Cerebral Sinovenous Thrombosis in Children: Clinical Presentation and Extension, Localization and Recanalization of Thrombosis

Many important questions regarding pathophysiology and treatment of cerebral sinovenous thrombosis need clarification and may depend on further knowledge on the etiology, site, extension and recanalization of the thrombosis. We studied these variables in a cohort of children and adolescents from seven Portuguese Centers. We conclude from our results that the deep venous system and the superior longitudinal sinus are less frequently affected with thrombosis but have a greater potential for serious neurologic disease and for major sequelae. Non-recanalization, at least in the long term, is not an adverse prognostic factor. Extensive propagation of the thrombus from the initial site of origin seems to be common. The early identification of risk factors and their treatment coupled with an aggressive attitude towards diagnosis and treatment for thrombosis involving the deep venous system would be warranted

Salud mental en cuidadores informales de ancianos dependientes después de accidente cerebrovascular

Contexto: o acidente vascular cerebral (AVC) constitui um desafio pelo impacto social e pelas repercussões na vida das vítimas e famílias. Torna-se, assim, pertinente estudar a saúde mental do cuidador informal de idosos dependentes pós-AVC. Objetivo: determinar as variáveis preditoras da saúde mental do cuidador informal. Métodos: estudo transversal descritivo realizado numa amostra não-probabilística por conveniência com 636 cuidadores com idades entre os 17 - 85 anos (média=50.19 ± 14.30), residentes na sub-região Dão Lafões integrada, Portugal. A colheita de dados foi suportada em: escala de rastreio em saúde mental, Questionário de Avaliação da Sobrecarga do Cuidador Informal, Inventário de Personalidade, Escala de Vulnerabilidade ao Stress, Índice de Katz. Resultados: constatou-se que a saúde mental é boa em 58% dos inquiridos, razoável em 5,2% e fraca em 36,8%. Apresentou-se vulnerável ao stress 55,0% dos cuidadores e 45,0 % não vulneráveis. Configuraram-se preditoras da saúde mental: a vulnerabilidade ao stress, as implicações na vida pessoal e o neuroticismo. Conclusões: traduzem as evidências que as variáveis psicológicas predizem a saúde mental dos cuidadores informais. Logo, impõe-se considerá-las quando se planeiam boas práticas de enfermagem para o seu atendimento, e se selecionam estratégias atenuantes do impacto do stress e da sobrecarga.Context: Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is a challenge due to its social impact, and its repercussions on the lives of victims and families. It is, therefore, relevant to study the mental health of informal caregivers of dependent elderly post-CVA patients. Objective: to determine the mental health predictors of informal caregivers. Methods: cross-sectional study conducted with a non-probability convenience sample of 636 informal caregivers aged 17 – 85 years (mean = 50.19 ± 14.30), residing in the dão Lafões, Portugal. Data collection was supported by: the Screening Scale for Mental Health, the Informal Caregiver Overload Assessment Questionnaire, the Personality Inventory, the Vulnerability to Stress scale, and the Katz Index. Results: mental health was found to be good in 58% of respondents, reasonable in 5.2% and poor in 36.8%. We found 55% of the caregivers to be vulnerable to stress and 45% not to be vulnerable. Vulnerability to stress, implications for personal life and neuroticism were found to be predictors of mental health. Conclusions: evidence indicates that psychological variables predict the mental health of informal caregivers. They must be considered when planning best nursing practices for careContexto: el accidente cerebrovascular (avc) es un reto por el impacto social y las repercusiones en las vidas de las víctimas y sus familias, por lo que es relevante para el estudio de la salud mental de los cuidadores informales de personas mayores dependientes pos-avc. Objetivo: determinar los factores predictivos de la salud mental de los cuidadores informales. Métodos: estudio transversal realizado en una muestra no probabilística por conveniencia con 636 cuidadores no profesionales de entre 17- 85 años (media = 50,19 ± 14,30), con domicilio en la sub-región Dão Lafões, Portugal. La recolección de datos fue apoyado por: la Escala de Rastreo de Salud Mental, el Cuestionario de Evaluación de la Sobrecarga del Cuidador Informal, el Inventario de Personalidad, la Escala de Vulnerabilidad al Estrés, el Índice de Katz. Resultados: se encontró que la salud mental es buena por 58% de los encuestados, razonable en el 5,2% y malo en el 36,8%. eran vulnerables al estrés de 55% los cuidadores y 45,0% no vulnerable. Configuranse para ser predictores de la salud mental, la vulnerabilidad al estrés, las implicaciones en la vida personal y el neuroticismo. Conclusiones: traduce la evidencia de que las variables psicológicas predicen la salud mental de los cuidadores informales, lo que exige considerar en la planificación de las mejores prácticas de enfermería y con sus estrategias selecionadas para mitigar el impacto del estrés y la sobrecarga.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ordering of binary colloidal crystals by random potentials

Structural defects are ubiquitous in condensed matter, and not always a nuisance. For example, they underlie phenomena such as Anderson localization and hyperuniformity, and they are now being exploited to engineer novel materials. Here, we show experimentally that the density of structural defects in a 2D binary colloidal crystal can be engineered with a random potential. We generate the random potential using an optical speckle pattern, whose induced forces act strongly on one species of particles (strong particles) and weakly on the other (weak particles). Thus, the strong particles are more attracted to the randomly distributed local minima of the optical potential, leaving a trail of defects in the crystalline structure of the colloidal crystal. While, as expected, the crystalline ordering initially decreases with an increasing fraction of strong particles, the crystalline order is surprisingly recovered for sufficiently large fractions. We confirm our experimental results with particle-based simulations, which permit us to elucidate how this non-monotonic behavior results from the competition between the particle-potential and particle-particle interactions

Rationally designed dendritic silica nanoparticles for oral delivery of exenatide

Type 2 diabetes makes up approximately 85% of all diabetic cases and it is linked to approximately one-third of all hospitalisations. Newer therapies with long-acting biologics such as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogues have been promising in managing the disease, but they cannot reverse the pathology of the disease. Additionally, their parenteral administration is often associated with high healthcare costs, risk of infections, and poor patient adherence associated with phobia of needles. Oral delivery of these compounds would significantly improve patient compliance; however, poor enzymatic stability and low permeability across the gastrointestinal tract makes this task challenging. In the present work, large pore dendritic silica nanoparticles (DSNPs) with a pore size of ~10 nm were prepared, functionalized, and optimized in order to achieve high peptide loading and improve intestinal permeation of exenatide, a GLP-1 analogue. Compared to the loading capacity of the most popular, Mobil Composition of Matter No. 41 (MCM-41) with small pores, DSNPs showed significantly high loading owing to their large and dendritic pore structure. Among the tested DSNPs, pristine and phosphonate-modified DSNPs (PDSNPs) displayed remarkable loading of 40 and 35% w/w, respectively. Furthermore, particles successfully coated with positively charged chitosan reduced the burst release of exenatide at both pH 1.2 and 6.8. Compared with free exenatide, both chitosan-coated and uncoated PDSNPs enhanced exenatide transport through the Caco-2 monolayer by 1.7 fold. Interestingly, when a triple co-culture model of intestinal permeation was used, chitosan-coated PDSNPs performed better compared to both PDSNPs and free exenatide, which corroborated our hypothesis behind using chitosan to interact with mucus and improve permeation. These results indicate the emerging role of large pore silica nanoparticles as promising platforms for oral delivery of biologics such as exenatide.We thank the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Project Grant GNT1107836 and Early Career Fellowship and Career Development Fellowship to A.P. We also thank NHMRC for EC Fellowship to T.K. We would also like to thank the Centre of Microscopy and Microanalysis at The University of Queensland for providing facilities to conduct TEM. This article was, in part, a result of the project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000012, supported by the Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This work was financed by FEDER—Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds—through the COMPETE 2020–Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by Portuguese funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior in the framework of the project “Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274)

Lúpus neonatal

O lúpus eritematoso neonatal (LEN), uma doença imunológica rara, pode manifestar-se por bloqueio cardíaco congénito, erupção cutânea e alterações laboratoriais. Apresenta-se o caso de uma criança com diagnóstico pré-natal de bradidisrritmia, sem cardiopatia estrutural. No primeiro dia de vida, apresentava bradicardia e no electrocardiograma bloqueio aurículo-ventricular (BAV) de segundo grau tipo Mobitz II e bloqueio completo de ramo esquerdo. Permaneceu assintomática e o BAV reverteu espontaneamente, tendo tido alta no sétimo dia de vida. No terceiro mês de vida apareceu com erupção cutânea, cansaço e sudorese durante as mamadas. Foi diagnosticado BAV completo, pelo que colocou pacemaker obtendo melhoria clínica. Os anticorpos anti-Ro foram positivos na mãe e no recém-nascido e a biópsia cutânea foi sugestiva de LEN. Fez corticoterapia tópica com regressão das lesões cutâneas. Apesar do BAV congénito ser considerado permanente pode existir regressão para ritmo sinusal e, posteriormente, recorrência. É essencial uma vigilância a longo prazo

