Neuroactive Steroids in Hypoxic–Ischemic Brain Injury: Overview and Future Directions

Hypoxic–ischemic brain injury is a number one cause of long-term neurologic disability and death worldwide. This public health burden is mainly characterized by a decrease in oxygen concentration and blood flow to the tissues, which lead to an inefficient supply of nutrients to the brain. This condition induces cell death by energy depletion and increases free radical generation and inflammation. Hypoxic–ischemic brain injury may occur in ischemic-stroke and over perinatal asphyxia, being both leading causes of morbidity in adults and children, respectively. Currently, there are no effective pharmaceutical strategies to prevent the triggering of secondary injury cascades, including oxidative stress and metabolic dysfunction. Neuroactive steroids like selective estrogen receptor modulators, SERMs, and selective tissue estrogenic activity regulators, STEARs, exert several neuroprotective effects. These encompass mitochondrial survival, a decrease in reactive oxygen species, and maintenance of cell viability, among others. In this context, these neurosteroids constitute promising molecules, which could modify brain response to injury. Here we show an updated overview of the underlying mechanisms of hypoxic–ischemic brain injury. We also highlight the neuroprotective effects of neurosteroids and their future directions

Composición química del aceite esencial de las hojas de Cymbopogon nardus y Cymbopogon citratus

El aceite esencial de hojas de Cymbopogon nardus y Cymbopogon citratus fue obtenido por destilación por arrastre con vapor de agua y analizado por cromatografía de gases de alta resolución (CGAR) y cromatografía de gases de alta resolución acoplado a espectrometría de masas (CGAR-EM) la composición química del aceite esencial de las partes aéreas de Citronela (Cymbopogon nardus) y Limoncillo (Cymbopogon citratus) cultivados en Caquetá. En el aceite esencial de C. nardus predominó citronelal (26%), geraniol (14%), elemol (9.9%), germacreno D-4-ol (6.5), citronelol (6.1%) y acetato de geranilo (5.6%), mientras que en el de C. citratos predominó geranial (49.7%), neral (30.5%) y â-mirceno (12.2%). El aceite esencial de C. citratus es menos denso y más ácido que el de C. nardus, en tanto que ambos aceites son dextro-rotatorios. De otro lado, se registran los espectros IR y UV de ambos aceites esenciales

Risks of dengue secondary infective biting associated with aedes aegypti in home environments in Monterrey, Mexico

Abstract. Secondary dengue virus infections are a major risk for developing dengue hemorrhagic fever. Recent exposure to infectious bites of Aedes aegypti (L.) females in previously diagnosed dengue cases fulfills the epidemiological model of dengue hemorrhagic fever. A study was comprised of 357 (89.2%) dengue and 43 (10.8%) dengue hemorrhagic fever cases confirmed by laboratory tests and clinical manifestations. An entomological survey was done in homes and backyards. Concurrently, a questionnaire was used to assess the impact of healthpromotion campaigns through knowledge of the vector and its epidemiological role. Seventy-six (28.4%) of the 268 (67.0%) total wet or dry oviposition sites were positive for the presence of larvae or pupae, while adult Ae. aegypti were found in 32 (8.0%). One hundred thirty-two (33%) householders who formerly had dengue fever or dengue hemorrhagic fever had knowledge of either larval or adult dengue vector stages. According to gender distribution, 145 (36.2%) and 14 (3.5%) of the males confirmed with cases of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever lived in houses with 17.9 and 2% of the Ae. aegypti larval and pupal habitats. Houses with females who had dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever were 212 (53%) and 29 (7.3%), with containers with immature Ae. aegypti in 19.4 and 7%, respectively. Lack of sustainability of government-targeted health education campaigns is the major problem for involving communities in prevention and control of dengu

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

Intravitreal bevacizumab in diabetic retinopathy. Recommendations from the Pan-American Collaborative Retina Study Group (PACORES): The 2016 knobloch lecture

The advent of intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) medications has revolutionized the treatment of diabetic eye diseases. Herein, we report the outcomes of clinical studies carried out by the Pan-American Collaborative Retina Study Group (PACORES), with a specific focus on the efficacy of intravitreal bevacizumab in the management of diabetic macular edema and proliferative diabetic retinopathy. We will also discuss the use of intravitreal bevaci-zumab as a preoperative, adjuvant therapy before vitrectomy for prolif-erative diabetic retinopathy. Copyright © 2017 by Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter