Urinotórax como causa rara de derrame pleural – Revisitação a propósito de caso clínico

ResumoContextoApesar da multitude de etiologias de derrame pleural, algumas causas decorrentes de mecanismos patofisiológicos incomuns podem ser suspeitadas com base em determinados contextos clínicos sugestivos ou intervenções com potencial iatrogénico. O urinotórax é um tipo raro de derrame pleural com menos de 70 casos mundialmente reportados.Caso clínicoUm doente que fora internado na Urologia por uropatia obstrutiva litiásica com hidronefrose, é diagnosticado com derrame pleural esquerdo persistente. Havia sido sujeito à colocação ipsilateral de nefrostomia percutânea. Após a primeira toracocentese diagnóstica a causa do derrame não era aparente. Uma segunda abordagem confirmou a presença de líquido citrino com critérios borderline para exsudato, odor amoniacal típico e um ratio evocativo entre creatinina pleural e sérica. A tomografia computorizada (TC) realizada diagnosticou presença de urinoma retroperitoneal, tendo o doente sido submetido a nefrectomia esquerda com resolução do derrame pleural.ConclusõesO urinotórax encontra-se mais frequentemente em doentes com uropatia excretora ou trauma abdominal contuso, apesar de outros possíveis mecanismos já reportados. Tradicionalmente, um ratio de creatinina pleural/sérica superior a um é um traço distintivo desta condição. Em determinados contextos, a consideração desta possibilidade diagnóstica pode ser determinante para um melhor prognóstico final.AbstractBackgroundDespite the fact that there are a great number of established etiologies for pleural effusion, there are grounds for believing that there are also causes from unusual pathophysiological mechanisms, seen in certain clinical contexts and from potential iatrogenic interventions. Urinothorax is such a rare type of pleural effusion as there are fewer than 70 cases reported worldwide.Clinical caseA patient with a persistent left pleural effusion was admitted to the Urology ward for a lithiasic obstructive uropathy with hydronephrosis. A left percutaneous nephrostomy was performed. The effusion was unclassified at the initial workup and recurred after first drainage. A second approach confirmed a citrine fluid with borderline criteria for exudate, ammoniacal odour and an elusive pleural fluid-to-serum creatinine ratio. A retroperitoneal urinoma was recognized on CT, and the patient underwent a left nephrectomy with resolution of the pleural effusion.ConclusionsUrinothorax most frequently develops in patients with excretory uropathy or blunt abdominal trauma, although other mechanisms have been reported. Traditionally, a pleural fluid to serum creatinine ratio higher than one is a hallmark of this condition. In certain settings, taking this diagnosis into account at an early stage might be crucial for a good outcome

Strength of non-traditional granular materials assessed from drained multistage triaxial tests

When granular materials are applied in geotechnical works, like embankments and road pavement layers, one of the most relevant engineering properties in stability analysis is ultimate shear strength. In geotechnical engineering, the triaxial test is one of the most reliable methods available for determining ultimate shear strength. In this test, a soil specimen, compacted in laboratory or collected from exploratory soil borings, is generally used. In order to determine the strength parameters, at least 3 identical specimens are required in this test. Having 3 identical specimens, a single stage triaxial test procedure is used. If not, multistage triaxial test procedure is used to eliminate the effects of soil variability in the results. In this case, several confining pressures are applied to the same specimen. Although multistage triaxial tests have been used for soils for a long time, there is still a lack of test results for unbound granular non-traditional materials. This paper presents triaxial test results obtained from a Portuguese unbound granular non-traditional material (named as Inert Steel Aggregate for Construction - ISAC). The triaxial tests were carried out using multistage and single stage techniques. As the results are quite well comparable, it is concluded that it is possible to determine shear strength parameters with just one specimen. Consequently, the research conducted has validated the use of multistage triaxial tests as a reliable and cost-effective alternative to the conventional single stage triaxial test in the mechanical characterization of unbound granular materials.The authors appreciate the financial support of the FCT for this project PCDT/ECM/56952/2004 through the POCI 2010 program and for the cohesion fund FEDER and a doctoral grant within company SFRH/BDE/15661/2007. Acknowledgments are also due to António Cavalheiro, deputy manager of the Seixal Iron Steel Company.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Classification of brain tumor extracts by high resolution ¹H MRS using partial least squares discriminant analysis

High resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H MRS) can be used to detect biochemical changes in vitro caused by distinct pathologies. It can reveal distinct metabolic profiles of brain tumors although the accurate analysis and classification of different spectra remains a challenge. In this study, the pattern recognition method partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used to classify 11.7 T ¹H MRS spectra of brain tissue extracts from patients with brain tumors into four classes (high-grade neuroglial, low-grade neuroglial, non-neuroglial, and metastasis) and a group of control brain tissue. PLS-DA revealed 9 metabolites as the most important in group differentiation: γ-aminobutyric acid, acetoacetate, alanine, creatine, glutamate/glutamine, glycine, myo-inositol, N-acetylaspartate, and choline compounds. Leave-one-out cross-validation showed that PLS-DA was efficient in group characterization. The metabolic patterns detected can be explained on the basis of previous multimodal studies of tumor metabolism and are consistent with neoplastic cell abnormalities possibly related to high turnover, resistance to apoptosis, osmotic stress and tumor tendency to use alternative energetic pathways such as glycolysis and ketogenesis.14916

Analysis of Neighbourhoods in Multi-layered Dynamic Social Networks

Social networks existing among employees, customers or users of various IT systems have become one of the research areas of growing importance. A social network consists of nodes - social entities and edges linking pairs of nodes. In regular, one-layered social networks, two nodes - i.e. people are connected with a single edge whereas in the multi-layered social networks, there may be many links of different types for a pair of nodes. Nowadays data about people and their interactions, which exists in all social media, provides information about many different types of relationships within one network. Analysing this data one can obtain knowledge not only about the structure and characteristics of the network but also gain understanding about semantic of human relations. Are they direct or not? Do people tend to sustain single or multiple relations with a given person? What types of communication is the most important for them? Answers to these and more questions enable us to draw conclusions about semantic of human interactions. Unfortunately, most of the methods used for social network analysis (SNA) may be applied only to one-layered social networks. Thus, some new structural measures for multi-layered social networks are proposed in the paper, in particular: cross-layer clustering coefficient, cross-layer degree centrality and various versions of multi-layered degree centralities. Authors also investigated the dynamics of multi-layered neighbourhood for five different layers within the social network. The evaluation of the presented concepts on the real-world dataset is presented. The measures proposed in the paper may directly be used to various methods for collective classification, in which nodes are assigned to labels according to their structural input features.Comment: 16 pages, International Journal of Computational Intelligence System

Decision Support System of Innovative High-Temperature Latent Heat Storage for Waste Heat Recovery in the Energy-Intensive Industry

Reductions in energy consumption, carbon footprint, equipment size, and cost are key objectives for the forthcoming energy-intensive industries roadmaps. In this sense, solutions such as waste heat recovery, which can be replicated into different sectors (e.g., ceramics, concrete, glass, steel, aluminium, pulp, and paper) are highly promoted. In this line, latent heat thermal energy storage (TES) contributes as an innovative technology solution to improve the overall system efficiency by recovering and storing industrial waste heat. To this end, phase-change material (PCM) selection is assisted through a decision-support system (DSS). A simplified tool based on the MATLAB(R) model, based on correlations among the most relevant system parameters, was developed to prove the feasibility of a cross-sectorial approach. The research work conducted a parametric analysis to assess the techno-economic performance of the PCM-TES solution under different working conditions and sectors. Additionally, a multicriteria assessment was performed comparing the tool outputs from metal alloys and inorganic hydrated PCM salts. Overall, the inorganic PCMs presented higher net economic and energy savings (up to 25, 000 euro/yr; 480 MWh/yr), while metal alloys involved promising results, shorter cycles, and competitive economic ratios; its commercial development is still limited

Synthesis of titanate nanofibers co-sensitized with ZnS and Bi2S3 nanocrystallites and their application on pollutants removal

The synthesis of nanocomposite materials combining titanate nanofibers (TNF) with nanocrystalline ZnS and Bi2S3 semiconductors is described in this work. The TNF were produced via hydrothermal synthesis and sensitized with the semiconductor nanoparticles, through a single-source precursor decomposition method. ZnS and Bi2S3 nanoparticles were successfully grown onto the TNF's surface and Bi2S3-ZnS/TNF nanocomposite materials with different layouts were obtained using either a layer-by-layer or a co-sensitization approach. The samples' photocatalytic performance was first evaluated through the production of the hydroxyl radical using terephthalic acid as probe molecule. All the tested samples show photocatalytic ability for the production of this oxidizing species. Afterwards, the samples were investigated for the removal of methylene blue. The nanocomposite materials with best adsorption ability for the organic dye were the ZnS/TNF and Bi2S3ZnS/TNF. The removal of the methylene blue was systematically studied, and the most promising results were obtained considering a sequential combination of an adsorption-photocatalytic degradation process using the Bi2S3ZnS/TNF powder as a highly adsorbent and photocatalyst material.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figure

Necessary Optimality Conditions for Higher-Order Infinite Horizon Variational Problems on Time Scales

