Evaluation of lead i ECG features discriminant power for cardiac diseases identification

This work proposes to analyze the capacity of several ECG features ofLead I to discriminate 28 pairs of study groups, combining 7 patholog-ical groups and 1 control group, presented in the PTB Diagnostic ECGDatabase. For each pair, it was achieved an accuracy between 66.7% and96.9% using feature selection algorithm and SVM classifiers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Structural MRI texture analysis for detecting Alzheimer's disease

Purpose:: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has the highest worldwide prevalence of all neurodegenerative disorders, no cure, and low ratios of diagnosis accuracy at its early stage where treatments have some effect and can give some years of life quality to patients. This work aims to develop an automatic method to detect AD in 3 different stages, namely, control (CN), mild-cognitive impairment (MCI), and AD itself, using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI). Methods:: A set of co-occurrence matrix and texture statistical measures (contrast, correlation, energy, homogeneity, entropy, variance, and standard deviation) were extracted from a two-level discrete wavelet transform decomposition of sMRI images. The discriminant capacity of the measures was analyzed and the most discriminant ones were selected to be used as features for feeding classical machine learning (cML) algorithms and a convolution neural network (CNN). Results:: The cML algorithms achieved the following classification accuracies: 93.3% for AD vs CN, 87.7% for AD vs MCI, 88.2% for CN vs MCI, and 75.3% for All vs All. The CNN achieved the following classification accuracies: 82.2% for AD vs CN, 75.4% for AD vs MCI, 83.8% for CN vs MCI, and 64% for All vs All. Conclusion:: In the evaluated cases, cML provided higher discrimination results than CNN. For the All vs All comparison, the proposedmethod surpasses by 4% the discrimination accuracy of the state-of-the-art methods that use structural MRI.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Para o encanto, espanto ou edificação das criaturas: Peregrino Jr. e as ideias científicas de Kretschmer em revistas de variedades do Rio de Janeiro (1930-1941)

[pt] A década de 1930 foi um período de ampla circulação de teorias médico-psicológicas que tratavam sobre a constituição individual e os tipos de personalidade na imprensa brasileira. Neste artigo, analiso o papel desempenhado pelo médico e escritor João Peregrino Jr. na divulgação da teoria sobre os temperamentos, criada pelo médico Ernest Kretschmer, em revistas de variedades do Rio de Janeiro, no período de 1930 a 1941. Observo como as apropriações dessa teoria, realizadas por Peregrino Jr., foram aplicadas aos debates locais sobre dois temas interligados: a aplicação de teorias médicas na crítica literária e estudos biográficos e a relação entre medicina e literatura, temáticas que, de um ponto de vista mais amplo, se referiam à discussão sobre as relações entre ciência e arte. Sobre o primeiro tema, Peregrino Jr. defendeu que a utilização das teorias de Kretschmer tornariam os estudos mais completos e aprofundados do que aqueles embasados em outras correntes médicas e psicológicas, enquanto, sobre o segundo tema, considerou que os médicos estariam mais aptos a desenvolver este tipo de literatura de divulgação que outros escritores. Desta maneira, argumento que Peregrino Jr. operou como mediador cultural, levando um tema debatido por especialistas para um público mais amplo no Rio de Janeiro

Response of vertebrate scavengers to power line and road rights-of-way and its implications for bird fatality estimates

Linear infrastructures, such as power lines and roads, are an important source of bird mortality. However, little is known on the potential effect of these infrastructures on local scavenger guilds, their foraging activity and the resulting bird carcass removal patterns. This is an important source of bias in studies aiming to quantify bird fatalities due to linear infrastructures. We used camera-traps to record scavenger identity and persistence patterns of bird carcasses placed close to linear infrastructure and nearby controls in two Mediterranean agricultural regions. We found that linear infrastructure influence on scavenger identity varied depending on the region. Contrary to expectations, linear infrastructure presence had either none or a positive effect on carcass persistence, meaning that carcasses placed within power line or road rights-of-way were not removed faster than the ones placed in controls. We conclude that linear infrastructure effect on vertebrate scavenging patterns is likely to be region-specific, and that reliable correction factors for carcass removal-bias in bird fatality estimates require site-specific experiments to characterize local scavenging processesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Adenocarcinoma do Íleon. Uma Entidade Rara e de Diagnóstico Tardio

