Evaluation of the System of Dispensation of Drugs in Intrahospital Services, of a Health Unit of Riobamba

Introduction: In Ecuador, many health institutions have not yet migrated to the Unit Dose Dispensation / Distribution System for Medications, which ensures the correct, safe and rational use of medications. Objective: The medication dispensing process in a Riobamba health unit was evaluated as part of the service quality improvement process. Methodology: Information was collected during three months of investigation, from the in-hospital services of hospitalization, intensive care unit, operating room and emergency. The instruments used for the evaluation corresponded to medical prescriptions, medication and medical device request sheets, medication return record sheets and labeling of boxes. Results: In the medical prescriptions as in the record sheets for the return of evaluated drugs, the main drawback was presented in the writing of the pharmaceutical form and the absence of mandatory data for the identification of the patient. In the total of the registers for the return of medications, the absence of the reason for the return of the medications was identified. The medication dispensing process was considered a critical point within the evaluation, since throughout the review period it was observed that the boxes did not have the minimum required labeling, for the correct identification of the patient. Conclusion: It was concluded that the dispensing system presented critical flaws, such as: deficiencies in the supply of medications, dispensing errors, lack of pharmacotherapeutic follow-up and little participation of the pharmaceutical professional. Keywords: dispensing, medication, medication error. Resumen Introducción: En Ecuador, muchas instituciones de salud aún no migran al Sistema de Dispensación/Distribución de Medicamentos por Dosis Unitaria, el cual asegura la correcta, segura y racional utilización de los medicamentos. Objetivo: Se evaluó el proceso de dispensación de medicamentos en una unidad de salud de Riobamba, como parte del proceso de mejoramiento en la calidad del servicio. Metodología: Se recolectó información durante tres meses de investigación, de los servicios de intrahospitalarios de hospitalización, unidad de cuidados intensivos, quirófano y emergencia. Los instrumentos utilizados para la evaluación correspondieron a recetas médicas, hojas de requerimiento de medicamentos y dispositivos médicos, hojas de registro de devolución de medicación y rotulación de cajetines. Resultados: En las recetas médicas como en las hojas de registro de devolución de medicamentos evaluadas, el principal inconveniente se presentó en la escritura de la forma farmacéutica y la ausencia de datos obligatorios para identificación del paciente. En el total de los registros de devolución de medicamentos, se identificó la inexistencia del motivo de la devolución de los medicamentos. El proceso de dispensación de medicación, se consideró un punto crítico dentro de la evaluación, ya que durante todo el período de revisión se observó que los cajetines no contaban con la rotulación mínima requerida, para la identificación correcta del paciente. Conclusión: Se concluyó que el sistema de dispensación presentaba fallas críticas, tales como: deficiencias en el suministro de medicamentos, errores de dispensación, falta de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico y la poca participación del profesional farmacéutico. Palabras clave: dispensación, medicamentos, error de medicación

Neuroprotective profile of edible flowers of borage (Borago officinalis L.) in two different models: Caenorhabditis elegans and Neuro-2a cells

The flowers of Borago officinalis L. (Boraginaceae), commonly known as borage, are widely used as a culinary ingredient. The aim of this study was to assess the potential benefits of fresh borage flower extract related to antioxidant, neuroprotective and anti-aging properties. The extract was obtained by Soxhlet extraction with ethanol as a solvent, and fatty acids were detected by GC-FID. The antioxidant activity was evaluated in vitro through the DPPH, FRAP and ORAC assays. Regarding the fatty acid (FA) composition, the extract showed high amounts of polyunsaturated FA. The Neuro-2a cell line was used to determine the cytoprotective capacity of the extract subjected to oxidative stress (H2O2). Moreover, the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans was used to assess antioxidant activity, delayed ageing as well as cytoprotection and reduced ß-amyloid toxicity. Cells treated with the extract and H2O2 showed a better response to oxidative stress than the control group, particularly in terms of mitochondrial activity (MTT assay), redox state (ROS formation) and the activity of antioxidant enzymes (catalase and superoxide dismutase). B. officinalis flower extract showed promising antioxidant activity in the selected models, without causing toxicity. Hence, the results obtained support the antioxidant properties of borage flowers in different bioassays using living organisms

Remote Sensing: Useful Approach for Crop Nitrogen Management and Sustainable Agriculture

