3,279 research outputs found
Pooled Time Series Modeling Reveals Smoking Habit Memory Pattern
Smoking is a habit that is hard to break because nicotine is highly addictive and smoking
behavior is strongly linked to multiple daily activities and routines. Here, we explored the
effect of gender, age, day of the week, and previous smoking on the number of cigarettes
smoked on any given day. Data consisted of daily records of the number of cigarettes
participants smoked over an average period of 84 days. The sample included smokers (36
men and 26 women), aged between 18 and 26 years, who smoked at least five cigarettes
a day and had smoked for at least 2 years. A panel data analysis was performed by way of
multilevel pooled time series modeling. Smoking on any given day was a function of the
number of cigarettes smoked on the previous day, and 2, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, and 56
days previously, and the day of the week. Neither gender nor age influenced this pattern,
with no multilevel effects being detected, thus the behavior of all participants fitted the
same smoking model. These novel findings show empirically that smoking behavior is
governed by firmly established temporal dependence patterns and inform temporal
parameters for the rational design of smoking cessation programs
SARS- CoV-2 infection and oxidative stress in early-onset preeclampsia
SARS-CoV-2 causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) also in pregnant women. Infection in pregnancy leads to maternal and placental functional alterations. Pregnant women with vascular defects such as preeclampsia show high susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection by undefined mechanisms. Pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2 show higher rates of preterm birth and caesarean delivery, and their placentas show signs of vasculopathy and inflammation. It is still unclear whether the foetus is affected by the maternal infection with this virus and whether maternal infection associates with postnatal affections. The SARS-CoV-2 infection causes oxidative stress and activation of the immune system leading to cytokine storm and next tissue damage as seen in the lung. The angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2 expression is determinant for these alterations in the lung. Since this enzyme is expressed in the human placenta, SARS-CoV-2 could infect the placenta tissue, although reported to be of low frequency compared with maternal lung tissue. Early-onset preeclampsia (eoPE) shows higher expression of ADAM17 (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase 17) causing an imbalanced renin-angiotensin system and endothelial dysfunction. A similar mechanism seems to potentially account for SARS-CoV-2 infection. This review highlights the potentially common characteristics of pregnant women with eoPE with those with COVID-19. A better understanding of the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection and its impact on the placenta function is determinant since eoPE/COVID-19 association may result in maternal metabolic alterations that might lead to a potential worsening of the foetal programming of diseases in the neonate, young, and adult
Development Of a Multisensorial System For Emotions Recognition
Automated reading and analysis of human emotion has the potential to be a powerful tool to develop a wide variety of applications, such as human-computer interaction systems, but, at the same time, this is a very difficult issue because the human communication is very complex. Humans employ multiple sensory systems in emotion recognition. At the same way, an emotionally intelligent machine requires multiples sensors to be able to create an affective interaction with users. Thus, this Master thesis proposes the development of a multisensorial system for automatic emotion recognition.
The multisensorial system is composed of three sensors, which allowed exploring different emotional aspects, as the eye tracking, using the IR-PCR technique, helped conducting studies about visual social attention; the Kinect, in conjunction with the FACS-AU system technique, allowed developing a tool for facial expression recognition; and the thermal camera, using the
FT-RoI technique, was employed for detecting facial thermal variation. When performing the multisensorial integration of the system, it was possible to obtain a more complete and varied analysis of the emotional aspects, allowing evaluate focal attention, valence comprehension, valence expressions, facial expression, valence recognition and arousal recognition. Experiments were performed with sixteen healthy adult volunteers and 105 healthy children
volunteers and the results were the developed system, which was able to detect eye gaze, recognize facial expression and estimate the valence and arousal for emotion recognition, This system also presents the potential to analyzed emotions of people by facial features using contactless sensors in semi-structured environments, such as clinics, laboratories, or classrooms. This system also presents the potential to become an embedded tool in robots to
endow these machines with an emotional intelligence for a more natural interaction with humans.
Keywords: emotion recognition, eye tracking, facial expression, facial thermal variation, integration multisensoria
Relación entre hemoglobina glicosilada e inhibidor del activador del plasminógeno-1 en Diabéticos tipo 2
The objective was to determine the relationship between the glycosylated hemoglobin level and the prevalence of type - 1 plasminogen activator inhibitor elevated in type 2 diabetic patients. The type was quantitative, design descriptive and crosssectional, 632 elderly patients were selected. 18 years, 263 men and 369 women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, analyzed the plasma markers: PAI -1, tPA, fibrinogen and homocysteine. The status of type 2 diabetes was evaluated with HbA1c, considering itself uncontrolled patient with Hb1c values> 5.9%. Among the main results, the group of high type 2 diabetic patients (HbA1c> 5.9%) has a prevalence of 74.4% of elevated PAI-1 while patients with normal HbA1c have a prevalence of 40.7, which means that Patients who do not control their glycemic profile have 3.9 (Odd Ratio) times more risk of presenting high levels of PAI -1 in relation to patients with controlled glycemia. In addition, patients with an altered glucose profile have a 1.6 times higher risk of presenting high levels of fibrinogen and a 1.5 times higher risk of having high tPA, no association was observed between plasma homocysteine levels in uncontrolled diabetic patients, estimated with the logistic regression model. It is concluded that uncontrolled type 2 diabetic patients have an increase in the prevalence of the inhibitor of the raised type -1 plasminogen activator.El objetivo del presente trabajo fue determinar la relaciĂłn entre el nivel hemoglobina glicosilada y la prevalencia de inhibidor del activador del plasminĂłgeno tipo - 1 elevado en pacientes diabĂ©ticos tipo 2. El tipo de estudio fue cuantitativo y el diseño descriptivo de corte transversal, se seleccionĂł 632 pacientes mayores de 18 años, 263 varones y 369 mujeres con diagnĂłstico de diabetes tipo 2, se analizaron los marcadores plasmáticos: PAI -1, tPA, fibrinĂłgeno y homocisteĂna. El estado de la diabetes tipo 2 se evaluĂł con la HbA1c, considerándose paciente no controlado con valores de Hb1c >5,9%. Entre los principales resultados el grupo de pacientes diabĂ©ticos tipo 2 elevado (HbA1c >5,9%) tiene una pre- valencia de 74,4% de PAI-1 elevado mientras que los pacientes con HbA1c normal tienen una prevalencia de 40,7, significa que los pacientes que no controlan su perfil glicĂ©mico tienen 3,9 (Odd Ratio) veces más riesgo de presentar niveles elevados de PAI -1 en relaciĂłn a los pacientes con glicemia controlada. Además, los pacientes con perfil de glucosa alterada tienen 1,6 veces más riesgo de presentar niveles elevados de fibrinĂłgeno y 1,5 veces más riesgo de tener tPA elevado, no se observĂł asociaciĂłn entre los niveles de homocisteĂna plasmático en pacientes diabĂ©ticos no controlados, estimado con el modelo de regresiĂłn logĂstica. Se concluye que los pacientes diabĂ©ticos tipo 2 no controlados presentan un incremento en la prevalencia Inhibidor del activador del plasminĂłgeno tipo -1 elevada
Intravenous tPA therapy does not worsen acute intracerebral hemorrhage in mice
Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is the only FDA-approved treatment for reperfusing ischemic strokes. But widespread use of tPA is still limited by fears of inadvertently administering tPA in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Surprisingly, however, the assumption that tPA will worsen ICH has never been biologically tested. Here, we assessed the effects of tPA in two models of ICH. In a mouse model of collagenase-induced ICH, hemorrhage volumes and neurological deficits after 24 hrs were similar in saline controls and tPA-treated mice, whereas heparin-treated mice had 3-fold larger hematomas. In a model of laser-induced vessel rupture, tPA also did not worsen hemorrhage volumes, while heparin did. tPA is known to worsen neurovascular injury by amplifying matrix metalloproteinases during cerebral ischemia. In contrast, tPA did not upregulate matrix metalloproteinases in our mouse ICH models. In summary, our experimental data do not support the assumption that intravenous tPA has a deleterious effect in acute ICH. However, due to potential species differences and the inability of models to fully capture the dynamics of human ICH, caution is warranted when considering the implications of these findings for human therapy
Impact of changes in perinatal care on bronchopulmonary dysplasia: an overview of the last two decades
Objective: To compare the clinical approach and outcomes of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) patients in the last two decades (1996-2005 vs 2006-2015) in a neonatal intensive care unit. Methods: Out of 1,196 admissions of very low birth weight and/or less than 32 weeks of gestational age infants, 96 had BPD and were dichotomized into two groups according to the year of birth (1996-2005 and 2006-2015). Their clinical data were studied and conclusions were drawn about their morbidity and mortality. Results: There was a decrease in mortality (23.3% vs. 14.4%, p < 0.001) and in BPD prevalence (9.7% vs 6.1%, p = 0.023); in the delivery room, early nasal continuous positive airways pressure (nCPAP) was used in 41.2% vs 1.6%, p < 0.001 and tracheal intubation in 70.6% vs 96.8%, p < 0.001. We observed an increase on the duration of non-invasive ventilation (nCPAP, 22.5 vs 45.5 days, p < 0.001) and a decrease of invasive ventilation (39.5 vs 20 days, p = 0.013) from the first to the second period. Conclusions: Improvement in perinatal and neonatal intensive care practices, namely the use of non-invasive methods of mechanical ventilation implemented in the last years, probably contributed to the better evolution of preterm infants with BPD.This study was funded by: FEDER through the Operational Programme “Competitiveness and Internationalization” and national funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT (Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education), under the Unidade de Investigação em Epidemiologia – Instituto de Saúde Públicada Universidade do Porto (EPIUnit) (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006862; Ref. UID/DTP/04750/2013); the PhD Grant SFRH/BD/111794/2015 (Carina Rodrigues), co-funded by the FCT and the POPH/FSE Program
Longitudinal Effects of Distress and Its Management During COVID-19 Lockdown in Spain
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic that hit Spain during March 2020 forced the
strict confinement of the population for 2 months. The objectives of this study were
(a) to assess the magnitude and duration of the influence of confinement on people’s
Distress, (b) to study the temporal sequence of stress, and (c) to show how different
day-to-day activities and personal variables influence perceived Distress levels.
Method: A daily registration was completed by 123 people, with ages ranging from
21 to 75 years old (X = 43, SD = 10 years), of which there were 40 men (32%)
and 83 females (68%). During 45 days of lockdown, from March 19th to May 3rd,
participants were asked to respond to a socio-demographic survey and make daily
records comprising the MASQ-D30 and some day-to-day behaviors. Pooled time series
was applied to establish what effect time had on the dependent variable.
Results: Distress has a 14-day autoregressive function and gender, physical activity,
sexual activity, listening to music, and teleworking also influence Distress. It has been
hypothesized that the intercept presents variability at level 2 (individual), but it has not
been significant. Interactions between Gender—Telecommuting, and Gender—Physical
Activity were observed. Approximately 66% of the variance of Distress was explained
(R
2 = 0.663).
Discussion: At the beginning of the lockdown, the average levels of Distress were well
above the levels of the end (z = 3.301). The individuals in the sample have followed a
very similar process in the development of Distress. During the lockdown, the “memory”
of Distress was 2 weeks. Our results indicate that levels of Distress depend on activities
during lockdown. Interactions exist between gender and some behavioral variables that
barely influence Distress in men but decrease Distress in women. The importance of
routine maintenance and gender differences must be considered to propose future
interventions during confinement
A facile post-synthetic modification method to improve hydrothermal stability and CO2 selectivity of CuBTC metal-organic framework
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