Abstract
Idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) is an infrequent and life-threatening disorder characterized by systemic inflammatory symptoms, generalized lymphadenopathy, polyclonal ...lymphocyte proliferation and organ dysfunction caused by a hyperinflammatory state. It accounts for one-third to one-half of all multicentric Castleman disease (MCD) cases. iMCD is often associated with autoimmune manifestations that may precede the iMCD diagnosis, be identified at the same time or follow it. In addition, iMCD may also coincide with a number of autoimmune diseases (such as psoriasis or myasthenia gravis) or autoinflammatory diseases (such as familial Mediterranean fever). Moreover, diverse inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, adult-onset Still disease, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, immunoglobulin (IgG4) related disease, or the recently described VEXAS syndrome, can present clinical features or lymphadenopathy with histopathological ‘Castleman-like’ findings compatible with those of iMCD. Given the iMCD clinical heterogeneity and the overlap with other autoimmune or autoinflammatory disorders, iMCD diagnosis can be challenging. In this review, we explore the overlap between iMCD and inflammatory diseases and provide practical guidance on iMCD diagnosis in order to avoid misdiagnosis and confusion with other autoimmune or autoinflammatory conditions.
Microalgal biomass harvesting by inducing spontaneous flocculation (bioflocculation) sets an attractive approach, since neither chemicals nor energy are needed. Indeed, bioflocculation may be ...promoted by recycling part of the harvested microalgal biomass to the photobioreactor in order to increase the predominance of rapidly settling microalgae species. The aim of the present study was to improve the recovery of microalgal biomass produced in wastewater treatment high rate algal ponds (HRAPs) by recycling part of the harvested microalgal biomass. The recirculation of 2% and 10% (dry weight) of the HRAPs microalgal biomass was tested over one year in an experimental HRAP treating real urban wastewater. Results indicated that biomass recycling had a positive effect on the harvesting efficiency, obtaining higher biomass recovery in the HRAP with recycling (R-HRAP) (92–94%) than in the control HRAP without recycling (C-HRAP) (75–89%). Microalgal biomass production was similar in both systems, ranging between 3.3 and 25.8 g TSS/m2d, depending on the weather conditions. Concerning the microalgae species, Chlorella sp. was dominant overall the experimental period in both HRAPs (abundance >60%). However, when the recycling rate was increased to 10%, Chlorella sp. dominance decreased from 97.6 to 88.1%; while increasing the abundance of rapidly settling species such as Stigeoclonium sp. (16.8%, only present in the HRAP with biomass recycling) and diatoms (from 0.7 to 7.3%). Concerning the secondary treatment of the HRAPs, high removals of COD (80%) and N-NH4+ (97%) were found in both HRAPs. Moreover, by increasing the biomass recovery in the R-HRAP the effluent total suspended solids (TSS) concentration was decreased to less than 35 mg/L, meeting effluent quality requirements for discharge. This study shows that microalgal biomass recycling (10% dry weight) increases biomass recovery up to 94% by selecting the most rapidly settling microalgae species without compromising the biomass production and improving the wastewater treatment in terms of TSS removal.
•Biomass recycling increased from 75-89% to 92–94% the biomass harvesting efficiency.•Recycling increased up to 95% the biomass with high settling velocities (>1.6 m/h).•Increasing recycling rate promoted the dominance of easily settleable species (Stigeoclonium sp. or diatoms).•Biomass production was not affected by recycling.•Wastewater treatment was enhanced in terms of total suspended solids concentration.
Background and Aims
Drug‐induced liver injury (DILI) presents with a wide phenotypic spectrum requiring an extensive differential diagnosis. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is not systematically ruled out ...during acute hepatitis assessment in Spain. The aims of this study were to establish the role of HEV infection and its phenotypic presentation in patients initially suspected of DILI and to determine the anti‐HEV seroprevalence rate.
Methods
An analysis of 265 patients with suspected DILI and considered for enrolment in the Spanish DILI Registry and 108 controls with normal liver profiles was undertaken. Anti‐HEV Immunoglobulin (Ig) G antibodies were analysed in serum from all subjects. In those with serum samples extracted within 6 months from liver damage onset (n = 144), HEV antigen (Ag) and anti‐HEV IgM antibodies were tested in duplicate by ELISA. In addition, RT‐PCR was performed externally in eight patients.
Results
Out of 144 patients, 12 (8%) were positive for anti‐HEV IgM, mean age was 61 years. Underlying hepatic diseases (OR = 23.4, P < .001) and AST peak >20 fold upper limit of normal (OR = 10.9, P = .002) were associated with the diagnosis of acute hepatitis E. The overall anti‐HEV IgG seroprevalence rate was 35%, evenly distributed between patients with suspected DILI (34%), and controls (39%).
Conclusions
HEV seroprevalence and acute hepatitis E rates are relatively high in Spain. A search for active HEV infection is therefore advised in patients assessed for suspicion of DILI, particularly in patients with underlying liver diseases and high transaminase levels.
Urologic perspective of genitourinary syndrome of menopause González‐Arboleda, Andrés Augusto; Arias‐Castillo, Liliana; García‐Perdomo, Herney Andrés
International journal of urological nursing,
March 2024, 2024-03-00, 20240301, Letnik:
18, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Background
Experts define the Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause (GSM) as a collection of signs and symptoms associated with decreased oestrogen levels. Its prevalence ranges between 13% and 87% in ...postmenopausal women.
Objective
We aimed to describe the main pathophysiology mechanisms of GSM affecting the lower urinary tract and the manifestations and treatment options for lower urinary tract dysfunction in GSM.
Results
Several treatments and recommendations have been proposed to enhance patients' ability to manage their symptoms, such as regular sexual activity or masturbation, to increase this physiological response and reduce the severity of GSM.
Conclusion
GSM is a multifactorial and complex syndrome that affects postmenopausal women. Impairment of urogenital structures implies diverse manifestations of genital atrophy and lower urinary tract symptoms.
Universal access to electricity is a crucial challenge in many developing countries. Establishing the electrification agenda of an underserved region is a complicated task where computer models play ...a critical role in calculating geospatial plans that efficiently allocate resources. Such plans should include—among other things—reasonable estimations of the designs and economic costs of standalone systems, mini-grids, and grid extensions. This implies that computer models need to estimate the network cost for many potential mini-grids. To that end, most planning tools apply quick rules of thumb or geometric methods that ignore power flows and electric constraints, which play a significant role in network designs. This paper presents a methodology that rapidly estimates any low-voltage mini-grid network cost without neglecting the impact of electrical feasibility in such cost. We present a case study where we evaluate our method in terms of accuracy and computation time. We also compare our method with a quick estimation similar to the ones most regional planning tools apply, showing the effectiveness of our method.
Sunlight is one of the most frequently used ambient energy sources for energy harvesting in wireless sensor networks. Although virtually unlimited, solar radiation experiences significant variations ...depending on the weather, the season, and the time of day, so solar-powered nodes commonly employ solar prediction models to effectively adapt their energy demands to harvesting dynamics. We present in this paper a novel energy prediction model that makes use of the altitude angle of the sun at different times of day to predict future solar energy availability. Unlike most of the state-of-the-art predictors that use past energy observations to make predictions, our model does not require one to maintain local energy harvesting patterns of past days. Performance evaluation shows that our scheme is able to provide accurate predictions for arbitrary forecasting horizons by performing just a few low complexity operations. Moreover, our proposal is extremely simple to set up since it does not require any particular tuning for each different scenario or location.
