This manuscript reports the synthesis and characterization of the first organic-inorganic hybrid material exhibiting efficient multimodal spectral converting properties. The nanocomposite, made of ...Er3+, Yb3+ codoped zirconia nanoparticles (NPs) entrapped in a di-ureasil d-U(600) hybrid matrix, is prepared by an easy two-step sol-gel synthesis leading to homogeneous and transparent materials that can be very easily processed as monolith or film. Extensive structural characterization reveals that zirconia nanocrystals of 10-20 nm in size are efficiently dispersed into the hybrid matrix and that the local structure of the di-ureasil is not affected by the presence of the NPs. A significant enhancement in the refractive index of the di-ureasil matrix with the incorporation of the ZrO2 nanocrystals is observed. The optical study demonstrates that luminescent properties of both constituents are perfectly preserved in the final hybrid. Thus, the material displays a white-light photoluminescence from the di-ureasil component upon excitation at UV visible radiation and also intense green and red emissions from the Er3+- and Yb3+-doped NPs after NIR excitation. The dynamics of the optical processes were also studied as a function of the lanthanide content and the thickness of the films. Our results indicate that these luminescent hybrids represent a low-cost, environmentally friendly, size-controlled, easily processed and chemically stable alternative material to be used in light harvesting devices such as luminescent solar concentrators, optical fibres and sensors. Furthermore, this synthetic approach can be extended to a wide variety of luminescent NPs entrapped in hybrid matrices, thus leading to multifunctional and versatile materials for efficient tuneable nonlinear optical nanodevices.
Objectives: To investigate the quality of life (QOL) of and to characterize patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) in Portugal. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of patients with AD and other ...eczemas. Skindex-29, Skindex-teen, and the Childhood Atopic Dermatitis Impact Scale (CADIS) were the instruments used to assess QOL in adults, teenagers, and children, respectively. The SF-12 was also used, and disease severity was evaluated using the Patient-Oriented SCORAD (PO-SCORAD) instrument. Associations with QOL were assessed based on the odds ratio (OR). P values <.05 and 95%CIs were considered statistically significant. Results: The study population comprised 162 participants aged 0.5-74 years. We found that 37.3% of AD patients consider their disease disabling and that more than half of the patients feel stigmatized by society. The mean Skindex score for AD was 39.68, and the impact on QOL was severe in 44%. “Symptoms” was the most affected category in adults. AD was moderate to severe in 87% of the sample. One of the factors that most influenced poorer QOL in AD was age: with increasing age, the Skindex is likely to increase (OR, 1.03; 95%CI, 1.00-1.06). “Considering the disease a disability” was also associated (OR, 6.72; 95%CI, 2.56-17.63). QOL worsens with increasingly affected body area (OR, 1.07; 95%CI, 1.03-1.11) and the presence of edema (OR, 2.0; 95%CI, 1.23-3.40). Conclusions: This is the first study to provide data on QOL in patients with AD in Portugal. Our data show an expected negative impact. More awareness-raising activities are needed to increase knowledge, decrease stigmatization, and, consequently, address the factors involved in the QOL of patients with AD.
The present study aimed to perform an epidemiological survey on the prevalence rate of oral lesions diagnosed in a referral center in Brazil and to establish association between the lesions and the ...age and gender of the affected patients. This analytical observational study analyzed 3521 medical records of anatomopathological exams of the Pathological Anatomy and Cytopathology Laboratory of the Cancer Hospital of the state of Mato Grosso (Brazil), from December 2011 to September 2015. A total of 1550 relevant medical records was detected. Patients aging between 41 and 60 consisted of 42.84% of the sample. Males were more affected than females (60.13%). Inflammatory processess consisted of the most prevalent diagnosis (43.29%), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (6.06%), and periapical granuloma (5.23%). Oral health public policies must give major attention to Brazilian males aged between the fourth and sixth decades of life in order to improve their quality of life.
This study compared the effects of different conditioning activities on the 100-m dash performance of 11 male, high school track and field athletes (mean age = 16.3; SD = 1.2 years). Participants ...performed a 100-m dash seven minutes after each of four randomized conditioning protocols, with each condition and 100-m dash separated by 3–10 days. The conditioning protocols were (a) control, no conditioning activity; (b) weighted plyometric, three sets of 10 repetitions of alternate leg bounding with additional load of 10% of the body mass; (c) free sprint, two 20-m sprints; and (d) resisted sprint (RS), two 20-m resisted sprints using an elastic tubing tool. We obtained session ratings of perceived exertion (SRPE) immediately after each conditioning protocol. There were no significant differences between any of the three experimental conditioning activities on 100-m sprint time, but the RS protocol improved 100-m sprint time compared with the control (no conditioning) protocol (p < .001). The RS also led to greater sprint velocity and higher SRPE compared with the control condition (p < .01). There was no significant association between SRPE and 100-m performance (p = .77, r = .05). These results suggest a benefit for young male track and field athletes to the elastic tubing warm-up activities prior to the 100-m dash.
