ARIA 2016 : Care pathways implementing emerging technologies for predictive medicine in rhinitis and asthma across the life cycle

The Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) initiative commenced during a World Health Organization workshop in 1999. The initial goals were (1) to propose a new allergic rhinitis classification, (2) to promote the concept of multi-morbidity in asthma and rhinitis and (3) to develop guidelines with all stakeholders that could be used globally for all countries and populations. ARIA-disseminated and implemented in over 70 countries globally-is now focusing on the implementation of emerging technologies for individualized and predictive medicine. MASK [MACVIA (Contre les Maladies Chroniques pour un Vieillissement Actif)-ARIA Sentinel NetworK] uses mobile technology to develop care pathways for the management of rhinitis and asthma by a multi-disciplinary group and by patients themselves. An app (Android and iOS) is available in 20 countries and 15 languages. It uses a visual analogue scale to assess symptom control and work productivity as well as a clinical decision support system. It is associated with an inter-operable tablet for physicians and other health care professionals. The scaling up strategy uses the recommendations of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. The aim of the novel ARIA approach is to provide an active and healthy life to rhinitis sufferers, whatever their age, sex or socio-economic status, in order to reduce health and social inequalities incurred by the disease.Peer reviewe

ARIA digital anamorphosis : Digital transformation of health and care in airway diseases from research to practice

Digital anamorphosis is used to define a distorted image of health and care that may be viewed correctly using digital tools and strategies. MASK digital anamorphosis represents the process used by MASK to develop the digital transformation of health and care in rhinitis. It strengthens the ARIA change management strategy in the prevention and management of airway disease. The MASK strategy is based on validated digital tools. Using the MASK digital tool and the CARAT online enhanced clinical framework, solutions for practical steps of digital enhancement of care are proposed.Peer reviewe

Cabbage and fermented vegetables : From death rate heterogeneity in countries to candidates for mitigation strategies of severe COVID-19

Large differences in COVID-19 death rates exist between countries and between regions of the same country. Some very low death rate countries such as Eastern Asia, Central Europe, or the Balkans have a common feature of eating large quantities of fermented foods. Although biases exist when examining ecological studies, fermented vegetables or cabbage have been associated with low death rates in European countries. SARS-CoV-2 binds to its receptor, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). As a result of SARS-CoV-2 binding, ACE2 downregulation enhances the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT(1)R) axis associated with oxidative stress. This leads to insulin resistance as well as lung and endothelial damage, two severe outcomes of COVID-19. The nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2) is the most potent antioxidant in humans and can block in particular the AT(1)R axis. Cabbage contains precursors of sulforaphane, the most active natural activator of Nrf2. Fermented vegetables contain many lactobacilli, which are also potent Nrf2 activators. Three examples are: kimchi in Korea, westernized foods, and the slum paradox. It is proposed that fermented cabbage is a proof-of-concept of dietary manipulations that may enhance Nrf2-associated antioxidant effects, helpful in mitigating COVID-19 severity.Peer reviewe

Nrf2-interacting nutrients and COVID-19 : time for research to develop adaptation strategies

There are large between- and within-country variations in COVID-19 death rates. Some very low death rate settings such as Eastern Asia, Central Europe, the Balkans and Africa have a common feature of eating large quantities of fermented foods whose intake is associated with the activation of the Nrf2 (Nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2) anti-oxidant transcription factor. There are many Nrf2-interacting nutrients (berberine, curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate, genistein, quercetin, resveratrol, sulforaphane) that all act similarly to reduce insulin resistance, endothelial damage, lung injury and cytokine storm. They also act on the same mechanisms (mTOR: Mammalian target of rapamycin, PPAR gamma:Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor, NF kappa B: Nuclear factor kappa B, ERK: Extracellular signal-regulated kinases and eIF2 alpha:Elongation initiation factor 2 alpha). They may as a result be important in mitigating the severity of COVID-19, acting through the endoplasmic reticulum stress or ACE-Angiotensin-II-AT(1)R axis (AT(1)R) pathway. Many Nrf2-interacting nutrients are also interacting with TRPA1 and/or TRPV1. Interestingly, geographical areas with very low COVID-19 mortality are those with the lowest prevalence of obesity (Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia). It is tempting to propose that Nrf2-interacting foods and nutrients can re-balance insulin resistance and have a significant effect on COVID-19 severity. It is therefore possible that the intake of these foods may restore an optimal natural balance for the Nrf2 pathway and may be of interest in the mitigation of COVID-19 severity

ARIA digital anamorphosis: Digital transformation of health and care in airway diseases from research to practice

Digital anamorphosis is used to define a distorted image of health and care that may be viewed correctly using digital tools and strategies. MASK digital anamorphosis represents the process used by MASK to develop the digital transformation of health and care in rhinitis. It strengthens the ARIA change management strategy in the prevention and management of airway disease. The MASK strategy is based on validated digital tools. Using the MASK digital tool and the CARAT online enhanced clinical framework, solutions for practical steps of digital enhancement of care are proposed

Efeitos da restri??o cal?rica desde o nascimento sobre o cora??o de ratos adultos

Evid?ncias recentes sugerem que a restri??o cal?rica intensa (RCI) (>40%) exerce efeitos ben?ficos sobre o cora??o de ratos. No entanto, a maioria destes estudos avaliaram os efeitos da RCI em cora??es de ratos que iniciaram esta restri??o j? na idade adulta. Neste trabalho, investigamos as conseq??ncias de uma restri??o cal?rica de 50% desde o nascimento sobre a fun??o e morfologia card?aca de ratos adultos e avaliamos os poss?veis mecanismos envolvidos nestas adapta??es. Desde o nascimento at? a idade de 90 dias ratos RC50 tiveram sua alimenta??o restrita a 50% do consumo do grupo ad libitum (AL). Durante o per?odo de 90 dias os animais tiveram sua ingest?o alimentar, peso corporal e press?o arterial monitorados. Ap?s este per?odo, foi realizado um teste de capacidade aer?bica m?xima para avaliar indiretamente a fun??o cardiovascular global. Quarenta e oito horas ap?s este teste os animais foram eutanasiados, o sangue foi coletado para an?lise do hemat?crito, bioqu?mica s?rica e estresse oxidativo e o m?sculo s?leo retirado para an?lise do estresse oxidativo. A t?bia foi retirada para aferi??o do comprimento e f?gado, ba?o, supra-renais, test?culos e gordura viceral removidos para aferi??o do peso. O cora??o foi retirado e o ?ndice de desenvolvimento de tens?o m?xima (+dT/dt) e m?nima (-dT/dt) do mioc?rdio foram analisados pela prepara??o de cora??o isolado. Tamb?m foi realizada an?lise do estresse oxidativo card?aco e o di?metro, n?mero e densidade de cardiomi?citos, assim como os n?veis de fibrose card?aca foram obtidos atrav?s da an?lise histol?gica. Mi?citos ventriculares foram isolados para avalia??o do transiente de Ca2+ em microscopia confocal e os n?veis de fosforila??o da Akt e express?o da SERCA2 foram avaliados pela t?cnica de Western blot. Comparado ao grupo AL, os animais RC50 apresentaram menor peso corporal e de ?rg?os, menor comprimento da t?bia, menor glicemia, maior colesterol HDL, menor press?o arterial, menor estresse oxidativo card?aco, maior desempenho aer?bio e da fun??o card?aca, como mostrado pelo aumento ?dT/dt. Apesar do menor di?metro dos cardiomi?citos, ratos RC50 apresentaram aumento na rela??o cora??o/peso corporal, aumento do n?mero e densidade dos cardiomi?citos, e n?veis semelhantes de fibrose card?aca em compara??o aos animais AL. Os n?veis de fosforila??o da Akt foram superiores nos cardiomi?citos dos animais RC50 e n?o houve diferen?as significativas no transiente de Ca2+ e na express?o de SERCA2 entre os cardiomi?citos dos animais RC50 e AL. Em conjunto, estas observa??es revelaram efeitos positivos de uma RCI de 50% desde o nascimento sobre a fun??o, estrutura card?aca e vias de sinaliza??o da sobreviv?ncia de cardiomi?citos em ratos adultos.Disserta??o (Mestrado) ? Programa Multic?ntrico de P?s-gradua??o em Ci?ncias Fisiol?gicas, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, 2013.ABSTRACT There has been growing evidence suggesting that a severe caloric restriction (SCR) (above 40%) leads to beneficial effects on heart rats. However, most of the reports are focused on the effects of SCR on hearts of rats which started this restriction at adulthood. In this work, we investigated the consequences of a 50% caloric restriction since birth on cardiac morphology and function in adult rats and evaluated the possible mechanisms involved in these adaptations. From birth up to the age of 90 days CR50 rats were fed restricted at 50% of the Ad Libitum group (AL). During the period of 90 days the animals had their food intake, body weight and blood pressure monitored. After this period, a maximal aerobic test was performed in order to indirectly evaluate the global cardiovascular function. Forty-eight hours after this test the animals were euthanized the blood collected for analysis of hematocrit, serum biochemistry and oxidative stress and soleus muscle collected for oxidative stress analysis. The tibia was removed for measurement of length and liver, spleen, adrenals, testes and visceral fat were removed for measurement of weight. The heart was removed and the index of velocity of myocardial contraction (+dT/dt) and relaxation (-dT/dt) was analyzed by isolated heart preparation. We also carried out analysis of cardiac oxidative stress and cardiomyocyte diameter, number, density and myocardium collagen content were obtained through histological analysis. Ventricular myocytes were isolated by standard methods in order to evaluate phosphorylated AKT levels and the expression of SERCA2a was assessed by Western blot. Compared to AL, CR50 animals had lower body and organs weight, lower tibia length, lower blood glucose, higher HDL cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower oxidative stress in the heart and blood, increased aerobic performance and cardiac function, as shown by increased ? dT/dt. Despite the smaller cardiomyocyte diameter, CR50 rats presented increased heart/body weight ratio, increased cardiomyocyte density and number, and similar levels of myocardium collagen content compared to AL rats. AKT was hyperphosphorylated in cardiomyocytes from CR50 rats and no significant differences in Ca2+ transient and SERCA2 levels were found between cardiomyocytes of CR50 and AL rats. Collectively, these observations revealed beneficial effects of a 50% caloric restriction from birth on cadiac function, structure and signaling pathways for survival of adult rat cardimyocytes

