System of Pressure Detection with IoT for Pins in Tail Pinch Test

Internet of Things (IoT) allows to interconnect and to interchange objects data through Internet. This component is part of a global term denominated Industry 4.0 that involved cyber-physical components for automation in industry. But IoT can be applied to different fields in research and technological developing as laboratory automation. Thus, it was developed a system that measure and classify pins used on Tail Pinch Test automatically. Our objective was to create a system that allow to categorize automatically instruments that are used in experiments. Thus, measurements variations are reduced, and the reliability of experiments grows. The system was based on Arduino ADK and resistive sensor to acquire pressure data. Also, a WIFI network and cloud computing service was used in the system. The application layer processed 100 pressure measurements and classified in linguistic values a pin using an Artificial Neural Network.Resumen—El Internet de las Cosas (IoT) permite a los objetos conectarse e intercambiar datos de todo tipo usando Internet. Se trata de uno de los componentes de la denominada Industria 4.0, cuyo campo de trabajo son los sistemas ciber-físicos para la automatización de procesos. Pero IoT tiene aplicaciones en muchos otros campos además de la industria, como lo son la investigación y el desarrollo tecnológico en la automatización de laboratorios. Así se creó un sistema que mide y clasifica de manera automática la presión de pinzas usadas en la prueba Tail-Pinch. El objetivo fue crear un sistema que permitiera categorizar instrumentos de experimentación. De tal manera que las variaciones de medición se reduzcan mientras crece la confiabilidad del experimento. Para ello, se empleó una tarjeta Arduino ADK y un sensor resistivo de presión. Se empleó una red WIFI y un servicio de almacenamiento de datos en nube. La aplicación final utilizó 100 medidas de presión y una Red Neuronal Artificial para dar una categoría lingüística de salida a la pinza seleccionada

Comportamiento fotocatalítico de películas delgadas de dióxido de titanio

En el presente trabajo se sintetizaron películas delgadas de dióxido de titanio por el método de roció pirolítico ultrasónico, a diferentes temperaturas y tiempos de depósito, las cuales se emplearon en la reacción de degradación fotocatalítica del colorante textil azo azul lanasol. A los materiales sintetizados se les evaluaron sus propiedades estructurales, texturales y ópticas, mediante DRX, microscopia electrónica de barrido y espectroscopia UV-Vis. La reacción de fotodegradación se llevó a cabo en un reactor por lotes equipado con: camisa de enfriamiento, agitación magnética y lámpara de 10 W en un medio acido. La variación en la concentración del colorante fue monitoreada mediante espectroscopia UV-Vis (λ = 190 - 900 nm); el desempeño fotocatalítico de las películas delgadas fue comparado con el de TiO₂ (Aldrich) en polvo.In this work titanium dioxide thin films were synthesized by ultrasound-spray pyrolysis method at different temperatures and times of deposition, these samples were employed in the photocatalytic degradation of blue lanasol textile azo-dye. The structural, textural, and optical properties of all synthesized materials were measured by XRD, scanning electron microscopy and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The photodegradation reaction was carried out in acidic media into a glass batch reactor, equipped with water surrounding jacket, magnetic stirrer and 10 W lamp. The change in concentration was monitored by UV-Vis spectroscopy (λ = 190 - 900 nm); the photocatalytic performance of thin films was compared with a powder TiO₂ sample (Aldrich)

Pharmaceutical and Botanical Management of Pain Associated with Psychopathology: A Narrative Review

Generally, pain can be described as an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience associated with tissue damage. Chronic pain has become a public health problem because among 35 and 75% of the world population has shown the symptom. In particular, neuropathic pain has shown high comorbidity disorders such as anxiety and depression. Conventional therapies for treating pain include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), corticosteroids, tricyclic antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and opioids, which usually cause some side effects such as gastritis, headache, liver and kidney toxicity, and drug dependence. Conventional pharmaceuticals also tend to be expensive, and they cannot be easily afforded in developing countries, which have led to the use of natural products as an alternative treatment. In this chapter, we reviewed the current research of natural products for pain treatment. We also describe preclinical studies that assess the effect of some natural products on pain therapy, phytochemistry research, toxicity, adverse effects, and biosecurity. We also describe how conventional pain is managed and the possible use of compounds obtained from vegetable species for pain treatment

Population Health Metrics Research Consortium gold standard verbal autopsy validation study: design, implementation, and development of analysis datasets

