Serum Ionized Calcium Variations in Simple and Comminuted Fractures in the Dog’s Appendicular Skeleton and Consequent Risks of a Hypercalcemic Condition

A sample of 40 Canis familiaris (n=40) of unknown gender and breed was divided into two groups: (1) the control group (CG), which featured trauma but no fractures, and (2) the study group, which featured appendicular skeletal fractures (FG); FG was further subdivided into two groups according to the type of fracture: a) simple fractures (SFG) and b) comminuted fracture (CFG). The present study sought (1) to compare the serum- ionized Ca2+ levels of SF patients with those of CF patients and (2) to establish the existence of a relationship between SF and CF statuses based on patients’ clinical symptoms. iCa2+ was measured using an i-STAT® Abbott® CG8+ analytic system. Patients were assessed for clinical symptoms associated with potential hypercalcemia. Results were statistically significant for P values < 0.05. Differences between CG and FG were registered for clinical symptoms. Patients with SF and CF always presented a higher average value of iCa2+ than CT patients, although no statistically significant differences between the SF and CF groups were observed. SF and CF patients should always be assumed to have a mild hypercalcemic condition until laboratory results prove otherwise. CF patients in the present study presented with significantly higher expressions of clinical symptoms compared with those in the SF group. Consequently, iCa2+ level measurements should always be a part of the basic laboratory panels and be required by clinicians whenever patients are presented with fractures. Medications that promote extracellular increases in Ca2+ should be avoided until a patient’s iCa2 + level is determined, thus ensuring the patient’s safet

Evaluation of policy based admission control mechanisms in NGN

The 3GPP consortium proposed in the release 7 of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) a Diameter interface for the resource admission communication process replacing the previous COPS solution. Although both academic and industry communities have deeply debate the advantages and disadvantages of each protocol, its impact in NGN may have not been thoroughly quantified. This paper compares both protocols in terms of messages exchanged between network entities, and of bandwidth requirements during the admission control process. Based on general network operator environment characteristics, we present several exploitation scenarios where it is analyzed the scalability and adequacy of each protocol

Genetic analysis of members of the species Oropouche virus and identification of a novel M segment sequence

Oropouche virus (OROV) is a public health threat in South America, and in particular Northern Brazil, causing frequent outbreaks of febrile illness. Using a combination of deep sequencing and Sanger sequencing approaches we have determined complete genome sequences of eight clinical isolates that were obtained from patient sera during an Oropouche fever outbreak in Amapa state, northern Brazil in 2009. We also report complete genome sequences of two OROV reassortants isolated from two marmosets in Minas Gerais state, southeast Brazil in 2012 that contain a novel M genome segment. Interestingly, all ten isolates posses a 947 nucleotide long S segment that lacks 11 residues in the S segment 3' UTR compared to the recently redetermined Brazilian prototype OROV strain BeAn19991. OROV maybe circulating more widely in Brazil and in the non-human primate population than previously appreciated and the identification of yet another reassortant highlights the importance of bunyavirus surveillance in South America

Molecular evidence for extensive discontinuity between peracarid (Crustacea) fauna of Macaronesian islands and nearby continental coasts: over fifty candidate endemic species

Oceanic islands are recognized evolutionary hotspots for terrestrial organisms, but little is known about their impact on marine organisms' evolution and biogeography. The volcanic archipelagos of Macaronesia occupy a vast and complex region in the Atlantic Ocean and may be particularly suitable to investigate marine island biogeography. In this study, we used mitochondrial DNA sequences (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I DNA barcoding region) to investigate the genetic differentiation between the populations from Webbnesia (i.e. Madeira, Selvagens and Canary Islands) and adjacent coasts (Azores, Continental Iberian Peninsula and Morocco) of 23 intertidal peracarid species. All species had high intraspecific genetic distances (>3%), reaching more than 20% in some cases. Between 79 and 95 Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) were found in these species. Webbnesia populations displayed high genetic diversity and high endemicity, with 83% of the MOTUs being private to these islands, particularly La Palma and Madeira. Artificial community network analyses based on MOTU occurrence suggested higher similarity between Webbnesia and Azores than with adjacent continental coasts. These results reveal an unanticipated and strong biogeographic discontinuity of peracaridean fauna between Webbnesia and the Iberian Peninsula, a pattern that may occur in other groups of marine invertebrates in the region. We emphasize the unique genetic heritage hosted by these islands, underlining the need to consider the fine scale endemicity in marine conservation efforts.The authors wish to thank the colleagues who helped during fieldwork, sample processing and/or laboratory work: Tavares M and Santos R (University of Algarve, Portugal), Ladeiro B, Peteiro L, Gomes I, Albuquerque R, GuimarAes B and Fuente N (University of Aveiro, Portugal) and Gomes N (University of Minho, Portugal). Additionally, thanks to Carvalho D in the name of the Portuguese Museum of Natural History and Science of Lisbon for supplying material from the EMEPC/M@rBis/Selvagens2010 and EMAM/PEPC_M@rBis/2011 campaigns to Selvagens. Thanks to Bellisario B for feedback regarding network analysis. Finally, thanks to Ferreira EL for the use of some equipments. This work was supported by the project "DiverseShores-Testing associations between genetic and community diversity in European rocky shore environments (PTDC/BIA-BIC/114526/2009)" funded by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) under the COMPETE programme supported by the European Regional Development Fund. FCT also supported a PhD grant to PEV (SFRH/BD/86536/2012). Thanks to FCT/MCTES are also due for the financial support to CESAM (UIDP/50017/2020+UIDB/50017/2020), through national funds. PE was funded through FCT in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23 of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19

Decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence of dyslipoproteinemia in a homogeneous cohort of polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients. METHODS: Based on the National Cholesterol Education Program, fasting lipoprotein levels and risk levels for coronary artery disease were determined in 28 patients with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The exclusion criteria included diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, smoking, proteinuria, lipid-lowering drugs, and hormone/diuretic therapy. Disease activity, disease duration, and therapy with corticosteroids and/or chloroquine were defined at the time of lipid measurements. RESULTS: Dyslipoproteinemia was identified in 20 of the 28 (71%) patients with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The primary lipoprotein risk factor was decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (57%), followed by elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (18%), triglycerides (14%), and total cholesterol (7%). The male patients had decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels than the female patients (p<0.05). The incidence of decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels did not seem to be affected by disease activity or therapy because the incidence was similar in patients with active or inactive disease, with or without corticosteroid use and with or without chloroquine use. In addition, the frequency of decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels was similar in patients with short (&#8804;5 years) vs. long (>5 years) disease duration. CONCLUSIONS: Dyslipoproteinemia is highly prevalent in patients with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis and is primarily related to decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels; therefore, early intervention is essential

Deposition of ITO thin films onto PMMA substrates for waveguide based biosensing devices

Biosensors’ research filed has clearly been changing towards the production of multifunctional and innovative design concepts to address the needs related with sensitivity and selectivity of the devices. More recently, waveguide biosensors, that do not require any label procedure to detect biomolecules adsorbed on its surface, have been pointed out as one of the most promising technologies for the production of biosensing devices with enhanced performance. Moreover the combination of optical and electrochemical measurements through the integration of transparent and conducting oxides in the multilayer structures can greatly enhance the biosensors’ sensitivity. Furthermore, the integration of polymeric substrates may bring powerful advantages in comparison with silicon based ones. The biosensors will have a lower production costs being possible to disposable them after use (“one use sensor chip”). This research work represents a preliminary study about the influence of substrate temperature on the overall properties of ITO thin films deposited by DC magnetron sputtering onto 0,5 mm thick PMMA sheets.NANO/NMED-SD/0076/2007-"NanoMeDiag- Nanobioanalytical platforms for improved medical diagnosis of infections caused by pathogen microorganisms

The Real Bottom Line: Benchmarking Performance in Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper makes two contributions. First, it carries out an extensive analysis of episodes of poverty changes and documents the empirical distribution of poverty changes. This is useful for providing some context for assessing whether observed changes in poverty that a country may achieve are good, bad or indifferent and for guiding goals that might be set for poverty reduction. Second, the paper proposes and illustrates an approach to take account of country observable characteristics in assessing what constitutes good and poor performance for a specific country. The approach consists of comparing a country’s actual performance to counterfactual distributions generated using quantile regressions. The paper considers four cases where the type of benchmarking approach being proposed helps facilitate a policy dialogue

The Real Bottom Line: Benchmarking Performance in Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper makes two contributions. First, it carries out an extensive analysis of episodes of poverty changes and documents the empirical distribution of poverty changes. This is useful for providing some context for assessing whether observed changes in poverty that a country may achieve are good, bad or indifferent and for guiding goals that might be set for poverty reduction. Second, the paper proposes and illustrates an approach to take account of country observable characteristics in assessing what constitutes good and poor performance for a specific country. The approach consists of comparing a country’s actual performance to counterfactual distributions generated using quantile regressions. The paper considers four cases where the type of benchmarking approach being proposed helps facilitate a policy dialogue

Comparison of major LiDAR data-driven feature extraction methods for autonomous vehicles

Object detection is one of the areas of computer vision that has matured very rapidly. Nowadays, developments in this research area have been playing special attention to the detection of objects in point clouds due to the emerging of high-resolution LiDAR sensors. However, data from a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor is not characterised by having consistency in relative pixel densities and introduces a third dimension, raising a set of drawbacks. The following paper presents a study on the requirements of 3D object detection for autonomous vehicles; presents an overview of the 3D object detection pipeline that generalises the operation principle of models based on point clouds; and categorises the recent works on methods to extract features and summarise their performance.FEDER - Federación Española de Enfermedades Raras(POCI-01-0247-FEDER-037902). European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project no 037902; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-03790

Hydration status and water sources in 9-10 year soccer players

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