The increasing complexity in morphology and composition of modern biomedical materials (e.g., soft and hard biological tissues, synthetic and natural‐based scaffolds, technical textiles) and the high ...sensitivity to the processing environment requires the development of innovative but benign technologies for processing and treatment. This scenario is particularly applicable where current conventional techniques (steam/dry heat, ethylene oxide, and gamma irradiation) may not be able to preserve the functionality and integrity of the treated material. Sterilization using supercritical carbon dioxide emerges as a green and sustainable technology able to reach the sterility levels required by regulation without altering the original properties of even highly sensitive materials. In this review article, an updated survey of experimental protocols based on supercritical sterilization and of the efficacy results sorted by microbial strains and treated materials was carried out. The application of the supercritical sterilization process in materials used for biomedical, pharmaceutical, and food applications is assessed. The opportunity of supercritical sterilization of not only replace the above mentioned conventional techniques, but also of reach unmet needs for sterilization in highly sensitive materials (e.g., single‐use medical devices, the next‐generation biomaterials, and medical devices and graft tissues) is herein unveiled.
Postoperative myocardial revascularization atrial fibrillation (POAF) is a clinical complication that affects about 30% of patients and its mechanisms of origin are still poorly understood. This fact ...makes it difficult to identify the patient at greatest risk for this arrhythmia. This mission seems evident due to the complications it entails, including longer hospital stays, risk of stroke, heart failure, and death. There are reports of preoperative clinical aspects inherent to the patient's condition, such as gender and age, and discontinuation of beta-blockers as risk factors. In addition, additional information obtained by electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and blood count data, for example, present only modest predictive results. The analysis of heart rate and heart rate variability obtained by the Stroke Risk Analysis System (SRA) is a technique used to predict ambulatory atrial fibrillation (AF), using recordings of only one hour showing good accuracy. This system, however, has not yet been used to predict the emergence of POAF. The rationale for its use is based on the suspicion that the emergence of POAF is strongly related to sympatho-vagal imbalance and the increase in atrial ectopia, that is, changes in heart rhythm, the main variables analyzed by the SRA algorithm.
To assess the accuracy of the SRA to identify patients at risk of having POAF after coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG).
114 consecutive patients with coronary artery disease underwent coronary artery bypass grafting between the years 2015 and 2018. Between the first and fifth postoperative days, they underwent continuous electrocardiographic monitoring using the Holter system for cardiac rhythm analysis. Patients were divided into two groups: Group I was formed of those with POAF and Group II included patients without POAF. The tracings obtained by Holter were reanalyzed using the CardioManager®/Cardios program, converted and divided into one-hour sections using the SRA®/Cardios and Geratherm Converter program and submitted to the SRA-Apoplex medical/Geratherm® analysis algorithm. The SRA identifies three possibilities for classifying patient risk: a) Risk 0: patient in sinus rhythm; b) Risk 1: patient at increased risk for paroxysmal AF; c) Risk 2: patient with AF already present. For Group I, SRA were considered positive when Risks 1 and 2 were identified. For Group II, those identified as Risk 0 were considered negative SRA.
POAF occurred in 33/114 patients (28%). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the SRA to identify patients with POAF were 69%, 84%, 69%, and 82%, respectively; the positive and negative likelihood ratios, in addition to the accuracy of the SRA were, respectively, 4.3%, 0.36%, and 79%. A subanalysis of the results of the day on which AF occurred was performed on the records obtained in the first three hours of recording and up to three hours before the appearance of POAF. In the first period, the SRA was able to predict POAF in 57% of cases, while in the second period, the system identified the arrhythmia in 83% of cases.
a) The SRA presents good accuracy to predict POAF; b) its accuracy is moderate in the first three hours of recording; c) the accuracy increases significantly near the beginning of POAF; d) these findings indicate that electrophysiological changes that precede POAF are acute, occurring a few hours before the event and are identified by the SRA algorithm.
Fiber Bragg gratings are widely used optical fiber sensors for measuring temperature and/or mechanical strain. Nevertheless, the high cost of the interrogation systems is the most important drawback ...for their large commercial application. In this work, an in-line Fabry-Perot interferometer based edge filter is explored in the interrogation of fiber Bragg grating dynamic measurements up to 5 kHz. Two devices an accelerometer and an arterial pulse wave probe were interrogated with the developed approach and the results were compared with a commercial interrogation monitor. The data obtained with the edge filter are in agreement with the commercial device, with a maximum RMSE of 0.05 being able to meet the requirements of the measurements. Resolutions of 3.6 pm and 2.4 pm were obtained, using the optical accelerometer and the arterial pulse wave probe, respectively.
Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is a serious health problem in Latin America and is an emerging disease in non-endemic countries. In recent decades, the epidemiological ...profile of the disease has changed due to new patterns of immigration and successful control in its transmission, leading to the urbanization and globalization of the disease. Dilated cardiomyopathy is the most important and severe manifestation of human chronic Chagas disease and is characterized by heart failure, ventricular arrhythmias, heart blocks, thromboembolic phenomena, and sudden death. This article will present an overview of the clinical and epidemiological aspects of Chagas disease. It will focus on several clinical aspects of the disease, such as chronic Chagas disease without detectable cardiac pathology, as well as dysautonomia, some specific features, and the principles of treatment of chronic cardiomyopathy.
The switch from hunting wild meat for home consumption to supplying more lucrative city markets in Amazonia can adversely affect some game species. Despite this, information on the amounts of wild ...meat eaten in Amazonian cities is still limited. We estimated wild meat consumption rates in 5 cities in the State of Amazonas in Brazil through 1046 door‐to‐door household interviews conducted from 2004 to 2012. With these data, we modeled the relationship between wild meat use and a selection of socioeconomic indices. We then scaled up our model to determine the amounts of wild meat likely to be consumed annually in the 62 urban centers in central Amazonia. A total of 80.3% of all interviewees reported consuming wild meat during an average of 29.3 (CI 11.6) days per year. Most wild meat was reported as bought in local markets (80.1%) or hunted by a family member (14.9%). Twenty‐one taxa were cited as consumed, mostly mammals (71.6%), followed by reptiles (23.2%) and then birds (5.2%). The declared frequency of wild meat consumption was positively correlated with the proportion of rural population as well as with the per capita gross domestic product of the municipality (administrative divisions) where the cities were seated. We estimated that as much as 10,691 t of wild meat might be consumed annually in the 62 urban centers within central Amazonia, the equivalent of 6.49 kg per person per year. In monetary terms, this amounts to US$21.72 per person per year or US$35.1 million overall, the latter figure is comparable to fish and timber production in the region. Given this magnitude of wild meat trade in central Amazonia, it is fundamental to integrate this activity into the formal economy and actively develop policies that allow the trade of more resilient taxa and restrict trade in species sensitive to hunting.
Mercado y Consumo Urbano de Carne Silvestre en la Amazonia Central
Resumen
El cambio de la caza de animales silvestres para consumo del hogar a caza para surtir mercados urbanos más lucrativos en la Amazonia puede afectar negativamente a algunas especies de caza. A pesar de esto, la información sobre la cantidad de carne silvestre que se consume en las ciudades de la Amazonia todavía es limitada. Estimamos las tasas de consumo de carne silvestre en cinco ciudades del Estado de Amazonas, Brasil, por medio de 1046 entrevistas presenciales a hogares realizadas entre 2004 y 2012. Con estos datos modelamos la relación entre el uso de la carne silvestre y una selección de índices socioeconómicos. Después aumentamos nuestro modelo para determinar la cantidad de carne silvestre que tal vez se consume anualmente en los 62 centros urbanos de la Amazonia central. Un total de 80.3% de todos los entrevistados reportaron el consumo de carne silvestre durante un promedio de 29.3 (CI 11.6) días por año. La mayoría de la carne silvestre fue reportada como comprada en mercados locales (80.1%) o cazada por algún integrante de la familia (14.9%). Se citaron 21 taxones como parte del consumo, principalmente mamíferos (71.6%), seguidos por reptiles (23.2%) y aves (5.2%). La frecuencia declarada de consumo de carne silvestre estuvo correlacionada positivamente con la proporción de población rural, así como con el producto doméstico bruto per cápita de la municipalidad (divisiones administrativas) en donde se encuentran las ciudades. Estimamos que un máximo de 10,691 toneladas de carne silvestre podrían ser consumidas anualmente en los 62 centros urbanos de la Amazonia central, el equivalente a 6.49 kg/persona/año. En términos monetarios, esto equivale a US$21.72/persona/año o US$35.1 millones en general. Esta última cifra es comparable con la producción de madera y de peces en la región. Dada esta magnitud del mercado de carne silvestre en la Amazonia central, es fundamental la integración de esta actividad en la economía formal y el desarrollo activo de políticas que permitan el mercado de taxones más resilientes y que restrinjan el mercado para las especies sensibles a la caza.
摘要
在亚马逊地区, 对野生动物的狩猎从供家庭食用到供应利润更高的城市市场的转变, 可能对一些狩猎物种产生负面影响。尽管如此, 关于亚马逊城市食用野生动物肉类的数量信息仍然很少。我们通过 2004‐2012 年间的 1046 次上门访问, 估计了巴西亚马逊州五个城市的野生动物肉类食用量, 并利用这些数据分析了野生动物肉类利用与一些社会经济指数的关系。接下来, 我们利用这个模型模拟了亚马逊中部六十二个城市中心区每年的野生动物肉类食用量。结果显示, 总计 80.3% 的受访者报告每年平均 29.3 天 (CI为 11.6 天) 食用野生动物肉; 大部分肉类购自当地市场 (80.1%) 或由家庭成员狩猎获得 (14.9%) ; 食用的肉类来自二十一个类群, 主要是哺乳动物 (71.6%) 、爬行动物 (23.2%) 和鸟类 (5.2%) ; 野生动物肉类的食用频率与农村人口比例及其城市所在行政区的人均国内生产总值呈正相关。我们估计亚马逊中部地区六十二个城市中心区每年野生动物肉的食用量高达 10691 吨, 相当于每人每年食用 6.49 千克。按货币计算, 即每人每年食用 21.58 美元的野生动物肉, 或每年总计食用 3510 万美元的肉类, 后者相当于该地区采矿及木材生产总额。鉴于亚马逊中部地区野生动物肉类交易的规模之大, 应将这一活动纳入正式经济活动, 积极制定政策来支持开展那些较强恢复能力物种的交易, 而限制交易对狩猎敏感的物种。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】
Article impact statement: In central Amazonia, wild meat is widely consumed by urban residents; its trade generates as much as the fish and timber industries.
Background
Methamphetamine abuse is a worldwide concern with long‐term health complications. Its impact on neurons has been extensively investigated, and it is currently known that glial cells, ...including astrocytes, are involved in drug‐induced outcomes. Importantly, METH also causes blood‐brain barrier (BBB) disruption and astrocytes are critical for BBB (dys)function. Therefore, we aimed to clarify the involvement of neuroinflammation mediated by astrocytes in BBB permeability and brain oedema induced by METH. Further, we aimed to identify a new approach to counteract METH effects.
Methods
Mice were administered with a METH binge regimen (4 × 10 mg/kg) alone or in combination with parthenolide (PTL; 4 × 1 mg/kg), and hippocampi were analysed. For in vitro studies, mouse primary cultures of astrocytes were exposed to 250 µM METH, alone or co‐treated with 10 µM PTL.
Results
We observed a neuroinflammatory response characterized by astrocytic morphological changes and increased TNF‐α, iNOS and ICAM‐1 protein levels (213.62%, 205.76% and 191.47% of control, respectively). Additionally, brain oedema and BBB disruption were identified by increased water content (81.30% of tissue weight) and albumin (224.40% of control) in the hippocampal tissue, as well as a significant decrease in vessel coverage by astrocytes after METH exposure. Regarding astrocyte cultures, we further identified TNF‐α as a key player in METH‐induced cell swelling. Importantly, PTL (present in feverfew plant) prevented both animal and in vitro effects induced by METH.
Conclusions
We provided important insights on brain dysfunction induced by METH, and we also suggest a new approach to counteract such negative effects.
