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In this short note, we present the first data on stable isotope composition of the oilfield waters from Carabobo area of the Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco "Hugo Chávez" (Orinoco Oil Belt). From a chemical point of view, the formation waters show a main Na-Cl level (TDS up to 30g/l) with a dilution trend toward Na-HCO3 composition (down to 1g/l). Until now, such a clear net chemical compositional trend was ascribed to a meteoric dilution (fresh/ brackish bicarbonate) of the seawater endmember (the saltiest chloride). The isotope results of this study reveal that the seawater mother water was modified during a high-temperature thrusting event (120-125°C), forming 18O-enriched diagenetic water (up to +4‰), which was diluted in recent times by glacial meltwater and presentday meteoric water. The hypothetical presence of flood by a meteoric paleo-water also offers new hints to explain the low API gravity (<10°API biodegraded, extra heavy oil) and composition of the local crude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The relevance and the concern about integral formation motivated the authors to investigate the meaning that the Students Integral Formation has for the professors of the Faculty of Health of the Universidad del Valle, considering as well the professors' conceptions, feelings and practices.Objective: To know professor's conceptions, feelings and practices, related to student's integral formation.Methods: The methodology applied for the analysis was the hermeneutic phenomenology; information was obtained through deep interviews, developed with 15 randomly selected professors, among the seven schools of the Health Faculty.Results: The results revealed five great aspects: teaching initiation, the teachers' role, conceptual aspects, factors that facilitate it and factors that difficult it, through which the professors describe what they think, feel and do in relation to the Integral Formation.Conclusions: The conclusions allow to establish that in spite of the clarity of the institutional policies on integral formation and the coherence among them and the professors' thoughts, feelings and actions, there are gaps over which it is required a joint action of all the actors, to accomplish a successful aim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Con motivo de la ejecución de obras en la autovía A4 han sido descubiertos e investigados elementos arqueológicos muebles e inmuebles en el yacimiento de Aberturas (Valdepeñas, Ciudad Real). Los materiales recuperados ponen de manifiesto la existencia de un extenso vicus de aproximadamente 24 hectáreas fundado en la segunda mitad del siglo III d.C. Este asentamiento ha tenido un largo recorrido histórico desde entonces hasta hoy. En ese lugar se han desarrollado las poblaciones de Aberturas (denominación medieval y moderna), Consolación (denominación moderna y contemporánea) y Villanueva de Franco (denominación contemporánea). Además de viviendas y materiales arqueológicos cerámicos romanos, medievales -tanto islámicos como cristianos- y modernos, la intervención arqueológica ha permitido documentar silos, varios de los cuales fueron hallados vacíos y cerrados. También se han encontrado un pozo antiguo que explotaba el Acuífero 23, piletas, un lagar y el locus de otro.

Background: This case report highlights the conduction disorder anomalies associated with dengue infection, particularly bradyarrhythmias due to dysfunction of the sinus node and atrioventricular node, which may require cardiac stimulation such as pacemaker implantation. This case emphasizes the importance of continuous monitoring and the use of additional diagnostic techniques to detect complications in a timely manner., Case Summary: A 31-year-old male patient was admitted to our institution with symptoms of dyspnoea, orthopnoea, and severe bradycardia. During hospital admission, atrial fibrillation with a low ventricular response was evident. A 24-h Holter examination revealed additional electrical conduction abnormalities, including first-, second-, and third-degree atrioventricular block, 3.8 s pauses, and migrating atrial rhythm. Since the patient remained asymptomatic and did not present circulatory compromise, conservative management was chosen, with gradual recovery observed during the 30-day follow-up., Discussion: Dengue can significantly affect the cardiovascular system, presenting a variety of abnormalities in cardiac conduction. This case highlights electrical abnormalities and the importance of proper evaluation and management. It was decided to avoid temporary or permanent pacemaker implantation. This case underscores the need for continuous monitoring and the use of alternative diagnostic tools demonstrating that arrhythmias in this context can be successfully managed conservatively., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest: None declared., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology.)

