Search

As inflammation is a hallmark of most chronic diseases, this article presents a unique condition in two aspects: age and sex. From a population of students aged from two to 19 years old a subgroup with total cholesterol above 150 mg/dl was selected so as to study the C Reactive Protein levels and correlate them with factors that can be risk markers for Metabolic Syndrome. Most trials and scientific publications did not focus in the female sex nor on younger age groups and its specific characteristics. Nowadays these aspects are gaining relevance. This paper aim is to study the levels of C Reactive Protein as an inflammatory marker, priorizing its role in Metabolic Syndrome in girls from childhood to adolescence. It is noteworthy to study the effect of Total Cholesterol in values superior to 150 mg/dl as to the inflammation marker C Reactive Protein and its correlation to Metabolic Syndrome risk markers in a special group of female children and adolescent students. The participants were all above the 80th percentile for Total Cholesterol values. Statistical significances and tendencies were found in the sedentary group aswell as in the higher Non HDL, the higher Triglycerides also, Blood Pressure and Abdominal Circumference. In this analysis neither lower HDL Cholesterol nor smoking habit in their parents were relevant. With the increasing epidemics of overweight and obesity there must be a main focus in prevention. In this paper, the data point to an early start, because of the risk of Metabolic Syndrome. The results in girls as early as childhood to teenage is alarming and claim for public and personal interventions, specifically through healthy lifestyle modifications.

Reactivation of chronic Chagas disease is a serious complication that usually occurs in states of immunosuppression after transplants, malignant tumors, severe infections and chemotherapy. Cases of cutaneous manifestation of Chagas disease reactivation are less frequent than post-reactivation cardiac changes. We report the case of a 64-year-old chagasic patient undergoing heart transplantation and immunosuppressive therapy, who exhibited reactivation of Trypanosoma cruzi infection, manifested exclusively by erythesic skin lesions, arranged on the lateral and posterior side of the left leg, with the presence of histiocytic reaction in the dermis and the presence of intracellular Trypanosoma cruzi amastigote forms. Cases of Chagas disease reactivation in cardiac transplant patients, who may have an asymptomatic course or present several manifestations, including the appearance of skin lesions characterized by erythesia nodules that may ulcerate with local sensitivity, located in general in the lower limbs and whose histopathological aspect of inflammation extends to the subcutaneous cellular tissue, is described in the literature. Skin and subcutaneous tissue biopsies show nonspecific inflammatory infiltrate and numerous nests of amastigotes. In many cases of Chagas disease reactivation, the parasite has not been found in peripheral blood and the diagnosis of reactivation is made by finding the parasite on histopathological examination of the skin. It should be emphasized the importance of the morphological characterization of the Trypanosoma cruzi (size, shape of the parasite), as well as the need for special stains and immunohistochemical examination, aiming at the differential diagnosis with other microorganisms that have the shape and size similar to Trypanosoma cruzi such as Leishmania sp, Leishmania donovani, Toxoplasma gondi and Histoplasma capsulatum.

In spite of the first trials on the effect of cholesterol reduction and its beneficial impact on morbidity and mortality in the elderly many have already proven the antecipated positive results. The high risk attributable to the elderly is a guarantee for an effort in primary prevention, especially when a high level of serum cholesterol is combined with other risk factors linked to coronary artery disease. There are elements of similarity for primary prevention in the elderly over 65 years of age, compared to middle-aged patients. This consideration opened the need for scientific evidence with confirmed levels of evidence. The first studies were WOSCOPS, AFCAPS/TEXCAPS, Heart Protection Study, PROSPER, ALLHAT (Antihipertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial-Lipid Lowering Trial), REVERSAL, Health Study, ASCOT (Anglo Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes), MIRACL, Post CABG, AVERT, ACCESS, ASSET, ATGOAL, CHALLENGE, CURVES, BELLS, ARBITER, NASDAC, PROVE-IT and DEBATE. Positive evidences were shown from the first to the last trial recalled in this historical beginning.

Introduction: Cardiac arrest outside medical center is a major cause of death. The survival rates ranges from 5 percent to 35 percent. In patients who are initially resuscitated, anoxic neurologic injury is the prime cause of morbidity and mortality, besides hazards in multiple organs as the kidneys, for example. Induced hypothermia has proven to improve the prognosis after resuscitation from cardiac arrest. Objective: To demonstrate in experiments where induced mild hypothermia has been able to reduce ischemic and inflammatory damage in animal’s brains and consequently the multiplicity of the other organs. Methods: Experiments were carried out with rabbits and rats when mild hypothermia was induced in order to demonstrate its neuroprotective properties. Results: Induced mild hypothermia demonstrated to be able to reduce the deleterious effects caused by brain ischemia and brain inflammation. Conclusions: Hypothermia may be helpful in reducing the ischemic process as well as in reducing the inflammatory cascade caused by ischemia. We believe that induced hypothermia improves prognosis after resuscitation from cardiac arrest reinforcing the application of mild hypothermia in cases of cerebral ischemia mainly after cardiac arrest.

Background and Aims: Dukan diet, a popular diet with high content of protein and carbohydrate and fat restriction has been widely used for weight loss. We aimed to compare the effects of the Dukan diet with traditional low-calorie diet in nutritional, laboratory and vascular parameters in obese subjects. Methods and Results: Obese subjects classes I or II of both genders, aging 19 to 65 years were allocated into two groups: Traditional low-calorie diet (n=17) and Dukan Diet (n=17). Anthropometric, laboratory and vascular evaluations were performed at baseline, 3, 6 and 12 months. Body composition was evaluated by bioelectric impedance and endothelial function by flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery, at same times. After 12 months, it was verified that Dukan diet was more effective (p

The concomitance of diabetes metabolic markers, as Glycated Hemoglobin and blood glucose, together with lipid changes; Cholesterol and fractions and Triglycerides, occurs very frequently but not always in the same pairs of markers, being its peculiarities important factors for the estimation of the cardiovascular risk. Not only has the association of high glucose levels and high triglycerides pointed to an augmented risk. The study of the correlations of the parameter Glycated Hemoglobin with all the values of the lipid profile may help gain a broader insight as to the associated risks. A database of 548 individuals with concomitant results of HbA1C, triglycerides, CT and HDL-c were applied statistical tests of ANOVA and Tukey. Most of the 546 individuals tested for glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C) and lipid profile had HbA1C levels within normal range (49.8%), 15.4% were classified as prediabetic, and 34.8% had HbA1C levels above 6.4% (diabetics). The overall mean HbA1C observed was 6.3%, and triglycerides was 236.8 mg/dL. Data from HbA1C-lipid profile comparations are not superimposed, as expected, to the combinations of fasting glucose and triglycerides. In not accompanying lipids concomitantly with HbA1C, the correct assessment of the overall risk calculation for atherosclerosis can be omitted. In conclusion, HbA1C levels should be added to the lipid profile for a more accurate estimation of the cardiovascular risk.

In this paper we propose a new distribution of Gaussian points to compute the weak form integrals of the Generalized Finite Element Method (GFEM). The relevance of this new distribution is the possibility of evaluating the integrals of oscillatory functions inside the reference triangle in an alternate way. A simple scheme of relocation of the quadrature points allows to improve the efficacy of the method. A wave propagation problem is solved with the proposed technique and its performance is compared to conventional and other existing proposals. In addition, we propose a new distribution of Gaussian points to the tetrahedral reference element

This paper presents an efficient procedure for optimizing the electric field at ground level of high surge impedance loading transmission lines. Such lines have the capacity to achieve higher power transmission rates than the conventional ones. The ellipsoidal method is applied in order to maximize the transmitted power and minimize the electric field at ground level through the variation of the conductor’s positions in the tower, given its physical and electrical constraints. By means of an efficient new approach to handle the conductors, the optimization gives birth to compact line designs combined with conventional bundles of conductors. Furthermore, it is shown that the proposed strategy can increase the transmitted power, reduce the electric field at ground level, and shorten the running time of the optimization algorithm.

The generation expansion planning (GEP) is a very relevant optimization problem in power systems research. Several factors must be considered in the management of an optimal planning that aims at expanding the generation, such as satisfying a growing demand, dealing with costs of investment, operation and maintenance, dealing with pollutant emission, among others. Considering these aspects, this problem tends to be very complex and meta-heuristics methods have been employed in order to provide satisfactory solutions. This paper aims at reviewing GEP considering five different formulations of the problem and how meta-heuristics approaches can be applied to it. For this purpose, two case studies are presented and, in order to provide a deep analysis, these methods are compared according to their performance, the solution provided by them, and also comparing results obtained among different formulations, which leads to a promising methodology and some interesting results provided.

The production of radioactive isotopes by interactions of cosmic-ray particles with sodium iodide (NaI) crystals can produce radioactive backgrounds in detectors used to search for rare events. Through controlled irradiation of NaI crystals with a neutron beam that matches the cosmic-ray neutron spectrum, followed by direct counting and fitting the resulting spectrum across a broad range of energies, we determined the integrated production rate of several long-lived radioisotopes. The measurements were then extrapolated to determine the sea-level cosmogenic neutron activation rate, including the first experimental determination of the tritium production rate: $(80 \pm 21)$ atoms/kg/day. These results will help constrain background estimates and determine the maximum time that NaI-based detectors can remain unshielded above ground before cosmogenic backgrounds impact the sensitivity of next-generation experiments., Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables

The directional overcurrent relay coordination is often performed taking into account the scenario in which the system is expected to operate most of the time. However, such an approach frequently lead to solutions that are not robust enough to deal with perturbed conditions (e.g., topology changes and line losses), which can cause a cascade sequence of unnecessary load disconnections. A new approach to improve the robustness of directional overcurrent relay coordination is presented in this work. At first, relay settings are found to the expected conditions, using a matheuristic algorithm based on Differential Evolution, Linear Programming, and local search techniques. Afterward, the solution found by the algorithm is used as an input on a re-optimization framework, in which protection must remain coordinated and fast, but undesirable load shedding is also minimized in single line dropping scenarios (N-1 criterion). The proposed approach is applied to four test cases: a real meshed network, IEEE-30 bus, IEEE-118 bus, and IEEE-300 bus. These systems have up to 590 relays and 1,044 primary/backup relations.

Large detectors employing xenon are a leading technology in existing and planned searches for new physics, including searches for neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) and dark matter. While upcoming detectors will employ target masses of a ton or more, further extending gas or liquid phase Xe detectors to the kton scale would enable extremely sensitive next-generation searches for rare phenomena. The key challenge to extending this technology to detectors well beyond the ton scale is the acquisition of the Xe itself. We describe the motivation for extending Xe time projection chambers (TPCs) to the kton scale and possible avenues for Xe acquisition that avoid existing supply chains. If acquisition of Xe in the required quantities is successful, kton-scale detectors of this type could enable a new generation of experiments, including searches for $0\nu\beta\beta$ at half-life sensitivities as long as $10^{30}$ yr., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures; published version

In this paper, a new methodology is applied to optimize the geometry of conductors of overhead transmission lines (TL) with high precision and low computational cost. This methodology is based on the sensitivity analysis of the electrical charge of the transmission lines using the adjoint method. This information is used with the gradient method and the golden section algorithm to minimize the electric field at the ground level of three-phase TL with two cables per phase. The approximation using central finite differences to obtain sensitivity is adopted for validation and comparisons. The TL's with high surge impedance loading is obtained after the optimization process.

The outcome of COVID-19 patients once admitted to the Intensive Care Unit can be compared as to their immunization status. As a stronger immune response is very important for recovery in all medical situations. From a total number of 181 patients with COVID-19 infection admitted to the ICU that had been fully vaccinated with two doses and at least 21 days before admission, all clinical and risk factors parameters were calculated. As it turned out there was a significant fall in all complications and the mortality rate was 10% less than that expected by the SAPS3 (43%). The authors emphasize the recommendation for complete vaccination for COVID-19 having had a very significant fall in the mortality rate. Most COVID-19 vaccines are designed to elicit immune responses, ideally neutralizing antibodies (NAbs), against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a big challenge to the healthcare community and many stakeholders. According to clinical studies, D-Dimer assays may be the "first line" of technical screening in symptomatic outpatients with suspected venous thrombosis or pulmonary embolism. This same affirmation may be applied to COVID-19 as its cause. In this study the comparison of the first two years of the COVID-19 appears the tendency of treatment decision making based in D-Dimer levels being a less important parameter. Many patients with COVID-19 have been observed to present with prominently elevated D-Dimers, findings which have been postulated to reflect underlying thromboembolic burden, which have been associated with increased mortality among such patients.

We examined gender differences in helicopter parenting and emerging adults’ well-being through the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Based on gender congruence theory, we hypothesized that daughters’ well-being would be more adversely impacted by their mothers’ helicopter parenting compared to fathers’, while the opposite pattern would emerge for sons. Participants were 446 college students between 18–25 years old who completed an online survey. The majority of participants were white, female, underclassman from middle to upper-middle class families. Participants reported that their mothers engaged in more helicopter parenting than their fathers. Male and female participants did not differ in the amount of helicopter parenting they experienced, so we tested a model combining these sub-samples. Two minor differences were identified: Daughters reported maternal helicopter parenting was more strongly associated with decreased autonomy and sons reported paternal helicopter parenting was more strongly associated with a decreased relatedness. Thus, a partial equivalence model was tested with only these two paths free to vary between groups. Maternal helicopter parenting was indirectly associated with their children’s reduced well-being on all three measures (i.e., anxiety, depression, and satisfaction with life) through a reduced sense of autonomy and competence. Paternal helicopter parenting was only indirectly associated with their offspring’s well-being through autonomy. Results supported prior research suggesting helicopter parenting adversely affects emerging adults’ well-being through its negative impact on the basic psychological needs of self-determination. There was limited support for gender differences in the impact of helicopter parenting on emerging adults.

Author(s): Chambers, C; Walton, T; Fairbank, D; Craycraft, A; Yahne, DR; Todd, J; Iverson, A; Fairbank, W; Alamare, A; Albert, JB; Anton, G; Arnquist, IJ; Badhrees, I; Barbeau, PS; Beck, D; Belov, V; Bhatta, T; Bourque, F; Brodsky, JP; Brown, E; Brunner, T; Burenkov, A; Cao, GF; Cao, L; Cen, WR; Charlebois, SA; Chiu, M; Cleveland, B; Coon, M; Cree, W; Cote, M; Dalmasson, J; Daniels, T; Darroch, L; Daugherty, SJ; Daughhetee, J; Delaquis, S; Mesrobian-Kabakian, A Der; DeVoe, R; Dilling, J; Ding, YY; Dolinski, MJ; Dragone, A; Echevers, J; Fabris, L; Farine, J; Feyzbakhsh, S; Fontaine, R; Fudenberg, D; Giacomini, G; Gornea, R; Gratta, G; Hansen, EV; Heffner, M; Hoppe, EW; Hosl, J; House, A; Hufschmidt, P; Hughes, M; Ito, Y; Jamil, A; Jessiman, C; Jewell, MJ; Jiang, XS; Karelin, A; Kaufman, LJ; Kodroff, D; Koffas, T; Kravitz, S; Krucken, R; Kuchenkov, A; Kumar, KS; Lan, Y; Larson, A; Leonard, DS; Li, G; Li, S; Li, Z; Licciardi, C; Lin, YH; Lv, P; MacLellan, R; Michel, T; Mong, B; Moore, DC | Abstract: The search for neutrinoless double beta decay probes the fundamental properties of neutrinos, including whether or not the neutrino and antineutrino are distinct. Double beta detectors are large and expensive, so background reduction is essential for extracting the highest sensitivity. The identification, or 'tagging', of the $^{136}$Ba daughter atom from double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe provides a technique for eliminating backgrounds in the nEXO neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. The tagging scheme studied in this work utilizes a cryogenic probe to trap the barium atom in solid xenon, where the barium atom is tagged via fluorescence imaging in the solid xenon matrix. Here we demonstrate imaging and counting of individual atoms of barium in solid xenon by scanning a focused laser across a solid xenon matrix deposited on a sapphire window. When the laser sits on an individual atom, the fluorescence persists for $\sim$30~s before dropping abruptly to the background level, a clear confirmation of one-atom imaging. No barium fluorescence persists following evaporation of a barium deposit to a limit of $\leq$0.16\%. This is the first time that single atoms have been imaged in solid noble element. It establishes the basic principle of a barium tagging technique for nEXO.

The purpose of this study was to develop a consolidated helicopter parenting scale (CHPS) from five existing measures of helicopter parenting and utilize the new measure to examine the relationship between helicopter parenting and intelligence mindset. Participants were 275 emerging adults between 18–25 years of age who completed an online survey. First, we conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis of five helicopter parenting measures to develop a scale that reliably measured participants’ reports of helicopter parenting by both their mothers and fathers. Then, we utilized the new measure to examine whether helicopter parenting mediated the relationship between emerging adults’ report of their parents’ failure mindsets and their own intelligence mindsets. The 10 items retained in the factor analysis primarily captured emerging adults’ perception that their parents’ involvement was inappropriate rather than delineating objective behaviors in which their parents engaged. Both mothers and fathers were more likely to engage in helicopter parenting when emerging adults reported their parents had a failure mindset. However, only fathers’ helicopter parenting mediated the relationship between parents’ failure mindsets and their children’s intelligence mindsets. When parents were viewed as having a failure-is-debilitating mindset, emerging adults also reported that fathers were more likely to participate in helicopter parenting behaviors, which was associated with fixed mindsets in emerging adults. People with fixed mindsets have been found to have decreased motivation (e.g., avoiding challenges and less perseverance) and academic achievement in prior research.

A structured and robust methodology of modeling and simulation can be available through modular stochastic timed Petri nets, including experiments that allow designers to simulate the processes involved in ore production on well-founded estimates. This prerogative guides an experimental research based on real data from an Brazilian open pit mine operation. Three basic simple modules allows to achieve complex models for a real mine. The difference between simulated and measured average productivities are small when compared to an analytic model for the bottleneck and a model implemented in discrete event system language SIMAN, which also validates the simple truck dispatch rule proposed in this paper. As results of the experiment, we derived a valid simulation structure for the open-pit mining process using Petri nets. It was obtained a behavioral evaluation of the efficiency of the structure according to variations in the probability distribution function.

This chapter is devoted to optimization formulations of satellite coverage problems and their solution. They are specially useful in satellite broadcasting applications, where the information goes from one to many. Due to distance from target and power supply constraints, highly directive efficient reflector antennas are the best choice. There are many possible optimization formulations for this problem, depending fundamentally on specifications and degrees of freedom in the system. Some specific coverage problems considering broadband, radiation pattern constraints and interference are presented, where the degrees of freedom are purely geometric.

Silicon photomultipliers are regarded as a very promising technology for next-generation, cutting-edge detectors for low-background experiments in particle physics. This work presents systematic reflectivity studies of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) and other samples in liquid xenon at vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) wavelengths. A dedicated setup at the University of M\"unster has been used that allows to acquire angle-resolved reflection measurements of various samples immersed in liquid xenon with 0.45{\deg} angular resolution. Four samples are investigated in this work: one Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPM, one FBK VUV-HD SiPM, one FBK wafer sample and one Large-Area Avalanche Photodiode (LA-APD) from EXO-200. The reflectivity is determined to be 25-36% at an angle of incidence of 20{\deg} for the four samples and increases to up to 65% at 70{\deg} for the LA-APD and the FBK samples. The Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPM shows a decline with increasing angle of incidence. The reflectivity results will be incorporated in upcoming light response simulations of the nEXO detector., Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures