Littré’s hernia – a case of a Meckel’s diverticulum in a strangulated femoral hernia and literature review

Introdução: O divertículo de Meckel é a anomalia gastrointestinal congénita mais comum e resulta da obliteração incompleta do ducto vitelino. A hérnia de Littré define-se pela presença de um divertículo de Meckel no saco herniário. O estrangulamento do divertículo de Meckel numa hérnia femoral é uma entidade extremamente rara que requer correção cirúrgica imediata. Caso Clínico: Reportamos o caso clínico de uma mulher de 18 anos que recorreu ao serviço de urgência por uma hérnia femoral dolorosa e encarcerada à esquerda, sem sinais ou sintomas de obstrução intestinal associados. Durante a intervenção cirúrgica, aquando da abertura do saco herniário, foi identificado um divertículo de Meckel, procedendo-se então a diverticulectomia. A ansa de intestino delgado não se encontrava herniada nem tinha sinais de isquemia, pelo que não foi necessário realizar uma enterectomia. O defeito herniário foi subsequentemente corrigido através da técnica de Lichtenstein modificada. Discussão: A sintomatologia de um divertículo de Meckel complicado é inespecífica e dependente do tipo de complicação. O diagnóstico de hérnia de Littré é exigente e difícil de estabelecer durante o pré-operatório, uma vez que a sua apresentação clínica é ambígua e a imagiologia tem um papel limitado. Quando a obstrução do intestino delgado é provocada por um divertículo de Meckel complicado, a intervenção cirúrgica tem como objetivo principal remover o divertículo e corrigir a patologia associada, independentemente da abordagem utilizada ser laparoscópica ou cirurgia aberta. Conclusão: No caso de uma hérnia de Littré estrangulada o tratamento é baseado na condição clínica do doente e na experiência do cirurgião. Não obstante, o tratamento requer, pelo menos, uma ressecção completa do divertículo para evitar complicações futuras.Introduction: Meckel’s diverticulum is the most common gastrointestinal congenital anomaly and it results from an incomplete obliteration of the vitelline duct. Littré’s hernia is defined by the presence of a Meckel’s diverticulum in a hernia sac. A strangulated Meckel’s diverticulum in a femoral hernia is an extremely rare entity and its management requires prompt surgery. Case Report: We describe a case of a 18-year-old woman that presented with a painful incarcerated femoral hernia in her left groin. She did not have any signs or symptoms of bowel obstruction. During surgery, a Meckel’s diverticulum was identified in the hernia sac. The  small bowel was not herniated and did not show signs of ischaemia, thus, an enterectomy was not required. A diverticulectomy was performed and the hernia defect was subsequently repaired with a modified Lichtenstein technique. Discussion: The symptomatology of a complicated Meckel’s diverticulum is non-specific and dependent on the type of complication. The diagnosis of Littré’s hernia is challenging and difficult to establish preoperatively since its presentation is ambiguous and imaging has a limited role. When small bowel obstruction is caused by a complicated Meckel’s diverticulum, the main aim of surgery is to remove the diverticulum and to correct the associated pathology, either by laparoscopy or by an open surgical approach. Conclusion: A patient’s condition and surgeon based management is generally adopted in case of a strangulated Littré’s hernia. Nevertheless, it requires complete resection of the diverticulum to avoid future complications

The relative age effect among elite youth competitive swimmers

The aim of this study was to analyse the relative age effect (RAE) in competitive swimming. The best 50 Portuguese swimmers (12- to 18-year-olds) for the main individual swimming pool events of both genders were considered. Analysis was conducted on 7813 swimming event participants, taking account of respective swimmer birth dates and the Fédération Internationale de Natation points gained. Differences in the distribution of birth dates by quarter year were determined using the Chi-square. A one-way analysis of variance ANOVA was used to test for differences measured in points between individuals by quarterly birth year intervals. A two-way analysis of variance ANOVA was also conducted to test the interaction between gender and seasonal birth date with regard to performance. The results show an inequitable distribution (p<0.01) of birth dates by quarter for almost all age groups and both genders. However, the distribution of birth dates by quarter for each considered swim event shows that RAE seems to exist only for 12-year-old females and 12- to 15-year-old males. Analysing mean swimming performance, post-hoc results (p<0.01) show no consistency in RAE. Higher performance occurs among older swimmers only in 100 m butterfly (female 1998, 1st≠2nd quarter, p=0.003). The results also show no interaction between gender and seasonal birth date (p<0.01). Findings of this study show that a higher number of swimmers, particular males, are born in the first two quarters of the year, although there is mostly no effect of seasonal birth date on performance differences within the top 50 swimmers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Secure services integration and edge computing for effective beekeeping

