Visualización de cuencas hidrocarburíferas con realidad virtual

Se presenta una aplicación web de realidad virtual, orientada a la industria de Gas y Petróleo, capaz de construir una representación interactiva y tridimensional de una cuenca sedimentaria con potencial hidrocarburífero. Esta herramienta didáctica permite navegar un modelo 3D utilizando un casco de realidad virtual. Las vistas 3D se generan mediante la combinación de las técnicas de rendering tradicional con la técnica de Raymarching. Las superficies se describen a partir de funciones SDF (Signed Distance Functions) y son computadas mediante un píxel shader en la GPU. Esto permite alterar en tiempo real, la forma de las superficies sin utilizar triángulos. El usuario puede controlar con sus manos, un conjunto de operadores que permiten sustraer partes del volumen. La visualización del terreno permite analizar sus propiedades en distintas direcciones, facilitando la comprensión de los componentes de la cuenca y la identificación de reservorios de hidrocarburos.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Case report: Twice-daily tolvaptan dosing regimen in a challenging case of hyponatremia due to SIAD

Background: Syndrome of inappropriate antidiuresis (SIAD) is one of the most frequent causes of euvolemic hyponatremia (serum sodium levels < 135 mEq/L) and it represents more than 35% of hyponatremia cases in hospitalized patients. It is characterized by an inappropriate vasopressin (AVP)/antidiuretic hormone (ADH) secretion, which occurs independently from effective serum osmolality or circulating volume, leading to water retention via its action on type 2 vasopressin receptor in the distal renal tubules. Corpus callosum agenesis (CCA) is one of the most common congenital brain defects, which can be associated to alterations in serum sodium levels. This report presents a rare case of chronic hyponatremia associated with SIAD in a woman with CCA, whose correction of serum sodium levels only occurred following twice-daily tolvaptan administration. Case presentation: A 30-year-old female was admitted to our hospital for non-acute hyponatremia with dizziness, headache, distal tremors, and concentration deficits. She had profound hyponatremia (Na 121 mmol/L) with measured plasma hypo-osmolality (259 mOsm/Kg) and urinary osmolality greater than 100 mOsm/Kg (517 mOsm/Kg). She presented clinically as normovolemic. After the exclusion of other causes of normovolemic hyponatremia, such as hypothyroidism and adrenal insufficiency, a diagnosis of SIAD was established. We have ruled out paraneoplastic, inflammatory, and infectious causes, as well as ischemic events. Her medical history showed a CCA and frontal teratoma. We administered tolvaptan initially at a low dosage (15 mg once a day) with persistence of hyponatremia. Therefore, the dosage was first doubled (30 mg once a day) and then increased to 45 mg once a day with an initial improvement in serum sodium levels, although not long-lasting. We therefore tried dividing the 45 mg tolvaptan administration into two doses of 30 mg and 15 mg respectively, using an off-label treatment schedule, thus achieving long-lasting serum sodium levels in the low-normal range associated with a general clinical improvement. Conclusions: This report underlines the importance of the correct diagnosis, management and treatment of SIAD, as well as the need for further studies about the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of vasopressin receptor antagonists

Is it Possible to avoid rh-TSH test in Patients with Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma by Using the Association between Ablation and Suppressive Thyroglobulin?

Background: The follow-up of differentiated thyroid cancers is based on neck ultrasonography and serum thyroglobulin assay (Tg), during l-T4 therapy and after recombinant human TSH administration; this test appears quite expensive, considering that only a small percentage of patients with undetectable Tg on TSH suppression therapy shows a response after TSH stimulation. Objectives: The aim of our study was to verify whether low levels of serum thyroglobulin at the time of remnant ablation (A-Tg) associated with undetectable thyroglobulin levels on TSH suppression (S-Tg), have sufficient negative predictive value for recurrence of disease, thus avoiding rh-TSH test in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer patients. Methods: we retrospectively enrolled 975 DTC patients treated with thyroidectomy+131-I remnant ablation showing undetectable S-Tg measured after 12 months follow-up. The availability of A-Tg and rh-TSH stimulated Tg (R-Tg) obtained 1 year later were considered as inclusion criteria. Patients with positive circulating Ab-Tg and/or histological dedifferentiation were excluded. Patients were subdivided in high and low risk of recurrence according to the criteria proposed by the European Thyroid Cancer Taskforce. Results: Using rh-TSH test as gold standard, the NPV for A-Tg<10 μg/L was 98.5% in group A (low risk patients) and 95.5% in group B (high risk patients); it significantly raised to 99.2% in group A (p-value 0.03) and 99.3% in group B (p-value 0.02) when the association between A-Tg<10 μg/L and S-Tg<0.6 μg/L was considered. When we evaluated the whole population the negative predictive value was 97% for A-Tg<10 μg/L alone, raising to 99.3% when associated with S-Tg<0.6 μg/L (p-value<0.008). Conclusion: our data confirmed the very high negative predictive value of the association between low levels of A-Tg and undetectable S-Tg in the early risk stratification of differentiated thyroid cancer patients, leading to avoid rh-TSH test with an important economic impact