Graph-based feature extraction: A new proposal to study the classification of music signals outside the time-frequency domain.

Most feature extraction algorithms for music audio signals use Fourier transforms to obtain coefficients that describe specific aspects of music information within the sound spectrum, such as the timbral texture, tonal texture and rhythmic activity. In this paper, we introduce a new method for extracting features related to the rhythmic activity of music signals using the topological properties of a graph constructed from an audio signal. We map the local standard deviation of a music signal to a visibility graph and calculate the modularity (Q), the number of communities (Nc), the average degree (〈k〉), and the density (Δ) of this graph. By applying this procedure to each signal in a database of various musical genres, we detected the existence of a hierarchy of rhythmic self-similarities between musical styles given by these four network properties. Using Q, Nc, 〈k〉 and Δ as input attributes in a classification experiment based on supervised artificial neural networks, we obtained an accuracy higher than or equal to the beat histogram in 70% of the musical genre pairs, using only four features from the networks. Finally, when performing the attribute selection test with Q, Nc, 〈k〉 and Δ, along with the main signal processing field descriptors, we found that the four network properties were among the top-ranking positions given by this test

A Little Helper: Beneficial Bacteria with Growth-Promoting Mechanisms Can Reduce Asian Soybean Rust Severity in a Cell-Free Formulation

Growth-promoting bacteria are already used in sustainable agricultural systems in Brazil. The market is dominated by inoculants and biological pesticides, which do not reach the full potential of this tool in the agricultural sector. This study aimed to evaluate four bacterial strains for the presence of growth promotion mechanisms, as well as the reduction of Asian rust severity in soybean plants and its effects on three antioxidant enzymes during pathogenesis. The plants were treated using the bacterial cells and/or their biosurfactants before inoculation of the pathogen (IOP). Severity was measured based on a diagrammatic scale at 14, 18 and 21 days after IOP, and the activities of the enzymes SOD, CAT, and APX were evaluated 21 days after IOP. Treatments containing only bacterial cells were not efficient in reducing the severity, with losses of leaf area reaching 15%, while the addition of biosurfactants led to a result that is similar to the biofungicide, based on Bacillus subtilis (Serenade®). The presence of direct growth promotion mechanisms can be observed in all isolates, as well as the role of bacterial metabolites, especially lipopeptides, in the biological control of diseases and the modulation of the plant’s immune response