Association between chronic irritability and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents.

Association between chronic irritability and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. Busto-Garrido, M.; Gutierrez-Castillo, D; Navas- Gonzalez, JR; Gutierrez-Bedmar, M; Gutierrez-Casares, JR; Martin-Lunar, MT; Rodríguez-Rosado, A; Pena-Andreu, JM. European Psychiatry 415(2017) 5221.Chronic irritability is the most frequently reported symptom in child and adolescent depression. The association of both has been linked with high rates of chronicity, comorbility and impairment. Objectives To study the association between chronic irritability and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. Methods We have studied 857 participants recruited from the only Child and Adolescent Mental Health Clinic in a catchment area of 122968 people under 18 (2004-2010). A sample of 677 participants (57 controls and 620 patients) was included to carry out a cross-sectional study. Chronic irritability was measured by a Visual Analog Scale (VAS irritability) -scored from 0 to 10-, and depressive symptoms by the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). The participants were categorized into controls and patients, and according to their chronic irritability (≤4 [I],5 [II] and ≥6 [III]). The mean of CDI score was calculated for each of the groups, adjusted by sex and age, and analyzed by ANCOVA. Results The following means were obtained from the controls: 13,71 (group I), 9,82 (group II) and 17,45 (group III). Regarding to the patients: 13,92 (group I), 11,54 (group II) and 15,64 (group III). A quadratic association (p <0,0015) was found between VAS irritability score and CDI score. Conclussions There is not a lineal association between chronic irritability and depressive symptoms in children and adolescent. High rates of depressive symptoms were associated both with high and low rates of irritability. Several questions remain unexplained about the status of irritability in psychiatry as Stringaris group has been pointed out. Disclosure statement I have no potential conflict of interest to discloseUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Carbon-fiber tips for scanning probe microscopes and molecular electronics experiments

We fabricate and characterize carbon-fiber tips for their use in combined scanning tunneling and force microscopy based on piezoelectric quartz tuning fork force sensors. An electrochemical fabrication procedure to etch the tips is used to yield reproducible sub-100-nm apex. We also study electron transport through single-molecule junctions formed by a single octanethiol molecule bonded by the thiol anchoring group to a gold electrode and linked to a carbon tip by the methyl group. We observe the presence of conductance plateaus during the stretching of the molecular bridge, which is the signature of the formation of a molecular junction.Comment: Conference Proceeding (Trends in NanoTechnology 2011, Tenerife SPAIN); Nanoscale Research Letters, (2012) 7:25

Transaction processing in consistency-aware user’s applications deployed on NoSQL databases

NoSQL databases are capable of storing and processing big data which is characterized by various properties such as volume, variety and velocity. Such databases are used in a variety of user applications that need large volume of data which is highly available and efficiently accessible. But they do not enforce or require strong data consistency nor do they support transactions. This paper investigates into the transaction processing in consistency-aware applications hosted on MongoDB and Riak which are two representatives of Document and Key-Value NoSQL databases, respectively. It develops new transaction schemes in order to provide NoSQL databases with transactional facilities as well as to analyze the effects of transactions on data consistency and efficiency in user’s applications. The proposed schemes are evaluated using the YCSB + T benchmark which is based on Yahoo! Cloud Services Benchmark (YCSB). Experimental results show that using the proposed schemes, strong consistency can be achieved in MongoDB and Riak without severely affecting their efficiency. We also conduct experiments in order to analyse the level of consistencyof MongoDB and Riak transactional systems

Chronic heart failure with diabetes mellitus is characterized by a severe skeletal muscle pathology

