HELMINTOLOGÍA NEOTROPICAL EN LOS PAÍSES EMERGENTES: UN DESAFÍO

As widely known, the neotropical region is represented by Central America, south of Mexico, Baja California Peninsula, northwestern of Mexico, Caribbean Islands, south of Florida and South America. On the basis of the outstanding and peculiar biodiversity of the region, a great number of helminthological studies related to the parasites occurring in animals present in the different environments of the area, has been accounted

Caracterização e teste de adsorventes para produção de oxigénio por PSA

Documento confidencial. Não pode ser disponibilizado para consultaTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Química. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Machine learning prediction of mortality in acute myocardial infarction

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.Background: Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) is the leading cause of death in Portugal and globally. The present investigation created a model based on machine learning for predictive analysis of mortality in patients with AMI upon admission, using different variables to analyse their impact on predictive models. Methods: Three experiments were built for mortality in AMI in a Portuguese hospital between 2013 and 2015 using various machine learning techniques. The three experiments differed in the number and type of variables used. We used a discharged patients' episodes database, including administrative data, laboratory data, and cardiac and physiologic test results, whose primary diagnosis was AMI. Results: Results show that for Experiment 1, Stochastic Gradient Descent was more suitable than the other classification models, with a classification accuracy of 80%, a recall of 77%, and a discriminatory capacity with an AUC of 79%. Adding new variables to the models increased AUC in Experiment 2 to 81% for the Support Vector Machine method. In Experiment 3, we obtained an AUC, in Stochastic Gradient Descent, of 88% and a recall of 80%. These results were obtained when applying feature selection and the SMOTE technique to overcome imbalanced data. Conclusions: Our results show that the introduction of new variables, namely laboratory data, impacts the performance of the methods, reinforcing the premise that no single approach is adapted to all situations regarding AMI mortality prediction. Instead, they must be selected, considering the context and the information available. Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning with clinical decision-making can transform care, making clinical practice more efficient, faster, personalised, and effective. AI emerges as an alternative to traditional models since it has the potential to explore large amounts of information automatically and systematically.The present publication was funded by Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia, IP national support through CHRC (UIDP/04923/2020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Galeal Flap Based on Superficial Temporal Vessels for Oral Cavity and Pharynx Reconstruction – An Anatomical Study

PURPOSE: Despite the advances in microvascular free tissue transfer for intraoral reconstruction, this surgery is not recommended for all patients. In specific cases, the pedicled temporoparietal galeal flap may be an option for reconstructive procedures in the head and neck regions. The objective of this paper is to present the anatomical aspects of a galeal flap based on the superficial temporal vessels and to test its potential for reconstructing diverse sites of the oral cavity and pharynx. METHODS: We performed 40 dissections on 34 fresh adult cadavers. The flap vascular anatomy was studied by injecting latex into the superficial temporal vessels. A standardized square-shape flap measuring 10 x 10 cm², pedicled on the superficial temporal vessels, was raised. Oral cavity and oropharynx reconstruction simulations were performed after flap transposition into the mouth by passing it under the zygomatic arch. Hypopharyngeal reconstruction was tested by transposing the flap to the neck under the facial nerve. RESULTS: After latex injection, a rich vascular network over the temporoparietal galea was observed directly from the superficial temporal artery, and a well-vascularized flap based on this vessel was raised. In the reconstruction simulations, the flap was shown to be suitable for the coverage of hypothetical defects in most oral cavity and pharyngeal sites, mainly the retromolar trigone, tonsil area, and buccal mucosa. CONCLUSIONS: A galeal flap based on the superficial temporal vessels presents favorable anatomical characteristics for oral cavity and pharyngeal reconstruction

DISTRIBUCIÓN GEOGRÁFICA Y HOSPEDEROS DE ANCYLOSTOMA PLURIDENTATUM (ALESSANDRINI, 1905) (NEMATODA, ANCYLOSTOMATIDAE) EN LAS AMÉRICAS

To date there were no reports of the history of Ancylostoma pluridentatum that was described in Italy, on the basis of Brazilian specimens in 1905. The only two further autochthonous references of the species occurred in 1910 and 2008, respectively, with no previous historical data during those 98 years in which the species was ignored in Brazil; in the present note, the occurrence of A. pluridentatum in the Americas is briefly accounted, on what concerns geographical distribution and hosts. In South America, A. pluridentatum is referred in the southeast (Atlantic Forest) and north (Amazon rain forest) regions of Brazil, in Argentina (Formosa Province) and in Colombia (Choco, Nariño); in Central America is cited in Panama (Achiote, Colon) and in North America in north, southern and south regions of Florida.Hasta el momento no hay registros de la historia de Ancylostoma pluridentatum que fue descripta en Italia con base en especimenes brasileños en 1905. Solo dos referencias autóctonas son disponibles, una de 1910 y otra de 2008, sin datos históricos durante los 98 años en que la especie ha sido ignorada en Brasil. En la presente nota la ocurrencia de A. pluridentatum en las Américas es compendiada con brevedad en lo que se refiere a su distribución geográfica y huéspedes. En América del Sur, A. pluridentatum es citada en las regiones Sudeste (Mata Atlántica) y Norte (Floresta Amazónica) de Brasil, en Argentina (provincia de Formosa) y en Colombia (Choco, Nariño); en América Central es referida en Panamá (Achiote, Colon) y en América del Norte en Norte, Sudeste y Sur de Florida

Vehicle stability upper-level-controller based on parameterized model predictive control

This paper presents an upper-level vehicular stability controller based on parameterized Model Predictive Control (MPC). The proposed system computes the additional moment applied on the vehicle’s yaw axis to improve the lateral stability. In the MPC formulation, the optimization problem is defined as a quadratic programming derived from a linear time-invariant model of vehicle dynamics. The control system is implemented based on a model that considers the rolling movement and on a simpler model that does not consider it, in order to evaluate the effects of using a more representative linear model for more accurate prediction or a simplified model for faster calculation. Constraints are imposed on the optimization problem to deal with the limits in the corrective yaw moment. A parameterized MPC approach is designed to reduce the number of optimization variables, and hence, reducing the computation time required for real-time implementation. Model-in-the-loop simulations are proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of the MPC strategy to avoid steering instability. Simulations are performed for profiling the calculation time, tuning the parameters, and testing algorithm running in an ARM-Cortex A8 on real-time control. Simulation results show that the proposed control strategy is effective in preventing destabilization and demonstrates that even with a longer computation time, the resulting MPC scheme meets the control requirements successfully, even under the presence of model disturbances

Vaccination in murine schistosomiasis with adult worm derived antigens - II. Protective and immune response in inbred mice

Previous work in our laboratory, mainly foccused the prospects of achieving resistance against Schistosoma mansoni infection with adult worm-derived antigens in the form of a soluble extract (SE). This extract obtained by incubation of living adult schistosomes in saline, contains a large number of distinct molecules and was actually shown to be a significantly protective in different outbred animals models such as Swiss mice and rabbits. It thus appeared worthwile to investigate the potencial protective activity of SE in different inbred strains of mice, known to be highly susceptible to the infection. Herein we present data showing that DBA/2 mice, once immunized with SE acquire significant levels of resistance to a S. mansoni cercarial challenge. In addition, preliminary studies on the immune system of immunized animals reveled that, injection of SE caused no general inbalance of B or T cell responses