Doença Meningocócica Invasiva: Aplicação do Base Excess and Platelets Score numa Unidade de Cuidados Intensivos Pediátricos Portuguesa

INTRODUCTION: Meningococcal infection has a high mortality and morbidity. Recently a new prognostic scoring system was developed for paediatric invasive meningococcal disease, based on platelet count and base excess â base excess and platelets score. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of base excess and platelets score to predict mortality in children admitted to intensive care due to invasive meningococcal disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Observational study, with retrospective data collection, during a 13.5 years period (01/2000 to 06/2013). Mortality by invasive meningococcal disease and related factors (organ dysfunction and multi-organ failure) were analysed. The base excess and platelets score was calculated retrospectively, to evaluate its accuracy in predicting mortality and compared with Paediatric Risk of Mortality and Paediatric Index of Mortality2. RESULTS: Were admitted 76 children with invasive meningococcal disease. The most frequent type of dysfunction was cardiovascular (92%), followed by hematologic (55%). Of the total, 47 patients (62%) had criteria for multi-organ failure. The global mortality was 16%. Neurologic and renal dysfunction showed the strongest association with mortality, adjusted odds ratio 315 (26 - 3 804) and 155 (20 - 1 299). After application of receiver operating characteristic curves, Base Excess and Platelets score had an area under curve of 0.81, Paediatric Index of Mortality2 of 0.91 and Paediatric Risk of Mortality of 0.96. DISCUSSION: The Base Excess and Platelets score showed good accuracy, although not as high as Paediatric Risk of Mortality or Paediatric Index of Mortality 2. CONCLUSIONS: The Base Excess and Platelets score may be useful tool in invasive meningococcal disease because is highly sensitive and specific and is objectively measurable and readily available at presentation

Monitoramento da população de Oryzophagus oryzae e de resíduos de fipronil em arrozal utilizando sementes tratadas com inseticidas.

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Asymmetric Combination of Logics is Functorial: A Survey

Asymmetric combination of logics is a formal process that develops the characteristic features of a specific logic on top of another one. Typical examples include the development of temporal, hybrid, and probabilistic dimensions over a given base logic. These examples are surveyed in the paper under a particular perspective—that this sort of combination of logics possesses a functorial nature. Such a view gives rise to several interesting questions. They range from the problem of combining translations (between logics), to that of ensuring property preservation along the process, and the way different asymmetric combinations can be related through appropriate natural transformations

Profundidade da amostragem de solo e raízes em cultivares de arroz irrigado e nível de infestação larval de Oryzophagus oryzae (Costa Lima, 1936) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae).

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Associação entre diâmetro de amostras de solo e raízes de arroz e índice de infestação larval de oryzophagus oryzae (Costa Lima, 1936) (Coleoptera: curculionidae)

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Gellan gum injectable hydrogels for cartilage tissue engineering applications: in vitro studies and preliminary in vivo evaluation

Gellan gum is a polysaccharide that we have previously proposed for applications in the cartilage tissue engineering field. In this work, gellan gum hydrogels were tested for their ability to be used as injectable systems using simple processing methods, able to deliver and maintain chondrocytes by in situ gelation, and support cell viability and production of extracellular matrix (ECM). Rheological measurements determined that the sol–gel transition occurred near the body temperature at 39ºC, upon temperature decrease, in approximately 20 s. Gellan gum discs shows a storage compression modulus of around 80 kPa at a frequency of 1Hz by dynamic mechanical analysis. Human articular chondrocytes were encapsulated in the gels, cultured in vitro for total periods of 56 days, and analyzed for cell viability and ECM production. Calcein AM staining showed that cell kept viable after 14 days and the histological analysis and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that hyaline-like cartilage ECM was synthesized. Finally, the in vivo performance of the gellan gum hydrogels, in terms of induced inflammatory reaction and integration into the host tissue, was evaluated by subcutaneous implantation in Balb/c mice for 21 days. Histological analysis showed a residual fibrotic capsule at the end of the experiments. Dynamic mechanical analysis revealed that the gels were stable throughout the experiments while evidencing a tendency for decreasing mechanical properties, which was consistent with weight measurements. Altogether, the results demonstrate the adequacy of gellan gum hydrogels processed by simple methods for noninvasive injectable applications toward the formation of a functional cartilage tissue-engineered construct and originally report the preliminary response of a living organism to the subcutaneous implantation of the gellan gum hydrogels. These are the two novel features of this work.J. T. Oliveira would like to acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for his grant (SFRH/BD17135/2004). The authors would like to thank the patients at Hospital de S. Marcos, Braga, Portugal for the donation of the biological samples, and the medical staff for their help and support. The authors would also like to thank the Institute for Health and Life Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, for allowing the use of their research facilities. This work was carried out under the scope of the European NoE EXPERTISSUES (NMP3-CT-2004 500283) and partially supported by the European Project HIPPOCRATES (STRP 505758-1)

The Influence of Thermal Comfort on the Quality of Life of Nursing Home Residents

Thermal comfort (TC) parameters were measured in 130 rooms from nursing homes (NH), following ISO 7730:2005 in order to evaluate the influence of winter season TC indices on quality of life (QoL) in older individuals. Mean radiant temperature (mrT), predicted mean vote (PMV) and predicted percent of dissatisfied people (PPD) indices, and the respective measurement uncertainties were calculated using Monte Carlo Method. The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was conducted from September 2012 to April 2013, during the winter season TC sampling campaign. Winter PMV and PPD indices showed significant differences between seasons in median values for comfort. There were also significant differences between seasons for air temperature, air velocity, mrT, and relative humidity. The winter PMV index displayed a “slightly cool” [≤−1] to “cool” [≤−2] in thermal sensation scale [−3 to 3]. PPD index reflected this discomfort as evidenced by a high rate of predicted dissatisfied occupants (64%). The influence of winter season TC on older individual QoL results demonstrated that values of PMV above −0.7 had higher mean score of QoL (coefficient estimate: 11.13 units) compared with values of PMV below −0.7. These findings are of relevance to public health and may be useful for understanding NH indoor environment variables thus implementing preventive policies in terms of standards and guidelines for these susceptible populations.This work was supported by GERIA Project (www.geria.webnode.com): PTDC/SAU-SAP/116563/2010 and a PhD Grant (SFRH/BD/72399/2010) from Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT) through Operational Competitiveness Programme (COMPETE) as part of the National Strategic Reference Framework. SB work was supported by a grant funded by AIRC (Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro)

Desempenho dos sistemas referências na região do Sertão.

Procedimento para coleta e análise dos dados; Região Sertão do Araripe; Região Sertão do São Francisco.bitstream/item/197618/1/Desempenho-dos-sistemas-referencias-na-Regiao-do-Sertao.pd

Metal-ion zeolites obtained by chemical and mechanochemical methods as Fenton-like catalysts for health applications

One of the critical steps for the development and health applications of inorganic nanoparticles is to exhibit high efficiency without inducing toxicity. In this work, metal-ion zeolites were developed to be used as Fenton-like catalysts for health applications. ZSM-5 and BEA zeolites were modified through chemical and mechanochemical methods to obtain nanomaterials with tuned particle size and texture. Characterization data showed that the modified materials kept the crystal structure although some textural modifications occurred. Upon Mn2+loading, the catalytic behavior was evaluated by Fenton-like reaction using physiological and mild acidic conditions (37 ºC, pH=7.4 and 6.4 and 50 M H2O2), since these conditions are relevant to various pathological environments. MnBEA series showed the best results by Fenton-like reactions, revealing the great potential of metal-zeolite nanomaterials for health applications.V.I. and A.R.B. thank for the PhD grants, UI/BD/152219/2021 and SFRH/BD/141058/2018, respectively. ASM thanks FCT for the Assistant Researcher contract CEECIND/01371/2017 (Embrace Project). This work was supported by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal) by the projects: UIDB/00100/2020. UIDP/00100/2020 and LA/P/0056/2020, CQ/UM (UID/QUI/0686/2020), CEB (UIDB/04469/2020) and LABBELS (LA/P/0029/2020), and Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa (IPL) through Project IPL/2022/ZeoMed ISEL.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio