Mitral valve repair in rheumatics: Is it still worthwhile?

Prosthetic valve replacement in young patients carries increased morbidity and mortality, even with recent types and models of prostheses. Fortunately, rheumatic mitral regurgitation in this young population group is amenable to repair, although the results are less favourable than those observed with other types of mitral valve disease and in older populations. A better knowledge of the pathology and evolution of repair techniques has improved results. Hence mitral valve repair is still worthwhile, even in rheumatic pathology and, the percentage of valves repaired, increases with the experience and the will of the surgeon to preserve the valve. Mitral valve replacement can only be justified when good repair is not feasible. It is vital that the surgeon has adequate experience which can only be gained by exposure to enough patients with this condition. Most of these patients are in developing countries and hampered by socio-economic conditions – which means 1st World surgeons get limited required exposure

Caracterização de argamassas para assentamento de alvenaria de tijolo

Neste trabalho foram analisadas propriedades essenciais para um bom desempenho das argamassas de alvenaria de tijolo como: a trabalhabilidade, a resistência mecânica e a capacidade de absorver deformações em função do tipo de ligante e em função de diferentes areias. Com vários tipos de argamassas tradicionais e fabris foram avaliados parâmetros como: a resistência à compressão e à tracção, a energia de fractura, retracção e teor em ar. Variando o tipo de ligante (cimento, cal hidratada e cal hidráulica) e o tipo de areia (natural ou artificial) foi possível concluir acerca dos parâmetros mencionados, assim como fazer a comparação entre argamassas tradicionais e fabris

Preliminary Results on the Non-Destructive Determination of Pear (Pyrus communis L.) cv. Rocha Ripeness by Visible/Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy

Pear (Pyrus communis L.), cv. Rocha was rapidly adopted by consumers due to its inherent quality and currently has great acceptance in both national and international markets, being mainly produced in the west region of Portugal. We report here a first approach to the use of the non-intrusive method of Visible/Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (Vis/NIRS) to estimate the ripeness of pear cv. Rocha. Mature unripe pears obtained from Frutoeste (Mafra, Portugal) after a six-month cold-storage, were maintained in a dark room at circa 20 degrees C during three weeks. They were followed using the Vis/NIRS in the wavelength band between 400 and 950 nm with two different configurations for the spectra acquisition, namely the Integrating Sphere (IS) and the Partial Transmittance (PT). The diffuse reflectance spectra obtained by the two configurations were compared with the respective fruit ripening parameters (colour, firmness, soluble solids content and % dry matter), determined through the standard techniques. Concerning the rough estimation of ripening parameters, data suggested an increase in both the intensity in the green to red band and pulp %dry matter, but a decreasing firmness. All other parameters remained constant. Relatively to the optical results, we have observed that the PT spectra exhibited clearer features than the IS spectra, especially from 700 nm onwards. This is probably due to the fact that the PT configuration probes more deeply into the fruit pulp. Three peaks at 600 (circa 30%), 725 and 812 nm (both at circa 50%) and a minimum at 675 nm, were identified in both IS and PT spectra. The values of reflectance peaks were approximately constant during ripening, but they moved to slightly lower wavelengths in the second week. A significant increase (circa 3-fold) in the minimal diffuse reflectance was observed in the second week, most probably associated partially, to a decrease in the fruit peel chlorophyll content

Avaliação de estruturas de pavimentos rodoviários através de pista e simulador de ensaios acelerados à escala real

Os ensaios acelerados de pavimentos rodoviários consistem na aplicação controlada de um carregamento vertical, através de uma roda normalizada que circula a uma velocidade controlada, simulando as cargas reais introduzidas pelo tráfego pesado. Em condições de temperatura e humidade controladas, os ensaios acelerados permitem simular num período de tempo reduzido as ações a que um pavimento está sujeito ao longo da sua vida útil. No âmbito do Projeto Tropical-PAV foi construída no LNEC uma pista de ensaios à escala real e instalado um Simulador de Ensaios Acelerados sobre Pavimentos Rodoviários possibilitando o estudo e a validação de técnicas de construção e/ou reabilitação de pavimentos rodoviários. No presente trabalho é feita uma apresentação geral dos ensaios acelerados sobre pavimentos rodoviários e em particular do Projeto de I&D Tropical-PAV.Quadro de Referência Estratégica Nacional e à entidade financiadora Agência Nacional da Inovação pelo financiamento ao projeto número 38915 Projeto de I&D Tropical-PA

Soluções de pavimentos rodoviários para países com climas tropicais – projeto de I&D tropical-PAV

