Intense pulsed light (IPL): An innovative method for the treatment of Meibomian gland dysfunction in patients with dry eye disease

Introduction: Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is a leading cause of dry eye syndrome. They produce lipids that contribute to the integrity of the tear film and slow down its evaporation. When these glands become blocked, they can lead to symptoms associated with dry eye disease. Until recently, only tear substitutes containing lipid components, omega-3 fatty acids, warm compresses, and topical anti-inflammatory agents were used for treatment. Intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy is a new treatment option for dry eye syndrome due to meibomian gland dysfunction.Aim: The aim of our study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of IPL for the treatment of dry eye syndrome due to meibomian gland dysfunction in patients of different age groups by examining the non-invasive tear breakup time (NITBUT) and Schirmer’s test measured before IPL treatment and their change after two IPL procedures.Material and Methods: ANTARES corneal topographer (CSO, ANTARES-2017) was used to measure the indicators. Intense pulsed light treatment was given to 61 patients in both eyes. Each patient had a second-degree MGD and underwent two procedures at an interval of two weeks. The tear breakup time (TBUT) and Schirmer’s test were assessed at baseline and two weeks after the last treatment. The analysis, by which the data were processed, is GLM Repeated Measures.Results: The majority of tests documented an improvement in the clinically relevant parameters, including the tear breakup time, Schirmer’s test, meibum quality, and Standard Evaluation of Eye Dryness Questionnaire. Side effects were relatively rare, but included discomfort and skin erythema. Age, gender and the application of artificial tears did not have a significant effect on the described results.Conclusion: Intense pulsed light shows therapeutic potential for MGD treatment, improving the quality of the tear film and reducing the symptoms of dry eye syndrome

Chemical Composition of Corallina mediterranea Areschoug and Corallina granifera Ell. et Soland

Abstract The composition of sterols, volatiles and some polar compounds from three Corallina samples (C. granifera and C. mediterranea from the Black Sea and C. mediterranea from the Mediterranean Sea) was established. The sterol composition of the Black Sea samples was similar but it differs from that of the Mediterranean sample. The composition of the volatiles was very complex. The main groups of constituent were hydrocarbons, alcohols, carbonyl compounds, acids and their esters, terpenes. The composition of the polar components, soluble in n-butanol, was also established. There were some differences in the chemical composition of the two Black Sea species, which may be due to the biodiversity between them, while the differences in the composition of the two C. mediterranea samples could be due to the differences in the environment (salinity, temperature, pollution, etc.)

Chemical composition and biological activities of the Black Sea algae Polysiphonia denudata (Dillw.) Kutz. and Polysiphonia denudata f. fragilis (Sperk) Woronich.

Abstract The two investigated algae had almost identical sterol composition, but there were signifi­cant differences in the com position of the polar components and especially in the composi­tion of the volatiles. P. denudata f. fragilis extracts possessed a stronger biological activity (antibacterial, antifungal and toxicity against Artemia salina). Despite the minute morpholog­ical differences between the two algae, we recommend P. denudata f. fragilis to be regarded as P. denudata subsp. fragilis

SARS-COV-2 GENOMIC SURVEILLANCE IN BULGARIA INDICATES DIVERSE DYNAMICS DRIVEN BY MULTIPLE INTRODUCTIONS OF DIFFERENT VIRAL VARIANTS IN 2022

Background. Evolution of the emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants raises concerns about the possibility of accelerated transmission,  disease severity, diagnostic challenges, and reduced vaccine effectiveness in the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Objectives for this study were to build a comprehensive national system for monitoring and genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2  and to identify the introduced virus variants in the country. Methods. We analyzed SARS-CoV-2 infections in 7948 representative clinical samples collected in medical institutions in different  geographical regions of the country in 2022. Whole-genome next-generation sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 was performed on samples  from randomly selected SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals by using a modified ARTIC v3-tailed amplicon method. A bioinformatic and  phylogenetic analyses of the obtained sequences was carried out. Results. Significant dynamics was observed in the spread of viral variants in 2022, which is characterized by the introduction and  spread of multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants. The phylogenomic analysis identified a high genetic heterogeneiety composed of a total of 152 different viral clades divided into 3 main supergroups: 114 (75.0%) of which were Omicron sub-variants, 35 (23.0%) Delta sub-variants, and 3 (2.0%) recombinant forms. Conclusion. Viral variants and their sub-clades with different potentials to impact disease severity were identified and the  information was immediately published for use by decision-makers and the scientific community. The global pandemic of COVID-19  has shown the importance of molecular biological surveillance, which is an indispensable element of the modern approach in the  fight against infectious diseases

Osteoid Osteoma of the Middle Phalanx of the Third Finger in a Child Mimicking a Malignancy

Osteoid osteoma is a rare occurrence in the hand, especially in children. We report here a rare case of a 12-year-old boy complaining of growing painful swelling of the middle phalanx of the third finger that had started 3 months earlier and had not responded to anti-inflammatory medication. Based on the clinical findings and plain radiographs, osteomyelitis or Ewing’s sarcoma was suspected. However, MRI revealed the typical characteristics of osteoid osteoma. The lesion was excised, and the histological examination confirmed the diagnosis. We make a brief review of the literature concerning this uncommon localization and discuss the differential diagnosis and treatment modalities

OpenBiodiv for Users: Applications and Approaches to Explore a Biodiversity Knowledge Graph

OpenBiodiv is a biodiversity database—knowledge graph based on Resource Description Framework (RDF)—that contains information extracted from the scientific literature. It provides access to an ecosystem of tools and services, including a Linked Open Dataset, an ontology (OpenBiodiv-O) and а website (Dimitrova et al. 2021).Using the available data, OpenBiodiv discovers links between various biodiversity data types (e.g., taxon names, treatments, specimens, sequences, people and institutions), to answer a user’s questions about specific taxa, scientific articles, materials examined and others.The full-text XML content is converted into Linked Open Data from journals on the ARPHA Publishing Platform and treatments extracted by Plazi’s TreatmentBank (stored in the Biodiversity Literature Repository at Zenodo). The database is updated and indexed daily using a workflow based on the Apache Kafka event-streaming platform. The workflow was developed during the European Union-funded Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library (BiCIKL) project (Penev et al. 2022b). By 1 of August 2023, the graph consisted of 24,939 articles; 167,471 treatments; 130,359 authors; 736,809 taxon names; 129,257 sequences; 1,390 institutions and collections, 117,854 figures; 18,585 tables, and 90,008 materials examined sections.Each semantic statement (e.g., authors, articles, treatments, taxonomic names, localities) has its own globally unique, persistent and resolvable identifier (GUPRI).There are four ways a user can explore the data on OpenBiodiv: General search The search engine is accessible from the OpenBiodiv homepage. The user needs to type in a key term, (e.g., a taxonomic name, authority or an article title), and the system retrieves information about it. Errors caused by misspellings are avoided due to the Elasticsearch index. It can also determine the semantic type of the searched entity.Application Programing Interface (API) OpenBiodiv can be used through a RESTful API for programmatic access. The documentation of the API is described on Swagger. The API construction and functionalities follow the recommendations elaborated by the Technical Research Infrastructures forum of the BiCIKL project (Addink et al. 2023).User applications based on a query algorithm This function can be applied for any data class. The method uses the relationships between an element type (e.g., taxon name) and the type of the section, where it can be found.An application example is Literature exploration, designed to answer the question: Give me information about X mentioned within article section type Y. The results show the number of mentions of the entity (e.g., taxon name) in the section(s) of interest (e.g., Title, Abstract, Treatment). A click navigates the user to the place in the article that mentions the item (Fig. 1).SPARQL queries in a thematic context OpenBiodiv provides a SPARQL endpoint through the Ontotext GraphDB solution*1. Several sample SPARQL queries*2 are also available on the OpenBiodiv website

