a b s t r a c tThe food supply chain is affected by losses of products near to their expiry date or damaged by improper transportation or production defects. Such products are usually poorly attractive for the consumer in the target market even if they maintain their nutritional properties. On the other hand undernourished people face every day the problem of fulfilling their nutritional needs usually relying on non-profit organizations. In this field the food recovery enabling economic benefits for donors is nowadays seen as a coherent way to manage food products unsalable in the target market for various causes and thus destined to be discarded and disposed to landfill thus representing only a cost. Despite its obvious affordability the food recovery is today not always practiced because the economic benefits that could be achieved are barely known. The paper aims at presenting a deterministic mathematical model for the optimization of the supply chain composed by retailers and potential recipients that practice the food recovery, taking into account the benefits recognized to donors and the management costs of the food recovery. The model determines the optimal time to withdraw the products from the shelves as well as the quantities to be donated to the non-profit organizations and those to be sent to the livestock market maximizing the retailer profit. The results show that the optimal conditions ensuring the affordability of the food recovery strategy including the tax reliefs and cost saving for the retailers outperforms the profit achievable in absence of such a system.

Chang H-Y, Cheng C-L, Chen J-JJ, de Groat WC. Serotonergic drugs and spinal cord transections indicate that different spinal circuits are involved in external urethral sphincter activity in rats. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 292: F1044 -F1053, 2007. First published October 17, 2006; doi:10.1152/ajprenal.00175.2006.-Lower urinary tract function is regulated by spinal and supraspinal reflexes that coordinate the activity of the urinary bladder and external urethral sphincter (EUS). Two types of EUS activity (tonic and bursting) have been identified in rats. This study in urethane-anesthetized female rats used cystometry, EUS electromyography, spinal cord transection (SCT) at different segmental levels, and analysis of the effects of 5-HT1A receptor agonist (8-OH-DPAT) and antagonist (WAY100635) drugs to examine the origin of tonic and bursting EUS activity. EUS activity was elicited by bladder distension or electrical stimulation of afferent axons in the pelvic nerve (pelvic-EUS reflex). Tonic activity evoked by bladder distension was detected in spinal cord-intact rats and after acute and chronic T8 -9 or L3-4 SCT but was abolished after L6 -S1 SCT. Bursting activity was abolished by all types of SCT except chronic T8 -9 transection. 8-OH-DPAT enhanced tonic activity, and WAY100635 reversed the effect of 8-OH-DPAT. The pelvic-EUS reflex consisted of an early response (ER) and late response (LR) when the bladder was distended in spinal cord-intact rats. ER remained after acute or chronic T8 -9 and L3-4 SCT, but was absent after L6 -S1 SCT. LR occurred only in chronic T8 -9 SCT rats where it was enhanced or unmasked by 8-OH-DPAT. The results indicate that spinal serotonergic mechanisms facilitate tonic and bursting EUS activity. The circuitry for generating different patterns of EUS activity appears to be located in different segments of the spinal cord: tonic activity at L6 -S1 and bursting activity between T8 -9 and L3-4. bladder; electromyography; 5-HT1A receptor; pelvic nerve; bursting THE STORAGE AND RELEASE OF urine are dependent on the coordinated activity of the urinary bladder smooth muscle and the external urethral sphincter (EUS) striated muscle in the lower urinary tract (LUT). This coordination is mediated by neural mechanisms in the brain and spinal cord that are stimulated by afferent input from the bladder. In normal rats, the EUS exhibits tonic activity before the onset of voiding and bursting activity during voiding. It is believed that bursting activity represents rhythmic contractions and relaxations of the EUS that are necessary for efficient bladder emptying (20). A detailed analysis (4) of the EUS bursting pattern has shown that it consists of silent (urethral opening) and active (urethral closing) periods, averaging 104 and 67 ms in duration, respectively. Efficient voiding depends on the duration and number of urethral openings during voiding. Suppression of EUS bursting activity with neuromuscular blocking agents decreases voiding efficiency (31).Initial studies in deeply anesthetized rats ...

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Reminiscence therapy has been utilized for many years in the treatment of dementia in older people. Purposes of the research included examining different methods of promoting interactivity, social participation, cognitive function improvement in those with dementia, and the effectiveness in reducing symptoms of depression following group treatment. This study used pretest and posttest electroencephalography (EEG) measurements to test reminiscence therapy efficacy on participants. This research organized a social group work with 12 elderly clients with dementia (mild to moderate stage) selected from among 90 residents of an older persons care facility in Pingtung. Eleven agreed to join the study, and 10 completed successfully all treatment sessions. Eight sessions of reminiscence cooking lessons were conducted. The effectiveness of interventions was evaluated by comparing presession and postsession EEG, mental health status, depression scale, and feeling of participation scale scores. Significant differences in values, particularly for EEG, were found between the two sets of scores. The average value of participants' fast waves rose from 43.88 to 55.12, whereas average slow-wave values fell from 56.12 to 44.13. After analysis using the Wilcoxon matched paired signed rank test, significant differences were noted. Findings and suggestions include the following: (a) The rise in Mini-Mental State Examination and reduction in depression scale scores, although noted, were not significant, and (b) the self-achievement, emotional stability, family atmosphere, and physical needs of participants were met. The authors recommend that reminiscence group work be promoted in the home for older persons and that childhood cooking sessions twice each week may be the ideal format for reminiscence group work.

In addition to generating functional limb movement via electrical stimulation, other research proposed lower intensity stimulation for stroke patients from proprioceptive and neuro-biofeedback aspects. This paper investigates the effects of different intensity levels of electrical stimulation during passive cycling on cortical activation using multichannel near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) covering premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, sensorimotor cortex (SMC), and secondary sensory cortex (S2) regions. Sixteen subjects, including nine stroke patients and seven normal subjects, were instructed to perform passive cycling driven by an ergometer at a pace of 50 rpm under conditions without electrical stimulation (NES) and with low-intensity electrical stimulation (LES) at 10 mA and high-intensity electrical stimulation (HES) at 30 mA. Changes in oxyhemoglobin in different brain regions and the derived interhemispheric correlation coefficient (IHCC) representing the symmetry in response of two hemispheres were evaluated to observe cortical activation and cerebral autoregulation. Our results showed that cortical activation of normal subjects exhibited overall deactivations in HES compared with that under LES and NES. In stroke patients, bilateral S2 activated significantly greater under LES compared with those under NES and HES. The IHCC of the normal group displayed a significant higher value in SMC compared with that of the stroke group. This paper utilized noninvasive NIRS to observe hemodynamic changes and bilateral autoregulation symmetry from IHCC suggesting that passive cycling with LES could better facilitate cortical activation compared with that obtained with NES or HES. The results of this paper could provide general guidelines to simplify the settings of electrical stimulation-assisted-passive cycling in clinical use.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a popular noninvasive technique for modulating motor cortical plasticity and has therapeutic potential for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the therapeutic benefits and related mechanisms of rTMS in PD are still uncertain. Accordingly, preclinical animal research is helpful for enabling translational research to explore an effective therapeutic strategy and for better understanding the underlying mechanisms. Therefore, the current study was designed to identify the therapeutic effects of rTMS on hemiparkinsonian rats. A hemiparkinsonian rat model, induced by unilateral injection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), was applied to evaluate the therapeutic potential of rTMS in motor functions and neuroprotective effect of dopaminergic neurons. Following early and long-term rTMS intervention with an intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) paradigm (starting 24 h post-6-OHDA lesion, 1 session/day, 7 days/week, for a total of 4 weeks) in awake hemiparkinsonian rats, the effects of rTMS on the performance in detailed functional behavioral tests, including video-based gait analysis, the bar test for akinesia, apomorphine-induced rotational analysis, and tests of the degeneration level of dopaminergic neurons, were identified. We found that four weeks of rTMS intervention significantly reduced the aggravation of PD-related symptoms post-6-OHDA lesion. Immunohistochemically, the results showed that tyrosine hydroxylase- (TH-) positive neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) and fibers in the striatum were significantly preserved in the rTMS treatment group. These findings suggest that early and long-term rTMS with the iTBS paradigm exerts neuroprotective effects and mitigates motor impairments in a hemiparkinsonian rat model. These results further highlight the potential therapeutic effects of rTMS and confirm that long-term rTMS treatment might have clinical relevance and usefulness as an additional treatment approach in individuals with PD.

Hybrid activation (HA), patterned electrical stimulation (ES) superimposed on attempted voluntary movement in close synchrony, can augment muscle force output. It has been proposed for limb function restoration and neuromodulation. Limited studies have been performed to investigate the influences of HA on muscle oxygenation and brain cortical activity. The present study investigates muscle oxygenation and cortical activity during isometric knee extension tasks with voluntary contraction (VOL) only, ES only, and with HA at three stimulation intensities, namely 10 mA (HA-I), 30 mA (HA-II), and 50 mA (HA-III). A frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy system was employed to assess the muscle oxygenation in the vastus lateralis as well as the cortical activity from the bilateral sensorimotor cortices (SMCs), premotor cortices (PMCs), and supplementary motor areas (SMAs). Our results show that the increased ES contribution during HA significantly increased O2 demand in working muscle, implying that the intervention of ES accelerates the muscle metabolism during muscle contraction. For cortical activation, ES only had a similar cortical activation pattern to that during VOL but with lower activation in SMCs, PMCs, and SMAs. Augmented sensorimotor activation was observed during the HA-II condition. The enhanced level of cortical activation during HA was not only affected by the ES contribution within HA but also related to the functional specificity of cortical areas. Our results suggest that HA can effectively enhance the muscle oxygen demand as well as the activation of cortical regions, and that the ES contribution within HA is a key factor.

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