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Introduction & objectives Liver cirrhosis is a major cause of mortality worldwide. Adequate diagnosis and treatment of decompensating events requires of both medical skills and updated technical resources. The objectives of this study were to search the demographic profile of hospitalized cirrhotic patients in a group of Latin American hospitals and the availability of expertise/facilities for the diagnosis and therapy of decompensation episodes. Methods A cross sectional, multicenter survey of hospitalized cirrhotic patients. Results 377 patients, (62% males; 58 ± 11 years) (BMI > 25, 57%; diabetes 32%) were hospitalized at 65 centers (63 urbans; 57 academically affiliated) in 13 countries on the survey date. Main admission causes were ascites, gastrointestinal bleeding, hepatic encephalopathy and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis/other infections. Most prevalent etiologies were alcohol-related (AR) (40%); non-alcoholic-steatohepatitis (NASH) (23%), hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) (7%) and autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) (6%). The most frequent concurrent etiologies were AR + NASH. Expertise and resources in every analyzed issue were highly available among participating centers, mostly accomplishing valid guidelines. However, availability of these facilities was significantly higher at institutions located in areas with population > 500,000 (n = 45) and in those having a higher complexity level (Gastrointestinal, Liver and Internal Medicine Departments at the same hospital (n = 22). Conclusions The epidemiological etiologic profile in hospitalized, decompensated cirrhotic patients in Latin America is similar to main contemporary emergent agents worldwide. Medical and technical resources are highly available, mostly at great population urban areas and high complexity medical centers. Main diagnostic and therapeutic approaches accomplish current guidelines recommendations.

Introduction: Little is known about hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in patients with cirrhosis. The aim of the present study was to describe the frequency of HEV infection and associated risk factors in patients with cirrhosis from Argentina. Materials and methods: We evaluated HEV seroprevalence (IgG anti-HEV) and acute infections (IgM and RNA) in patients with cirrhosis (n = 140) vs. healthy controls (n = 300). Additionally, we compared the same outcomes in individuals with alcohol-related cirrhosis (n = 43) vs. patients with alcohol use disorder (without cirrhosis, n = 72). Results: The overall HEV seroprevalence in the cohort of subjects with cirrhosis was 25% (35/140), compared to 4% in the healthy control group [12/300; OR = 8; (95% CI = 4-15.99); p

Background In 2013, the DSM‐5 obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders sub‐workgroup developed the Excoriation (skin‐picking disorder) Dimensional Scale (SPD‐D) as a dimensional assessment that enquires about excoriation disorder symptoms that have occurred over the past week. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the SPD‐D in a population sample from Paraguay. Method Participants were recruited through an Internet-based survey. Subjects included were individuals ≥ 18 years old, who self-reported a diagnosis meeting the criteria for excoriation disorder. 531 individuals were rated for the validation analysis. SPD-D was back-translated and validated into Spanish. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis were performed. Participants were also assessed with the Skin Picking Scale-Revised (SPS-R). Results Exploratory factorial analysis reported that only one factor had a raw eigenvalue greater than 1, and explained 57.4% of total variance. Thus, the scale is considered one-dimensional, as confirmed by confirmatory analysis. Fit indices suggest a good adjustment and Cronbach’s alpha showed good internal consistency (α=0.816). Good convergence was found between the scores of the SPD-D and the SPS-R (r=0.822, p Conclusion The Spanish version of SPD-D shows good psychometric properties and adequately reproduces the one-dimensional model of the original English version.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in circuit design based on CMOS technology for higher frequency applications in academia and industry such as Taiwanese companies TSMC and UMC. For instance, this is the case in the design of low noise amplifiers (LNA) and voltage controlled oscillator (VCO). Moreover, the channel length is scaled down as it was initially predicted by Moore's Law, which results in an increasing of switching speed and transconductance. Currently, market leader companies in terms of circuit manufacturing such as TSMC and UMC are working in technology nodes from 40 nm to 250 nm and the implementation of 28 nm is in progress. Indeed, on-wafer MOSFET characterization at high frequency gives place to new extraction methods of equivalent circuit elements and suggestions for compact models such as BSIM, PSP and EKV. Even though the transistor is a four-terminal device, this is usually measured by means of a 2-port vector network analyzer because of the limitation in some laboratories and then, the source and substrate terminals are tied each other. As a consequence of this, the assessment of each parameter cannot be modeled as a function of the bulk-to-source voltage. In order to address this, a separate bulk terminal and a DC probe are used to properly take into account the effect of the substrate, which is not only useful for developing a correct extraction methodology but also for establishing a suitable hot-carrier stress condition. As a result of this, an accurate extraction methodology of the small-signal equivalent circuit elements under different bulk-to-source voltages is proposed, including the analysis of the MOSFET degradation induced by hot carrier injection. On the other hand, due to the geometry-dependent parasitics of the MOSFET, its corresponding variation with both intrinsic and extrinsic components is studied. For this purpose, a set of devices with different gate length and another one with different number of fingers were measured at high frequency. Then, a suitable scalable model that is in a good agreement with experimental data is provided.

The photoacoustic (PA) technique allows a spectroscopic analysis of organic opaque samples and its thermal characterization; so this technique gives information about the pigmentation and the roasting modelling parameters, important for industry and commercialization process, when it is applied to green and powdered coffee samples, respectively. A spectrum is particular of each sample; so is possible to identify different characteristics in coffee powder, for example: purity, caffeine content, roasting level, origin conditions, etc. Powdered coffee PA spectroscopic measurements and correlation analysis that allow proposing a discrimination criterion are reported in this work. Also, the thermal diffusivity of green coffee samples was measured by open cell PA technique, in order to study the relation of this parameter with the bean cellular structure, which was looked through an optical microscopy. The results presented will allow a possible method for certifying organic coffee, which is cultivated without chemicals and has greater price in the international market and positive impact on the environment.