Publications by authors named "Vila B"

Article Synopsis
  • The genus was first described by Lowe in 1861 based on limited samples from North Africa, but faced taxonomic confusion leading to its neglect in later years.
  • A 2002 study by Mienis revived the genus, but subsequent research by Prevot et al. suggested it was simply a large variant of another species.
  • This study identifies and distinguishes two groups of shells from France attributed to different species, providing new morphological data and reporting the presence of a North African taxon in southern France for the first time.
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Urbanization is one of the main threats to biodiversity. However, some urban green spaces could act as refuges for urban fauna if the composition of the flora were less horticultural and if a less intensive management strategy is adopted. Among the taxa, butterflies are experiencing a strong decline from European to regional scales.

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Vicuñas () were at risk of extinction due to indiscriminate hunting for their fibre in the mid-twentieth century. The conservation of the species included numerous international and regional legal mechanisms, as well as the will and care of local communities. The vicuña was saved, and now it is classified as "Least concern" by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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Background And Purpose: Reduced facial expression of emotions is a very frequent symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) and has been considered part of the motor features of the disease. However, the neural correlates of hypomimia and the relationship between hypomimia and other non-motor symptoms of PD are poorly understood.

Methods: The clinical and structural brain correlates of hypomimia were studied.

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The War of the Pacific (1879-1884) was a big scale war between Chile against the alliance of Peru and Bolivia. One of the most important battles, the was situated in the desert near Tacna, Peru. The conditions of this environment favored the conservation of the dead soldiers after many years.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A cohort of 330 PD patients without MF at the start were analyzed, revealing that 27.6% developed MF by the 2-year follow-up.
  • * Patients who developed MF showed a higher baseline NMS score and a significant increase in NMS burden compared to those who didn’t develop MF, indicating a link between MF and worsening NMS in PD.
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Hypercortisolism is one of the most common endocrine diseases in dogs. In humans, it is clearly associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular events, but studies in dogs are scarce. To investigate the arrhythmogenic risk of dogs with naturally-occurring hypercortisolism (NOHC), indices of variability and instability of the QT interval were retrospectively studied in 38 dogs with NOHC and prospectively studied in 12 healthy dogs: variance (QTv), total instability (TI), short-term (STI) and long-term (LTI), and mean (QTm).

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The origin of the last sauropod dinosaur communities in Europe and their evolution during the final 15 million years of the Cretaceous have become a complex phylogenetic and palaeobiogeographic puzzle characterized by the controversy on the alleged coexistence of immigrant, Gondwana-related taxa alongside relictual and insular clades. In this context, we describe a new titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur, Abditosaurus kuehnei gen. et sp.

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Background: Blood homocysteine appears to be increased in Parkinson's disease (PD) and may play a role in the development and progression of this disorder. However, the specific contribution of abnormal homocysteine levels to cortical degeneration in PD remains elusive.

Objective: To characterize the cortical structural correlates of homocysteine levels in PD.

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Cutaneous clear cell proliferations encompass a heterogenous group of several primary cutaneous neoplasms and metastatic tumors with different histogenesis. Many of these clear cell proliferations may seem strikingly similar under the microscope resulting in challenging diagnosis. In many of these clear cell lesions, the reason for the clear or pale appearance of proliferating cells is unknown, whereas in other ones, this clear cell appearance is due to intracytoplasmic accumulation of glycogen, mucin, or lipid.

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Flat feet are considered a postural defect caused by the collapse of the longitudinal arch, producing complete or near-complete contact of the sole of the foot with the ground. has been well-studied in clinical literature and paleoanthropology but has not been approached extensively in bioarchaeology. The main difficulty is related to the diagnosis of this pathology based exclusively on bone remains.

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Introduction: We aimed to assess associations between multimodal neuroimaging measures of cholinergic basal forebrain (CBF) integrity and cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD) without dementia.

Methods: The study included a total of 180 non-demented PD patients and 45 healthy controls, who underwent structural MRI acquisitions and standardized neurocognitive assessment through the PD-Cognitive Rating Scale (PD-CRS) within the multicentric COPPADIS-2015 study. A subset of 73 patients also had Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) acquisitions.

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Purpose –: To characterize changes in work hours across a career in law enforcement.

Design/methodology/approach –: = 113 police officers enrolled in the BCOPS cohort were studied. The police officers started their careers in law enforcement between 1994 and 2001 at a mid-sized, unionized police department in northwestern New York and continued to work at this police department for at least 15 years.

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Introduction/objectives: In the past few years, novel markers such as the interval between the peak and the end of T-wave (Tpte) and Tpte/QT ratio have been shown to have high sensitivity for ventricular arrhythmias and mortality. We analyzed these and other parameters of ventricular repolarization, such as QT interval, QT interval corrected for heart rate (QTc), and QT dispersion (QTd) in dogs with myxomatous mitral valve disease (MMVD). Additionally, we investigated their relationship with the progression of the disease, echocardiographic parameters, and ventricular arrhythmias and assessed their prognostic value with development of clinical signs or mortality as the final outcome.

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A characteristic fauna of dinosaurs and other vertebrates inhabited the end-Cretaceous European archipelago, some of which were dwarves or had other unusual features likely related to their insular habitats. Little is known, however, about the contemporary theropod dinosaurs, as they are represented mostly by teeth or other fragmentary fossils. A new isolated theropod metatarsal II, from the latest Maastrichtian of Spain (within 200,000 years of the mass extinction) may represent a jinfengopterygine troodontid, the first reported from Europe.

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South American Camelids (SACs) make several material and non-material contributions to people and are a key component of the Andean biocultural heritage. From the perspective of the IPBES' Conceptual Framework, SACs constitute the "nature" component in the complex system of interactions between human societies and the Andean mountain environment. There are four SAC living species today, two of which are wild, or in the indigenous cosmovision: guanaco () and vicuña ().

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Sebecosuchia was a group of highly specialized cursorial crocodyliforms that diversified during the Cretaceous and persist until the end of the Miocene. Their unique combination of cranial and post-cranial features indicates that they were active terrestrial predators that occupied the apex of the Late Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems, even competing with theropod dinosaurs. Here, we report the discovery of the earliest sebecid worldwide, and the first from Eurasia, Ogresuchus furatus gen.

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Purpose –: The purpose of this paper is to assess whether shift work, sleep loss and fatigue are related to short-term unplanned absences in policing.

Design/methodology/approach –: = 367 police officers from the Buffalo Police Department were studied. Day-by-day work and sick leave data were obtained from the payroll.

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