l-Acetyl-carnitine in Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Effects on Nerve Protection, Hand Function and Pain

Background and Aim: l-Acetyl-carnitine (LAC) exerts an energetic effect on nerves and muscles. Recently, preclinical experiments have demonstrated a central anti-nociceptive action. Objective: Our objective was to assess the effects of LAC on neuroprotection, pain, and function in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), a very frequent chronic compressive neuropathy. Methods: In a multicentre, examiner-blinded, clinical and neurophysiological 4-month study, we enrolled 82 patients and examined 120 hands with CTS of mild to moderate severity. Patients were assessed at baseline and 10, 60 and 120\uc2 days after treatment with LAC 500\uc2 mg twice daily (BID). All patients underwent a conduction study of the median nerve, the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire (BCTQ) and the Neuropathic Pain Symptom Inventory (NPSI). The primary endpoint was the sensory conduction velocity (SCV) of the median nerve. Results: The primary endpoint was met, with significant improvement of the SCV (P\uc2&nbsp

Developing pulmonary rehabilitation for COVID-19: Are we linked with the present literature? a lexical and geographical evaluation study based on the graph theory

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a severe ongoing global emergency. Despite high rates of asymptomatic patients, in many cases, the infection causes a rapid decline in pulmonary function due to an acute respiratory distress-like syndrome, leading to multi-organ failure and death. To date, recommendations about rehabilitation on COVID-19 are based on clinical data derived from other similar lung diseases. Rehabilitation literature lacks a standard taxonomy, limiting a proper evaluation of the most effective treatments for patients after COVID-19 infection. In this study, we assessed the clinical and rehabilitative associations and the geographical area involved in interstitial lung diseases (ILD) and in COVID-19, by a mathematical analysis based on graph theory. We performed a quantitative analysis of the literature in terms of lexical analysis and on how words are connected to each other. Despite a large difference in timeframe (throughout the last 23 years for ILD and in the last 1.5 years for COVID-19), the numbers of papers included in this study were similar. Our results show a clear discrepancy between rehabilitation proposed for COVID-19 and ILD. In ILD, the term “rehabilitation” and other related words such as “exercise” and “program” resulted in lower values of centrality and higher values of eccentricity, meaning relatively less importance of the training during the process of care in rehabilitation of patients with ILD. Conversely, “rehabilitation” was one of the most cited terms in COVID-19 literature, strongly associated with terms such as “exercise”, “physical”, and “program”, entailing a multidimensional approach of the rehabilitation for these patients. This could also be due to the widespread studies conducted on rehabilitation on COVID-19, with Chinese and Italian researchers more involved. The assessment of the terms used for the description of the rehabilitation may help to program shared rehabilitation knowledge and avoid literature misunderstandings

Automatic alignment of surgical videos using kinematic data

Over the past one hundred years, the classic teaching methodology of "see one, do one, teach one" has governed the surgical education systems worldwide. With the advent of Operation Room 2.0, recording video, kinematic and many other types of data during the surgery became an easy task, thus allowing artificial intelligence systems to be deployed and used in surgical and medical practice. Recently, surgical videos has been shown to provide a structure for peer coaching enabling novice trainees to learn from experienced surgeons by replaying those videos. However, the high inter-operator variability in surgical gesture duration and execution renders learning from comparing novice to expert surgical videos a very difficult task. In this paper, we propose a novel technique to align multiple videos based on the alignment of their corresponding kinematic multivariate time series data. By leveraging the Dynamic Time Warping measure, our algorithm synchronizes a set of videos in order to show the same gesture being performed at different speed. We believe that the proposed approach is a valuable addition to the existing learning tools for surgery.Comment: Accepted at AIME 201

Polymorphism of microsatellite markers in papaya (Carica papaya L.).

A set of 81 new microsatellite markers for Carica papaya L. previously identified by data mining using freely available sequence information from Genbank were tested for polymorphism using 30 germplasm accessions from the Papaya Germplasm Bank (PGM) at Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura Tropical (CNPMF) and 18 landraces. The data were used to estimate pairwise genetic distances between the genotypes. A neighbor-joining based dendrogram was used to define clusters and infer possible genetic structuring of the collection. Most microsatellites were polymorphic (73%), with an observed number of alleles per locus ranging from one to eleven. The levels of observed and expected heterozygosity for 51 polymorphic loci varied from 0.00 to 0.85 and from 0.08 to 0.82, averaging 0.19 and 0.59, respectively. Forty-four percent of microsatellites showed polymorphism information content (PIC) higher than 0.50. The compound microsatellites seem to be more informative than dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeats in average alleles per locus and PIC. Among dinucleotides, AG/TC or GA/CT repeat motifs exhibited more informativeness than TA/AT, GT/CA and TG/AC repeat motifs. The neighbor-joining analysis based on shared allele distance could differentiate all the papaya accessions and landraces as well as differences in their genetic structure. This set of markers will be useful for examining parentage, inbreeding and population structure in papaya

Desenvolvimento de novas linhagens de mamoeiro com auxílio de marcadores microssatélites.

O mamoeiro apresenta sistema reprodutivo bastante diversificado, podendo haver genótipos dióicos com reprodução por alogamia e genótipos ginóico-andromonóicos com autogamia facultativa. Este último tipo é o que predomina nos cultivos comerciais em função da preferência do mercado consumidor por frutos oriundos de plantas hermafroditas. Portanto, as ações de melhoramento visando o desenvolvimento de novas variedades são realizadas em populações ginóico-andromonóicas.PDF. T26

Automated quantum operations in photonic qutrits

CNPQ - CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICOCAPES - COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL E NÍVEL SUPERIORFAPESP - FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULOFAPEMIG - FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAISWe report an experimental implementation of automated state transformations on spatial photonic qutrits following the theoretical proposal made by Baldijao et al. [Phys. Rev. A 96, 032329 (2017)]. A qutrit state is simulated by using three Gaussian beams, and after some state operations, the transformed state is available in the end in terms of the basis state. The state transformation setup uses a spatial light modulator and a calcite-based interferometer. The results reveal the usefulness of the operation method. The experimental data show a good agreement with theoretical predictions, opening possibilities for explorations in higher dimensions and in a wide range of applications. This is a necessary step in qualifying spatial photonic qudits as a competitive setup for experimental research in the implementation of quantum algorithms which demand a large number of steps.97216CNPQ - CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICOCAPES - COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL E NÍVEL SUPERIORFAPESP - FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULOFAPEMIG - FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAISCNPQ - CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICOCAPES - COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL E NÍVEL SUPERIORFAPESP - FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULOFAPEMIG - FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAISSem informaçãoSem informação2014/27223-22016/24162-8Sem informaçã

The reaching movement in breast cancer survivors. attention to the principles of rehabilitation

Introduction: Breast-cancer is leading cause of morbidity and mortality in women. The prognosis and survival rate of women with breast-cancer have significantly improved worldwide; more attention needs to be paid to rehabilitative interventions after surgery. This paper describes use of reaching movement to assess upper limb motorcontrol and functional ability after breast-cancer surgery (BC). Material and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional observational study consisting of biomechanical evaluation of upper limb limitations in women BC, versus a controlgroup (CG). Thirty breast-cancer survivors and thirty healthy women participated in this study. Both groups were subjected to clinical evaluation of the shoulder joint ROM on the operated side, as an assessment of the muscular-strength of the shoulder with the MRC-scale. The Functional-Assessment was evaluated by the DASH and Constant-Murley-Score. The EORTC QLQ-C30 and VAS were used to measure the quality of life assessment and pain respectively. A Biomechanical evaluation was performed, using Reaching-Task and Surface-EMG. Results: Normal Jerk for BC was higher than CG. Target approaching velocity and movement duration BC was lower than CG. Synergy Anterior Deltoid/Triceps Brachii muscles in CG was higher than BC

Prevalence of marine litter along the Indian beaches : A preliminary account on its status and composition

Beach litter are man-made objects discarded directly or indirectly. This study brings out synoptic picture of status and composition of beach litter from 254 selected beaches along the maritime States of Peninsular coast of India as well as the Union Territories of Andaman and Lakshadweep Islands from the one time observation conducted between October 2013 and January 2014 for the first time. These beaches were classified and graded with colour codes according to the levels of beach litter. Beach litter from different maritime States and the UTs showed that Odisha coast has the lowest (0.31 g/m2) quantity and Goa coast (205.75 g/m2) the highest quantity of beach debris. Archipelagic coasts of Andamans as well as Lakshadweep recorded values higher than Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal. Samples of debris collected from beaches revealed that all the items were domestic and anthropogenic discards. Plastic litters such as single use carry bags and sachets of soft drinks, edible oils, detergents, beverages, cases of cosmetics, toothpaste, PET bottles, ice cream containers etc., recorded highest mean of 25.47g/m2 from Goa coast and the lowest (0.08 g/m2) from Odisha. The relative percentage of mean values of plastic (B group) items in beach debris along the Indian coast registered highest mean percentage from Maharashtra (81 %) and the lowest mean from beaches of Andhra Pradesh (7%). The two island Union Territories registered 40% (Lakshadweep) and 47% (Andamans) of plastics over the total debris, while the national average was only 14%. Available online at: www.mbai.org.in doi: 10.6024/jmbai.2017.59.1.1953-03 Out of the total 254 beaches surveyed, 51 beaches were graded as very clean with green (<1 g/m2) colour, 122 beaches were graded as Clean and depicted by blue colour. Beaches of very clean grade (<1 g/m2) were found in Kerala (17), Maharashtra (12), Tamil Nadu (2), Andhra Pradesh (4), Odisha (7) and West Bengal (3). Whereas extremely littered beaches (>100 g/m2) were found in Karnataka (13), Goa, Gujarat, and Andaman Island. With reference to the coastal population and per capita share of beach debris, Goa registered highest values (40.97 kg/head) and the Odisha coast registered the lowest values (0.005 kg/head)