| 1. |
- Batista, Vania, et al.
(författare)
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Surface guided radiation therapy: : An international survey on current clinical practice
- 2022
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Ingår i: Technical Innovations and Patient Support in Radiation Oncology. - : Elsevier BV. - 2405-6324. ; 22, s. 1-8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Surface Guided Radiation Therapy (SGRT) is being increasingly implemented into clinical practiceacross a number of techniques and irradiation-sites. This technology, which is provided by different vendors, canbe used with most simulation- and delivery-systems. However, limited guidelines and the complexity of clinicalsettings have led to diverse patterns of operation. With the aim to understand current clinical practice a surveywas designed focusing on specifics of the clinical implementation and usage.Materials and methods: A 32-question survey covered: type and number of systems, quality assurance (QA),clinical workflows, and identification of strengths/limitations. Respondents from different professional groupsand countries were invited to participate. The survey was distributed internationally via ESTRO-membership,social media and vendors.Results: Of the 278 institutions responding, 172 had at least one SGRT-system and 136 use SGRT clinically.Implementation and QA were primarily based on the vendors’ recommendations and phantoms. SGRT wasmainly implemented in breast RT (116/136), with strong but diverse representation of other sites. Many (58/135) reported at least partial elimination of skin-marks and a third (43/126) used open-masks. The most commonimaging protocol reported included the combination of radiographic imaging with SGRT. Patient positioning(115/136), motion management (104/136) and DIBH (99/136) were the main applications.Main barriers to broader application were cost, system integration issues and lack of demonstrated clinical value.A lack of guidelines in terms of QA of the system was highlighted.Conclusions: This overview of the SGRT status has the potential to support users, vendors and organisations in thedevelopment of practices, products and guidelines.
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| 2. |
- Brelsford, Christa, et al.
(författare)
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Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines’ different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally co-constituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the “characteristic management challenges” that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems.
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| 3. |
- Gober, R., et al.
(författare)
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Microglia activation in postmortem brains with schizophrenia demonstrates distinct morphological changes between brain regions
- 2022
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Ingår i: Brain Pathology. - : Wiley. - 1015-6305 .- 1750-3639. ; 32:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a psychiatric disorder that can include symptoms of disorganized speech and thoughts with uncertain underlying mechanisms possibly linked to over-activated microglia. In this study, we used brain samples from sixteen donors with SCZ and thirteen control donors to assess the differential activation of microglia by quantifying density and 3D reconstruction of microglia stained with ionized calcium-binding adaptor molecule-1 (Iba1). Our samples consisted of sections from the frontal, temporal, and cingulate cortical gray matter, subcortical white matter regions (SCWM), and included the anterior corpus callosum. In the first series of studies, we performed a density analysis followed by a spatial analysis to ascertain the microglial density, distribution, and soma size in SCZ brains. Second, we performed a series of morphological quantification techniques to investigate the arborization patterns of the microglia in SCZ. The results demonstrated an increase in microglia density in the cortical gray matter regions in SCZ cases, while in the SCWM, there was a significant increase in microglia density in the frontal and temporal, but not in the other brain regions of interest (ROIs). Spatial analysis using the "nearest neighbor" demonstrated that there was no effect in "clustering", but there were shorter distances between microglia seen in the SCZ cases. The morphological measures showed that there was a region-dependent increase in the microglia soma size in the SCZ cases while the Sholl analysis revealed a significant decrease in the microglia arborization in the SCZ cases across all the ROI's studied. An in-depth 3D reconstruction of microglia in Brodmann area 9 cortical region found that there was a significant association between age and reduced microglial arborization in the SCZ cases. This region-dependent age association can help determine whether longitudinal changes in microglial activation across age are brain region-dependent, which may point to potential therapeutic targets.
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| 4. |
- Vontell, Regina T., et al.
(författare)
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Association of region-specific hippocampal reduction of neurogranin with inflammasome proteins in post mortem brains of Alzheimer's disease
- 2024
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Ingår i: ALZHEIMERS & DEMENTIA-TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH & CLINICAL INTERVENTIONS. - 2352-8737. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- INTRODUCTION: Neurogranin (Ng) is considered a biomarker for synaptic dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease (AD). In contrast, the inflammasome complex has been shown to exacerbate AD pathology.METHODS: We investigated the protein expression, morphological differences of Ng, and correlated Ng to hyperphosphorylated tau in the post mortem brains of 17 AD cases and 17 age- and sex-matched controls. In addition, we correlated the Ng expression with two different epitopes of apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase recruitment domain (ASC).RESULTS: We show a reduction of Ng immunopositive neurons and morphological differences in AD compared to controls. Ng immunostaining was negatively correlated with neurofibrillary tangles, humanized anti-ASC (IC100) positive neurons and anti-ASC positive microglia, in AD.DISCUSSION: The finding of a negative correlation between Ng and ASC speck protein expression in post mortem brains of AD suggests that the activation of inflammasome/ASC speck pathway may play an important role in synaptic degeneration in AD.
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