Case Report: Resolution of submacular haemorrhage secondary to exudative age-related macular degeneration after a single intravitreal dobesilate injection

[Introduction] Submacular haemorrhage is not an unusual cause of acute central vision loss, particularly in older people. It may be caused by a number of conditions, most common of which is exudative age-related madular degeneration. In patients affected by this type of macular degeneration, choroidal neovascularization extends into the subretinal space, producing substantial bleeding in approximately 17% of cases, resulting in large haemorrhages in the subretinal space that detach the neurosensory retina from the supporting retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) layer. This leads to substantial vision loss because of a relatively fast process of extensive photoreceptor atrophy in the overlying neuroretina and formation of macular scars[Case presentation] We describe a patient with submacular haemorrhage secondary to exudative age-related macular degeneration, treated with intravitreal injection of dobesilate. Two months later, visual acuity in the treated eye reached 0.50 with a significant improvement of the distortion and an anatomical resolution of the haemorrhage, as confirmed by optical coherence tomography.[Conclusions] Submacular haemorrhage secondary to exudative age-related macular degeneration can be successfully treated with intravitreal dobesilate. To our knowledge, this is the first case reporting a resolution of submacular haemorrhage after a single dobesilate injection.We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI)Peer reviewe

Breit corrections to individual atomic and molecular orbital energies

Several issues concerning Breit correction to electron-electron interaction in many-electron systems, which are important in precise atomic and molecular calculations, are presented. At first, perturbative versus self-consistent calculations of Breit correction were studied in selected cases. Second, the Z-dependence of Breit contribution per subshell is shown, based on values calculated for selected atoms with 30 ≤ Z ≤ 118. Third, the relations between magnetic and retardation parts of Breit interaction are analyzed. Finally, Gaunt contribution calculated for Kr, Xe, and Rn noble gas atoms and its iso-electronic HBr, HI, and HAt diatomic molecules has been compared to full-Breit atomic calculations. We found that Breit corrections should be treated by self-consistent calculations and that there is a functional dependence of those corrections for subshells as ϵnlBreit(Z)â‰a×Zb. We also found that molecular Gaunt corrections are close to their atomic counterparts for inner electrons though they are not for outer orbitals. In any case, accurate calculations must include retardation correction in addition to Gaunt.Fil: Koziol, Karol. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica; ArgentinaFil: Giménez, Carlos Ariel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Aucar, Gustavo Adolfo. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica; Argentin

Personal Autonomy Rehabilitation in Home Environments by a Portable Assistive Robot

Increasingly disabled and elderly people with mobility problems want to live autonomously in their home environment. They are motivated to use robotic aids to perform tasks by themselves, avoiding permanent nurse or family assistant supervision. They must find means to rehabilitate their abilities to perform daily life activities (DLAs), such as eating, shaving, or drinking. These means may be provided by robotic aids that incorporate possibilities and methods to accomplish common tasks, aiding the user in recovery of partial or complete autonomy. Results are highly conditioned by the system's usability and potential. The developed portable assistive robot ASIBOT helps users perform most of these tasks in common living environments. Minimum adaptations are needed to provide the robot with mobility throughout the environment. The robot can autonomously climb from one surface to another, fixing itself to the best place to perform each task. When the robot is attached to its wheelchair, it can move along with it as a bundle. This paper presents the work performed with the ASIBOT in the area of rehabilitation robotics. First, a brief description of the ASIBOT system is given. A description of tests that have been performed with the robot and several impaired users is given. Insight into how these experiences have influenced our research efforts, especially, in home environments, is also included. A description of the test bed that has been developed to continue research on performing DLAs by the use of robotic aids, a kitchen environment, is given. Relevant conclusions are also included.This work has been supported by the CAM Project S2009/DPI-1559/ROBOCITY2030 I

