Stellar Populations in Barred Galaxies

We developed an iterative technique to better characterize stellar populations and the central activity of barred galaxies using evolutionary synthesis codes and OASIS data. The case of NGC5430 is presented here. Our results are reinforcing the role played by the bar and nuclear structures for the evolution of galaxies.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to be published in the proceedings of IAU Symp. 262 "Stellar Populations - Planing for the Next Decate" (Aug. 2009

Nanopartículas Poliméricas en Dermocosmética

Indexación: Web of Science; Scielo.Recent advances in the fields of biomaterials and nanotechnology have allowed the development of advanced nanoparticles for biomedical applications. Despite a vast number of nanostructures such as liposomes, solid­lipid nanocapsules, polymeric and hybrid lipid­polymer nanoparticles have been studied as carriers for drug delivery for different pathologies with remarkable promising results; the use of polymeric nanoparticles in dermocosmetic still has not been widely explored. The evolution of cosmetic into the care skin and dermatology represents novel technological challenges. Also, the increasing knowledge about normal skin physiology and advances in nanotechnology provide an attractive environment for the creation of innovative dermocosmetic formulations. In this work, we discuss the state of the art of polymeric nanoparticles formulated for dermocosmetics, its mechanisms of action, and diffusion into the skin.Los recientes avances en el campo de los biomateriales y la nanotecnología han permitido el desarrollo de nanopartículas avanzadas para aplicaciones biomédicas. A pesar de que un gran número de nanoestructuras tales como liposomas, nanocápsulas lípido-sólidas, nanopartículas poliméricas y lípido-polímero híbridas han sido estudiadas como vehículos para la administración de fármacos en diferentes patologías con notables resultados prometedores, el uso de nanopartículas poliméricas en dermocosmética todavía no ha sido ampliamente explorado. La evolución de la cosmética en el cuidado de la piel y la dermatología nos enfrentan a nuevos retos tecnológicos. Además, el aumento de los conocimientos sobre la fisiología de la piel normal y los avances en la nanotecnología proporcionan un entorno atractivo para la creación de formulaciones dermocosméticas innovadoras. En este trabajo se discute el estado del arte de las nanopartículas poliméricas desarrolladas para dermocosmética, sus mecanismos de acción y la difusión en la piel.http://ref.scielo.org/b68hz

Sex Determination by Observation of Barr Body in Teeth Subjected to High Temperatures

Galdames, IS (reprint author), Univ Talca, Ave Lircay S-N Oficina 104, Valparaiso, Chile.Sex determination is one of the keys in the identification process. A useful histological method for sex determination is the observation of Barr chromatin or Barr body. This study determines the effect of high temperatures on the diagnostic performance of the Barr chromatin observation on teeth. Were used 50 healthy teeth from 25 male and 25 female individuals aged between 14 and 44 years. The teeth were divided into 5 groups (each group with 5 female and 5 male teeth) and were exposed to controlled temperatures of 200, 400, 600, 800, and 1000 degrees C for 5 minutes. The coronal pulp was obtained and the tissue was processed and stained with hematoxylin-eosin. Four histological slides of male and 4 of female individuals were randomly selected, for each temperature level, which were observed by conventional microscopy at 100X magnification, each showing 50 cells per plate. The presence of 1 cell with visible sex chromatin was considered positive for females. It was only possible to evaluate the samples from groups subjected to 200 and 400 degrees C. In the groups analyzed, the test showed 100% accuracy. The average number of cells found to be positive Barr chromatin was 15 (SD 3.9) at 200 degrees C and 11 (SD 2.8) at 400 degrees C. Hence, it was possible to detect the sex at these temperatures by observing chromatin of the Barr body in dental pulp

Bilateral reversed palmaris longus muscle: a rare anatomical variation

We report a case of bilateral reversed palmaris longus muscle (PLM). The muscle was tendinous in its upper portion and muscular in its lower portion in both arms. This rare variation has been mentioned only once in the literature as a surgical finding. According to the literature, a reversed PLM may cause a compartment syndrome in the wrist area, carpal tunnel, and Guyon’s syndrome. The described variation is also useful to the hand surgeon as a tendon graft, a tendon for transfer, or as an anatomical landmark for operations at this area

