Cranial Masses in Sickle Cell Disease

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mitochondrial dynamics and quality control in Huntington's disease

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by polyglutamine expansion mutations in the huntingtin protein. Despite its ubiquitous distribution, expression of mutant huntingtin (mHtt) is particularly detrimental to medium spiny neurons within the striatum. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been associated with HD pathogenesis. Here we review the current evidence for mHtt-induced abnormalities in mitochondrial dynamics and quality control, with a particular focus on brain and neuronal data pertaining to striatal vulnerability. We address mHtt effects on mitochondrial biogenesis, protein import, complex assembly, fission and fusion, mitochondrial transport, and on the degradation of damaged mitochondria via autophagy (mitophagy). For an integrated perspective on potentially converging pathogenic mechanisms, we also address impaired autophagosomal transport and abnormal mHtt proteostasis in HD

The costs of preventing and treating chagas disease in Colombia

Background: The objective of this study is to report the costs of Chagas disease in Colombia, in terms of vector disease control programmes and the costs of providing care to chronic Chagas disease patients with cardiomyopathy. Methods: Data were collected from Colombia in 2004. A retrospective review of costs for vector control programmes carried out in rural areas included 3,084 houses surveyed for infestation with triatomine bugs and 3,305 houses sprayed with insecticide. A total of 63 patient records from 3 different hospitals were selected for a retrospective review of resource use. Consensus methodology with local experts was used to estimate care seeking behaviour and to complement observed data on utilisation. Findings: The mean cost per house per entomological survey was $4.4 (in US$ of 2004), whereas the mean cost of spraying a house with insecticide was $27. The main cost driver of spraying was the price of the insecticide, which varied greatly. Treatment of a chronic Chagas disease patient costs between$46.4 and $7,981 per year in Colombia, depending on severity and the level of care used. Combining cost and utilisation estimates the expected cost of treatment per patient-year is$1,028, whereas lifetime costs averaged $11,619 per patient. Chronic Chagas disease patients have limited access to healthcare, with an estimated 22% of patients never seeking care. Conclusion: Chagas disease is a preventable condition that affects mostly poor populations living in rural areas. The mean costs of surveying houses for infestation and spraying infested houses were low in comparison to other studies and in line with treatment costs. Care seeking behaviour and the type of insurance affiliation seem to play a role in the facilities and type of care that patients use, thus raising concerns about equitable access to care. Preventing Chagas disease in Colombia would be cost-effective and could contribute to prevent inequalities in health and healthcare.Wellcome Trus

Repair of composite-to-masonry bond using flexible matrix

The paper presents an experimental investigation on an innovative repair method, in which composite reinforcements, after debonding, are re-bonded to the substrate using a highly deformable polymer. In order to assess the effectiveness of this solution, shear bond tests were carried out on brick and masonry substrates within two Round Robin Test series organized within the RILEM TC 250-CSM: Composites for Sustainable strengthening of Masonry. Five laboratories from Italy, Poland and Portugal were involved. The shear bond performance of the reinforcement systems before and after repair were compared in terms of ultimate loads, load-displacement curves and strain distributions. The results showed that the proposed repair method may provide higher strength and ductility than stiff epoxy resins, making it an effective and cost efficient technique for several perspective structural applications

Grounding language in perception for scene conceptualization in autonomous robots

In order to behave autonomously, it is desirable for robots to have the ability to use human supervision and learn from different input sources (perception, gestures, verbal and textual descriptions etc). In many machine learning tasks, the supervision is directed specifically towards machines and hence is straight forward clearly annotated examples. But this is not always very practical and recently it was found that the most preferred interface to robots is natural language. Also the supervision might only be available in a rather indirect form, which may be vague and incomplete. This is frequently the case when humans teach other humans since they may assume a particular context and existing world knowledge. We explore this idea here in the setting of conceptualizing objects and scene layouts. Initially the robot undergoes training from a human in recognizing some objects in the world and armed with this acquired knowledge it sets out in the world to explore and learn more higher level concepts like static scene layouts and environment activities. Here it has to exploit its learned knowledge and ground language into perception to use inputs from different sources that might have overlapping as well as novel information. When exploring, we assume that the robot is given visual input, without explicit type labels for objects, and also that it has access to more or less generic linguistic descriptions of scene layout. Thus our task here is to learn the spatial structure of a scene layout and simultaneously visual object models it was not trained on. In this paper, we present a cognitive architecture and learning framework for robot learning through natural human supervision and using multiple input sources by grounding language in perception

Arachnidism, scorpionism and ophidism in Ouro Preto Municipality, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

Abstract: INTRODUCTION This retrospective study shows the profile of arachnidism, ophidism, and scorpionism in the Ouro Preto Municipality, Brazil, from January 2007 to December 2013. METHODS The data were gathered from forms of the Epidemiological Surveillance Sector of the town's Health's Municipal Secretary. RESULTS Of the 412 envenomations, 308 were caused by spiders, 78 by scorpions, and 26 by snakes. The highest number of incidents involved people aged 20-34 years. Females were more affected than males. There were no reports of death. CONCLUSIONS The results show that envenomations caused by spiders, scorpions and snakes have decreased in recent years

Mortar-based systems for externally bonded strengthening of masonry

Mortar-based composite materials appear particularly promising for use as externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) systems for masonry structures. Nevertheless, their mechanical performance, which may significantly differ from that of Fibre Reinforced Polymers, is still far from being fully investigated. Furthermore, standardized and reliable testing procedures have not been defined yet. The present paper provides an insight on experimental-related issues arising from campaigns on mortar-based EBRs carried out by laboratories in Italy, Portugal and Spain. The performance of three reinforcement systems made out of steel, carbon and basalt textiles embedded in inorganic matrices has been investigated by means of uniaxial tensile coupon testing and bond tests on brick and stone substrates. The experimental results contribute to the existing knowledge regarding the structural behaviour of mortar-based EBRs against tension and shear bond stress, and to the development of reliable test procedures aiming at their homogenization/standardization