Fully convolutional networks have been achieving remarkable results in image semantic segmentation, while being efficient. Such efficiency results from the capability of segmenting several voxels in ...a single forward pass. So, there is a direct spatial correspondence between a unit in a feature map and the voxel in the same location. In a convolutional layer, the kernel spans over all channels and extracts information from them. We observe that linear recombination of feature maps by increasing the number of channels followed by compression may enhance their discriminative power. Moreover, not all feature maps have the same relevance for the classes being predicted. In order to learn the inter-channel relationships and recalibrate the channels to suppress the less relevant ones, squeeze and excitation blocks were proposed in the context of image classification with convolutional neural networks. However, this is not well adapted for segmentation with fully convolutional networks since they segment several objects simultaneously, hence a feature map may contain relevant information only in some locations. In this paper, we propose recombination of features and a spatially adaptive recalibration block that is adapted for semantic segmentation with fully convolutional networks- the SegSE block. Feature maps are recalibrated by considering the cross-channel information together with spatial relevance. The experimental results indicate that recombination and recalibration improve the results of a competitive baseline, and generalize across three different problems: brain tumor segmentation, stroke penumbra estimation, and ischemic stroke lesion outcome prediction. The obtained results are competitive or outperform the state of the art in the three applications.
The pursuit of biocompatible, breathable and skin-conformable wearable sensors has predominantly focused on synthetic stretchable hydrophobic polymers. Microbial nanocellulose (MNC) is an exceptional ...skin-substitute natural polymer routinely used for wound dressing and offers unprecedented potential as substrate for wearable sensors. A versatile strategy for engineering wearable sensing platforms is reported, with sensing units made of screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs) on MNC. As-prepared SPCEs were used to detect the toxic metals cadmium (Cd2+) and lead (Pb2+) with limits of detection of 1.01 and 0.43 μM, respectively, which are sufficient to detect these metal ions in human sweat and urine. SPCEs functionalized through anodic pre-treatments were used for detecting uric acid and 17β-estradiol in artificial sweat, with detection limits of 1.8 μM and 0.58 μM, respectively. The electrochemical treatment created oxygen groups on the carbon surfaces, thus improving wettability and hydrophilicity. MNC was herein exploited as an adhesive-free, yet highly skin-adherent platform for wearable sensing devices that also benefit from the semi-permeable, non-allergenic, and renewable features that make MNC unique within the pool of materials that have been used for such a purpose. Our findings have clear implications for the developments on greener and more biocompatible but still efficient substrates and may pave the route for combining immunosensing devices with drug delivery therapies.
Display omitted
•Skin-adherent biosensors based on pure nanocellulose fibers substrate.•SPCE on MNC enables the detection of uric acid, 17β-estradiol, Pb2+ and Cd2+ in sweat.•MNC membranes allow optimal skin integration in wearable technologies.
The synthesis of ruthenium(II) phthalocyanines (RuPcs) endowed with one carbohydrate unit—that is, glucose, galactose and mannose—and a dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) ligand at the two axial coordination ...sites, respectively, is described. Two series of compounds, one unsubstituted at the periphery, and the other one bearing eight PEG chains at the isoindole meta‐positions, have been prepared. The presence of the axial DMSO unit significantly increases the phthalocyanine singlet oxygen quantum yields, related to other comparable RuPcs. The compounds have been evaluated for PDT treatment in bladder cancer cells. In vitro studies have revealed high phototoxicity for RuPcs unsubstituted at their periphery. The phototoxicity of PEG‐substituted RuPcs has been considerably improved by repeated light irradiation. The choice of the axial carbohydrate introduced little differences in the cellular uptake for both series of photosensitizers, but the phototoxic effects were considerably higher for compounds bearing mannose units.
Two series of ruthenium phthalocyanines bearing a carbohydrate‐functionalized pyridyl ligand at one axial position and a DMSO ligand at the other axial site were prepared. One of the series was provided with enhanced solubility in water by introducing eight PEG chains at the RuPc peripheral positions. The two series were evaluated for their ability to produce singlet oxygen and ablation of bladder cancer cells.
PDF
