Leukaemia is a haemopoietic neoplasm originating from myeloid or lymphoid precursors in the bone marrow and may be either acute or chronic. These tumours are rare, but occur more frequently in cats ...because of an association with the feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). To the best of our knowledge, no studies conducted in Brazil to date have analysed the association between leukaemia and FeLV and FIV infection in cats. The aim of this study was to perform a histopathological analysis of feline leukaemia and evaluate the association between leukaemia and FeLV and FIV infection in cats. The study evaluated 37 cats with leukaemia diagnosed between 2009 and 2017. The animals underwent necropsy examination, histopathology and immunohistochemistry with anti-FeLV gp70 and anti-FIV p24 gag antibodies. Of the evaluated animals, 54% (20/37) were males and 43.2% (16/37) were females. With respect to the life stage of the animals, 24.3% (9/37) were junior, 32.4% (12/37) were prime, 18.9% (7/37) were mature and 10.8% (4/37) were senior, and five animals were of unknown age. Myeloid leukaemia occurred in 56.8% (21/37) of the cases and lymphocytic leukaemia occurred in 43.2% (16/37) of the cases. Acute leukaemia (73%, 27/37) was more common than chronic leukaemia (27%, 10/37). The positivity for FeLV (78.4%, 29/37) and FIV (16.2%, 6/37) indicated a high association between FeLV infection and tumour development in the study region.
Highlights • We showed important changes in the behavior and neurochemical parameters induced by exercise in an experimental model of PD. • We showed that running and strength training have specific ...responses on the behavior and neurochemical parameters. • We showed that physical exercise modulates pro-BDNF, BDNF, and TrkB in the striatum and hippocampus. • We showed that intensity of the effort is the most important factor to be considered when prescribing exercise.
The Mediterranean diet has been shown to have a beneficial role on various neoplasms, but data are scanty on pancreatic cancer.
We analysed data from two case-control studies conducted in Italy ...between 1983 and 2008, including 362 and 326 pancreatic cancer cases and 1552 and 652 hospital-controls, respectively. A Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS) summarising major characteristics of the Mediterranean diet was used in the two studies separately and overall. Two further scores of adherence to the Mediterranean diet were applied in the second study only, the Mediterranean Dietary Pattern Adherence Index (MDP) and the Mediterranean Adequacy Index (MAI).
Odds ratios (ORs) for increasing levels of the scores (i.e., increasing adherence) were estimated using multiple logistic regression models. Odds ratio for a MDS score ≥6 compared with <3 was 0.57 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.34-0.95) in the first study, 0.51 (95% CI 0.29-0.92) in the second study, and 0.48 (95% CI 0.35-0.67) overall. A trend of decreasing risk was observed also for the MDP and MAI the ORs for the highest vs the lowest quintile being 0.44 (95% CI 0.27-0.73) for MDP and 0.68 (95% CI 0.42-1.11) for the MAI. The results were consistent across strata of age, sex, education, body mass index, alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking, and diabetes.
Our study provides evidence that a priori-defined scores measuring adherence to the Mediterranean diet are favourably associated with pancreatic cancer risk.
This paper presents a real-time relation between the evolution of fluid permeability and the crack width opening in a saturated concrete sample. The standard Brazilian test has been enhanced so that ...one single controlled crack (up to 300μm) is generated in the specimen. The procedure has been then adapted so that the simultaneous monitoring of the cracking process and the evolution of a fluid flow through the specimen are possible. Poiseulle's cubic law is commonly used in numerical analyses for describing the percolation of a fluid in a crack: this law is then corrected accordingly to our experimental observations thus taking into account the actual morphology of the opening crack. The effect of the size of the specimen (diameter and thickness) on the percolation process as well as threshold effect are also investigated and discussed.
•Experimental real-time fluid permeability/crack width opening relation in saturated concrete.•Simultaneous monitoring of cracking and fluid flow through a (loaded) specimen.•Effect of the specimen size on the percolation process and investigation of the threshold effect.•Poiseulle's law takes into account the actual morphology of the opening crack.•Experimental permeability-crack relationship well adapted for numerical models.
•Unprecedented numerical convergence study of widely used finite element model for concrete and refractory castable at high temperature.•It was shown that the strategy of the numerical implementation ...of the sorption isotherm does not change dramatically the convergence order (both in time and space).•Sensitivity analysis of the input parameters that helps the end users to decide which properties must be carefully characterized or not.•Such analysis showed that the permeability is the most important quantity, followed by the thermal conductivity.•A new mixed-element formulation is proposed and validated, providing a framework for extreme cases with high heating rates and strong discontinuities on the mesoscale domains properties.
Structural materials are broadly used in applications such as nuclear vessels, high-temperature processes, and civil construction. Usually, during their placing and lifespan, they may present free or chemically bonded liquid phases in their structure, demanding careful attention when exposed to high heating rates. Their behavior in such conditions is a challenging problem as it comprises numerous highly nonlinear properties (not easily measured via experimental tests), strongly coupled equations and unreliable experimental benchmarks. Nonetheless, such simulations are of great interest. This work aims to provide a numerical study, checking whether its solution indeed converges and yields reliable results. Additionally, as the model needs several input parameters, this work conducts a sensitivity analysis and also assesses its applicability to more complex scenarios, as such issues remain open in the literature. In order to do that, a simple model that can be easily adapted for mixed formulations and complex geometries was proposed. It was found out that when considering unidimensional models the choices regarding the interpolation of the sorption isotherms are not essential to the numerical stability of the system. Besides that, the permeability and thermal conductivity of the material are the most important parameters that affect the simulation results of pressure, temperature and evaporable water content profiles. Finally, the 2D mesoscale simulation of concrete with polymeric fibers (based on the mixed formulation of the problem) yielded results that agreed with experimental observations. Thus, the model proposed herein can provide a solid base for future works and also important insights towards simpler methodologies.
Refractory castables develop microstructures after curing that behave as partially saturated porous media. Upon heating (during its drying stage), the steam generated by the physical and chemically ...bond water can result in pore pressurization and explosive spalling. Numerical modeling can provide guidelines for designing safer heat-up profiles and also a better understanding of the mechanisms that lead to catastrophic damage. This work aims to review the fundamentals and models available, providing insightful thoughts on the current trends of the drying phenomena of ceramic compositions. The review also highlights that there are models better oriented to result in reasonable predictions of pore pressure values and others focused on a more accurate representation of the main physical phenomena that take place during heating. According to the findings, there are still various challenges to attain accurate models with high applicability capable of yielding safer and more efficient drying of refractory castables.
Vergara Dal Pont, I.P.; Caselli, A.T.; Moreiras, S.M., and Lauro, C., 2017. Recent coastal geomorphological evolution in the Negro River's mouth (41°S), Argentinean Patagonia. This paper analyzes the ...geomorphological evolution of the Negro River's mouth to understand how aerodynamic and hydrodynamic states of the Atlantic coast have developed to this date. Accordingly, the morphometry of the beach and the historical river flow record were studied. The results indicate a dichotomous state for this coast. The SW area is characterized by cliffs with an average recession rate of 0.69 m/y during the 1959–2011 period, whereas the NE area is characterized by beaches in stable and accretion states. In the latter zone, a relatively fast coastal accretion was corroborated with the advance of a berm of up to 170 m between 1986 and 2014; furthermore, the beach extension grew to 760 m during 1986–2004. Since 1936, a completely new phenomenon was observed at the Negro River's mouth: the displacement and accretion of intertidal banks toward the coast provoked the closure of the channels of fluvial discharge and tidal currents. This activity at the Negro River's mouth could be due to the reduction of river discharge during the 20th century, which increased the preponderance of littoral current over the river discharge.
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Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Modularity is one of the most important aspects of the continuous development of a system. With a modular platform, it is possible to scale the functionalities, adding more features or keeping just ...the needed ones. A very robust and effective solution for the real-time monitoring problem is an automotive monitoring system whose architecture will be used as the base for a modular photoplethysmography (PPG) acquisition platform. The PPG acquisition platform uses the reflective configuration on the wrist for u-health applications to allow the medical data management of an individual anytime and anywhere. The acquisition platform is equipped with LED voltage control to capture a wave morphology without any interference from skin color, thickness of the fat layer, or stiffness from the subject's artery walls. This article also provides a technique to obtain blood pressure (BP) in a noninvasive way, based only on the PPG signal with an initial calibration. We also study a technique to obtain the BP parameter, also with PPG and without calibration from an auxiliary device. Our results proved the success of the platform in capturing noninvasive BP calculation in real time, achieving the tolerance errors allowed by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). The BP calculation without calibration by an auxiliary device showed promising results, but further studies are needed. Main contributions are the development of a modular human monitoring system based on PPG; improvements on the existing BP calculation algorithm based on PPG; and development of a BP estimation algorithm based on PPG, without calibration from an external device.
The probabilities for the generation of hyperconcentrated flows, and debris and mud flows in the middle basin of Elqui River (Chile) are determined. The objective was achieved collecting, for a ...period of 14 years, the precipitation events generating high-discharge flows, as well as the larger precipitation events that did not generate this process. For each of these events, data of peak 1-h storm precipitation, temperature (representing the zero-isotherm altitude) and antecedent precipitation of 1, 5 and 10 days were collected from three meteorological stations. Initially, an ordinal logistic regression model for each antecedent precipitation was fitted, but all were discarded due to the low significance of these variables in the generation of the models. This result allowed to infer that the high-discharge flows of the region are generated mainly by runoff and not by deep-seated or shallow landslides. Subsequently, a new model with the remaining variables was performed, which was statistically validated. From this, it was considered prudent to take as thresholds for the occurrence of hyperconcentrated flows, and debris and mud flows, their respective probabilities of 50%. For these thresholds, the model had an efficiency in the prediction of high-discharge flows of 90%. Finally, the partial correlation coefficients of each significant predictor variable with respect to the dependent were calculated, establishing that the temperature has greater influence than the peak 1-h storm precipitation.
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