23,129 research outputs found
EVALUACIÓN ANALGÉSICA PERIOPERATORIA DEL ACETAMINOFÉN EN PERRAS SOMETIDAS A OVARIOHISTERECTOMÍA ELECTIVA
Tesis de doctorado que evalúa el efecto analgésico del acetaminofén en perras ovarihisterectomizadas.La administración de analgésicos antiinflamatorios no esteroidales (AINES) para el control del
dolor post-quirúrgico en perros es una práctica común, debido a sus efectos analgésicos,
antiinflamatorios y antipiréticos. En el presente trabajo se realizaron dos estudios. En el
experimento 1, el objetivo fue evaluar la analgesia post-operatoria del acetaminofén
(paracetamol) a través de la utilización de las escalas de reconocimiento clínico del dolor
DIVAS (Escala Dinámica e Interactiva Analógica Visual) y UMPS (Escala de la Universidad
de Melbourne), en perras sometidas a ovariohisterectomía electiva. Además de valorar la
seguridad y eficacia clínica del uso del acetaminofén en perros mediante pruebas de
funcionamiento hepático y renal en el post-operatorio inmediato. Para ello, se utilizaron 30
perras de diferentes razas que fueron asignadas aleatoriamente a uno de los tres grupos de
tratamiento: acetaminofén [GACET; n=10, 15 mg kg-1 intravenoso (IV)], carprofeno (GCARP;
n=10, 4 mg kg-1 IV) y meloxicam (GMELOX; n=10, 0.2 mg kg-1 IV). Todos los tratamientos se
administraron 30 minutos antes de la cirugía y posterior a esta durante 48 horas. En este período
el acetaminofén se administró por vía oral cada 8 horas (15 mg kg-1); el carprofeno (4 mg kg-1)
y el meloxicam (0.1 mg kg-1) se administraron por vía IV cada 24 horas. Durante el
postoperatorio, los sistemas de puntuación del dolor DIVAS y UMPS fueron medidos a las 1,
2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 36 y 48 horas post-cirugía. Para evaluar la seguridad clínica de los
tratamientos, se recolectaron muestras de sangre de la vena yugular para realizar la medición de
enzimas ALT, AST, ALP, y los metabolitos bilirrubina directa, bilirrubina indirecta, bilirrubina
total, creatinina, urea, albúmina y glucosa. Esto fue realizado en T0 (pre-anestesia; TBASAL), 48
y 96 horas después de la cirugía (T48, T96). Los resultados indican que en la evaluación clínica
del dolor de todos los grupos de estudio, hubo una reducción gradual en la percepción del mismo
durante el postoperatorio en ambos sistemas de puntuación; no obstante, también fue observado
que ninguna escala difirió significativamente entre los tres grupos de tratamiento (P>0.05) en
cada momento de evaluación durante las 48 horas post-cirugía. En cuanto a los parámetros
bioquímico séricos, sólo la ALT aumentó significativamente en T96 en el GACET y GCARP con
respecto a los valores basales (P<0.01). El resto de los analitos séricos evaluados se mantuvo
en rangos normales. En el experimento 2 bajo el mismo diseño experimental de tratamientos
administrados, el objetivo fue evaluar el efecto analgésico perioperatorio del acetaminofén
2
administrado pre y post-quirúrgicamente en perras sometidas a ovariohisterectomía electiva a
través de la medición del índice de la actividad del tono parasimpático (PTA). Este parámetro
hemodinámico fue medido 60 minutos antes de la cirugía (TBASAL) y durante el transquirúrgico
en la aplicación de estímulos nociceptivos: colocación de las pinzas de campo backhouse
(TPINZ), incisión de piel y abordaje quirúrgico primario (TINC), ligadura y extracción de pedículo
ovárico izquierdo (TOVI) y derecho (TOVD), ligadura y transfixión del cuello uterino (TLIGUT),
sección quirúrgica del cuello uterino (TCUT), reconstrucción de peritoneo y planos anatómicos
musculares (TMUSC) y sutura de piel (TSUT). Durante el postoperatorio, el índice PTA fue
valorado a las 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 36 y 48 horas, en los mismos tiempos en que fueron
evaluadas las escalas de reconocimiento de dolor DIVAS y UMPS. Los resultados obtenidos en
la medición del índice PTA basal para GACET fue 65 ± 8, para GCARP 65 ± 7 y para GMELOX 62 ±
5. Durante los diferentes tiempos transquirúrgicos, los valores promedio de índice PTA indican
que GACET (76 ± 14) y GMELOX (72 ± 18) muestran tendencia a manifestar mayores niveles en
