Bartonella Endocarditis in Spain: Case Reports of 21 Cases

Endocarditis por Bartonella; Endocarditis infecciosaBartonella endocarditis; Infective endocarditisEndocarditis per Bartonella; Endocarditis infecciosaBlood culture negative endocarditis (BCNE) is frequent in infective endocarditis (IE). One of the causes of BCNE is fastidious microorganisms, such as Bartonella spp. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiologic, clinical characteristics, management and outcomes of patients with Bartonella IE from the “Spanish Collaboration on Endocarditis-Grupo de Apoyo al Manejo de la Endocarditis infecciosa en España (GAMES)”cohort. Here we presented 21 cases of Bartonella IE. This represents 0.3% of a total of 5590 cases and 2% of the BCNE from the GAMES cohort. 62% were due to Bartonella henselae and 38% to Bartonella quintana. Cardiac failure was the main presenting form (61.5% in B. hensalae, 87.5% in B. quintana IE) and the aortic valve was affected in 85% of the cases (76% in B. henselae, 100% in B. quintana IE). Typical signs such as fever were recorded in less than 40% of patients. Echocardiography showed vegetations in 92% and 100% of the patients with B. henselae and B. quintana, respectively. Culture was positive only in one patient and the remaining were diagnosed by serology and PCR. PCR was the most useful tool allowing for diagnosis in 16 patients (100% of the studied valves). Serology, at titers recommended by guidelines, only coincided with PCR in 52.4%. Antimicrobial therapy, in different combinations, was used in all cases. Surgery was performed in 76% of the patients. No in-hospital mortality was observed. One-year mortality was 9.4%. This article remarks the importance for investigating the presence of Bartonella infection as causative agent in all BCNE since the diagnosis needs specific microbiological tools and patients could benefit of a specific treatment

Atitudes em relação à homoparentalidade: validação psicométrica de duas escalas numa amostra de estudantes mexicanos

Introducción. La legalización del llamado matrimonio igualitario, y de la adopción de menores por parejas homosexuales, es un fenómeno reciente y que debe ser estudiado, para lo cual es necesario contar con medidas confiables que permitan dar cuenta de cómo la sociedad percibe a esta nueva configuración familiar. Objetivo: Determinar las propiedades psicométricas de dos escalas: Actitudes Frente a las Familias Homoparentales (AFFH); y Creencias acerca del Ajuste de los Niños de Familias Homoparentales (CANFH). MetodologÍa. La AFFH, con 20 reactivos, fue diseñada para dar cuenta de las actitudes hacia las familias homoparetales. La CANFH tiene 14 reactivos organizados en las subescalas de Oposición Individual (OI) y Oposición Normativa (ON). Ambas escalas ttienen afirmaciones que deben ser respondidas con opciones tipo Likert que van del 1. Totalmente de acuerdo al 5. Totalmente en desacuerdo. La CANFH fue aplicada a 170 estudiantes universitarios (78 (46%) hombres, 92 (54%) mujeres. Media de edad: 18.4 DE+0.94), y la AFFH a 88 (35 (40%) hombres, 53 (60%) mujeres. Media de edad: 18.2 DE+0.84). Se determinaron las propiedades psicométricas por medio de análisis factorial y de consistencia interna. Resultados. La AFFH resulto con un α=0.91; los reactivos se organizaron en dos factores que explican 46.14% de la varianza. En el caso de la CANFH se confirmó la estructura factorial de dos subescalas explicativas de 65.49% de la varianza y con un α=0.94. Conclusiones. Los datos indican que ambas escalas poseen las propiedades psicométricas adecuadas para medir las actitudes de estudiantes mexicanos hacia las familias homoparentales y hacia los efectos que éstas puedan tener en los menores adoptados. [Barragán-Pérez V, Berenzon-Gorn S, GarcÍa-De la Torre GS, Lara-Muñoz MDC. Actitudes hacia la homoparentalidad: Validación psicométrica de dos escalas en una muestra de estudiantes mexicanos. MedUNAB 2016; 19(2): 85-94].Introduction: The legalization of so-called same-sex marriage, and minor adoptions by homosexual couples, is a recent phenomenon that must be studied; for this reason, it is necessary to have reliable measures that allow giving on account of how society perceives this new family configuration. Objective: To determine the psychometric properties of two scales: Attitudes Towards Homoparental Families (AFFH), and beliefs about the adjustment of children from homoparental families (CANFH). Methodology: The AFFH, with 20-item scale, was designed to analyze the attitudes toward homoparental families. The CANFH has 14 items organized in two subscales, the individual opposition (OI) and normative opposition (ON). Both scales have statements that must be answered with Likert-type options ranging from 1 (totally agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). The CANFH was answered by 170 college students (78 (46%) males, 92 (54%) females; Average age: 18.4 SD 0.94), and the AFFH by 88 college students (35 (40%) males, 53 (60%) females, average age: 18.2 SD + 0.84). Also, the psychometric properties were determined by means of factorial analysis and internal consistency. Results: AFFH items were organized into two factors that explained the 46.14% of variance with a 0.91 Cronbach’s alpha. CANFH items were grouped in a two-factor subscale that explained the 65.49% of variance with a 0.94 Cronbach’s alpha. Conclusions: The data of both CANFH and AFFH scales have adequate psychometric properties to measure, not only Mexican college students’ attitudes toward same-sex families, but also to assess the beliefs about children’s adjustment in same-sex families. [Barragán-Pérez V, Berenzon-Gorn S, GarcÍa-De la Torre GS, Lara-Muñoz MDC. Attitudes Towards Homoparentality: Psychometric Validation of two Scales in a Sample of Mexican Students MedUNAB 2016; 19(2):85-94]