Background Patients with coexistent chronic heart failure (CHF) and diabetes mellitus (DM) demonstrate greater exercise limitation and worse prognosis compared with CHF patients without DM, even when corrected for cardiac dysfunction. Understanding the origins of symptoms in this subgroup may facilitate development of targeted treatments. We therefore characterized the skeletal muscle phenotype and its relationship to exercise limitation in patients with diabetic heart failure (D‐HF). Methods In one of the largest muscle sampling studies in a CHF population, pectoralis major biopsies were taken from age‐matched controls (n = 25), DM (n = 10), CHF (n = 52), and D‐HF (n = 28) patients. In situ mitochondrial function and reactive oxygen species, fibre morphology, capillarity, and gene expression analyses were performed and correlated to whole‐body exercise capacity. Results Mitochondrial respiration, content, coupling efficiency, and intrinsic function were lower in D‐HF patients compared with other groups (P < 0.05). A unique mitochondrial complex I dysfunction was present in D‐HF patients only (P < 0.05), which strongly correlated to exercise capacity (R2 = 0.64; P < 0.001). Mitochondrial impairments in D‐HF corresponded to higher levels of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (P < 0.05) and lower gene expression of anti‐oxidative enzyme superoxide dismutase 2 (P < 0.05) and complex I subunit NDUFS1 (P < 0.05). D‐HF was also associated with severe fibre atrophy (P < 0.05) and reduced local fibre capillarity (P < 0.05). Conclusions Patients with D‐HF develop a specific skeletal muscle pathology, characterized by mitochondrial impairments, fibre atrophy, and derangements in the capillary network that are linked to exercise intolerance. These novel preliminary data support skeletal muscle as a potential therapeutic target for treating patients with D‐HF

MultiMetEval: comparative and multi-objective analysis of genome-scale metabolic models

Comparative metabolic modelling is emerging as a novel field, supported by the development of reliable and standardized approaches for constructing genome-scale metabolic models in high throughput. New software solutions are needed to allow efficient comparative analysis of multiple models in the context of multiple cellular objectives. Here, we present the user-friendly software framework Multi-Metabolic Evaluator (MultiMetEval), built upon SurreyFBA, which allows the user to compose collections of metabolic models that together can be subjected to flux balance analysis. Additionally, MultiMetEval implements functionalities for multi-objective analysis by calculating the Pareto front between two cellular objectives. Using a previously generated dataset of 38 actinobacterial genome-scale metabolic models, we show how these approaches can lead to exciting novel insights. Firstly, after incorporating several pathways for the biosynthesis of natural products into each of these models, comparative flux balance analysis predicted that species like Streptomyces that harbour the highest diversity of secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters in their genomes do not necessarily have the metabolic network topology most suitable for compound overproduction. Secondly, multi-objective analysis of biomass production and natural product biosynthesis in these actinobacteria shows that the well-studied occurrence of discrete metabolic switches during the change of cellular objectives is inherent to their metabolic network architecture. Comparative and multi-objective modelling can lead to insights that could not be obtained by normal flux balance analyses. MultiMetEval provides a powerful platform that makes these analyses straightforward for biologists. Sources and binaries of MultiMetEval are freely available from https://github.com/PiotrZakrzewski/MetEv​al/downloads

Educational intervention to improve physician reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in a primary care setting in complementary and alternative medicine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent studies have shown that adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are underreported. This may be particularly true of ADRs associated with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Data on CAM-related ADRs, however, are sparse.</p> <p>Objective was to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention and monitoring programme designed to improve physician reporting of ADRs in a primary care setting.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A prospective multicentre study with 38 primary care practitioners specialized in CAM was conducted from January 2004 through June 2007. After 21 month all physicians received an educational intervention in terms of face-to-face training to assist them in classifying and reporting ADRs. The study centre monitored the quantity and quality of ADR reports and analysed the results.</p> <p>To measure changes in the ADR reporting rate, the median number of ADR reports and interquartile range (IQR) were calculated before and after the educational intervention. The pre-intervention and post-intervention quality of the reports was assessed in terms of changes in the completeness of data provided for obligatory items. Interrater reliability between the physicians and the study centre was calculated using Cohen's kappa with a 95% confidence interval (CI). We used Mann Whitney U-test for testing continuous data and chi-square test was used for categorical data. The level of statistical significance was set at <it>P </it>< 0.05.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 404 ADRs were reported during the complete study period. An initial 148% increase (<it>P </it>= 0.001) in the number of ADR reports was observed after the educational intervention. Compared to baseline the postinterventional number of ADR reportings was statistically significant higher (P < 0.005) through the first 16 months after the intervention but not significant in the last 4-month period (median: 8.00 (IQR [2.75; 8.75]; P = 0.605). The completeness of the ADR reports increased from 80.3% before to 90.7% after the intervention. The completeness of the item for classifying ADRs as serious or non-serious increased significantly (<it>P </it>< 0.001) after the educational intervention. The quality of ADR reports increased from kappa 0.15 (95% CI: 0.08; 0.29) before to 0.43 (95% CI: 0.23; 0.63) after the intervention.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of the present study demonstrate that an educational intervention can increase physician awareness of ADRs. Participating physicians were able to incorporate the knowledge they had gained from face-to-face training into their daily clinical practice. However, the effects of the intervention were temporary.</p