Infectious diseases exploit niches that are often spatially defined as urban and/or rural. Yet spatial research on infectious diseases often fails to define "urban" and "rural" and how these contexts might influence their epidemiology. We use dengue fever, thought to be mostly an urban disease with rural foci, as a device to explore local definitions of urban and rural spaces and the impact of these spaces on dengue risk in the province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Ecuador, like many countries, only uses population size and administrative function to define urban and rural locales. Interviews conducted from 2019 to 2021 with 71 residents and 23 health personnel found that they identified the availability of basic services, extent of their control over their environment, and presence of underbrush and weeds (known in Ecuador as monte and maleza and conceptualized in this paper as natural disorder) as important links to their conceptions of space and dengue risk. This broader conceptualization of space articulated by local residents and professionals reflects a more sophisticated approach to characterizing dengue risk than using categories of urban and rural employed by the national census and government. Rather than this dichotomous category of space, dengue fever can be better framed for health interventions in terms of specific environmental features and assemblages of high-risk spaces. An understanding of how community members perceive risk enhances our ability to collaborate with them to develop optimal mitigation strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Exposure to animal feces and associated enteric pathogens poses significant risks to child health. However, public health strategies to mitigate enteric infections among children largely aim to reduce exposure to human feces, overlooking transmission pathways related to animal feces. In this study we examine if and how children are exposed to enteric pathogens in animal feces in northwestern coastal Ecuador. We conducted qualitative interviews with mothers of children aged 10-18 months that owned (n = 32) and did not own (n = 26) animals in urban and rural communities. Using thematic analysis, we identified community, household, and child behavioral factors that influence exposure. We also compared child exposure by household animal ownership. Our findings revealed myriad opportunities for young children to be exposed to enteric pathogens in many locations and from multiple animal sources, regardless of household animal ownership. Animal feces management practices (AFM) used by mothers, such as rinsing feces into ditches and throwing feces into surrounding areas, may increase environmental contamination outside their homes and in their communities. Unsafe AFM practices were similar to unsafe child feces management practices reported in other studies, including practices related to defecation location, feces removal and disposal, environmental contamination cleaning, and handwashing. Findings suggest that animal feces may contaminate the environment along similar pathways as human feces. Identification and incorporation of safe AFM practices, similar to those developed for child feces management, would 1) mitigate child exposure to enteric pathogens by reducing animal feces contamination in domestic and public spaces; and 2) enable an integrated approach to address enteric pathogen exposure pathways related to animal and child feces., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Ballard et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: The start of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the implementation of nonpharmaceutical interventions by US institutions of higher education at an unprecedented level. During the backdrop of an emerging pandemic, younger adults (eg, college students) had an overall lower risk for severe outcomes for SARS-CoV-2, making this population a potential source of transmission for age groups with high susceptibility and negative health outcomes. We examine how college students' level of concern for COVID-19 was influenced by different sources of information, their living status, income level, and other demographic identifiers and its association with prevention behavior change., Objective: We sought to examine the level of concern, defined as the extent to which the participant would take corrective action to mitigate contracting or spreading the virus (to family or friends) by using personal protective equipment such as a face mask, practicing social distancing, and following other public health recommendations, among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic., Methods: A cross-sectional, web-based survey was conducted in 2021 among 185 college students aged 18-41 years, with most living in New York City and the United States (n=134, 72.4%). Out of 185 college students, 94 provided their zip codes, with 51 of those college students indicating they lived in New York City areas. The participants completed the survey via a QR code. Study participants who did not complete the full survey or were not college students in any US college or university were excluded. Analyses were conducted using R (version 4.2.2; R Foundation for Statistical Computing)., Results: Of 185 respondents participated in the study, 25 (13.5.%) used emails from their schools, 51 (27.6%) used mainstream media, and 109 (58.9%) used social media and other sources to obtain information about COVID-19. Of the 109 participants who learned about the pandemic from social media, 91 (83.5%) were concerned; however, only 63% (32/51) and 60% (15/25) of the participants who sourced information from mainstream media and their schools' email, respectively, were concerned. Further, the participants who received information from social media and other sources were about 3 times more likely to be concerned about COVID-19 than participants who received information from the university via email (P=.036; OR=3.07, 95% CI: 1.06-8.83).., Conclusions: College students who received information from social media and other sources were more likely to be concerned about COVID-19 than students who received information from their school via emails., (©Emmanuel Peprah, Etornam Amesimeku, Brian Angulo, Himani Chhetri, Judy Fordjuoh, Christina Ruan, Cong Wang, John Patena, Dorice Vieira, Nessa Ryan, Chukwuemeka Iloegbu, Joyce Gyamfi, Jonathan Odumegwu. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 17.06.2024.)