Chatbots in social networks for the timely support of university students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms

Se estima que la prevalencia del trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad (TDAH) en estudiantes universitarios es del 2 al 4.5% pero varía de una universidad a otra. Sin embargo, muchos estudiantes evitan acudir a tratamiento por ansiedad, temor al estigma, porque sienten que los problemas de los otros son mayores que los propios o bien desconocen la sintomatología del TDAH. En esta contribución se presenta el diseño e implementación de un chatbot para la aplicación del cuestionario Adult Self Report Scale-Versión 1.1 (EATDAH-A) así como los resultados de la aplicación del mismo y la opinión de los usuarios en cuanto a su utilidad y experiencia como usuario.It is estimated that the prevalence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in university students is from 2 to 4.53% but varies from one university to another. However, many students avoid therapies due to grief, nervousness, fear, or because they feel that the problems of others are greater than their own or they are unaware of the symptoms of ADHD. This contribution presents the design and implementation of a chatbot for the application of the Adult Self Report Scale-Version 1.1 (ASRS v1.1) questionnaire as well as the results of its application and the opinion of users regarding its usefulness and user experience.Facultad de Informátic

Chatbots in social networks for the timely support of university students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms

Se estima que la prevalencia del trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad (TDAH) en estudiantes universitarios es del 2 al 4.5% pero varía de una universidad a otra. Sin embargo, muchos estudiantes evitan acudir a tratamiento por ansiedad, temor al estigma, porque sienten que los problemas de los otros son mayores que los propios o bien desconocen la sintomatología del TDAH. En esta contribución se presenta el diseño e implementación de un chatbot para la aplicación del cuestionario Adult Self Report Scale-Versión 1.1 (EATDAH-A) así como los resultados de la aplicación del mismo y la opinión de los usuarios en cuanto a su utilidad y experiencia como usuario.It is estimated that the prevalence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in university students is from 2 to 4.53% but varies from one university to another. However, many students avoid therapies due to grief, nervousness, fear, or because they feel that the problems of others are greater than their own or they are unaware of the symptoms of ADHD. This contribution presents the design and implementation of a chatbot for the application of the Adult Self Report Scale-Version 1.1 (ASRS v1.1) questionnaire as well as the results of its application and the opinion of users regarding its usefulness and user experience.Facultad de Informátic

Chatbots in social networks for the timely support of university students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms

Se estima que la prevalencia del trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad (TDAH) en estudiantes universitarios es del 2 al 4.5% pero varía de una universidad a otra. Sin embargo, muchos estudiantes evitan acudir a tratamiento por ansiedad, temor al estigma, porque sienten que los problemas de los otros son mayores que los propios o bien desconocen la sintomatología del TDAH. En esta contribución se presenta el diseño e implementación de un chatbot para la aplicación del cuestionario Adult Self Report Scale-Versión 1.1 (EATDAH-A) así como los resultados de la aplicación del mismo y la opinión de los usuarios en cuanto a su utilidad y experiencia como usuario.It is estimated that the prevalence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in university students is from 2 to 4.53% but varies from one university to another. However, many students avoid therapies due to grief, nervousness, fear, or because they feel that the problems of others are greater than their own or they are unaware of the symptoms of ADHD. This contribution presents the design and implementation of a chatbot for the application of the Adult Self Report Scale-Version 1.1 (ASRS v1.1) questionnaire as well as the results of its application and the opinion of users regarding its usefulness and user experience.Facultad de Informátic