Background: Verbal autopsy methods are critically important for evaluating the leading causes of death in populations without adequate vital registration systems. With a myriad of analytical and data collection approaches, it is essential to create a high quality validation dataset from different populations to evaluate comparative method performance and make recommendations for future verbal autopsy implementation. This study was undertaken to compile a set of strictly defined gold standard deaths for which verbal autopsies were collected to validate the accuracy of different methods of verbal autopsy cause of death assignment.Methods: Data collection was implemented in six sites in four countries: Andhra Pradesh, India; Bohol, Philippines; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Mexico City, Mexico; Pemba Island, Tanzania; and Uttar Pradesh, India. The Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) developed stringent diagnostic criteria including laboratory, pathology, and medical imaging findings to identify gold standard deaths in health facilities as well as an enhanced verbal autopsy instrument based on World Health Organization (WHO) standards. A cause list was constructed based on the WHO Global Burden of Disease estimates of the leading causes of death, potential to identify unique signs and symptoms, and the likely existence of sufficient medical technology to ascertain gold standard cases. Blinded verbal autopsies were collected on all gold standard deaths.Results: Over 12,000 verbal autopsies on deaths with gold standard diagnoses were collected (7,836 adults, 2,075 children, 1,629 neonates, and 1,002 stillbirths). Difficulties in finding sufficient cases to meet gold standard criteria as well as problems with misclassification for certain causes meant that the target list of causes for analysis was reduced to 34 for adults, 21 for children, and 10 for neonates, excluding stillbirths. To ensure strict independence for the validation of methods and assessment of comparative performance, 500 test-train datasets were created from the universe of cases, covering a range of cause-specific compositions.Conclusions: This unique, robust validation dataset will allow scholars to evaluate the performance of different verbal autopsy analytic methods as well as instrument design. This dataset can be used to inform the implementation of verbal autopsies to more reliably ascertain cause of death in national health information systems

Using Verbal Autopsy to Measure Causes of Death: the Comparative Performance of Existing Methods.

Monitoring progress with disease and injury reduction in many populations will require widespread use of verbal autopsy (VA). Multiple methods have been developed for assigning cause of death from a VA but their application is restricted by uncertainty about their reliability. We investigated the validity of five automated VA methods for assigning cause of death: InterVA-4, Random Forest (RF), Simplified Symptom Pattern (SSP), Tariff method (Tariff), and King-Lu (KL), in addition to physician review of VA forms (PCVA), based on 12,535 cases from diverse populations for which the true cause of death had been reliably established. For adults, children, neonates and stillbirths, performance was assessed separately for individuals using sensitivity, specificity, Kappa, and chance-corrected concordance (CCC) and for populations using cause specific mortality fraction (CSMF) accuracy, with and without additional diagnostic information from prior contact with health services. A total of 500 train-test splits were used to ensure that results are robust to variation in the underlying cause of death distribution. Three automated diagnostic methods, Tariff, SSP, and RF, but not InterVA-4, performed better than physician review in all age groups, study sites, and for the majority of causes of death studied. For adults, CSMF accuracy ranged from 0.764 to 0.770, compared with 0.680 for PCVA and 0.625 for InterVA; CCC varied from 49.2% to 54.1%, compared with 42.2% for PCVA, and 23.8% for InterVA. For children, CSMF accuracy was 0.783 for Tariff, 0.678 for PCVA, and 0.520 for InterVA; CCC was 52.5% for Tariff, 44.5% for PCVA, and 30.3% for InterVA. For neonates, CSMF accuracy was 0.817 for Tariff, 0.719 for PCVA, and 0.629 for InterVA; CCC varied from 47.3% to 50.3% for the three automated methods, 29.3% for PCVA, and 19.4% for InterVA. The method with the highest sensitivity for a specific cause varied by cause. Physician review of verbal autopsy questionnaires is less accurate than automated methods in determining both individual and population causes of death. Overall, Tariff performs as well or better than other methods and should be widely applied in routine mortality surveillance systems with poor cause of death certification practices

DNA Vaccine Treatment in Dogs Experimentally Infected with Trypanosoma cruzi

Chagas disease is a chronic and potentially lethal disorder caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and an effective treatment has not been developed for chronic Chagas disease. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a therapeutic DNA vaccine containing T. cruzi genes in dogs with experimentally induced Chagas disease through clinical, pathological, and immunological analyses. Infection of Beagle dogs with the H8 T. cruzi strain was performed intraperitoneally with 3500 metacyclic trypomastigotes/kg body weight. Two weeks after infection, plasmid DNA immunotherapy was administered thrice at 15-day intervals. The clinical (physical and cabinet studies), immunological (antibody and cytokine profiles and lymphoproliferation), and macro- and microscopic pathological findings were described. A significant increase in IgG and cell proliferation was recorded after immunotherapy, and the highest stimulation index (3.02) was observed in dogs treated with the pBCSSP4 plasmid. The second treatment with both plasmids induced an increase in IL-1, and the third treatment with the pBCSSP4 plasmid induced an increase in IL-6. The pBCSP plasmid had a good Th1 response regulated by high levels of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha, whereas the combination of the two plasmids did not have a synergistic effect. Electrocardiographic studies registered lower abnormalities and the lowest number of individuals with abnormalities in each group treated with the therapeutic vaccine. Echocardiograms showed that the pBCSSP4 plasmid immunotherapy preserved cardiac structure and function to a greater extent and prevented cardiomegaly. The two plasmids alone controlled the infection moderately by a reduction in the inflammatory infiltrates in heart tissue. The immunotherapy was able to reduce the magnitude of cardiac lesions and modulate the cellular immune response; the pBCSP treatment showed a clear Th1 response; and pBCSSP4 induced a balanced Th1/Th2 immune response that prevented severe cardiac involvement. The pBCSSP4 plasmid had a better effect on most of the parameters evaluated in this study; therefore, this plasmid can be considered an optional treatment against Chagas disease in naturally infected dogs