Soil fertility is among the most important criteria that affect crop yield and quality. Nitrogen stress due to the low soil fertility and the lack of nitrogen availability is a major factor limiting the crop productivity in arid and semiarid environments, where fertilization is not optimized in terms of timing and quantity. Managing nitrogen fertilization is one of the most important criteria in the precision agriculture, which helps to improve crop production, environment conditions, and farmer’s economy. It is very important to apply N fertilizers with efficient methods allowing to the nutrient use efficiency and avoiding nitrogen losses and environment contamination. Nowadays, remote sensing methods using spectral and thermal approaches have been proposed as potential indicators to rapid identification of crop nitrogen status by providing information about vegetation canopy properties across large areas. The use of remote sensing methods to schedule nitrogen fertilization can help farmers to practice a more sustainable agriculture, minimizing risks of losing the harvest by providing an adequate rate of nitrogen when the crops’ needs and at a specific location

Parásitos en avestruces en el Departamento del Meta

The ostriches breeding is one of the new alternatives productive present in Colombia (South America), since 2004; nevertheless, there are scarce the local antecedents on the handling in captivity and they lack studies about the parasitic illnesses that these birds can suffer under the conditions of the eastern Plains of Colombia. Starting from that situation, two students of Degree in Agricultural Production and a Veterinary Medical professor into Eastern plains University, designed and they executed an investigation work, using animals of a farm located on the twelve (12) kilometer of the road that of the municipality of “Puerto López”, going to the municipality of "Puerto Gaitán”, on Meta Department, where it is the veredal zone "Alto navajas", there the property “El desquite” is located, and into it, the “Latin American” zoo farm. There they integrated by groups of different ages, for the taking and later technical process in the laboratory, of samples of blood, skin and fecal matter, to looking for parasites. Four (4) samplings were made with intervals of 45 days between them. Four (4) genres of parasitic were detected; of those which three (3) are the well-known internal parasites as Ascaridia galli, Entamoeba sp and Libyostrongylus sp. Too an external parasite called Strupthiopterolichus sculpturatus were identified, the feathers acarus.La zoocría de avestruces es una de las nuevas alternativas productivas presentes en Colombia desde el año 2004; no obstante, son escasos los antecedentes sobre el manejo en cautiverio y faltan estudios acerca de las enfermedades parasitarias que estas aves pueden padecer en las condiciones del Pie de Monte Llanero. A partir de esa situación, dos aspirantes al título de Licenciatura en Producción Agropecuaria, de la Universidad de los Llanos y un profesor Médico Veterinario y zootecnista, diseñaron y ejecutaron un trabajo de investigación, utilizando animales de un zoocriadero localizado sobre el kilómetro doce (12) de la vía a Puerto López, que conduce al municipio de Puerto Gaitán, en el Departamento del Meta, donde se encuentra la vereda “Alto navajas”, donde se localiza la finca “El desquite” y dentro de éste, el zoocriadero “Latin American”. Allí se conformaron grupos etarios para la toma y posterior procesamiento técnico en el laboratorio, de muestras coprológicas, sanguíneas y cutáneas, para buscar parásitos. Se tomaron cuatro (4) muestras con intervalos de 45 días. Se detectaron cuatro (4) géneros de parásitos, de los cuales tres (3) corresponden a los internos conocidos como: Ascaridia galli (A. G.), Entamoeba sp (E. Sp.) y Libyostrongylus sp, (L. Sp.) en tanto que el parásito externo que se identificó fue Strupthiopterolichus sculpturatus (S. S.), ácaro de las plumas

Effectiveness of a group-based psychosocial program to prevent depression and anxiety in older people attending primary health care centres: a randomised controlled trial

Background: Evidence about the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions to reduce the incidence of depression and anxiety and promote subjective well-being in older people is limited, particularly in Latin-American countries. This study thus aims to assess a program specifically designed to address this issue in persons aged 65 to 80 and attending primary health care centres. Method: Older people who use primary care centres are to be randomly assigned to the program or to a control group. Only independent users will be included; those having had a major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder in the last 6 months will be excluded. The program is group based; it includes cognitive stimulation, expansion of social support networks and cognitive behaviour strategies. Depressive and anxiety symptoms and disorders, as well as psychological well-being, will be assessed using standardised instruments, once before implementing the program and later, after 18 and 36 weeks. Discussion: Primary care is a setting where interventions to improve mental health can be beneficial. Providing evidence-based programs that work with older people is a priority for public mental health

Perfil socioeconómico del municipio de Molagavita, Santander

Tablas, CuadrosSe analiza la estructura económica del Municipio de Molagavita, para identificar los factores favorables y las barreras del desarrollo económico regional. Este diagnóstico permite que dentro de la estrategia se potencien e incrementen las fortalezas y, así mismo, se disminuyan o eliminen las barreras al desarrollo.Looks for, to formulate a socioeconomic scheme that has been able to be translated for the future in a tool preserving, to conserve and to recover the local economy and to project it to the future For such reason, it is a great challenge to analyze the economic structure of the municipality of Conception to identify the favorable factors and the barriers of the regional economic development. This diagnosis allows that within the strategy harnesses and increases the strengths and, also, the barriers are diminished or eliminated the development

Assessment of Kalman filter bias-adjustment technique to improve the simulation of ground-level ozone over Spain

The CALIOPE air quality modelling system has been used to diagnose ground level O3 concentration for the year 2004, over the Iberian Peninsula. We investigate the improvement in the simulation of daily O3 maximum by the use of a post-processing such as the Kalman filter bias-adjustment technique. The Kalman filter bias-adjustment technique is a recursive algorithm to optimally estimate bias-adjustment terms from previous measurements and model results. The bias-adjustment technique improved the simulation of daily O3 maximum for the entire year and the all the stations considered over the whole domain. The corrected simulation presents improvements in statistical indicators such as correlation, root mean square error, mean bias, and gross error. After the post-processing the exceedances of O3 concentration limits, as established by the European Directive 2008/50/CE, are better reproduced and the uncertainty of the modelling system, as established by the European Directive 2008/50/CE, is reduced from 20% to 7.5%. Such uncertainty in the model results is under the established EU limit of the 50%. Significant improvements in the O3 timing and amplitude of the daily cycle are also observed after the post-processing. The systematic improvements in the O3 maximum simulations suggest that the Kalman filter post-processing method is a suitable technique to reproduce accurate estimate of ground-level O3 concentration. With this study we evince that the adjusted O3 concentrations obtained after the post-process of the results from the CALIOPE system are a reliable means for real near time O3 forecasts

Improving the representation of smallholder farmers’ adaptive behaviour in agent-based models: Learning-by-doing and social learning

Computational models have been used to investigate farmers’ decision outcomes, yet classical economics assumptions prevail, while learning processes and adaptive behaviour are overlooked. This paper advances the conceptualisation, modelling and understanding of learning-by-doing and social learning, two key processes in adaptive (co-)management literature. We expand a pre-existing agent-based model (ABM) of an agricultural social-ecological system, RAGE (Dressler et al., 2018). We endow human agents with learning-by-doing and social learning capabilities, and we study the impact of their learning strategies on economic, ecological and social outcomes. Methodologically, we contribute to an under-explored area of modelling farmers’ behaviour. Results show that agents who employ learning better match their decisions to the ecological conditions than those who do not. Imitating the learning type of successful agents further improves outcomes. Different learning processes are suited to different goals. We report on conditions under which learning-by-doing becomes dominant in a population with mixed learning approaches

Estudio de la Heterosis y acción géníca para once características en cinco cruzamientos de algodonero upland (Gossypium hirsutum L.).

Algodón-Gossypium herbaceu

The hylEfm gene in pHylEfm of Enterococcus faecium is not required in pathogenesis of murine peritonitis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Plasmids containing <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}(pHyl_Efm) were previously shown to increase gastrointestinal colonization and lethality of <it>Enterococcus faecium </it>in experimental peritonitis. The <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}gene, predicting a glycosyl hydrolase, has been considered as a virulence determinant of hospital-associated <it>E. faecium</it>, although its direct contribution to virulence has not been investigated. Here, we constructed mutants of the <it>hyl</it>_<it>Efm</it>-region and we evaluated their effect on virulence using a murine peritonitis model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Five mutants of the <it>hyl</it>_<it>Efm</it>-region of pHyl_EfmTX16from the sequenced endocarditis strain (TX16 [DO]) were obtained using an adaptation of the PheS* system and were evaluated in a commensal strain TX1330RF to which pHyl_EfmTX16was transferred by mating; these include <it>i</it>) deletion of <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}only; <it>ii</it>) deletion of the gene downstream of <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}(<it>down</it>) of unknown function; <it>iii</it>) deletion of <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}plus <it>down</it>; <it>iv</it>) deletion of <it>hyl</it>_<it>Efm</it>-<it>down </it>and two adjacent genes; and <it>v</it>) a 7,534 bp deletion including these four genes plus partial deletion of two others, with replacement by <it>cat</it>. The 7,534 bp deletion did not affect virulence of TX16 in peritonitis but, when pHyl_{EfmTX16Δ7,534}was transferred to the TX1330RF background, the transconjugant was affected in <it>in vitro </it>growth versus TX1330RF(pHyl_EfmTX16) and was attenuated in virulence; however, neither <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}nor <it>hyl</it>_<it>Efm</it>-<it>down </it>restored wild type function. We did not observe any <it>in vivo </it>effect on virulence of the other deletions of the <it>hyl</it>_<it>Efm</it>-region</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The four genes of the <it>hyl</it>_{<it>Efm </it>}region (including <it>hyl</it>_<it>Efm</it>) do not mediate the increased virulence conferred by pHyl_EfmTX16in murine peritonitis. The use of the markerless counterselection system PheS* should facilitate the genetic manipulation of <it>E. faecium </it>in the future.</p