Quality of Life of Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Using Insulin Analog Glargine Compared with NPH Insulin: A Systematic Review and Policy Implications

INTRODUCTION: Insulin analogue glargine (GLA) has been available as one of the therapeutic options for patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus to enhance glycemic control. Studies have shown that a decrease in the frequency of hypoglycemia episodes improves the Quality of Life (QoL) of diabetic patients. However, there are appreciable acquisition cost differences between different insulins. Consequently, a need to assess their impact on QoL to provide future guidance to health authorities. METHOD: A Systematic review (SR) of multiple databases including Medline, LILACS, Cochrane and EMBASE databases with several combinations of agreed terms involving randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohorts, as well as manual searches and gray literature was undertaken. The primary outcome measure was a change in QoL. The quality of the studies and the risk of bias was also assessed. RESULTS: Eight studies were eventually included in the systematic review out of 634 publications. Eight different QoL instruments were used (2 generic, 2 mixed and 4 specific), in which the Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire (DTSQs) was the most used. The systematic review did not consistently show any significant difference overall in QoL scores whether as part of subsets or combined into a single score with the use of GLA versus NPH insulin. Only in patients’ satisfaction measured by DTSQ was a better result consistently seen with GLA versus NPH insulin but not using the WED scale. However, none of the cohort studies scored a maximum on the Newcastle-Ottawa scale for quality and they generally were of moderate quality with bias in the studies. CONCLUSION: There was no consistent difference in QoL or patient reported outcomes when the findings from the eight studies were collated. In view of this, we believe the current price differential between GLA and NPH insulin in Brazil cannot be justified by these findings

Towards a genome-wide transcriptogram: the Saccharomyces cerevisiae case

A genome modular classification that associates cellular processes to modules could lead to a method to quantify the differences in gene expression levels in different cellular stages or conditions: the transcriptogram, a powerful tool for assessing cell performance, would be at hand. Here we present a computational method to order genes on a line that clusters strongly interacting genes, defining functional modules associated with gene ontology terms. The starting point is a list of genes and a matrix specifying their interactions, available at large gene interaction databases. Considering the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome we produced a succession of plots of gene transcription levels for a fermentation process. These plots discriminate the fermentation stage the cell is going through and may be regarded as the first versions of a transcriptogram. This method is useful for extracting information from cell stimuli/responses experiments, and may be applied with diagnostic purposes to different organisms

Supersymmetry and Integrability in Planar Mechanical Systems

We present an N=2-supersymmetric mechanical system whose bosonic sector, with two degrees of freedom, stems from the reduction of an SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with the assumption of spatially homogeneous field configurations and a particular ansatz imposed on the gauge potentials in the dimensional reduction procedure. The Painleve test is adopted to discuss integrability and we focus on the role of supersymmetry and parity invariance in two space dimensions for the attainment of integrable or chaotic models. Our conclusion is that the relationships among the parameters imposed by supersymmetry seem to drastically reduce the number of possibilities for integrable interaction potentials of the mechanical system under consideration.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

Ciclização do lapachol induzida por sais de tálio III

This work describes the cyclization of lapachol (1) induced by thallium triacetate (TTA) and thallium trinitrate (TTN) in several solvents using magnetic stirring and under microwave irradiation. alpha-Xyloidone (2) - dehydro-alpha-lapachone - was obtained as the main product in these reactions in 20 75% yield. However, rhinacanthin-A (4) was isolated as main product in a 40% yield, using TTA and acetic anhydride:water (1:1) as solvent, and dehydro-iso-alpha-lapachone (3) in 21% yield, using TTA and dichloromethane as solvent. The reaction time decreased drastically under microwave conditions, but the yields of these reactions were not the expected

