Machine Vision-Assisted Design of End Effector Pose in Robotic Mixed Depalletizing of Heterogeneous Cargo.

Automated depalletizing systems aim to offer continuous and efficient operation in warehouse logistics, reducing cycle times and contributing to worker safety. However, most commercially available depalletizing solutions are designed primarily for highly homogeneous cargo arranged in orthogonal configurations. This paper presents a real-time approach for depalletizing heterogeneous pallets with boxes of varying sizes and arbitrary orientations, including configurations where the topmost surfaces of boxes are not necessarily parallel to each other.

First report of Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) in the North of Colombia.

Aedes albopictus is considered a potential vector of arboviruses in Colombia. Females and males naturally infected with dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses have already been found in this country. We document the first record of Ae.

[Trypanosoma cruzi infection and atrioventricular-nodal heart block in El Salvador].

Chagas disease is endemic in Latin America and remains a regional problem despite improvements in environmental health conditions that have helped to control its transmission. To know more about its prevalence in heart disease patients, we carried out a survey in our national (El Salvador) reference hospital. We reviewed the Chagas Lab's records 2013-2015 to find out how many of the patients admitted to the Hospital's Heart Unit were serologically positives for Trypanosoma cruzi infection and which the associated diagnoses were.

Clinical Outcomes Associated With Chronic Kidney Disease in Elderly Medicare Patients With Multiple Myeloma.

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and is associated with a poor prognosis. We assessed CKD-associated clinical outcomes among elderly patients with MM initiating chemotherapy in the United States.

Materials And Methods: We identified elderly Medicare beneficiaries (≥66 years) diagnosed with MM who initiated first-line therapy from 2008 to 2014.

Long-Term in Vivo Performance of Low-Temperature 3D-Printed Bioceramics in an Equine Model.

Bone has great self-healing capacity, but above a certain critical size, bone defects will not heal spontaneously, requiring intervention to achieve full healing. Among the synthetic calcium phosphate (CaP) bone replacement materials, brushite (CaHPO·2HO)-based materials are of particular interest because of their degree of solubility and the related high potential to promote bone regeneration after dissolution. They can be produced tailor-made using modern three-dimensional (3D) printing technology.

Orthotopic Bone Regeneration within 3D Printed Bioceramic Scaffolds with Region-Dependent Porosity Gradients in an Equine Model.

The clinical translation of three-dimensionally printed bioceramic scaffolds with tailored architectures holds great promise toward the regeneration of bone to heal critical-size defects. Herein, the long-term in vivo performance of printed hydrogel-ceramic composites made of methacrylated-oligocaprolactone-poloxamer and low-temperature self-setting calcium-phosphates is assessed in a large animal model. Scaffolds printed with different internal architectures, displaying either a designed porosity gradient or a constant pore distribution, are implanted in equine tuber coxae critical size defects.

The role of HLA variation in lymphoma aetiology and survival.

Epidemiologic and laboratory evidence has consistently supported a strong inflammatory and immune component for lymphoma aetiology. These studies have consistently implicated variation in the immune gene, human leucocyte antigen (HLA), to be associated with lymphoma risk. In this review, we summarize the historical and recent evidence of HLA in both lymphoma aetiology and survival.

Markers of Immune Activation and Inflammation, and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies.

Background: Chronic inflammation and immune activation are reported to play a key role in the etiology of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). We conducted a meta-analysis on the associations between prediagnosis circulating levels of immune stimulatory markers, interleukin 6 (IL-6), IL-10, tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), CXCL13, soluble CD23 (sCD23), sCD27, sCD30, and the risk of NHL.

Methods: Relevant studies were identified from PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science up to January 1, 2017.

Concordance Rates Between Resident-Performed Ultrasound Measurements and Certified Sonographer Measurements.

Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy of ultrasound (US) estimated fetal weight (EFW) measurement compared with neonatal birth weight when performed by residents versus certified sonographers. The hypothesis tested was that residents and certified sonographers would not differ significantly in EFW or in EFW compared with neonatal birth weight.

Methods: A retrospective chart review of 142 inpatients from July 2010 to May 2011 was conducted.

Analysis of clinical drug trials in children compared to clinical drug trials in adults, in Argentina.

Introduction: It is necessary to know the extent and subject matter of pediatric clinical drug research in Argentina and establish the differences with the adult population.

Objectives: To compare adult and pediatric clinical drug trials in terms of number, phase, design (placebo as control, proportion of blind/open-label trials), studied diseases. Specifically in pediatrics, to determine if studied diseases are consistent with the leading causes of infant and child mortality in Argentina.

Hepatic Elimination of Drugs in Gestational Diabetes.

Background: The liver is the major metabolic clearance organ for chemical agents from the human body. Pregnancy is associated with several physiological changes that may affect one or more of these factors, and also induces changes in the hepatic clearance of certain drugs. The aim of this paper was to review some of the currently available information in the field to provide some insights about the relevance of these changes on the clearance of some drugs.

Decreased levels of the serum inflammatory biomarkers, sGP130, IL-6, sCRP and BAFF, are associated with increased likelihood of AIDS related Kaposi's sarcoma in men who have sex with men.

AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma (AIDS-KS) risk remains substantially elevated compared with the general population, even among patients who receive effective combination antiretroviral therapy. This study investigated the role of inflammatory and immune activating biomarkers in AIDS-KS in men who have sex with men in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort study between 1984 and 2010. Concentrations of 24 serum biomarkers; IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12p70, sGP130, sIL-2Rα, sIL-6R, eotaxin, MCP-1, MCP4, MIP 1β, TARC, BLC-BCA1, IP-10, GM-CSF, IFN-γ, BAFF, sCD14, CD27, sTNFR-2, sCRP, and TNF-α were tested longitudinally in 1,501 men.

Phlebotomine sandflies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in a sub-Andean forest from the Norte de Santander, Colombia.

Background & Objectives: The recognition of communities of arthropods with medical importance in natural systems constitutes an important step in the prediction of possible epidemic events and/or emergence of infectious diseases in the human population. This is due to anthropogenic impact in natural areas and landscape modification, which changes the dynamics of pathogenic agents, reservoirs, and vector insects. In this study, an inventory was compiled of species of the genus Lutzomyia present in sub-Andean forest from the confluence of the Pamplonita River basin.

[Pharmacoepidemiological study of the use of psychotropics in hospitalized patients].

Objective: To assess consumption and the exposition of patients admitted to the Universitary Hospital of the Interamerican Open University (UAI), between October and December of 2007-2009.

Methods: Descriptive observational study. The information was obtained of the Pharmacia Sector.

Cell recovery comparison between plasma depletion/reduction- and red cell reduction-processing of umbilical cord blood.

Background Aims: Limited cell dose has hampered the use of cord blood transplantation (CBT) in adults. One method of minimizing nucleated cell loss in cord blood (CB) processing is to deplete or reduce plasma but not red blood cells - plasma depletion/reduction (PDR).

Methods: The nucleated cell loss of PDR was studied, and determined to be less than 0.

[Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus disease in Panama].

Introduction: Infections due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are increasing worldwide. The clinical spectrum of the disease ranges from nasal colonization to superficial and invasive infections.

Objectives: To describe the frequency, clinical characteristics and risk factors associated with MRSA disease in children under 15 years old.

EDAR: an efficient error detection and removal algorithm for next generation sequencing data.

Genomic sequencing techniques introduce experimental errors into reads which can mislead sequence assembly efforts and complicate the diagnostic process. Here we present a method for detecting and removing sequencing errors from reads generated in genomic shotgun sequencing projects prior to sequence assembly. For each input read, the set of all length k substrings (k-mers) it contains are calculated.

Isoflavones versus hormone therapy for reduction of vertebral fracture risk: indirect comparison.

Objective: The aim of this study was to conduct an indirect comparison of the results from meta-analyses that evaluated the incidence of osteoporotic vertebral fracture in postmenopausal women exposed to hormone therapy (HT) or isoflavones.

Methods: Systematic review and meta-analysis of HT and isoflavones related to the reduction of vertebral fracture risk in osteoporotic women versus the same control (placebo) were undertaken. Then, the combination of the overall results obtained from these two meta-analysis (indirect comparison) was adjusted to the common control (placebo).

Soy isoflavones versus placebo in the treatment of climacteric vasomotor symptoms: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: The incidence of vasomotor crises during the climacterium varies in women across different populations, and phytoestrogen consumption seems to play an important role in this problem. The aim of this study was to determine whether intervention with soy (dietary, extract, or concentrate), as compared with placebo, reduces the incidence of hot flashes in climacteric women.

Methods: Only published, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials were selected, with a 12-week duration of intervention, having selected postmenopausal women affected with hot flashes attributed to the climacterium (without cancer background).

QT interval prolongation: preclinical and clinical testing arrhythmogenesis in drugs and regulatory implications.

The assessment about the proarrhythmic risk associated with a particular drug is a major requirement for drugs under development, since many drugs have been withdrawn from market or got under strict pharmacological vigilance because of such a risk. Predicting the development of a life-threatening arrhythmia is a hard task but, in the case of TdP ("Torsades de Pointes"), there are some useful markers. Among them, the prolongation of the QT interval and its heart rate correction (QTc) are the most remarkable.

Improving de novo sequence assembly using machine learning and comparative genomics for overlap correction.

Background: With the rapid expansion of DNA sequencing databases, it is now feasible to identify relevant information from prior sequencing projects and completed genomes and apply it to de novo sequencing of new organisms. As an example, this paper demonstrates how such extra information can be used to improve de novo assemblies by augmenting the overlapping step. Finding all pairs of overlapping reads is a key task in many genome assemblers, and to this end, highly efficient algorithms have been developed to find alignments in large collections of sequences.

[Design and implementation of a national serum bank for the surveillance of exotic animal diseases in the Republic of Cuba].

A serum bank for the surveillance of exotic diseases was designed in accordance with the provisions of the Information and Epizootiological Surveillance System in the Republic of Cuba. Sera were collected from imported animals, from sentinel animals used for monitoring target areas at biological risk and from animals located in high animal-density areas. Methodologies were developed for the selection and characterisation of target areas at biological risk and sentinel animal points, the collection and storage of serum samples and the management of the national animal serum bank.