Gender differences in cooperation: experimental evidence on high school students

The emergence of cooperation among unrelated human subjects is a long-standing conundrum that has been amply studied both theoretically and experimentally. Within the question, a less explored issue relates to the gender dependence of cooperation, which can be traced back to Darwin, who stated that "women are less selfish but men are more competitive". Indeed, gender has been shown to be relevant in several game theoretical paradigms of social cooperativeness, including prisoner's dilemma, snowdrift and ultimatum/dictator games, but there is no consensus as to which gender is more cooperative. We here contribute to this literature by analyzing the role of gender in a repeated Prisoners' Dilemma played by Spanish high-school students in both a square lattice and a heterogeneous network. While the experiment was conducted to shed light on the influence of networks on the emergence of cooperation, we benefit from the availability of a large dataset of more 1200 participants. We applied different standard econometric techniques to this dataset, including Ordinary Least Squares and Linear Probability models including random effects. All our analyses indicate that being male is negatively associated with the level of cooperation, this association being statistically significant at standard levels. We also obtain a gender difference in the level of cooperation when we control for the unobserved heterogeneity of individuals, which indicates that the gender gap in cooperation favoring female students is present after netting out this effect from other socio-demographics factors not controlled for in the experiment, and from gender differences in risk, social and competitive preferences.This paper has benefited from the funding from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Projects ECO2012-34828, RESINEE and PRODIEVO). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Metabolite production and/or gut microbiota-associated metabotypes?

Funding Information: This research was supported by the Project PID2019-103914RB-I00 from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN, Spain) and by Fundación Séneca de la Región de Murcia (Spain), grant number 20880/PI/18. J.A.G.-B. was supported by a Standard European Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commission. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 838991. A.C.M. and C.E.I.-A. are the holders of predoctoral grants from MINECO (grant number BES-2016-078098) and MICINN (grant number FPU18/03961) (Spain), respectively. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Despite the high human interindividual variability in response to (poly)phenol consumption, the cause-and-effect relationship between some dietary (poly)phenols (flavanols and olive oil phenolics) and health effects (endothelial function and prevention of LDL oxidation, respectively) has been well established. Most of the variables affecting this interindividual variability have been identified (food matrix, gut microbiota, single-nucleotide-polymorphisms, etc.). However, the final drivers for the health effects of (poly)phenol consumption have not been fully identified. At least partially, these drivers could be (i) the (poly)phenols ingested that exert their effect in the gastrointestinal tract, (ii) the bioavailable metabolites that exert their effects systemically and/or (iii) the gut microbial ecology associated with (poly)phenol metabolism (i.e., gut microbiota-associated metabotypes). However, statistical associations between health effects and the occurrence of circulating and/or excreted metabolites, as well as cross-sectional studies that correlate gut microbial ecologies and health, do not prove a causal role unequivocally. We provide a critical overview and perspective on the possible main drivers of the effects of (poly)phenols on human health and suggest possible actions to identify the putative actors responsible for the effects.publishersversionpublishe

A solar flare driven by thermal conduction observed in mid-infrared

Context. The mid-infrared (mid-IR) range has been mostly unexplored for the investigation of solar flares. It is only recently that new mid-IR flare observations have begun opening a new window into the response and evolution of the solar chromosphere. These new observations have been mostly performed by the AR30T and BR30T telescopes that are operating in Argentina and Brazil, respectively. Aims. We present the analysis of SOL2019-05-15T19:24, a GOES class C2.0 solar flare observed at 30 THz (10 μm) by the ground-based telescope AR30T. Our aim is to characterize the evolution of the flaring atmosphere and the energy transport mechanism in the context of mid-IR emission. Methods. We performed a multi-wavelength analysis of the event by complementing the mid-IR data with diverse ground- and space-based data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the H-α Solar Telescope for Argentina, and the Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA). Our study includes the analysis of the magnetic field evolution of the flaring region and of the development of the flare. Results. The mid-IR images from AR30T show two bright and compact flare sources that are spatially associated with the flare kernels observed in ultraviolet (UV) by SDO. We confirm that the temporal association between mid-IR and UV fluxes previously reported for strong flares is also observed for this small flare. The EOVSA microwave data revealed flare spectra consistent with thermal free-free emission, which lead us to dismiss the existence of a significant number of non-thermal electrons. We thus consider thermal conduction as the primary mechanism responsible for energy transport. Our estimates for the thermal conduction energy and total radiated energy fall within the same order of magnitude, reinforcing our conclusions.Fil: López, Fernando Marcelo. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie. Escola de Engenharia. Centro de Radio Astronomia e Astrofisica; Brasil. Universidad Nacional de San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Giménez De Castro, Carlos Guillermo. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie. Escola de Engenharia. Centro de Radio Astronomia e Astrofisica; Brasil. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Mandrini, Cristina Hemilse. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Simões, Paulo J. A.. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie. Escola de Engenharia. Centro de Radio Astronomia e Astrofisica; BrasilFil: Cristiani, Germán Diego. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Gary, Dale E.. New Jersey Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Francile, Carlos Natale. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Departamento de Informática. Observatorio Astronómico Félix Aguilar; ArgentinaFil: Démoulin, Pascal. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Franci

Properties of fast submillimeter time structures during a large solar flare

We report properties of fast varying submillimeter emission during one of the strongest solar radio flares of solar cycle 23. Emission was obtained by the Solar Submillimeter-Wave Telescope at 212 and 405 GHz and compared with hard X-ray and γ-ray counts up to few tens of MeV photon energy ranges. We employ different methods to detect and characterize flux density variations and find that during the impulsive phase of the event, the closer in time to the peak flare, the higher the occurrence of the fastest and brightest time structures. The good comparison with hard X-ray and γ-ray count rates indicates that fast submillimeter pulses are the signatures of primary energetic injections. The characteristics of the fast spikes at 212 and 405 GHz, such as their flux density and localization, compared to those of the underlying slower impulsive component, also suggest that their nature is different.Fil: Raulin, Jean Pierre. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie; BrasilFil: Kaufmann, Pierre. Universidade Estadual de Campinas; Brasil. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie; BrasilFil: de Castro, Carlos G. Giménez. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie; BrasilFil: Pacini, Alessandra A.. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie; BrasilFil: Makhmutov, Vladimir S.. Russian Academy Of Sciences; RusiaFil: Levato, Orlando Hugo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito". Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito". Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito". Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Complejo Astronómico "El Leoncito"; ArgentinaFil: Rovira, Marta Graciela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; Argentin

Indoor air quality analysis using recurrent neural networks: a case study of environmental variables

In the pursuit of energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact, adequate ventilation in enclosed spaces is essential. This study presents a hybrid neural network model designed for monitoring and prediction of environmental variables. The system comprises two phases: An IoT hardware–software platform for data acquisition and decision-making and a hybrid model combining short-term memory and convolutional recurrent structures. The results are promising and hold potential for integration into parallel processing AI architectures

Galaxy clustering in the VVV Near-IR Galaxy Catalogue

Mapping galaxies at low Galactic latitudes and determining their clustering status are fundamental steps in defining the large-scale structure in the nearby Universe. The VVV Near-IR Galaxy Catalogue (VVV NIRGC) allows us to explore this region in great detail. Our goal is to identify galaxy overdensities and characterize galaxy clustering in the Zone of Avoidance. We use different clustering algorithms to identify galaxy overdensities: the Voronoi tessellations, the Minimum Spanning Tree and the Ordering Points To Identify the Clustering Structure. We studied the membership, isolation, compactness, and flux limits to identify compact groups of galaxies. Each method identified a variety of galaxy systems across the Galactic Plane that are publicly available.We also explore the probability that these systems are formed by concordant galaxies using mock catalogues. Nineteen galaxy systems were identified in all of the four methods. They have the highest probability to be real overdensities. We stress the need for spectroscopic follow-up observations to confirm and characterize these new structures.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 9 tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS