Infective Endocarditis: Inflammatory Response, Genetic Susceptibility, Oxidative Stress, and Multiple Organ Failure

Infective endocarditis is defined by a focus of infection within the heart. Despite the optimal care, the mortality approaches 30% at 1 year, so the care for this type of patients represents a challenge to improve the result in your care. The challenges in this clinical entity have several aspects such as the diversity of germs that cause endocarditis, and the most important epidemiologically has generated resistance to antimicrobial treatment along with the possibility of apoptosis in their host-germ interaction. The immunogenetic susceptibility to host infection is discussed, which represents a deep area of research. Inflammation, local and systemic, is complex, with the genesis of reactive oxygen species, which are harmful when the antioxidant defenses are exceeded, causing the break in the mitochondrial electron transport chain with the fall in energy genesis, multiple organ failure, and death. Both at the cellular level and in the mitochondria, possible therapeutic targets are also commented

Information fusion from multiple databases using meta-association rules

Nowadays, data volume, distribution, and volatility make it difficult to search global patterns by applying traditional Data Mining techniques. In the case of data in a distributed environment, sometimes a local analysis of each dataset separately is adequate but some other times a global decision is needed by the analysis of the entire data. Association rules discovering methods typically require a single uniform dataset and managing with the entire set of distributed data is not possible due to its size. To address the scenarios in which satisfying this requirement is not practical or even feasible, we propose a new method for fusing information, in the form of rules, extracted from multiple datasets. The proposed model produces meta-association rules, i.e. rules in which the antecedent or the consequent may contain rules as well, for finding joint correlations among trends found individually in each dataset. In this paper, we describe the formulation and the implementation of two alternative frameworks that obtain, respectively, crisp meta-rules and fuzzy meta-rules. We compare our proposal with the information obtained when the datasets are not separated, in order to see the main differences between traditional association rules and meta-association rules. We also compare crisp and fuzzy methods for meta-association rule mining, observing that the fuzzy approach offers several advantages: it is more accurate since it incorporates the strength or validity of the previous information, produces a more manageable set of rules for human inspection, and allows the incorporation of contextual information to the mining process expressed in a more human-friendly format

The holy grail:Environmental management, competitive advantage and business performance in the Spanish hotel industry

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited G959-6119. Purpose - This paper aims to analyse the influence of environmental proactivity on cost and differentiation competitive advantages, and to explore the double relationship between environmental proactivity and business performance. Design/methodology/approach - The population consists of all three- to five-star hotels in Spain. A sample of 350 hotels was classified according to environmental proactivity and performance levels, employing a two-step cluster analysis. Significant differences between groups were examined. Findings - The results show two types of environmental behaviour (reactive and proactive), with proactive hotels developing significantly better on both cost and differentiation competitive advantage and achieving significantly higher performance levels. Hotels which achieve above average business performance levels are significantly more environmentally proactive. Research limitations/implications - The present paper demonstrates that environmental management is related to competitive advantages and business performance. Environmental management systems are more developed in higher category, chain-affiliated and larger hotels. This could be due to having more resources to develop their environmental capability. The environmental proactivity scale employed in this study is presented as a reference measure for hotel managers to benchmark their current practices and implement environmental improvements. Originality/value - First, measuring environmental proactivity using four managerial systems (operative, information, strategic and technical) is innovative and provides a more detailed approach to measuring environmental proactivity. Second, demonstrating a double association between environmental proactivity and performance provides fresh insights into the relationship between these variables

Association of a dietary inflammatory index with cardiometabolic, endocrine, liver, renal and bones biomarkers: cross-sectional analysis of the UK Biobank study

\ua9 2024 The Author(s)Background and aims: Research into the relationship between an Energy-adjusted Diet-Inflammatory Index (E-DII) and a wider health-related biomarkers profile is limited. Much of the existing evidence centers on traditional metabolic biomarkers in populations with chronic diseases, with scarce data on healthy individuals. Thus, this study aims to investigate the association between an E-DII score and 30 biomarkers spanning metabolic health, endocrine, bone health, liver function, cardiovascular, and renal functions, in healthy individuals. Methods and results: 66,978 healthy UK Biobank participants, the overall mean age was 55.3 (7.9) years were included in this cross-sectional study. E-DII scores, based on 18 food parameters, were categorised as anti-inflammatory (E-DII < -1), neutral (−1 to 1), and pro-inflammatory (>1). Regression analyses, adjusted for confounding factors, were conducted to investigate the association of 30 biomarkers with E-DII. Compared to those with an anti-inflammatory diet, individuals with a pro-inflammatory diet had increased levels of 16 biomarkers, including six cardiometabolic, five liver, and four renal markers. The concentration difference ranged from 0.27 SD for creatinine to 0.03 SD for total cholesterol. Conversely, those on a pro-inflammatory diet had decreased concentrations in six biomarkers, including two for endocrine and cardiometabolic. The association range varied from −0.04 for IGF-1 to −0.23 for SHBG. Conclusion: This study highlighted that a pro-inflammatory diet was associated with an adverse profile of biomarkers linked to cardiometabolic health, endocrine, liver function, and renal health

