Proportional hazard regression analysis of cardiovascular mortality in the study population with a basal selenium level < 65 μg/L (mean value) during an intervention time of four years.

<p>Proportional hazard regression analysis of cardiovascular mortality in the study population with a basal selenium level < 65 μg/L (mean value) during an intervention time of four years.</p

Baseline characteristics of the study population divided into a serum selenium concentration of <65 μg/L, 65–85 μg/L or a selenium concentration >85 μg/L.

<p>Baseline characteristics of the study population divided into a serum selenium concentration of <65 μg/L, 65–85 μg/L or a selenium concentration >85 μg/L.</p

CONSORT flow chart of the study.

<p>CONSORT flow chart of the study.</p

Histogram illustrating the mean concentration of serum selenium divided into the four quartiles based on the basal measurements, and effect of supplementation with selenium.

<p>Histogram illustrating the mean concentration of serum selenium divided into the four quartiles based on the basal measurements, and effect of supplementation with selenium.</p

Kaplan-Meier graph illustrating cardiovascular mortality in the study population with a plasma selenium concentration of 65–85 μg/L divided into those given selenium and coenzyme Q10 combined versus those given placebo or no treatment during a follow-up period of 5.2 years.

<p>Censored: patients who were still alive at the end of the follow-up period, or who died from non-cardiac causes.</p

A novel concept of compact, snapshot hyperspectral camera for ophthalmology.

Hyperspectral imaging is an emerging technique that allows to measure the spectral absorption at each point of a scene, thus offering capability to identify and characterize biomarkers important for clinical practice and therapeutic research as well as enhancing image identification of important structures. So far, few hyperspectral cameras have been used for retinal scanning because of the need to acquire the image in a fraction of a second. Here we present a novel concept of snapshot hyperspectral camera suited for retinal imaging. We demonstrate the technique by presenting the optical density spectrum of a healthy patient’s retina in the 450-700 nm range, together with the spectral response of several retinal features

Rainfall-induced lahars in the Belham Valley, Montserrat, West Indies

<p>Rain falling on loose volcanic debris over the Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat generates hazardous floods in the Belham Valley. These rainfall-induced lahars vary greatly in discharge and sediment concentration in space and time. They differ from examples documented on other volcanoes in that: (1) the eruption has been continuing since July 1995, generating repeated pulses of excess sediment; (2) rainfall is the only significant trigger; (3) the system is small, with short distance to the sea and relatively low altitude at the catchment top. Repeat mapping and comparison with pre-eruption data demonstrate significant geomorphological change, with <em>c</em>. 120 m shoreline progradation and <em>c</em>. 0.4 m a⁻¹ mean aggradation rate in the middle to lower valley. The nature of the hazard and area of risk have changed as the valley has aggraded, the channel widened and the runoff efficiency increased (as a result of rilling and vegetation removal). Lahars in the Belham Valley correlate with days when >10 mm rain fell in 24 h, with more events triggered in the late rainy season. The flows are mainly Newtonian but one non-Newtonian flow event has been demonstrated and is described in detail (20 March 2000). This flow is explained by direct volcanic ash input to the runoff. </p

Analysis of lexical items in oral discourse of Alzheimer´s disease patients

A doença de Alzheimer, doença neurodegenerativa, em que a dificuldade de encontrar palavras é um dos déficits mais presentes, mesmo em estágios iniciais já ocorrem alterações focalmente no hipocampo e giros parahipocampais. Com o avanço da doença, a dificuldade de encontrar palavras e o uso de itens lexicais efetivos ficam muitas vezes mais comprometidos sugerindo distribuição difusa da doença no encéfalo. A dificuldade em encontrar palavras ou anomia se deve consensualmente à deterioração do processamento semântico e ao déficit da memória operacional. Ainda, mesmo nesses estágios iniciais da doença, muitos pacientes relatam dificuldades em encontrar os itens lexicais adequados para seguir uma conversação, o que os constrange causando isolamento e falta de interações comunicativas verbais. Esse relato indica que eles têm consciência dessa perda cognitiva. Nas conversações ou interações sociais entre pacientes e cuidadores, muitas vezes a dificuldade de encontrar os itens lexicais não é claramente percebida. Entretanto, com o progresso da doença essa incompreensão se acentua, gerando situações estressantes e de sobrecarga, especialmente para o cuidador. A presente pesquisa objetivou analisar os itens lexicais no discurso oral dos pacientes com doença de Alzheimer, verificar aquelas palavras mais preservadas, que visem à elaboração de estratégias linguísticas adequadas e que permitam o desenvolvimento de mecanismos discursivos, a fim de identificar estratégias que possam melhorar a interação entre cuidadores e pacientes. Neste estudo avaliaram-se os itens lexicais verbos e substantivos, hápax e as oito outras categorias gramaticais da língua portuguesa de 23 pacientes com doença de Alzheimer e 23 idosos controles sadios. Os itens selecionados foram extraídos de conversações livres por no máximo 20 minutos com os temas: cidade, família, educação, alimentação, saúde e religião. Foi utilizado o programa Stablex que efetua o tratamento computacional de itens lexicais e confecções de léxico para identificar os itens lexicais mais frequentes e com maior peso ou valor. Os resultados indicam que os pacientes têm maior dificuldade em nomear substantivos, especialmente seres vivos, p<0,05. Ainda, esses pacientes apresentam maior preservação de itens lexicais concretos em relação aos itens lexicais abstratos. Além disso, foi observada maior preservação de verbos do que de substantivos, hápax fica preservado nos pacientes com doença de Alzheimer, p<0.001. Os adjetivos, p<0,001, interjeições, p<0,001,artigos e preposições p<0,001, também são significantes na doença. Conclui-se, assim, que embora os pacientes tenham perda lexical progressiva, suas habilidades comunicativas, semântico-pragmáticas não estão muito alteradas e que os pacientes ao serem estimulados com frases curtas, com aquelas palavras mais preservadas no seu léxico ainda podem se comunicar e interagir oralmente. Portanto, as análises de itens lexicais nos discursos orais dos pacientes com doença de Alzheimer não só contribuirão para o entendimento dos déficits de linguagem, mas também oferecerão formas de melhorar a comunicação entre pacientes e cuidadoresAlzheimer\'s disease, neurodegenerative disease, wherein the word-finding difficulty is one of the most common deficits, even at early stages alterations occur focally in the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyri. With disease progression, the word-finding difficulty and effective use of lexical items are often more affected suggesting diffuse distribution of the disease in the brain. The word-finding difficulty or anomie is consensually to the deterioration of semantic processing or the occurrence of impaired connection between the lexical and semantic level as well as the working memory impairment. Yet, even in these early stages of the disease, many patients report difficulties in finding suitable lexical items to follow a conversation, therefore the patients get constrained, causing isolation and lack of verbal communicative interactions. This indicates that they are aware of this cognitive loss. In conversations or social interactions between patients and caregivers, often the difficulty of finding lexical items is not clearly perceived. These caregivers often help the patient to complete the words and sentences inferring meanings thereby masking the stage of disease. However, with the progress of the disease misunderstanding increases, causing overload and stressful situations, especially for the caregiver. The current study aimed at analyzing the lexical items in oral discourse of patients with Alzheimer\'s disease, to verify the most retained words in order to develop appropriate linguistic strategies enabling the development of discursive mechanisms to identify strategies to improve the interaction between caregivers and patients. This study evaluated the lexical items, verbs, nouns hápax and the other eight grammatical categories of Portuguese language of 23 patients with Alzheimer\'s disease and 23 healthy elderly controls. The selected items were drawn from free conversations of at least 20 minutes with the themes: city, family, education, food, health and religion. We used Stablex program that performs the computational treatment of lexical items and creates lexicons to identify more frequently lexical items and with their weight or value. The results indicate patients have greater difficulty in naming living things, p<0.05. Also, these patients have higher retention of concrete lexical items in relation to abstract lexical items. Moreover, hapax is retained in Alzheimers disease, p<0.001. It is attributed to the greater number of nouns in the languages compared to verbs or because, perhaps, the frontal areas of the brain where the verbs are represented are affected later. Also, it was observed that the lexical item hapax is significant in patients with Alzheimer\'s disease. Adjectives, p<0,001, interjections, p<0,001, articles and prepositions, p<0,001, are also significant during the disease, We conclude, therefore, that although patients have progressive lexical loss, their communication and semantic-pragmatic skills are not much changed, and when patients are stimulated with short sentences with words that are more retained in their lexicons they can still communicate and interact verbally. Therefore, the analysis of lexical items in oral discourse of patients with Alzheimers disease not only contributes to the understanding of language deficits, but also it will offer ways to improve communication between patients and caregiver

Still reduced cardiovascular mortality 12 years after supplementation with selenium and coenzyme Q10 for four years: A validation of previous 10-year follow-up results of a prospective randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial in elderly

<div><p>Background</p><p>Selenium and coenzyme Q10 are both necessary for optimal cell function in the body. The intake of selenium is low in Europe, and the endogenous production of coenzyme Q10 decreases as age increases. Therefore, an intervention trial using selenium and coenzyme Q10 for four years as a dietary supplement was performed. The main publication reported reduced cardiovascular mortality as a result of the intervention. In the present sub-study the objective was to determine whether reduced cardiovascular (CV) mortality persisted after 12 years, in the supplemented population or in subgroups with diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease or reduced functional capacity due to impaired cardiac function.</p><p>Methods</p><p>From a rural municipality in Sweden, four hundred forty-three healthy elderly individuals were included. All cardiovascular mortality was registered, and no participant was lost to the follow-up. Based on death certificates and autopsy results, mortality was registered.</p><p>Findings</p><p>After 12 years a significantly reduced CV mortality could be seen in those supplemented with selenium and coenzyme Q10, with a CV mortality of 28.1% in the active treatment group, and 38.7% in the placebo group. A multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated a reduced CV mortality risk in the active treatment group (HR: 0.59; 95%CI 0.42–0.81; P = 0.001). In those with ischemic heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and impaired functional capacity we demonstrated a significantly reduced CV mortality risk.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>This is a 12-year follow-up of a group of healthy elderly participants that were supplemented with selenium and coenzyme Q10 for four years. Even after twelve years we observed a significantly reduced risk for CV mortality in this group, as well as in subgroups of patients with diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease or impaired functional capacity. The results thus validate the results obtained in the 10-year evaluation.</p><p>The protective action was not confined to the intervention period, but persisted during the follow-up period. The mechanisms behind this effect remain to be fully elucidated, although various effects on cardiac function, oxidative stress, fibrosis and inflammation have previously been identified. Since this was a small study, the observations should be regarded as hypothesis-generating.</p><p>Trial registration</p><p>Clinicaltrials.gov <a href="https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01443780" target="_blank">NCT01443780</a>.</p></div

Cox proportional hazard regression analysis evaluating risk of cardiovascular mortality by supplementation of selenium and coenzyme Q10 combined in a multivariate model after 12 years of follow-up after 4 years of intervention to an elderly community population.

<p>Cox proportional hazard regression analysis evaluating risk of cardiovascular mortality by supplementation of selenium and coenzyme Q10 combined in a multivariate model after 12 years of follow-up after 4 years of intervention to an elderly community population.</p