A “special coffee” is obtained with an adequate drying process, which allows the preservation of volatile substances responsible for excellent cup quality. The aim was to carry out preliminary ...studies of drying of natural coffee by implementing a Cyclic Pressure Changes (CPCD) dryer, comparing it with solar drying and with a mechanical drying system by forced convection of low-temperature air. The drying times and rates of the systems used were compared, as well as the respective valuation of the cup quality. Drying times were 767 h for solar drying system, without reaching the desired moisture content; 153.5 h for mechanical drying system and 449 h for the CPCD system. However, the global cup tests showed a better quality of the grain obtained with the CPCD system (87 points), than the one obtained with the mechanical drying at 35°C (84 points).
•An LCA tool for non-LCA experts building practitioners in Latin America is presented.•It meets several of literature requirements for LCA tools for first design phases.•A screening LCA of a ...bioclimatic building showed 30% reduction in carbon footprint.•Using local databases and a BIM-LCA integration are some of the tool’s main features.•A carbon footprint benchmark for the Mexican housing use phase has been proposed.
Several Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools have been generated seeking to facilitate its application in buildings. However, most of them are focused on Europe or the US, leaving aside the Latin American region. This paper presents the EVAMED (Building Environmental Assessment tool) framework, a new tool developed mainly for Latin America, aimed at non-LCA expert users. It is analyzed how this software addresses the requirements established in the literature for LCA tools in early design phases. A screening LCA of a bioclimatic project is presented as a case study. A validation has been made by comparing the results obtained with those of a commercial software. The difference between both tools does not exceed an average of 40% considering various environmental impact categories. The results show EVAMED covers several of the requirements established for LCA tools for buildings early design stages, like the use of regional and international databases, the BIM (Building Information Modeling)-LCA integration and its versatility during project configuration and results visualization. Bioclimatic strategies achieve a 30% reduction in the carbon footprint of the case study. The use phase has improved its rating in the Mexican housing carbon footprint benchmark, going from E (78.8 kgCO2e/m2-year) to C (54.7 kgCO2e/m2-year).
Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is characterized by low levels of inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) and a high activity of tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP). Lansoprazole is a partial ...inhibitor of TNAP. The aim was to investigate whether lansoprazole increases plasma PPi levels in subjects with PXE. We conducted a 2 × 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial in patients with PXE. Patients were allocated 30 mg/day of lansoprazole or a placebo in two sequences of 8 weeks. The primary outcome was the differences in plasma PPi levels between the placebo and lansoprazole phases. 29 patients were included in the study. There were eight drop-outs due to the pandemic lockdown after the first visit and one due to gastric intolerance, so twenty patients completed the trial. A generalized linear mixed model was used to evaluate the effect of lansoprazole. Overall, lansoprazole increased plasma PPi levels from 0.34 ± 0.10 µM to 0.41 ± 0.16 µM (
= 0.0302), with no statistically significant changes in TNAP activity. There were no important adverse events. 30 mg/day of lansoprazole was able to significantly increase plasma PPi in patients with PXE; despite this, the study should be replicated with a large number of participants in a multicenter trial, with a clinical end point as the primary outcome.
Wind energy harvesting technology is one of the most popular power sources for wireless sensor networks. However, given its irregular nature, wind energy availability experiences significant ...variations and, therefore, wind-powered devices need reliable forecasting models to effectively adjust their energy consumption to the dynamics of energy harvesting. On the other hand, resource-constrained devices with limited hardware capacities (such as sensor nodes) must resort to forecasting schemes of low complexity for their predictions in order to avoid squandering their scarce power and computing capabilities. In this paper, we present a new efficient ARIMA-based forecasting model for predicting wind speed at short-term horizons. The performance results obtained using real data sets show that the proposed ARIMA model can be an excellent choice for wind-powered sensor nodes due to its potential for achieving accurate enough predictions with very low computational burden and memory overhead. In addition, it is very simple to setup, since it can dynamically adapt to varying wind conditions and locations without requiring any particular reconfiguration or previous data training phase for each different scenario.
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