Publications by authors named "Miriam Simon"

Introduction: Skull base osteomyelitis is a rare but potentially life-threatening disease. It usually occurs as a complication of severe otitis externa or infection in the nasopharynx, often in immunocompromised patients. The therapeutic strategy is complex, patient-specific and requires interdisciplinary cooperation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Facial nerve palsies may develop during the postoperative period of microsurgical removal of vestibular schwannomas (VSs), even after normal facial function for days or weeks after surgery. The aim of this study was to identify the pathomechanism and predictive factors of delayed palsy.

Material And Method: The clinical data of 193 patients who underwent vestibular schwannoma surgery between 2012 and 2021 were retrospectively analyzed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Self-assembly is crucial for creating biological materials, particularly through the interaction of amphiphiles and polyelectrolytes, which has significant implications for industries like gene therapy.
  • This study focused on the formation of lipoplexes by combining the cationic lipid DOTAP with various anionic polyelectrolytes, influencing their morphology through parameters such as charge ratio and charge density.
  • Using cryo-TEM and SAXS, the researchers revealed that while all lipoplexes maintained a lamellar basic structure, their specific morphology varied based on the properties of the polyelectrolytes, aiding in the development of more efficient drug and gene delivery systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) uses cytotoxic chemotherapy and/or radiation followed by intravenous infusion of stem cells to cure malignancies, bone marrow failure and inborn errors of immunity, hemoglobin and metabolism. Lung injury is a known complication of the process, due in part to disruption in the pulmonary microenvironment by insults such as infection, alloreactive inflammation and cellular toxicity. How microorganisms, immunity and the respiratory epithelium interact to contribute to lung injury is uncertain, limiting the development of prevention and treatment strategies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Olfaction is one of the evolutionarily oldest senses and plays a fundamental role in foraging and social interactions across mammals. In primates, the role of olfaction is now well recognized, but better investigated in strepsirrhine and platyrrhine primates than in catarrhines. We observed the sniffing behavior of semi-free ranging Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus, at Affenberg Salem, Germany, to assess how frequently macaques sniff and in which contexts, and how sniffing is affected by sex and age.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Lung injury is really important for kids' survival after getting special treatments for blood diseases, and scientists want to learn more about how germs and the body work together in the lungs.
  • In a big study, researchers looked at lung samples from 229 kids at 32 hospitals over 8 years and found 4 different groups of patients based on their lung microbe makeup.
  • Each group had different health outcomes: one group had low infection rates and low death rates, while others had high infection and death rates, showing that the type of lung microbes can greatly affect survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Dysphagia in Robin Sequence can be present in varying degrees, requiring multidisciplinary management and specific swallowing assessment by a specialist. Most studies published to date have evaluated only respiratory outcomes, and the available evidence on the improvement of swallowing is questionable. To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies evaluating swallowing in children with Robin Sequence before and after airway clearance procedures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: This study aimed to examine body image perceptions and body image dissatisfaction and their relationship with body mass index (BMI) among medical students in Oman.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among students of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, National University of Science and Technology, Sohar, Oman, between September and December 2019. The data (including self-reported weight and height) were collected through a questionnaire-based survey.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To develop a scientific consensus on nutrition in cystic fibrosis.

Methods: Sixteen coordinators elaborated relevant questions on nutritional therapy in cystic fibrosis, which were divided into six sections: nutritional assessment, nutritional recommendations, nutritional intervention, dietary counseling, special situations and enzyme replacement, and gastrointestinal manifestations. Two to three specialists in the field were responsible for each section and obtaining answers formulated based on standardized bibliographic searches.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We studied the directed self-assembly of two types of complementary single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) strands [i.e., poly(dA) and poly(dT)] into more complex, organized, and percolating networks in dilute solutions and at surfaces.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We provide here a general view on the interactions of surfactants with viruses, with a particular emphasis on how such interactions can be controlled and employed for inhibiting the infectivity of enveloped viruses, including coronaviruses. The aim is to provide to interested scientists from different fields, including chemistry, physics, biochemistry, and medicine, an overview of the basic properties of surfactants and (corona)viruses, which are relevant to understanding the interactions between the two. Various types of interactions between surfactant and virus are important, and they act on different components of a virus such as the lipid envelope, membrane (envelope) proteins and nucleocapsid proteins.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Microemulsions, as thermodynamically stable mixtures of oil, water, and surfactant, are known and have been studied for more than 70 years. However, even today there are still quite a number of unclear aspects, and more recent research work has modified and extended our picture. This review gives a short overview of how the understanding of microemulsions has developed, the current view on their properties and structural features, and in particular, how they are related to applications.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women worldwide. Educational and awareness programs impact early practices of breast self-examination, resulting in the early detection of cancer and thereby decreasing mortality. The study aimed to assess the levels of knowledge and awareness of breast cancer and breast self-examination among medical and nursing students in Oman and to compare their knowledge, attitudes, and skills after a training program.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Oil-in-water (O/W) microemulsion droplets are convenient carriers for hydrophobic molecules in an aqueous phase and are used for a wide range of applications. We studied weakly charged O/W microemulsion droplets complexed with oppositely charged polyacrylates that form long linear arrangements of droplets. All samples showed rather low viscosities, which is in contrast to similar systems of hydrophobically interconnected droplets.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Antioxidant micronutrients and essential fatty acids supplementation intake appears to have a protective effect in some diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and asthma.

Objective: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review to evaluate the effects of these nutrients on nutritional and clinical outcomes of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF).

Methods: This is a systematic review of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in CF.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To translate and culturally adapt the Mediterranean Diet Quality Index in Children and Adolescent (KIDMED) for the Brazilian population.

Methods: The processes of translation and cultural adaptation followed internationally standardized methodological norms. We used the intraclass correlation coefficient and the Bland-Altman dispersion analysis to assess the reproducibility and calculated the internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To evaluate the association of body mass index (BMI) and albumin with pulmonary function in cystic fibrosis (CF) pediatric subjects.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with clinically stable CF's subjects. Clinical (pulmonary function) and nutritional evaluation (body mass index and albumin) were performed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The ionic assembly of oppositely charged polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes (PESCs) is often done with the aim of constructing more functional colloids, for instance as advanced delivery systems. However, PESCs are often not easily loaded with a solubilisate due to intrinsic restrictions of such complexes. This question was addressed from a different starting point: by employing microemulsion droplets as heavily loaded surfactant systems and thereby avoiding potential solubilisation limitations from the beginning.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: to assess the progression of pediatric cystic fibrosis (CF) patients' nutritional status during the first 12 months after diagnosis and to establish its association with neonatal screening and clinical variables. Patients were recruited from two reference centers in Southern Brazil.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study was carried out with all the patients diagnosed between 2009 and 2014.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A series of metal-mediated cages, having multiple cavities, was synthesized from Pd cations and tris- or tetrakis-monodentate bridging ligands and characterized by NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and X-ray methods. The peanut-shaped [Pd L ] cage deriving from the tris-monodentate ligand L could be quantitatively converted into its interpenetrated [5Cl@Pd L ] dimer featuring a linear {[Pd-Cl-] Pd} stack as an unprecedented structural motif upon addition of chloride anions. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiments showed that the cigar-shaped assembly with a length of 3.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Oppositely charged polyelectrolyte (PE) surfactant mixtures can self-assemble into a large variety of mesoscopic structures, so-called polyelectrolyte surfactant complexes (PESCs). These structures directly affect the macroscopic behavior of such solutions. In this study, we investigated mixtures of the cationically charged PE JR 400 and the anionic surfactant SDS with the help of different neutron scattering and fluorescence methods.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Nanoemulsions (NEs) are metastable emulsions with droplet sizes between 20 and 100 nm and with a wide range of applications, for example, in polymerization, in pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations, and as drug delivery systems. Even though they are not in thermodynamic equilibrium, they can be metastable over relatively long times and have the advantage that they can be formed easily by low energy input methods. In particular, the phase inversion concentration (PIC) method allows the formation of NEs by the dilution of a suitable mixture of oil and surfactants with water.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The pH-triggered formation of supramolecular complexes between the cationic biopolysaccharide chitosan and an environmentally friendly anionic surfactant is exploited for the formulation of selective and controlled-recovery systems. A strong advantage of this system is the very small pH range in which the binding/release process takes place. Because of this high pH responsiveness, chitosan-surfactant complexes are employed for the sequestration of various compounds by binding or releasing them from the complexes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To evaluate whether anthropometric and dietary intake indicators are predictors of pulmonary function in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 69 patients (age range, 5.4-16.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF