Food constitutes the primary route for human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), one of the highest volume chemicals produced worldwide. The estrogenic properties of BPA, its wide dispersive use and the ...recent extensive literature describing low-dose BPA effects in animals, have raised concerns about its possible adverse effects on human health. A reliable health risk assessment of BPA relies basically on its unambiguous identification and accurate quantification in food, and the aim of the present review is to give an overview of the analytical methods reported so far for the determination of BPA in these matrices. Emphasis is placed on the main strategies developed for sample treatment, which usually consists of several laborious and time-consuming steps in order to achieve the required sensitivity and selectivity. Separation, identification and quantitation of BPA is today reliably made with mass spectrometric methods, namely liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), and thus main attention is devoted to these techniques, but other methods using LC coupled to fluorescence or electrochemical detection, as well as immunochemical methods are also covered. Recent and expected future developments are discussed.
To date, former research about the impact of HIV infection on mpox poor outcomes is still limited and controversial. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the impact of HIV on the clinical ...course of mpox, in a large population of patients from Spain. Nationwide case‐series study. Patients from 18 Spanish hospitals, with PCR‐confirmed mpox from April 27, 2022 to June 30, 2023 were included in this study. The main outcome was the development of long or complicated (LC) mpox, defined as: (i) duration of the clinical course ≥ 28 days, or; (ii) disseminated disease, or: (iii) emergence of severe complications. One thousand eight hundred twenty‐three individuals were included. Seven hundred eighty‐six (43%) were people living with HIV (PLWH), of whom 11 (1%) had a CD4 cell count < 200 cells/mm3 and 33 (3%) <350 cells/mm3. HIV viral load ≥ 1000 cp/mL was found in 27 (3%) PLWH, none of them were on effective ART. Fifteen (60%) PLWH with HIV‐RNA ≥ 1000 cp/mL showed LC versus 182 (29%) PLWH with plasma HIV‐RNA load < 1000 copies/mL and 192 (24%) individuals without HIV infection (p < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, adjusted by age, sex, CD4 cell counts and HIV viral load at the time of mpox, only plasma HIV‐RNA ≥ 1000 cp/mL was associated with a greater risk of developing LC mpox adjusted OR = 4.06 (95% confidence interval 1.57−10.51), p = 0.004. PLWH with uncontrolled HIV infection, due to lack of ART, are at a greater risk of developing LC mpox. Efforts should be made to ensure HIV testing is carried out in patients with mpox and to start ART without delay in those tested positive.
Amphiphile-based supramolecular solvents (ASSs), which are water immiscible liquids consisting of supramolecular aggregates in the nano- and micro-scale regimes dispersed in a continuous phase, were ...assessed for the extraction of trace contaminants in liquid foods. The ASS selected was made up of reversed micelles of decanoic dispersed in tetrahydrofuran (THF)–water and the contaminants used as a model were bisphenol A (BPA), ochratoxin A (OTA) and benzo(
a)pyrene (BaPy). The influence of matrix components on the extractant solvent production, extraction recoveries and actual concentration factors was investigated by using commercial foods such as wine and wine-based products, beer, soft drinks and tea and coffee brews, and/or aqueous synthetic solutions containing specific food matrix components. The method involved the addition of decanoic acid (80
mg) and THF (0.8–1.7
mL) to the food sample (15
mL), stirring of the mixture for 5
min, centrifugation for 10
min and analysis of 10–20
μL of the extract by liquid chromatography coupled to fluorimetry for OTA and BaPy or to mass spectrometry for BPA. No clean-up of the crude extracts was required for any of the samples analysed. The quantification limits for the contaminants (14–31
ng
L
−1, 0.37–0.39
ng
L
−1 and 562–602
ng
L
−1 for OTA, BaPy and BPA, respectively) were far below their respective European legislative threshold limits. Recoveries for food samples were in the ranges 79–93%, 90–96% and 78–82% for OTA, BaPy and BPA, respectively, with relative standard deviations ranging from 1 to 7%, and actual concentrations factors between 65 and 141. The methods developed were applied to the determination of the target compounds in a variety of commercial foods. OTA was found in vinegar, must and beer samples, the concentrations ranging from 92 to 177
ng
L
−1, BaPy was quantified in samples of tea and coffee at concentrations between 1.5 and 16.6
ng
L
−1 whereas BPA was detected in two canned soft drinks and quantified in one of them (tea beverage) at a level of 2.3
μg
L
−1.
