The Text Mining Technique Applied to the Analysis of Health Interventions to Combat Congenital Syphilis in Brazil: The Case of the "Syphilis No!" Project

Congenital syphilis (CS) remains a threat to public health worldwide, especially in developing countries. To mitigate the impacts of the CS epidemic, the Brazilian government has developed a national intervention project called "Syphilis No." Thus, among its range of actions is the production of thousands of writings featuring the experiences of research and intervention supporters (RIS) of the project, called field researchers. In addition, this large volume of base data was subjected to analysis through data mining, which may contribute to better strategies for combating syphilis. Natural language processing is a form of knowledge extraction. First, the database extracted from the "LUES Platform" with 4,874 documents between 2018 and 2020 was employed. This was followed by text preprocessing, selecting texts referring to the field researchers' reports for analysis. Finally, for analyzing the documents, N-grams extraction (N = 2,3,4) was performed. The combination of the TF-IDF metric with the BoW algorithm was applied to assess terms' importance and frequency and text clustering. In total, 1019 field activity reports were mined. Word extraction from the text mining method set out the following guiding axioms from the bigrams: "confronting syphilis in primary health care;" "investigation committee for congenital syphilis in the territory;" "municipal plan for monitoring and investigating syphilis cases through health surveillance;" "women's healthcare networks for syphilis in pregnant;" "diagnosis and treatment with a focus on rapid testing." Text mining may serve public health research subjects when used in parallel with the conventional content analysis method. The computational method extracted intervention activities from field researchers, also providing inferences on how the strategies of the "Syphilis No" Project influenced the decrease in congenital syphilis cases in the territory

MECANISMOS FISIOLÓGICOS E FISIOPATOLÓGICOS DETERMINANTES DA ATIVIDADE VASOMOTORA SIMPÁTICA

The sympathetic vasomotor activity is one of determinants of blood pressure (BP). Understanding the mechanisms involved in the control of the cardiovascular system is important in physiological and pathophysiological condition. The principal sympathetic premotor brain nuclei are confined in the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus (PVN) and in the rostralventrolateral medulla (RVLM). In different patophysiological condition, there is an increase in the sympathetic vasomotor tone, in part due to an increase in the activity of the PVN and RVLM neurons. In this brief review, we discussed the major mechanisms of sympathetic activation in different experimental models: 1) renovascular hypertension, 2) renoprival hypertension, 3) cardiac failure, 4) hypertension induced by nitric oxide blockade, 5) obesity and 6) gender differences. The actions of different mediators in the PVN and in the RVLM acting in long term, can change the level of sympathetic nerve activity and blood pressure and therefore, contributing for the progression of cardiovascular disease.A atividade vasomotora simpática é um dos determinantes da pressão arterial (PA). Estabelecer quais são os mecanismos geradores dessa atividade é importante para o entendimento de como o sistema cardiovascular opera, tanto em situações fisiológicas como fisiopatológicas. Os principais grupos pré-motores do simpático estão confinados no núcleo paraventricular do hipotálamo (PVN) e região rostoventrolateral bulbar (RVLM). Em diversas situações fisiopatológicas há aumento na atividade vasomotora simpática, em parte conseqüente a maior atividade dos neurônios do PVN e RVLM. Nesta breve revisão, foram discutidos os principais mecanismos de ativação simpática em diferentes modelos experimentais: 1) hipertensão renovascular, 2) hipertensão por baixa massa renal, 3) insuficiência cardíaca, 4) hipertensão por bloqueio do óxido nítrico, 5) obesidade e 6) dimorfismo sexual. As ações de diferentes mediadores sobre o PVN e RVLM podem em longo prazo determinar novos patamares de atividade simpática, modificando os níveis tensionais e dessa forma, contribuir para a progressão da doença cardiovascular

Study of the stability and electronic properties of h-BN nanoribbons with reconstructed edges.

