O processo neuroinflamatório e sintomatologia na doença de Alzheimer: Uma revisão bibliográfica: The neuroinflammatory process and symptomatology in Alzheimer's disease: a literature review

Este artigo buscou analisar a produção científica sobre o mecanismo da doença de Alzheimer abordando o processo neuroinflamatório e a sintomatologia gerada pelas alterações bioquímicas. A fisiopatologia da doença de Alzheimer é relacionada à síntese das placas de amiloides e à formação dos emaranhados neurofibrilares, que afetam as funções neuronais e podem culminar com a apoptose celular. Estes componentes atuam como fatores pró-inflamatórios, assim ocorrendo a ativação das células gliais e manutenção de um estado inflamatório neurodegenerativo crônico. Além disso, há outros participantes desse cenário, que produzem quimiocinas e citocinas, e atuam como fonte de proteínas do complemento e prostanóides derivados da COX-2. A progressão clínica tem relação direta com o avanço da neuroinflamação, que potencializa a degeneração e morte neuronal, a cada pico inflamatório ocorre a progressão sintomatológica, comprometendo a cognição e execução de atividades básicas de vida diária. O manejo ocorre nos fatores de risco cardiovascular, cuidados com a saúde cerebrovascular e na manutenção da qualidade de vida. A doença é multifatorial e complexa, é necessário o aprofundamento dos conhecimentos acerca do processo da doença e sua sintomatologia, e a investigação para a conjectura do declínio cognitivo e o estabelecimento de prognóstico

Dermatite Atópica: aspectos epidemiológicos, fisiopatológicos e manejo terapêutico: Atopic Dermatitis: epidemiological, physiopathological aspects and therapeutic management

A Dermatite Atópica (DA) é caracterizada como uma doença crônica e inflamatória. A DA atinge aproximadamente 230 milhões de pessoas no mundo e vêm tendo sua incidência aumentada nos últimos anos, de forma semelhante ao que acontece com outras doenças alérgicas. Embora possa surgir em qualquer época da vida, ela se destaca principalmente em crianças, acometendo entre 15% a 25% da faixa etária infantil. Esse distúrbio pode se apresentar como a primeira manifestação em uma cascata de doenças atópicas. Inúmeros estudos demonstram que uma disfunção na barreira epidérmica, a predisposição genética e a desregulação imunológica são contribuintes e fazem parte da fisiopatologia da doença. No que se refere à clínica da DA, o espectro é bastante variável, no entanto, o prurido intenso é um dos principais sintomas, normalmente acompanhado de eczema e escoriações. Além disso, a presença de xerose cutânea generalizada também é comum. A DA pode ser diagnosticada de forma totalmente clínica, sem haver a necessidade de um teste laboratorial definitivo, todavia, testes epicutâneos podem ser úteis para apontar os possíveis fatores desencadeantes da DA. Além disso, alguns critérios como os do Partido de Trabalho do Reino Unido podem ser usados para auxiliar no diagnóstico após a suspeita clínica. O tratamento da doença pode ser feito tanto de forma farmacológica: por meio de corticoides tópicos e orais, inibidores da calcineurina e imunossupressores, como também de forma não farmacológica: envolvendo medidas simples, mas que podem mudar drasticamente a aparição dos sintomas, como o uso diário de hidratantes, banho uma vez por dia na água morna com duração máxima de 10 minutos e uso de sabonetes neutros

Who’s funny: Gender stereotypes, humor production, and memory bias

It has often been asserted, by both men and women, that men are funnier. We explored two possible explanations for such a view, first testing whether men, when instructed to be as funny as possible, write funnier cartoon captions than do women, and second examining whether there is a tendency to falsely remember funny things as having been produced by men. A total of 32 participants, half from each gender, wrote captions for 20 cartoons. Raters then indicated the humor success of these captions. Raters of both genders found the captions written by males funnier, though this preference was significantly stronger among the male raters. In the second experiment, male and female participants were presented with the funniest and least funny captions from the first experiment, along with the caption author's gender. On a memory test, both females and males disproportionately misattributed the humorous captions to males and the nonhumorous captions to females. Men might think men are funnier because they actually find them so, but though women rated the captions written by males slightly higher, our data suggest that they may regard men as funnier more because they falsely attribute funny things to them.</p

Roman polygyny

Marriage in Rome was monogamous; mating was polygynous. Powerful men in the Roman empire, as in other empires, probably had sex with more women. To make that case I look, first, at the Latin sources. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio suggest that Roman emperors, like other emperors, were promiscuous; that they had privileged access to other men's women; and that they sometimes had women procured for them. I look next at the modern studies. Literary, legal, and inscriptional data suggest that Roman men kept as many slaves as they could afford--often hundreds and sometimes thousands; that many of those slaves were women; and that slave women were often bought as breeders. They also suggest that masters, who had unrestricted sexual access to their slaves, were often the fathers. Some slave women's children were brought up with, and in the style of, legitimate children; they were freed young; and they were given wealth, position, and paternal affection.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29873/1/0000222.pd

Facile reduction of pseudo-carbonates : promoting solid electrolyte interphases with dicyanoketene alkylene acetals in lithium-ion batteries

In recent years, greener transportation has become of major interest to limit air pollution and global warming. For this purpose, Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are considered as the most promising power source for electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) due to their high energy density. The use of high-energy multi-cell battery packs imposes ever more stringent requirements on LIBs in term of safety and long-term cyclability. The formation of an effective SEI passivation layer at the negative electrode / electrolyte interface was found to be of paramount importance in order to enable LIB long-life cycling and controlling the threshold for thermal runaway. This is why SEI-forming additives have been used in the electrolyte to reinforce these protective properties, with the most common additives being vinylene carbonate (VC) (1), fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC) (2), and vinyl ethylene carbonate (VEC) (3). To our knowledge, the modification of EC and PC on the carbonyl group, rather than on the alkylene bridge as for VC, VEC, or FEC, has not previously been attempted.(4,5) It is known that the =C(CN)2 group is an “oxygen equivalent” being even slightly more electronegative than O itself and extending considerably the conjugation. Hence, we hypothesized that modified EC or PC, with C=C(CN)2 replacing the carbonyl groups, could lead to a more facile reduction at higher potentials and a stable SEI. The dicyanoketene propylene (and ethylene) acetal, DCKPA (DCKEA), have both been synthesized according to a simple procedure.(6) The reduction process has been investigated for DCKPA by means of GC/MS and IR analysis and the efficiency as a SEI-reinforcing additive demonstrated by the analysis of the soluble products using liquid GC/MS. The cycling tests using a pouch cell configuration at both 20 and 45°C were realized with only 0.5 wt.% of additive in the electrolyte and resulted in higher capacity retention. Moreover, a post-mortem analysis by DSC revealed an improvement in term of safety due to an improved lithiated graphite/electrolyte interface

Sensing the Novel/Seeing the Book/Selling the Goods

This chapter examines the gatekeeping orientation, evaluative processes and decision-making role of the publisher’s commissioning editor through a conceptual framework of sensing the novel, seeing the book and selling the goods. This framework incorporates the affective, and often bodily processes, of reading novels (‘sensing’), alongside the matching of taste to communicative processes and an envisioning of the material book-as-product (‘seeing’), culminating in the commercial impetus of books-as-goods (‘selling’). Through semi-structured interviews, the chapter examines the sensory and passional ways in editors recount their experiences of commissioning as a lived, felt experience but also as a professional discourse and an economic practice. As such, the chapter argues that sensing-seeing-selling is a networked praxis in which aesthetic objects, individual professionalised readers, emotional labour, publishing processes, company formations, material embodiments and market environments come together

South Brazilian Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) Profile Patients: How We Treat and Our Results

Abstract CML is a well characterized disease with a known chromosomal abnormality. The inhibition of BCR-ABL protein tyrose kinase activity represented an advance in the treatment of this disease. Imatinib is effective in chronic, accelerated and blastic phase disease, and is the CML first line treatment around the world. In Brazil, this drug is provided by the State since 2003. The drug is available for second line treatment in chronic phase and for accelerated and blastic phase as the first line therapy. In chronic phase, the patients are treated first with interferon. If this treatment is too toxic or not effective, the choice therapy is imatinib 400 mg and the dose can be escalated up 600 mg. In accelerated and blastic phases the treatment is imatinib 600 mg. Mutational studies are not routinely performed and the failing patients are encourage to participate in bone marrow transplantation programs or clinical research centers. The present data are obtained from public health hospital database and included 400 CML Ph+ patients from Rio Grande do Sul, south of Brazil. 232 patients are male and 158 female and around 70% were Caucasian. The median age at diagnosis was 46, 79 y (median 49, 28). The mean laboratory values at diagnosis were: hematocrit 33 (median 34, 8), hemoglobin 11, 08 (median 11, 40), white blood cells 158.594 (median 110.000) and platelets 466.000 (median 380.000). From the 400 patients, 300 pts were diagnosed in chronic phase, 52 pts in accelerated phase and 20 pts in blastic phase. In 28 patients the disease phase was unknown. In the majority of patients Imatinib was started because interferon treatment was not tolerated (121 patients) or ineffective (123 patients). Of these patients 285 were in chronic, 59 pts in accelerated and 17 pts in blastic phases. The cytogenetic response evaluated at 12 months of treatment was available in 231 patients: 164 complete responses, 20 major responses, 15 minor responses and 32 patients demonstrated none or minimal response to therapy. In 169 patients the response is unknown. The progression free survival for the chronic phase patients in 80 months of observation is 90% and the event free survival for the entire group is 60% in the same period. The progression from chronic to accelerated or blastic phase was more common in the first year of imatinib treatment and decreased progressively until the fifth year of therapy. This data demonstrate the epidemiologic profile and the treatment results of CML patients in south of Brazil. Imatinib is available in public health system as a second line treatment and the survival rate is quite good. Since last July this drug has been available as first line treatment, even in chronic phase. A longer follow up and a uniform database registry are needed to study the impact of imatinib treatment in this population