Furthering Service 4.0: Harnessing Intelligent Immersive Environments and Systems

With the increasing complexity of service operations in different industries and more advanced uses of specialized equipment and procedures, the great current challenge for companies is to increase employees' expertise and their ability to maintain and improve service quality. In this regard, Service 4.0 aims to support and promote innovation in service operations using emergent technology. Current technological innovations present a significant opportunity to provide on-site, real-time support for field service professionals in many areas

Cerebral Venous Thrombosis Imagiologic Features in a Pregnant Woman

A trombose venosa cerebral (TVC) é uma doença relativamente rara mas grave, potencialmente reversível com diagnóstico atempado e terapêutica médica adequada. A gravidez e o puerpério são um factor predisponente de TVC, que é responsável por 6% das causas de morte materna. As manifestações clínicas dependem da localização, extensão do trombo, bem como da rede de colaterais existente. Apresentamos o caso duma doente do sexo feminino, 33 anos, grávida de 13 semanas que recorreu ao serviço de urgência por quadro de cefaleias e cujo estudo por Ressonância Magnética revelou aspectos compatíveis com doença venosa oclusiva subtotal do seio longitudinal superior em fase aguda. A propósito deste caso discutimos as manifestações imagiológicas da trombose venosa dural na fase aguda

A Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Based System for Augmented Reality Visualisation of Georeferenced Data

Planning of infrastructure's provision and maintenance tasks is commonly done in a planning office using paper maps and desktop applications. However, any infrastructure plan has to be verified on location before being submitted to the responsible authorities. This task is usually accomplished by taking paper maps to the field and annotating them on site, or in the best case, using two-dimensional (2D) maps on mobile devices. Augmented reality (AR) can provide enhanced experiences of real-world situations by overlaying key information and three-dimensional (3D) visualizations when needed, thus supporting decision-making processes. AR could support land surveyors and mobile planners with a graphical overlay of the planned changes, highlighting relevant information and assets in their field of view. This paper presents an AR application, which uses interval type-2 fuzzy logic mechanisms to visualise immersive 3D georeferenced data; supporting planning and designing of infrastructure by directly modifying data to incorporate required changes, without the need of any post-processing. Immersive visual feedback is provided via a head mounted display (HMD), enhancing user's 3D spatial perception of georeferenced data

Surgical management of a diabetic calcaneal ulceration and osteomyelitis with a partial calcanectomy and a sural neurofasciocutaneous flap

The treatment of calcaneal osteomyelitis in diabetic patients poses a great challenge to the treating physician and surgeon. The use of a distally based sural neurofasciocutaneous flap after an aggressive debridement of non-viable and poorly vascularized tissue and bone that is combined with a thorough antibiotic regimen provides a great technique for adequate soft tissue coverage of the heel. In this case report, the authors describe the aforementioned flap as a versatile alternative to the use of local or distant muscle flaps for diabetic patients with calcaneal osteomyelitis and concomitant large wounds

Sprouty2 mediated tuning of signalling is essential for somite myogenesis

Background: Negative regulators of signal transduction cascades play critical roles in controlling different aspects of normal embryonic development. Sprouty2 (Spry2) negatively regulates receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK) and FGF signalling and is important in differentiation, cell migration and proliferation. In vertebrate embryos, Spry2 is expressed in paraxial mesoderm and in forming somites. Expression is maintained in the myotome until late stages of somite differentiation. However, its role and mode of action during somite myogenesis is still unclear. Results: Here, we analysed chick Spry2 expression and showed that it overlaps with that of myogenic regulatory factors MyoD and Mgn. Targeted mis-expression of Spry2 led to inhibition of myogenesis, whilst its C-terminal domain led to an increased number of myogenic cells by stimulating cell proliferation. Conclusions: Spry2 is expressed in somite myotomes and its expression overlaps with myogenic regulatory factors. Overexpression and dominant-negative interference showed that Spry2 plays a crucial role in regulating chick myogenesis by fine tuning of FGF signaling through a negative feedback loop. We also propose that mir-23, mir-27 and mir-128 could be part of the negative feedback loop mechanism. Our analysis is the first to shed some light on in vivo Spry2 function during chick somite myogenesis

Economic analysis of antenatal screening for human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 in Brazil: an open access cost-utility model

BACKGROUND: Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that causes severe diseases, such as aggressive cancer or progressive neurological disease. HTLV-1 affects mainly people in areas with low human development index and can be transmitted from mother to child, primarily through breastfeeding. Refraining from breastfeeding is an effective intervention to reduce the risk of infection in infants. However, HTLV-1 antenatal screening is not offered globally. According to WHO, the scarcity of cost-effectiveness studies is considered one of the major barriers to the implementation of policies to prevent HTLV-1 infection. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of antenatal screening and postnatal interventions to prevent HTLV-1 mother-to-child transmission in Brazil and to develop an open-access, editable, mathematical model that can be used by other countries and regions to assess different scenarios. METHODS: In this cost-utility analysis, we constructed a decision tree and a Markov model to assess the cost-effectiveness of HTLV-1 antenatal screening and postnatal interventions (ie, avoidance of breastfeeding, by suppression of lactation with cabergoline, and provision of formula feed) to reduce transmission. For our model, we used data from Brazil and we took the perspective of the public health-care system to estimate costs. FINDINGS: The implementation of both screening and interventions would result in the prevention of 1039 infections in infants every year in Brazil with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of US$11 415 per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). 88$18 107·74 per QALY). HTLV-1 prevalence in pregnant women, the risk of HTLV-1 transmission when breastfeeding lasts for 6 months or more, and the cost of screening tests were the variables with the largest effect on ICER. INTERPRETATION: HTLV-1 antenatal screening is cost-effective in Brazil. An open-access model was developed, and this tool could be used to assess the cost-effectiveness of such policy globally, favouring the implementation of interventions to prevent HTLV-1 mother-to-child transmission worldwide. FUNDING: None. TRANSLATIONS: For the Portuguese and Spanish translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section

Abnormal cognition, sleep, EEG and brain metabolism in a novel knock-in Alzheimer mouse, PLB1

Peer reviewedPublisher PD