Neuropsychiatric disturbances in Wilson's disease and use of electroconvulsive therapy: case report

Wilson's disease consists in a inborn error of metabolism with marked neuropsychiatric manifestations. These manifestations need to be correctly identified and treated. There are four neuropsychiatric symptoms clusters established for Wilson's disease patients: behavior and/or personality disorders, mood disorders, cognitive deficits, and psychotic manifestations. Although such patients are more commonly seen in neurological and hepatological settings, mental health professionals must keep in mind a high level of suspicion, once first presentations may be of psychiatric nature. This study presents a review of literature about neuropsychiatric aspects of Wilson's disease, emphasizing diagnostic issues. It is presented the case of a 26 years old male patient initially with psychiatric polimorfic symptoms. The treatment of this patient with electroconvulsive therapy is presented, adding a report of this therapeutic modality, applied to that case, to the two only previous records in the literature.A doença de Wilson (DW) é condição sistêmica decorrente de erro inato do metabolismo, com importantes manifestações neuropsiquiátricas. Estas requerem identificação diagnóstica adequada e intervenções terapêuticas eficazes. Existem, estabelecidos, quatro clusters de sintomas neuropsiquiátricos na DW: distúrbios de comportamento e/ou personalidade, distúrbios do humor, déficit cognitivo e quadros psicóticos. Embora tais pacientes sejam vistos, mais comumente, em clínicas neurológicas e de hepatologia, os profissionais de saúde mental devem manter alto nível de suspeição para DW, já que os quadros iniciais podem se manifestar como síndromes psiquiátricas. Neste artigo é apresentada uma revisão da literatura sobre os aspectos neuropsiquiátricos da doença de Wilson, enfatizando-se as dificuldades diagnósticas. Um homem de 26 de idade DW com apresentação psiquiátrica inicial polimórfica é apresentado. O tratamento deste paciente com a eletroconvulsoterapia é relatado, somando-se esta forma de intervenção terapêutica, neste caso, aos dois únicos existentes na literatura87688

Avaliação do crescimento e da utilização de nutrientes pelo amendoim

Avaliaram-se os padrões de crescimento e de absorção de macro e de micronutrientes de quatro cultivares de amendoim, sendo três de lançamento recente, IAC-Oirã, lAC-Poitara e IAC-Tupã, todos de porte ereto e um mais antigo, Penápolis, de hábito rasteiro. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que os cultivares recentes apresentaram o mesmo padrão de crescimento e de acúmulo dos nutrientes e o cultivar a rasteiro, de ciclo mais longo, apresentou um padrão ligeiramente diferente. Dentre os cultivares estudados, IAC-Tupã e IAC-Oirã apresentaram certa superioridade na eficiência de aproveitamento da matéria seca total produzida e do total de nutrientes translocados para a semente, órgão alvo da cultura do amendoim.Plant growth and mineral absorption of four peanut cultivare were evaluated, three of them being new erect cultivars, IAC-Oirã, IAC-Poitara and IAC-Tupã, and the fourth, Penápolis an old creeper cultivar. The new cultivars had the same growth and nutrient absorption patterns. The cultivar Penápolis showed small differences specially due to cicle size. The new cultivars, IAC-Tupã and IAC-Oirã showed better efficiency in transporting to seeds the produced dry matter and nutrients, the target organ in a peanut crop

Dias para espigamento, altura de plantas e índice de acamamento em genótipos de trigo

With the aim of evaluating the time in days to silking, plant height and lodging index of wheat genotypes, an experiment was conducted, in 2012, in the experimental field of Central Cooperative for Agricultural Research (COODETEC) in Palotina (Paraná, Brazil). The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with three replications, involving 15 treatments consisting of three cultivars – CD 150, Frontana and Mirante – and 12 parental lines derived from crosses of the cultivars CD 150 and Frontana. The analysis of variance showed differences among genotypes, indicating the presence of genetic variability for the traits days to silking and plant height. The crosses of CD 150 and Frontana resulted in lines from early to mid life cycle, with short plants, contributing to lower rates of lodging.Com o objetivo de avaliar o tempo em dias para o espigamento, a altura de plantas e o índice de acamamento de genótipos de trigo, foi conduzido um experimento no ano de 2012, no campo experimental da Cooperativa Central de Pesquisa Agrícola (COODETEC) no município de Palotina (PR). O delineamento experimental utilizado foi de blocos casualizados com três repetições, sendo utilizados 15 tratamentos compostos por três cultivares – CD 150, Frontana e Mirante – e 12 linhagens obtidas de cruzamentos da cultivar CD 150 com Frontana. A análise de variância mostrou diferença entre os genótipos avaliados, indicando a presença de variabilidade genética para os caracteres dias para o espigamento e altura de plantas. Os cruzamentos entre a cultivar CD 150 com Frontana gerou linhagens de ciclo precoce a médio, com planta de porte baixo, que contribui com menor índice de acamamento

Analysing Gamification Elements in Educational Environments Using an Existing Gamification Taxonomy

Gamification has been widely employed in the educational domain over the past eight years when the term became a trend. However, the literature states that gamification still lacks formal definitions to support the design and analysis of gamified strategies. This paper analysed the game elements employed in gamified learning environments through a previously proposed and evaluated taxonomy while detailing and expanding this taxonomy. In the current paper, we describe our taxonomy in-depth as well as expand it. Our new structured results demonstrate an extension of the proposed taxonomy which results from this process, is divided into five dimensions, related to the learner and the learning environment. Our main contribution is the detailed taxonomy that can be used to design and evaluate gamification design in learning environments

Discrete symmetries, invisible axion and lepton number symmetry in an economic 3-3-1 model

We show that Peccei-Quinn and lepton number symmetries can be a natural outcome in a 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos after imposing a Z_11 x Z_2 symmetry. This symmetry is suitably accommodated in this model when we augmented its spectrum by including merely one singlet scalar field. We work out the breaking of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry, yielding the axion, and study the phenomenological consequences. The main result of this work is that the solution to the strong CP problem can be implemented in a natural way, implying an invisible axion phenomenologically unconstrained, free of domain wall formation and constituting a good candidate for the cold dark matter.Comment: 17 pages, Revtex

Effects of flavomycin on ruminal fermentation, In situ degradability and In vivo digestibility in bovine fed sugarcane diets

Problem statement: The aim of the present study was to characterize and differentiate the effects of addition of flavomycin or monensin on ruminal fermentation and degradability as well as on total digestibility in bovine. Approach: Twelve non-pregnant and non-lactating cows (736 kg of BW) were randomly assigned to three treatments: control, flavomycin (20 mg animal-1 day-1) and monensin (300 mg animal-1 day-1). The trial lasted 21 days. The last 10 days were used for external marker administration (15 g of chromic oxide animal-1 day-1). The last 5 days of the trial were used for feces collection and evaluation of corn grain, soybean meal or sugarcane ruminal degradability and the 21st day was used for ruminal fluid sampling. Results: Monensin increased 27.2%, on average, propionate molar proportion at 0, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 h after feeding, compared to control and flavomycin groups. When compared to control, flavomycin reduced the degradation rate of soybean meal CP in 31.0%, decreasing the effective degradability when passage rates of 5 and 8% h-1 were used. Dry matter intake, pH, total Short Chain Fatty Acids (tSCFA) or ammoniacal Nitrogen (NH3-N) concentration were not influenced by the addition of either antibiotics. Effective degradability of sugarcane NDF was not influenced by the use of either antibiotic; neither were the TDN nor the digestibility of DM, CP, EE, NFE, ADF, NDF, GE or starch of the diet. Conclusion/Recommendations: In the present study, it was possible to show the beneficial effects of monensin but not of flavomycin, on rumen fermentationFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paul

Assessing the role of mini-applications in predicting key performance characteristics of scientific and engineering applications

Computational science and engineering application programs are typically large, complex, and dynamic, and are often constrained by distribution limitations. As a means of making tractable rapid explorations of scientific and engineering application programs in the context of new, emerging, and future computing architectures, a suite of "miniapps" has been created to serve as proxies for full scale applications. Each miniapp is designed to represent a key performance characteristic that does or is expected to significantly impact the runtime performance of an application program. In this paper we introduce a methodology for assessing the ability of these miniapps to effectively represent these performance issues. We applied this methodology to three miniapps, examining the linkage between them and an application they are intended to represent. Herein we evaluate the fidelity of that linkage. This work represents the initial steps required to begin to answer the question, "Under what conditions does a miniapp represent a key performance characteristic in a full app?