Bone mechanical stimulation with piezoelectric materials

This chapter summarized explores in vivo use of a piezoelectric polymer for bone mechanical stimulatio

Pulmonary Metastasis in a Cardiac Angiosarcoma. Case Report and Discussion

Apresenta-se um caso clínico referente a doente de 35 anos, do sexo masculino sem antecedentes pessoais relevantes, admitido no serviço de urgência por quadro de toracalgia e tosse produtiva com alterações electrocardiográficas sugestivas de pericardite. Inicialmente admitido pelo Serviço de Cardiologia, com melhoria do quadro clínico após terapêutica anti- -inflamatória; contudo, no internamento houve como intercorrência pneumonia de provável etiologia bacteriana, complicada por derrame pleural. Após a alta,foi referenciado à consulta de pneumologia, onde se manteve o estudo etiológico do derrame persistente, tendo vindo a complicar-se o seu quadro com alterações das cavidades cardíacas e múltiplos nódulos pulmonares, sugestivos de endocardite subaguda com embolização séptica pulmonar. Internado no serviço de Pneumologia e submetido a videotoracoscopia, foi-lhe diagnosticado angiossarcoma cardíaco com metastização pulmonar. Assistiu-se a uma rápida evolução do quadro clínico, quase fulminante, com falência cardíaca e óbito do doente sem ter iniciado radioterapia ou quimioterapia adjuvante

Editorial of Special Issue: The Toxicity of Nanomaterials and Legacy Contaminants: Risks to the Environment and Human Health

n/aAna Teresa Reis is thankful for the financial support of FCT and FEDER-Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional through the COMPETE 2020-POCI, in the framework of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029651, and individual FCT Grant SFRH/BPD/122112/2016. Sonia Fraga acknowledges the funding from the Operational Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) through the European Regional Development Funds (FEDER/FNR) and from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (grant refs. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031162 and DL-57/INSA-06/2018). The authors also thank FCT/MCTES for the financial support to EPIUnit (UIDB/04750/2020) and ITR (LA/P/0064/2020)

The Influence of Resistance Exercise Training on the Levels of Anxiety in Ischemic Stroke

The aim of this pilot study was to analyze the effect of a strength training program on indicators of trait and state anxiety in patients with ischemic stroke. The subjects were divided into two groups: experimental group (EG) consisting of 11 subjects aged years and a control group (CG) with 13 subjects aged years. EG underwent 12 weeks of strength training, with a frequency of three times a week. For data collection, a State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used. Significant differences were found between pre- and posttest in EG for trait anxiety ( pretest posttest) and state anxiety ( pretest posttest) with no differences in CG for trait anxiety ( pretest posttest) and state anxiety ( pretest posttest). In the evaluation between the groups, significant differences were found for all indicators of trait anxiety ( EG; CG) and state anxiety ( EG; CG). This pilot study indicates that strength training may provide an improvement in trait and state anxiety more than one year after stroke

Development of sex differences in listening

Various research with adults has shown that males are rated as more intelligent, more interesting, and more highly respected than females by both men and women. There is also evidence to indicate a developmental trend to these evaluations. In the present study it was hypothesized that younger boys and girls (age 5) would attain more information from a female model than from a male model, while older boys and girls (age 11) would attain more information from a male model. Mixed results were expected for 8 year olds such that boys would learn more from a male model and girls would learn more from n female model. Seventy-two children, 12 males and 12 females from grades K, 3, and 6, were shown a video-taped talk on puppet-making by either a male or female speaker, followed by a probed recall. Results indicate a developmental trend, but not as predicted. Sixth graders recalled more than Kindergarten subjects, while rating speaker effectiveness significantly lower than third grade and kindergarten subjects. Sixth graders also rated their interest in the topic after the presentation significantly lower than kindergarten subjects after hearing the female speaker. There were more differences in interest level after hearing the male speaker. Third grade males rated the information content lower than both kindergarten males and third grade females