Energetics and electronic properties of three-layered hBN nanoribbons, with reconstructed edges, were investigated, using density functional theory. Such edges present lines of pentagonal and heptagonal rings, where homopolar B-B and N-N bonds exist. The homopolar bonds and their distribution, determine the energetic stability of hBN nanoribbons. The structures with the lowest amount of homopolar bonds presents a value of formation energy smaller than the single hBN layer, which suggests that such kind of reconstruction may indeed occur in real three-layered hBN systems. In addition, our results suggest that reconstructed edges on hBN nanoribbons are more stable than their carbon counterparts

3D Filaments Based on Polyhydroxy Butyrate—Micronized Bacterial Cellulose for Tissue Engineering Applications

In this work, scaffolds based on poly(hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and micronized bacterial cellulose (BC) were produced through 3D printing. Filaments for the printing were obtained by varying the percentage of micronized BC (0.25, 0.50, 1.00, and 2.00%) inserted in relation to the PHB matrix. Despite the varying concentrations of BC, the biocomposite filaments predominantly contained PHB functional groups, as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) demonstrated. Thermogravimetric analyses (i.e., TG and DTG) of the filaments showed that the peak temperature (Tpeak) of PHB degradation decreased as the concentration of BC increased, with the lowest being 248 °C, referring to the biocomposite filament PHB/2.0% BC, which has the highest concentration of BC. Although there was a variation in the thermal behavior of the filaments, it was not significant enough to make printing impossible, considering that the PHB melting temperature was 170 °C. Biological assays indicated the non-cytotoxicity of scaffolds and the provision of cell anchorage sites. The results obtained in this research open up new paths for the application of this innovation in tissue engineering

<em>Bandoniozyma</em> gen. nov., a Genus of Fermentative and Non-Fermentative Tremellaceous Yeast Species

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Independent surveys across the globe led to the proposal of a new basidiomycetous yeast genus within the <em>Bulleromyces</em> clade of the Tremellales, <em>Bandoniozyma</em> gen. nov., with seven new species.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principal Findings</h3><p>The species were characterized by multiple methods, including the analysis of D1/D2 and ITS nucleotide sequences, and morphological and physiological/biochemical traits. Most species can ferment glucose, which is an unusual trait among basidiomycetous yeasts.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>In this study we propose the new yeast genus <em>Bandoniozyma</em>, with seven species <em>Bandoniozyma noutii</em> sp. nov. (type species of genus; CBS 8364^T  =  DBVPG 4489^T), <em>Bandoniozyma aquatica</em> sp. nov. (UFMG-DH4.20^T  =  CBS 12527^T  =  ATCC MYA-4876^T), <em>Bandoniozyma complexa</em> sp. nov. (CBS 11570^T  =  ATCC MYA-4603^T  =  MA28a^T), <em>Bandoniozyma fermentans</em> sp. nov. (CBS 12399^T  =  NU7M71^T  =  BCRC 23267^T), <em>Bandoniozyma glucofermentans</em> sp. nov. (CBS 10381^T  =  NRRL Y-48076^T  =  ATCC MYA-4760^T  =  BG 02-7-15-015A-1-1^T), <em>Bandoniozyma tunnelae</em> sp. nov. (CBS 8024^T  =  DBVPG 7000^T), and <em>Bandoniozyma visegradensis</em> sp. nov. (CBS 12505^T  =  NRRL Y-48783^T  =  NCAIM Y.01952^T).</p> </div

<i>Bandoniozyma visegradensis</i> CBS 12505^T a) Growth on 5% malt extract agar, 3 days, 25°C, b) Septate hypha in 5% malt extract broth, 19 days, 25°C, c) Curved buds connecting independent cells (c.1) or mother cell bud pairs (c.2), YM agar, 10 days, 25°C, d) Conjugating cells, YM agar, 10 days, 25°C, e) Conjugation tubes, 2% malt extract agar, 18 days, 6°C. Bar = 10 µm.

<p><i>Bandoniozyma visegradensis</i> CBS 12505^T a) Growth on 5% malt extract agar, 3 days, 25°C, b) Septate hypha in 5% malt extract broth, 19 days, 25°C, c) Curved buds connecting independent cells (c.1) or mother cell bud pairs (c.2), YM agar, 10 days, 25°C, d) Conjugating cells, YM agar, 10 days, 25°C, e) Conjugation tubes, 2% malt extract agar, 18 days, 6°C. Bar = 10 µm.</p