comparación con GCARP (62 ± 13) desde el inicio del procedimiento quirúrgico sin que esto
pudiera comprobarse estadísticamente, ya que no hubo diferencias significativas entre grupos
de tratamiento ni entre los tiempos quirúrgicos evaluados (P>0.05). En el postoperatorio, el
índice PTA fue de 65 ± 9 en el GACET, 63 ± 8 en el GCARP y 65 ± 8 en el GMELOX. Los resultados
tampoco mostraron diferencias estadísticamente significativas con los valores basales o entre
los tratamientos (P>0.05). El índice PTA postoperatorio mostró una sensibilidad del 40%,
especificidad del 98.46% y valor predictivo negativo del 99.07% con respecto a la escala
validada de UMPS. En conclusión, el acetaminofén puede considerarse una herramienta para el
tratamiento efectivo del dolor perioperatorio agudo en perros, ya que mostró la misma eficacia
clínica que el meloxicam y el carprofeno para la analgesia postquirúrgica en perras sometidas a
ovariohisterectomía electiva. Además, la evidencia del uso de este medicamento no condujo a
reacciones adversas o cambios en los parámetros evaluados, lo que indica su seguridad clínica.
Finalmente, destacar que el índice PTA representa una medición objetiva del comfort y
analgesia postoperatoria, por lo que es una herramienta que podría ayudar a predecir las
respuestas hemodinámicas asociadas con el dolor
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European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA)/Heart Rhythm Society (HRS)/Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS)/Latin American Heart Rhythm Society (LAHRS) Expert Consensus Statement on the state of genetic testing for cardiac diseases.
Data-to-text generation with neural planning
In this thesis, we consider the task of data-to-text generation, which takes non-linguistic
structures as input and produces textual output. The inputs can take the form of
database tables, spreadsheets, charts, and so on. The main application of data-to-text
generation is to present information in a textual format which makes it accessible to
a layperson who may otherwise find it problematic to understand numerical figures.
The task can also automate routine document generation jobs, thus improving human
efficiency. We focus on generating long-form text, i.e., documents with multiple paragraphs. Recent approaches to data-to-text generation have adopted the very successful
encoder-decoder architecture or its variants. These models generate fluent (but often
imprecise) text and perform quite poorly at selecting appropriate content and ordering
it coherently. This thesis focuses on overcoming these issues by integrating content
planning with neural models. We hypothesize data-to-text generation will benefit from
explicit planning, which manifests itself in (a) micro planning, (b) latent entity planning, and (c) macro planning. Throughout this thesis, we assume the input to our
generator are tables (with records) in the sports domain. And the output are summaries
describing what happened in the game (e.g., who won/lost, ..., scored, etc.).
We first describe our work on integrating fine-grained or micro plans with data-to-text generation. As part of this, we generate a micro plan highlighting which records
should be mentioned and in which order, and then generate the document while taking
the micro plan into account.
We then show how data-to-text generation can benefit from higher level latent entity planning. Here, we make use of entity-specific representations which are dynam ically updated. The text is generated conditioned on entity representations and the
records corresponding to the entities by using hierarchical attention at each time step.
We then combine planning with the high level organization of entities, events, and
their interactions. Such coarse-grained macro plans are learnt from data and given
as input to the generator. Finally, we present work on making macro plans latent
while incrementally generating a document paragraph by paragraph. We infer latent
plans sequentially with a structured variational model while interleaving the steps of
planning and generation. Text is generated by conditioning on previous variational
decisions and previously generated text.