The COVID‐19 pandemic is posing a great challenge worldwide. Its rapid progression has caused thousands of deaths worldwide. Although multiple aspects remain to be clarified, some risk factors ...associated with a worse prognosis have been identified. These include obesity and some of its main complications, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Furthermore, although the possible long‐term complications and psychological effects that may appear in survivors of COVID‐19 are not well known yet, there is a concern that those complications may be greater in obese patients. In this manuscript, we review some of the data published so far and the main points that remain to be elucidated are emphasized.
Background
The efficacy of mepolizumab is well documented in severe eosinophilic asthma (SEA), although the stringent selection criteria adopted by SEA clinical trials limits the generalizability of ...results.
Objective
Our study evaluated the effectiveness and safety of mepolizumab in patients with SEA in Spain. The primary efficacy endpoint was the change in the rate of clinically significant asthma exacerbations 12 months after starting mepolizumab compared to the baseline rate in the 12 months prior to treatment. Patients were stratified by baseline blood eosinophil counts.
Methods
We conducted a multicentric observational cohort study of SEA patients treated with mepolizumab across 24 specialized hospital asthma units in Spain. Severe exacerbation rate, lung function, oral corticosteroid use (OCS) and asthma control test (ACT) were retrospectively collected and compared during the 12-month pre- and post-mepolizumab treatment. Adverse events were also investigated.
Results
A total of 318 patients with SEA were included (mean age: 56.6 years, 69.2% female). Exacerbation rates decreased by 77.5%, and 50.6% of patients did not suffer any exacerbations during the 12 months of treatment. The difference in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) pre- and post-bronchodilator after starting mepolizumab was 0.21 (0.46) L (95% CI 0.14–0.27) (
p
< 0.001). Exacerbations and lung function significantly improved across all eosinophil subgroups. Among the 98 patients on OCS, 47.8% were able to discontinue this treatment and the mean daily dose was decreased by 59.9%. The baseline ACT score was 14.1, increasing by a mean (SD) of 6.7 points (1.9) at 12 months. Adverse events related to mepolizumab were uncommon.
Conclusions
This real-world study of SEA patients confirms that mepolizumab is effective in reducing clinically meaningful exacerbations, improving lung function, and decreasing OCS dependence and mean OCS dose at 12 months, irrespective of baseline eosinophil counts.
To analyze the role of microglial and Müller cells in the formation of rings of photoreceptor degeneration caused by phototoxicity.
Two-month-old Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to light and ...processed 1, 2, or 3 months later. Retinas were dissected as whole-mounts, immunodetected for microglial cells, Müller cells, and S- and L/M-cones and analyzed using fluorescence, thunder imaging, and confocal microscopy. Cone populations were automatically counted and isodensity maps constructed to document cone topography.
Phototoxicity causes a significant progressive loss of S- and L/M-cones of up to 68% and 44%, respectively, at 3 months after light exposure (ALE). One month ALE, we observed rings of cone degeneration in the photosensitive area of the superior retina. Two and 3 months ALE, these rings had extended to the central and inferior retina. Within the rings of cone degeneration, there were degenerating cones, often activated microglial cells, and numerous radially oriented processes of Müller cells that showed increased expression of intermediate filaments. Between 1 and 3 months ALE, the rings coalesced, and at the same time the microglial cells resumed a mosaic-like distribution, and there was a decrease of Müller cell gliosis at the areas devoid of cones.
Light-induced photoreceptor degeneration proceeds with rings of cone degeneration, as observed in inherited retinal degenerations in which cone death is secondary to rod degeneration. The spatiotemporal relationship of cone death microglial cell activation and Müller cell gliosis within the rings of cone degeneration suggests that, although both glial cells are involved in the formation of the rings, they may have coordinated actions and, while microglial cells may be more involved in photoreceptor phagocytosis, Müller cells may be more involved in cone and microglial cell migration, retinal remodeling and glial seal formation.
The star-discrepancy is a quantitative measure for the irregularity of distribution of a point set in the unit cube that is intimately linked to the integration error of quasi-Monte Carlo algorithms. ...These popular integration rules are nowadays also applied to very high-dimensional integration problems. Hence multi-dimensional point sets of reasonable size with low discrepancy are badly needed. A seminal result from Heinrich, Novak, Wasilkowski and Woźniakowski shows the existence of a positive number C such that for every dimension d there exists an N-element point set in 0,1)d with star-discrepancy of at most Cd∕N. This is a pure existence result and explicit constructions of such point sets would be very desirable. The proofs are based on random samples of N-element point sets which are difficult to realize for practical applications.
In this paper we propose to use secure pseudorandom bit generators for the generation of point sets with star-discrepancy of order O(d∕N). This proposal is supported theoretically and by means of numerical experiments.
Evidence to support the use of steroids in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia is lacking. We aim to determine the impact of steroid use for COVID-19 pneumonia on hospital mortality. We ...performed a single-center retrospective cohort study in a university hospital in Madrid, Spain, during March of 2020. To determine the role of steroids in in-hospital mortality, patients admitted with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pneumonia and treated with steroids were compared to patients not treated with steroids, and we adjusted with a propensity score for patients on steroid treatment. Survival times were compared using the log rank test. Different steroid regimens were compared and adjusted with a second propensity score. During the study period, 463 out of 848 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia fulfilled inclusion criteria. Among them, 396 (46.7%) patients were treated with steroids and 67 patients were not. Global mortality was 15.1%. The median time to steroid treatment from symptom onset was 10 days (interquartile range IQR, 8 to 13 days). In-hospital mortality was lower in patients treated with steroids than in controls (13.9% 55/396 versus 23.9% 16/67; hazard ratio HR, 0.51 95% confidence interval, 0.27 to 0.96;
= 0.044). Steroid treatment reduced mortality by 41.8% relative to the mortality with no steroid treatment (relative risk reduction, 0.42 95% confidence interval, 0.048 to 0.65). Initial treatment with 1 mg/kg of body weight/day of methylprednisolone versus steroid pulses was not associated with in-hospital mortality (13.5% 42/310 versus 15.1% 13/86; odds ratio OR, 0.880 95% confidence interval, 0.449 to 1.726;
= 0.710). Our results show that the survival of patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia is higher in patients treated with glucocorticoids than in those not treated. Rates of in-hospital mortality were not different between initial regimens of 1 mg/kg/day of methylprednisolone and glucocorticoid pulses.
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits that affect their social relationships, communication, and flexibility in reasoning. There are different types of treatment ...(pharmacological, educational, psychological, and rehabilitative). Currently, one way to address this problem is by using robotic systems to address the abilities that are altered in these children. The aim of this review will be to analyse the effectiveness of the incorporation of the different robotic systems currently existing in the treatment of children up to 10 years of age diagnosed with autism. A systematic review has been carried out in the PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Dialnet databases, with the following descriptors: child, autism, and robot. The search yielded 578 papers, and nine were selected after the application of the PRISMA guideline. The quality of the studies was analysed with the PEDRo scale, and only those with a score between four and six were selected. From this study, the conclusion is that the use of robots, in general, improves children's behaviour in the short term, but longer-term experiences are necessary to achieve more conclusive results.
The correlation measure of order k is an important measure of pseudorandomness for binary sequences. This measure tries to look for dependence between several shifted versions of a sequence. We study ...the relation between the correlation measure of order k and two other pseudorandom measures: the Nth linear complexity and the Nth maximum order complexity. We simplify and improve several state-of-the-art lower bounds for these two measures using the Hamming bound as well as weaker bounds derived from it.
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