Using Chatbot Technologies to Support Argumentation

Chatbots are extensively used in modern times and are exhibiting increasingly intelligent behaviors. However, being relatively new technologies, there are significant demands for further advancement. Numerous possibilities for research exist to refine these technologies, including integration with other technologies, especially in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), which has received much attention and development. This study aims to explore the ability of chatbot technologies to classify arguments according to the reasoning patterns used to create them. As argumentation is a significant aspect of human intelligence, categorizing arguments according to various argumentation schemes (reasoning patterns) is a crucial step towards developing sophisticated human-computer interaction interfaces. This will enable agents (chatbots) to engage in more sophisticated interactions, such as argumentation processes

Phenotype of BTK‐lacking myeloid cells during prolonged COVID‐19 and upon convalescent plasma

© 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Haematology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.XLA patient with 7-month course of COVID-19 with persistent plasma SARS-CoV-2 load revealed a sustained non-inflammatory profile of myeloid cells in association with contained severity of disease, arguing in favor of the use of BTK inhibitors in SARS-COV-2 infection.This work was funded by the following grants from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, through “Apoio Especial Research4COVID-19,” project numbers 125 and 803. André M. C. Gomes and Guilherme B. Farias received Fellowships funded by FCT (Doctorates4COVID-19, 2020.10202.BD), and Janssen-Cilag Farmacêutica, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Novel ocellatin peptides mitigate LPS-induced ROS formation and NF-kB activation in microglia and hippocampal neurons

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Cre-ative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not per-mitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Cutaneous secretions of amphibians have bioactive compounds, such as peptides, with potential for biotechnological applications. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the primary structure and investigate peptides obtained from the cutaneous secretions of the amphibian, Leptodactylus vastus, as a source of bioactive molecules. The peptides obtained possessed the amino acid sequences, GVVDILKGAAKDLAGH and GVVDILKGAAKDLAGHLASKV, with monoisotopic masses of [M + H]± = 1563.8 Da and [M + H]± = 2062.4 Da, respectively. The molecules were characterized as peptides of the class of ocellatins and were named as Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21). Functional analysis revealed that Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21) showed weak antibacterial activity. However, treatment of mice with these ocellatins reduced the nitrite and malondialdehyde content. Moreover, superoxide dismutase enzymatic activity and glutathione concentration were increased in the hippocampus of mice. In addition, Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21) were effective in impairing lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and NF-kB activation in living microglia. We incubated hippocampal neurons with microglial conditioned media treated with LPS and LPS in the presence of Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21) and observed that both peptides reduced the oxidative stress in hippocampal neurons. Furthermore, these ocellatins demonstrated low cytotoxicity towards erythrocytes. These functional properties suggest possible to neuromodulatory therapeutic applications.Alexandra Plácido is a recipient of a post-doctoral grant from the project FCT (PTDC/BII-BIO/31158/2017). Renato Socodato and Camila Cabral Portugal hold postdoctoral fellowships from FCT (Refs: SFRH/BPD/91833/2012 and FRH/BPD/91962/2012, respectively). This work was funded through project UID/QUI/50006/2013-POCI/01/0145/FEDER/007265 (LAQV/REQUIMTE) with financial support from FCT/MEC through national funds and co-financed by FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT 2020info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Emotional, hyperactivity and inattention problems in adolescents with immunocompromising chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: To assess factors associated with emotional changes and Hyperactivity/Inattention (HI) motivated by COVID-19 quarantine in adolescents with immunocompromising diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional study included 343 adolescents with immunocompromising diseases and 108 healthy adolescents. Online questionnaires were answered including socio-demographic data and self-rated healthcare routine during COVID-19 quarantine and validated surveys: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL4.0). Results: The frequencies of abnormal emotional SDQ scores from adolescents with chronic diseases were similar to those of healthy subjects (110/343 [32%] vs. 38/108 [35%], p = 0.548), as well as abnormal hyperactivity/inattention SDQ scores (79/343 [23%] vs. 29/108 [27%], p = 0.417). Logistic regression analysis of independent variables associated with abnormal emotional scores from adolescents with chronic diseases showed: female sex (Odds Ratio [OR = 3.76]; 95% Confidence Interval (95% CI) 2.00‒7.05; p < 0.001), poor sleep quality (OR = 2.05; 95% CI 1.08‒3.88; p = 0.028) and intrafamilial violence during pandemic (OR = 2.17; 95% CI 1.12‒4.19; p = 0.021) as independently associated with abnormal emotional scores, whereas total PedsQL score was inversely associated with abnormal emotional scores (OR = 0.95; 95% CI 0.93‒0.96; p < 0.0001). Logistic regression analysis associated with abnormal HI scores from patients evidenced that total PedsQL score (OR = 0.97; 95% CI 0.95‒0.99; p = 0.010], changes in medical appointments during the pandemic (OR = 0.39; 95% CI 0.19-0.79; p = 0.021), and reliable COVID-19 information (OR = 0.35; 95% CI 0.16‒0.77; p = 0.026) remained inversely associated with abnormal HI scores. Conclusion: The present study showed emotional and HI disturbances in adolescents with chronic immunosuppressive diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reinforces the need to promptly implement a longitudinal program to protect the mental health of adolescents with and without chronic illnesses during future pandemics

