Bio-oil obtained from biomass pyrolysis has great potential for several applications after being upgraded and refined. This study established a method for separating bio-oil into different fractions based on polarity and molecular size to extract phenolic and polyphenolic compounds with antioxidant properties. The fractions were analyzed using various spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques, such as GC/MS, FTIR, UV-vis, SEC, DOSY-NMR, C-NMR, and P-NMR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The gag reflex is a protection mechanism that prevents food and unwanted agents from entering the lower airways. It is usually part of the physical examination of swallowing to detect oropharyngeal dysphagia, but it is a potentially ambiguous sign.
Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic value of the gag reflex in patients with neurogenic oropharyngeal dysphagia and adults without it.
Dengue is a significant health problem due to the high burden of critical infections during outbreaks. In 1997, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified dengue as dengue fever (DF), dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), and dengue shock syndrome (DSS). It was revised in 2009 (updated in 2015), and the new guidelines recommended classifying patients as dengue without warning signs (DNS), dengue with warning signs (DWS), and severe dengue (SD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGiant fusiform aneurysms of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) are complex and rare vascular lesions with a poor natural history and challenging treatment decision-making. We report the case of a 46-year-old male with a history of chronic hypertension and a transient ischemic attack who presented with left-sided hemiparesis. A cerebral angiotomography revealed an unruptured giant fusiform aneurysm in the M2 segment of the right MCA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe 13 Hsp70 proteins in humans act on unique sets of substrates with diversity often being attributed to J-domain-containing protein (Hsp40 or JDP) cofactors. We were therefore surprised to find drastically different binding affinities for Hsp70-peptide substrates, leading us to probe substrate specificity among the 8 canonical Hsp70s from humans. We used peptide arrays to characterize Hsp70 binding and then mined these data using machine learning to develop an algorithm for isoform-specific prediction of Hsp70 binding sequences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Reported confirmed cases represent a small portion of overall true cases for many infectious diseases. The undercounting of true cases can be considerable when a significant portion of infected individuals are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic, as is the case with COVID-19. Seroprevalence studies are an efficient way to assess the extent to which true cases are undercounted during a large-scale outbreak and can inform efforts to improve case identification and reporting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: , a treatment-as-prevention intervention among men who have sex with men and transgender women in Lima, Peru, was developed to identify HIV during early primary infection (<3 months from acquisition) through monthly serologic assays and HIV RNA tests. Newly diagnosed individuals were rapidly linked to care and offered to initiate ART. In this study we sought to study the cost-effectiveness of compared to the standard of care (SOC) for HIV testing and initiation of treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFspecies are gram-negative coccobacilli ubiquitous in nature and widely distributed in the environment. is a bacteria commonly seen in the hospital setting, responsible for causing a wide range of bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections, secondary meningitis, infective endocarditis, and wound infections, and is the cause of outbreaks mainly due to its antimicrobial resistance patterns. The use of broad-spectrum antibiotic coverage with carbapenems is essential in the hospital setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this work is to obtain new inequalities for the variable symmetric division deg index $ SDD_\alpha(G) = \sum_{uv \in E(G)} (d_u^\alpha/d_v^\alpha+d_v^\alpha/d_u^\alpha) $, and to characterize graphs extremal with respect to them. Here, by $ uv $ we mean the edge of a graph $ G $ joining the vertices $ u $ and $ v $, and $ d_u $ denotes the degree of $ u $, and $ \alpha \in \mathbb{R} $. Some of these inequalities generalize and improve previous results for the symmetric division deg index.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground Pediatric inpatient admissions for viral respiratory infections decreased worldwide during the early part of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This was likely due to social distancing measures and mask mandates leading to a decreased spread of viruses. We question if there was an increase in respiratory admissions during the winter of 2020-2021 due to the overlap of seasonal respiratory viruses and COVID-19 and the severity of those admissions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Head and neck cancer (HNC) surgery remains an important component of management but is associated with a high rate of surgical site infection (SSI). We aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of a topical mucosal antiseptic bundle in preventing SSI and evaluate microbial predictors of infection through a genomic sequencing approach.
Methods: This study was an open-label, single-arm, single-center, phase 2 trial of a topical mucosal antiseptic bundle in patients with HNC undergoing aerodigestive tract resection and reconstruction.
Two new structures of the N-terminal domain of the main replication protein, NS1, of human parvovirus B19 (B19V) are presented here. This domain (NS1-nuc) plays an important role in the "rolling hairpin" replication of the single-stranded B19V DNA genome, recognizing origin of replication sequences in double-stranded DNA, and cleaving (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: A clear dosing regimen for methotrexate in psoriasis is lacking, and this might lead to a suboptimal treatment. Because methotrexate is affordable and globally available, a uniform dosing regimen could potentially optimize the treatment of patients with psoriasis worldwide.
Objective: To reach international consensus among psoriasis experts on a uniform dosing regimen for treatment with methotrexate in adult and pediatric patients with psoriasis and identify potential future research topics.
POEMS syndrome is a rare condition of paraneoplasic origin characterized by the presence of a sensorimotor polyneuropathy associated with the presence of a proliferative disorder of plasmatic monoclonal cells and overproduction of vascular endothelial growth factor. The acronym "POEMS" represents multisystem findings including polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, monoclonal plasma cell disorder and skin changes; nevertheless, clinical presentation is heterogeneous. We describe a clinical case, the diagnostic and therapeutic approach in a patient with sensorimotor polyneuropathy in whom POEMS syndrome was diagnosed; to understand this pathology, its clinical and paraclinical manifestations in order to make a diagnosis or to avoid a delayed one and to provide an adequate treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mussel is one of the most important aquaculture species in Europe. Its main production problem is the accumulation of toxins during coastal blooms, which prevents mussel commercialization. P-glycoprotein (ABCB1/MDR1/P-gp) is part of the multixenobiotic resistance system in aquatic organisms, and okadaic acid, the main DSP toxin, is probably a substrate of the P-gp-mediated efflux.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSome diatom species of the genus produce the toxin domoic acid. The depuration rate of domoic acid in is very low; for this reason, king scallops generally contain high levels of domoic acid in their tissues. A transcriptomic approach was used to identify the genes differentially expressed in the digestive gland after the injection of domoic acid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present a global atlas of 4,728 metagenomic samples from mass-transit systems in 60 cities over 3 years, representing the first systematic, worldwide catalog of the urban microbial ecosystem. This atlas provides an annotated, geospatial profile of microbial strains, functional characteristics, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) markers, and genetic elements, including 10,928 viruses, 1,302 bacteria, 2 archaea, and 838,532 CRISPR arrays not found in reference databases. We identified 4,246 known species of urban microorganisms and a consistent set of 31 species found in 97% of samples that were distinct from human commensal organisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, the electrospinning technique is shown to be a viable method for the synthesis of a bacteria-encapsulating bioanode. A coaxial setup was designed to yield in one step a bioanode made of two fibers networks: one encapsulating the electroactive bacteria Shewanella oneidensis and the other one providing the necessary conductivity for electron transport throughout the bioelectrode. The electrical conductivity of this "integrated bioanode" (∼10-2 to 10-3 S cm-1) was deemed satisfactory and it was then included into a microbial fuel cells (MFC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMilitaries around the world play an important but at times poorly defined and underappreciated role in global health security. They are often called upon to support civilian authorities in humanitarian crises and to provide routine healthcare for civilians. Military personnel are a unique population in a health security context, as they are highly mobile and often deploy to austere settings domestically and internationally, which may increase exposure to endemic and emerging infectious diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Atypical intraepidermal melanocytic proliferation (AIMP) is a general term assigned to melanocytic proliferations of uncertain biological potential when a definitive histopathological diagnosis cannot be achieved. There are few data available describing the possibility of malignancy of AIMP, or ways to further define diagnosis.
Objective: To determine the rate of diagnostic change of AIMP to melanoma or melanoma in situ (MIS) after conventional excision.