TAVI in bicuspid aortic valve

Транскатетърната аортна клапна имплантация (TAVI) е утвърден избор за лечение на тежка аортна стеноза (АС) при иноперабилни пациенти или при лица с висок хирургичен риск. Ограничени са доказателствата за безопасността и ефективността на методиката при пациенти с бикуспидна аортна клапа (BAV) – най-честия вроден сърдечен дефект. Пациентите с BAV са били изключвани от рандомизираните клинични проучвания (RCT), сравняващи TAVI с хирургия, поради хетерогенната анатомия при тази нозологична единица и опасенията от незадоволителни процедурни и клинични резултати след TAVI. С подобрението на дизайна на новите генерации устройства, с нарастващия технически опит на екипите и с напредъка в образната диагностика се наблюдават все по-добри резултати и по-малко усложнения, което би могло да е предпоставка за разширяване на индикациите за транскатетърно протезиране при пациенти с BAV АС. В настоящия обзор се представят възможностите за лечение с TAVI на пациенти с BAV, резултатите от налични регистри по отношение на безопасност и ефективност на процедурата и бъдещите перспективи. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is an established choice for the treatment of severe aortic stenosis (AS) in patients who are deemed inoperable or at high surgical risk. There are limited data for the safety and effi cacy of the method in patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), the most common congenital valve defect. Patients with BAV were excluded from randomized clinical trials (RCTs), comparing TAVI to surgery due to the heterogeneous anatomy of this nosological unit and concerns about unsatisfactory procedural and clinical outcomes after TAVI. With the improvement of the design of the new generations devices, with the growing technical experience of the teams and the progress in the imaging techniques, better results and fewer complications are observed, which could be a prerequisite for expanding the indications for TAVI in patients with BAV. This review presents TAVI treatment options for patients with BAV, the results of available registers in terms of safety and effi cacy of the procedure, and future perspectives

Postnatal Changes in the Morphology of the Myocardium in Rat Ventricles

Background: Aging of the myocardium is a dynamic process which involves progressive loss of cardiomyocytes due to necrosis and apoptosis, interstitial fibrosis and reactive hypertrophy of the remaining vital cardiomyocytes. In our study, we investigated the postnatal changes in the myocardium of 15 adult male Wistar rats, distributed in the following age groups: 2 weeks, 1, 3, 6 and 12 months old. We used routine hematoxylin and eosin staining and Mallory’s trichrome stain. Results: Hypertrophy of the cardiomyocytes and accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins in the interstitial space in the aging myocardium were observed. The occurrence of these processes was more dynamic in the left ventricle as opposed to the right ventricle owing to the functional dissimilarities between the two ventricles and a more pronounced effect of afterload on the left ventricle.Conclusions: In conclusion, it can be stated that aging of the myocardium is a dynamic process, characterized by hypertrophy of the cardiomyocytes, reduced capillary density and increased deposition of collagen.</p

Identity resources for positive adaptation of Roma ethnic minority youth in Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Kosovo, and Romania

Abstract:This chapter applies a strengths-based, positive youth development (PYD) perspective of adolescence by investigating ethnic and national identity resources underlying positive adaptation in Roma minority youth in Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Kosovo, Italy and Romania. In all countries, Roma are traditionally marginalized and high risk group for compromised well-being. Participants were 513 Roma minority adolescents (age: M = 15.21 years, SD = 1.59) who filled in self-reports on Roma ethnic and national identity and self-esteem. Results of separate within group comparisons indicated that Roma in the Czech Republic, Kosovo and Italy showed higher endorsement of Roma ethnic than national identity, whereas national identity was stronger for youth in Romania and Albania. We also found positive effects of Roma identity on self-esteem for youth in the Czech Republic, whereas national identity was positively associated with self-esteem for Roma in Albania, Bulgaria and Romania. We suggest that the salience of ethnic and national identities for Roma is moderated by contextual conditions of countries hosting Roma and that these conditions are important factors in promoting their optimal adaptatio