Index de la chronique bibliographique

Foram analisados a relação peso-comprimento e o fator de condição de Astyanax intermedius parasitados ou não pelo isópode Paracymothoa astyanaxi. A relação peso-comprimento foi estimada para fêmeas, machos e imaturos, e sazonalmente tanto para os peixes quanto para o parasito, por meio da expressão P = aCb. O fator de condição dos exemplares não parasitados diferiu sazonalmente e entre os sexos, contrastando com os valores do fator de condição dos peixes parasitados, que não apresentaram diferenças sazonais e entre os sexos. O fator de condição dos exemplares não parasitados foi sempre maior do que o dos exemplares parasitados. Os exemplares de Astyanax intermedius parasitados não passaram pelas mesmas condições bióticas dos indivíduos não parasitados, apresentando um fator de condição semelhante ao longo do ano. Conclui-se que o parasitismo por P. astyanaxi atua de forma deletéria na população desse hospedeiro, podendo causar alterações nas dinâmicas reprodutiva e alimentar dos exemplares parasitados em razão da baixa condição corpórea.In this work the length-weight relationship and the condition factor of Astyanax intermedius parasitised and not by Paracymothoa astyanaxi were analysed in the Grande River. The length-weight relationship was estimated for females, males and immatures, and seasonally for the fishes and the parasites through the expression W = aLb. The condition factor of non-parasitised specimens differed seasonally and between sexes, contrasting with the results for parasitised fishes which showed no differences between sexes and season. The condition factor of non-parasitised specimens was higher than that of the parasitised fishes. Specimens of Astyanax intermedius parasitised do not have the same biotic conditions compared to non-parasitised individuals, in which the condition factor was similar over the years. In conclusion, parasitism by P. astyanaxi has deleterious effects on this host population which may cause changes in the reproductive and food dynamics of parasitised specimens due to low body conditions

Inhibition of the NMDA receptor/Nitric Oxide pathway in the dorsolateral periaqueductal gray causes anxiolytic-like effects in rats submitted to the Vogel conflict test

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Several studies had demonstrated the involvement of the dorsolateral portion of periaqueductal grey matter (dlPAG) in defensive responses. This region contains a significant number of neurons containing the enzyme nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and previous studies showed that non-selective NOS inhibition or glutamate NMDA-receptor antagonism in the dlPAG caused anxiolytic-like effects in the elevated plus maze.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In the present study we verified if the NMDA/NO pathway in the dlPAG would also involve in the behavioral suppression observed in rats submitted to the Vogel conflict test. In addition, the involvement of this pathway was investigated by using a selective nNOS inhibitor, Nω-propyl-L-arginine (N-Propyl, 0.08 nmol/200 nL), a NO scavenger, carboxy-PTIO (c-PTIO, 2 nmol/200 nL) and a specific NMDA receptor antagonist, LY235959 (4 nmol/200 nL).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Intra-dlPAG microinjection of these drugs increased the number of punished licks without changing the number of unpunished licks or nociceptive threshold, as measure by the tail flick test.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results indicate that activation of NMDA receptors and increased production of NO in the dlPAG are involved in the anxiety behavior displayed by rats in the VCT.</p

Identifying physical activity type in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury by means of accelerometers

