Application of 137 Cs for measuring soil erosion/deposition rates in Romania

Two methods of monitoring soil redistribution along agroterraces were explored in Tarina basin of the Moldavian Plateau: the classical method of annual or periodic field measurements and the 137C technique. Results obtained by both methods indicate that the aggradation rate of the agroterrace edge averages 5.0-6.0 cm/yr, but the 137C technique is more efficient because it requires only one field visit. Much of the dow n ward movement of soil in these agroterraces can be related to contour ploughing, although some erosion/deposition undoubtedly occurs. The future of using 137C as a tracer of erosion and sedimentation within discontinuous gullies is promising. Some results obtained in the Moldavian Plateau near Barlad support this assumption. A field study, based on a depth - incremental sampling method, was undertaken in two small basins, Roscani and Timbru. Depth distribution of 137Cs from recent sediments deposited along the floor of dis-continuous gullies allowed the establishment of a mean sedimentation rate of 4.4 cm/yr over the period 1963-1996, and 2.5 cm/yr after 1986 for short gullies. In the case of long gullies, after the Chernobyl nuclear accident this value is to 4.9 cm/year. Furthermore, it was possible to estimate: the age of the gullies (23-48 years), the mean gully head advance (0.9 m/yr), the mean total mass of sediment deposited/ eroded within the gully system (up to 124 t/yr) and the main sediment source (the active gully head and banks). Conservation practices and tillage were first implemented during 1982-1983 in the upper Racatau basin of 3,912 hectares. Significant changes in land management practices resulted from the application of the Landed Property Law no.18/1991. The marked shifting from contour to up and down hill farming created a doubling in the amount of soil erosion and deposition. Depth distribution of 137Cs in recent sediments of the Bibiresti reservoir indicates a mean sedimentation rate of 5.0 cm/yr over the period 1986-1992 and 10.0 cm/yr for the period 1993-1996

Assessment of the reservoir sedimentation rates from 137 Cs measurements in the Moldavian Plateau

Reservoir sedimentation has been recognized as an important environmental threat in the Moldavian Plateau of Eastern Romania. Measurements of the 137Cs content of reservoir and, sometimes, floodplain sediments have been used to estimate the rate of sedimentation over the past 13-36 years . The estimated mean sediment accumulation rates in the reservoirs from three geomorphological subunits vary between 2.6 and 7.9 cm/year with an average rate of 4.6 cm/year after April 1986. Strong relationships were established between the individual sedimentation rates and the drainage area within the southern and central part of the Moldavian Plateau. The shape of the 137Cs depth profile was used as the main approach. Taking into account that the standard pattern is in the form of a cantilever and based on burial magnitude of 137Cs peak derived from Chernobyl two chief patterns of reservoir sedimentation were identified, shallow and deep buried cantilever, respectively

Assessment of the reservoir sedimentation rates from 137 Cs measurements in the Moldavian Plateau

Reservoir sedimentation has been recognized as an important environmental threat in the Moldavian Plateau of Eastern Romania. Measurements of the 137Cs content of reservoir and, sometimes, floodplain sediments have been used to estimate the rate of sedimentation over the past 13-36 years . The estimated mean sediment accumulation rates in the reservoirs from three geomorphological subunits vary between 2.6 and 7.9 cm/year with an average rate of 4.6 cm/year after April 1986. Strong relationships were established between the individual sedimentation rates and the drainage area within the southern and central part of the Moldavian Plateau. The shape of the 137Cs depth profile was used as the main approach. Taking into account that the standard pattern is in the form of a cantilever and based on burial magnitude of 137Cs peak derived from Chernobyl two chief patterns of reservoir sedimentation were identified, shallow and deep buried cantilever, respectively

eHealth in TB clinical management

BACKGROUND: The constant expansion of internet and mobile technologies has created new opportunities in the field of eHealth, or the digital delivery of healthcare services. This TB meta-analysis aims to examine eHealth and its impact on TB clinical management in order to formulate recommendations for further development.METHODS: A systematic search was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses framework in PubMed and Embase of articles published up to April 2021. Screening, extraction and quality assessment were performed by two independent researchers. Studies evaluating an internet and/or mobile-based eHealth intervention with an impact on TB clinical management were included. Outcomes were organised following the five domains described in the WHO "Recommendations on Digital Interventions for Health System Strengthening" guideline.RESULTS: Search strategy yielded 3,873 studies, and 89 full texts were finally included. eHealth tended to enhance screening, diagnosis and treatment indicators, while being cost-effective and acceptable to users. The main challenges concern hardware malfunction and software misuse.CONCLUSION: This study offers a broad overview of the innovative field of eHealth applications in TB. Different studies implementing eHealth solutions consistently reported on benefits, but also on specific challenges. eHealth is a promising field of research and could enhance clinical management of TB.</p

Prospects for the use of artificial intelligence to predict the spread of tuberculosis infection in the WHO European Region

Objective — to analyze the prospects of using artificial intelligence and neural networks to create a geospa-tial model of TB transmission and forecast its spread in the WHO European Region using available analytical databases. Materials and methods. The research was carried out for the period October 2022 — March 2023. Digital access to the following full-text and abstract databases was used as the main source of research: the EBSCO Information Base Package, the world’s largest single abstract and scientific metric platform Scopus, the freely accessible search system Google Scholar, MEDLINE with Full Text, Dyna Med Plus, EBSCO eBooks Clinical Collection, the abstract and scientific metric database of scientific publications of the Thomson Reuters Web of Science Core Collection WoS, statistical data from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Public Health Center, SCIE, SSCI, the online database of the National Scientific Medical Library of Ukraine, AHCI. Results and discussion. Migration processes in Europe still remain a global trend and create difficulties for countries that receive migrants. Adverse living conditions, close contact, poor nutrition, mental and physical stress are what refugees and migrants face. The combination of these risk factors and insufficient access to health services increases the vulnerability of refugees to TB infection. In addition, a delay in diagnosis leads to poor treatment outcomes and continued transmission of the infection to other people. The optimal way to predict the spread of TB infection in European cities, where a significant number of migrants from Ukraine arrived, is to create a mathematical model using the analytical technology of neural networks and artificial intelligence. By analyzing a large amount of data, artificial intelligence can quickly and efficiently identify connections between various factors and predict the future development of the epidemic. For example, artificial intelligence can analyze data on the incidence of TB in different regions of the world, as well as data on the number of patients with other diseases that can affect the human immune system, and make a forecast about the development of the epidemic in the future. Conclusions. Today, the creation of a mathematical model and the development of a simulator program for the geospatial functioning of the city and the interaction of people during the day are relevant. Understanding the natural history of TB among recently arrived migrants is important as we consider how best to implement TB control in such populations.</p

Tratamentul complicaţiilor infecţioase după sternotomie în chirurgia cardiacă

Departamentul de chirurgie cardiacă, IMSP Spitalul Clinic RepublicanObiectiv: Mediastinita anterioară este una din complicaţiile majore după sternotomie în chirurgia cardiacă. Determinarea factorilor de risc ce pot determina apariţia acestor complicaţii, diagnosticul timpuriu, managementul chirurgical etapizat este de o importanţă majoră în tratamentul acestor pacienţi. Metode: Pe parcursul anilor 2000-2013 în secţia de chirurgie cardiacă cu mediastinită postoperatorie au fost trataţi 63 pacienţi (1,81% cazuri), inclusiv, 33 dintre ei (0,94%) cu infecţii profunde în plaga operatorie, 30 (0,86%) - cu sau fară dehiscenţă de stern. Grupul de studiu a fost format din 45(71,4%) barbaţi şi 18(28,5%) femei, avînd o vîrstă medie de 59 de ani, 30(47,6%) dintre ei sufereau de obezitate, 16(22,2%) sufereau de diabet zaharat, 41 (65%) de boală pulmonară cronică obstructivă. Folosirea unei arterei mamare interne (AMI) a fost la 29(46%), iar a ambelor artere mamare la 3(4,76%) dintre pacienţi. Durata medie de intervenţie chirurgicală a fost de 312 min. Terapie transfuzională au necesitat 19 (30,2%) din pacienţi. Mediastinita a fost diagnostificată la a 5-17 zi postoperator. Rezultate: Aplicarea metodelor deschise, debridarea timpurie, instalarea irigaţiei convenţionale au fost preferabile în etapizarea tramentului chirurgical. Resuturarea sternului prin procedeul Robicsek a fost efectuată la 22(35%) din pacienţi. Un caz de deces (1,58%) la a 20-a zi postoperatori, cauza fiind mediastinita sero-purulentă şi insuficienţă poliorganică. Patru pacienţi care au prezentat osteită sternală şi au necesitat rezecţii de cartilage şi plastia defectelor cu lambou muscular (3), pedicul omental (1). Concluzie: Folosirea uneia sau ambelor artere mamare, boala pulmonară cronică obstructivă, diabet zaharat, obezitatea, terapie transfuzională şi prelungirea timpului operator, sunt factori predictori pentru dezvoltarea mediastinitei poststernotomie. Managementul chirurgical etapizat reduce considerabil complicaţiile majore posibile şi cazurile de deces

Influence of Lipid Heterogeneity and Phase Behavior on Phospholipase A2 Action at the Single Molecule Level

