Rhinoscleroma in a 5-year-old Portuguese Child

Rhinoscleroma is a chronic granulomatous infectious disease that is rare in Western Europe. We report the case of a 5-year-old Portuguese boy diagnosed with rhinoscleroma in the context of recurrent epistaxis. He had a 6-month course of antibiotic (amoxicillin plus clavulanate) therapy with full recovery

Summer Vacations not Only a Memory for Life, but Also a Rare Infection

Introduction: Rhinoscleroma is a rare, chronic, granulomatous disease that most frequently affects the upper respiratory tract, especially the nasal cavity and sometimes extends through the lower respiratory tract. Is associated with Klebsiella rhinoscleromatis, which is endemic in certain geographic regions namely Central America. The pathogenesis and risk factors remain unclear. Clinical case: We report a five years Old Portuguese boy, previously healthy, brought to the Emergency Department with epistaxis, without other accompanying signs or symptoms. The Otorhinolaryngologist (ORL) performed rhinoscopy and identified an intranasal bleeding mass. The MRI revealed an intranasal mass with extension to the ethmoid bone sinus, and performed biopsy. The histopathology was vital, making the diagnosis of Rhinoscleroma. The child had traveled abroad for the first time on vacations a year before to Dominican Republic. The bacteriologic exam identified a Klebsiella spp. sensible to the association of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid. Blood test performed excluded association of immunodeficiency. Since it’s a rare disease genetic study are under course. Monthly evaluation by ORL and pediatrician was performed which documented progressive reduction until total disappearing of the macro and microscopic lesion, and negative bacteriologic exam. Six months of antibiotic therapy were completed without any known secondary effects. The child remained asymptomatic up to the last visit, 3 months following treatment and has shown no evidence of recurrence. Conclusion: Globalization and free transit of people to areas far from origin countries here some rare diseases are endemic brings a new challenge to modern medicine. Sometimes vacations bring more than memories

Linking appraisal to behavioral flexibility in animals: implications for stress research

In fluctuating environments, organisms require mechanisms enabling the rapid expression of context-dependent behaviors. Here, we approach behavioral flexibility from a perspective rooted in appraisal theory, aiming to provide a better understanding on how animals adjust their internal state to environmental context. Appraisal has been defined as a multi-component and interactive process between the individual and the environment, in which the individual must evaluate the significance of a stimulus to generate an adaptive response. Within this framework, we review and reframe the existing evidence for the appraisal components in animal literature, in an attempt to reveal the common ground of appraisal mechanisms between species. Furthermore, cognitive biases may occur in the appraisal of ambiguous stimuli. These biases may be interpreted either as states open to environmental modulation or as long-lasting phenotypic traits. Finally, we discuss the implications of cognitive bias for stress research.FCT Ph.D. fellowships: (SFRH/BD/79087/2011, SFRH/BD/68528/2010), FCT strategic grant: (PEst-OE/MAR/UI0331/2011)

Energy thresholds for the existence of breather solutions and traveling waves on lattices

We discuss the existence of breathers and of energy thresholds for their formation in DNLS lattices with linear and nonlinear impurities. In the case of linear impurities we present some new results concerning important differences between the attractive and repulsive impurity which is interplaying with a power nonlinearity. These differences concern the coexistence or the existence of staggered and unstaggered breather profile patterns. We also distinguish between the excitation threshold (the positive minimum of the power observed when the dimension of the lattice is greater or equal to some critical value) and explicit analytical lower bounds on the power (predicting the smallest value of the power a discrete breather one-parameter family), which are valid for any dimension. Extended numerical studies in one, two and three dimensional lattices justify that the theoretical bounds can be considered as thresholds for the existence of the frequency parametrized families. The discussion reviews and extends the issue of the excitation threshold in lattices with nonlinear impu- rities while lower bounds, with respect to the kinetic energy, are also discussed for traveling waves in FPU periodic lattices

Mechanisms of social buffering of fear in zebrafish

The supplementary materials such the videos, are not present in the deposit due to incompatibilty of the extension of the files with the repository.Some humans thrive whereas others resign when exposed to threatening situations throughout life. Social support has been identified as an important modulator of these discrepancies in human behaviour, and other social animals also exhibit phenomena in which individuals recover better from aversive events when conspecifics are present - aka social buffering. Here we studied social buffering in zebrafish, by exposing focal fish to an aversive stimulus (alarm substance - AS) either in the absence or presence of conspecific cues. When exposed to AS in the presence of both olfactory (shoal water) and visual (sight of shoal) conspecific cues, focal fish exhibited a lower fear response than when tested alone, demonstrating social buffering in zebrafish. When separately testing each cue's effectiveness, we verified that the visual cue was more effective than the olfactory in reducing freezing in a persistent threat scenario. Finally, we verified that social buffering was independent of shoal size and coincided with a distinct pattern of co-activation of brain regions known to be involved in mammalian social buffering. Thus, this study suggests a shared evolutionary origin for social buffering in vertebrates, bringing new evidence on the behavioural, sensory and neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Algunos hongos hipogeos de Castilla-León (España): Youngiomyces multiplex y Genea thaxterii, primeras citas para Europa

