Reduced quality of life in patients with non-erosive gastroesophageal reflux disease

Introduction: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a highly prevalent condition in the Western world. It is a frequent cause of medical appointments and has a high impact on quality of life (QOL). This study aimed to assess health-related quality of life (HQ-QOL) of patients with non-erosive gastroesophageal disease (NERD) and compare their scores with the scores of patients with GERD symptoms and non-pathological acid reflux (non-NERD).Methods: We studied 42 patients with GERD symptoms—21 with positive pHmetry for acid reflux (NERD group) and 21 with negative pHmetry for acid reflux (non-NERD group). We enrolled patients matched by age and gender. Patient inclusion criteria were based on clinical and endoscopic findings and pHmetry. All other major diseases having an impact on QOL were excluded as well as patients in regular use of proton pump inhibitors, prokinetics, histamine-2 receptor antagonists and anti-depressants. All subjects were asked to fill in a validated translation of the SF-36 questionnaire. We described scores trough median and interquartile range (IQR) and assessed the significance of the comparisons through Mann-Whitney test and chi-square test or Student’s t-test when appropriate.Results: We found no significant differences in the eight domains of SF-36 between the two groups.Conclusion: QOL of patients with GERD symptoms was equivalent, regardless of acid reflux at pHmetry.Keywords: SF-36; quality of life; gastroesophageal reflux; pHmetr

Stretching of BDT-gold molecular junctions: thiol or thiolate termination?

It is often assumed that the hydrogen atoms in the thiol groups of a benzene-1,4-dithiol dissociate when Au-benzene-1,4-dithiol-Au junctions are formed. We demonstrate, by stability and transport properties calculations, that this assumption can not be made. We show that the dissociative adsorption of methanethiol and benzene-1,4-dithiol molecules on a flat Au(111) surface is energetically unfavorable and that the activation barrier for this reaction is as high as 1 eV. For the molecule in the junction, our results show, for all electrode geometries studied, that the thiol junctions are energetically more stable than their thiolate counterparts. Due to the fact that density functional theory (DFT) within the local density approximation (LDA) underestimates the energy difference between the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital and the highest occupied molecular orbital by several electron-volts, and that it does not capture the renormalization of the energy levels due to the image charge effect, the conductance of the Au-benzene-1,4-dithiol-Au junctions is overestimated. After taking into account corrections due to image charge effects by means of constrained-DFT calculations and electrostatic classical models, we apply a scissor operator to correct the DFT energy levels positions, and calculate the transport properties of the thiol and thiolate molecular junctions as a function of the electrodes separation.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, to appear in Nanoscal

Engenharia Didática Reversa: um estudo com o matapi na formação de professores para o campo

Neste artigo apresentamos um recorte da tese doutoral da primeira autora sobre a Engenharia Didática Reversa-EDR que estudou uma prática comunitária do campo-matapi(instrumento usado na pesca de camarões). Com isso, a prática de construção e uso do matapi foi trabalhada em um curso de formação continuada de professores para  o campo, que contou com a participação de dois produtores de matapi da comunidade de Pacui de Cima, do município de Cametá/PA, em que usou-se a EDR como um Percurso de Estudos e Pesquisa (PEP) adaptado da Teoria Antropológica do Didático (TAD) de Yves Chevallard. Os resultados apontam para a  matemática mista que percorreu campos de saberes culturais e disciplinares favorecidos pelo  ambiente  co-disciplinar

The Role of networked robotic systems to survey coastal phenomena: the Douro river plume case study

Propagation of river plumes along the coast strongly depends on several physical processes, which determine the plume fate over the shelf. The Douro is one of the largest rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, representing the most important freshwater input into the Atlantic Ocean on the northwestern Portuguese coast. Traditional methods of in situ measurements are often complicated and expensive due to the high spatial and temporal variability of its dominant drivers. By now, the general dispersion patterns of the Douro River Plume was mostly studied by numerical models and remote sensing imagery, considering the main drivers involved: river discharge, wind, and tide. From those results, the Douro River plume is classified as large-scale and surface-advected, presenting characteristics of a prototypical plume. The wind was found to play an essential role in the plume dispersion and fate. For example, southerly winds increase the velocity of the northward current, frequently merging the Douro plume with the northerly generated Minho plume. Both riverine water masses can propagate to the Rias Baixas (Spain), dramatically changing their normal circulation. By these reasons, the development of accurate and reliable plume monitoring systems is an important and challenging task. This work reports the recent use of robotic systems (AUVs and UAVs) to detect, track and survey the Douro Plume front autonomously. These systems can survey this highly dynamic environment and characterize the frontal regions of the plume regarding salinity, water temperature, turbidity, and chlorophyll concentrations under summer conditions when the plume area is small and mainly tidally driven. Results from several frontal crossings, coincident with satellite imagery acquisitions (some of which were obtained in near real-time by the new Sentinel-2 mission), demonstrated the AUVs capability to fairly detect the front structure. Cross-frontal exchanges observed in the water column by AUVs along the front emphasize the importance of new technologies use on the monitoring and detection of high spatial and temporal dynamical phenomena such as river plumes.Peer Reviewe

Helmholtz cage design and validation for nanosatellites HWIL testing

This paper deals with the design, realization and testing of an Earth magnetic field simulator, that allows to validate hardware in the loop algorithms, as well as to test new actuators. The design is driven by typical small satellites functional requirements. The subsystems that compose the simulator are described in detail. The validation of the simulator is performed by assessing its functioning, the uniformity of the recreated magnetic field and the functionality of a magnetorquer

PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF HOLSTEIN COWS IN A MIXED PASTURE OF PEARL MILLET AND COWPEA WITH AND WITHOUD SUPLEMENTATION

Holstein cows milk production were evaluated under two grazing management systems: a mixed pasture of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Brown) and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) with or without supplementation to the animals, during the period of 18/12/2000 a 20/02/2001. Twelve multipara cows of the Holstein breed were used. They were selected by their production potential, live weight (LW) and lactation period. After the stratification, the animals were randomly distributed between the two treatment groups of the experiment: animals kept under grazing in a mixed pasture of pearl millet and cowpea; and animals kept in the same pasture receiving supplementation in a daily basis. The experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design. The average dry matter was 2469 kg ha-1 at the entrance and 1554 kg ha-1 at the animal exit from the enclosed pasture. The harvest pasture dry matter presented 16.5 dag kg-1 of crude protein, 68.5 dag kg-1 of neutral detergent fiber and 70.25 dag kg-1 of digestibility in vitro of organic matter. The average participation of Cowpea in the mixture pasture was 12%. There was a significant difference in milk production of milk between the two grazing systems treatments. The average milk productions were 19.56 kg day-1 to cows receiving only pasture and 23.40 kg day-1 to the ones supplemented. The supplementation promoted more stability in cow milk production between the evaluation periods.Foi avaliado o desempenho produtivo de vacas da raça Holandesa mantidas em pastagem consorciada de milheto (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Brown) e feijão miúdo (Vigna unguiculata L.), recebendo ou não suplementação diária, durante o período de 18/12/2000 a 20/02/2001. Foram utilizadas 12 vacas multíparas, selecionadas pelo potencial produtivo, peso vivo e fase de lactação. Após estratificação, os animais foram distribuídos aleatoriamente em dois grupos que foram manejados em dois sistemas alimentares: pastagem consorciada de milheto e feijão miúdo à vontade (MFM); e pastagem consorciada à vontade + suplementação diária (MFM+S). Utilizou-se delineamento experimental inteiramente casualizado. A disponibilidade de matéria seca (MS) da forragem foi, em média, de 2.469,6 e 1.554,8 kg ha-1, respectivamente, na entrada e na saída dos animais dos piquetes. O valor nutritivo do pasto apresentou valores médios de 70,25 dag kg-1 de digestibilidade in vitro da matéria orgânica; 16,5 dag kg-1 de proteína bruta e 68,5 dag kg-1 de fibra detergente neutro. O feijão miúdo apresentou participação média de 12% na composição total do pasto. Houve diferença significativa (P<0,01) na produção de leite entre as vacas mantidas nos dois sistemas alimentares, sendo a produção média de leite de 19,56 e 23,40 kg vaca-1dia-1, respectivamente, no sistema MFM e MFM+S. A produção de leite dos animais que receberam suplementação foi mais estável entre os períodos de avaliação

Reduced quality of life in patients with non-erosive gastroesophageal reflux disease

Introduction: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a highly prevalent condition in the Western world. It is a frequent cause of medical appointments and has a high impact on quality of life (QOL). This study aimed to assess health-related quality of life (HQ-QOL) of patients with non-erosive gastroesophageal disease (NERD) and compare their scores with the scores of patients with GERD symptoms and non-pathological acid reflux (non-NERD). Methods: We studied 42 patients with GERD symptoms—21 with positive pHmetry for acid reflux (NERD group) and 21 with negative pHmetry for acid reflux (non-NERD group). We enrolled patients matched by age and gender. Patient inclusion criteria were based on clinical and endoscopic findings and pHmetry. All other major diseases having an impact on QOL were excluded as well as patients in regular use of proton pump inhibitors, prokinetics, histamine-2 receptor antagonists and anti-depressants. All subjects were asked to fill in a validated translation of the SF-36 questionnaire. We described scores trough median and interquartile range (IQR) and assessed the significance of the comparisons through Mann-Whitney test and chi-square test or Student’s t-test when appropriate. Results: We found no significant differences in the eight domains of SF-36 between the two groups. Conclusion: QOL of patients with GERD symptoms was equivalent, regardless of acid reflux at pHmetry

Tabletop Testbed for Attitude Determination and Control of Nanosatellites

To simulate the conditions of the space environment at ground, the Laboratory of Application and Innovation in Aerospace Science (LAICA) of the University of Brasília (UnB) is developing a dedicated testbed to reproducing nanosatellite attitude motion. The testbed is composed of an air-bearing table and a Helmholtz cage. The air-bearing table is a spacecraft simulator that can simulate frictionless conditions with three rotational degrees of freedom. Balancing the simulator is essential in order to make the gravitational torque negligible. The testbed is also equipped with a Helmholtz cage to recreate the Earth's magnetic field conditions that spacecrafts encounter in orbit. This paper presents the design and realization of this low-cost testbed. A simple and efficient automated balancing algorithm based on the least-squares method (LSM) is proposed and validated by experiments. The performance of the proposed simulator is evaluated and compared with previous works. © 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers