Drug Susceptibility Profiling of Prototheca Species Isolated from Cases of Human Protothecosis

Prototheca are unicellular, achlorophyllous, yeast-like microalgae that occur in a wide range of natural habitats. At least five species have been implicated as the causative agents of opportunistic infections of men. Human protothecosis typically manifests as cutaneous, articular, or systemic disease. Treatment is largely empirical with poorly predictable and often unsuccessful outcomes. This is largely due to the frequently observed resistance of Prototheca species to conventional antimicrobial agents. This work is the first to perform drug susceptibility profiling exclusively on isolates from human cases of protothecosis. A total of 23 such isolates were tested against amphotericin B and 9 azoles, including efinaconazole and luliconazole, whose activities against Prototheca have never been studied before. Efinaconazole was the most active, with median minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum algicidal concentration (MAC) values of 0.031 mg/L and 0.063 mg/L, respectively. Fluconazole and luliconazole had the lowest activity, with median MIC and MAC values of 128 mg/L. To conclude, amphotericin B and most of the azoles showed in vitro activity, with an algicidal rather than algistatic effect, against Prototheca. Still, the activity of individual drugs differed significantly between the species and even between strains of the same species. These differences can be attributed to a species-specific potential for acquiring drug resistance, which, in turn, might be linked to the treatment history of the patient from whom the strain was recovered. The results of this study underscore the potential clinical utility of efinaconazole as a promising therapeutic agent for the treatment of human protothecosis

The Use of Artificial Neural Networks in Supporting the Annual Training in 400 meter Hurdles

This paper presents an evaluation of the annual cycle for 400 m hurdles using artificial neural networks. The analysis included 21 Polish national team hurdlers. In planning the annual cycle, 27 variables were used, where 5 variables describe the competitor and 22 variables represent the training loads. In the presented solution, the task of generating training loads for the assumed result were considered. The neural models were evaluated by cross-validation method. The smallest error was obtained for the radial basis function network with nine neurons in the hidden layer. The performed analysis shows that at each phase of training the structure of training loads is different

The inferior gluteal artery anatomy: a detailed analysis with implications for plastic and reconstructive surgery

Background: The inferior gluteal artery (IGA) is a large terminal branch of the anterior division of the internal iliac artery (ADIIA). There is a significant lack of data regarding the variable anatomy of the IGA. Materials and methods: A retrospective study was conducted to establish anatomical variations, their prevalence and morphometrical data on IGA and its branches. The results of 75 consecutive patients who underwent pelvic computed tomography angiography (CTA) were analyzed. Results: The origin variation of each IGA was deeply analyzed. Four origin variations have been observed. The most common Type O1 occurred in 86 of the studied cases (62.3%).  The median IGA length was set to be 68.50 mm (LQ = 54.29 ; HQ = 86.06). The median distance from the origin of the ADIIA to the origin of the IGA was set to be 38.22 mm (LQ = 20.22; HQ = 55.97). The median origin diameter of the IGA was established at 4.69 mm (LQ = 4.13; HQ = 5.45). Conclusions: The present study thoroughly analyzed the complete anatomy of the IGA and the branches of the ADIIA. A novel classification system for the origin of the IGA was created, where the most prevalent origin was from the ADIIA (Type 1; 62.3%). Furthermore, the morphometric properties (such as the diameter and length) of the branches of the ADIIA were analyzed. This data may be incredibly useful for physicians performing operations in the pelvis, such as interventional intraarterial procedures or various gynecological surgeries

Blaski i cienie życia – Perspektywa psychologiczna

Z wprowadzenia: "Książka zatytułowana Blaski i cienie życia – perspektywa psychologiczna wpisuje się w badania dotyczące uwarunkowań zachowania człowieka w wymiarze biologicznym, psychicznym i społecznym. Poszczególne rozdziały tej publikacji powiązane są z różnorodną problematyką, ale mają pewną wspólną właściwość – wszystkie dotyczą psychologicznych problemów życia współczesnego człowieka, jakże złożonych i interesujących z perspektywy badań i praktyki zawodowej."(...

Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reasons for facebook usage: Data from 46 countries

Seventy-nine percent of internet users use Facebook, and on average they access Facebook eight times a day (Greenwood et al., 2016). To put these numbers into perspective, according to Clement (2019), around 30% of the world\u2019s population uses this Online Social Network (OSN) site. Despite the constantly growing body of academic research on Facebook (Chou et al., 2009; Back et al., 2010; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; McAndrew and Jeong, 2012; Wilson et al., 2012; Krasnova et al., 2017), there remains limited research regarding the motivation behind Facebook use across different cultures. Our main goal was to collect data from a large cross-cultural sample of Facebook users to examine the roles of sex, age, and, most importantly, cultural differences underlying Facebook use