Algumas empresas do setor da construção que integram a Plataforma Tecnológica Portuguesa da Construção (PTPC) decidiram promover a cooperação tecnológica entre si e com as entidades do Sistema Científico e Tecnológico Nacional (SCTN) para o desenvolvimento de novas soluções de pavimentação rodoviária para aplicação em países de clima tropical, nomeadamente ao nível das misturas betuminosas e das camadas de solocimento. O objetivo do projeto foi permitir a eventual criação de uma solução de pavimentação inovadora através do desenvolvimento de uma mistura betuminosa e de uma mistura de solo-cimento formuladas com base em ensaios empíricos e de desempenho, à escala laboratorial e, posteriormente, validando esse desempenho num ensaio à escala real recorrendo a uma Pista de Ensaios Acelerados de Pavimentos, onde foram aplicados carregamentos idênticos às solicitações que serão alvo ao longo do seu período de vida útil. Esta Pista de Ensaios Acelerados de Pavimentos construída no âmbito deste projeto integra um protótipo de um simulador de tráfego, que reproduz a simulação do tipo de solicitação a que um pavimento habitualmente está sujeito

Lipid composition and dynamics of cell membranes of Bacillus stearothermophilus adapted to amiodarone

Bacillus stearothermophilus, a useful model to evaluate membrane interactions of lipophilic drugs, adapts to the presence of amiodarone in the growth medium. Drug concentrations in the range of 1-2 [mu]M depress growth and 3 [mu]M completely suppresses growth. Adaptation to the presence of amiodarone is reflected in lipid composition changes either in the phospholipid classes or in the acyl chain moieties. Significant changes are observed at 2 [mu]M and expressed by a decrease of phosphatidylethanolamine (relative decrease of 23.3%) and phosphatidylglycerol (17.9%) and by the increase of phosphoglycolipid (162%). The changes in phospholipid acyl chains are expressed by a decrease of straight-chain saturated fatty acids (relative decrease of 12.2%) and anteiso-acids (22%) with a parallel increase of the iso-acids (9.8%). Consequently, the ratio straight-chain/branched iso-chain fatty acids decreases from 0.38 (control cultures) to 0.30 (cultures adapted to 2 [mu]M amiodarone). The physical consequences of the lipid composition changes induced by the drug were studied by fluorescence polarization of diphenylhexatriene and diphenylhexatriene-propionic acid, and by differential scanning calorimetry. The thermotropic profiles of polar lipid dispersions of amiodarone-adapted cells are more similar to control cultures (without amiodarone) than those resulting from a direct interaction of the drug with lipids, i.e., when amiodarone was added directly to liposome suspensions. It is suggested that lipid composition changes promoted by amiodarone occur as adaptations to drug tolerance, providing the membrane with physico-chemical properties compatible with membrane function, counteracting the effects of the drug.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VNN-419BF60-K/1/8f2d4fae7f9c131d26230cf4123da94

Estimation of soluble solids content and fruit temperature in 'rocha' pear using Vis-NIR spectroscopy and the spectraNet–32 deep learning architecture

Spectra-based methods are becoming increasingly important in Precision Agriculture as they offer non-destructive, quick tools for measuring the quality of produce. This study introduces a novel approach for esti-mating the soluble solids content (SSC) of 'Rocha' pears using the SpectraNet-32 deep learning architecture, which operates on 1D fruit spectra in the visible to near-infrared region (Vis-NIRS). This method was also able to estimate fruit temperatures, which improved the SSC prediction performance. The dataset consisted of 3300 spectra from 1650 'Rocha' pears collected from local markets over several weeks during the 2010 and 2011 seasons, which had varying edaphoclimatic conditions. Two types of partial least squares (PLS) feature selection methods, under various configurations, were applied to the input spectra to identify the most significant wavelengths for training SpectraNet-32. The model's robustness was also compared to a similar state-of-the-art deep learning architecture, DeepSpectra, as well as four other classical machine learning algorithms: PLS, multiple linear regression (MLR), support vector machine (SVM), and multi-layer perceptron (MLP). In total, 23 different experimental method configurations were assessed, with 150 neural networks each. SpectraNet-32 consistently outperformed other methods in several metrics. On average, it was 6.1% better than PLS in terms of the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP, 1.08 vs. 1.15%), 7.7% better in prediction gain (PG, 1.67 vs. 1.55), 3.6% better in the coefficient of determination (R2, 0.58 vs. 0.56) and 5.8% better in the coefficient of variation (CV%, 8.35 vs. 8.86).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chlorophyll a Fluorescence: a Fast and Low-Cost Tool to Detect Superficial Scald in 'Rocha' Pear (Pyrus communis L. 'Rocha')?

This study aimed to test whether the chlorophyll a (Chla) fluorescence determined by a low-cost non-modulated fluorometer could provide fast, reliable and non-invasive estimators of superficial scald in 'Rocha' pear (Pyrus communis L. 'Rocha'). Fruit were harvested before the optimal maturation stage and cold stored under normal atmosphere for 7 months (NA: 0 degrees C, 90-95% RH) and 2 in controlled atmosphere (CA: 0 degrees C, 90-95% RH, 1.5 kPaO(2) + 0.5 kPa CO2) (T), or harvested at the optimal maturation stage and cold stored for 9 months under CA (C). Then, they were transferred to shelf-life conditions (22+/-2 degrees C, 70% RH) and followed for 7 d. Chla fluorescence, scald index (SI), ripening attributes, alpha-farnesene, conjugated trienols, and photosynthetic pigments were determined for each pear in both groups. Conditions chosen before shelf-life did not prevent the subsequent ripening of any fruit, but changed dramatically the superficial scald development pattern: in C fruit, the disorder developed progressively during shelf-life, whereas in T fruit, it peaked during storage. C fruit exhibited a significant negative correlation (R=-0.65; p<0.05) between Fv/Fm and scald development, but not with ripening (R=-0.15; p<0.05). As expected, the opposite was observed in T fruit, in which only a low, positive, yet significant correlation was found between Fv/Fm and ripening (R=0.44; p<0.05). The multiple regression approach using Fv/Fm and other Chla fluorescence parameters produced an equation from which we calculated the 'predicted' scald index in C fruit. This correlated clearly (R=0.73; p<0.05) with the real values visually assessed. If color values a*, b* and Hue were included in this multiple regression, the correlation was significantly enhanced (0.91; p<0.05). Although preliminary, this study has shown that basic Chla fluorescence parameters are valuable estimators of superficial scald in 'Rocha' pear and might be used in the early detection of the disorder

SpectraNet–53: A deep residual learning architecture for predicting soluble solids content with VIS–NIR spectroscopy

This work presents a new deep learning architecture, SpectraNet-53, for quantitative analysis of fruit spectra, optimized for predicting Soluble Solids Content (SSC, in Brix). The novelty of this approach resides in being an architecture trainable on a very small dataset, while keeping a performance level on-par or above Partial Least Squares (PLS), a time-proven machine learning method in the field of spectroscopy. SpectraNet-53 performance is assessed by determining the SSC of 616 Citrus sinensi L. Osbeck 'Newhall' oranges, from two Algarve (Portugal) orchards, spanning two consecutive years, and under different edaphoclimatic conditions. This dataset consists of short-wave near-infrared spectroscopic (SW-NIRS) data, and was acquired with a portable spectrometer, in the visible to near infrared region, on-tree and without temperature equalization. SpectraNet-53 results are compared to a similar state-of-the-art architecture, DeepSpectra, as well as PLS, and thoroughly assessed on 15 internal validation sets (where the training and test data were sampled from the same orchard or year) and on 28 external validation sets (training/test data sampled from different orchards/years). SpectraNet-53 was able to achieve better performance than DeepSpectra and PLS in several metrics, and is especially robust to training overfit. For external validation results, on average, SpectraNet-53 was 3.1% better than PLS on RMSEP (1.16 vs. 1.20 Brix), 11.6% better in SDR (1.22 vs. 1.10), and 28.0% better in R2 (0.40 vs. 0.31).project NIBAP ALG-01-0247-FEDER-037303, project OtiCalFrut ALG-010247-FEDER-033652info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Secondary tricuspid valve regurgitation : a forgotten entity

The tricuspid valve was virtually ignored for a long time in the past. However, the incidence of tricuspid insufficiency associated with left valvular disease is quite significant, ranging from 8% to 35% of cases. This is most common in conjunction with mitral valve disease but association with aortic valve pathology is not uncommon. It is most frequently related to rheumatic valve disease and much rarer in association with degenerative mitral valve disease. In most cases, the tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is so-called 'functional', corresponding to dilatation of the annulus, as a consequence of RV dilatation secondary to pulmonary hypertension. In 15-20% of cases, however, the injury can be organic, generally of rheumatic origin, but for the purposes of this work we will restrict our analysis to secondary (terminology now preferred over functional) TR. Originally, it was thought that in most patients with secondary TR, surgical treatment of the mitral valve disease would correct the problems of the right side and, hence, a conservative (no touch) approach to the tricuspid valve was recommended. More recently, however, it has become evident that in a significant number of cases secondary TR does not regress after appropriate correction of the left-side valvulopathy. Thus, the indications for surgery of the TR have moved towards a progressively more interventional attitude. Today, it is evident that we must intervene on the tricuspid valve in cases of obviously severe tricuspid insufficiency and in cases where perioperative detection of a more significant TR than expected is made, especially when triggered by increasing load conditions. In this work, we intend to review the current concepts on the anatomy, physiopathology, natural history, diagnosis and treatment of secondary TR