Postoperative pain and morphine consumption after ultrasound-guided femoral and sciatic combined nerve block versus neurostimulation for femoral and sciatic combined nerve block or neurostimulation for femoral nerve block in primary elective total knee arthroplasty.

Abstract Congreso XXXVII National Meeting of the Spanish Society of Pharmacology with guest society: The British Pharmacological SocietyBackground and Aims: Total knee arthroplasty injuries are extremely painful and merit prompt attention to adequate postoperative analgesia. We aim to compare femoral and sciatic ultrasound-guided combined nerve block vs. neurostimulation for femoral and sciatic combined nerve block or for femoral nerve block in postoperative pain in primary elective total knee prosthesis. Summary of work and outcomes: A three arms, prospective longitudinal study of patients having primary elective unilateral knee prosthesis and randomly assigned to catheter insertion guided by ultrasound or neurostimulation was done: 1) Ultrasound-guided femoral and sciatic combined nerve block (USFSCN) (N=15); 2) Neurostimulation for femoral and sciatic combined nerve block (NSFSCN) (N=17); 3) Neurostimulation for femoral nerve block (NSFN) (N=11). Total analgesia (morphine) consumption after 48 hours was the primary endpoint. The postoperative pain intensity (visual analogue pain scale (VAS)) at post-anaesthetic recovery unit (PARU), 6, 24, 48 h, and during movement and postoperative complications were secondary outcomes. Results and discussion: 43 patients (68.3±8 years old, 77% female) subjected to elective unilateral knee prosthesis were enrolled. There were no differences in the demographic, anaesthetic and surgical variables between groups. Pain intensity was lower in the USFSCN group compared with NSFSCN and NSFN during the first 48 h post-surgery (% of intense pain at PARU/6h/24h/48h): USFSCN 0.8/1.4/3.2/1.6; NSFSCN 5.6/8.3/7.5/3; NSFN 7.2/5.3/6.4/5.4. The average consumption of morphine within 48 h after surgery was similar in the groups USFSCN and NSFSCN (3 mg vs. 3.11 mg), and significantly lower than NSFN (4.19 mg) (p<0.05). And the number of complications was significantly lower in the USFSCN group compared with NSFSCN and NSFN during the first 48 h of postoperative. Conclusion: Ultrasound-guided femoral and sciatic combined nerve block presented better analgesia and was more safety than neurostimulation for femoral and sciatic combined nerve block or for femoral nerve block in primary elective total knee arthroplasty.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

review of the social and environmental factors affecting the behavior and welfare of turkeys meleagris gallopavo

ABSTRACT In modern rearing systems, turkey producers often face economic losses due to increased aggression, feather pecking, cannibalism, leg disorders, or injuries among birds, which are also significant welfare issues. The main underlying causes appear to relate to rapid growth, flock size, density, poor environmental complexity, or lighting, which may be deficient in providing the birds with an adequate physical or social environment. To date, there is little information regarding the effect of these factors on turkey welfare. This knowledge is, however, essential to ensure the welfare of turkeys and to improve their quality of life, but may also be beneficial to industry, allowing better bird performance, improved carcass quality, and reduced mortality and condemnations. This paper reviews the available scientific literature related to the behavior of turkeys as influenced by the physical and social environment that may be relevant to advances toward turkey production systems that take welfare into consideration. We addressed the effects that factors such as density, group size, space availability, maturation, lightning, feeding, and transport may have over parameters that may be relevant to ensure welfare of turkeys. Available scientific studies were based in experimental environments and identified individual factors corresponding to particular welfare problems. Most of the studies aimed at finding optimal levels of rearing conditions that allow avoiding or decreasing most severe welfare issues. This paper discusses the importance of these factors for development of production environments that would be better suited from a welfare and economic point of view

Sicole: diagnóstico y tratamiento computarizado de la dislexia en español

En este articulo realizamos un recorrido sobre las investigaciones más relevantes en el campo de la tecnología aplicada al diseño instruccional, las cuales marcan las pautas de diseño de los programas educativos actuales y presentamos los criterios pedagógicos y tecnológicos que hemos seguido en el diseño e implementación de un ITS para la diagnóstico, evaluación y tratamiento de niños con Dislexia en el lenguaje español. Este trabajo se halla dentro del marco de un proyecto de investigación interdisciplinar titulado SICOLE, formado por psicólogos, pedagogos e informáticos.In this paper we present the most significant researchers in the area of technology applied to instructional design. Also, we describe the pedagogical and technological principles followed in the design and implementation of an Intelligent Tutorial System for assessment and treatment of dyslexic children in Spanish language. This work is result of a multidisciplinary research with engineers, teachers and psychologists and it has been funded by «Fondos Europeos para el Desarrollo Regional» (FEDER), 1FD97-1140, and the «Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica» (DIGICYT). This package has being used in several Spanish schools as part of its validation process

