Bringing radiology to patient's home using mobile equipment : a weapon to fight COVID-19 pandemic

Because of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) high contagiousness, it is crucial to identify and promptly isolate COVID-19 patients. In this context, chest imaging examinations, in particular chest x-ray (CXR), can play a pivotal role in different settings, to triage in case of unavailability, delay of or first negative result of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and to stratify disease severity. Considering the need to reduce, as much as possible, hospital admission of patients with suspected or confirmed infection, the use of mobile x-ray equipment could represent a safe approach. We picture a potential sequence of events, involving a team composed by a radiographer and a nurse, going to patient's home to perform CXR, nasopharyngeal swab (and, if needed, also a blood sample), with fast radiologist tele-reporting, and resulting patient management approach (home isolation or emergency room admission, when needed). This approach brings healthcare to patient's home, reducing the risk of infected subjects referring to family doctors' office or emergency departments, and strengthening community medicine while maintaining a strong connection with radiology departments

Single muscle fiber proteomics reveals unexpected mitochondrial specialization

Mammalian skeletal muscles are composed of multinucleated cells termed slow or fast fibers according to their contractile and metabolic properties. Here, we developed a high-sensitivity workflow to characterize the proteome of single fibers. Analysis of segments of the same fiber by traditional and unbiased proteomics methods yielded the same subtype assignment. We discovered novel subtype-specific features, most prominently mitochondrial specialization of fiber types in substrate utilization. The fiber type-resolved proteomes can be applied to a variety of physiological and pathological conditions and illustrate the utility of single cell type analysis for dissecting proteomic heterogeneity

Upper Second Molar Distalization with Clear Aligners: A Finite Element Study

Among orthodontists and scientists, in the last years, upper molar distalization has been a debated topic in the orthodontic aligner field. However, despite that few clinical studies have been published, no insights on aligners' biomechanics regarding this movement are available. The aim of this study was to assess, through finite element analysis, the force system resulting in the upper arch during second maxillary molar distalization with clear aligners and variable attachments settings. The average tooth distalization was found to be 0.029, with buccal flaring of the upper incisors in all attachment configurations. The mesial deformation of the aligner was registered to be 0.2 mm on average. Different pressure areas on the interface between aligners and upper molars were registered, with the mesial attachment surface to be directly involved when present. Periodontal ligament pressure was reported to range between 67 g/cm(2) and 132 g/cm(2). Configurations with rectangular attachments from second molar-to-canine and from first molar-to-canine present, in an in silico environment, almost equal efficiency in distalizing the upper second molar. However, attachments from the second molar to the canine are suggested to be adopted in clinical environments due to greater feasibility in everyday practice

Modelagem e Otimização Termoeconômica de Superestruturas de Ciclos Kalina para Aproveitamento do Calor Rejeitado em Usinas Termelétricas Com Motores de Combustão Interna

Neste trabalho, é realizada a modelagem e otimização utilizando o software EES (Engineering Equation Solver) para aproveitar o calor proveniente de dois rejeitos térmicos: água de resfriamento e gás de exaustão, dos motores de combustão interna (MCI) de uma termelétrica. A modelagem contempla várias alternativas básicas capazes de produzir, individualmente ou em associação, energia elétrica e conta com um ciclo de alta aproveitando os gases da exaustão e outro ciclo de baixa aproveitando a água de resfriamento do motor. A otimização realizada é paramétrica e estrutural, com o objetivo de maximizar o lucro, e selecionar qual ciclo produz potência com menor custo. São realizadas modelagens termodinâmica e econômica para este trabalho, que levam em conta catorze variáveis de decisão para atender os ciclos de alta e de baixa. A principal contribuição é determinar a melhor configuração com base na otimização termoeconômica, visando aumentar a geração de potência da UTE Viana, sem que seja necessário o uso adicional de combustível. Os resultados mostraram que na condição ótima é possível obter um aumento em torno de 7,5% da potência gerada pela termelétrica. Palavras-chave: Ciclo Kalina; Otimização Termoeconômica; Superestrutura; Motor de Combustão Interna; Recuperação de Calor Residual

Protein multi-scale organization through graph partitioning and robustness analysis: Application to the myosin-myosin light chain interaction

Despite the recognized importance of the multi-scale spatio-temporal organization of proteins, most computational tools can only access a limited spectrum of time and spatial scales, thereby ignoring the effects on protein behavior of the intricate coupling between the different scales. Starting from a physico-chemical atomistic network of interactions that encodes the structure of the protein, we introduce a methodology based on multi-scale graph partitioning that can uncover partitions and levels of organization of proteins that span the whole range of scales, revealing biological features occurring at different levels of organization and tracking their effect across scales. Additionally, we introduce a measure of robustness to quantify the relevance of the partitions through the generation of biochemically-motivated surrogate random graph models. We apply the method to four distinct conformations of myosin tail interacting protein, a protein from the molecular motor of the malaria parasite, and study properties that have been experimentally addressed such as the closing mechanism, the presence of conserved clusters, and the identification through computational mutational analysis of key residues for binding.Comment: 13 pages, 7 Postscript figure

Single muscle fiber proteomics reveals unexpected mitochondrial specialization.

Mammalian skeletal muscles are composed of multinucleated cells termed slow or fast fibers according to their contractile and metabolic properties. Here, we developed a high-sensitivity workflow to characterize the proteome of single fibers. Analysis of segments of the same fiber by traditional and unbiased proteomics methods yielded the same subtype assignment. We discovered novel subtype-specific features, most prominently mitochondrial specialization of fiber types in substrate utilization. The fiber type-resolved proteomes can be applied to a variety of physiological and pathological conditions and illustrate the utility of single cell type analysis for dissecting proteomic heterogeneity