Overall our results show that planning makes data-to-text generation more interpretable, improves the factuality and coherence of the generated documents and re duces redundancy in the output document
Political Islam and grassroots activism in Turkey : a study of the pro-Islamist Virtue Party's grassroots activists and their affects on the electoral outcomes
This thesis presents an analysis of the spectacular rise of political Islam in Turkey. It has two aims: first to understand the underlying causes of the rise of the Welfare Party which -later became the Virtue Party- throughout the 1990s, and second to analyse how grassroots activism influenced this process. The thesis reviews the previous literature on the Islamic fundamentalist movements, political parties, political party systems and concentrates on the local party organisations and their effects on the party's electoral performance. It questions the categorisation of Islamic fundamentalism as an appropriate label for this movement. An exploration of such movements is particularly important in light of the event of 11`x' September. After exploring existing theoretical and case studies into political Islam and party activism, I present my qualitative case study. I have used ethnographic methodology and done participatory observations among grassroots activists in Ankara's two sub-districts covering 105 neighbourhoods. I examined the Turkish party system and the reasons for its collapse. It was observed that as a result of party fragmentation, electoral volatility and organisational decline and decline in the party identification among the citizens the Turkish party system has declined. However, the WP/VP profited from this trend enormously and emerged as
the main beneficiary of this process. Empirical data is analysed in four chapters, dealing with the different aspects of the Virtue Party's local organisations and grassroots activists. They deal with change and continuity in the party, the patterns of participation, the routes and motives for becoming a party activist, the profile of party activists and the local party organisations. I explore what they do and how they do it. The analysis reveals that the categorisation of Islamic fundamentalism is misplaced and the rise of political Islam in Turkey cannot be explained as religious revivalism or the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. It is a political force that drives its strength from the urban poor which has been harshly affected by the IMF directed neoliberal economy policies. In conclusion, it is shown that the WP/VP's electoral chances were significantly improved by its very efficient and effective party organisations and highly committed grassroots activists
Non-Print Information Resources and The Preservation Approaches Recommendation in Tanzanian Academic Libraries
Background: Non-print information resources are increasingly becoming more important as vital learning materials in higher learning institutions. Academic libraries therefore, have to acquire, process, organize and preserve them for current and future use. Purpose: This paper aims to assess the factors affecting the non-print information resources and their recommended preservation approaches in academic libraries. Method: The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed approach which collects and analyses data to produce integrated findings by using both qualitative and quantitative techniques in a single study. Data was collected by means of questionnaire and in-depth interview. Result: The study revealed that dust, loss of data on disc and hard disc, loss of data due to server failure, high heat, and excessive light, fading of disc surface, high humidity, fungus on disc surface, atmospheric pollutants and virus attack were factors affecting non-print information resources. It was also revealed that highly recommended preservation approaches were good cleanliness of library where information resources are kept, educating library users on how to handle and use information resources, migrating information resources from obsolete storage media to modern storage media, technology preservation and refreshing. Conclusion: The study concludes that library staff need to adopt recommended preservation approaches to safeguard the important information in academic libraries but also system librarians in academic libraries need to be employed to assist in trouble shooting issues.
Keywords: Non-Print Information Resources; Information Resources; Information Resources Preservation; Preservation Approaches; Academic Library
Abstrak
Latar Belakang: Sumber informasi non-cetak sekarang ini menjadi semakin penting sebagai bahan pembelajaran vital di perguruan tinggi. Oleh karena itu, perpustakaan akademik harus memperoleh, memproses, mengatur, dan melestarikannya untuk penggunaan saat ini dan masa depan. Tujuan: Makalah ini bertujuan untuk menilai faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi sumber informasi non-cetak dan pendekatan pelestarian yang direkomendasikan di perpustakaan akademik. Metode: Studi ini mengadopsi pendekatan campuran paralel konvergen yang mengumpulkan dan menganalisis data untuk menghasilkan temuan yang terintegrasi dengan menggunakan teknik kualitatif dan kuantitatif dalam satu studi. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan kuesioner dan wawancara mendalam. Temuan: Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa debu, hilangnya data pada disk/hard disk, hilangnya data karena kegagalan server, panas yang tinggi, dan cahaya yang berlebihan, memudarnya permukaan disk, kelembaban tinggi, jamur pada permukaan disk, polutan atmosfer dan serangan virus adalah faktor yang mempengaruhi sumber informasi non-cetak. Diungkapkan juga bahwa pendekatan pelestarian yang sangat direkomendasikan adalah kebersihan perpustakaan tempat sumber informasi disimpan, mendidik pengguna perpustakaan tentang cara menangani dan menggunakan sumber informasi, migrasi sumber informasi dari media penyimpanan usang ke media penyimpanan modern, pelestarian teknologi dan penyegaran koleksi. Kesimpulan: Studi ini menyimpulkan bahwa staf perpustakaan perlu mengadopsi pendekatan pelestarian yang direkomendasikan untuk melindungi informasi penting di perpustakaan akademik, tetapi juga pustakawan di perpustakaan akademik perlu dioptimalkan untuk membantu memecahkan masalah yang ada.
