Luminal endothelialization of small caliber silk tubular graft for vascular constructs engineering.

The constantly increasing incidence of coronary artery disease worldwide makes necessary to set advanced therapies and tools such as tissue engineered vessel grafts (TEVGs) to surpass the autologous grafts [(i.e., mammary and internal thoracic arteries, saphenous vein (SV)] currently employed in coronary artery and vascular surgery.

Engineering Efforts to Refine Compatibility and Duration of Aortic Valve Replacements: An Overview of Previous Expectations and New Promises.

The absence of pharmacological treatments to reduce or retard the progression of cardiac valve diseases makes replacement with artificial prostheses (mechanical or bio-prosthetic) essential. Given the increasing incidence of cardiac valve pathologies, there is always a more stringent need for valve replacements that offer enhanced performance and durability. Unfortunately, surgical valve replacement with mechanical or biological substitutes still leads to disadvantages over time.

Lithotripsy of Calcified Aortic Valve Leaflets by a Novel Ultrasound Transcatheter-Based Device.

The increasing incidence of calcific aortic valve disease necessitates the elaboration of new strategies to retard the progression of the pathology with an innovative solution. While the increasing diffusion of the transcatheter aortic valve replacements (TAVRs) allows a mini-invasive approach to aortic valve substitution as an alternative to conventional surgical replacement (SAVR) in an always larger patient population, TAVR implantation still has contraindications for young patients. In addition, it is liable to undergo calcification with the consequent necessity of re-intervention with conventional valve surgery or repeated implantation in the so-called TAVR-in-TAVR procedure.

Enhancing Cubes with Models to Describe Multidimensional Data.

The Intentional Analytics Model (IAM) has been recently envisioned as a new paradigm to couple OLAP and analytics. It relies on two basic ideas: (i) letting the user explore data by expressing her analysis intentions rather than the data she needs, and (ii) returning enhanced cubes, i.e.

Plasmopara viticola infection affects mineral elements allocation and distribution in Vitis vinifera leaves.

Plasmopara viticola is one of the most important pathogens infecting Vitis vinifera plants. The interactions among P. viticola and both susceptible and resistant grapevine plants have been extensively characterised, at transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic levels.

Harnessing Mechanosensation in Next Generation Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering.

The ability of the cells to sense mechanical cues is an integral component of "social" cell behavior inside tissues with a complex architecture. Through "mechanosensation" cells are in fact able to decrypt motion, geometries and physical information of surrounding cells and extracellular matrices by activating intracellular pathways converging onto gene expression circuitries controlling cell and tissue homeostasis. Additionally, only recently cell mechanosensation has been integrated systematically as a crucial element in tissue pathophysiology.

Culture Into Perfusion-Assisted Bioreactor Promotes Valve-Like Tissue Maturation of Recellularized Pericardial Membrane.

Derivation of tissue-engineered valve replacements is a strategy to overcome the limitations of the current valve prostheses, mechanical, or biological. In an effort to set living pericardial material for aortic valve reconstruction, we have previously assessed the efficiency of a recellularization strategy based on a perfusion system enabling mass transport and homogenous distribution of aortic valve-derived "interstitial" cells inside decellularized pericardial material. In the present report, we show that alternate perfusion promoted a rapid growth of valve cells inside the pericardial material and the activity of a proliferation-supporting pathway, likely controlled by the YAP transcription factor, a crucial component of the Hippo-dependent signaling cascade, especially between 3 and 14 days of culture.

Environmental Distribution of AR Class 1 Integrons in Upper Adige River Catchment (Northern Italy).

The source of antibiotic residuals can be directly related to the presence of municipal or industrial wastewater and agricultural activities. Antibiotics can trigger the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes within bacterial communities. The mobile genetic elements Class 1 integrons ( region) has been already found to be correlated with a wide range of pollutants (i.

Brief report: perioperative analgesic efficacy and plasma concentrations of S+ -ketamine in continuous epidural infusion during thoracic surgery.

Background: In our study, we evaluated the analgesic effect and plasma level time course of subanesthetic doses of intraoperative S(+)-ketamine administered by continuous epidural infusion for postthoracotomic pain.

Methods: A study population of 140 patients undergoing thoracic surgery was randomly assigned to either S(+)-ketamine or ropivacaine by continuous epidural infusion. The outcome measures were as follows: (a) intraoperative fentanyl requirements; (b) postoperative pain intensity; and (c) postoperative rescue analgesics.