Analysis of antenal sensilla patterns of Rhodnius prolixus from Colombia and Venezuela

Antennal sensilla patterns were used to analyze population variation of domestic Rhodnius prolixus from six departments and states representing three biogeographical regions of Colombia and Venezuela. Discriminant analysis of the patterns of mechanoreceptors and of three types of chemoreceptors on the pedicel and flagellar segments showed clear differentiation between R. prolixus populations east and west of the Andean Cordillera. The distribution of thick and thin-walled trichoids on the second flagellar segment also showed correlation with latitude, but this was not seen in the patterns of other sensilla. The results of the sensilla patterns appear to be reflecting biogeographic features or population isolation rather than characters associated with different habitats and lend support to the idea that domestic R. prolixus originated in the eastern region of the Andes.Fil: Esteban, Lyda. Universidad Industrial de Santander; ColombiaFil: Angulo, Víctor Manuel. Universidad Industrial de Santander; ColombiaFil: Dora Feliciangeli, M.. Universidad de Carabobo; VenezuelaFil: Catala, Silvia Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja. - Universidad Nacional de La Rioja. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja. - Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja. - Secretaría de Industria y Minería. Servicio Geológico Minero Argentino. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja. - Provincia de La Rioja. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja; Argentin

Localization of a bacterial group II intron-encoded protein in human cells

Group II introns are mobile retroelements that self-splice from precursor RNAs to form ribonucleoparticles (RNP), which can invade new specific genomic DNA sites. This specificity can be reprogrammed, for insertion into any desired DNA site, making these introns useful tools for bacterial genetic engineering. However, previous studies have suggested that these elements may function inefficiently in eukaryotes. We investigated the subcellular distribution, in cultured human cells, of the protein encoded by the group II intron RmInt1 (IEP) and several mutants. We created fusions with yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) and with a FLAG epitope. We found that the IEP was localized in the nucleus and nucleolus of the cells. Remarkably, it also accumulated at the periphery of the nuclear matrix. We were also able to identify spliced lariat intron RNA, which co-immunoprecipitated with the IEP, suggesting that functional RmInt1 RNPs can be assembled in cultured human cells.This work was supported by research grants CSD 2009–0006 from the Consolider-Ingenio, BIO2011-24401 and BIO2014-51953-P from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad all including ERDF (European Regional Development Funds). We thank Dr. Antonio Barrientos Durán for technical advice. MRC was supported by an FPI Ph.D grant. J.L.G.P´s laboratory is supported by CICE-FEDER-P09-CTS-4980, CICE-FEDER-P12-CTS-2256, Plan Nacional de I+D+I 2008–2011 and 2013–2016 (FIS-FEDER-PI11/01489 and FIS-FEDER-PI14/02152), PCIN-2014-115-ERA-NET NEURON II, the European Research Council (ERC-Consolidator ERC-STG-2012-233764) and by an International Early Career Scientist grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (IECS-55007420).Peer Reviewe

Early metallurgy in SE Iberia. The workshop of Las Pilas (Mojacar, Almeria, Spain)

Big narratives on the role of metallurgy in social change and technological innovations are common in archaeology. However, informed discussion of these issues requires a contextualised characterisation of metallurgical technology at the local level in its specific social and technological context. This paper approaches early metallurgy in Iberia from a technological perspective. We focus on the site of Las Pilas in the Vera Basin (Mojácar, Almería, Spain), where the whole metallurgical chaîne opératoire has been documented in situ through archaeological excavation of a 3rd Millennium BC context. The study includes microstructural, mineralogical and chemical analyses of ores, slag, technical ceramics and finished artefacts, as well as domestic pottery used for comparative purposes. These results are discussed with reference to the archaeological context and evidence for other domestic activities and crafts. Our aim is to contribute to better characterise the early metallurgical tradition of Southeast Iberia, paying particular attention to specific technological tools, knowledge and recipes that may allow future comparative approaches to knowledge transmission or independent innovation debates. For this particular case, we demonstrate the direct production of arsenical copper in a low-scale, low-specialisation, low-efficiency set up that involved the crucible smelting of complex oxidic ores in a context that suggests associations with cereal roasting and, indirectly, with basket and pottery making

Population Empirical Likelihood Estimation in Dual Frame Surveys

Dual frame surveys are a device to reduce the costs derived from data collection in surveys and improve coverage for the whole target population. Since their introduction, in the 1960’s, dual frame surveys have gained much attention and several estimators have been formulated based on a number of different approaches. In this work, we propose new dual frame estimators based on the population empirical likelihood method originally proposed by Chen and Kim (2014) and using both the dual and the single frame approach. The extension of the proposed methodology to more than two frame surveys is also sketched. The performance of the proposed estimators in terms of relative bias and relative mean squared error is tested through simulation experiments. These experiments indicate that the proposed estimators yield better results than other likelihood-based estimators proposed in the literature.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spai