11,166 research outputs found
Treatment of exudative age-related macular degeneration with intravitreal ranibizumab in clinical practice: a 3-year follow-up
PURPOSE:
To evaluate the 36-month efficacy of intravitreal ranibizumab injections for choroidal neovascularization secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in real world clinical practice.
METHODS:
Retrospective study involving 84 eyes of 77 patients; 52 eyes completed 3 years of follow-up. Subjects were observed initially on a monthly basis and with extended follow-up intervals if signs of quiescence were detected, according to an established protocol. A comprehensive ophthalmologic examination was performed, including best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) determined with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study charts, stereoscopic macular biomicroscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT) with fluorescein angiography and indocyanine green angiography if considered necessary. Treatment was given if signs of active lesions were present.
RESULTS:
The mean baseline BCVA was 49.33 and 49.52 letters at the 36-month visit. The average of treatments was 8.6 at 3 years. At this time point, 77% of treated eyes stabilized or improved their vision (VA loss ≤ 5 letters). A predictive value for better VA was found for younger age, better baseline VA, good response on OCT and more frequent treatments.
CONCLUSION:
At 3 years, intravitreal ranibizumab is able to maintain baseline VA in exudative AMD patients, with a reduced number of injections, but not to show VA improvement, in clinical practice.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Antiangiogenic Drugs in Age Related Macular Degeneration: evidence based medicine and off-label use
An Integrative Analysis Uncovers a New, Pseudo-Cryptic Species of Amazonian Marmoset (Primates: Callitrichidae: \u3cem\u3eMico\u3c/em\u3e) from the Arc of Deforestation
Amazonia has the richest primate fauna in the world. Nonetheless, the diversity and distribution of Amazonian primates remain little known and the scarcity of baseline data challenges their conservation. These challenges are especially acute in the Amazonian arc of deforestation, the 2500 km long southern edge of the Amazonian biome that is rapidly being deforested and converted to agricultural and pastoral landscapes. Amazonian marmosets of the genus Mico are little known endemics of this region and therefore a priority for research and conservation efforts. However, even nascent conservation efforts are hampered by taxonomic uncertainties in this group, such as the existence of a potentially new species from the Juruena–Teles Pires interfluve hidden within the M. emiliae epithet. Here we test if these marmosets belong to a distinct species using new morphological, phylogenomic, and geographic distribution data analysed within an integrative taxonomic framework. We discovered a new, pseudo-cryptic Mico species hidden within the epithet M. emiliae, here described and named after Horacio Schneider, the pioneer of molecular phylogenetics of Neotropical primates. We also clarify the distribution, evolutionary and morphological relationships of four other Mico species, bridging Linnean, Wallacean, and Darwinian shortfalls in the conservation of primates in the Amazonian arc of deforestation
On the rise of proton-proton cross-sections at high energies
The rise of the total, elastic and inelastic hadronic cross sections at high
energies is investigated by means of an analytical parametrization, with the
exponent of the leading logarithm contribution as a free fit parameter. Using
derivative dispersion relations with one subtraction, two different fits to
proton-proton and antiproton-proton total cross section and rho parameter data
are developed, reproducing well the experimental information in the energy
region 5 GeV - 7 TeV. The parametrization for the total cross sections is then
extended to fit the elastic (integrated) cross section data in the same energy
region, with satisfactory results. From these empirical results we extract the
energy dependence of several physical quantities: inelastic cross section,
ratios elastic/total, inelastic/total cross sections, ratio
total-cross-section/elastic-slope, elastic slope and optical point. All data,
fitted and predicted, are quite well described. We find a statistically
consistent solution indicating: (1) an increase of the hadronic cross sections
with the energy faster than the log-squared bound by Froissart and Martin; (2)
asymptotic limits 1/3 and 2/3 for the ratios elastic/total and inelastic/total
cross sections, respectively, a result in agreement with unitarity. These
indications corroborate recent theoretical arguments by Ya. I. Azimov on the
rise of the total cross section.Comment: 35 pages, 12 figures, discussions improved with further
clarifications, references added and updated, one note added, results and
conclusions unchanged. Version to be published in J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part.
Phy
Construction of gateway binary vector for selection with bialaphos or carboxin and GFP expression in fungi.
Genomic data has created a growing demand for tools and methodologies for studying the genes function, which can be realized through loss of function experiments (gene knockout) or by RNA silencing (knockdown). The develop-ment of binary vectors for Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation (ATMT) has the advantage of being independent of protoplast formation and can be used directly on a wide variety of fungal species and tissue types. The selection of transformants using bialaphos and carboxin has the advantages of low cost in the transformation and availability of different selectable markers, also allowing the analysis of several genes and combination of study by knockout or knockdown, using selectable markers in the same transformant. Thus, this study aimed to build two binary vectors containing reporter gene and selectable markers that confer resistance to carboxin and bialaphos. The cassettes were constructed using the Gateway system to two fragments. The gene encoding the GFP protein and PtoxA and PtrpCpromoters were cloned into pDONR P1-P5R plasmid. Genes that confer bialaphos and carboxin resistance, bar and cbxr respectively, were cloned into pDONR P5-P2 plasmid. The pPGW plasmid was used as des-tination vector. The gfp gene transcription is controlled by PtoxA promoter and the bar and cbxr genes transcriptions are controlled by PtrpC promoter. These binary vectors were named pGWGFP-BAR and pGWGFP-CBXR. The assembly of cassettes was confi rmed by sequencing, and the validation of vectors is being accomplished through transformation (ATMT) with the plant pathogens Mycosphaerella fi jiensis and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense
Evaluation of nutrient supplementation to charcoal-treated and untreated rice straw hydrolysate for xylitol production by Candida guilliermondii
Improvement in the Adsorption of Anionic and Cationic Dyes From Aqueous Solutions: A Comparative Study Using Aluminium Pillared Clays and Activated Carbon
The aim of this work was to evaluate the adsorption properties of anionic dye Reactive Black 5 (RB5) and cationic dye Methylene Blue (MB) from salted aqueous solution using natural clay, aluminum pillared clay (Al-PILC), and activated carbon. The textural properties of the materials were obtained by N2 adsorption at 77 K and the structural properties of natural and pillared clays were determined by X-ray diffraction. The effect of pH, contact time, initial concentration of dye, and influence of the addition of NaCl were evaluated by batch adsorption. Adsorption isotherms of Al-PILC, in different salt concentration were compared with natural clay and activated carbon. The adsorption isotherms were well fitted by the Langmuir and Langmuir-Freundlich models. The process of pillaring only improved the adsorption of the anionic dye RB5. Depending on the system adsorbent/adsorbate analyzed, the salt concentration can either help or hinder dye adsorption. We found that a special morphology formed during the process of pillaring greatly increased adsorption of the MB cationic dye in the range of high salt concentrations. This unexpected result may help in developing new pillarization strategies to treat effluents with high salt content.Fil: Aguiar, J. E.. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Centro de Tecnologia. Departamento de Engenharia Química. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separações por Adsorção; BrasilFil: Bezerra, B. T. C.. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Centro de Tecnologia. Departamento de Engenharia Química. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separações por Adsorção; BrasilFil: Siqueira, A. C. A.. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Centro de Tecnologia. Departamento de Engenharia Química. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separações por Adsorção; BrasilFil: Barrera Diaz, Deicy Amparo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico San Luis. Instituto de Física Aplicada; ArgentinaFil: Sapag, Manuel Karim. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico San Luis. Instituto de Física Aplicada; ArgentinaFil: Azevedo, D. C. S.. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Centro de Tecnologia. Departamento de Engenharia Química. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separações por Adsorção; BrasilFil: Lucena, S. M. P.. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Centro de Tecnologia. Departamento de Engenharia Química. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separações por Adsorção; BrasilFil: Silva Jr., I. J.. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Centro de Tecnologia. Departamento de Engenharia Química. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separações por Adsorção; Brasi
Accelerating Cold Dark Matter Cosmology ()
A new kind of accelerating flat model with no dark energy that is fully
dominated by cold dark matter (CDM) is investigated. The number of CDM
particles is not conserved and the present accelerating stage is a consequence
of the negative pressure describing the irreversible process of gravitational
particle creation. A related work involving accelerating CDM cosmology has been
discussed before the SNe observations [Lima, Abramo & Germano, Phys. Rev. D53,
4287 (1996)]. However, in order to have a transition from a decelerating to an
accelerating regime at low redshifts, the matter creation rate proposed here
includes a constant term of the order of the Hubble parameter. In this case,
does not need to be small in order to solve the age problem and the
transition happens even if the matter creation is negligible during the
radiation and part of the matter dominated phase. Therefore, instead of the
vacuum dominance at redshifts of the order of a few, the present accelerating
stage in this sort of Einstein-de Sitter CDM cosmology is a consequence of the
gravitational particle creation process. As an extra bonus, in the present
scenario does not exist the coincidence problem that plagues models with
dominance of dark energy. The model is able to harmonize a CDM picture with the
present age of the universe, the latest measurements of the Hubble parameter
and the Supernovae observations.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, typos corrected, references added, discussion in
Appendix B extende
Spin-polarized transport and Andreev reflection in semiconductor/superconductor hybrid structures
We show that spin-polarized electron transmission across
semiconductor/superconductor (Sm/S) hybrid structures depends sensitively on
the degree of spin polarization as well as the strengths of potential and
spin-flip scattering at the interface. We demonstrate that increasing the Fermi
velocity mismatch in the Sm and S regions can lead to enhanced junction
transparency in the presence of spin polarization. We find that the Andreev
reflection amplitude at the superconducting gap energy is a robust measure of
the spin polarization magnitude, being independent of the strengths of
potential and spin-flip scattering and the Fermi velocity of the
superconductor.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Constant Curvature Coefficients and Exact Solutions in Fractional Gravity and Geometric Mechanics
We study fractional configurations in gravity theories and Lagrange
mechanics. The approach is based on Caputo fractional derivative which gives
zero for actions on constants. We elaborate fractional geometric models of
physical interactions and we formulate a method of nonholonomic deformations to
other types of fractional derivatives. The main result of this paper consists
in a proof that for corresponding classes of nonholonomic distributions a large
class of physical theories are modelled as nonholonomic manifolds with constant
matrix curvature. This allows us to encode the fractional dynamics of
interactions and constraints into the geometry of curve flows and solitonic
hierarchies.Comment: latex2e, 11pt, 27 pages, the variant accepted to CEJP; added and
up-dated reference
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