Competing Interests: DL is the Chief Executive Officer and President of the not-for profit global partnership Together for Girls; a co-founder of the Brave Movement; and a Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on gender-based violence and maltreatment of young people. BDA is Chief Executive Officer and founder of the not-for profit A Breeze of Hope; a co-founder of the Brave Movement; and Scientific Adviser for the Lancet Commission on gender-based violence and maltreatment of young people. GG is a lived experience advocate and a Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on gender-based violence and maltreatment of young people. We would like to acknowledge Felicia M Knaul, Director of the University of Miami Institute for the Advanced Study of the Americas and Co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on gender-based violence and maltreatment of young people, and Parker Palmer, Chief Operating Officer of A Breeze of Hope, for their review of a draft of this Comment and helpful comments. We would also like to acknowledge Paul Zeitz for his contribution to the framework discussed in this Comment.

Neurostimulation is a mainstream treatment option for major depression. Neuromodulation techniques apply repetitive magnetic or electrical stimulation to some neural target but significantly differ in their invasiveness, spatial selectivity, mechanism of action, and efficacy. Despite these differences, recent analyses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS)-treated individuals converged on a common neural network that might have a causal role in treatment response. We set out to investigate if the neuronal underpinnings of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are similarly associated with this causal depression network (CDN). Our aim here is to provide a comprehensive analysis in three cohorts of patients segregated by electrode placement (N = 246 with right unilateral, 79 with bitemporal, and 61 with mixed) who underwent ECT. We conducted a data-driven, unsupervised multivariate neuroimaging analysis Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the cortical and subcortical volume changes and electric field (EF) distribution to explore changes within the CDN associated with antidepressant outcomes. Despite the different treatment modalities (ECT vs TMS and DBS) and methodological approaches (structural vs functional networks), we found a highly similar pattern of change within the CDN in the three cohorts of patients (spatial similarity across 85 regions: r = 0.65, 0.58, 0.40, df = 83). Most importantly, the expression of this pattern correlated with clinical outcomes (t = -2.35, p = 0.019). This evidence further supports that treatment interventions converge on a CDN in depression. Optimizing modulation of this network could serve to improve the outcome of neurostimulation in depression., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The present study investigated the participation of the nitric oxide pathway in facilitating lordosis behavior induced by intrahypothalamic administration of apelin-13 in ovariectomized rats primed with estradiol benzoate (EB). The experiments involved the administration of a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor (L-NAME) or a nitric oxide-dependent, soluble guanylyl cyclase inhibitor (ODQ), and an inhibitor of protein kinase G (KT5823) to the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) of EB-primed rats 30 min before infusion of apelin-13 (0.75 μg/μl). This dose of apelin-13 consistently induces lordosis behavior at 30 min, 120 min, and 240 min following infusion. Results showed that injections of either L-NAME or KT5823 significantly reduced the lordosis induced by apelin at 120 and 240 min. However, VMH infusion of ODQ 30 min before apelin-13 infusion reduced but did not significantly inhibit, the lordosis elicited by this peptide at the same time points. We conclude that the nitric oxide pathway in the VMH plays an important role in lordosis induced by apelin-13 in EB-primed rats., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The present study reports no identified conflicts of interest or personal associations that could affect the research outcomes reported in this paper, as stated by the authors., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Neurostimulation is a mainstream treatment option for major depression. Neuromodulation techniques apply repetitive magnetic or electrical stimulation to some neural target but significantly differ in their invasiveness, spatial selectivity, mechanism of action, and efficacy. Despite these differences, recent analyses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS)-treated individuals converged on a common neural network that might have a causal role in treatment response. We set out to investigate if the neuronal underpinnings of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are similarly associated with this common causal network (CCN). Our aim here is to provide a comprehensive analysis in three cohorts of patients segregated by electrode placement (N = 246 with right unilateral, 79 with bitemporal, and 61 with mixed) who underwent ECT. We conducted a data-driven, unsupervised multivariate neuroimaging analysis (Principal Component Analysis, PCA) of the cortical and subcortical volume changes and electric field (EF) distribution to explore changes within the CCN associated with antidepressant outcomes. Despite the different treatment modalities (ECT vs TMS and DBS) and methodological approaches (structural vs functional networks), we found a highly similar pattern of change within the CCN in the three cohorts of patients (spatial similarity across 85 regions: r = 0.65, 0.58, 0.40, df = 83). Most importantly, the expression of this pattern correlated with clinical outcomes. This evidence further supports that treatment interventions converge on a CCN in depression. Optimizing modulation of this network could serve to improve the outcome of neurostimulation in depression., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest Joan A. Campordon is a member of the scientific advisory board of Hyka and Flow Neuroscience and has been a consultant for Mifu Technologies. Rene Hurlemann received lecture fees from Lundbeck, Otsuka, Rovi and honoraria of Atheneum Consultation, Janssen und Rovi. Antoine Yrondi received speaker’s honoraria from AstraZeneca, Lundbeck, Janssen and Jazz. None of the above is related to this data, analysis or the writing of this manuscript. The other authors declared no conflict of interests.