To determine the clinical phenotype of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after Zika virus (ZIKV) infection, the anti-glycolipid antibody signature, and the role of other circulating arthropod-borne ...viruses, we describe a cohort of GBS patients identified during ZIKV and chikungunya virus (CHIKV) outbreaks in Northeast Brazil.
We prospectively recruited GBS patients from a regional neurology center in Northeast Brazil between December 2014 and February 2017. Serum and CSF were tested for ZIKV, CHIKV, and dengue virus (DENV), by RT-PCR and antibodies, and serum was tested for GBS-associated antibodies to glycolipids.
Seventy-one patients were identified. Forty-eight (68%) had laboratory evidence of a recent arbovirus infection; 25 (52%) ZIKV, 8 (17%) CHIKV, 1 (2%) DENV, and 14 (29%) ZIKV and CHIKV. Most patients with a recent arbovirus infection had motor and sensory symptoms (72%), a demyelinating electrophysiological subtype (67%) and a facial palsy (58%). Patients with a recent infection with ZIKV and CHIKV had a longer hospital admission and more frequent mechanical ventilation compared to the other patients. No specific anti-glycolipid antibody signature was identified in association with arbovirus infection, although significant antibody titres to GM1, GalC, LM1, and GalNAc-GD1a were found infrequently.
A large proportion of cases had laboratory evidence of a recent infection with ZIKV or CHIKV, and recent infection with both viruses was found in almost one third of patients. Most patients with a recent arbovirus infection had a sensorimotor, demyelinating GBS. We did not find a specific anti-glycolipid antibody signature in association with arbovirus-related GBS.
•Recent infection with chikungunya virus may be associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome•Recent infection with both Zika virus and chikungunya virus was associated with a severe disease course•Patients with a preceding arbovirus infection generally had a sensorimotor demyelinating subtype of GBS•No glycolipid antibody signature was found in association with arbovirus-related GBS
Background:
In Brazil, secondary data for epidemiology are largely available. However, they are insufficiently prepared for use in research, even when it comes to structured data since they were ...often designed for other purposes. To date, few publications focus on the process of preparing secondary data. The present findings can help in orienting future research projects that are based on secondary data.
Objective:
Describe the steps in the process of ensuring the adequacy of a secondary data set for a specific use and to identify the challenges of this process.
Methods:
The present study is qualitative and reports methodological issues about secondary data use. The study material was comprised of 6,059,454 live births and 73,735 infant death records from 2004 to 2013 of children whose mothers resided in the State of São Paulo - Brazil. The challenges and description of the procedures to ensure data adequacy were undertaken in 6 steps: (1) problem understanding, (2) resource planning, (3) data understanding, (4) data preparation, (5) data validation and (6) data distribution. For each step, procedures, and challenges encountered, and the actions to cope with them and partial results were described. To identify the most labor-intensive tasks in this process, the steps were assessed by adding the number of procedures, challenges, and coping actions. The highest values were assumed to indicate the most critical steps.
Results:
In total, 22 procedures and 23 actions were needed to deal with the 27 challenges encountered along the process of ensuring the adequacy of the study material for the intended use. The final product was an organized database for a historical cohort study suitable for the intended use. Data understanding and data preparation were identified as the most critical steps, accounting for about 70% of the challenges observed for data using.
Conclusion:
Significant challenges were encountered in the process of ensuring the adequacy of secondary health data for research use, mainly in the data understanding and data preparation steps. The use of the described steps to approach structured secondary data and the knowledge of the potential challenges along the process may contribute to planning health research.
This study evaluated the effect of different parameters of erbium, chromium:yttrium–scandium–gallium–garnet (Er,Cr:YSGG) laser irradiation on enamel mineral loss in a simulated caries model. ...Forty-five enamel samples obtained from third molar teeth (3 mm× 3 mm) were randomly divided into five groups (
n
= 9): G1—Er,Cr:YSGG laser at 0.25 W, 20 Hz, 2.8 J/cm
2
; G2—Er,Cr:YSGG laser at 0.50 W, 20 Hz, 5.7 J/cm
2
; G3—Er,Cr:YSGG laser at 0.75 W, 20 Hz, 8.5 J/cm
2
; G4—sodium fluoride (NaF) dentifrice (positive control); G5—no treatment (negative control). After irradiation, the samples were submitted to 2 weeks of pH cycling. After the acid challenge, the samples were assessed by cross-sectional microhardness at different depths from the enamel surface. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Student–Newman–Keuls tests were performed (α = 5%). The percentage of lesion inhibition for each group was: G1 37%; G2 38%; G3 64%, and G4 50.5%. Regarding the relative mineral loss values (micrometers × volume percent), groups G1 (1,392 ± 522) and G2 (1,292 ± 657) did not differ significantly from each other, but both had higher values than group G3 (753 ± 287); the groups irradiated with Er,Cr:YSGG laser did not differ from group G4. Although the findings of the study revealed that Er,Cr:YSGG laser irradiation at 8.5 J/cm
2
can be an alternative for the enhancement of the enamel’s resistance to acid, lower energy densities also produced a cariostatic potential comparable to the use of fluoride dentifrice.
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Prostate cancer is an important cause of death in the male population and for which there is no satisfactory chemotherapy. Herein a new series of chalcone hybrids containing ...2H-1,2,3-triazole core as the ring B has been synthesized and evaluated in vitro against PC-3 prostate cancer cell line. Compounds 4a, 4c and 4e significantly reduced cell viability and showed IC50 of 28.55, 15.64 and 25.56 µM, respectively. The structure-activity relationship supported by computational chemistry points that the polarity of the molecular surface area should have some relevance to the efficiency of the compounds, in particular the ratio of the partial positive charge sites and the total molecular surface area exposed to the cell environment.
Moderate and late preterm newborns comprise around 85% of live births < 37 weeks gestation. Data on their neonatal mortality in middle-income countries is limited. This study aims to analyze the ...temporal trend, causes and timing of neonatal mortality of infants with 32
-36
weeks gestation without congenital anomalies from 2004-2015 in the population of São Paulo State, Brazil. A database was built by deterministic linkage of birth and death certificates. Causes of death were classified by ICD-10 codes. Among 7,317,611 live births in the period, there were 545,606 infants with 32
-36
weeks gestation without congenital anomalies, and 5782 of them died between 0 and 27 days. The neonatal mortality rate decreased from 16.4 in 2004 to 7.6 per thousand live births in 2015 (7.47% annual decrease by Prais-Winsten model). Perinatal asphyxia, respiratory disorders and infections were responsible, respectively, for 14%, 27% and 44% of the 5782 deaths. Median time to death was 24, 53 and 168 h, respectively, for perinatal asphyxia, respiratory disorders, and infections. Bottlenecks in perinatal health care are probably associated with the results that indicate the need for policies to reduce preventable neonatal deaths of moderate and late preterm infants in the most developed state of Brazil.
Carbon dioxide (CO
) is considered one of the main greenhouse effect gases and contributes significantly to global climate change. In Brazil, the agricultural areas offer an opportunity to mitigate ...this effect, especially with the sugarcane crop, since, depending on the management system, sugarcane stores large amounts of carbon, thereby removing it from the atmosphere. The CO
production in soil and its transport to the atmosphere are the results of biochemical processes such as the decomposition of organic matter and roots and the respiration of soil organisms, a phenomenon called soil CO
emissions (FCO
). The objective of the study was to investigate the use of neural networks with backpropagation algorithm to predict the spatial patterns of soil CO
emission during short periods in sugarcane areas. FCO
values were collected in three commercial crop areas in the São Paulo state, southeastern Brazil, registered through the LI-8100 system during the years 2008 (Motuca), 2010 (Guariba city), and 2012 (Pradópolis), in the period after the mechanical harvesting (green cane). A neural network multilayer perceptron with a backpropagation algorithm was applied to estimate the FCO
in 2012, using data from 2008 and 2010 as training for the neural network. The neural network initially presented a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 18.3852 and a coefficient of determination (R
) of 0.9188. Data obtained from the observed and estimated values of FCO
present moderate spatial dependence, and it is observed from the maps of the spatial pattern of the CO
flow that the results from the neural network show considerable similarity to the observed data. The model results identify the higher and lower characteristics in sample points of CO
emissions and produce an overestimation of the range of spatial dependence (0.45 m) and an underestimation of the interpolated values in the field (R
= 0.80; MAPE = 12.0591), when compared to the actual soil CO
emission values. Therefore, the results indicate that the artificial neural network provides reliable estimates for the evaluation of FCO
from data of the soil's physical and chemical attributes and describes the spatial variability of FCO
in sugarcane fields, thereby contributing to the reduction of uncertainties associated with FCO
accountings in these areas.
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