We obtain Euler-Lagrange and transversality optimality conditions for higher-order infinite horizon variational problems on a time scale. The new necessary optimality conditions improve the classical results both in the continuous and discrete settings: our results seem new and interesting even in the particular cases when the time scale is the set of real numbers or the set of integers.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form will appear in Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications (JOTA). Paper submitted 17-Nov-2011; revised 24-March-2012 and 10-April-2012; accepted for publication 15-April-201

Deep and shallow water effects on developing preschoolers’ aquatic skills

The aim of the study was to assess deep and shallow water teaching methods in swimming lessons for preschool children and identify variations in the basic aquatic skills acquired. The study sample included 32 swimming instructors (16 from deep water programs and 16 from shallow water programs) and 98 preschool children (50 from deep water swimming pool and 48 from shallow water swimming pool). The children were also studied regarding their previous experience in swimming (6, 12 and 18 months or practice). Chi-Square test and Fisher's exact test were used to compare the teaching methodology. A discriminant analysis was conducted with Λ wilk's method to predict under what conditions students are better or worse (aquatic competence). Results suggest that regardless of the non-significant variations found in teaching methods, the water depth can affect aquatic skill acquisition - shallow water lessons seem to impose greater water competence particularly after 6 months of practice. The discriminant function revealed a significant association between groups and all predictors for 6 months of swimming practice (p <0.001). Body position in gliding and leg displacements were the main predictors. For 12 and 18 months of practice, the discriminant function do not revealed any significant association between groups. As a conclusion, it seems that the teaching methodology of aquatic readiness based on deep and shallow water programs for preschoolers is not significantly different. However, shallow water lessons could be preferable for the development of basic aquatic skills

Chemical composition and antioxidant activity of dried powder formulations of Agaricus blazei and Lentinus edodes

Several mushroom species have been pointed out as sources of antioxidant compounds, besides their important nutritional value. Agaricus blazei and Lentinus edodes are among the most studied species all over the world, but those studies focused on their fruiting bodies instead of other presentations like powdered preparations used as supplements. In the present work the chemical composition (nutrients and bioactive compounds) and antioxidant activity (free radical scavenging activity, reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition) of dried powder formulations of the mentioned mushroom species (APF and LPF, respectively) were evaluated. Powder formulations of both species revealed the presence of essential nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates and unsaturated fatty acids. Furthermore, they present low fat content (<2 g/100 g) and can be used in low-caloric diets, just like the mushrooms fruiting bodies. APF showed higher antioxidant activity and higher content of tocopherols and phenolic compounds (124 µg/100 g and 770 µg/100 g, respectively) than LPF (32 µg/100 g and 690 µg/100 g). Both formulations might be used as antioxidant sources to prevent diseases related to oxidative stress.Capes-Carolina Foundation (Brazil) for the scholarship of doctoral sandwich (A.A.J. Carneiro), held at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Salamanca, Spain in partnership with the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal. A.A.J. Carneiro is thankfull to FAPESP and CNPq (Brazil) for financial support and for the scholarship (Brazil). CIMO is grateful to strategic project PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2011 for financial support. L. Barros thanks to FCT, POPH-QREN and FSE for her grant (SFRH/BPD/4609/2008). The GIP-USAL is financially supported by the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme (FUN-C-FOOD, CSD2007-00063). M. Dueñas thanks the Spanish “Ramón y Cajal” Programme for a contract

Agaricus blazei and Lentinus edodes dried formulations: chemical composition and antioxidant activity

A balanced diet is one of themainstays ofiherapyfor the prevention of the oxidative stress, which if cannot beeliminated, at leastcan be controlled. Food antioxidants may help intrinsic antioxidant mechanisms to fight against oxidative stress. Several mushroom species have been pointed out as sources of antioxidant compounds, besides their nimportant nutritional value. Agaricus blazei and Lentimrs edodes are among the most studied species all over the world, but those studies focused on their fruiting bodies instead of other presentations like powdered preparations used as supplements. In the present work the chemical composition (nutrients and bioactive compounds analysed by chromatographic methods) and antioxidant activity (free radical scavenging activity, reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition) of dried powder formulations of Agaricus blazei (APF) and Lentimrs edodes (LPF) from São Paulo, Brazil were evaluated.141 Powder formulations of both species revealed the presence of essential nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates and unsaturated limy acids. Furthermore, they present low fat content (<2 g/100 g) and can be used in low-caloric diets, just like the mushroom fruiting bodies. APF showed higher antioxidant activity and higher content of tocopherols and phenolic compounds (124 μg/l 00 g and 770 μg/l 00 g, respectively) than LPF (32 μg/ l 00 g and 690 μg/100 g).Both formulations might be used as antioxidant sources to prevent diseases related to oxidative stress