Perceptions Of Juvenile Offenders Who Were Maltreated As Children

Research shows that when a study has participants act as mock jurors and experimentally manipulates child abuse, participants tend to recommend more lenient sentences for offenders with a history of abuse. Majority of the current research uses serious criminal offenses, such as murder, and many do not look into the influence of race, sex, and type of abuse. This study examined people’s perceptions of juvenile offenders who were maltreated as children by manipulating type of crime, type of abuse, the race of offender, and the sex of offender to see if these variables would influence the punitiveness of sentencing, and perceptions of the offender’s intent, responsibility, and blameworthiness. We recruited 209 Appalachian State University students and 430 participants from Amazon’s MTurk tool to read a short case vignette online and answer questions about it. We found that offenders who were abused were sentenced slightly harsher than those who were not abused and offenders who committed assault were sentenced harsher than offenders who committed breaking and entering. In the student sample, participants sentenced White offenders harsher than Black offenders, but the other sample found no difference. Lastly, in both samples the sex of the offender did not influence sentencing severity

Detection of ALK fusion transcripts in FFPE lung cancer samples by NanoString technology

Background: ALK-rearranged lung cancers exhibit specific pathologic and clinical features and are responsive to anti-ALK therapies. Therefore, the detection of ALK-rearrangement is fundamental for personalized lung cancer therapy. Recently, new molecular techniques, such as NanoString nCounter, have been developed to detect ALK fusions with more accuracy and sensitivity. Methods: In the present study, we intended to validate a NanoString nCounter ALK-fusion panel in routine biopsies of FFPE lung cancer patients. A total of 43 samples were analyzed, 13 ALK-positive and 30 ALK-negative, as previously detected by FISH and/or immunohistochemistry. Results: The NanoString panel detected the presence of the EML4-ALK, KIF5B-ALK and TFG-ALK fusion variants. We observed that all the 13 ALK-positive cases exhibited genetic aberrations by the NanoString methodology. Namely, six cases (46.15%) presented EML-ALK variant 1, two (15.38%) presented EML-ALK variant 2, two (15.38%) presented EML-ALK variant 3a, and three (23.07%) exhibited no variant but presented unbalanced expression between 5'/3' exons, similar to other positive samples. Importantly, for all these analyses, the initial input of RNA was 100 ng, and some cases displayed poor RNA quality measurements. Conclusions: In this study, we reported the great utility of NanoString technology in the assessment of ALK fusions in routine lung biopsies of FFPE specimens.This study was partially funded by FINEP (MCTI/FINEP/MS/SCTIE/DECIT), Brazil. BIOPLAT (1302/13).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Low frequency of TERT promoter mutations in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs).

Somatic mutations in the promoter region of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) gene, mainly at positions c. − 124 and c. − 146 bp, are frequent in several human cancers; yet its presence in gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) has not been reported to date. Herein, we searched for the presence and clinicopathological association of TERT promoter mutations in genomic DNA from 130 bona fide GISTs. We found TERT promoter mutations in 3.8% (5/130) of GISTs. The c. − 124C4T mutation was the most common event, present in 2.3% (3/130), and the c. − 146C4T mutation in 1.5% (2/130) of GISTs. No significant association was observed between TERT promoter mutation and patient’s clinicopathological features. The present study establishes the low frequency (4%) of TERT promoter mutations in GISTs. Further studies are required to confirm our findings and to elucidate the hypothetical biological and clinical impact of TERT promoter mutation in GIST pathogenesis.This project was partially supported by Barretos Cancer Hospital internal research funds (PAIP) and CNPq Universal Grant (476192/2013-7) to RMR. NCC is a recipient of an FAPESP Doctoral Fellowship (2013/25787-3). Further funding from the project ‘Microenvironment, metabolism and cancer’ that was partially supported by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2—O Novo Norte) under the Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional (QREN) and the Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER). IPATIMUP is an Associate Laboratory of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education that is partially supported by the FCT

A serious games platform for cognitive rehabilitation with preliminary evaluation

In recent years Serious Games have evolved substantially, solving problems in diverse areas. In particular, in Cognitive Rehabilitation, Serious Games assume a relevant role. Traditional cognitive therapies are often considered repetitive and discouraging for patients and Serious Games can be used to create more dynamic rehabilitation processes, holding patients' attention throughout the process and motivating them during their road to recovery. This paper reviews Serious Games and user interfaces in rehabilitation area and details a Serious Games platform for Cognitive Rehabilitation that includes a set of features such as: natural and multimodal user interfaces and social features (competition, collaboration, and handicapping) which can contribute to augment the motivation of patients during the rehabilitation process. The web platform was tested with healthy subjects. Results of this preliminary evaluation show the motivation and the interest of the participants by playing the games.- This work has been supported by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia in the scope of the projects: PEst-UID/CEC/00319/2015 and PEst-UID/CEC/00027/2015. The authors would like to thank also all the volunteers that participated in the study