Kata kunci: Sumber Informasi Non-Cetak; Sumber Daya Informasi; Pelestarian Sumber Daya Informasi; Pendekatan Pelestarian; Perpustakaan Akademik 
Unraveling the effect of sex on human genetic architecture
Sex is arguably the most important differentiating characteristic in most mammalian
species, separating populations into different groups, with varying behaviors, morphologies,
and physiologies based on their complement of sex chromosomes, amongst other factors. In
humans, despite males and females sharing nearly identical genomes, there are differences
between the sexes in complex traits and in the risk of a wide array of diseases. Sex provides
the genome with a distinct hormonal milieu, differential gene expression, and environmental
pressures arising from gender societal roles. This thus poses the possibility of observing
gene by sex (GxS) interactions between the sexes that may contribute to some of the
phenotypic differences observed. In recent years, there has been growing evidence of GxS,
with common genetic variation presenting different effects on males and females. These
studies have however been limited in regards to the number of traits studied and/or
statistical power. Understanding sex differences in genetic architecture is of great
importance as this could lead to improved understanding of potential differences in
underlying biological pathways and disease etiology between the sexes and in turn help
inform personalised treatments and precision medicine.
In this thesis we provide insights into both the scope and mechanism of GxS across the
genome of circa 450,000 individuals of European ancestry and 530 complex traits in the UK
Biobank. We found small yet widespread differences in genetic architecture across traits
through the calculation of sex-specific heritability, genetic correlations, and sex-stratified
genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We further investigated whether sex-agnostic
(non-stratified) efforts could potentially be missing information of interest, including sex-specific trait-relevant loci and increased phenotype prediction accuracies. Finally, we
studied the potential functional role of sex differences in genetic architecture through sex
biased expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) and gene-level analyses.
Overall, this study marks a broad examination of the genetics of sex differences. Our findings
parallel previous reports, suggesting the presence of sexual genetic heterogeneity across
complex traits of generally modest magnitude. Furthermore, our results suggest the need to
consider sex-stratified analyses in future studies in order to shed light into possible sex-specific molecular mechanisms
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Reliable Decision-Making with Imprecise Models
The rapid growth in the deployment of autonomous systems across various sectors has generated considerable interest in how these systems can operate reliably in large, stochastic, and unstructured environments. Despite recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, it is challenging to assure that autonomous systems will operate reliably in the open world. One of the causes of unreliable behavior is the impreciseness of the model used for decision-making. Due to the practical challenges in data collection and precise model specification, autonomous systems often operate based on models that do not represent all the details in the environment. Even if the system has access to a comprehensive decision-making model that accounts for all the details in the environment and all possible scenarios the agent may encounter, it may be intractable to solve this complex model optimally. Consequently, this complex, high fidelity model may be simplified to accelerate planning, introducing imprecision. Reasoning with such imprecise models affects the reliability of autonomous systems. A system\u27s actions may sometimes produce unexpected, undesirable consequences, which are often identified after deployment. How can we design autonomous systems that can operate reliably in the presence of uncertainty and model imprecision?
This dissertation presents solutions to address three classes of model imprecision in a Markov decision process, along with an analysis of the conditions under which bounded-performance can be guaranteed. First, an adaptive outcome selection approach is introduced to devise risk-aware reduced models of the environment that efficiently balance the trade-off between model simplicity and fidelity, to accelerate planning in resource-constrained settings. Second, a framework that extends stochastic shortest path framework to problems with imperfect information about the goal state during planning is introduced, along with two solution approaches to solve this problem. Finally, two complementary solution approaches are presented to minimize the negative side effects of agent actions. The techniques presented in this dissertation enable an autonomous system to detect and mitigate undesirable behavior, without redesigning the model entirely
Uso de las histonas circulantes y sus modificaciones post-traduccionales como biomarcadores en sepsis y shock séptico
