OBJECTIVES Sex hormones have long been considered to play an influential role on periodontal tissues, bone turnover rate, wound healing and periodontal disease progression. The objectives of this review article are to (1) address the link between sex hormones and the periodontium, (2) analyse how these hormones influence the periodontium at different life times and (3) discuss the effects of ho...

In Nicaragua there are attempts, at various levels, to bridge the gap between Western and indigenous medicine and to create more equal forms of therapeutic cooperation. This article, based on anthropological fieldwork, focuses on this process in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, a province dominated by the Miskitu people. It examines illness beliefs among the Miskitu, and how therapeutic co...

Patients with cancer can experience several treatment-related symptoms, and conventional care focuses primarily on cure and survival without a holistic approach to disease. Subsequently, an increasing number of patients are accustomed to complementary modalities to improve well-being. Biofield therapies (BTs) are complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities based on the philosophy th...

Germline mutations in the NF1 tumor suppressor gene cause neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a complex genetic disorder with a high predisposition of numerous skeletal dysplasias including short stature, osteoporosis, kyphoscoliosis, and fracture non-union (pseudoarthrosis). We have developed murine models that phenocopy many of the skeletal dysplasias observed in NF1 patients, including reduced b...

background: in this study the level of il-23 and il-27 produced by macrophages derived from peri­pheral blood mononuclear cell culture collected from patients with healing or non-healing form of cutane­ous leishmaniasis lesion were compared before and after treatment with live leishmania to explore whether il-23 or il-27 plays any role in healing process of cutaneous lesions induced by l. major...

Downregulation of the miR-143/145 microRNA (miRNA) cluster has been repeatedly reported in colon cancer and other epithelial tumors. In addition, overexpression of these miRNAs inhibits tumorigenesis, leading to broad consensus that they function as cell-autonomous epithelial tumor suppressors. We generated mice with deletion of miR-143/145 to investigate the functions of these miRNAs in intest...

An appropriate control architecture is a crucial premise for successfully achieving truly autonomous mobile robots. The architecture should allow for a robust control of the robot in complex tasks, while it should be flexible in order to operate in different environments pursuing different tasks. This chapter presents a control framework that is able to control an autonomous robot in complex re...

FOXN1 is a prodifferentiation transcription factor in the skin epithelium. Recently, it has also emerged as an important player in controlling the skin wound healing process, as it actively participates in reepithelialization and is thought to be responsible for scar formation. FOXN1 positivity is also a feature of pigmented keratinocytes, including nevi, and FOXN1 is an attribute of benign epi...

As we move towards service-oriented complex infrastructures, what is needed, security, robustness, and intelligence distributed within the network. Modern systems are too complicated to be centrally administered; therefore, the need for approaches that provide autonomic characteristics and are able to be selfsustained is evident. We present here one approach towards this goal, i.e., how we can ...