Variations of the Vocal Fold Epithelium in a Menopause Induced Model

During menopause, changes occur in the laryngeal structures that have implications for the voice. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of induced menopause on the morphological parameters of the vocal fold mucosa in rats. Ten adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were used as samples and divided into two groups: 5 were surgically oophorectomized (OVX), and 5 underwent a surgical procedure similar to oophorectomy but without removal of the ovaries (SHAM). After 30 days surgery, the characteristics of the epithelium that forms the vocal fold mucosa in terms of cellular arrangement and organization of the epithelium were observed. Through the Morphometrics XS software, the epithelial height and the number and density of cellular layers were determined. Our results indicate that there were alterations in the number of cell layers that constitute the epithelium, as well as features, such as cellular cohesion and increased extracellular matrix. The number of cell layers was significantly higher (p<0.01) in the SHAM group with 6.66 (SD 1.07), whereas in the OVX was 3.2 (SD 0.83). The average thickness of the epithelium was 534.71 mm (SD 119.89), whereas in the SHAM group was 486.84 mm (SD 82.95); these differences were not statistically significant (p = 0.112). Changes in the characteristics of the epithelium covering the vocal folds can be related to clinical abnormalities, such as reduced voice quality and degeneration of the vocal folds in postmenopausal women

Joint Optical Flow and Temporally Consistent Semantic Segmentation

The importance and demands of visual scene understanding have been steadily increasing along with the active development of autonomous systems. Consequently, there has been a large amount of research dedicated to semantic segmentation and dense motion estimation. In this paper, we propose a method for jointly estimating optical flow and temporally consistent semantic segmentation, which closely connects these two problem domains and leverages each other. Semantic segmentation provides information on plausible physical motion to its associated pixels, and accurate pixel-level temporal correspondences enhance the accuracy of semantic segmentation in the temporal domain. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach on the KITTI benchmark, where we observe performance gains for flow and segmentation. We achieve state-of-the-art optical flow results, and outperform all published algorithms by a large margin on challenging, but crucial dynamic objects.Comment: 14 pages, Accepted for CVRSUAD workshop at ECCV 201

Bayesian Joint Detection-Estimation of cerebral vasoreactivity from ASL fMRI data

International audienceAlthough the study of cerebral vasoreactivity using fMRI is mainly conducted through the BOLD fMRI modality, owing to its relatively high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), ASL fMRI provides a more interpretable measure of cerebral vasoreactivity than BOLD fMRI. Still, ASL suffers from a low SNR and is hampered by a large amount of physiological noise. The current contribution aims at improving the re- covery of the vasoreactive component from the ASL signal. To this end, a Bayesian hierarchical model is proposed, enabling the recovery of per- fusion levels as well as fitting their dynamics. On a single-subject ASL real data set involving perfusion changes induced by hypercapnia, the approach is compared with a classical GLM-based analysis. A better goodness-of-fit is achieved, especially in the transitions between baseline and hypercapnia periods. Also, perfusion levels are recovered with higher sensitivity and show a better contrast between gray- and white matter

Feasibility of conducting an active exercise prehabilitation program in patients awaiting spinal stenosis surgery: a randomized pilot study

Prehabilitation is defined as the process of augmenting functional capacity before surgery in preparation for the postoperative phase. This study intends to assess the feasibility of conducting a preoperative intervention program in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis and to report on the piloting of the proposed intervention. Patients were allocated to a 6-week supervised preoperative rehabilitation program or a control group. The intervention included supervised exercise sessions aimed to improve strength, muscular endurance, and spinal stabilization. Outcomes were measured at baseline, 6 weeks later and again 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after surgery. Sixty-five percent of admissible participants agreed to take part in the study, of which 5% dropped out before the end of the intervention period. Eighty-eight percent of potential training sessions were delivered without adverse event. Improvements were seen in favour of the experimental group at the preoperative assessment for active ranges of motion, leg pain intensity, lumbar extensor muscle endurance and walking capacities. Results show that slight modifications to the choice of outcome measures would increase feasibility of the main study. The absence of adverse events coupled with positive changes seen in dependant outcome measures warrant the conduct of a full-scale trial assessing the effectiveness of the intervention. © 2019, The Author(s)