City-wide Analysis of Electronic Health Records Reveals Gender and Age Biases in the Administration of Known Drug-Drug Interactions

The occurrence of drug-drug-interactions (DDI) from multiple drug dispensations is a serious problem, both for individuals and health-care systems, since patients with complications due to DDI are likely to reenter the system at a costlier level. We present a large-scale longitudinal study (18 months) of the DDI phenomenon at the primary- and secondary-care level using electronic health records (EHR) from the city of Blumenau in Southern Brazil (pop. $\approx 340,000$). We found that 181 distinct drug pairs known to interact were dispensed concomitantly to 12\% of the patients in the city's public health-care system. Further, 4\% of the patients were dispensed drug pairs that are likely to result in major adverse drug reactions (ADR)---with costs estimated to be much larger than previously reported in smaller studies. The large-scale analysis reveals that women have a 60\% increased risk of DDI as compared to men; the increase becomes 90\% when considering only DDI known to lead to major ADR. Furthermore, DDI risk increases substantially with age; patients aged 70-79 years have a 34\% risk of DDI when they are dispensed two or more drugs concomitantly. Interestingly, a statistical null model demonstrates that age- and female-specific risks from increased polypharmacy fail by far to explain the observed DDI risks in those populations, suggesting unknown social or biological causes. We also provide a network visualization of drugs and demographic factors that characterize the DDI phenomenon and demonstrate that accurate DDI prediction can be included in healthcare and public-health management, to reduce DDI-related ADR and costs

Electrooxidation as the anaerobic pre-treatment of fats: Oleate conversion using RuO2 and IrO2 based anodes

Electrochemical treatment of oleate using RuO2 and IrO2 type dimensionally stable anodes in alkaline medium was performed to develop a feasible anaerobic pre-treatment of fatty effluents. The results showed that the pre-treated solutions over RuO2 were faster degraded by anaerobic consortium than the raw oleate solutions or the electrolysed solutions using IrO2. In batch experiments carried out with pre-treated solutions over RuO2 (100–500 mg/L), no lag phases were observed before the methane production onset. On the other hand, raw oleate and pre-treated oleate over IrO2 had originated lag phases of 0–140 and 0–210 h, respectively. This study demonstrated that it is advantageous to apply the electrochemical treatment carried out on the RuO2 type DSA in order to achieve a faster biodegradation of lipid-containing effluent and consequently to obtain a faster methane production.ELTECH Systems Corporation.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT

Chave dicotômica para identificação macroscópica de 24 espécies arbóreas.

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Produção de mudas frutíferas no Nordeste.

Objetivando conhecer a situacao da producao de mudas no contexto da fruticultura nordestina, a Embrapa Agroindustria Tropical, realizou um levantamento nos estados de Sergipe, Alagoas,Pernambuco, Paraiba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceara, Piaui e Maranhao.bitstream/CNPAT-2010/5359/1/Ct-027.pd

Wireless hydrotherapy smart suit for monitoring handicapped people

This paper presents a smart suit, water impermeable, containing sensors and electronics for monitoring handicapped people at hydrotherapy sessions in swimming-pools. For integration into textiles, electronic components should be designed in a functional, robust and inexpensive way. Therefore, small-size electronics microsystems are a promising approach. The smart suit allows the monitoring of individual biometric data, such as heart rate, temperature and movement of the body. Two solutions for transmitting the data wirelessly are presented: through a low-voltage (3.0 V), low-power, CMOS RF IC (1.6 mm x 1.5 mm size dimensions) operating at 433 MHz, with ASK modulation and a patch antenna built on lossy substrates compatible with integrated circuits fabrication. Two different substrates were used for antenna implementation: high-resistivity silicon (HRS) and Corning Pyrex #7740 glass. The antenna prototypes were built to operate close to the 5 GHz ISM band. They operate at a center frequency of 5.705 GHz (HRS) and 5.995 GHz (Pyrex). The studied parameters were: substrate thickness, substrate losses, oxide thickness, metal conductivity and thickness. The antenna on HRS uses an area of 8 mm2, providing a 90 MHz bandwidth and ~0.3 dBi of gain. On a glass substrate, the antenna uses 12 mm2, provides 100 MHz bandwidth and ~3 dBi of gain.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), project (SFRH/BD/4717/2001 and POCTI/ESE/38468/2001

Anodic oxidation of oleate for wastewater treatment

The anodic conversion of oleate was carried out on RuO2 type DSA electrode under potentiostatic control. It was used as a pre-treatment of the anaerobic degradation of oleate, which is a long chain fatty acid abundant in wastewaters. Electrochemical treatment was found to improve the anaerobic biodegradation of lipidic wastewaters. In batch experiments, pre-treated oleate was converted to methane without any lag phase, whereas the onset of oleate mineralization was delayed by 90 h. Additionally, the rate of methane production was higher in the pre-treated oleate batch assays than in the oleate ones.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)ELTECH Systems Corporation

Adaptation to β-myrcene catabolism in Pseudomonas sp. M1: An expression proteomics analysis

β-Myrcene, a monoterpene widely used as a fragrance and flavoring additive, also possesses analgesic, anti-mutagenic, and tyrosinase inhibitory properties. In order to get insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the ability of Pseudomonas sp. M1 to catabolize β-myrcene, an expression proteomics approach was used in this study. Results indicate that the catabolic enzyme machinery for β-myrcene utilization (MyrB, MyrC, and MyrD and other uncharacterized proteins) is strongly induced when β-myrcene is present in the growth medium. Since an M1 mutant, lacking a functional 2-methylisocitrate dehydratase, is not able to grow in mineral medium with β-myrcene or propionic acid as the sole C-source, and also based on the expression proteomic analysis carried out in this study, it is suggested that the β-myrcene catabolic intermediate propionyl-CoA is channeled into the central metabolism via the 2-methylcitrate cycle. Results also suggest that the major alteration occurring in the central carbon metabolism of cells growing in β-myrcene-containing media is related with the redistribution of the metabolic fluxes leading to increased oxaloacetate production. Other upregulated proteins are believed to prevent protein misfolding and aggregation or to play important structural roles, contributing to the adaptive alteration of cell wall and membrane organization and integrity, which are essential features to allow the bacterium to cope with the highly lipophilic β-myrcene as C-source.- (undefined

Leucoencefalitis aguda hemorrágica de Weston Hurst. Estudio neuropatológico de un caso

Summary. Introduction. Acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis (AHL), or Hurst disease is a rare, usually fatal, disease, probably due to an autoimmune cross reaction against myelin antigens present in the central nervous system, and which forms a spectrum of postinfeccious demyelinating diseases with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. Case report. The patient was a 21 year old female who presented with an acute encephalopathy and generalized seizures following a 15 day febrile syndrome attributed to amygdalitis; a laboratory work-up, including CSF, was non-diagnostic, and a brain CT scan revealed diffuse cerebral edema. After 12 days the patient died from nosocomial pneumonia and multi-organ failure; neuropathological examination of the brain confirmed the diagnosis of Hurst acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis, with a weak perilesional inflammatory reaction, unlike the usual picture in AHL. Discussion. AHL should be a part of the differential diagnosis of acute encephalopathic diseases, particularly if preceded by systemic infections. The atypical laboratory findings, and the impossibilty of performing a brain MRI were obstacles to the diagnosis in this case. The relative paucity of the perivascular infiltrate is an atypical finding, and could be due to apoptotic clearance of the inflammatory cells, as has been described in other autoimmune demyelinating diseases

Ubiquitin-specific proteases: Players in cancer cellular processes

Ubiquitination represents a post-translational modification (PTM) essential for the maintenance of cellular homeostasis. Ubiquitination is involved in the regulation of protein function, localization and turnover through the attachment of a ubiquitin molecule(s) to a target protein. Ubiquitination can be reversed through the action of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs). The DUB enzymes have the ability to remove the mono-or poly-ubiquitination signals and are involved in the maturation, recycling, editing and rearrangement of ubiquitin(s). Ubiquitin-specific proteases (USPs) are the biggest family of DUBs, responsible for numerous cellular functions through interactions with different cellular targets. Over the past few years, several studies have focused on the role of USPs in carcinogenesis, which has led to an increasing development of therapies based on USP inhibitors. In this review, we intend to describe different cellular functions, such as the cell cycle, DNA damage repair, chromatin remodeling and several signaling pathways, in which USPs are involved in the development or progression of cancer. In addition, we describe existing therapies that target the inhibition of USPs.This work was funded (in part) by the Programa Operacional Regional do Norte and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the project “The Porto Comprehensive Cancer Center” with the reference NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-072678—Consórcio PORTO.CCC— Porto.Comprehensive Cancer Center. The authors acknowledge the support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) that funded the contract to MC through the project PTDC/MED-ONC/31438/2017 (The Other Faces of Telomerase: Looking beyond Tumor Immortalization). The project is supported by NORTE 2020 under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)/COMPETE 2020?Operacional Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) and by Portuguese funds through FCT