Management of Intracranial Pressure in Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the result of an external force acting upon the head, causing damage to the brain. The severity of injury, mechanism by which the injury occurs, and the frequency of the high-force impact all play a role in the determination of a TBI. TBI describes a wide range of traumatic pathologies which is comprised of damage done to a multitude of cranial central nervous system components. TBI patients typically present with a series of symptoms are correlated with the presence of an intracranial injury, such as physical/cognitive difficulties. A major concern associated with intracranial injuries is the management of intracranial pressure (ICP), a resulting factor of a TBI which facilitates into intracranial hematoma and/or cerebral edema. These conditions have adverse effects on one’s brain, and the immediate management and relief of intracranial pressure are crucial in avoiding hydrocephalus and brain herniation, conditions which lead to sensory loss and even death. In this chapter, we will begin by thoroughly understanding what a TBI is, its clinical presentation, and the first-tier examination to determine severity. Then, we will progress into the anatomy of the brain, followed by a thorough investigation into intracranial pressure management strategies and prognosis

Estratégia de melhoria do desempenho ambiental : CM Oliveira do Bairro

Mestrado em Engenharia do AmbienteA qualidade de vida está intimamente relacionada com o desenvolvimento sustentável. A Agenda 21 Local é um instrumento que tem como objectivo construir o desenvolvimento sustentável a nível local. A Câmara Municipal de Oliveira do Bairro pretende que o seu concelho, através da implementação da A21L melhore significativamente a qualidade de vida dos seus habitantes em todas a s suas vertentes: económica, social e ambiental. Associada à energia, desenvolveu-se uma proposta para melhorar a eficiência energética na CMOLB, de acordo com a estratégia nacional do Governo para a energia. O concelho de Oliveira do Bairro apresentou, nestes últimos anos, consumos energéticos per capita inferiores aos registados na região do Baixo Vouga mas superiores aos registados na região Centro e em Portugal. A estratégia apresentada incide sobre todos os sectores da CMOLB e passa por alterar os hábitos de consumo através da adopção de boas práticas ambientais e em adquirir novos equipamentos.The quality of life is closely related to the sustainable development. The Local Agenda 21 is a means which aims at building the sustainable development at local level. The Oliveira do Bairro city council intends that its council, through the implementation of the Local Agenda 21, significantly improves the quality of life of its inhabitants at all levels, i.e., economic, social and environmental. Associated with energy a proposal was developed in order to improve the energetic efficiency in CMOLB according to the government national strategy for the energy. In the last years the Oliveira do Bairro council presented energetic consumptions per capita lower than the ones registered in the Baixo Vouga region but higher than the ones indicated in the center region and in Portugal. The presented strategy focuses on all the CMOLB sectors and aims at changing the consumption habits through the adoption of good environmental behavior and the acquisition of new equipment

Intracranial Myeloid Sarcoma Metastasis Mimicking Acute Subdural Hematoma

Myeloid sarcoma, a rare consequence of myeloproliferative disorders, is rarely seen in the central nervous system, most commonly in the pediatric population. Although there are a handful of case reports detailing initial presentation of CNS myeloid sarcoma in the adult population, we have been unable to find any reports of CNS myeloid sarcoma presenting as a large mass lesion in a herniating patient. Here, we present the case of a patient transferred to our facility for a very large subdural hematoma. Based on imaging characteristics, it was felt to be a spontaneous hematoma secondary to coagulopathy. No coagulopathy was found. Interestingly, he did have a history of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosed 2 months previously, and intraoperatively he was found to have a confluent white mass invading both the subdural and subarachnoid spaces. There was minimal associated hemorrhage and final pathology showed myeloid sarcoma. This is the first report we are aware of in which CNS myeloid sarcoma presented as a subdural metastasis and also the first report in which we are aware of this etiology causing a herniation syndrome secondary to mass effect

Community typology framed by normative climate for agricultural innovation, empowerment, and poverty reduction

This paper employs the concepts of gender norms and agency to advance understanding of inclusive agricultural innovation processes and their contributions to empowerment and poverty reduction at the village level. We present a community typology informed by normative influences on how people assess conditions and trends for village women and men to make important decisions (or to exercise agency) and for local households to escape poverty. The typology is comprised of three village typestransforming, climbing and churning with each type depicting a different normative climate and trajectory of change in agency and poverty levels. Across “transforming” villages with significant increases in people’s agency and poverty reduction, we found a highly inclusive normative climate that is fueling gender equality and agricultural innovation, as well as infrastructural improvements, expanded markets, and male labor migration. The research, part of the GENNOVATE initiative, includes a qualitative comparative methodology and dataset of 79 village cases from 17 countries

Mindboggling morphometry of human brains

Mindboggle (http://mindboggle.info) is an open source brain morphometry platform that takes in preprocessed T1-weighted MRI data and outputs volume, surface, and tabular data containing label, feature, and shape information for further analysis. In this article, we document the software and demonstrate its use in studies of shape variation in healthy and diseased humans. The number of different shape measures and the size of the populations make this the largest and most detailed shape analysis of human brains ever conducted. Brain image morphometry shows great potential for providing much-needed biological markers for diagnosing, tracking, and predicting progression of mental health disorders. Very few software algorithms provide more than measures of volume and cortical thickness, while more subtle shape measures may provide more sensitive and specific biomarkers. Mindboggle computes a variety of (primarily surface-based) shapes: area, volume, thickness, curvature, depth, Laplace-Beltrami spectra, Zernike moments, etc. We evaluate Mindboggle’s algorithms using the largest set of manually labeled, publicly available brain images in the world and compare them against state-of-the-art algorithms where they exist. All data, code, and results of these evaluations are publicly available

Gendered aspirations and occupations among rural youth, in agriculture and beyond: A cross-regional perspective

Based on 25 case studies from the global comparative study ‘GENNOVATE: Enabling gender equality in agricultural and environmental innovation’, this paper explores rural young women’s and men’s occupational aspirations and trajectories in India, Mali, Malawi, Morocco, Mexico, Nigeria, and the Philippines. We draw upon qualitative data from 50 sex-segregated focus groups with the youth to show that across the study’s regional contexts, young rural women and men predominantly aspire for formal blue and white-collar jobs. Yet, they experience an aspiration achievement gap, as the promise of their education for securing the formal employment they seek is unfulfilled, and they continue to farm in their family’s production. Whereas some young men aspired to engage in knowledge-intensive or ‘modern’ agriculture, young women did not express any such interest. Framing our analysis within a relational approach, we contend that various gender norms that discriminate against women in agriculture dissuade young women from aspiring for agriculture-related occupation. We discuss the gendered opportunity spaces of the study sites, the meanings these hold for allowing young women and men to achieve their aspirations and catalyze agricultural innovation, and implications for agricultural policies and research for development. Our findings show that youth and gender issues are inextricably intertwined and cannot be understood in isolation one from the other

What drives capacity to innovate? Insights from women and men small-scale farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America

What are key characteristics of rural innovators? How are their experiences similar for women and men, and how are they different? To examine these questions, we draw on individual interviews with 336 rural women and men known in their communities for trying out new things in agriculture. The data form part of 84 GENNOVATE community case studies from 19 countries. Building on study participants’ own reflections and experiences with innovation in their agricultural livelihoods, we combine variable-oriented analysis and analysis of specific individuals’ lived experience. Results indicate that factors related to personality and agency are what most drive women’s and men’s capacity to innovate. Access to resources is not a prerequisite but rather an important enabling aspect. Different types of women have great potential for local innovation, but structural inequalities make men better positioned to access resources and leverage support. Men’s support is important when women challenge the status quo

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts