scholarly journals Biodegradable Stents in Resistant Peptic Oesophageal Stricture: Is It the Right Way to Go?

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 117955221881949
Author(s):  
Tom Richardson ◽  
Gerlin Naidoo ◽  
Namal Rupasinghe ◽  
Howard Smart ◽  
Sayantan Bhattacharya

Peptic oesophageal stricture can be considered as the end result of prolonged gastro-oesophageal reflux. The ‘gold standard’ treatment for peptic stricture is endoscopic dilatation with balloon or bougie. It is predicted that up to 40% of patients remain symptomatic with dysphagia due to refractory (resistant to treatment) or recurrent strictures, needing frequent interventions at short intervals. Such patients have poor nutritional status due to the primary disease and are susceptible to complications related to repeated endoscopic dilatation such as bleeding and perforation. This general review aims to analyse existing published evidence and address the role of biodegradable stents in resistant peptic strictures as an alternative treatment to provide long-term dysphagia-free intervals.

The early and long-term development of promising young athletes is a decisive factor in being internationally competitive in top-level sports. Among the multitude of talent criteria suggested in the literature, motivation plays a prominent role in the area of psychological characteristics. It is recognised in practice and research as a relevant criterion for performance development across all sports. This article provides an overview of the current state of talent research in the field of motivation. First, the most common theories of motivation in competitive sports are described, then different measurement methods and their advantages and disadvantages as well as the predictive value of motivation for athletic performance are discussed. Finally, implications for practice are suggested. It can be summarised that motivation in sport is conceptualised and operationalised in different ways and that the decision for the right measurement instrument depends on the goal of the assessment. To get a comprehensive picture of an athlete’s motivational status, it is useful to assess several aspects of motivation through different methods.


Author(s):  
Joerg H. Kloss

This chapter discusses the topic of standards for Virtual Worlds with emphasis on their usability as a stable and reliable basis for long-term investments into 3D-E-Commerce. The text explains why standards are important for the success of Virtual Worlds as well as the business in these shared online 3D environments, and what the relevant criteria are to decide for the right technology and/or provider. Although sometimes in the shadow of popular proprietary platforms there are already many different candidates for a Virtual World standard, currently in different states of development. By choosing a 3D platform, E-Commerce providers will decide about their business potential and at the same time strengthen one or another standard in the current technical competition phase. So it is important to get an overview about the current approaches, their advantages and disadvantages as well as the tendencies for the future developments. In this chapter the reader will be sensitized for the issues of standardization, compatibility and interoperability of Virtual Worlds for successful E-Commerce applications. An overview about the current approaches supports the orientation and decision for the different technologies. Some concrete XML-based code examples realized in the international ISO standard for interactive 3D-Graphics X3D demonstrates the practical deployment of highly compatible concepts. An outlook to the further integration of interactive 3D graphics into the Next Generation Web respectively the 3D Internet completes the overview.


Pólemos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Cunningham

Abstract The UK copyright law regime presents the right to adapt as the sole, authoritative instrument in matters of legitimising translation; a legal “Big Other” conferring an otherwise unreal objective commodity status on what are instead always only ever individual and subjective acts of translation. Drawing primarily on the work of Theo Hermans, and the experiences of poet Jack Underwood in unsuccessfully attempting to formally translate poems by Mascha Kaléko, this article argues for (a) the development and (at the very least) implicit recognition of deviationist and subversive translative replies within – or at the very least alongside – the traditional UK legal schema and (b) a softening of the UK right to adapt by application of the integrity moral right to translations. In addition, a deeper quasi-Ungerian notion of institutional change that accommodates both principles (e. g. legitimate translations can, of course, be argued to exist, to which copyright accords) and counterprinciples (there are also, however, in the long term only multiple acts of translation, some preferred and commoditized, some existing outside that sphere, less functional and more creative/expressive but no less important and not to be prevented for those reasons) can also be advanced. Finally, a much broader critical point regarding the nature and role (or non-role) of law in the context of creative practices more generally can also be presented.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Anastasiou ◽  
Vasiliki Argiri ◽  
Dimitrios Komninos ◽  
Zacharias Dermatis ◽  
Christos Papageorgiou

Abstract The aim of this research is to examine the concept of entrepreneurship in the context of modern economic realities by presenting features and factors that contribute to economic growth. High unemployment, low economic growth and shrinking investment are key features of the long-term economic crisis at both national and European level.New entrepreneurship, combined with the strengthening of the existing one, is a powerful antidote to the fight against unemployment, as it provides the opportunity, mainly to young people, to innovate and create new products and services contributing to the wider economic and social whole, reducing unemployment while creating the right conditions for a remarkable and outward-looking economy. Taking into account the literature research, it is examined how the development of entrepreneurship actually contributes to the encouragement of economic activity, creating a favorable ground for growth in all sectors of the economy and the creation of new jobs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo ◽  
Jordi Cabot

AbstractThe role of non-coding contributors in Open Source Software (OSS) is poorly understood. Most of current research around OSS development focuses on the coding aspects of the project (e.g., commits, pull requests or code reviews) while ignoring the potential of other types of contributions. Often, due to the assumption that these other contributions are not significant in number and that, in any case, they are handled by the same people that are also part of the “coding team”. This paper aims to investigate whether this is actually the case by analyzing the frequency and diversity of non-coding contributions in OSS development. As a sample of projects for our study we have taken the 100 most popular projects in the ecosystem of NPM, a package manager for JavaScript. Our results validate the importance of dedicated non-coding contributors in OSS and the diversity of OSS communities as, typically, a contributor specializes in a specific subset of roles. We foresee that projects adopting explicit policies to attract and onboard them could see a positive impact in their long-term sustainability providing they also put in place the right governance strategies to facilitate the migration and collaboration among the different roles. As part of this work, we also provide a replicability package to facilitate further quantitative role-based analysis by other researchers.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Traill

Simple thought has been explained by the action-potential (AP) system with its synapses. In contrast, in-depth details for “Declarative” intellectual thought have been a complete mystery because (it is argued here) its main underlying mechanism is fundamentally different. Declarative thinking depends heavily on linear coding based on digit-like elements — something which an unaided AP system could never offer......Looking instead to psychology, Piaget (1920s) proposed basic units of action-sequences (“schèmes” whereby one could mentally construct object-concepts). There is now evidence that some ncRNA serves this verb-like action-coding role. — (Other ncRNA demonstrably serves as adjectival/adverbial “regulators” — while the remaining ≈3% of RNA encodes physical structures, the traditional noun-like role). If valid, then:–•NEW FOCUS ONTO ULTRAMICRO: — The whole Piagetian structure-coding for a concept could fit into one of the many 125nm capsids (“granules”). Moreover, many more concepts (and duplicates) could fit into a cell-body. — The vast abundance of coding-sites would allow comprehensive “wasteful” rapid use of Jerneian/Darwinian selection instead of problematic “writing down” of new learnings. — Estimates of memory-capacity increase vastly. — And hereditary-schèmes obviously explain inherited behaviour-traits. — Piaget’s other theory about develop¬mental stages also seems compatible.•Quantum-constraints ensure that such micro-sites would USE OPTICAL FREQUENCY signalling. That opens the way to greatly enhanced “Gigabit” rates, and optical-interference tricks.•MYELIN gets the EXTRA ROLE OF OPTIC-CABLE.So nerve-fibres become seen as simultan¬eous paths for two different types of signal (also demonstrated by Sun-et-al, 2010), with AP still dominant in some roles, but subservient to “UPE” optical signals elsewhere.•LOCATING MEMORIES? Choosing the right address means selecting some sort of “phone-number or numbered plug-socket.” That is best provided as an “address-label” sequence on the transmitted version of the schème-coding — in which case, actual destination-location may be less important.•“Moving-house” TO CORTICAL LONG-TERM MEMORY. The memory-move must preserve existing (i) memory-structure, and (ii) links to distant static archives. This “impossible” task would seem feasible if memories are actually held within individual cells (as above). There is indeed lifelong flow of such neurons in some mammals; but these flows seem to cease in adulthood for humans and dolphins! So the search continues.


Author(s):  
M. Yu. Cherbunina ◽  
D. G. Shmelev ◽  
A. V. Brouchkov ◽  
V. S. Kazantsev ◽  
R. N. Argunov

The article presents the results of long-term field studies of methane in the upper part of permafrost for the different geomorphological levels of Central Yakutia. Patterns of spatial distribution of methane content across different landscapes were found. The highest concentrations of methane are found in alas deposits, the major role of methane in the conservation there goes to the moment of freezing the thermokarst lake draining. The difference in methane content in the sediments of the Late Pleistocene Ice Complex on the left and the right bank of the river Lena was identified. That is likely caused by the conditions of ice complex formation.


2016 ◽  
pp. 873-886
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bishop

A disability is a physical or mental impairment that has an adverse long-term impact on someone's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. This is often thought of in terms of medical conditions with clearly defined symptoms. This chapter, however, argues that it is these symptoms that can be considered to be the impairments and that in the right environment can in fact be advantageous. Someone may be have a medical diagnosis but not be symptomatic due to medication, for instance. In this chapter, a set of symptoms is made up from a number of different scales, called Social-Behavioural Traits (SBTs), which are affected by a person's Serotonergic-Dopamagenic Asynchronicity (SDA). This chapter discusses the role of affective computing in achieving harmony between people with various personality differences, including a model for explaining how technology can influence SDA and SBTs for the better.


2021 ◽  
pp. 230-248
Author(s):  
Sarah McKune

In a region characterized by chronic food insecurity and extremely high rates of malnutrition, the projected impact of global climate change on nutritional outcomes is likely to have synergistic effects, compounding the already poor nutritional status of the Sahelian population. Various studies of nutrition among children under five underscore the significant role that animal-source foods play in long-term childhood development and growth. Given the intimate relationship between livestock and people throughout the Sahel, these findings hold important implications for nutritional security in the region. This chapter examines the food security and consumption patterns of the Sahel, mechanisms by which climate change may exacerbate the current situation, and the role of livestock in the future nutrition and food security of the Sahel.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
P. S. Divya ◽  
A. Vijay ◽  
A. Ganesh

A “tracheotomy” refers to the surgical procedure that creates an opening between the trachea and the midline skin surface of the neck. Indicators for a tracheostomy tube include airway protection, removal of tracheal secretions, and wean from long-term mechanical ventilation. Assessment and management will be overseen by a multidisciplinary team which includes a speech-language pathologist whose involvement in tracheostomy include assisting the patient to tolerate successful periods of cuff deflation and saliva management, re-establishing verbal communication, conducting swallow assessments to re-establish oral intake, providing dysphagia rehabilitation, and providing input into the decannulation decision. This case study is focusing on the 42-year-old male who had the right cerebellopontine angle meningioma for which he underwent retrosigmoid, suboccipital craniotomy, and excision of lesion. Tracheostomy was done following stridor and wheezing, and he is under nasogastric tube for feeding. Assessment and management for swallowing and speech were focussed and results were documented.


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