Análisis de la estructura cortical en el centro-sur de Chile y Argentina, a partir de modelos de gravedad satelital

Los modelos de gravedad combinan datos satelitales con datos terrestres y logran alcanzar alta resolución espacial y aceptable precisión en sus determinaciones de gravedad, conviertiéndolos en una herramienta de utilidad para el análisis tectónico (Braitenberg, 2005).En este trabajo, utilizamos el modelo combinado EIGEN-6C4 (Förste et al., 2014), que combina los datos del satélite GOCE con los datos de gravedad terrestre, ambos corregidos por el efecto topográfico, con el fin de estudiar la estructura de la corteza de la zona de transición entre los Andes Centro-Sur y Patagónicos y la zona de antepaís adyacente.Se calcularon las anomalías de gravedad y gradiente de gravedad vertical para el mapeo de las heterogeneidades de la densidad cortical con el objetivo de validar y discutir los modelos corticales propuestos previamente. Aunque este trabajo proporciona restricciones geofísicas adicionales para varias estructuras corticales que se discutieron sobre la base de evidencias geológicas, como algunos límites paleogeográficos panafricanos y famatinianos, otros contrastes gravimétricos deben evaluarse más en relación con su importancia tectónica, como la zona de fallas Malvinas, la estructura interna del Macizo Norpatagónico y el lineamiento Ojos del Salado. En éste trabajo, destacamos que los nuevos modelos de campo de gravedad son útiles para identificar las características de orden cortical, siendo una herramienta innovadora en la exploración geofísica y el desarrollo de modelos tectónicos y paleogeográficos.Fil: Gimenez, Mario Ernesto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Geofísico Sismológico Volponi; ArgentinaFil: Pesce, Agustina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Geofísico Sismológico Volponi; ArgentinaFil: Arecco, Maria Alejandra. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería Olavarría; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Geodesia y Geofísica Aplicadas "Ing. Eduardo E. Baglietto"; ArgentinaFil: Pechuan Canet, Stefanie Nadia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Geofísico Sismológico Volponi; ArgentinaFil: Nacif Suvire, Silvina Valeria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Geofísico Sismológico Volponi; ArgentinaFil: Lince Klinger, Federico Gustavo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Geofísico Sismológico Volponi; ArgentinaFil: Álvarez, Orlando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Geofísico Sismológico Volponi; ArgentinaFil: Folguera, Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Estudios Andinos "Don Pablo Groeber". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Estudios Andinos "Don Pablo Groeber"; ArgentinaXVII Reunión de TectónicaLa RiojaArgentinaUniversidad Nacional de La RiojaAsociación Geológica Argentina. Comisión de Tectónic

Targeting PIK3CA Actionable Mutations in the Circulome: A Proof of Concept in Metastatic Breast Cancer

The study of circulating cancer-derived components (circulome) is considered the new frontier of liquid biopsy. Despite the recognized role of circulome biomarkers, their comparative molecular profiling is not yet routine. In advanced breast cancer (BC), approximately 40% of hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative BC cases harbor druggable PIK3CA mutations suitable for combined alpelisib/fulvestrant treatment. This pilot study investigates PIK3CA mutations in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), tumor cells (CTCs), and extracellular vesicles (EVs) with the aim of determining which information on molecular targetable profiling could be recollected in each of them. The in-depth molecular analysis of four BC patients demonstrated, as a proof-of-concept study, that it is possible to retrieve mutational information in the three components. Patient-specific PIK3CA mutations were found in both tissue and ctDNA and in 3/4 cases, as well as in CTCs, in the classical population (large-sized CD45&minus;/EpCAM+/&minus; cells), and/or in the &ldquo;non-conventional&rdquo; sub-population (smaller-sized CD44+/EpCAM&minus;/CD45&minus; cells). Consistent mutational profiles of EVs with CTCs suggest that they may have been released by CTCs. This preliminary evidence on the molecular content of the different circulating biomaterials suggests their possible function as a mirror of the intrinsic heterogeneity of BC. Moreover, this study demonstrates, through mutational assessment, the tumor origin of the different CTC sub-populations sustaining the translational value of the circulome for a more comprehensive picture of the disease