Majocchi’s Granuloma by Trichophytum rubrum in a kidney transplant patient - A case report

Introduction: Trichophytum rubrum is a filamentous fungus, with worldwide distribution, that usually causes superficial infections of skin and nails, namely tinea pedis, tinea corporis, tinea cruris and onychomycosis. Rarely, severe dermatophytosis can occur, presenting as deep dermatophytosis, Majocchi’s Granuloma or extensive dermatophytosis. Objectives and Methods: Case report of Majocchi’s Granuloma in a kidney transplant patient. Results: A case of a 55-year-old woman who underwent a kidney transplant 7 months before, under immunosuppressive therapy with tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil. She attended a Dermatology consultation to clarify skin lesions that appeared 6 months earlier. The skin exam revealed hard and painful plaque lesions on both legs, with an ulcer on the left leg lesion, violaceous papular lesions on the dorsum of the left foot and toes and a hard consistency nodule on the left leg. Some of the toe nails presented dystrophy or onycholysis. The patient denied any previous trauma or contact with plants or soil. Biopsies of lesions of the left leg and foot dorsum where sent for histology and mycological culture and toe nails for mycological culture. The histological examinations showed, in the reticular dermis and reaching the hypodermis, suppurative granulomas with multinucleated giant cells and areas of necrosis. PAS (Periodic Acid- Schiff) and GMS (Grocott’s Methenamine Silver) staining revealed multiple spores and septate hypha within the granulomas but not in the stratum corneum. No remnants of hair follicles where found. Culture of skin biopsies were positive for Tricophytum rubrum but nails´ culture was negative. Identification was further confirmed by sequencing of ITS region of ribosomal DNA (GenBank accession number MK967277). Oral Itraconazole 100mg bid and topic Sertoconazole where initiated. The patient was observed one month after and reported general malaise, tiredness, exertional dyspnea, whitish stools and increased abdominal volume. The physician chose to discontinue itraconazole and initiate oral terbinafine 250mg id. After two months on oral terbinafine, there was regression of the legs´ and left foot lesions with ulcer healing and disappearance of the left leg nodule. Conclusion: Diagnosis of deeper dermatophytosis is difficult, in part because there is no specific clinical presentation and, in many cases, it is even polymorphic. However, especially in patients with immunodeficiency, this hypothesis should be weighed. Confirmation is achieved by finding hyphae compatible with dermatophytes in the dermis and a positive culture for a dermatophyte. Treatment should include systemic antifungal agents, to which topical medication may be associated. Multiple therapeutic regimens have been proposed, but randomized trials or large case series are lacking. Antifungal therapy should be continued until the lesions are completely resolved. Surgical treatment has been reported as an option for highly localized lesions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Electromagnetic Structure of the Pion

In this work, we analyze the electromagnetic structure of the pion. We calculate its electromagnetic radius and electromagnetic form factor in low and intermediate momentum range. Such observables are determined by means of a theoretical model that takes into account the constituent quark and antiquark of the pion within the formalism of light-front field theory. In particular, we consider a nonsymmetrical vertex in this model, with which we calculate the electromagnetic form factor of the pion in an optimized way, so that we obtain a value closer to the experimental charge radius of the pion. The theoretical calculations are also compared with the most recent experimental data involving the pion electromagnetic form factor and the results show very good agreement.Comment: Paper with 4 pages, 1 figure, presented in XII HADRON PHYSICS Conference - to appear in AIP Conference Proceeding

A impulsividade/reflexividade: contributos para a validação de un construto e uma escala

[Resumo] Descreve-se um estudo empírico realizado junto de 45 crianças entre os 3 e os 5 anos de dois Jardins de Infancia da cidade de Braga, tendo em vista a recolha de novos elementos de validaçao de unha escala de avaliaçao da reflexividade/impulsividade (KRISP), já estudada na populaçao portuguesa (Cruz, 1987). Os dados apontam para a possibilidade do construto se encontrar em organizaçao em crianças com 3 anos de idade em face do coeficiente de correlaçao negativo, mas nao estatisticamente significativo, entre o tempo de latencia e o número de erros. Ao mesmo tempo, os coeficientes de correlaçao elevados entre as notas na escala e as pontuaçoes dadas pelas educadoras em vários indicadores do desempenho cognitivo e do desenvolvimento das crianças apontam para a validade externa dos resultados obtidos nesta escala e, novamente, para a importancia educacional deste estilo cognitivo "reflexividade-impulsividade"

Cerebellar ataxia with spasmodic cough: a new form of dominant ataxia

Background: Although mentioned in most series, “pure” autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias, except spinocerebellar ataxia type 6, are difficult to differentiate on clinical grounds. Objective: To describe Portuguese families with a peculiar pure form of dominant ataxia that, to our knowledge, has never been documented before and in which cerebellar signs are preceded by spasmodic cough. Patients: Through a population-based survey of hereditary ataxias in Portugal, we identified 19 patients in 6 families with this particular disorder. Results: The majority of patients had a pure late-onset ataxia with a benign evolution. In all of the families, attacks of spasmodic coughing preceded ataxia for 1 to 3 decades and were a reliable marker of the disease. In Portugal, this form of ataxia accounts for 2.7% of all of the dominant ataxias. Conclusions: The families that we describe shared some relevant clinical and imagiological features with spinocerebellar ataxia type 5 and the recently described spinocerebellar ataxia type 20, allelic to spinocerebellar ataxia type 5. Spinocerebellar ataxia types 5 and 20 could be different phenotypic expressions of the same molecular disorder. The association of a dominant ataxia with spasmodic cough is rare but probably underdiagnosed.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

Study of Subjective and Objective Quality Evaluation of 3D Point Cloud Data by the JPEG Committee

The SC29/WG1 (JPEG) Committee within ISO/IEC is currently working on developing standards for the storage, compression and transmission of 3D point cloud information. To support the creation of these standards, the committee has created a database of 3D point clouds representing various quality levels and use-cases and examined a range of 2D and 3D objective quality measures. The examined quality measures are correlated with subjective judgments for a number of compression levels. In this paper we describe the database created, tests performed and key observations on the problems of 3D point cloud quality assessment

J. Silvaa , N. Hipolito b,c , P. Machadob , S. Florab , J. Cruza,b, *

Acknowledgements: This work is part of a project funded by FEDER - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional by COMPETE 2020 Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and national funds by Fundação ao para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), entitled ^ “OnTRACK project - Time to Rethink Activity Knowledge: a personalized mHealth coaching platform to tackle physical inactivity in COPD” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028446, PTDC/SAU-SER/28446/2017). SF and NH are being financially supported by PhD fellowships DFA/BD/6954/2020 and 2021.05188.BD, respectively, funded by FCT/MCTES, FSE, Por_Centro and UE. PM acknowledges the support provided by the FCT with the PhD fellowship. The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by FCT to their research unit Center for Innovative Care and Health Technology (UIDB/05704/2020).Pulmonology is the official journal of the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology (Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia/SPP). The journal publishes 6 issues per year, mainly about respiratory system diseases in adults and clinical research. All articles published open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute.Introduction: Low physical activity (PA) levels have a negative impact on the health status of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Smartphone applications (apps) focused on PA promotion may mitigate this problem; however, their effectiveness depends on patient adherence, which can be influenced by the technological features of the apps. This systematic review identified the technological features of smartphone apps aiming to promote PA in patients with COPD. Methods: A literature search was performed in the databases ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. Papers including the description of a smartphone app for PA promotion in patients with COPD were included. Two researchers independently selected studies and scored the apps features based on a previously developed framework (38 possible features). Results: Twenty-three studies were included and 19 apps identified, with an average of 10 technological features implemented. Eight apps could be connected to wearables to collect data. The categories ‘Measuring and monitoring’ and ‘Support and Feedback’ were present in all apps. Overall, the most implemented features were ‘progress in visual format’ (n=13), ‘advice on PA’ (n=14) and ‘data in visual format’ (n=10). Only three apps included social features, and two included a web-based version of the app. Conclusions: The existing smartphone apps include a relatively small number of features to promote PA, which are mostly related to monitoring and providing feedback. Further research is warranted to explore the relationship between the presence/absence of specific features and the impact of interventions on patients’ PA levels.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A estação arqueológica de Nossa Senhora da Penha, Guimarães (Norte de Portugal): notícia preliminar das escavações de 2002

Com este texto, pretende-se relatar os trabalhos de escavação arqueológica, realizados durante o mês de Julho d e 2002, na estação arqueológica d a Senhora da Penha, no âmbito do projecto "The Entre-Douro-e -Minho landscape since middle of III to the end of II millenium BC". Este local, profundamente destruído, desde, pelo menos, os inícios do séc. XX. Forneceu inúmero e importante espólio arqueológico, hoje depositado nos Museus da Sociedade Martins Sarmento, em Guimarães, e Nacional de Arqueologia, em Lisboa. As escavações actuais, apesar de não terem fornecido os resultados esperados, permitiram, pelos menos, identificar um nível de ocupação calcolítica, conectável, genericamente, com grande parte do espólio depositado nos referidos museus. Tal, contribuirá para uma melhor contextualização cronológico-cultural do sítio, assim como para a sua reconstituição paleoambiental.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio