human_ontogenetics最新文献

The demographic situation, with a clear international trend towards a society largedly populated by the aged and the chronically ill presents a huge challenge to the resources of the global healthcare system. It is evident that existing structures and processes cannot provide an adequate qualitative and quantitative response to the problem – innovative patient care systems are the only way forward in a fast-changing world. This is especially true when considering how best to deal with chronic ailments such as coronary heart disease, cardiac insufficiency, asthma/COPD and diabetes with its numerous, debilitating manifestations. In this context integrated patient care concepts offer the most promising solution. This is where the strategic significance and practical advantages of telematics as practical application of modern telecommunications and information technology in the field of healthcare lie – whereby “eHealth” encompasses all healthcare services, quality improvements and cost-optimizations which can be achieved through the implementation of modern means of data acquisition/management/communication. Digitalized data allow for faster, secure and more efficient healthcare knowledge transfer together with networked data access and an altogether better quality in the field of diagnostics, therapy management and post treatment care. Rapid technical progress, with the development of ever-more efficient logistic frameworks, allows for the creation of an efficient telemedical system for optimized patient service and interdisciplinary patient-physician-hospital-rehabhomecare data flow – a system where all the healthcare players strive for concerted action to the benefit of the patient, bringing about tangible cost reductions at the same time.

Human ontogenetics is introduced as an attempt to expand knowledge about human beings. In this context, the concept of the human being as “biopsychosocial unit” and perceptions of the evolutionary theory are discussed. Key issues of the discussion are the life-long development of the human being as a possibility, the hierarchical system of competencies, and the ecology of human ontogeny.

Manfred Buhr (2007) suggested a powerful and subtle critique of European nations. He observed that their histories reveal “a painful process”. His antidote is a universalism that takes a deeper understanding of the Enlightenment project of reason. Buhr endorsed emancipation and human dignity through the Enlightenment rationalism of Kant. He allowed for cultural difference in attaining human dignity. Martha Nussbaum devised the Capabilities Approach along Aristotelian lines, to provide a normative account to evaluate human functioning. Capabilities have real life potential for programs that reassess and empower women in the developing world. The literature inspired by this capabilities approach addresses specific communities where women were empowered by giving them choices about the quality of their lives in such areas as education, gender relations, activities outside the home, microcredit, and training.

Some forms of love have the ability to transform perfectly normal people into seemingly powerless victims. The tragic example of one of the richest women in Germany whose love to a professional gigolo has profoundly unsettled her life reminds us of the powerful mechanisms bringing about what is rightly termed “falling in love”. Most representatives of the arts and humanities are convinced that such “romantic love” can only be felt by members of modern societies and historically only came about to be a specific mind-set when modernity started. If contemporary citizens would be asked in the street, whether a woman or man in traditional society could and would experience the kind of special states of mind and soul connected to falling and being in love, many would probably intuitively say: “That may well be possible. Why should they be so different from us in such essential aspect?” When one talks to academic colleagues, the situation is, however, different. The authoritative view of some of the great scholars of sociology and related disciplines has created the firm conviction: “Romantic love is specific for our kind of modern”, and many would add: “occidental, society”. In this essay, this concept of cultural specificity is challenged and examples from written and oral literature are presented, as well as findings of crosscultural evolutionary biology which, altogether, render this sociological concept obsolete. To conclude, romantic love has to be regarded a human universal phenomenon and may serve as honest signal of one's deep emotional involvement, thus influencing mate-choice.

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an autosomal recessive disease caused by phenylalanine-4-hydroxylase (P-4-H) deficiency, which is a liver-specific enzyme that catalyzes the hydroxylation of l-phenylalanine (Phe) to l-tyrosine (Tyr). The deficiency of this enzyme leads to the accumulation of Phe in the tissues and plasma of patients. Among the clinical symptoms of this disease are mental retardation and other neurological features. The mechanisms of retinal cell damage are still poorly understood. In order to evaluate the damage in offspring of PKU mothers, fifty pregnant rats were used and arranged into two main groups, i.e., a control group and a group consisting of rats with experimentally induced PKU. Induction of PKU was carried out by daily intragastrical administration of 30 mg DL–alpha methylphenylalanine/150 g b.w. plus 60 mg/kg b.w. Phe at 12 h intervals throughout pregnancy till parturition as well as throughout lactation period till 14 days post-partum. Morphometric analysis of retina in 1, 7 and 14-day-old pups of PKU mothers revealed a marked reduction of retinal thickness. Histological observations revealed numerical reduction of pigment cells. Apoptic cell death of retinal pigment cells, and of nuclear layer and ganglionic cells were observed. The nerve layer showed apparent vacuolar degeneration. At transmission electron microscope (TEM) level, pigment epithelium showed distortion of apical microvilli, vacuolation of cytoplasm and reduction of cytoplasm organelles. The Brush's membrane showed apparent thickening. In 7-day-old pups of PKU mothers, photoreceptor inner segment showed apparent degeneration. In 14-day-old pups of PKU mothers, both the inner and outer photoreceptor segment were degenerated and the stacked membrane of the outer segment appeared vacuolated and degenerated.