Cyclic potentiodynamic polarization on titanium alloys anodizing in alkaline solutions

Titanium alloys are used in different industries such as biomedical, aerospace, aeronautic, chemical, and naval. Those industries have high requirements with few damage tolerances. The aim of this work was to study the corrosion behavior of titanium alloys anodizing and non-anodizing in alkaline (KOH and NaOH) solutions, exposed in 3.5%wt. NaCl and 3.5% wt. H2SO4 solutions at room temperature using cyclic potentiodynamic polarization (CPP) according to standards in order to obtain electrochemical parameters as the passivation range (PR), corrosion type, passive layer persistence, corrosion potential (Ecorr), and corrosion rate. The alloy Ti Beta-C anodized presented better corrosion resistance than Ti-6Al-4V in both media. The smallest corrosion rate is presented in Beta-C samples (4.72 E-8 A/cm2) and the highest corrosion rate is CP2 (1.61 E-5 A/cm2

Bartonella Endocarditis in Spain: Case Reports of 21 Cases

Blood culture negative endocarditis (BCNE) is frequent in infective endocarditis (IE). One of the causes of BCNE is fastidious microorganisms, such as Bartonella spp. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiologic, clinical characteristics, management and outcomes of patients with Bartonella IE from the “Spanish Collaboration on Endocarditis-Grupo de Apoyo al Manejo de la Endocarditis infecciosa en España (GAMES)”cohort. Here we presented 21 cases of Bartonella IE. This represents 0.3% of a total of 5590 cases and 2% of the BCNE from the GAMES cohort. 62% were due to Bartonella henselae and 38% to Bartonella quintana. Cardiac failure was the main presenting form (61.5% in B. hensalae, 87.5% in B. quintana IE) and the aortic valve was affected in 85% of the cases (76% in B. henselae, 100% in B. quintana IE). Typical signs such as fever were recorded in less than 40% of patients. Echocardiography showed vegetations in 92% and 100% of the patients with B. henselae and B. quintana, respectively. Culture was positive only in one patient and the remaining were diagnosed by serology and PCR. PCR was the most useful tool allowing for diagnosis in 16 patients (100% of the studied valves). Serology, at titers recommended by guidelines, only coincided with PCR in 52.4%. Antimicrobial therapy, in different combinations, was used in all cases. Surgery was performed in 76% of the patients. No in-hospital mortality was observed. One-year mortality was 9.4%. This article remarks the importance for investigating the presence of Bartonella infection as causative agent in all BCNE since the diagnosis needs specific microbiological tools and patients could benefit of a specific treatment

Common genetic variation in KATNAL1 non-coding regions is involved in the susceptibility to severe phenotypes of male infertility

Free PMC article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9546047/Background: Previous studies in animal models evidenced that genetic mutations of KATNAL1, resulting in dysfunction of its encoded protein, lead to male infertility through disruption of microtubule remodelling and premature germ cell exfoliation. Subsequent studies in humans also suggested a possible role of KATNAL1 single nucleotide polymorphisms in the development of male infertility as a consequence of severe spermatogenic failure. Objectives: The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the effect of the common genetic variation of KATNAL1 in a large and phenotypically well-characterised cohort of infertile men because of severe spermatogenic failure. Materials and methods: A total of 715 infertile men because of severe spermato genic failure, including 210 severe oligospermia and 505 non-obstructive azoospermia patients, as well as 1058 unaffected controls were genotyped for three KATNAL1 single-nucleotide polymorphism taggers (rs2077011, rs7338931 and rs2149971). Case–control association analyses by logistic regression assuming different models and in silico functional characterisation of risk variants were conducted. Results: Genetic associations were observed between the three analysed taggers and different severe spermatogenic failure groups. However, in all cases, the haplotype model (rs2077011*C | rs7338931*T | rs2149971*A) better explained the observed associations than the three risk alleles independently. This haplotype was associated with non-obstructive azoospermia (adjusted p = 4.96E-02, odds ratio = 2.97), Sertoli cell only syndrome (adjusted p = 2.83E-02, odds ratio = 5.16) and testicular sperm extraction unsuccessful outcomes (adjusted p = 8.99E-04, odds ratio = 6.13). The in silico analyses indicated that the effect on severe spermatogenic failure predisposition could be because of an alteration of the KATNAL1 splicing pattern. Conclusions: Specific allelic combinations of KATNAL1 genetic polymorphisms may confer a risk of developing severe male infertility phenotypes by favouring the overrepresentation of a short non-functional transcript isoform in the testis.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (refs. SAF2016-78722-R and PID2020-120157RB-I00), the ‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III’ (Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias)/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional ‘Una manera de hacer Europa’ (FIS/FEDER) (ref. DTS18/00101 to Sara Larriba), the Generalitat de Catalunya (ref. 2017SGR191), the ‘Ramón y Cajal’ program (ref. RYC-2014-16458) and the ‘Juan de la Cierva Incorporación’ program (ref. IJC2018-038026-I), as well as the Andalusian Government through the R&D&i Projects Grants for Universities and Public Research Entities (ref. PY20_00212), which include FEDER funds. Andrea Guzmán-Jiménez was a recipient of a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Professional Training (‘Becas de Colaboración en Departamentos Universitarios para el curso académico 2020/2021’). Patricia I. Marques is supported by the FCT post-doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/120777/2016), financed from the Portuguese State Budget of the Ministry for Science, Tech nology and High Education and from the European Social Fund, available through the ‘Programa Operacional do Capital Humano’. João Gonçalves was partially funded by FCT/MCTES through national funds attributed to the Centre for Toxicogenomics and Human Health— ToxOmics (UID/BIM/00009/2016 and UIDB/00009/2020). Sara Larriba is sponsored by the Researchers Consolidation Program (ISCIII SNS/Dpt. Salut Generalitat de Catalunya) (CES09/020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Common genetic variation in KATNAL1 non‐coding regions is involved in the susceptibility to severe phenotypes of male infertility