Oscillatory Ca2+ Signaling in the Isolated Caenorhabditis elegans Intestine: Role of the Inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate Receptor and Phospholipases C β and γ

Defecation in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a readily observable ultradian behavioral rhythm that occurs once every 45–50 s and is mediated in part by posterior body wall muscle contraction (pBoc). pBoc is not regulated by neural input but instead is likely controlled by rhythmic Ca2+ oscillations in the intestinal epithelium. We developed an isolated nematode intestine preparation that allows combined physiological, genetic, and molecular characterization of oscillatory Ca2+ signaling. Isolated intestines loaded with fluo-4 AM exhibit spontaneous rhythmic Ca2+ oscillations with a period of ∼50 s. Oscillations were only detected in the apical cell pole of the intestinal epithelium and occur as a posterior-to-anterior moving intercellular Ca2+ wave. Loss-of-function mutations in the inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) receptor ITR-1 reduce pBoc and Ca2+ oscillation frequency and intercellular Ca2+ wave velocity. In contrast, gain-of-function mutations in the IP3 binding and regulatory domains of ITR-1 have no effect on pBoc or Ca2+ oscillation frequency but dramatically increase the speed of the intercellular Ca2+ wave. Systemic RNA interference (RNAi) screening of the six C. elegans phospholipase C (PLC)–encoding genes demonstrated that pBoc and Ca2+ oscillations require the combined function of PLC-γ and PLC-β homologues. Disruption of PLC-γ and PLC-β activity by mutation or RNAi induced arrhythmia in pBoc and intestinal Ca2+ oscillations. The function of the two enzymes is additive. Epistasis analysis suggests that PLC-γ functions primarily to generate IP3 that controls ITR-1 activity. In contrast, IP3 generated by PLC-β appears to play little or no direct role in ITR-1 regulation. PLC-β may function instead to control PIP2 levels and/or G protein signaling events. Our findings provide new insights into intestinal cell Ca2+ signaling mechanisms and establish C. elegans as a powerful model system for defining the gene networks and molecular mechanisms that underlie the generation and regulation of Ca2+ oscillations and intercellular Ca2+ waves in nonexcitable cells

Imidazolyl Alanes - Synthesis, Structures, and Reactivity Studies – Imidazolyl Alanes - Synthesis, Structures, and Reactivity Studies

Targeting the synthesis of Al/C based ambiphilic molecules, we investigated the dehydrohalogenation of a series of (benz)imidazole alane adducts. Depending on the steric bulk of the heterocycle, different dimeric products with various ring sizes were obtained. Dehydrohalogenation of the adduct of 1‐mesityl imidazole ($^{Mes}$Im) and 0.5 [tBu$_{2}$AlBr]$_{2}$ furnished the dimer 2, featuring a “classical” N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC) and a mesoionic or “abnormal” NHC (aNHC) subunit within a single molecule. The dimer is bound loosely enough to allow thermally induced isomerization of 2 into the isomers 2$^{NHC}$ (all NHC) and 2$^{aNHC}$ (all aNHC). Dehydrohalogenation of the adduct of 1‐mesityl‐2‐methyl imidazole ($^{Mes}$Im$^{Me}$) and 0.5 [tBu$_{2}$AlBr]$_{2}$ (4) yielded the dimeric compound 5 consisting of two N‐heterocyclic olefin (NHO) subunits. Although these six‐ and eight‐membered heterocycles show no FLP‐type reactivity towards small molecules like H$_{2}$, CO or CO$_{2}$, we observed an ambiphilic behavior of the imidazolyl alanes during our studies. Salt metathesis reactions using $^{Mes}$Im resulted in the formation of 3, which can be viewed as tBu$_{2}$AlBr adduct of an Al/N ambiphile. Utilizing heterocycles such as benzimidazole or spiroindole provided the entry point to C–H (7, 9) and N–H (10) activation products, most likely resulting from a reactivity of intermediate species as Al/C ambiphiles

Rotating 5D-Kaluza-Klein Space-Times from Invariant Transformations

Using invariant transformations of the five-dimensional Kaluza-Klein (KK) field equations, we find a series of formulae to derive axial symmetric stationary exact solutions of the KK theory starting from static ones. The procedure presented in this work allows to derive new exact solutions up to very simple integrations. Among other results, we find exact rotating solutions containing magnetic monopoles, dipoles, quadripoles, etc., coupled to scalar and to gravitational multipole fields.Comment: 24 pages, latex, no figures. To appear in Gen. Rel. Grav., 32, (2000), in pres