Context: Successful rates of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) face paralleled escalation of late endocrine and metabolic effects., Objective: This work aimed to characterize these sequelae distinguishing between the underlying pathologies and treatments received., Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted in 157 children post-HSCT (hematopoietic pathology [N = 106], solid tumors [N = 40], and rare entities [N = 11]) followed at a single endocrine department between 2009 and 2019. Regression analysis was used to ascertain association., Results: Of all patients, 58.7% presented with at least one endocrine abnormality. Endocrinopathies post HSCT were most frequently developed in lymphoblastic leukemia (60.5% of them), whereas myeloid leukemias had the fewest. A total of 64% of patients presented with primary hypogonadism, 52% short stature, and 20% obesity. Endocrinopathy was associated with older age at HSCT (9.78 years [6.25-12.25] vs 6.78 years [4.06-9.75]) ( P < .005), pubertal Tanner stage V ( P < .001), chronic graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) ( P = .022), and direct gonadal therapy ( P = .026). The incidence of endocrinopathies was higher in girls (15% more common; P < .02) and in patients who received radiotherapy (18% higher), steroids (17.4% increase), allogenic HSCT (7% higher), thymoglobulin, or cyclophosphamide. Those on busulfan presented with a 27.5% higher rate of primary hypogonadism ( P = .003)., Conclusion: More than half of children surviving HSCT will develop endocrinopathies. Strikingly, obesity has risen to the third most frequent endocrine disruption, mainly due to steroids, and partly adhering to the general population tendency. Lymphoblastic leukemia was the condition with a higher rate of endocrine abnormalities. Female sex, older age at HSCT, pubertal stage, allogenic transplant, radiotherapy, alkylating drugs, and GVHD pose risk factors for endocrine disturbances., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society.)

Graft-versus-host disease is the main cause of morbidity and mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. First-line treatment is based on the use of high doses of corticosteroids. Unfortunately, second-line treatment for both acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease, remains a challenge. Ruxolitinib has been shown as an effective and safe treatment option for these patients. Seventy-nine patients received ruxolitinib and were evaluated in this retrospective and multicenter study. Twenty-three patients received ruxolitinib for refractory acute graft-versus-host disease after a median of 3 (range 1-5) previous lines of therapy. Overall response rate was 69.5% (16/23) which was obtained after a median of 2 weeks of treatment, and 21.7% (5/23) reached complete remission. Fifty-six patients were evaluated for refractory chronic graft-versus-host disease. The median number of previous lines of therapy was 3 (range 1-10). Overall response rate was 57.1% (32/56) with 3.5% (2/56) obtaining complete remission after a median of 4 weeks. Tapering of corticosteroids was possible in both acute (17/23, 73%) and chronic graft-versus-host disease (32/56, 57.1%) groups. Overall survival was 47% (CI: 23-67%) at 6 months for patients with aGVHD (62 vs 28% in responders vs non-responders) and 81% (CI: 63-89%) at 1 year for patients with cGVHD (83 vs 76% in responders vs non-responders). Ruxolitinib in the real life setting is an effective and safe treatment option for GVHD, with an ORR of 69.5% and 57.1% for refractory acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease, respectively, in heavily pretreated patients.