Novel Primate-Specific Genes, RMEL 1, 2 and 3, with Highly Restricted Expression in Melanoma, Assessed by New Data Mining Tool

Melanoma is a highly aggressive and therapy resistant tumor for which the identification of specific markers and therapeutic targets is highly desirable. We describe here the development and use of a bioinformatic pipeline tool, made publicly available under the name of EST2TSE, for the in silico detection of candidate genes with tissue-specific expression. Using this tool we mined the human EST (Expressed Sequence Tag) database for sequences derived exclusively from melanoma. We found 29 UniGene clusters of multiple ESTs with the potential to predict novel genes with melanoma-specific expression. Using a diverse panel of human tissues and cell lines, we validated the expression of a subset of three previously uncharacterized genes (clusters Hs.295012, Hs.518391, and Hs.559350) to be highly restricted to melanoma/melanocytes and named them RMEL1, 2 and 3, respectively. Expression analysis in nevi, primary melanomas, and metastatic melanomas revealed RMEL1 as a novel melanocytic lineage-specific gene up-regulated during melanoma development. RMEL2 expression was restricted to melanoma tissues and glioblastoma. RMEL3 showed strong up-regulation in nevi and was lost in metastatic tumors. Interestingly, we found correlations of RMEL2 and RMEL3 expression with improved patient outcome, suggesting tumor and/or metastasis suppressor functions for these genes. The three genes are composed of multiple exons and map to 2q12.2, 1q25.3, and 5q11.2, respectively. They are well conserved throughout primates, but not other genomes, and were predicted as having no coding potential, although primate-conserved and human-specific short ORFs could be found. Hairpin RNA secondary structures were also predicted. Concluding, this work offers new melanoma-specific genes for future validation as prognostic markers or as targets for the development of therapeutic strategies to treat melanoma

A population-based surveillance study on severe acute maternal morbidity (near-miss) and adverse perinatal outcomes in Campinas, Brazil: The Vigimoma Project

BACKGROUND: Auditing of sentinel health events based on best-practice protocols has been recommended. This study describes a population-based investigation on adverse perinatal events including severe acute maternal morbidity (near-miss), maternal and perinatal mortality, as a health intervention to help improve the surveillance system. METHODS: From October to December 2005, all cases of maternal death (MD), near-miss (NM), fetal deaths (FD), and early neonatal deaths (END), occurring in Campinas, Brazil, were audited by maternal mortality committees. RESULTS: A total of 4,491 liveborn infants (LB) and 159 adverse perinatal events (35.4/1000 LB) were revised, consisting of 4 MD (89/100.000 LB) and 95 NM (21.1/1000 LB), 23.7 NM for each MD. In addition, 32 FD (7.1/1000 LB) and 28 END (6.2/1000 LB) occurred. The maternal death/near miss rate was 23.7:1. Some delay in care was recognized for 34%, and hypertensive complications comprised 57.8% of the NM events, followed by postpartum hemorrhage. CONCLUSION: Auditing near miss cases expanded the understanding of the spectrum from maternal morbidity to mortality and the importance of promoting adhesion to clinical protocols among maternal mortality committee members. Hypertensive disorders and postpartum hemorrhage were identified as priority topics for health providers training, and organization of care