Epidural anesthesia in repeated cesarean section.

Background: A spectacular development has been experimented in the Anesthesiology branch in the last few years in the different areas of its competence in which the attendance activity on obstetric patients as well as every aspect related with its adequate practice is of a great importance. Objective: to evaluate the efficacy of epidural anesthesia in repetitive cesarean. Methods: a descriptive retrospective study of a series of cases (112)in which epidural anesthesia in repetitive cesarean was applied from January 2001 to December 2001 in the surgical unit of the Gynecological obstetric service at the University Hospital ¨Dr. Gustavo Aldereguía Lima¨ in Cienfuegos city, Cuba. Some variables such as fixation time of the anesthesia, its duration, transurgical and postsurgical hemodynamic behavior, complications related with the anesthesia, evaluation of the new born baby and, the level of satisfaction of the patients were analyzed. Results: The immediate transurgical and postsurgical hemodynamic behavior was stable predominating normotension and the normal cardiac frequency. The complications related to anesthesia were minimal. The level of satisfaction of the patients was elevated. No alterations in new born babies were presented. As a conclusion, it may be stated that epidural anesthesia in repetitive cesarean is a safety and reliable anesthetic method

Characteristics of the obstetric patient in critical stage in Cienfuegos province.

Fundaments: The critically ill patient has an important place in the assessment of the quality of the medical assistance since around 5 % of all females who reach a full term pregnancy without potential risk factors, become this kind of patients due to different causes. Objective: To characterize the obstetric patient in a critical state in the period that covers January 1 st 1991- December 31 st 2001 in Cienfuegos province. Method: Correlational Descriptive-retrospective study carried out at the ICU of the Clinico-Surgical University Hospital ¨Dr. Gustavo Aldereguía Lima¨ in a 10 year period and includes the 323 critically ill obstetric patients who were admitted at that ward. The variables under study were: mother´s age parity, type of labor, past history, surgical procedures, cause of admission at the ICU, patients state at discharge and cause of death. Results: 59,1 % of the patients were aged 20-29 years . The patient´s past history was related to hypertension and bronchial asthma. The procedure most widely used was the cesarean section followed by hysterectomy as emergency. The principal cause of admission at the ICU was hypovolemic shock, pre eclampsia - eclampsia and sepsis. The major amounts of patients were discharged alive. Only 8 % died. There was a predominance of direct maternal death, highlighting among them haemorrhage and hypertension in pregnancy.</p

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal stem cell transition in a human organ: Lessons from Lichen Planopilaris

YesEpithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is critical for embryonic development and wound healing, and occurs in fibrotic disease and carcinoma. Here, we show that EMT also occurs within the bulge, the epithelial stem cell (eSC) niche of human scalp hair follicles, during the inflammatory permanent alopecia, lichen planopilaris. We show that a molecular EMT signature can be experimentally induced in healthy human eSCs in situ by antagonizing E-cadherin, combined with transforming growth factor-β1, epidermal growth factor, and IFN-γ administration, which to our knowledge has not been reported previously. Moreover, induction of EMT within primary human eSCs can be prevented and even partially reversed ex vivo by peroxisome proliferator−activated receptor-γ agonists, likely through suppression of the transforming growth factor-β signaling pathway. Furthermore, we show that peroxisome proliferator−activated receptor-γ agonists also attenuates the EMT signature even in lesional lichen planopilaris hair follicles ex vivo. We introduce lichen planopilaris as a model disease for pathological EMT in human adult eSCs, report a preclinical assay for therapeutically manipulating eSC EMT within a healthy human (mini-)organ, and show that peroxisome proliferator−activated receptor-γ agonists are promising agents for suppressing and partially reversing EMT in human hair follicles eSCs ex vivo, including in lichen planopilaris

Defining human-machine micro-task workflows for constitution making

This paper presents a novel task-oriented approach to crowdsource the drafting of a constitution. By considering micro-tasking as a particular form of crowdsourcing, it defines a workflow-based approach based on Onto2Flow, an ontology that models the basic concepts and roles to represent workflow-definitions. The approach is then applied to a prototype platform for constitution-making where human workers are requested to contribute to a set of tasks. The paper concludes by discussing previous approaches to participatory constitution-making and identifying areas for future work.This work is part-funded by FEDER Funds, by the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) through the COMPETE Programme (Operational Programme for Competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within the project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012). The work of Nuno Luz is supported by the doctoral grant SFRH/BD/70302/2010. The work of Marta Poblet draws from previous research within the framework of the project “Crowdsourcing: instrumentos semánticos para el desarrollo de la participación y la mediación online” (DER 2012-39492-C02-01) by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review [version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]

Peer review of research articles is a core part of our scholarly communication system. In spite of its importance, the status and purpose of peer review is often contested. What is its role in our modern digital research and communications infrastructure? Does it perform to the high standards with which it is generally regarded? Studies of peer review have shown that it is prone to bias and abuse in numerous dimensions, frequently unreliable, and can fail to detect even fraudulent research. With the advent of Web technologies, we are now witnessing a phase of innovation and experimentation in our approaches to peer review. These developments prompted us to examine emerging models of peer review from a range of disciplines and venues, and to ask how they might address some of the issues with our current systems of peer review. We examine the functionality of a range of social Web platforms, and compare these with the traits underlying a viable peer review system: quality control, quantified performance metrics as engagement incentives, and certification and reputation. Ideally, any new systems will demonstrate that they out-perform current models while avoiding as many of the biases of existing systems as possible. We conclude that there is considerable scope for new peer review initiatives to be developed, each with their own potential issues and advantages. We also propose a novel hybrid platform model that, at least partially, resolves many of the technical and social issues associated with peer review, and can potentially disrupt the entire scholarly communication system. Success for any such development relies on reaching a critical threshold of research community engagement with both the process and the platform, and therefore cannot be achieved without a significant change of incentives in research environments

Stability, Electronic Structure and Vibrational Modes of Ti_8C_12 Dimer

We present our density functional results of the geometry, electronic structure and dissociation energy of Ti_8C_12 dimer. We show that as opposed to the currently held view that Ti_8C_12 are highly stable monodispersed clusters, the neutral Ti_8C_12 clusters form covalent bonds and form stable dimers. We determine that the Ti atoms bond weakly (0.9 eV/bond) to organic ligands such as ammonia. Alternatively the Met-Car dimer has a cohesive energy of 4.84 eV or approximately 1.2 eV per bond. While Met-Car dimers are stable, formation of these dimers may be quenched in an environment that contains a significant population of organic ligands. The ionization and dissociation energies of the dimer are of same order which prevents the observation of the dimer in the ion mass spectroscopy. The analysis of the vibrational frequencies show the lowest-energy structure to be dynamically stable. We also present infrared absorption and Raman scattering spectra of the Ti_8C_12 dimer.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures (Better quality figures available on request). Physical Review B (Rapid Communication) (2002, in press