INFLUENCE OF PEPTIDE P34 ON GENE EXPRESSION OF LISTERIA MONOCYTOGENES AND LISTERIA SEELEGERI

Objective: Investigate the influence of the antimicrobial peptides P34 and nisin on the expression of genes associated with components of the cell surface of Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria seeligeri.Methods: Antimicrobial activity was determined by addition of peptide P34 and nisin (12.5 µg/ml) onto Brain Heart Infusion agar (BHI) plates previously inoculated with indicator strains (L. monocytogenes ATCC 7644 or L. seeligeri AC 82/4) after incubation for 24 h at 37 °C or 240 h at 4 °C. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) was directly extracted from bacterial colonies at the border of the inhibition zones, and the expression levels of genes D-alanine-D-alanyl carrier protein ligase (dltA), putative phospholipid lysinylation (Imo 1695) and EIIABMan of mannose-specific PTS (mptA) were determined using real-time PCR.Results: A non-significant increase in the levels of transcription of genes dltA, Imo1695 and mptA was observed for L. monocytogenes treated with peptide P34 or nisin. Both peptides caused a similar decrease in dltA gene expression in L. seeligeri. The expression of gene Imo1695 significantly decreased (about 2000-fold) after treatment with the peptide P34 at 37 °C, while at 4 °C a reduction of 12-fold and 5-fold was detected for P34 and nisin, respectively. A significant decrease in mptA gene expression was observed by exposition to peptide P34 (31.872-fold) and nisin (16.047-fold) for 24 h at 37 °C.Conclusion: The results suggest that both peptide P34 and nisin influence the expression of genes related with the cell-surface/cell-membrane structure of L. seeligeri and in lesser extent L. monocytogenes

Theory of Functional Connections and Nelder-Mead optimization methods applied in satellite characterization

The growing population of man-made objects with the build up of mega-constellations not only increases the potential danger to all space vehicles and in-space infrastructures (including space observatories), but above all poses a serious threat to astronomy and dark skies. Monitoring of this population requires precise satellite characterization, which is is a challenging task that involves analyzing observational data such as position, velocity, and light curves using optimization methods. In this study, we propose and analyze the application of two optimization procedures to determine the parameters associated with the dynamics of a satellite: one based on the Theory of Functional Connections (TFC) and another one based on the Nelder-Mead heuristic optimization algorithm. The TFC performs linear functional interpolation to embed the constraints of the problem into a functional. In this paper, we propose to use this functional to analytically embed the observational data of a satellite into its equations of dynamics. After that, any solution will always satisfy the observational data. The second procedure proposed in this research takes advantage of the Nealder-Mead algorithm, that does not require the gradient of the objective function, as alternative solution. The accuracy, efficiency, and dependency on the initial guess of each method is investigated, analyzed, and compared for several dynamical models. These methods can be used to obtain the physical parameters of a satellite from available observational data and for space debris characterization contributing to follow-up monitoring activities in space and astronomical observatories.Comment: Submitted to Acta Astronautic

Long-Term 3-Dimensional Stability of Mandibular Advancement Surgery

To evaluate the three-dimensional changes in the position of the condyles, rami, and chin from 1 to 3 years after mandibular advancement surgery

Bioassay-Guided Evaluation of Antinociceptive Effect of N-Salicyloyltryptamine: A Behavioral and Electrophysiological Approach

We investigated the antinociceptive and nerve excitability effects of the N-salicyloyltryptamine (NST) NST-treated mice exhibited a significant decrease in the number of writhes when 100 and 200 mg/kg (i.p.) were administered (i.p.). This effect was not antagonized by naloxone (1.5 mg/kg, i.p.). NST inhibited the licking response of the injected paw when 100 and 200 mg/kg were administered (i.p.) to mice in the first and second phases of the formalin test. Because the antinociceptive effects could be associated with neuronal excitability inhibition, we performed the single sucrose gap technique and showed that NST (3.57 mM) significantly reduced (29.2%) amplitude of the compound action potential (CAP) suggesting a sodium channel effect induced by NST. Our results demonstrated an antinociceptive activity of the NST that could be, at least in part, associated to the reduction of the action potential amplitude. NST might represent an important tool for pain management