scholarly journals Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation: State-of-the-Art

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6243
Author(s):  
Alessandro de Sire ◽  
Marco Invernizzi

Musculoskeletal rehabilitation has been receiving growing attention in the scientific research field taking into account the functional consequences of chronic pain that have been frequently underestimated and undertreated. The usual rehabilitative care of a wide range of diseases affecting physical function and independence in activities of daily living needs to be improved with novel approaches. In this scenario, the recent literature has highlighted the great advantages of multidisciplinary and comprehensive pain management. The Special Issue highlights the importance of advancements in musculoskeletal rehabilitation in terms of instrumental physical therapies, therapeutic exercise, osteopathic manual therapy, innovative approaches and the correlation with dentistry. Physicians should be aware of the presence of novel therapeutic approaches that are changing the clinical scenario of musculoskeletal rehabilitation.

2019 ◽  
pp. 147592171989306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yee Yan Lim ◽  
Scott T Smith ◽  
Ricardo Vasquez Padilla ◽  
Chee Kiong Soh

The ability to monitor the strength development of early-age concrete is an important capability in the laboratory and in the field. Accurate and reliable in situ measurements can inform the appropriate time for removal of formwork and loading of structural elements, as well as determination of batch quality. The piezoelectric-based electromechanical impedance technique is emerging as a viable option for such monitoring needs. The first research articles on the topic started to appear in 2005, and since then, the research field has advanced and has grown in popularity. This article therefore presents the first state-of-the-art review of the topic to date. In this article, existing research is reviewed and sorted into key themes while critical developments as well as knowledge gaps are identified. The topics addressed range from miniaturization of hardware, methods of installation, incorporation of wireless technology, modeling, data interpretation, signal processing, influence of curing, and environmental conditions to a wide range of other practical issues. Previous studies have indicated that the electromechanical impedance technique has the potential to be developed into an autonomous and remote monitoring system, capable of predicting the strength development of early-age concrete structures in real time. An end game is therefore the realization of this capability. Appropriate comments are therefore also provided in this article about this goal. Researchers interested in venturing into this research area shall find this article a useful introduction as well as a state-of-the-art assessment. In addition, the identified research gaps can inform projects for more experienced research teams.


2008 ◽  
Vol 05 (01) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREA BAUER ◽  
DIRK WOLLHERR ◽  
MARTIN BUSS

As robots are gradually leaving highly structured factory environments and moving into human populated environments, they need to possess more complex cognitive abilities. They do not only have to operate efficiently and safely in natural, populated environments, but also be able to achieve higher levels of cooperation and communication with humans. Human–robot collaboration (HRC) is a research field with a wide range of applications, future scenarios, and potentially a high economic impact. HRC is an interdisciplinary research area comprising classical robotics, cognitive sciences, and psychology. This paper gives a survey of the state of the art of HRC. Established methods for intention estimation, action planning, joint action, and machine learning are presented together with existing guidelines to hardware design. This paper is meant to provide the reader with a good overview of technologies and methods for HRC.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Guízar Sahagún

Besides the well-known loss of motor and sensory capabilities, people with spinal cord injury (SCI) experience a broad range of systemic and metabolic abnormalities including, among others, dysfunction of cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, urinary, and endocrine systems. These alterations are a significant challenge for patients with SCI because such disorders severely interfere with their daily living and can be potentially life-threatening. Most of these disorders are associated with impairment of regulation of the autonomic nervous system, arising from disruption of connections between higher brain centers and the spinal cord caudal to the injured zone. Thus, the higher and more complete the lesion, the greater the autonomic dysfunction and the severity of complications.This article summarizes the medical scientific literature on key systemic and metabolic alterations derived of SCI. It provides information primarily focused on the pathophysiology and clinical presentation of these disorders, as well as some guides to prevent and alleviate such complications. Due to the impact of these alterations, this topic must be a priority and diffuse to those involved with the care of people with SCI, including the patient himself/herself. We consider that any collaborative effort should be supported, like the development of international standards, to evaluate autonomic function after SCI, as well as the development of novel therapeutic approaches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbasali Emamjomeh ◽  
Javad Zahiri ◽  
Mehrdad Asadian ◽  
Mehrdad Behmanesh ◽  
Barat A. Fakheri ◽  
...  

Background:Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) which play an important role in various cellular processes are important in medicine as well as in drug design strategies. Different studies have shown that ncRNAs are dis-regulated in cancer cells and play an important role in human tumorigenesis. Therefore, it is important to identify and predict such molecules by experimental and computational methods, respectively. However, to avoid expensive experimental methods, computational algorithms have been developed for accurately and fast prediction of ncRNAs.Objective:The aim of this review was to introduce the experimental and computational methods to identify and predict ncRNAs structure. Also, we explained the ncRNA’s roles in cellular processes and drugs design, briefly.Method:In this survey, we will introduce ncRNAs and their roles in biological and medicinal processes. Then, some important laboratory techniques will be studied to identify ncRNAs. Finally, the state-of-the-art models and algorithms will be introduced along with important tools and databases.Results:The results showed that the integration of experimental and computational approaches improves to identify ncRNAs. Moreover, the high accurate databases, algorithms and tools were compared to predict the ncRNAs.Conclusion:ncRNAs prediction is an exciting research field, but there are different difficulties. It requires accurate and reliable algorithms and tools. Also, it should be mentioned that computational costs of such algorithm including running time and usage memory are very important. Finally, some suggestions were presented to improve computational methods of ncRNAs gene and structural prediction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Basílio ◽  
Ricardo Jorge Dinis-Oliveira

Background: Pharmacobezoars are specific types of bezoars formed when medicines, such as tablets, suspensions, and/or drug delivery systems, aggregate and may cause death by occluding airways with tenacious material or by eluting drugs resulting in toxic or lethal blood concentrations. Objective: This work aims to fully review the state-of-the-art regarding pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment and other relevant clinical and forensic features of pharmacobezoars. Results: patients of a wide range of ages and in both sexes present with signs and symptoms of intoxications or more commonly gastrointestinal obstructions. The exact mechanisms of pharmacobezoar formation are unknown but is likely multifactorial. The diagnosis and treatment depend on the gastrointestinal segment affected and should be personalized to the medication and the underlying factor. A good and complete history, physical examination, image tests, upper endoscopy and surgery through laparotomy of the lower tract are useful for diagnosis and treatment. Conclusion: Pharmacobezoars are rarely seen in clinical and forensic practice. They are related to controlled or immediate-release formulations, liquid or non-digestible substances, in normal or altered digestive motility/anatomy tract, and in overdoses or therapeutic doses, and should be suspected in the presence of risk factors or patients taking drugs which may form pharmacobezoars.


This volume vividly demonstrates the importance and increasing breadth of quantitative methods in the earth sciences. With contributions from an international cast of leading practitioners, chapters cover a wide range of state-of-the-art methods and applications, including computer modeling and mapping techniques. Many chapters also contain reviews and extensive bibliographies which serve to make this an invaluable introduction to the entire field. In addition to its detailed presentations, the book includes chapters on the history of geomathematics and on R.G.V. Eigen, the "father" of mathematical geology. Written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the International Association for Mathematical Geology, the book will be sought after by both practitioners and researchers in all branches of geology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Gutiérrez-Gómez ◽  
Jean-Charles Delvenne

Abstract Several social, medical, engineering and biological challenges rely on discovering the functionality of networks from their structure and node metadata, when it is available. For example, in chemoinformatics one might want to detect whether a molecule is toxic based on structure and atomic types, or discover the research field of a scientific collaboration network. Existing techniques rely on counting or measuring structural patterns that are known to show large variations from network to network, such as the number of triangles, or the assortativity of node metadata. We introduce the concept of multi-hop assortativity, that captures the similarity of the nodes situated at the extremities of a randomly selected path of a given length. We show that multi-hop assortativity unifies various existing concepts and offers a versatile family of ‘fingerprints’ to characterize networks. These fingerprints allow in turn to recover the functionalities of a network, with the help of the machine learning toolbox. Our method is evaluated empirically on established social and chemoinformatic network benchmarks. Results reveal that our assortativity based features are competitive providing highly accurate results often outperforming state of the art methods for the network classification task.


Quaternary ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentí Rull

In the coming years, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) will submit its proposal on the ‘Anthropocene’ to the Subcommission of Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) and the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) for approval. If approved, the proposal will be sent to the Executive Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification. If the proposal is approved and ratified, then the ‘Anthropocene’ will be formalized. Currently, the ‘Anthropocene’ is a broadly used term and concept in a wide range of scientific and non-scientific situations, and, for many, the official acceptance of this term is only a matter of time. However, the AWG proposal, in its present state, seems to not fully meet the requirements for a new chronostratigraphic unit. This essay asks what could happen if the current ‘Anthropocene’ proposal is not formalized by the ICS/IUGS. The possible stratigraphic alternatives are evaluated on the basis of the more recent literature and the personal opinions of distinguished AWG, SQS, and ICS members. The eventual impact on environmental sciences and on non-scientific sectors, where the ‘Anthropocene’ seems already firmly rooted and de facto accepted as a new geological epoch, are also discussed. This essay is intended as the editorial introduction to a Quaternary special issue on the topic.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1443
Author(s):  
Yoshiaki Kamiyama ◽  
Sotaro Katagiri ◽  
Taishi Umezawa

Reversible phosphorylation is a major mechanism for regulating protein function and controls a wide range of cellular functions including responses to external stimuli. The plant-specific SNF1-related protein kinase 2s (SnRK2s) function as central regulators of plant growth and development, as well as tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses. Although the activity of SnRK2s is tightly regulated in a phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent manner, recent investigations have revealed that SnRK2s can be activated by group B Raf-like protein kinases independently of ABA. Furthermore, evidence is accumulating that SnRK2s modulate plant growth through regulation of target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling. Here, we summarize recent advances in knowledge of how SnRK2s mediate plant growth and osmotic stress signaling and discuss future challenges in this research field.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 4626
Author(s):  
Clément Barbereau ◽  
Nicolas Cubedo ◽  
Tangui Maurice ◽  
Mireille Rossel

Tauopathies represent a vast family of neurodegenerative diseases, the most well-known of which is Alzheimer’s disease. The symptoms observed in patients include cognitive deficits and locomotor problems and can lead ultimately to dementia. The common point found in all these pathologies is the accumulation in neural and/or glial cells of abnormal forms of Tau protein, leading to its aggregation and neurofibrillary tangles. Zebrafish transgenic models have been generated with different overexpression strategies of human Tau protein. These transgenic lines have made it possible to highlight Tau interacting factors or factors which may limit the neurotoxicity induced by mutations and hyperphosphorylation of the Tau protein in neurons. Several studies have tested neuroprotective pharmacological approaches. On few-days-old larvae, modulation of various signaling or degradation pathways reversed the deleterious effects of Tau mutations, mainly hTauP301L and hTauA152T. Live imaging and live tracking techniques as well as behavioral follow-up enable the analysis of the wide range of Tau-related phenotypes from synaptic loss to cognitive functional consequences.


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