We monitored the action of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) on L- and D-dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) Langmuir monolayers by mounting a Langmuir-trough on a wide-field fluorescence microscope with single molecule sensitivity. This made it possible to directly visualize the activity and diffusion behavior of single PLA2 molecules in a heterogeneous lipid environment during active hydrolysis. The experiments showed that enzyme molecules adsorbed and interacted almost exclusively with the fluid region of the DPPC monolayers. Domains of gel state L-DPPC were degraded exclusively from the gel-fluid interface where the build-up of negatively charged hydrolysis products, fatty acid salts, led to changes in the mobility of PLA2. The mobility of individual enzymes on the monolayers was characterized by single particle tracking (SPT). Diffusion coefficients of enzymes adsorbed to the fluid interface were between 3 mu m^2/s on the L-DPPC and 4.6 mu m^/s on the D-DPPC monolayers. In regions enriched with hydrolysis products the diffusion dropped to approx. 0.2 mu m^2/s. In addition, slower normal and anomalous diffusion modes were seen at the L-DPPC gel domain boundaries where hydrolysis took place. The average residence times of the enzyme in the fluid regions of the monolayer and on the product domain were between approx. 30 and 220 ms. At the gel domains it was below the experimental time resolution, i.e. enzymes were simply reflected from the gel domains back into solution.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Rapid global fitting of large fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy datasets

Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) is widely applied to obtain quantitative information from fluorescence signals, particularly using Förster Resonant Energy Transfer (FRET) measurements to map, for example, protein-protein interactions. Extracting FRET efficiencies or population fractions typically entails fitting data to complex fluorescence decay models but such experiments are frequently photon constrained, particularly for live cell or in vivo imaging, and this leads to unacceptable errors when analysing data on a pixel-wise basis. Lifetimes and population fractions may, however, be more robustly extracted using global analysis to simultaneously fit the fluorescence decay data of all pixels in an image or dataset to a multi-exponential model under the assumption that the lifetime components are invariant across the image (dataset). This approach is often considered to be prohibitively slow and/or computationally expensive but we present here a computationally efficient global analysis algorithm for the analysis of time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) or time-gated FLIM data based on variable projection. It makes efficient use of both computer processor and memory resources, requiring less than a minute to analyse time series and multiwell plate datasets with hundreds of FLIM images on standard personal computers. This lifetime analysis takes account of repetitive excitation, including fluorescence photons excited by earlier pulses contributing to the fit, and is able to accommodate time-varying backgrounds and instrument response functions. We demonstrate that this global approach allows us to readily fit time-resolved fluorescence data to complex models including a four-exponential model of a FRET system, for which the FRET efficiencies of the two species of a bi-exponential donor are linked, and polarisation-resolved lifetime data, where a fluorescence intensity and bi-exponential anisotropy decay model is applied to the analysis of live cell homo-FRET data. A software package implementing this algorithm, FLIMfit, is available under an open source licence through the Open Microscopy Environment

Neocortical hyperexcitability in a genetic model of absence seizures and its reduction by levetiracetam

PURPOSE: To study the effect of the antiepileptic drug levetiracetam (LEV) on the patterns of intrinsic optical signals (IOSs) generated by slices of the somatosensory cortex obtained from 3- and 6-month-old WAG/Rij and age-matched, nonepileptic control (NEC) rats. METHODS: WAG/Rij and NEC animals were anesthetized with enfluorane and decapitated. Brains were quickly removed, and neocortical slices were cut coronally with a vibratome, transferred to a submerged tissue chamber, and superfused with oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF). Slices were illuminated with a dark-field condensor and examined with a x2.5 objective; images were processed with a real time digital video image-enhancement system. Images were acquired before (background) and during electrical stimulation with a temporal resolution of 10 images/s and were displayed in pseudocolors. Extracellular stimuli (200 micros; <4 V) were delivered through bipolar stainless steel electrodes placed in the white matter. RESULTS: IOSs recorded in NEC slices bathed in control aCSF became less intense and of reduced size with age (p < 0.05); this trend was not seen in WAG/Rij slices. Age-dependent decreases in IOS intensity and area size were also seen in NEC slices superfused with aCSF containing the convulsant 4-aminopyridine (4-AP, 5 microM); in contrast, significant increases in both parameters occurred with age in 4-AP-treated WAG/Rij slices (p < 0.05). Under any of these conditions, the IOS intensity and area size slices were larger in WAG/Rij than in NEC slices. LEV (50-500 microM) application to WAG/Rij slices caused dose-dependent IOS reductions that were evident both in control and in 4-AP-containing aCSF and were more pronounced in 6-month-old tissue. CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate age-dependent IOS modifications in NEC and WAG/Rij rat slices and identify a clear pattern of hyperexcitability that occurs in 6-month-old WAG/Rij neocortical tissue, an age when absence seizures occur in all animals. The ability of LEV to reduce these patterns of network hyperexcitability supports the potential use of this new antiepileptic drug in primary generalized epileptic disorders