available showed no tumor recurrence after a follow-up period of 6 months to 10 years.

Although some studies have shown induction of cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) in oral lichen planus (OLP), an association between COX-2 upregulation and OLP clinical severity has not been investigated. Therefore, we aimed to compare COX-2 expression in OLP with that in normal oral tissues, and to determine correlations between COX-2 expression and both clinical criteria and visual analog scale (VAS) scores.

Palatal rugae (PR) are situated in the anterior part of the hard palate and possess unique and stable characteristics that can be used in human identification. Their pattern of orientation is established early in life and remains stable thereafter. The purposes of this study were to convert PRP into alphanumeric codes in order to generate scanable Quick Response (QR) codes, to demonstrate uniqueness of PRP using the codes in the study population, and to determine the sexual dimorphism of PRP in the study population.

Bone resorption and inhibition of bone formation occur on the compressed side during orthodontic tooth movement. Bone formation inhibitory factors such as sclerostin (encoded by SOST) are secreted on the compressed side by periodontal ligament (PDL) cells. PDL cells control bone metabolism, and compressed PDL cells inhibit bone formation during orthodontic tooth movement. The aim of this study was to identify the inhibitory factors of bone formation in PDL cells.

In the oral environment, Candida albicans interacts with many bacteria, including Enterococcus faecalis. We investigated the susceptibility of C. albicans biofilm development to the presence of unencapsulated E. faecalis cps2 in comparison with reference strains (E. faecalis ATCC 29212) or their respective spent medium (collected at 6 hours).

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) receptor1 (CRFR1) is associated with psychiatric illness and is a proposed target for the treatment of anxiety and depression. Similar to many G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), CRFR1 harbors a PDZ (PSD-95/Disc Large/Zona Occludens)-binding motif at the end of its carboxyl-terminal tail. The interactions of PDZ proteins with GPCRs are crucial for the regulation of receptor function. In the present study, we characterize the interaction of all members of the membrane-associated guanylate kinase with inverted orientation PDZ (MAGI) proteins with CRFR1. We show using co-immunoprecipitation that CRFR1 interacts with MAGI-1 and MAGI-3 in human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cells in a PDZ motif-dependent manner. We find that overexpression as well as knockdown of MAGI proteins result in a significant reduction in CRFR1 endocytosis. This effect is dependent on an intact PDZ binding motif for MAGI-2 and MAGI-3 but not MAGI-1. We show that the alteration in expression levels of MAGI-1, MAGI-2 or MAGI-3 can interfere with β-arrestin recruitment to CRFR1. This could explain the effects observed with receptor internalization. We also find that knockdown of endogenous MAGI-1, MAGI-2 or MAGI-3 in HEK293 cells can lead to an enhancement in ERK1/2 signaling but has no effect on cAMP formation. Interestingly, we observe a compensation effect between MAGI-1 and MAGI-3. Taken together, our data suggest that the MAGI proteins, MAGI-1, MAGI-2 and MAGI-3 can regulate β-arrestin-mediated internalization of CRFR1 as well as its signaling and that there is a compensatory mechanism involved in regulating the function of the MAGI subfamily.

The processing of an originally non-porous 1D coordination polymer as monolithic gel, xerogel and aerogel is reported as an alternative method to obtain novel metal-organic porous materials, conceptually different to conventional crystalline porous coordination polymer (PCPs) or metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Although the work herein reported is focused upon a particular kind of coordination polymer ([M(μ-ox)(4-apy)₂]n, M: Co(II), Ni(II)), the results are of interest in the field of porous materials and of MOFs, as the employed synthetic approach implies that any coordination polymer could be processable as a mesoporous material. The polymerization conditions were fixed to obtain stiff gels at the synthesis stage. Gels were dried at ambient pressure and at supercritical conditions to render well shaped monolithic xerogels and aerogels, respectively. The monolithic shape of the synthesis product is another remarkable result, as it does not require a post-processing or the use of additives or binders. The aerogels of the 1D coordination polymers are featured by exhibiting high pore volumes and diameters ranging in the mesoporous/macroporous regions which endow to these materials the ability to deal with large-sized molecules. The aerogel monoliths present markedly low densities (0.082⁻0.311 g·cm-3), an aspect of interest for applications that persecute light materials.

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are attractive tools to overcome limitations of current regenerative medicine strategies, demonstrating potential to integrate therapeutic and diagnostic functionalities in highly controlled systems. In traditional tissue engineering (TE) approaches, the MNPs association with stem cells in a three-dimensional (3D) template offers the possibility to achieve a mechano-magnetic responsive system, enabling remote control actuation. Herein, we propose to study the role of MNPs integrated in κ-carrageenan (κC) hydrogels in the cellular response of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) aiming at cartilage TE applications. The results indicated that the concentration of MNPs in the κC hydrogels influences cellular behavior, tuning a positive effect on cell viability, cell content and metabolic activity of hASCs, with the most promising outcomes found in 5% MNP-κC matrices. Although hASCs laden in MNPs-free- and MNPs-κC hydrogels showed similar metabolic and proliferation levels, MNPs κC hydrogels under magnetic actuation evidenced an instructive effect on hASCs, at a gene expression level, towards chondrogenic phenotype even in basic medium cultures. Therefore, the MNPs-based systems developed in this study may contribute to advanced strategies towards cartilage-like engineered substitutes.

We report the in situ formation of two novel metal-organic frameworks based on terbium and dysprosium ions using azobenzene-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid (H₂abd) as ligand, synthesized by soft hydrothermal routes. Both materials show isostructural three-dimensional networks with channels along a axis and display intense photoluminescence properties in the solid state at room temperature. Textural properties of the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been fully characterized although no appreciable porosity was obtained. Magnetic properties of these materials were studied, highlighting the dysprosium material displays slightly frequency-dependent out of phase signals when measured under zero external field and under an applied field of 1000 Oe.

In this study, we developed poly(ɛ-caprolactone) (PCL) 3D scaffolds using a solid free form fabrication (SFF) technique. β-cyclodextrin (βCD) was grafted to hydroxyapatite (HAp) and this βCD grafted HAp was coated onto the PCL scaffold surface, followed by drug loading through an inclusion complex interaction between the βCD and adamantane (AD) or between βCD and simvastatin (SIM). The scaffold structure was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The release profile of simvastatin in the β-CD grafted HAp was also evaluated. Osteogenic differentiation of adipose-derived stromal cells (ADSCs) was examined using an alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) assay. The results suggest that drug loaded PCL-HAp 3-D scaffolds enhances osteogenic differentiation of ADSCs.