Nestedness across biological scales

This is the final published version. Available from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record.All data sets are available for download in the repository https:// bitbucket.org/maucantor/unodf_analyses/src.Biological networks pervade nature. They describe systems throughout all levels of biological organization, from molecules regulating metabolism to species interactions that shape ecosystem dynamics. The network thinking revealed recurrent organizational patterns in complex biological systems, such as the formation of semi-independent groups of connected elements (modularity) and non-random distributions of interactions among elements. Other structural patterns, such as nestedness, have been primarily assessed in ecological networks formed by two non-overlapping sets of elements; information on its occurrence on other levels of organization is lacking. Nestedness occurs when interactions of less connected elements form proper subsets of the interactions of more connected elements. Only recently these properties began to be appreciated in one-mode networks (where all elements can interact) which describe a much wider variety of biological phenomena. Here, we compute nestedness in a diverse collection of one-mode networked systems from six different levels of biological organization depicting gene and protein interactions, complex phenotypes, animal societies, metapopulations, food webs and vertebrate metacommunities. Our findings suggest that nestedness emerge independently of interaction type or biological scale and reveal that disparate systems can share nested organization features characterized by inclusive subsets of interacting elements with decreasing connectedness. We primarily explore the implications of a nested structure for each of these studied systems, then theorize on how nested networks are assembled. We hypothesize that nestedness emerges across scales due to processes that, although system-dependent, may share a general compromise between two features: specificity (the number of interactions the elements of the system can have) and affinity (how these elements can be connected to each other). Our findings suggesting occurrence of nestedness throughout biological scales can stimulate the debate on how pervasive nestedness may be in nature, while the theoretical emergent principles can aid further research on commonalities of biological networks.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoSão Paulo Research FoundationKillam TrustsThe Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education within the Ministry of Education of BrazilFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Inovação do Estado de Santa Catarin

A note on clinical presentations of amebic liver abscess: an overview from 62 Thai patients

BACKGROUND: Amebic liver abscess is a tropical disease with a wide spectrum of clinical presentations. Given the often nonspecific nature of the complaints related to amebic abscess, a retrospective review of patients with confirmed disease to recognize the most common patterns of presentation is useful. Here, we study the clinical presentations of 62 Thai patients with amebic liver abscess. We also compare the clinical presentations of Anti HIV seronegative and Anti HIV seropositive patients. METHODS: A retrospective case review was carried out for 62 Thai patients who had been diagnosed with amebic liver abscess. Clinical information was collected, including symptoms and signs, location and number of abscesses. The Anti HIV serology laboratory investigation was also reviewed. RESULTS: According to our study, the common clinical symptoms and signs are abdominal pain (85.5 %), fever and chills (74.2 %), and abdominal tenderness (69.4 %). The location of the abscess was predominantly in the right lobe (74.2 %), and most of patients had a single abscess (77.4 %). Similar trends in clinical presentations were observed in both Anti HIV seropositive and Anti HIV seronegative subjects. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the clinical presentations of our amebic liver abscess patients were similar to those in previous reports. A similarity to those in the pyogenic liver abscess patients can be observed. Nevertheless, we could not detect important significant differences in the clinical presentations between Anti HIV seropositive and Anti HIV seronegative groups of patients

Vibrational analysis of d-PCL(530)/siloxane based hybrids doped with two lithium salts

Published online: 22 May 2013The present study has been focused on environmentally friendly sol-gel derived electrolytes based on a di-urethane cross-linked d-PCL(530)/siloxane network (where d represents di, PCL identifies the poly(ε–caprolactone) biopolymer and 530 is the average molecular weight in g.mol-1) doped with a wide range of concentration of lithium perchlorate (LiClO4) and lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI). Fourier Transform Infrared and Raman (FT-IR and FT-Raman, respectively) spectroscopies have been applied to evaluate the extent of ionic association. Characteristic bands of the PCL(530) segments, of the urethane cross-links and of the anions have been examined to gain insight into the cation/biopolymer, cation/anion and cation/cross-link interactions. In both electrolyte systems “free” ions and contact ions have been identified. The addition of salt modifies the hydrogen-bonded array of the host matrix, causing the destruction/formation of the urethane/urethane aggregates.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Distribution and drivers of marine isoprene concentration across the Southern Ocean

© 2020 by the authors. Isoprene is a biogenic trace gas produced by terrestrial vegetation and marine phytoplankton. In the remote oceans, where secondary aerosols are mostly biogenic, marine isoprene emissions affect atmospheric chemistry and influence cloud formation and brightness. Here, we present the first compilation of new and published measurements of isoprene concentrations in the Southern Ocean and explore their distribution patterns. Surface ocean isoprene concentrations in November through April span 1 to 94 pM. A band of higher concentrations is observed around a latitude of ≈40° S and a surface sea temperature of 15 °C. High isoprene also occurs in high productivity waters near islands and continental coasts. We use concurrent measurements of physical, chemical, and biological variables to explore the main potential drivers of isoprene concentration by means of paired regressions and multivariate analysis. Isoprene is best explained by phytoplankton-related variables like the concentrations of chlorophyll-a, photoprotective pigments and particulate organic matter, photosynthetic efficiency (influenced by iron availability), and the chlorophyll-a shares of most phytoplankton groups, and not by macronutrients or bacterial abundance. A simple statistical model based on chlorophyll-a concentration and a sea surface temperature discontinuity accounts for half of the variance of isoprene concentrations in surface waters of the Southern Ocean