Purpose To determine whether bevacizumab may improve anatomic and visual outcomes in patients with ocular ischemic syndrome (OIS). Design Interventional case reports. Methods Two patients with OIS ...presenting with unilateral ocular pain, iris neovascularization, and macular edema. Intravitreal injection of bevacizumab (1.25 mg). The main outcome measures were postinjection best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP), angiographic findings, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings and complications. Results One week after treatment, both patients demonstrated regression of the iris neovascularization and improvement of the macular edema, with no changes in BCVA and IOP. One eye was reinjected at four months. After three and seven months, no significant or systemic adverse events were observed, and no signs of new iris neovascularization were present. Conclusions Intravitreal bevacizumab may be useful for the treatment of eyes with iris neovascularization and macular edema secondary to OIS.
To investigate the effect of biofertilizers on the growth and yield of Eucalyptus grandis seedlings, greenhouse experiments were performed applying fertilizers based on agricultural byproducts, ...inoculated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria of the genera Azotobacter spp and Azospirillum spp. For the biofertilizers formulation, a nitrogen-fixing bacteria consortium was inoculated, and the experimental design was a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement, the factors were nitrogen source (NS: chicken manure), source of carbon (CS: eucalyptus leaf litter) and source of micronutrients (RS: rhizospheric soil) with two dose levels, inoculated with a consortium of Azotobacter spp and Azospirillum spp. The optimal time production of the best biofertilizers was 30 days, with the highest density of Azospirillum (9.23 × 10
6
CFU·g
−1
) and Azotobacter (19.3 × 10
6
CFU·g
−1
), and total nitrogen contents in the range of 2.15-5.64%, released into the biofertilizers with chicken manure and bioaugmented with the bacterium consortium. The treatment with the highest dose of biofertilizer, 500 g, showed the most significant effect on seedling development, increasing growth, stimulating rooting and the highest increase in leaf number. The results show that biofertilizers contributed to Eucalyptus grandis crop yield, and biofertilizers are proposed as an alternative for implementing sustainable soil management in the forest sector.
The present work presents new bactericidal coatings, based on two families of non-toxic, antimicrobial glasses belonging to B2O3-SiO2-Na2O-ZnO and SiO2-Na2O-Al2O3-CaO-B2O3 systems. Free of cracking, ...single layer direct coatings on different biomedical metallic substrates (titanium alloy, Nb, Ta, and stainless steel) have been developed. Thermal expansion mismatch was adjusted by changing glass composition of the glass type, as well as the firing atmosphere (air or Ar) according to the biomedical metallic substrates. Formation of bubbles in some of the glassy coatings has been rationalized considering the reactions that take place at the different metal/coating interfaces. All the obtained coatings were proven to be strongly antibacterial versus Escherichia coli (>4 log).
The estimation of the density and refractive index of ternary mixtures comprising the ionic liquid (IL) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, 2-propanol, and water at a fixed temperature of ...298.15 K has been attempted through artificial neural networks. The obtained results indicate that the selection of this mathematical approach was a well-suited option. The mean prediction errors obtained, after simulating with a dataset never involved in the training process of the model, were 0.050% and 0.227% for refractive index and density estimation, respectively. These accurate results, which have been attained only using the composition of the dissolutions (mass fractions), imply that, most likely, ternary mixtures similar to the one analyzed, can be easily evaluated utilizing this algorithmic tool. In addition, different chemical processes involving ILs can be monitored precisely, and furthermore, the purity of the compounds in the studied mixtures can be indirectly assessed thanks to the high accuracy of the model.
Heavy metal ions are known to produce harmful alterations on kidney function. Specifically, the accumulation of Hg2+ in kidney tissue may induce renal failure. In this work, the protective effect of ...CDP‐choline against the deleterious effects induced by Hg2+ on renal function was studied. CDP‐choline administered ip at a dose of 125 mg/kg body weight prevented the damage induced by Hg2+ administration at a dose of 3 mg/kg body weight. The findings indicate that CDP‐choline guards mitochondria against Hg2+‐toxicity by preserving their ability to retain matrix content, such as accumulated Ca2+. This nucleotide also protected mitochondria from Hg2+‐induced loss of the transmembrane electric gradient and from the generation of hydrogen peroxide and membrane TBARS. In addition, CDP‐choline avoided the oxidative damage of mtDNA and inhibited the release of the interleukins IL‐1 and IL6, recognized as markers of acute inflammatory reaction. After the administration of Hg2+ and CDP, CDP‐choline maintained nearly normal levels of renal function and creatinine clearance, as well as blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine.
A multilayer perceptron neural network (NN) model has been created for the estimation of the water content present in the following ionic liquids (ILs): 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, ...1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium methylsulfate, 1,3-dimethylimidazolium methylsulfate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethylsulfate. To achieve this goal, their density and viscosity values were used. The experimental values of these physicochemical properties, employed to design the NN model, were measured and registered at 298.15K. They were determined at different relative humidity values ranging from 11.1 to 84.3%. The estimated results were then compared with the experimental measurements of the water content, which were carried out by the Karl Fischer technique, and the difference between the real and estimated values was less than 0.05 and 3.1% in the verification and validation processes, respectively. In addition, an external validation process was developed using four bibliographical references. In this case, the mean prediction error was less than 6.3%. In light of these results, the NN model shows an acceptable goodness of fit, sufficient robustness, and an adequate estimative capacity to determine the water content inside the studied range of the ILs analyzed.
•Application of simple neural networks to predict the water content of ionic liquids.•Easy-to-know properties are used to estimate a more complex property.•This approach could lead towards a control of the water content.•Fast way to predict the water content of ionic liquids by usually known properties.•The monitoring of ionic liquid properties by its water content can be achieved.
Two types of covalently NH-linked porphyrin−phthalocyanine dyads, connected either through the meso phenyl group or the β-pyrrolic position of the porphyrin, have been synthesized following ...statistical condensation methodologies for phthalocyanine preparation and palladium-catalyzed amination methods. Photophysical studies have revealed that energy transfer from the porphyrin to the phthalocyanine prevails regardless of linkage.
In Chile, a vast and persistent gender gap in math performance at university admission has negative consequences for women’s opportunities. International evidence suggests that these gender ...differences reflect gender inequities in educational and economic opportunities available in a given culture. A theoretical model suggests that sociocultural factors such as gender stereotype and math anxiety have an impact on women’s math abilities by affecting their skills for cognitive reflection. This cross-sectional study collected data from 259 university students to gather preliminary evidence on the close relationship between gender gaps in math achievement and gender gaps in cognitive reflection. A mediation analysis shows that the level of cognitive reflection of students fully mediates the effect of gender on math achievement, even after controlling for participants’ linguistic abilities. These findings support the possibility that there is a close relationship between gender differences in cognitive reflection and gender gaps in math achievement at university admission in Chile. The discussion emphasizes that the university admission’s data is under the control of state agencies with strict protocols of information access that undermines the feasibility of researching this area. Assessments of cognitive reflection are easy to administer in only a few minutes and under laboratory conditions. Hence, one way to boost the viability of research and diagnosis of gender gaps in Chile is to use cognitive reflection assessments as proximal estimates for gender gaps in math performance at university admission.
A wide variety of olive oil samples from different origins and olive types has been chemically analyzed as well as evaluated by trained sensory panelists. Six chemical parameters have been obtained ...for each sample (free fatty acids, peroxide value, two UV absorption parameters (K 232 and K 268), 1,2-diacylglycerol content, and pyropheophytins) and linked to their quality using an artificial neural network-based model. Herein, the nonlinear algorithms were used to distinguish olive oil quality. Two different methods were defined to assess the statistical performance of the model (a K-fold cross-validation (K = 6) and three different blind tests), and both of them showed around a 95–96% correct classification rate. These results support that a relationship between the chemical and the sensory analyses exists and that the mathematical tool can potentially be implemented into a device that could be employed for various useful applications.
Faradaic current measurements have been carried out on three different types of mullite: 2:1 mullite single crystals (
⊥
), 3:2 ceramics and 11% mullite/Mo composites. Measurements were carried out ...on very thin samples (60 μm) at high voltages (500 to 1000 V). Under these conditions, measurable currents were recorded even at room temperature. Results indicate notable differences between these three samples, which suggest that, although they share the same name and similar crystalline structure, binding energies and defect distributions seem to be very different. Finally, it has been seen that the excellent behaviour against dielectric breakdown of ceramic mullite does not hold for single crystals or mullite based cermets.
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