Some hypogeous fungi frorn Castilla-León (Spain): Youngiomyces múltiplex and Genea thaxterii, first records in Europe. Eighteen species of hypogeous fungi collected by the autors in the community of Castilla-León have been studied. They stand out by their interest: Youngiomyces múltiplex (Thaxt.) Y.J. Yao, Elaphomyces maculatus Vitt., Genea sphaerica Tul. et C. Tul., G. Thaxterii Gilkey, Pachyphloeus cilrinus Berk. et Br., Gaulieria graveolens Vitt., Hymenogasler griseus Vitt., H. niveus Vitt., H. thwailesii Berk. et Br.,H. vulgaris Tul. apud Berk. et Br. and Rhizopogon corsicus Demoulin et Moyersoen. Amoung them, Youngiomyces Mulliplex and Genea thaxlerii are the first records in Europe.Se estudian 18 especies de hongos hipogeos recolectados por los autores en la Comunidad de Castilla-León. Destacan por su interés: Youngiomyces múltiplex (Thaxt.) Y.J. Yao, Elaphomyces maculatus Vitt., Genea sphaerica Tul. et C. Tul., G. Thaxterii Gilkey, Pachyphloeus cilrinus Berk. et Br., Gaulieria graveolens Vitt., Hymenogasler griseus Vitt., H. niveus Vitt., H. thwailesii Berk. et Br.,H. vulgaris Tul. apud Berk. et Br. and Rhizopogon corsicus Demoulin et Moyersoen. De entre ellos, Youngiomyces Mulliplex y Genea thaxlerii son primeras citas para Europa

Algunos hongos hipogeos de Castilla-León (España): Youngiomyces multiplex y Genea thaxterii, primeras citas para Europa

Se estudian 18 especies de hongos hipogeos recolectados por los autores en la Comunidad de Castilla-León. Destacan por su interés: Youngiomyces múltiplex (Thaxt.) Y.J. Yao, Elaphomyces maculatus Vitt., Genea sphaerica Tul. et C. Tul., G. Thaxterii Gilkey, Pachyphloeus cilrinus Berk. et Br., Gaulieria graveolens Vitt., Hymenogasler griseus Vitt., H. niveus Vitt., H. thwailesii Berk. et Br.,H. vulgaris Tul. apud Berk. et Br. and Rhizopogon corsicus Demoulin et Moyersoen. De entre ellos, Youngiomyces Mulliplex y Genea thaxlerii son primeras citas para Europa.Some hypogeous fungi frorn Castilla-León (Spain): Youngiomyces múltiplex and Genea thaxterii, first records in Europe. Eighteen species of hypogeous fungi collected by the autors in the community of Castilla-León have been studied. They stand out by their interest: Youngiomyces múltiplex (Thaxt.) Y.J. Yao, Elaphomyces maculatus Vitt., Genea sphaerica Tul. et C. Tul., G. Thaxterii Gilkey, Pachyphloeus cilrinus Berk. et Br., Gaulieria graveolens Vitt., Hymenogasler griseus Vitt., H. niveus Vitt., H. thwailesii Berk. et Br.,H. vulgaris Tul. apud Berk. et Br. and Rhizopogon corsicus Demoulin et Moyersoen. Amoung them, Youngiomyces Mulliplex and Genea thaxlerii are the first records in Europe

Cell-free layer analysis in a polydimethysiloxane microchannel: A global approach

The cell-free layer (CFL) is a hemodynamic phenomenon that has an important contribution to the rheological properti es of blood flowing in microvessels. The present work aims to find the closest function describing RBCs flowing around the cell depleted layer in a polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) microchannel with a diverging and a converging bifurcation. The flow behaviour of the CFL was investigated by using a high-speed video microscopy system where special attention was devoted to its behaviour before the bifurcation and after the confluence of the microchannel. The numerical data was first obtained by using a manual tracking plugin and then analysed using the genetic algorithm approach. The results show that for the majority of the cases the function that more closely resembles the CFL boundary is the sum of trigonometric functions.The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by PTDC/SAU-ENB/116929/ 2010 and EXPL/EMS-SIS/2215/2013 from FCT (Science and Technology Foundation), COMPETE, QREN and European Union (FEDER). R.O. Rodrigues, D. Pinho and V. Faustino acknowledge respectively, the PhD scholarships SFRH/BD/97658/2013, SFRH/BD/89077/2012 and SFRH/BD/99696/2014 granted by FCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio