Effects of synthetic acid rain and organic and inorganic acids on survival and CaCO3 piercing stylets in tardigrades

Long-term environment acidifications due to decrease pH of the rainwaters affect both soils and water bodies. The organisms most likely to be affected by acid rain are the ones that possess vital organs made of calcium carbonate; among them are tardigrades, presenting aragonite piercing stylets in feeding apparatuses. A positive relationship between acidic rainfall and loss of tardigrades diversity has been already shown, but there is lack of knowledge of its lethal and sublethal effects. This study quantifies the effects of the acute exposure of three eutardigrade, Acutuncus antarcticus, Hypsibius exemplaris, and Macrobiotus cf. hufelandi, to synthetic acid rains and to organic and inorganic acids (hydrochloric, acetic, sulfuric, and nitric acids) naturally occurring in the environment. The cumulative proportion of dead animals in respect of exposition time was fitted to cumulative Weibull Distribution using a Bayesian framework. At the end of the experiments, animals were observed to investigate damages to their piercing stylets. Besides, stylets were finely morphologically described with Scanning Electron Microscopy. This study shows that acid rains and the other tested acids negatively affect tardigrades accordingly with pH, time of exposure, and tardigrade species. Freshwater species show a better resistance to acidity than the moss dwelling species, which can better acclimate over the time to low pH. The stylets resulted unaltered in almost all of the alive specimens. The results suggest that the tested tardigrades taxa have the ability to buffer the environmental proton change and the negative effect on their populations could be counteracted

Development of a new Front End electronics in Silicon and Silicon-Germanium technology for the Resistive Plate Chamber detector for high rate experiments

The upgrade of the Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) detector, in order to increase the detector rate capability and to be able to work efficiently in high rate environment, consists in the reduction of the operating voltage along with the detection of signals which are few hundred {\mu}V small. The approach chosen by this project to achieve this objective is to develop a new kind of Front End electronics which, thanks to a mixed technology in Silicon and Silicon-Germanium, enhance the detector performances increasing its rate capability. The Front End developed is composed by a preamplifier in Silicon BJT technology with a very low inner noise (1000 $e^{-}$ rms) and an amplification factor of 0.3-0.4 mV/fC and a new kind of discriminator in SiGe HJT technology which allows a minimum threshold of the order of 0.5 mV. The performances of this kind of Front End will be shown. The results are obtained by using the CERN H8 beamline with a full-size RPC chamber of 1 mm gas gap and 1.2 mm thickness of electrodes equipped with this kind of Front End electronics.Comment: 14th Workshop on Resistive Plate Chambers and Related Detectors 19-23 February, 2018 Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state, Mexic

Validation of Motor Outcome Measures in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 2

Introduction: Myotonic dystrophy type 2 (DM2) lacks disease-specific, validated, motor outcome measures (OMs), and patients' reported outcomes (PROs). This represents a limit for the monitoring of disease progression and treatment response. Our aim was to identify the most appropriate OMs to be translated in clinical practice and clinical trials on DM2. This study has been registered on clinicaltrials.gov NCT03603171 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03603171). Methods: Sixty-six patients with genetically confirmed DM2 underwent a baseline and a follow-up visit after 1 year. The tested OMs included: hand opening time, pressure pain threshold (PPT), manual muscle testing (MMT), hand held dynamometry (HHD), scale for the assessment and rating of ataxia (SARA), quantitative motor function test (QMFT), gait stairs Gowers chair (GSGC), 30-s sit to stand test, functional index 2 (FI-2) and 6MWT. The PROs included DM1-Active-C, Rasch-built Pompe-specific activity scale (R-Pact), fatigue and daytime sleepiness (FDSS), brief pain inventory short form (BPI-sf), myotonia behavior scale (MBS), and the McGill pain questionnaire. Results: All patients completed the MBS and the results correlated well with the hand-opening time. The PPT showed a low reliability, no correlation with pain questionnaires, and did not differentiate patients with or without myalgia. Both muscle strength assessments, MMT and HHD, showed good construct validity. The QMFT showed an acceptable ceiling effect (14.5%), good convergent and differential validity and performed overall better than GSGC. The SARA score showed high flooring effect and is not useful in DM2. 6MWT proved a valid outcome measure in DM2. The 30-s sit to stand is a feasible test with good convergent validity, showing a flooring effect of 20% as it cannot be used in more severely affected patients. The FI-2 is time-consuming and has a high ceiling effect. At the 1-year visit the only assessments able to detect a worsening of DM2 were HHD, QMFT, and 6MWT, which are the most sensitive to change, and therefore clinically meaningful OMs in DM2. Conclusion: The clinical meaningful motor outcome measures that best depict the multifaceted phenotype of DM2 and its slow progression are MBS, MMT, or HHD (depending on the clinical setting), QMFT, and the 6MWT

Síndrome de insuficiencia cardiaca

Dentro de los síndromes médicos, el de insuficiencia cardiaca es uno de los más frecuentes de observar en la clínica médica. Se considera que un síndrome es un conjunto de signos y síntomas que corresponden a una enfermedad con una fisiopatología similar pero debida a diferentes agentes etiológicos. Esto es de muchísima importancia ya que este síndrome se puede presentar en situaciones en que el gasto cardiaco esté disminuido, aumentado o conservado. Por ejemplo, el miocito puede no estar afectado en casos de insuficiencia cardiaca por gasto alto debido a tirotoxicosis o fistulas arteriovenosas, o el miocito estar afectado por un proceso isquémico- necrótico y el gasto cardiaco ser bajo o las condiciones de llenado del ventrículo estar alteradas, por ejemplo, por la presencia de hipertrofia y determinar un gasto cardiaco normal. Y además este síndrome tiene la particularidad de que puede presentarse como algo agudo, los llamados síndromes de insuficiencia cardiaca aguda (ejemplo de los cuales son el edema agudo de pulmón o shock cardiogénico) o los síndromes de insuficiencia cardiaca crónica, del cual nos ocuparemos en este capítulo.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

Personalização de recursos com suporte à privacidade através de técnicas adaptativas

Provedores de serviços disponibilizam diversos serviços personalizados aos usuários, possibilitando que tais ofertas tornem-se mais aderentes aos interesses de seus visitantes, mesmo sob risco de violação de privacidade. Existem mecanismos presentes na literatura que buscam equacionar privacidade e personalização, mas que, em geral, trabalham de forma estática, isto é, não admitem atualizações contextuais. Este artigo apresenta uma extensão dos trabalhos existentes, utilizando técnicas adaptativas, para melhoria da oferta de serviços personalizados, guarantindo a privacidade do usuário.XVI Workshop Agentes y Sistemas Inteligentes (WASI)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Personalização de recursos com suporte à privacidade através de técnicas adaptativas

Provedores de serviços disponibilizam diversos serviços personalizados aos usuários, possibilitando que tais ofertas tornem-se mais aderentes aos interesses de seus visitantes, mesmo sob risco de violação de privacidade. Existem mecanismos presentes na literatura que buscam equacionar privacidade e personalização, mas que, em geral, trabalham de forma estática, isto é, não admitem atualizações contextuais. Este artigo apresenta uma extensão dos trabalhos existentes, utilizando técnicas adaptativas, para melhoria da oferta de serviços personalizados, guarantindo a privacidade do usuário.XVI Workshop Agentes y Sistemas Inteligentes (WASI)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Personalização de recursos com suporte à privacidade através de técnicas adaptativas

Provedores de serviços disponibilizam diversos serviços personalizados aos usuários, possibilitando que tais ofertas tornem-se mais aderentes aos interesses de seus visitantes, mesmo sob risco de violação de privacidade. Existem mecanismos presentes na literatura que buscam equacionar privacidade e personalização, mas que, em geral, trabalham de forma estática, isto é, não admitem atualizações contextuais. Este artigo apresenta uma extensão dos trabalhos existentes, utilizando técnicas adaptativas, para melhoria da oferta de serviços personalizados, guarantindo a privacidade do usuário.XVI Workshop Agentes y Sistemas Inteligentes (WASI)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Emergency groin hernia repair: implications in elderly

BACKGROUND: Groin hernia is one of the most frequently encountered pathologies occurring in old age and it is often the cause of emergency procedures. In our study we evaluate the impact of emergency procedures in over 75 patients compared to younger patients. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study about patients who underwent emergency hernioplasty between September 2007 and January 2013. Bilateral hernias and recurrences were excluded. We divided patients into two groups by age (under and over 75 years old) and then analyzed the early postoperative surgical complications. RESULTS: A total of 48 patients were enrolled, 18 were included in under 75 group and 30 in over 75. In the older group we found a higher rate of comorbidity and also a significant higher rate of postoperative complications. Two patients of over 75 group died. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggests that a quick diagnosis and elective surgical procedures are desirable in order to avoid the complications that occur in emergency operations

Day-surgery inguinal hernia repair in the elderly: single centre experience

BACKGROUND: Inguinal hernioplasty is well established as a day-surgery procedure, our purpose is to assess the safeness of this approach in elderly patients. METHODS: A total of 292 inguinal hernioplasty were performed between June 2009 and February 2013. Patients were divided into 3 groups depending on the age and postoperative complications were compared in these groups. RESULTS: Despite of a large number of higher risk (ASA 3-4) patients and a higher rate of comorbidity in older patients, unplanned admission postoperative, symptoms and complications were comparable with those for the younger patients. CONCLUSIONS: Ambulatory surgery is feasible also in older patients. Age, comorbidity and higher ASA risk should not be a barrier to elective day surgery