Prevalence and correlates of use of complementary and alternative medicine in children with autism spectrum disorder in Europe

This study examined the prevalence and correlates of use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among a sample of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) < 7 years in 18 European countries (N = 1,680). Forty-seven percent of parents reported having tried any CAM approach in the past 6 months. Diets and supplements were used by 25 % of the sample and mind-body practices by 24 %; other unconventional approaches were used by 25 % of the families, and a minority of parents reported having tried any invasive or potentially harmful approach (2 %). Parents in Eastern Europe reported significantly higher rates of CAM use. In the total sample, children with lower verbal ability and children using prescribed medications were more likely to be receiving diets or supplements. Concurrent use of high levels of conventional psychosocial intervention was significantly associated with use of mind-body practices. Higher parental educational level also increased the likelihood of both use of diets and supplements and use of mind-body practices. Conclusion: The high prevalence of CAM use among a sample of young children with ASD is an indication that parents need to be supported in the choice of treatments early on in the assessment process, particularly in some parts of Europe

Modeling Transport in Service-Oriented Framework for Agent-Based Simulations of Supply Chains

This work presents an extension to the service-oriented framework for performing agent-based simulations to support the analysis of collaborative relationships in supply chain interactions already described in [5]. The extension includes a new service for simulating the planning of transportation, which is designed to allocate finite transportation resources to the transportation orders. The service includes the functionality that matches the required vehicle type, location and time to track the availability of a vehicle fleet as it is allocated to a plan. The new service proposal is validated by simulating three different scenarios of a case study. The case study is based on an actual supply chain of dairy products covering the central region of Argentina.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Insights on a methanation catalyst aging process: Aging characterization and kinetic study

Power to gas systems is one of the most interesting long-term energy storage solutions. As a result of the high exothermicity of the CO2 methanation reaction, the catalyst in the methanation subsystem is subjected to thermal stress. Therefore, the performance of a commercial Ni/Al2O3 catalyst was investigated over a series of 100 hour-long tests and in-process relevant conditions, i.e. 5 bar from 270 to 500 °C. Different characterization techniques were employed to determine the mechanism of the observed performance loss (N2 physisorption, XRD, TPO). The TPO analysis excluded carbon deposition as a possible cause of catalyst aging. The BET analysis evidenced a severe reduction in the total surface area for the catalyst samples tested at higher temperatures. Furthermore, a direct correlation was found between the catalyst activity decline and the drop of the catalyst specific surface. In order to correctly design a reliable methanation reactor, it is essential to have a kinetic model that includes also the aging kinetics. For this purpose, the second set of experiments was carried out, in order to determine the intrinsic kinetics of the catalyst. The kinetic parameters were identified by using nonlinear regression analysis. Finally, a power-law aging model was proposed to consider the performance loss in time

Modeling dynamic interactions in supply chains using agentbased simulations

In this work, we present preliminary results of our research on the construction of an agent-based simulation framework suitable to support the analysis of complex supply chain interactions as the one required for the performance assessment in collaborative supply chains. In particular we focus in the modeling of dynamic interactions through agent-to-agent message communication avoiding predefined supply chain network structures. For defining the internal structure of agents we explore the application of the SCOR reference model to bring a business process perspective and adopt the requirement of making explicit separation of the execution and control and decision making processes.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Modeling Transport in Service-Oriented Framework for Agent-Based Simulations of Supply Chains

This work presents an extension to the service-oriented framework for performing agent-based simulations to support the analysis of collaborative relationships in supply chain interactions already described in [5]. The extension includes a new service for simulating the planning of transportation, which is designed to allocate finite transportation resources to the transportation orders. The service includes the functionality that matches the required vehicle type, location and time to track the availability of a vehicle fleet as it is allocated to a plan. The new service proposal is validated by simulating three different scenarios of a case study. The case study is based on an actual supply chain of dairy products covering the central region of Argentina.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Modeling dynamic interactions in supply chains using agentbased simulations

In this work, we present preliminary results of our research on the construction of an agent-based simulation framework suitable to support the analysis of complex supply chain interactions as the one required for the performance assessment in collaborative supply chains. In particular we focus in the modeling of dynamic interactions through agent-to-agent message communication avoiding predefined supply chain network structures. For defining the internal structure of agents we explore the application of the SCOR reference model to bring a business process perspective and adopt the requirement of making explicit separation of the execution and control and decision making processes.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Untargeted metabolomic profile for the detection of prostate carcinoma-preliminary results from PARAFAC2 and PLS-DA Models

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is the main biomarker for the screening of prostate cancer (PCa), which has a high sensibility (higher than 80%) that is negatively offset by its poor specificity (only 30%, with the European cut-off of 4 ng/mL). This generates a large number of useless biopsies, involving both risks for the patients and costs for the national healthcare systems. Consequently, efforts were recently made to discover new biomarkers useful for PCa screening, including our proposal of interpreting a multi-parametric urinary steroidal profile with multivariate statistics. This approach has been expanded to investigate new alleged biomarkers by the application of untargeted urinary metabolomics. Urine samples from 91 patients (43 affected by PCa; 48 by benign hyperplasia) were deconjugated, extracted in both basic and acidic conditions, derivatized with different reagents, and analyzed with different gas chromatographic columns. Three-dimensional data were obtained from full-scan electron impact mass spectra. The PARADISe software, coupled with NIST libraries, was employed for the computation of PARAFAC2 models, the extraction of the significative components (alleged biomarkers), and the generation of a semiquantitative dataset. After variables selection, a partial least squares&ndash;discriminant analysis classification model was built, yielding promising performances. The selected biomarkers need further validation, possibly involving, yet again, a targeted approach

Rapid determination of anti-estrogens by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in urine: Method validation and application to real samples

AbstractA fast screening protocol was developed for the simultaneous determination of nine anti-estrogenic agents (aminoglutethimide, anastrozole, clomiphene, drostanolone, formestane, letrozole, mesterolone, tamoxifen, testolactone) plus five of their metabolites in human urine. After an enzymatic hydrolysis, these compounds can be extracted simultaneously from urine with a simple liquid–liquid extraction at alkaline conditions. The analytes were subsequently analyzed by fast-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (fast-GC/MS) after derivatization. The use of a short column, high-flow carrier gas velocity and fast temperature ramping produced an efficient separation of all analytes in about 4min, allowing a processing rate of 10samples/h. The present analytical method was validated according to UNI EN ISO/IEC 17025 guidelines for qualitative methods. The range of investigated parameters included the limit of detection, selectivity, linearity, repeatability, robustness and extraction efficiency. High MS-sampling rate, using a benchtop quadrupole mass analyzer, resulted in accurate peak shape definition under both scan and selected ion monitoring modes, and high sensitivity in the latter mode. Therefore, the performances of the method are comparable to the ones obtainable from traditional GC/MS analysis. The method was successfully tested on real samples arising from clinical treatments of hospitalized patients and could profitably be used for clinical studies on anti-estrogenic drug administration