Linalool-rich Rosewood oil (Aniba rosaeodora Ducke) is a natural compound widely used in perfumery industry. Evidence suggests that linalool exerts antidepressant and anxiolytic effects. Conversely, ...ethanol binge drinking (i.e., intermittent and episodic consumption) during adolescence elicits neurobehavioral alterations associated with brain damage. Here, we investigated whether linalool-rich Rosewood oil administration can improve the emotional and molecular impairments associated with ethanol binge-like exposure during adolescence in female rats. Rosewood oil was obtained by hydrodistillation and posteriorly analyzed. Adolescent female Wistar rats received four-cycles of ethanol binge-like pattern (3 g/kg/day, 3 days on/4 days off) and daily Rosewood oil (35 mg/kg, intranasally) for 28 days. Twenty-four hours after treatments, it was evaluated the impact of ethanol exposure and Rosewood oil treatment on the putative emotional impairments assessed on the splash and forced swimming tests, as well as the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), S100B, oxidative parameters, and inflammatory cytokines in prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Results indicated that Rosewood oil intranasal administration mitigated emotional impairments induced by ethanol exposure accompanied by a marked increase in BDNF, S100B, glutathione (GSH), and antioxidant activity equivalent to Trolox (TEAC) levels in brain areas. Rosewood oil treatment also prevented the ethanol-induced increase of interleukin-1β, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and neurofilament light chain (NFL) levels. These findings provide the first evidence that Rosewood oil intranasal administration exerts protective effects against emotional and molecular impairments associated with adolescent ethanol binge-like exposure, possibly due to linalool actions triggering neurotrophic factors, rebalancing antioxidant status, and attenuating proinflammatory process.
Since their emergence in the Americas, chikungunya (CHIKV) and Zika (ZIKV) viruses co-circulate with dengue virus (DENV), hampering clinical diagnosis. We investigated clinical and epidemiological ...characteristics of arboviral infections during the introduction and spread of CHIKV and ZIKV through northeastern Brazil.
Surveillance for arboviral diseases among febrile patients was performed at an emergency health unit of Salvador, Brazil, between September 2014 and July 2016. We interviewed patients to collect data on symptoms, reviewed medical records to obtain the presumptive diagnoses, and performed molecular and serological testing to confirm DENV, CHIKV, ZIKV, or nonspecific flavivirus (FLAV) diagnosis.
Of 948 participants, 247 (26.1%) had an acute infection, of which 224 (23.6%) were single infections (DENV, 32 3.4%; CHIKV, 159 16.7%; ZIKV, 13 1.4%; and FLAV, 20 2.1%) and 23 (2.4%) coinfections (DENV/CHIKV, 13 1.4%; CHIKV/FLAV, 9 0.9%; and DENV/ZIKV, 1 0.1%). An additional 133 (14.0%) patients had serological evidence for a recent arboviral infection. Patients with ZIKV presented with rash and pruritus (69.2% each) more frequently than those with DENV (37.5% and 31.2%, respectively) and CHIKV (22.9% and 14.7%, respectively) (P < .001 for both comparisons). Conversely, arthralgia was more common in CHIKV (94.9%) and FLAV/CHIKV (100.0%) than in DENV (59.4%) and ZIKV (53.8%) (P < .001). A correct presumptive clinical diagnosis was made for 9%-23% of the confirmed patients.
Arboviral infections are frequent causes of febrile illness. Coinfections are not rare events during periods of intense, concomitant arboviral transmission. Given the challenge to clinically distinguish these infections, there is an urgent need for rapid, point-of-care, multiplex diagnostics.
Few studies of dengue have shown group-level associations between demographic, socioeconomic, or geographic characteristics and the spatial distribution of dengue within small urban areas. This study ...aimed to examine whether specific characteristics of an urban slum community were associated with the risk of dengue disease.
From 01/2009 to 12/2010, we conducted enhanced, community-based surveillance in the only public emergency unit in a slum in Salvador, Brazil to identify acute febrile illness (AFI) patients with laboratory evidence of dengue infection. Patient households were geocoded within census tracts (CTs). Demographic, socioeconomic, and geographical data were obtained from the 2010 national census. Associations between CTs characteristics and the spatial risk of both dengue and non-dengue AFI were assessed by Poisson log-normal and conditional auto-regressive models (CAR). We identified 651 (22.0%) dengue cases among 2,962 AFI patients. Estimated risk of symptomatic dengue was 21.3 and 70.2 cases per 10,000 inhabitants in 2009 and 2010, respectively. All the four dengue serotypes were identified, but DENV2 predominated (DENV1: 8.1%; DENV2: 90.7%; DENV3: 0.4%; DENV4: 0.8%). Multivariable CAR regression analysis showed increased dengue risk in CTs with poorer inhabitants (RR: 1.02 for each percent increase in the frequency of families earning ≤1 times the minimum wage; 95% CI: 1.01-1.04), and decreased risk in CTs located farther from the health unit (RR: 0.87 for each 100 meter increase; 95% CI: 0.80-0.94). The same CTs characteristics were also associated with non-dengue AFI risk.
This study highlights the large burden of symptomatic dengue on individuals living in urban slums in Brazil. Lower neighborhood socioeconomic status was independently associated with increased risk of dengue, indicating that within slum communities with high levels of absolute poverty, factors associated with the social gradient influence dengue transmission. In addition, poor geographic access to health services may be a barrier to identifying both dengue and non-dengue AFI cases. Therefore, further spatial studies should account for this potential source of bias.
We present a novel higher order spectral element method (SEM) in the cylindrical coordinates to rapidly analyze electromagnetic fields in eccentric coaxial waveguides filled with lossy uniaxially ...anisotropic media. Our method achieves accurate results with a minimal number of elements and degrees of freedom (DoFs) in a short amount of time. The formulation uses transformation optics (TO) to map the eccentric circular waveguide into an equivalent concentric problem. In addition, we use higher order 2-D basis functions associated with the zeros of the completed Lobatto polynomial to model the fields in the concentric structure. The convergence analysis demonstrates the absence of Runge's phenomenon as the expansion order increases. We validate the proposed approach against an analytical solution using the Bessel-Fourier harmonics supplemented by Graf's addition theorem (GAT), as well as perturbation-based, finite-element-based, and finite-integration-based numerical solutions. The results indicate the superior accuracy and computational efficiency of our solution.
•Soluble mediators are valuable tools in COVID-19 diagnosis and prognosis.•sTREM-1 has been described as a predictor of inflammation severity.•sTREM-1 concentrations were markedly higher in MIS-C vs ...non-MIS-C acute patients.•High sTREM-1 concentrations had a significant association with MIS-C development.•IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 concentrations were higher in the acute phase compared with the convalescent phase, regardless of whether the patient developed MIS-C.•sTREM-1 in pediatric patients has good predictive accuracy as an early screening biomarker to identify MIS-C cases.
The exacerbation of the inflammatory response caused by SARS-CoV-2 in adults promotes the production of soluble mediators that could act as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for COVID-19. Among the potential biomarkers, the soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cell-1 (sTREM-1) has been described as a predictor of inflammation severity. The aim was to evaluate sTREM-1 and cytokine serum concentrations in pediatric patients during the acute and convalescent phases of COVID-19. This was a prospective study that included 53 children/adolescents with acute COVID-19 (Acute-CoV group); 54 who recovered from COVID-19 (Post-CoV group) and 54 controls (Control group). Preexisting chronic conditions were present in the three groups, which were defined as follows: immunological diseases, neurological disorders, and renal and hepatic failures. The three groups were matched by age, sex, and similar preexisting chronic conditions. No differences in sTREM-1 levels were detected among the groups or when the groups were separately analyzed by preexisting chronic conditions. However, sTREM-1 analysis in the seven multisystemic inflammatory syndrome children (MIS-C) within the Acute-Cov group showed that sTREM-1 concentrations were higher in MIS-C vs non-MIS-C acute patients. Then, the receiver operating curve analysis (ROC) performed with MIS-C acute patients revealed a significant AUC of 0.870, and the sTREM-1 cutoff value of > 5781 pg/mL yielded a sensitivity of 71.4 % and a specificity of 91.3 % for disease severity, and patients with sTREM-1 levels above this cutoff presented an elevated risk for MIS-C development in 22.85-fold (OR = 22.85 95 % CI 1.64–317.5, p = 0.02). The cytokine analyses in the acute phase revealed that IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 concentrations were elevated regardless of whether the patient developed MIS-C, and those levels decreased in the convalescent phase, even when compared with controls. Spearman correlation analysis generated positive indexes between sTREM-1 and IL-12 and TNF-α concentrations, only within the Acute-CoV group. Our findings revealed that sTREM-1 in pediatric patients has good predictive accuracy as an early screening tool for surveillance of MIS-C cases, even in patients with chronic underlying conditions.
This article describes two novel perturbation solutions for the electromagnetic analysis of eccentric coaxial waveguides. Different techniques have been used for solving this type of problem in the ...past. Most of them rely on solving a complicated transcendental equation obtained from the Graf's addition theorem or on brute-force numerical methods such as finite differences and finite elements. The proposed approach, instead, employs transformation optics to map the original problem into a problem consisting of a concentric coaxial waveguide filled with an anisotropic and inhomogeneous medium. The corresponding (transformed) wave equation is then solved via a regular perturbation series. This method allows to compute field and wavenumber corrections of the transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) modes for coaxial waveguides with small eccentricities. In addition, another solution is obtained by using the cavity-material perturbation approach for providing the cutoff wavenumbers of TM and TE fields. The proposed perturbation solutions are validated against full-wave finite-element and finite-volume results in several examples.
Data clustering is related to the split of a set of objects into smaller groups with common features. Several optimization techniques have been proposed to increase the performance of clustering ...algorithms. Swarm Intelligence (SI) algorithms are concerned with optimization problems and they have been successfully applied to different domains. In this work, a Swarm Clustering Algorithm (SCA) is proposed based on the standard K-Means and on K-Harmonic Means (KHM) clustering algorithms, which are used as fitness functions for a SI algorithm: Fish School Search (FSS). The motivation is to exploit the search capability of SI algorithms and to avoid the major limitation of falling into locally optimal values of the K-Means algorithm. Because of the inherent parallel nature of the SI algorithms, since the fitness function can be evaluated for each individual in an isolated manner, we have developed the parallel implementation on GPU of the SCAs, comparing the performances with their serial implementation. The interest behind proposing SCA is to verify the ability of FSS algorithm to deal with the clustering task and to study the difference of performance of FSS-SCA implemented on CPU and on GPU. Experiments with 13 benchmark datasets have shown similar or slightly better quality of the results compared to standard K-Means algorithm and Particle Swarm Algorithm (PSO) algorithm. There results of using FSS for clustering are promising.
A perturbation method is developed for the analysis of anisotropic circular waveguides partially filled with eccentric cylinders. The method allows to compute axial wavenumbers and field patterns for ...hybrid modes supported in waveguides with small eccentricities via a perturbation series. The proposed method is validated against analytical results and numerical results based on the finite-element method (FEM) and the finite-integration technique (FIT) in different configurations. The results show that the presented approach can solve, for example, the longitudinal wavenumbers of anisotropic waveguides with an eccentricity of 23% with a relative error less than 1.78% at a much lower computational cost when compared to numerical techniques.
Carriers of the sickle cell trait (HbAS) usually remain asymptomatic. However, under conditions of low tissue oxygenation, red blood cell sickling and vascular obstruction may develop. Chronic kidney ...disease (CKD) can arise from conditions promoting low-oxygen in kidney tissue, which may be aggravated by the presence of the sickle cell trait. In addition, CKD can arise from other genetic traits.
To compare the frequency of HbAS among hemodialysis patients and the general newborn population of Salvador (Bahia-Brazil), as well as to investigate the frequencies of apolipoprotein L1 risk variants in patients undergoing hemodialysis.
A cross-sectional study included 306 patients with ESRD (End Stage Renal Disease) on hemodialysis for no more than three years. Hemoglobin profiles were characterized by high-performance liquid chromatography. To estimate the sickle cell trait frequency in the general population of Salvador, we analyzed data collected by a local neonatal screening program between 2011 and 2016. To exclude the potential contributing effect of the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) gene variants, we performed genotyping by PCR and DNA sequencing of 45 patients.
The frequency of HbAS was significantly higher in hemodialysis patients (9.8%) than in the general population (4.6%): Odds Ratio = 2.32 (95% CI = 1.59-3.38). No differences in demographic, clinical or laboratory data were found among patients with or without the sickle cell trait. The frequency of patients with none, one or two APOL1 risk haplotypes (G1 and G2) for CKD were 80%, 18% and 2%, respectively.
The frequency of the sickle cell trait is higher in patients with ESRD on hemodialysis compared to the general population. APOL1 haplotypes do not seem to be the determinant of ESRD in these patients.
Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling is a simple, fast, and minimally invasive blood collection method that is particularly useful for diagnostic or epidemiological studies in hard-to-reach populations. ...Nevertheless, the use of DBS in assays that have been optimized with gold-standard samples (serum or plasma) must be optimized to yield reliable results. Here, we describe the validation of DBS in a commercial assay to measure IgG against chikungunya virus (CHIKV IgG ELISA; Euroimmun, Lübeck, Germany). During a health survey of people experiencing homelessness in Salvador, Brazil, between September 2021 and February 2022, a subset (75/523; 14.3%) of the study participants had paired capillary (for DBS preparation) and venous (for serum separation) blood samples collected. A pilot optimization test was initially performed with 17 paired samples to compare the CHIKV IgG ELISA absorbance values between serum and three different dilutions of DBS. Based on the preliminary results, the best DBS dilution was selected for a final evaluation comparing paired serum and DBS samples from 58 participants. The sensitivity and specificity of the CHIKV ELISA of DBS compared to sera were 100% (95% C.I.: 85.8–100%) and 100% (95% C.I.: 93–100%), respectively. In the linear regression analysis, a coefficient of determination (R2) value of 0.98 indicated the excellent performance of DBS in predicting the serum levels of IgG CHIKV antibodies. Our findings suggest that DBS at an optimized dilution is reliable for investigating the prevalence of CHIKV IgG antibodies during population surveys in the commercial assay tested here.
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