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to develop and test classification algorithms based on machine learning using accelerometers to identify the activity type performed by manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury (SCI). Setting: The study was conducted in the Physical Therapy department and the Physical Education and Sports department of the University of Valencia. Methods: A total of 20 volunteers were asked to perform 10 physical activities, lying down, body transfers, moving items, mopping, working on a computer, watching TV, arm-ergometer exercises, passive propulsion, slow propulsion and fast propulsion, while fitted with four accelerometers placed on both wrists, chest and waist. The activities were grouped into five categories: sedentary, locomotion, housework, body transfers and moderate physical activity. Different machine learning algorithms were used to develop individual and group activity classifiers from the acceleration data for different combinations of number and position of the accelerometers. Results: We found that although the accuracy of the classifiers for individual activities was moderate (55-72%), with higher values for a greater number of accelerometers, grouped activities were correctly classified in a high percentage of cases (83.2-93.6%). Conclusions: With only two accelerometers and the quadratic discriminant analysis algorithm we achieved a reasonably accurate group activity recognition system (490%). Such a system with the minimum of intervention would be a valuable tool for studying physical activity in individuals with SCI.X Garcia-Masso gratefully acknowledges the support of the University of Valencia under project UV-INV-PRECOMP13-115364.García-Massó, X.; Serra-Añó P.; Gonzalez, L.; Ye Lin, Y.; Prats-Boluda, G.; Garcia Casado, FJ. (2015). Identifying physical activity type in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury by means of accelerometers. Spinal Cord. 53(10):772-777. https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2015.81S7727775310Buchholz AC, Martin Ginis KA, Bray SR, Craven BC, Hicks AL, Hayes KC et al. Greater daily leisure time physical activity is associated with lower chronic disease risk in adults with spinal cord injury. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 2009; 34: 640–647.Hetz SP, Latimer AE, Buchholz AC, Martin Ginis KA . Increased participation in activities of daily living is associated with lower cholesterol levels in people with spinal cord injury. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2009; 90: 1755–1759.Manns PJ, Chad KE . Determining the relation between quality of life, handicap, fitness, and physical activity for persons with spinal cord injury. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1999; 80: 1566–1571.Serra-Añó P, Pellicer-Chenoll M, García-Massó X, Morales J, Giner-Pascual M, González L-M . Effects of resistance training on strength, pain and shoulder functionality in paraplegics. Spinal Cord 2012; 50: 827–831.Slater D, Meade MA . Participation in recreation and sports for persons with spinal cord injury: review and recommendations. NeuroRehabilitation 2004; 19: 121–129.Lee M, Zhu W, Hedrick B, Fernhall B . Determining metabolic equivalent values of physical activities for persons with paraplegia. Disabil Rehabil 2010; 32: 336–343.Lee M, Zhu W, Hedrick B, Fernhall B . Estimating MET values using the ratio of HR for persons with paraplegia. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2010; 42: 985–990.Hayes AM, Myers JN, Ho M, Lee MY, Perkash I, Kiratli BJ . Heart rate as a predictor of energy expenditure in people with spinal cord injury. J Rehabil Res Dev 2005; 42: 617–624.Washburn RA, Zhu W, McAuley E, Frogley M, Figoni SF . The physical activity scale for individuals with physical disabilities: development and evaluation. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2002; 83: 193–200.Ginis KAM, Latimer AE, Hicks AL, Craven BC . Development and evaluation of an activity measure for people with spinal cord injury. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2005; 37: 1099–1111.Khan AM, Lee Y-K, Lee S, Kim T-S . Accelerometer’s position independent physical activity recognition system for long-term activity monitoring in the elderly. Med Biol Eng Comput 2010; 48: 1271–1279.Khan AM, Lee Y-K, Lee SY, Kim T-S . A triaxial accelerometer-based physical-activity recognition via augmented-signal features and a hierarchical recognizer. IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed Publ 2010; 14: 1166–1172.Liu S, Gao RX, John D, Staudenmayer J, Freedson PS . SVM-based multi-sensor fusion for free-living physical activity assessment. Conf Proc Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2011; 2011: 3188–3191.Liu S, Gao RX, John D, Staudenmayer JW, Freedson PS . Multisensor data fusion for physical activity assessment. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 2012; 59: 687–696.Staudenmayer J, Pober D, Crouter S, Bassett D, Freedson P . An artificial neural network to estimate physical activity energy expenditure and identify physical activity type from an accelerometer. J Appl Physiol 2009; 107: 1300–1307.Trost SG, Wong W-K, Pfeiffer KA, Zheng Y . Artificial neural networks to predict activity type and energy expenditure in youth. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2012; 44: 1801–1809.David Apple MD . Pain above the injury level. Top Spinal Cord Inj Rehabil 2001; 7: 18–29.Subbarao JV, Klopfstein J, Turpin R . Prevalence and impact of wrist and shoulder pain in patients with spinal cord injury. J Spinal Cord Med 1995; 18: 9–13.Postma K, van den Berg-Emons HJG, Bussmann JBJ, Sluis TAR, Bergen MP, Stam HJ . Validity of the detection of wheelchair propulsion as measured with an Activity Monitor in patients with spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord 2005; 43: 550–557.Hiremath SV, Ding D, Farringdon J, Vyas N, Cooper RA . Physical activity classification utilizing SenseWear activity monitor in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord 2013; 51: 705–709.Itzkovich M, Gelernter I, Biering-Sorensen F, Weeks C, Laramee MT, Craven BC et al. The Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM) version III: reliability and validity in a multi-center international study. Disabil Rehabil 2007; 29: 1926–1933.García-Massó X, Serra-Añó P, García-Raffi LM, Sánchez-Pérez EA, López-Pascual J, Gonzalez LM . Validation of the use of Actigraph GT3X accelerometers to estimate energy expenditure in full time manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord 2013; 51: 898–903.Preece SJ, Goulermas JY, Kenney LPJ, Howard D . A comparison of feature extraction methods for the classification of dynamic activities from accelerometer data. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 2009; 56: 871–879.Hurd WJ, Morrow MM, Kaufman KR . Tri-axial accelerometer analysis techniques for evaluating functional use of the extremities. J Electromyogr Kinesiol 2013; 23: 924–929.Teixeira FG, Jesus IRT, Mello RGT, Nadal J . Cross-correlation between head acceleration and stabilograms in humans in orthostatic posture. Conf Proc Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2012; 2012: 3496–3499.Hastie T, Tibshirani R, Friedman J . The Elements of Statistical Learning. Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction. Springer: New York, NY. 2009

Trends in social and demographic inequalities in the prevalence of chronic diseases in Brazil. PNAD: 2003-2008.

The aims of this study are: to evaluate the prevalence of chronic diseases in the Brazilian population comparing data of 2008 with those of 2003; to estimate the impact of chronic conditions on the use of health services and on the restriction of daily activities and to measure the differentials in the prevalence of specific diseases according to educational strata and the affiliation to a private health plan. Data were obtained from PNAD 2008 and 2003. The analysis included estimations of crude and adjusted prevalence ratios, using svy commands from Stata 11 software. The prevalence of at least one disease was higher in: the elderly, women, low schooling level, black or indigenous people, urban residents, migrants and people living in the south region of Brazil. The most frequent diseases were: hypertension, back and spinal cord disorders, arthritis and depression. Between 2003 and 2008, an increase in the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, cancer and cirrhosis was observed, and there was a reduction in chronic kidney failure and tuberculosis. All the diseases analyzed, with the exception of cancer and tendinitis/tenossinovitis, revealed a higher prevalence in low educational level strata. The greatest social inequalities were in chronic kidney failure, cirrhosis, tuberculosis and arthritis/rheumatism.1693755376

Acute stress response in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata L.) is time-of-day dependent: Physiological and oxidative stress indicators

Since fish show daily rhythms in most physiological functions, it should not be surprising that stressors may have different effects depending on the timing of exposure. In this study, we investigated the influence of time of day on the stress responses, at both physiological and cellular levels, in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurataL.) submitted to air exposure for 30 s and then returned to their tank. One hour after air exposure, blood, hypothalamus and liver samples were taken. Six fish per experimental group (control and stressed) were sampled every 4 h during a 24-h cycle. Fish were fed in the middle of the light cycle (ML) and locomotor activity rhythms were recorded using infrared photocells to determine their daily activity pattern of behaviour, which showed a peak around feeding time in all fish. In the control group, cortisol levels did not show daily rhythmicity, whereas in the stressed fish, a daily rhythm of plasma cortisol was observed, being the average values higher than in the control group, with increased differences during the dark phase. Blood glucose showed daily rhythmicity in the control group but not in the stressed one which also showed higher values at all sampling points. In the hypothalamus of control fish, a daily rhythm ofcorticotropin-releasing hormone(crh) gene expression was observed, with the acrophase at the beginning of the light phase. However, in the stressed fish, this rhythm was abolished. The expression ofcrh-binding protein(crhbp) showed a peak at the end of the dark phase in the control group, whereas in the stressed sea bream, this peak was found at ML. Regarding hepatic gene expression of oxidative stress biomarkers: (i)cytochrome c oxidase 4showed daily rhythmicity in both control and stressed fish, with the acrophases located around ML, (ii)peroxiredoxin(prdx) 3 and5(prdx5) only presented daily rhythmicity of expression in the stressed fish, with the acrophase located at the beginning of the light cycle and (iii)uncoupling protein 1showed significant differences between sampling points only in the control group, with significantly higher expression at the beginning of the dark phase. Taken together, these results indicate that stress response in gilthead sea bream is time-dependent as cortisol level rose higher at night, and that different rhythmic mechanisms interplay in the control of neuroendocrine and cellular stress responses

CTP promotes efficient ParB-dependent DNA condensation by facilitating one-dimensional diffusion from parS

Faithful segregation of bacterial chromosomes relies on the ParABS partitioning system and the SMC complex. In this work, we used single-molecule techniques to investigate the role of cytidine triphosphate (CTP) binding and hydrolysis in the critical interaction between centromere-like parS DNA sequences and the ParB CTPase. Using a combined optical tweezers confocal microscope, we observe the specific interaction of ParB with parS directly. Binding around parS is enhanced by the presence of CTP or the non-hydrolysable analogue CTPγS. However, ParB proteins are also detected at a lower density in distal non-specific DNA. This requires the presence of a parS loading site and is prevented by protein roadblocks, consistent with one-dimensional diffusion by a sliding clamp. ParB diffusion on non-specific DNA is corroborated by direct visualization and quantification of movement of individual quantum dot labelled ParB. Magnetic tweezers experiments show that the spreading activity, which has an absolute requirement for CTP binding but not hydrolysis, results in the condensation of parS-containing DNA molecules at low nanomolar protein concentrations

The influence of semantic and phonological factors on syntactic decisions: An event-related brain potential study

During language production and comprehension, information about a word's syntactic properties is sometimes needed. While the decision about the grammatical gender of a word requires access to syntactic knowledge, it has also been hypothesized that semantic (i.e., biological gender) or phonological information (i.e., sound regularities) may influence this decision. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while native speakers of German processed written words that were or were not semantically and/or phonologically marked for gender. Behavioral and ERP results showed that participants were faster in making a gender decision when words were semantically and/or phonologically gender marked than when this was not the case, although the phonological effects were less clear. In conclusion, our data provide evidence that even though participants performed a grammatical gender decision, this task can be influenced by semantic and phonological factors

Right Paraduodenal Hernia in an Adult Patient: Diagnostic Approach and Surgical Management

Paraduodenal hernia, a rare congenital anomaly which arises from an error of rotation of the midgut, is the most common type of intraabdominal hernia. There are two variants, right and left paraduodenal hernia, the right being less common. We report the case of a 41-year-old patient with a right paraduodenal hernia with a 6-month history of intermittent episodes of intestinal obstruction. Diagnosis was established by CT scan and upper gastrointestinal series with small bowel follow-through. In a planned laparotomy, herniation of the small bowel loops through the fossa of Waldeyer was found. Division of the lateral right attachments of the colon opened the hernia sac widely, replacing the pre- and postarterial segments of the intestine in the positions they would normally occupy at the end of the first stage of rotation during embryonic development. Six months after the surgery, after an uneventful recovery, the patient remains free of symptoms

Three-Port Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy in a Brazilian Amazon Woman with Situs Inversus Totalis: Surgical Approach

Situs inversus totalis (SIT) is an uncommon anomaly characterized by transposition of organs to the opposite side of the body in a mirror image of normal. We report on an adult woman, born and resident in Brazilian Amazonia, presenting acute pain located at the left hypochondrium and epigastrium. During clinical and radiological evaluation, the patient was found to have SIT and multiple stones cholelithiasis. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was safely performed with the three-port technique in a reverse fashion. In conclusion, this case confirms that three-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a safe and feasible surgical approach to treat cholelithiasis even in rare and challenging conditions like SIT

Node Vulnerability under Finite Perturbations in Complex Networks

A measure to quantify vulnerability under perturbations (attacks, failures, large fluctuations) in ensembles (networks) of coupled dynamical systems is proposed. Rather than addressing the issue of how the network properties change upon removal of elements of the graph (the strategy followed by most of the existing methods for studying the vulnerability of a network based on its topology), here a dynamical definition of vulnerability is introduced, referring to the robustness of a collective dynamical state to perturbing events occurring over a fixed topology. In particular, we study how the collective (synchronized) dynamics of a network of chaotic units is disrupted under the action of a finite size perturbation on one of its nodes. Illustrative examples are provided for three systems of identical chaotic oscillators coupled according to three distinct well-known network topologies. A quantitative comparison between the obtained vulnerability rankings and the classical connectivity/centrality rankings is made that yields conclusive results. Possible applications of the proposed strategy and conclusions are also discussed