Many of the issues that require resolution are not easy to mitigate just from the technology perspective. The ancestral learned logic of processes, the people traditions, and many other variants define inner contexts that make the adhesion and efficient use of information technologies a delicate process. The enormous geographical dispersion of the beekeeping economic activity, the mostly amateur profile of beekeepers, and the specificity in the traditional way as the activity is managed, compromises the applicability of integrative measures based on ICTE. Efficient and integrated management of a no-professionalized economic activity depends on two basic principles: i) the existence of effective tools capable of managing that activity and its synergies with other related activities, and ii) an infrastructure (technological, procedural, legal) that supports services properly profiled for any actor in that activity. This paper describes the work-in-process sBee - Smart Beekeeping, an applied research project that sought to integrate emerging technologies on the innovative management of critical issues that beekeeping needs to overcome. Electronic devices, Internet-of-things, advanced management algorithms, and innovative visualization services were explored. The global system architecture, its supporting services, and the communication infrastructure are here described. The integration of both internet-of-things and communications services, with the common beekeeping?s management tasks, levered a proposal for improving this activity to become more effective. Furthermore, an advanced technological supporting platform was created and experimented, prepared for further developments, on mitigating emergent challenges that the digitization promotes, namely the security and traceability on food and related agriculture value-chains, as well as on the predictive and intelligent perception of current and future scenarios.911A-2C18-106F | Carlos Jorge Enes Capit?o de AbreuN/

Synthesis and evaluation of 1-alkyl-4-phenyl-[1,2,3]-triazole derivatives as antimycobacterial agent

Fourteen small molar mass 1-alkyl-4-phenyl-[1,2,3]-triazole derivatives were prepared using a straightforward and efficient method for the regioselective synthesis of [1,2,3]-triazoles and the compounds were screened for antimycobacterial activity against multiple-drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv. The synthetic methodology consisted of a Cu(I)-catalyzed 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of aryl azides to terminal arylacetylenes (click-reaction). Six [1,2,3]-triazoles were found to be more active against M. tuberculosis than the positive control ethambutol

Combining syntactic and ontological knowledge to extract biologically relevant relations from scientific papers

Bringing biologists and text miners closer together is a major aim towards the general usage of literature mining tools. Our contribution to this aim is an end-user tool for the extraction of problem-specific biologically relevant relations. Development efforts are being focused on easy-to-use text mining workflows including commonly available entity recognisers and syntactic processors, and the construction of a userfriendly environment that enables problemspecific tailoring by biologists.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)Systems Biology as a Driver for Industrial Biotechnology (SYSINBIO

Measuring self-serving cognitive distortions with special reference to juvenile delinquency: a validation of the "How I Think" questionnaire in a sample of portuguese adolescents

The present study aims to test the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the "How I Think" (HIT) questionnaire. The HIT questionnaire is a self-report measure of self-serving cognitive distortions. Our sample was comprised of 442 Portuguese-speaking adolescents and young adults (254 males and 188 females), aged between 12 and 20 years. Of the total 442 participants, 351 were recruited from a Portuguese school and 91 from four Portuguese detention centers for juvenile delinquents. Data analysis provided evidence supporting the original six-factor model solution, composed of a four-category typology of self-serving cognitive distortions (i.e., Selfcentered, Blaming Others, Minimizing/Mislabeling, and Assuming the Worst), an Anomalous responding, and one Positive filler factor. Further, results showed satisfactory internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. In conclusion, this article provides Portuguese researchers and practitioners with a valid measure of self-serving cognitive distortions.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (UID/PSI/01662/2019), through the national funds (PIDDAC). The first author was supported by a doctoral grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-SFRH/BD/122919/2016)

Rock art at S. Gonçalo hill, Barcelos (NW Portugal), and the construction of a structural place in the prehistoric landscape

[Excerpt] Introduction In 2012 the first engravings were discovered at hill of S. Gonçalo, due to occasional prospection works performed by the City Hall Archaeological Cabinet. Since 2015 this entity developed the systematic inventory of the rock art identified at the hill, mainly with two objectives: update the Archaeological County Map and classify the archaeological set of rock art as Property of Public Interest. At this scope, all the occurrences were photographed during daytime, and surveying photogrammetric works were accomplished. The morphological analysis to the engraved surfaces was done using Meshlab soLware.This work was developed under the projects Northwest Rock Art Route. A Project of Cultural Tourism (RAR/Lab2PT2014) and North‐west Iberia Rock Art. Liminality and Heterotopy (SFRH/BSAB/114296/2016)

Dried blood spots in clinical lipidomics: optimization and recent findings

Dried blood spots (DBS) are being considered as an alternative sampling method of blood collection that can be used in combination with lipidomic and other omic analysis. DBS are successfully used in the clinical context to collect samples for newborn screening for the measurement of specifc fatty acid derivatives, such as acylcarnitines, and lipids from whole blood for diagnostic purposes. However, DBS are scarcely used for lipidomic analysis and investigations. Lipidomic stud ies using DBS are starting to emerge as a powerful method for sampling and storage in clinical lipidomic analysis, but the major research work is being done in the pre- and analytical steps and procedures, and few in clinical applications. This review presents a description of the impact factors and variables that can afect DBS lipidomic analysis, such as the type of DBS card, haematocrit, homogeneity of the blood drop, matrix/chromatographic efects, and the chemical and physi cal properties of the analyte. Additionally, a brief overview of lipidomic studies using DBS to unveil their application in clinical scenarios is also presented, considering the studies of method development and validation and, to a less extent, for clinical diagnosis using clinical lipidomics. DBS combined with lipidomic approaches proved to be as efective as whole blood samples, achieving high levels of sensitivity and specifcity during MS and MS/MS analysis, which could be a useful tool for biomarker identifcation. Lipidomic profling using MS/MS platforms enables signifcant insights into physiological changes, which could be useful in precision medicine.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio