Ocurrencia de Topea patens y de la subtribu Topeinae (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae) en Brasil

The species Topea patens (Apocynaceae) is mentioned for the first time in Brazil, from Mato Grosso de Sul state. This represents the first record in the country of the recently described subtribe Topeinae. The actualized distribution of the subtribe is illustrated on a map.La especie Topea patens (Apocynaceae) se menciona por primera vez para el Brasil, en el estado de Mato Grosso de Sul, lo que a su vez representa el primer registro para el país de la recientemente fundada subtribu Topeinae. La distribución actualizada de la subtribu se ilustra mediante un map

Imaging and monitoring in minimally invasive valve surgery using an intra-aortic occlusion device: A single center experience

Background: Minimally invasive approach through a right mini-thoracotomy is a world-wide used procedure for mitral valve surgery. We performed a retrospective analysis based on our center experience in order to propose an effective, safe and reproducible method using an intra-aortic occlusion device.Methods: This is a retrospective analysis on 48 consecutive patients undergoing mitral valve surgery through a right anterolateral mini-thoracotomy in our center. An intra-aortic occlusion device was used for aortic clamping and cardioplegia delivery. Simultaneous multi-plane three-dimensional echocardiography imaging was acquired to detect the venous cannulas position, the intra-aortic device location in the ascending aorta, the balloon inflation, the complete occlusion of the aorta, the cardioplegia delivery, the origin and the blood flow in the right coronary artery. Aortic root pressure was measured by the tip of the intra-aortic occlusion device. A bilateral upper extremity invasive arterial pressure monitoring was detected. Neuromonitoring was performed through bilateral cerebral oximetry.Results: The analysis has shown no aortic dissection, neurological damage type 1 and myocardial ischemia in the study population. In 3 cases a distal displacement of the intra-aortic occlusion device was promptly detected by the combined use of echocardiographic imaging and by a drop of the right cerebral oximetry saturation and of the right radial artery pressure.Conclusions: The combined use of transesophageal simultaneous multi- plane three- dimensional echocardiography imaging, bilateral upper extremity invasive arterial pressure monitoring, aortic root pressure and cerebral oximetry is an effective, safe and reproducible method in patients undergoing minimally invasive valve surgery using an intra-aortic occlusion device

Sinopse da família Asteraceae na Estrada Parque do Pantanal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil.

O estudo teve como objetivo realizar o levantamento florístico das Asteraceae que ocorrem ao longo da Estrada Parque do Pantanal (EPP) do Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), integrando comentários morfológicos, taxonômicos, fenológicos e de distribuição das espécies. Foram realizadas coletas mensais pela EPP, entre os anos de 2018-2020 e 2022. A EPP inicia na BR-262, próximo ao anel viário que dá acesso às cidades de Corumbá e Ladário até o Rio Paraguai, local denominado como Porto da Manga. As amostras de plantas férteis foram coletadas e herborizadas para identificação taxonômica e depositadas no Herbário COR da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campus do Pantanal. Os resultados apontam que na EPP ocorrem 37 espécies distribuídas em 10 tribos: Heliantheae (10 spp.), Vernonieae (9 spp.), Eupatorieae (7 spp.), Astereae (2 spp.), Coreopsideae (2 spp.), Neurolaeneae (2 spp.), Senecioneae (2 spp.), Millerieae (1 sp.), Nassauvieae (1 sp.) e Tageteae (1 sp.). Quatro novas ocorrência de Asteraceae são destacadas, sendo Dasyanthina palustris e Mikania capricorni novos registros para a Região Centro-Oeste do Brasil e Acmella uliginosa e Calea elongata para o Mato Grosso do Sul

Mid-term results of mitral valve replacement and repair: current clinical experience, technical aspects, and risk factor analysis

Aim: we evaluated the short- and mid-term results of mitral valve replacement (MVR) and mitral valve repair (MV-repair). Methods: in total, 168 patients (mean age 67 ± 11 years) underwent MVR (n = 104) and MV-repair (n = 64). To treat posterior leaflet disease, MV-repair techniques included triangular or quadrangular resection (n = 38), P1-P2 plication (n = 4), side-to side P1-P2 (n = 1), posterior-medial commissure-plasty (n = 1), and annuloplasty (n = 20). A prosthetic ring was implanted in all patients. In the presence of degenerative disease involving the anterior leaflet, extensive myxomatous and/or prolapsing pathology of the entire valve, and/or rheumatic and endocarditis degeneration, surgical orientation was to perform MVR directly. When possible, the sub-valvular apparatus with its papillary muscle was partially preserved. The mean follow-up was 38 ± 22 months. Results: operative mortality (0.96% vs. 1.56%) and six-year survival (94% vs. 100%) were similar in MVR and MV-repair. The only independent predictor of late survival was advanced age at the operation (79.2 years vs. 66.4 years; P = 0.012). Freedom from redo-operation was 100%. Partial preservation of the sub-valvular apparatus with its papillary muscle during MVR allowed postoperatively a better left ventricular function with similar values achieved with MV-repair (P = 0.05), and it was a protective factor against the development of left ventricular dysfunction during follow-up (P = 0.01). Conclusion: MVR and MV-repair are associated with satisfactory results in the short and medium term. MV-repair to treat posterior leaflet disease is associated with a stable and long-lasting result; MVR allows equally satisfactory results in the presence of more extensive and more complex mitral valve disease. Partial preservation of the subvalvular apparatus favors a better left ventricular systolic function

The effects of DeBakey type acute aortic dissection and preoperative peripheral and cardiac malperfusion on the outcomes after surgical repair

Introduction: Emergent surgical repair of DeBakey type I and II acute aortic dissection represents the standard of care to prevent lethal complications. Aim: Evaluation of the effect of extension of aortic dissection (AAD) according to DeBakey classification, type I and II AAD, and the relationship with preoperative peripheral and myocardial malperfusion on early outcome and the mid-term follow-up period. Material and methods: A total of 135 patients who underwent AAD surgery between January 2015 and October 2019 were analysed. Results: In total 103 patients were affected by DeBakey type I AAD and 32 by DeBakey type II; 56 patients preoperatively showed peripheral, cardiac malperfusion, or both. Intra-operative mortality was 11%. Postoperative peripheral, cardiac malperfusion, and intraoperative and postoperative mortality were lower for type II AAD. The protective factor for intra- and postoperative 60-day mortality was type II AAD (RR = 0.03, p = 0.001); independent predictors were hypertension, and preoperative cardiac and renal-visceral malperfusion. At 5 years the overall survival was 74 ±6.9%. Independent predictors of reduced survival were major extension of type I AAD (RR = 5.37, p < 0.05) and preoperative cardiac malperfusion (RR = 5.78, p < 0.05). Five-year freedom from cardiac death, redo surgical operation, and new vascular procedures on the thoracic and abdominal aorta was 92 ±5.7%, 99 ±1.2%, and 81 ±7.2%, respectively. Extension of DeBakey type I AAD into the thoracic-abdominal aorta segment was also a predictor of the need for new vascular procedures (RR = 1.66, p = 0.05). Conclusions: A more favourable anatomy of DeBakey type II AAD is associated with better early and late outcomes after aortic repair. This is due to a lower incidence of peripheral and cardiac malperfusion

Residential end-uses disaggregation and demand response evaluation using integral transforms