INTRODUÇÃO A neoplasia do intestino delgado é uma entidade rara, apresentando uma incidência anual de cerca de 2.1 casos por 100,000 pessoas, sendo o adenocarcinoma, o segundo tipo histológico mais frequente (em 33% dos casos). A localização distal deste tipo de tumor é menos habitual, o que torna o adenocarcinoma do íleon num evento invulgar. A raridade deste tipo de patologia, associada a uma apresentação clínica pouco específica, origina habitualmente um atraso no diagnóstico e tratamento. CASO CLÍNICO Doente de 66 anos admitida no S.U. com quadro de dor abdominal localizada na fossa ilíaca direita com cerca de 6 dias de evolução e agravamento progressivo. Anorexia, náuseas e vómitos no dia de admissão. Empastamento doloroso à palpação na fossa ilíaca direita. Exames complementares revelaram tumor inflamatório do apêndice ileocecal. Intraoperatoriamente constatou-se neoformação com envolvimento do apêndice ileocecal, cego e segmento de íleon distal. Adenopatias na raíz do mesentério. Optou-se pela realização de hemicolectomia direita com ressecção em bloco de íleon distal. O resultado histológico revelou adenocarcinoma do íleon, que se estendia ao apêndice ileocecal e condicionando apendicite aguda (pT4N0). DISCUSSÃO/CONCLUSÃO Este caso apresenta uma patologia pouco frequente, caracterizada por um diagnóstico tardio e de difícil realização. Sublinhamos neste trabalho, a importância de um diagnóstico mais precoce e um tratamento adequado, de forma a obter um aumento da taxa de sobrevivência destes doentes

Characterization of Ocular Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis Isolates Belonging Predominantly to Clonal Complex 2 Subcluster II

Staphylococcus epidermidis is an abundant member of the microbiota of the human skin and wet mucosa, which is commonly associated with sight-threatening infections in eyes with predisposing factors. Ocular S. epidermidis has become notorious because of its capability to form biofilms on different ocular devices and due to the evolving rates of antimicrobial resistance. in this study, the molecular epidemiology of 30 ocular methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis (MRSE) isolates was assessed using multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Antimicrobial resistance, accessory gene-regulator and staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) types, biofilm formation, and the occurrence of biofilm-associated genes were correlated with MLST clonal complexes. Sequence types (STs) frequently found in the hospital setting were rarely found in our collection. Overall, 12 different STs were detected with a predominance of ST59 (30%), ST5 and ST6 (13.3% each). Most of the isolates (93.3%) belonged to the clonal complex 2 (CC2) and grouped mainly within subcluster CC2-II (92.9%). Isolates grouped within this subcluster were frequently biofilm producers (92.3%) with a higher occurrence of the aap (84.5%) and bhp (46.1%) genes compared to icaA (19.2%). SCCmec type IV (53.8%) was predominant within CC2-II strains, while 38.4% were nontypeable. in addition, CC2-II strains were frequently multidrug resistant (80.7%) and demonstrated to be particularly resistant to ciprofloxacin (80.8%), ofloxacin (77%), azithromycin (61.5%), and gentamicin (57.7%). Our findings demonstrate the predominance of a particular MRSE cluster causing ocular infections, which was associated with high rates of antimicrobial resistance and particularly the carriage of biofilm-related genes coding for proteinaceous factors implicated in biofilm accumulation.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Div Infect Dis, Special Clin Microbiol Lab, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Ocular & Mol Microbiol Lab, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Ophthalmol, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Div Infect Dis, Special Clin Microbiol Lab, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Ocular & Mol Microbiol Lab, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Ophthalmol, São Paulo, BrazilCNPq: 477162/2009-6Web of Scienc