Integral field spectroscopy of massive young stellar objects in the N113 H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud

The Spitzer Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution (SAGE) survey has allowed the identification and analysis of significant samples of Young Stellar Object (YSO) candidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). However, the angular resolution of Spitzer is relatively poor meaning that at the distance of the LMC, it is likely that many of the Spitzer YSO candidates in fact contain multiple components. We present high-resolution K-band integral field spectroscopic observations of the three most prominent massive YSO candidates in the N113 H II region using Very Large Telescope/Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared (VLT/SINFONI). We have identified six K-band continuum sources within the three Spitzer sources and we have mapped the morphology and velocity fields of extended line emission around these sources. Br γ, He I and H2 emission is found at the position of all six K-band sources; we discuss whether the emission is associated with the continuum sources or whether it is ambient emission. H2 emission appears to be mostly ambient emission and no evidence of CO emission arising in the discs of YSOs has been found. We have mapped the centroid velocities of extended Br γ emission and He I emission and found evidence of two expanding compact H II regions. One source shows compact and strong H2 emission suggestive of a molecular outflow. The diversity of spectroscopic properties observed is interpreted in the context of a range of evolutionary stages associated with massive star formation

Psychosocial Aspects Associated with Pain Perception in Individuals Undergoing Coronary Surgery

Objectivo: Identificar os factores psicossociais que influenciam a percepção da dor pós-operatória em doentes submetidos a cirurgia de revascularização do miocárdio (CRM). Material e Métodos: Estudo exploratório correlacional de 91 doentes (71 homens e 20 mulheres) submetidos a CRM (pontagem aortocoronária) por esternotomia. A idade média era de 63,8 ± 9,6 anos (entre 39 e 84). Foram utilizados os seguintes instrumentos: Escala Analógica Visual às 24, 48 e 96 horas do pós-operatório; Questionário de Caracterização Demográfica; Mental Health Inventory de 5 itens; Percepção de Saúde Geral (SF-36); Escala de Expectativas de Dor; Escala de Percepção de Apoio; Escala de Expectativas de Auto-eficácia; Satisfação com o tratamento, médicos e enfermeiros (American Pain Society Questionnaire) aplicados às 96 horas após a cirurgia. Resultados: Os doentes que apresentaram expectativas elevadas de dor, percepcionaram maior apoio, apresentaram níveis elevados de auto-eficácia para lidar com a dor ou, se pertenciam ao sexo masculino, sentiram menos dor. De igual modo, os doentes que apresentaram melhor saúde mental, percepcionaram a sua saúde como boa e os doentes que expressaram maior satisfação com o tratamento sentiram menos dor. A dor não foi influenciada pela idade, grau de escolaridade ou pela satisfação com a conduta de médicos e enfermeiros. Conclusão: Após as primeiras 48 horas do pós-operatório, a experiência de dor é influenciada por factores psicossociais, em particular pela expectativa de dor, expectativa de auto-eficácia, apoio percebido, percepção da saúde geral, percepção de saúde mental e satisfação com o tratamento para a dor. Perante os resultados, evidencia-se a necessidade de conjugar conhecimentos no sentido de dar respostas mais alargadas e de carácter multidisciplinar no tratamento da dor pós-operatória em CRM devendo, a par de outros aspectos, focar-se na gestão das expectativas dos doentes

Wealth and Disability in Later Life: The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)

We examined wealth inequalities in disability, taking into account the effect of both depression and social support among older English adults using data from 5,506 community-dwelling people aged 50 years and over from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Disability was measured as self-reported limitations in the Basic Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL). Depressive symptomatology was measured using the 8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale. Social support was assessed by marital status and frequency of contact with friends, relatives or children. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to assess the role of social support and depressive symptoms on disability by total household wealth, which is a measure of accumulated assets over the course of life. Our findings showed that the poorest men with disability were more likely to live without a partner and have no weekly contact with children, family or friends compared to the wealthiest. Among women with disability, the poorest were more likely to report loneliness and have no partner while the wealthiest and the intermediate groups were more likely to be living with a partner. There was a strong inverse dose-response association between wealth and depressive symptoms among all participants with disability. This study shows a clear wealth gradient in disability among older English adults, especially for those with elevated depressive symptoms

Electroconvulsive therapy in puerperal psychosis

Puerperal psychosis (PP) is an exuberant clinical syndrome with an estimated frequency of 1 case per 1,000 childbirths that has been most consistently associated with the bipolar disorders spectrum. Available evidence is scarce, namely regarding management and treatment. The authors present the clinical case of a 28 year-old first-time mother, with no psychiatric history, who developed a florid psychotic syndrome in the first weeks of puerperium. Due to lack of improvement following pharmacological treatment, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was applied, with substantial and quick response. In this context, the authors reviewed current literature on the use of ECT for the treatment of puerperal psychosis

Occurrence of deformed wing virus variants in the stingless Melipona subnitida and honey Apis mellifera bee populations in North Eastern Brazil

Deformed wing virus (DWV) is now a global insect pathogen. Brazilian stingless bees are a diverse group often managed in close proximity to honey bees. We investigated the prevalence and load of DWV in 33 stingless bees (Melipona subnitida) and 12 honey bees (Apis mellifera) colonies from NE Brazil. DWV was detected in all colonies with the A and C-variants dominating M. subnitida and A-variant in A. mellifera. Viral loads were 8.83E+07 and 7.19E+07 in M. subnitida and A. mellifera, respectively. On Fernando de Noronha island DWV is low (<1E+03) in honey bees, but we detected high loads (1.6E+08) in nine island M. subnitida colonies, indicating no viral spill-over of DWV has occurred during the past 34 years. Furthermore, the ubiquitous presence of the DWV-C variant in M. subnitida colonies, and rarity in A. mellifera, may suggest limited viral exchange between these two species

Simulations of extensional flow in microrheometric devices

We present a detailed numerical study of the flow of a Newtonian fluid through microrheometric devices featuring a sudden contraction–expansion. This flow configuration is typically used to generate extensional deformations and high strain rates. The excess pressure drop resulting from the converging and diverging flow is an important dynamic measure to quantify if the device is intended to be used as a microfluidic extensional rheometer. To explore this idea, we examine the effect of the contraction length, aspect ratio and Reynolds number on the flow kinematics and resulting pressure field. Analysis of the computed velocity and pressure fields show that, for typical experimental conditions used in microfluidic devices, the steady flow is highly three-dimensional with open spiraling vortical structures in the stagnant corner regions. The numerical simulations of the local kinematics and global pressure drop are in good agreement with experimental results. The device aspect ratio is shown to have a strong impact on the flow and consequently on the excess pressure drop, which is quantified in terms of the dimensionless Couette and Bagley correction factors. We suggest an approach for calculating the Bagley correction which may be especially appropriate for planar microchannels

Chemical diplomacy in male tilapia: urinary signal increases sex hormone and decreases aggression

Androgens, namely 11-ketotestosterone (11KT), have a central role in male fish reproductive physiology and are thought to be involved in both aggression and social signalling. Aggressive encounters occur frequently in social species, and fights may cause energy depletion, injury and loss of social status. Signalling for social dominance and fighting ability in an agonistic context can minimize these costs. Here, we test the hypothesis of a 'chemical diplomacy' mechanism through urinary signals that avoids aggression and evokes an androgen response in receiver males of Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus). We show a decoupling between aggression and the androgen response; males fighting their mirror image experience an unresolved interaction and a severe drop in urinary 11KT. However, if concurrently exposed to dominant male urine, aggression drops but urinary 11KT levels remain high. Furthermore, 11KT increases in males exposed to dominant male urine in the absence of a visual stimulus. The use of a urinary signal to lower aggression may be an adaptive mechanism to resolve disputes and avoid the costs of fighting. As dominance is linked to nest building and mating with females, the 11KT response of subordinate males suggests chemical eavesdropping, possibly in preparation for parasitic fertilizations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pre-training autoencoder for lung nodule malignancy assessment using CT images

Lung cancer late diagnosis has a large impact on the mortality rate numbers, leading to a very low five-year survival rate of 5%. This issue emphasises the importance of developing systems to support a diagnostic at earlier stages. Clinicians use Computed Tomography (CT) scans to assess the nodules and the likelihood of malignancy. Automatic solutions can help to make a faster and more accurate diagnosis, which is crucial for the early detection of lung cancer. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) based approaches have shown to provide a reliable feature extraction ability to detect the malignancy risk associated with pulmonary nodules. This type of approach requires a massive amount of data to model training, which usually represents a limitation in the biomedical field due to medical data privacy and security issues. Transfer learning (TL) methods have been widely explored in medical imaging applications, offering a solution to overcome problems related to the lack of training data publicly available. For the clinical annotations experts with a deep understanding of the complex physiological phenomena represented in the data are required, which represents a huge investment. In this direction, this work explored a TL method based on unsupervised learning achieved when training a Convolutional Autoencoder (CAE) using images in the same domain. For this, lung nodules from the Lung Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative (LIDC-IDRI) were extracted and used to train a CAE. Then, the encoder part was transferred, and the malignancy risk was assessed in a binary classification—benign and malignant lung nodules, achieving an Area Under the Curve (AUC) value of 0.936. To evaluate the reliability of this TL approach, the same architecture was trained from scratch and achieved an AUC value of 0.928. The results reported in this comparison suggested that the feature learning achieved when reconstructing the input with an encoder-decoder based architecture can be considered an useful knowledge that might allow overcoming labelling constraints.This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project UIDB/50014/2020