La sepsis es una afección potencialmente mortal causada por una respuesta anormal del huésped a una infección, produciendo respuestas fisiológicas alteradas que dañan los propios tejidos del paciente y pueden provocar disfunción orgánica e incluso la muerte. Asimismo, algunos pacientes sépticos progresan a shock séptico, caracterizado por alteraciones circulatorias, celulares y metabólicas sustanciales que aumentan el riesgo de mortalidad. A pesar de que la sepsis se caracteriza por un mal funcionamiento del sistema inmunológico, lo que a su vez conduce a una respuesta inmune alterada e inmunosupresión, la alta complejidad de la fisiopatología de la sepsis requiere una mayor investigación para comprender las respuestas inmunes que ocurren durante la sepsis. Asimismo, las histonas extracelulares circulantes han ganado relevancia como mediadores citotóxicos en la sepsis, ya que actúan como patrones moleculares asociados a daño, que inducen estrés oxidativo y activan el inflamasoma NLRP3. Estos mecanismos median la activación de la piroptosis, un mecanismo de muerte celular programada que produce inflamación mediante la expresión de IL-18, IL-1β and IL-1α. Sin embargo, a pesar de la evidencia de activación del inflamasoma en las células inmunes durante la sepsis, se desconoce si las histonas extracelulares son capaces de activar los inflamasomas endoteliales y sus consecuencias. En este trabajo destacamos el papel previamente desconocido de las histonas extracelulares, mediando la activación del inflamasoma NLRP3 y la piroptosis en las células endoteliales, contribuyendo a la disfunción endotelial y la desregulación de la respuesta inmune mediada por el endotelio. Asimismo, también demostramos cómo la acetilación de histonas disminuye la activación de la piroptosis. Además, demostramos que la piroptosis se produce en pacientes con shock séptico y los niveles de histonas circulantes se correlacionan con la expresión de citoquinas proinflamatorias y citoquinas piroptóticas, la liberación de factores de adhesión endotelial y la gravedad de la enfermedad. Proponemos la piroptosis mediada por histonas como un nuevo objetivo para desarrollar intervenciones clínicas. De manera similar, hemos analizado las respuestas inmunorelacionadas que ocurren durante las primeras etapas de la sepsis con el objetivo de proporcionar nuevos datos comparando las cantidades de citoquinas, inmunomoduladores y otros mediadores endoteliales en pacientes críticamente enfermos no sépticos, sépticos y de shock séptico. Nuestro enfoque ayudará a caracterizar rápidamente las respuestas inmunes alteradas en pacientes sépticos y de shock séptico ingresados en la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos. Finalmente analizamos el papel de la metilación del ADN en el control del sistema inmune séptico. Nuestros resultados demostraron el papel central de la metilación del ADN modulando la respuesta molecular en los pacientes de shock séptico y contribuyendo a la inmunosupresión, a través de la alteración de los patrones de metilación de los promotores de IL-10 y TREM-2.Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by an abnormal host response to an infection that produce altered physiological responses which damages own tissues of the patient and can result in organ dysfunction and in some cases death. Likewise, a subset of septic patients progresses to septic shock, characterized by substantial circulatory, cellular and metabolic abnormalities, which substantially increase the risk of mortality. Sepsis is characterized by a malfunction of the immune system and it can lead to an altered immune response and immunosuppression. Moreover, the high complexity of the pathophysiology of sepsis requires of further investigation to characterize the immune responses in sepsis and septic shock. Likewise, circulating extracellular histones have gained relevance as cytotoxic mediators in sepsis pathophysiology, since they act as damage-associated molecular patterns, which induce oxidative stress and activate NLRP3 inflammasome. Subsequently, inflammasome mediates pyroptosis activation, a programmed cell death mechanism that produces inflammation through the release of IL-18, IL-1β and IL-1α. However, despite inflammasome activation may occur in immune cells during sepsis, it is unknown if this process also takes place in endothelial cells and particularly whether extracellular histones are capable of activating endothelial inflammasomes and their consequences. In this work we highlight a previously unknown role for extracellular histones, that mediates the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome and pyroptosis in endothelial cells by contributing to endothelial dysfunction and the dysregulation of the immune response mediated by endothelium. Likewise, we demonstrated how histone acetylation decreases pyroptosis activation. Furthermore, we show how pyroptosis occurs in septic shock patients and how circulating histone levels correlate with the expression of pro-inflammatory and pyroptotic cytokines, the release of endothelial adhesion factors and septic shock severity. We propose histone-mediated pyroptosis as a new target to develop clinical interventions. Similarly, we have analyzed the immune-related responses occurring during the early stages of sepsis with the aim of providing new data by comparing the amounts of cytokines, immune modulators and other endothelial mediators in critically-ill non-septic patients, septic and septic shock patients. Our approach will help to rapidly characterize the altered immune responses in septic and septic shock patients admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. Finally, we also analyzed the role of DNA methylation in the control of septic immune system. Our results demonstrated the central role of DNA methylation modulating the molecular response in septic shock patients and contributing to immunosuppression, through the alteration of DNA methylation patterns of IL-10 and TREM2 promoters
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