© 2022 The Authors. Andrology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Andrology and European Academy of Andrology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.Background: Previous studies in animal models evidenced that genetic mutations of KATNAL1, resulting in dysfunction of its encoded protein, lead to male infertility through disruption of microtubule remodelling and premature germ cell exfoliation. Subsequent studies in humans also suggested a possible role of KATNAL1 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the development of male infertility as a consequence of severe spermatogenic failure. Objectives: The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the effect of the common genetic variation of KATNAL1 in a large and phenotypically well-characterised cohort of infertile men because of severe spermatogenic failure. Materials and methods: A total of 715 infertile men because of severe spermatogenic failure, including 210 severe oligospermia and 505 non-obstructive azoospermia patients, as well as 1058 unaffected controls were genotyped for three KATNAL1 single-nucleotide polymorphism taggers (rs2077011, rs7338931 and rs2149971). Case-control association analyses by logistic regression assuming different models and in silico functional characterisation of risk variants were conducted. Results: Genetic associations were observed between the three analysed taggers and different severe spermatogenic failure groups. However, in all cases, the haplotype model (rs2077011*C | rs7338931*T | rs2149971*A) better explained the observed associations than the three risk alleles independently. This haplotype was associated with non-obstructive azoospermia (adjusted p = 4.96E-02, odds ratio = 2.97), Sertoli-cell only syndrome (adjusted p = 2.83E-02, odds ratio = 5.16) and testicular sperm extraction unsuccessful outcomes (adjusted p = 8.99E-04, odds ratio = 6.13). The in silico analyses indicated that the effect on severe spermatogenic failure predisposition could be because of an alteration of the KATNAL1 splicing pattern. Conclusions: Specific allelic combinations of KATNAL1 genetic polymorphisms may confer a risk of developing severe male infertility phenotypes by favouring the overrepresentation of a short non-functional transcript isoform in the testis.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (refs. SAF2016-78722-R and PID2020-120157RB-I00), the ‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III’ (Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias)/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional ‘Una manera de hacer Europa’ (FIS/FEDER) (ref. DTS18/00101 to Sara Larriba), the Generalitat de Catalunya (ref. 2017SGR191), the ‘Ramón y Cajal’ program (ref. RYC-2014-16458) and the ‘Juan de la Cierva Incorporación’ program (ref. IJC2018-038026-I), as well as the Andalusian Government through the R&D&i Projects Grants for Universities and Public Research Entities (ref. PY20_00212), which include FEDER funds. Andrea Guzmán-Jiménez was a recipient of a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Professional Training (‘Becas de Colaboración en Departamentos Universitarios para el curso académico 2020/2021’). Patricia I. Marques is supported by the FCT post-doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/120777/2016), financed from the Portuguese State Budget of the Ministry for Science, Technology and High Education and from the European Social Fund, available through the ‘Programa Operacional do Capital Humano’. João Gonçalves was partially funded by FCT/MCTES through national funds attributed to the Centre for Toxicogenomics and Human Health—ToxOmics (UID/BIM/00009/2016 and UIDB/00009/2020). Sara Larriba is sponsored by the Researchers Consolidation Program (ISCIII SNS/Dpt. Salut Generalitat de Catalunya) (CES09/020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio