scholarly journals A Historical Review of Enzymatic Debridement: Revisited

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett David W

The following is an update to a book entitled, “A Historical Review of Enzymatic Debridement: Revisited”, which I wrote in 2003. Since its publication, while the relevant clinical evidence has remained consistent, the amount of biochemical research and knowledge gained has been impressive. In the first chapter a sampling of the typical topical enzymatic debriding agents that have been used in wound care are reviewed and interestingly enough only one remains on the market. The FDA has removed all others from the marketplace and an explanation is provided in chapter one along with descriptions of the use and mode of action (MoA) of these agents. Chapter two is a review of the many different types of collagen found in the body, including their structure, form, and function as so much additional insight into this molecule has been gained since 2003. In chapter three we see an account depicting the many advances in understanding matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) reviewed in detail. Form, function, tissue orientation and preferred substrates are addressed. Finally, in chapter four we see the history of the MoA of MMPs as compared to bacterial collagenase starting in the early ‘80s to the time of this current publication. In addition we see the level of complexity of bacterial collagenases compared to MMPs, helping us to better understand why bacterial collagenase is much more efficient at removing necrotic tissue from wounds than are our own (endogenous) MMPs. I hope the reader finds this review useful from an academic standpoint, but more importantly from a clinical framework helping to understand the role of these types of therapies in wound care.


2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 594-607
Author(s):  
S B Crofts ◽  
S M Smith ◽  
P S L Anderson

Synopsis Teeth lie at the interface between an animal and its environment and, with some exceptions, act as a major component of resource procurement through food acquisition and processing. Therefore, the shape of a tooth is closely tied to the type of food being eaten. This tight relationship is of use to biologists describing the natural history of species and given the high instance of tooth preservation in the fossil record, is especially useful for paleontologists. However, correlating gross tooth morphology to diet is only part of the story, and much more can be learned through the study of dental biomechanics. We can explore the mechanics of how teeth work, how different shapes evolved, and the underlying forces that constrain tooth shape. This review aims to provide an overview of the research on dental biomechanics, in both mammalian and non-mammalian teeth, and to synthesize two main approaches to dental biomechanics to develop an integrative framework for classifying and evaluating dental functional morphology. This framework relates food material properties to the dynamics of food processing, in particular how teeth transfer energy to food items, and how these mechanical considerations may have shaped the evolution of tooth morphology. We also review advances in technology and new techniques that have allowed more in-depth studies of tooth form and function.



PEDIATRICS ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-635
Author(s):  
Howard A. Pearson ◽  
Louis K. Diamond

This brief review, being limited in scope to the recognition and management of the life-threatening and painful crises in infants and children with sickle-cell disease, has not even touched on the intriguing mystery of the molecular basis for the sickling phenomenon–how one amino-acid substitution (gene controlled) in the beta chain sequence of 146 amino acids can cause such serious disruption in form and function; or how this mutation occurred in the first place and why it has persisted in contrast to the rapid disappearance of many other deleterious mutants. Nor has there been even mention of the many milder symptoms, signs, and complications due to the presence of Hb. S., either in the homozygous (disease-producing) state or heterozygous form when found in combination with other hereditary hemoglobin defects. The accumulated knowledge about this mutant gene, its biochemical effects, and geographic distribution is enormous. From a fundamental scientific standpoint, sickle cell disease is one of the best understood of human afflictions. However, from a practical point of view treatment of the patient himself is often only symptomatic and palliative. Nevertheless, prompt and effective therapy of the myriad manifestations of sickle cell disease can effectively reduce morbidity and mortality. The pediatrician who cares for black children in his practice should be familiar with the cardinal diagnostic and clinical aspects of sickle cell disease and its crises.



2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Venzl

In the 18th century, as many as 300 German-language plays were produced with the military and its contact and friction with civil society serving as focus of the dramatic events. The immense public interest these plays attracted feeds not least on the fundamental social structural change that was brought about by the establishment of standing armies. In his historico-cultural literary study, Tilman Venzl shows how these military dramas literarily depict complex social processes and discuss the new problems in an affirmative or critical manner. For the first time, the findings of the New Military History are comprehensively included in the literary history of the 18th century. Thus, the example of selected military dramas – including Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm and Lenz's Die Soldaten – reveals the entire range of variety characterizing the history of both form and function of the subject.



Author(s):  
Greg Quinn

There are many theoretical models that attempt to accurately and consistently link kinematic and kinetic information to musculoskeletal pain and deformity of the foot. Biomechanical theory of the foot lacks a consensual model: clinicians are enticed to draw from numerous paradigms, each having different levels of supportive evidence and contrasting methods of evaluation, in order to engage in clinical deduction and treatment planning. Contriving to find a link between form and function lies at the heart of most of these competing theories and the physical nature of the discipline has prompted an engineering approach. Physics is of great importance in biology and helps us to model the forces that the foot has to deal with in order for it to work effectively. However, the tissues of the body have complex processes that are in place to protect them and they are variable between individuals. Research is uncovering why these differences exist and how these processes are governed. The emerging explanations for adaptability of foot structure and musculoskeletal homeostasis offer new insights on how clinical variation in outcomes and treatment effects might arise. These biological processes underlie how variation in the performance and utilisation of common traits, even within apparently similar sub-groups, make anatomical distinction less meaningful and are likely to undermine the justification of a 'foot type'. Furthermore, mechanobiology introduces a probabilistic element to morphology based on genetic and epigenetic factors.





FACE ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 273250162110529
Author(s):  
Jack C. Yu ◽  
Dhairya Shukla ◽  
Atbin Doroodchi ◽  
Ramtin Doroodchi ◽  
Hesamoldin Khodadadi ◽  
...  

Physicians often make diagnosis and treatment decisions based on incomplete data. That is why we practice medicine. We use accumulated knowledge and prior experience, individual and collective, to restore form and function of our patients to return them to normalcy with continued, durable homeostasis. However, due to the complex nature, our diagnosis may be wrong and our treatments ineffective or even harmful. The history of medicine and surgery is replete with such examples from snake oil and bloodletting to Halstedian radical mastectomy. Without knowing the governing dynamics, the cause-effect relationship is often obscure. Prospective, blinded, placebo-controlled trials provide the highest level of evidence, like the COVID vaccine trials, to determine if a treatment works. However, trials cannot explain in detail how and why a treatment works, or why it does not. Variabilities and uncertainty abound and require the correct mathematical methods to tease out the signal from the noise, causality from association. Collectively, statistics is the science of uncertainty and the extraction of reliable, useful information from raw data. The objectives of this review are to provide craniofacial surgeons with a primer in descriptive statistics: how to design investigations, collect, prepare, present, and interpret clinical data. Since large datasets at regional and national depositories represent powerful and valuable resources, and that their proper use requires a working knowledge in epidemiology, we included sections on incidence, prevalence, sensitivity, and specificity regarding diagnosis, treatments, and testing.



2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hornblower

The subject of this paper is a striking and unavoidable feature of theAlexandra: Lykophron's habit of referring to single gods not by their usual names, but by multiple lists of epithets piled up in asyndeton. This phenomenon first occurs early in the 1474-line poem, and this occurrence will serve as an illustration. At 152–3, Demeter has five descriptors in a row: Ἐνναία ποτὲ | Ἕρκυνν' Ἐρινὺς Θουρία Ξιφηφόρος, ‘Ennaian … Herkynna, Erinys, Thouria, Sword-bearing’. In the footnote I give the probable explanations of these epithets. Although in this sample the explanations to most of the epithets are not to be found in inscriptions, my main aim in what follows will be to emphasize the relevance of epigraphy to the unravelling of some of the famous obscurity of Lykophron. In this paper, I ask why the poet accumulates divine epithets in this special way. I also ask whether the information provided by the ancient scholiasts, about the local origin of the epithets, is of good quality and of value to the historian of religion. This will mean checking some of that information against the evidence of inscriptions, beginning with Linear B. It will be argued that it stands up very well to such a check. TheAlexandrahas enjoyed remarkable recent vogue, but this attention has come mainly from the literary side. Historians, in particular historians of religion, and students of myths relating to colonial identity, have been much less ready to exploit the intricate detail of the poem, although it has so much to offer in these respects. The present article is, then, intended primarily as a contribution to the elucidation of a difficult literary text, and to the history of ancient Greek religion. Despite the article's main title, there will, as the subtitle is intended to make clear, be no attempt to gather and assess all the many passages in Lykophron to which inscriptions are relevant. There will, for example, be no discussion of 1141–74 and the early Hellenistic ‘Lokrian Maidens inscription’ (IG9.12706); or of the light thrown on 599 by the inscribed potsherds carrying dedications to Diomedes, recently found on the tiny island of Palagruza in the Adriatic, and beginning as early as the fifth centuryb.c.(SEG48.692bis–694); or of 733–4 and their relation to the fifth-centuryb.c.Athenian decree (n. 127) mentioning Diotimos, the general who founded a torch race at Naples, according to Lykophron; or of 570–85 and the epigraphically attested Archegesion or cult building of Anios on Delos, which shows that this strange founder king with three magical daughters was a figure of historical cult as well as of myth.



Pneuma ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Amos Yong

AbstractDisability studies and Pentecostal studies have not interacted much in the young history of both fields of inquiry. This essay identifies some of the reasons for this missed interface, explores how disability perspectives might bring to the fore resources for rethinking Pentecostal understandings of disability, explicates (with the help of a disability hermeneutic) the Pentecostal theology of "many tongues" bearing witness to the gospel with the correlative motif of "many senses" capable of receiving and giving witness to the works of God, and reassesses the possibility of Pentecostal contributions to theology of disability and disability studies in light of the "many senses" motif. My thesis is that the dialogue between disability studies and Pentecostal studies will be challenging but also helpful for both sides, even as our joint efforts might also testify to the wonders of God in and through the diversity of embodied human experiences.



2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imran A. Rahman ◽  
Selena Y. Smith

‘Virtual paleontology’ entails the use of computational methods to assist in the three-dimensional (3-D) visualization and analysis of fossils, and has emerged as a powerful approach for research on the history of life. Three-dimensional imaging techniques allow poorly understood or previously unknown anatomies of fossil plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates, as well as microfossils and trace fossils, to be described in much greater detail than formerly possible, and are applicable to a wide range of preservation types and specimen sizes (Table 1). These methods include non-destructive high-resolution scanning technologies such as conventional X-ray micro-tomography and synchrotron-based X-ray tomography. In addition, form and function can be rigorously investigated through quantitative analysis of computer models, for example finite-element analysis.



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