[EN] Demand response is a basic tool used to develop modern power systems and electricity markets. Residential and commercial segments account for 40%-50% of the overall electricity demand. These segments need to overcome major obstacles before they can be included in a demand response portfolio. The objective of this paper is to tackle some of the technical barriers and explain how the potential of enabling technology (smart meters) can be harnessed, to evaluate the potential of customers for demand response (end-uses and their behaviors) and, moreover, to validate customers' effective response to market prices or system events by means of non-intrusive methods. A tool based on the Hilbert transform is improved herein to identify and characterize the most suitable loads for the aforesaid purpose, whereby important characteristics such as cycling frequency, power level and pulse width are identified. The proposed methodology allows the filtering of aggregated load according to the amplitudes of elemental loads, independently of the frequency of their behaviors that could be altered by internal or external inputs such as weather or demand response. In this way, the assessment and verification of customer response can be improved by solving the problem of load aggregation with the help of integral transforms.This work has been supported by Spanish Government (Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad) and EU FEDER fund (No. ENE2013-48574-C2-2-P&1-P, No. ENE2015-70032-REDT).Gabaldón Marín, A.; Molina, R.; Marin-Parra, A.; Valero, S.; Álvarez, C. (2017). Residential end-uses disaggregation and demand response evaluation using integral transforms. Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy. 5(1):91-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40565-016-0258-8S9110451Chardon A, Almén O, Lewis PE (2009) Demand response: a decisive breakthrough for Europe. Capgemini, Enerdata. https://www.capgemini.com/resources/demand_response_a_decisive_breakthrough_for_europeFaruqui A, Harris D, Hledick R (2010) Unlocking the €53 billion savings from smart meters in the EU: how increasing the adoption of dynamic tariffs could make or break the EU’s smart grid investment. Energy Policy 38(10):6222–6231Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) (2015) Assessment of demand response and advanced metering, staff report. http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2015/demand-response.pdfFERC Order 745 (December 2011) & 719 (December 2009). http://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg.aspEuropean Commission (2011) Energy efficiency plan 2011, COM (2011) 109 final. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServJoitn Research Center (JRC), European Commission (2010) Energy Service Companies market in Europe, status report 2010. http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/111111111/15108European Commission (2011) Impact assessment accompanying document “Energy Efficiency Plan 2011”, SEC (2011) 277 final. http://www.eurosfaire.prd.fr/7pc/bibliotheque/consulter.php?id=2357European Environment Agency (EEA) (2012) Final energy consumption by sector and fuel. http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/final-energy-consumption-by-sector-8/assessment-2Piette MA, Watson D, Motegi N et al (2007) Automated critical peak pricing field tests: 2006 pilot program description and results. California Energy Commission, PIER Energy Systems Integration Research Program: CEC-500-03-026Gomatom K, Holmes C, Kresta D (2013) Non-intrusive load monitoring. https://www.e3tnw.orgDimetrosky S, Parkinson K, Lieb N (2013) Residential lighting evaluation protocol, Report NREl/SR-7A30-53827. National Renewable Energy LaboratoryZeifman M, Roth K (2011) Nonintrusive appliance load monitoring: review and outlook. IEEE Trans Consum Electron 57(1):76–84Liang J, Simon K, Kendall G et al (2010) Load signature study part I: basic concept, structure and methodology. IEEE Trans Power Deliv 25(2):551–560Hart GW (1992) Nonintrusive appliance load monitoring. Proc IEEE 80(12):1870–1891Powers J, Margossian B, Smith B (1991) Using a rule-based algorithm to disaggregate end-use load profiles from premise-level data. IEEE Comput Appl Power 4(2):42–47Farinaccio L, Zmeureanu R (1999) Using a pattern recognition approach to disaggregate the total electricity consumption in a house into the major end-uses. Energy Build 30(3):245–259Marceau ML, Zmeureanu R (2000) Nonintrusive load disaggregation computer program to estimate the energy consumption of major end uses in residential buildings. Energy Convers Manag 41(13):1389–1403Baransju M, Voss J (2004) Genetic algorithm for pattern detection in NIALM systems. In: IEEE international conference on systems, man and cybernetics, 10–13 Oct, pp 3462–3468Baranski H, Voss J (2004) Detecting patterns of appliances from total load data using a dynamic programming approach. In: Fourth IEEE international conference on data mining (ICDM’04), 1–4 Nov, Brighton, UK, pp 327–330Sankara A (2015) Energy disaggregation in NIALM using hidden Markov models. Masters Theses, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Paper 7414Kolter J, Jaakkola T (2012) Approximate inference in additive factorial HMMs with application to energy disaggregation. J Mach Learn 22:1472–1482Leeb SB, Shaw SR, Kirtley SL (1995) Transient event detection in spectral envelope estimates for nonintrusive load monitoring. IEEE Trans Power Deliv 10(3):1200–1210Patel SN, Robertson T, Kientz JA et al (2007) At the flick of a switch: detecting and classifying unique electrical events on the residential power line. In: Conference on ubiquitous computing, pp 271–288Bonglifi R, Squartini S, Fagiani M et al (2015) Unsupervised algorithms for non-intrusive load monitoring: an up-to-date overview. In: EEEIC conference. doi: 10.1109/EEEIC.2015.7165334Browne TJ, Vittal V, Heydt GT et al (2008) A comparative assessment of two techniques for modal identification from power system measurements. IEEE Trans Power Syst 23(3):1408–1415Senroy N, Suryanarayanan S, Ribeiro PF (2007) An improved Hilbert–Huang method for analysis of time-varying waveforms in power quality. IEEE Trans Power Syst 22(4):1843–1850Gabaldon A, Ortiz M, Molina R et al (2014) Disaggregation of electric loads of small customers through the application of the Hilbert transform. Energ Effic 7(4):711–728. doi: 10.1007/s12053-013-9250-6Kolter JZ, Johnson MJ (2011) REDD: a public data set for energy disaggregation research. http://101.96.10.59/people.csail.mit.edu/mattjj/papers/kddsust2011.pdfFibaro wall switches. http://www.fibaro.com/en/the-fibaro-system/IP-Symcon: innovative centre for the entire building automation. https://www.symcon.de/Energy Information Administration (2001) End-use consumption electricity 2001. http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.htmlPoularikas AD (1999) The Hilbert transform, handbook of formulas and tables for signal processing. 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A comparison of machine learning techniques for survival prediction in breast cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ability to accurately classify cancer patients into risk classes, i.e. to predict the outcome of the pathology on an individual basis, is a key ingredient in making therapeutic decisions. In recent years gene expression data have been successfully used to complement the clinical and histological criteria traditionally used in such prediction. Many "gene expression signatures" have been developed, i.e. sets of genes whose expression values in a tumor can be used to predict the outcome of the pathology. Here we investigate the use of several machine learning techniques to classify breast cancer patients using one of such signatures, the well established <it>70-gene signature</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that Genetic Programming performs significantly better than Support Vector Machines, Multilayered Perceptrons and Random Forests in classifying patients from the NKI breast cancer dataset, and comparably to the scoring-based method originally proposed by the authors of the 70-gene signature. Furthermore, Genetic Programming is able to perform an automatic feature selection.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Since the performance of Genetic Programming is likely to be improvable compared to the out-of-the-box approach used here, and given the biological insight potentially provided by the Genetic Programming solutions, we conclude that Genetic Programming methods are worth further investigation as a tool for cancer patient classification based on gene expression data.</p

Sustainability Agenda for the Pantanal Wetland: Perspectives on a Collaborative Interface for Science, Policy, and Decision-Making.

Building bridges between environmental and political agendas is essential nowadays in face of the increasing human pressure on natural environments, including wetlands. Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services for humanity and can generate a considerable direct or indirect income to the local communities. To meet many of the sustainable development goals, we need to move our trajectory from the current environmental destructive development to a wiser wetland use. The current article contain a proposed agenda for the Pantanal aiming the improvement of public policy for conservation in the Pantanal, one of the largest, most diverse, and continuous inland wetland in the world. We suggest and discuss a list of 11 essential interfaces between science, policy, and development in region linked to the proposed agenda. We believe that a functional science network can booster the collaborative capability to generate creative ideas and solutions to address the big challenges faced by the Pantanal wetland

Two new species of Oxypetalum (Asclepiadoideae, Apocynaceae) from Brazil

Volume: 12Start Page: 446End Page: 45

Occurrence of Topea patens and the subtribe Topeinae (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae) in Brazil

La especie Topea patens (Apocynaceae) se menciona por primera vez para el Brasil, en el estado de Mato Grosso de Sul, lo que a su vez representa el primer registro para el país de la recientemente fundada subtribu Topeinae. La distribución actualizada de la subtribu se ilustra mediante un mapaThe species Topea patens (Apocynaceae) is mentioned for the first time in Brazil, from Mato Grosso de Sul state. This represents the first record in the country of the recently described subtribe Topeinae. The actualized distribution of the subtribe is illustrated on a map.Fil: Keller, Hector Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Farinaccio, Maria A.. Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul; Brasi