Decolorization of synthetic melanoidins-containing wastewater by a bacterial consortium

The presence of melanoidins in molasses wastewater leads to water pollution both due to its dark brown color and its COD contents. In this study, a bacterial consortium isolated from waterfall sediment was tested for its decolorization. The identification of culturable bacteria by 16S rDNA based approach showed that the consortium composed of Klebsiella oxytoca, Serratia mercescens, Citrobacter sp. and unknown bacterium. In the context of academic study, prevention on the difficulties of providing effluent as well as its variations in compositions, several synthetic media prepared with respect to color and COD contents based on analysis of molasses wastewater, i.e., Viandox sauce (13.5% v/v), caramel (30% w/v), beet molasses wastewater (41.5% v/v) and sugarcane molasses wastewater (20% v/v) were used for decolorization using consortium with color removal 9.5, 1.13, 8.02 and 17.5%, respectively, within 2 days. However, Viandox sauce was retained for further study. The effect of initial pH and Viandox concentration on decolorization and growth of bacterial consortium were further determined. The highest decolorization of 18.3% was achieved at pH 4 after 2 day of incubation. Experiments on fresh or used medium and used or fresh bacterial cells, led to conclusion that the limitation of decolorization was due to nutritional deficiency. The effect of aeration on decolorization was also carried out in 2 L laboratory-scale suspended cell bioreactor. The maximum decolorization was 19.3% with aeration at KLa = 2.5836 h-1 (0.1 vvm)

Comparative evaluation of atom mapping algorithms for balanced metabolic reactions: application to Recon 3D

The mechanism of each chemical reaction in a metabolic network can be represented as a set of atom mappings, each of which relates an atom in a substrate metabolite to an atom of the same element in a product metabolite. Genome-scale metabolic network reconstructions typically represent biochemistry at the level of reaction stoichiometry. However, a more detailed representation at the underlying level of atom mappings opens the possibility for a broader range of biological, biomedical and biotechnological applications than with stoichiometry alone. Complete manual acquisition of atom mapping data for a genome-scale metabolic network is a laborious process. However, many algorithms exist to predict atom mappings. How do their predictions compare to each other and to manually curated atom mappings? For more than four thousand metabolic reactions in the latest human metabolic reconstruction, Recon 3D, we compared the atom mappings predicted by six atom mapping algorithms. We also compared these predictions to those obtained by manual curation of atom mappings for over five hundred reactions distributed among all top level Enzyme Commission number classes. Five of the evaluated algorithms had similarly high prediction accuracy of over 91% when compared to manually curated atom mapped reactions. On average, the accuracy of the prediction was highest for reactions catalysed by oxidoreductases and lowest for reactions catalysed by ligases. In addition to prediction accuracy, the algorithms were evaluated on their accessibility, their advanced features, such as the ability to identify equivalent atoms, and their ability to map hydrogen atoms. In addition to prediction accuracy, we found that software accessibility and advanced features were fundamental to the selection of an atom mapping algorithm in practice