Effect of a single session of transcranial direct-current stimulation on balance and spatiotemporal gait variables in children with cerebral palsy: A randomized sham-controlled study

Background: Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) has been widely studied with the aim of enhancing local synaptic efficacy and modulating the electrical activity of the cortex in patients with neurological disorders. Objective: The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of a single session of tDCS regarding immediate changes in spatiotemporal gait and oscillations of the center of pressure (30 seconds) in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: A randomized controlled trial with a blinded evaluator was conducted involving 20 children with CP between six and ten years of age. Gait and balance were evaluated three times: Evaluation 1 (before the stimulation), Evaluation 2 (immediately after stimulation), and Evaluation 3 (20 minutes after the stimulation). The protocol consisted of a 20-minute session of tDCS applied to the primary motor cortex at an intensity of 1 mA. The participants were randomly allocated to two groups: experimental group - anodal stimulation of the primary motor cortex; and control group - placebo transcranial stimulation. Results: Significant reductions were found in the experimental group regarding oscillations during standing in the anteroposterior and mediolateral directions with eyes open and eyes closed in comparison with the control group (p<0.05). In the intra-group analysis, the experimental group exhibited significant improvements in gait velocity, cadence, and oscillation in the center of pressure during standing (p<0.05). No significant differences were found in the control group among the different evaluations. Conclusion: A single session of tDCS applied to the primary motor cortex promotes positive changes in static balance and gait velocity in children with cerebral palsy

The process of building up regional health management in the State of São Paulo: subsidies for analysis

Este artigo apresenta os resultados gerais da pesquisa sobre o processo de construção da gestão regional no estado de São Paulo, durante a discussão do COAP/redes de atenção, com o intuito de fornecer subsídios para a compreensão deste processo de pactuação regional da saúde, com enfoque nas regiões de saúde de Bauru, Baixada Santista, Grande ABC e Vale do Ribeira, no estado de São Paulo. Além dos resultados apresentados sobre as regiões de saúde estudadas, a metodologia utilizada no desenvolvimento da construção dos perfis das regiões constitui em si uma proposta metodológica de análise de perfis regionais de saúde. A primeira parte do artigo apresenta a metodologia geral adotada para a análise das regiões de saúde; a segunda, abrange os resultados e a discussão da pesquisa, organizados em dois itens. O primeiro destes itens refere-se à análise dos perfis das cinco regiões de saúde pesquisadas no Estado. O segundo, analisa os principais aspectos do processo de pactuação regional da saúde em São Paulo, destacando potencialidades e limites, a partir de entrevistas realizadas com gestores municipais e apoiadores do Conselho de Secretários Municipais de Saúde de São Paulo dessas regiões.This article presents the main results of the survey on the regional management building process in the State of São Paulo, during the discussion of the COAP / Care Networks, in order to provide a basis for understanding this process of regional health pact, focusing on the metropolitan areas of Bauru, Santos, Grande ABC and the Ribeira Valley. In addition to the results presented on the health regions studied, the methodology used in the development of the construction of profiles of the regions is itself a proposal for a methodology of analyzing regional health profiles. The first section presents the general methodology for analyzing health regions. The second part covers the results and discussion of the research, organized into two items. The first refers to the analysis of the profiles of the five São Paulo health regions surveyed. The second item analyzes the main aspects of the process of regional health pact in São Paulo, highlighting strengths and limitations, based on interviews with municipal managers and supporters of the Council of Municipal Health Secretaries of São Paulo in these regions

Biogas production: litter from broilers receiving direct-fed microbials and an enzyme blend

ABSTRACT The effect of additives used in the feed of broilers on anaerobic bio-digestion of poultry litter was evaluated. Four diets were used: NC: negative control; DFM: NC + 500 ppm direct-fed microbials (DFM) containing Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus licheniformis; ENZ: diet formulated with an enzyme blend (20 ppm phytase, 200 ppm protease and 200 ppm xylanase); DFM+E: ENZ + DFM. Substrates for the anaerobic bio-digestion were prepared with litter from each treatment, containing 4 % total solids (TS). These were used in 16 continuous bio-digesters with a 2 kg d&#8722;1 load, to determine the production and potential biogas production and composition during an 85-day period. Influent and effluent samples were collected for the amounts of TS and volatile solids (VS), fiber fraction (neutral detergent fiber [NDF], acid detergent fiber [ADF] and lignin), nutrients (N, P and K), and total and thermotolerant coliforms to be determined. For all treatments a reduction in the following effluents was observed as follows: TS (49, 48, 48 and 50 %) VS (70, 54, 55 and 62 %) NDF (91, 90, 95 and 96 %) ADF (89, 88, 93 and 94 %) and lignin (80, 76, 89 and 88 %). The efficiency of the treatment for coliforms in bio-digesters was higher than 90 % in the 85-day period in all treatment groups. There was a reduction in biogas and methane production when DFM (5500 and 4000 mL) and DFM + E (5800 and 4100 mL) were used, compared to treatments NC (6300 mL and 4400) and ENZ (6400 and 4500 mL). The potential production of reduced TS and VS was higher in ENZ (1:00 and 1.74 106 mL kg&#8722;1) when compared to NC (0.88 and 1:02 106 mL kg&#8722;1), DFM (0.80 and 1:40 106 mL kg&#8722;1) and DFM + E (0.88 1:25 and 106 mL kg&#8722;1). The additives did not affect the percentage of methane production, and all treatments showed values higher than 70 %. Adding enzymes to the diet of broilers influences the litter characteristics and, as a consequence, increases biogas production. The addition of DFM and DFM + E to broiler diets reduced biogas and methane production

The relationships between exogenous and endogenous antioxidants with the lipid profile and oxidative damage in hemodialysis patients

Background: We sought to investigate the relationships among the plasma levels of carotenoids, tocopherols, endogenous antioxidants, oxidative damage and lipid profiles and their possible effects on the cardiovascular risk associated with hemodialysis (HD) patients. Methods: The study groups were divided into HD and healthy subjects. Plasma carotenoid, tocopherol and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, as well as erythrocyte reduced glutathione (GSH), were measured by HPLC. Blood antioxidant enzymes, kidney function biomarkers and the lipid profiles were analyzed by spectrophotometric methods. Results: Plasma lycopene levels and blood glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity were significantly decreased in HD patients compared with healthy subjects. Total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), creatinine, urea, MDA, GSH, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were significantly increased in HD (p < 0.05). Lycopene levels were correlated with MDA (r = -0.50; p < 0.01), LDL-c (r = -0.38; p = 0.01) levels, the LDL-c/HDL-c index (r = -0.33; p = 0.03) and GPx activity (r = 0.30; p = 0.03). Regression models showed that lycopene levels were correlated with LDL-c (β estimated = -31.59; p = 0.04), while gender was correlated with the TC/HDL-c index and triglycerides. Age did not present a correlation with the parameters evaluated. GPx activity was negatively correlated with MDA levels and with the LDL-c/HDL-c and CT/HDL-c indexes. Conclusions: Lycopene may represent an additional factor that contributes to reduced lipid peroxidation and atherogenesis in hemodialysis patients

Global fine-resolution data on springtail abundance and community structure

Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the species level collected predominantly from private archives of the authors that were quality-controlled and taxonomically-standardised. Despite covering all continents, most of the sample-level data come from the European continent (82.5% of all samples) and represent four habitats: woodlands (57.4%), grasslands (14.0%), agrosystems (13.7%) and scrublands (9.0%). We included sampling by soil layers, and across seasons and years, representing temporal and spatial within-site variation in springtail communities. We also provided data use and sharing guidelines and R code to facilitate the use of the database by other researchers. This data paper describes a static version of the database at the publication date, but the database will be further expanded to include underrepresented regions and linked with trait data.</p

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio