Miniature pigs have gained popularity as companion animals in the recent years in Spain. Because the abandonment of miniature pigs and crossing breeds with wild boars can cause severe problems, investigation about the health status is needed. Two-hundred and eleven miniature pigs ( Sus scrofa) were included in the study to determine their health status according to the clinical findings during physical examination and the results of antibody serology tests against selected infectious diseases. Their origin, age sex, housing conditions and diet were recorded. The housing of the animals ranged from wild animals to animals living in animal sanctuaries. The diet varied from a natural diet in the wild to commercial and homemade food. Thirty animals out of two-hundred and eleven were hybrids between miniature pigs and wild boars according to morphological characteristics. Antibody serology techniques of Influenza A virus, Hepatitis E virus, brucellosis, tuberculosis, African swine fever, Classical Swine fever and Aujeszky´s disease was performed. The prevalence for Influenza A was 5.30%, for Hepatitis E was 5.35% and the rest tested negative. It is important to control and monitor these zoonotic infections to prevent Public Health problems. The results obtained from this investigation demonstrated that the health status of the animals in this study is optimal and the prevalence of diseases is similar or minor when compared to previous studies. This study confirms the hybridization of miniature pig and wild boar in Catalonia.

Pyrolysis behavior of bio-based resins is of increasing interest due to their great potential in environmentally friendly and high-temperature application. Herein, the high-temperature stability, pyrolysis kinetics and mechanism of rosin glyceride (RGE), hydrogenated rosin glyceride (HRGE), C9 petro-based resin (C9PR) and hydrogenated C9 petro-based resin (HC9PR) under non-oxidizing atmosphere were investigated by TG-FTIR/MS techniques. Based on the non-isothermal TG data, activation energy was calculated by Friedman and Starink methods, and the reaction-order model of f(α)=(1-α)n was found to be the most probable pyrolysis mechanism for different resins, which was also supported by the TG-FTIR/MS results showing only a dominating pyrolysis peak. Furthermore, thanks to the unique tricyclic phenanthrene structures, bio-based resins exhibit better high-temperature stability than petro-based resins, with an initial skeleton cracking temperature of 623 K and 573 K, respectively. High-temperature stability of resins would mildly decrease after hydromodification due to weak bonds cracking. Possible pyrolysis pathways were proposed.

Dengue is one of the most serious mosquito-borne infectious diseases in the world. The number of dengue cases is increasing every year worldwide. In the present work, we discuss the fuzzy epidemic SEIR-SEI compartmental model with the intervention of bed nets and fumigation to describe the transmission dynamics of dengue disease. We consider the biting rate, transmission rate, and recovery rate of the disease are as fuzzy numbers. We discuss the dynamical behavior of the disease with different amounts of virus loads. Sensitivity analysis of the model is performed to compare the relative importance of the model parameters and to discuss the importance of fumigation, use of bed nets, and the quality of bed nets. We study the bifurcation of the equilibrium point of the system with and without fumigation, with and without bed net users and with different qualities of bed nets. Numerical simulations are made to illustrate the mathematical results graphically.

The journey of women in medicine has not been easy over time. It was a common perception that their chastity would deteriorate if they would enter medical schools and start their profession. Since ancient times, very important civilizations, were established on the territory of what is now known as the Republic of Turkey, and it is known that these civilizations had female doctors. The first six female doctors, who were accepted by the medical faculty and graduated in 1928, were an important achievement of the Republic. The first female doctor in otolaryngology in Turkey was Dr Hatice Bodur, and the first female academician was Prof. Dr Nermin Başerer. The number of women otolaryngologists and academicians increased over the years. However, their representation in universities, academe, and professional associations is still not high; the “male-dominated” model continues to exist in decision-making positions.

The paper presents a hybrid finite difference scheme to solve a singularly perturbed parabolic functional differential equation with discontinuous coefficients and source. The simultaneous presence of deviating argument with a discontinuous source and coefficients makes the problem stiff. The solution of the problem exhibits turning point behaviour across discontinuities as ε tends to zero. The hybrid scheme presented is a composition of a central difference scheme in the layer region on a specially generated mesh and a midpoint upwind scheme outside the layer region. At the same time, an implicit finite difference scheme is used to discretize the time variable. The proposed numerical method has been analyzed for consistency, stability, and convergence. The proposed method converges uniformly independent of the perturbation parameter. Numerical results have been presented for two test examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of the scheme.

The present study focuses on the neutrosophication of Z - Transform , it is developed and various properties like neutrosophic Z - Transform linearity, neutrosophic Z - Transform damping rule, neutrosophic Z - Transform shifting theorem, neutrosophic Z - Transform's initial and final value theorem are discussed under this method.The results of the properties are proposed and numerical example have been illustrated.

Background and AIMS: Inflammation has been recognized to have a role in the process of atherosclerosis. Although evidence indicates that atorvastatin has anti-inflammatory effects besides cholesterol-lowering ability in atherosclerosis, the specific mechanisms of atorvastatin in inflammation requires further discussion. METHODS: Here, we explored the effects and mechanisms of atorvastatin on inflammation in human umbilical vein endothelial cells through quantitative real-time PCR and western blot analyses. In addition, microarray analysis and immunohistochemistry were used to analyze the expression of Crim1 in atherosclerotic plaques. RESULTS: Cysteine-rich motor neuron 1 (Crim1) mRNA was upregulated 36.68 fold (P<0.001), and Crim1 protein was upregulated 3.63 fold (p<0.001), in human atherosclerotic plaques compared with normal intima tissues. Bioinformatics analysis revealed Crim1 co-expression with IL-6, TNF-α and NF-κB. Atorvastatin dramatically downregulated the mRNA and protein levels of Crim1 and inhibited inflammation by decreasing the levels of IL-6, TNF-α and NF-κB. Knockdown of Crim1 significantly inhibited IL-6, TNF-α and NF-κB expression, whereas overexpression of Crim1 upregulated IL-6, TNF-α and NF-κB expression. In addition, the inhibitory effects of atorvastatin on inflammation were markedly offset by overexpression of Crim1. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrated that atorvastatin decreases inflammation via the Crim1 pathway in HUVECs, thus, providing a new prospect for the use of atorvastatin for non-lipid lowering functions, and new directions for the prevention and therapy of atherosclerosis.

The multivariate compositional nutrient diagnosis (CND) was considered to evaluate the nutrient imbalance causing fire blight development in ‘golden delicious’ apple. The CND norms provided for a low-fire blight severity subpopulation was V*N = 2.813 ± 0.186, V*P = 0.297 ± 0.147, V*K = 2.660 ± 0.149, V*Ca = 2.442 ± 0.218, V*Mg = 1.188 ± 0.061, V*S = 0.595 ± 0.399, V*Fe = -0.952 ± 0.212, V*Mn = -3.132 ± 0.195, V*Zn = -4.040 ± 0.366, V*Cu = -5.032 ± 0.177, V*B = -3.361 ± 0.120, V*Rd = 6.521 ± 0.128. The corresponding sufficiency ranges of nutrients for for imparting moderate resistance in plant against fire blight were N = 2.309 ± 0.333, P = 0.185 ± 0.016, K = 1.968 ± 0.170, Ca = 1.645 ± 0.430, Mg = 0.453 ± 0.053, S = 0.269 ± 0.086 in percent and Fe = 345.250 ± 76.213, Mn = 60.926 ± 11.724, Zn = 26.368 ± 12.943, Cu = 9.088 ± 1.682, B = 48.603 ± 9.509 in mg kg-1. According to the principal component analysis analysis, leaf Ca, B, S and Zn had a significant effect on the reduction of fire blight severity index.

Disturbance has long been recognized as a critical driver of species diversity in community ecology. Recently, it has been found that the well-known intermediate disturbance hypothesis, which predicts a unimodal diversity-disturbance relationship (DDR), fails to describe numerous experimental observations, as empirical DDRs are diverse. Consequently, the precise form of the DDR remains a topic of debate. Here we develop a simple yet comprehensive metacommunity framework that can account for complex competition patterns. Using both numerical simulations and analytical arguments, we show that strongly multimodal DDRs arise naturally, and this multimodality is quite robust to changing parameters or relaxing the assumption of a strict competitive hierarchy. Having multimodality as a robust property of DDRs in competition models suggests that much of the noise observed in empirical DDRs should be a critical signature of the underlying competitive dynamics.

Pulmonary air embolism is a potentially lethal complication of catheter ablation of cardiac arrythmias.We present a 50 year old man with pulmonary embolism during cryoballoon ablation of atrial fibrillation. Deep breath of patient while inserting the sheath into left atrium from right femoral vein was main cause of pulmoary air embolism. Air bubble was dispersed by hitting on it with the pigtail catheter and pulmonary flow was achieved. The patient was discharged without any sequelae.

How populations of aquatic fauna persist in extreme desert environments is an enigma. Individuals often breed and disperse during favourable conditions. However, theory predicts that adaptive capacity should be low in small populations, such as in desert fishes. We integrated satellite-derived surface water data, neutral population dynamics and adaptive evolution to understand metapopulation persistence across the range of the desert rainbowfish, central Australia. Desert rainbowfish showed very small population sizes, especially at peripheral populations, and low connectivity between river catchments. Yet, there was no evidence of population-level inbreeding and there was adaptive divergence associated with aridity. Candidate adaptive genes included functions related to environmental cues and stressful conditions. Evolutionary modelling showed that selection in refugial sub-populations combined with connectivity during flood periods can enable retention of adaptive diversity. Our study demonstrates that adaptive evolution can occur in small populations and integrate with neutral metapopulation processes to allow persistence in the desert.

SARS-CoV-2 RNA was not detected in 219 nasal/oro-pharyngeal swabs, analyzed for respiratory disease diagnosis at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases “Lazzaro Spallanzani”, from November 2019 to January 2020; these results suggest lack of unrecognized SARS-CoV-2 circulation before the identification of the first two cases in Italy.

Introduction: Respiratory infection in particular community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children is a major disease that ranks high in outpatient and inpatient cases. The causes of CAP vary depending on the individual susceptibility, epidemiological characteristics of the community, and season. We performed this study to establish nationwide survillance network system and identify the causative agents for CAP and antibiotics resistance in Korean children with CAP.. Methods: The monitoring network was composed of the 28 secondary and tertiary medical institutions. Upper and lower respiratory samples were assayed using culture or Polymerase chaini reaction (PCR) from Aug 2018 to May 2020. Results: A total of 1023 cases were registered in patients with CAP, and 264 cases (25.8%) were isolated by culture, S. aureus 131 cases (12.8%), S. pneumoniae 92 cases (9%), H. influenzae 20 cases (2%). PCR of atypical pneumonia pathogen revealed 422 cases of M. pneumoniae (41.3%). Respiratory virus showed positive rates in 65.7% by multiplex PCR test and of them, human rhinovirus was most highest with 312 cases (30.5%). The proportion of mixed infection was 49.2%. The rate of antibiotics resistance showed similar results as previous reports. Conclusion: It will identify the pathogens that cause respiratory infections, and analyze the current status of antibiotic resistance to provide scientific evidence for management policies of domestic respiratory infection. Also, in preparation for the new epidemic, including COVID19, monitoring of respiratory infections in children and adolescents, has become more important, and research should be continuously conducted in the future.

Objective: Post-mortem examination of a baby following spontaneous or missed miscarriage in the second trimester or intrauterine death to provide a complete or partial explanation of the pregnancy loss. Method: A total of 100 cases of intrauterine deaths were consecutively collected from January 2010-May 2019 for etiological diagnosis according to the standard protocol and involved external examination, dysmorphological examination, internal examination and full body antero-posterior and lateral radiographs. Histopathology of placenta was done. Cases were also subjected to genetic testing such as FISH/microarray. A clinical correlation was done by a Obstetrician-geneticist to reach an etiological diagnosis. Results: Two third of cases were referred after intrauterine death post 30 weeks of gestation. 24/100 cases were with fetal anomalies.Genetic causes present in 12% cases. 65.5% cases were associated with the pathology of the placenta. 30% cases were with cord lesions. The results were inconclusive in 14% of the cases. Conclusions: In this study we looked for establishing etiological diagnosis and tried to see contribution of each test in finding the cause. This will help the obstetrician in counselling parents for the utility of post-mortem excamination and thus better able to guide for future recurrence risk and management.

Objective To determine for the first time the prevalence of iron deficiency (ID) in Austrian pregnant population. Design Prospective cross-sectional multicentre study. Setting Six hospitals in Austria Population A cohort of 425 pregnant women Methods Patients were classified into four groups of different weeks of gestation. Group 1 was monitored longitudinally, while groups 2 to 4, iron status was sampled only once. Main Outcome Measures Evaluation of the prevalence of ID by comparing the diagnostic criteria of the WHO to the cut-off proposed by Achebe MM and Gafter-Gvili A (Achebe) and the Austrian Nutrition Report (ANR). Results In comparison with the ANR, the prevalence of ID was lower in group 1 and higher in group 2-4 (17.2 % vs 12.17 %, 25.84%, 35.29 % and 41.76 %, respectively) (p-values < 0.01 except group 1). Using WHO’s definition, the prevalence in group 1 was 12,17 % at inclusion, 2 months later 31.7% and further 2 month later 65,71 %, respectively. Using the Achebe definition number of cases doubled (for group 1 the number of cases rose from 13 to 42 (115 patients total); for groups 2 through 4 we observed an increase from 112 to 230 (340 patients total). Conclusions This study showed a prevalence of around 12 % at the beginning of pregnancy, which increased during pregnancy up to 65 %. ID can have a massive impact on the quality of life, so that screening would be entirely justified, as iron deficiency would be easy to diagnose and treat.

Background: To determine the factors related to overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in endometrial carcinoma (EC) patients. Methods: A retrospective cohort study of 906 EC patients was conducted at Shengjing Hospital, China Medical University. Baseline information about the patients, tumor characteristics, and data on five serum biomarkers (CA125, CA19-9, CA72-4, CEA, and AFP) were collected. Groups and their survival rates were compared using log-rank tests and Kaplan-Meier analysis, respectively. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were determined using univariate or multivariate Cox proportional hazard models. The outcome measures used were OS, defined as the time between surgery and death or last follow-up for surviving patients, and PFS, defined as the time from the completion of initial surgery to either first progression, disease recurrence, or death. Results: Multivariate analysis showed lower PFS associated with age ≥ 66 years (P < 0.001), non-endometrioid histology (P = 0.015), low degree of tumor differentiation (P = 0.004), and FIGO stage III & IV (P = 0.002). Elevated CA125 (P = 0.042) and AFP (P = 0.016) were identified as independent biomarkers for PFS. Increased CA125 (P = 0.013), age ≥ 66 years (P < 0.001), non-endometrioid histology (P＜0.001), and FIGO stage III & IV (P = 0.015) were independent factors associated with OS. Analysis of the CA125 sub-group showed that individuals with elevated CA125 andAFP (P = 0.049) had significantly lower PFS. Conclusion: This study suggests that CA125 and AFP are prognostic biomarkers for EC

Objectives: This study aims to analyse the management outcomes of total rhinectomy (TR) for nasal squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) involving the vestibule, and to identify prognostic factors for disease recurrence. Design: A retrospective single centre study was conducted between September 2003 and February 2021 including all patients who underwent a TR for a SCC involving the nasal vestibule. Results: 23 patients were included in the study. Tumours originated from the septum (n=12), vestibule (n=8) or skin (n=3). Six TR (26.1%) were salvage procedures, after primary radiotherapy or nose-preserving rhinectomy. Seven patients had a concurrent neck dissection and 17 patients (73.9%) received adjuvant treatment (14 patients had radiotherapy and 3 had chemoradiotherapy). After a median follow-up of 32 months, six patients (26.1%) presented with tumour recurrence. Three patients (13%) had nodal-only recurrence. The estimated 5-year overall survival, disease-free survival and disease-specific survival was 67.5%, 66.3% and 80.7% respectively. Positive excision margins were a predictive factor for tumour recurrence after TR (p=0.0401). Conclusions: For nasal vestibule SCCs not amenable to limited surgical resection, TR along with adjuvant radiotherapy provide good oncological outcomes and should be considered the main treatment option.

ABSTRACT Background: Hemoglobin D – Los Angeles (HbD) is a variant hemoglobin that can polymerize in the deoxygenated state. When co-inherited with Hemoglobin S (HbSD disease) a severe sickling syndrome can result. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 has been associated with acute chest syndrome (ACS) in individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD), but this complication has not previously been reported in patients with HbSD. Dexamethasone has been shown to improve outcomes in non-sickle cell patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia or adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS); however, its use in SCD patients with ACS is controversial due to a reported increased risk of complications including vaso-occlusive painful episodes (VOE). Procedure: Case Report and literature review focusing on the management of pediatric SCD patients with SARS-CoV-2 associated ACS. Results: A 7-year-old female with HbSD presented with fever, cough, shortness of breath, hypoxia and pulmonary infiltrates consistent with ACS. She tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. She began treatment with dexamethasone (6 mg/ kg/ day divided BID). She had a rapid recovery without sequalae from steroid use. Literature review identified 39 pediatric patients with SCD and COVID-19, of whom 21 (54%) had ACS. Simple transfusion (9 pts) and exchange transfusion (3 pts) were the most frequently reported treatment, with hydroxychloroquine (5 pts), remdesivir (1pt), and tocilizumab (1 pt) also being reported. Three patients were treated with dexamethasone. All 3 recovered and no adverse outcomes from steroid use were reported. Conclusions: Further study is needed to determine the optimal treatment of SARS-CoV-2 associated ACS; however, dexamethasone should be considered.

In this paper, we introduce a new quadratic functional equation and by using this equation, we investigate $n$-variables mappings which are quadratic in each variable. We show that such mappings can be unified as an equation, namely, multi-quadratic functional equation. We also apply a fixed point technique to study the stability for the multi-quadratic functional equations. Furthermore, we present an example and a few corollaries corresponding to some known stability and hyperstability outcomes.

In this paper we carried out the analysis of a three-dimensional ODE nonlinear autonomous system which is derived with the aim of describing the interaction between three populations. These take the form of two mutualistic (pollinators and plants) and a third population (herbivores) is introduced. This one is feeded by consuming plants which, in turn, damages the pollinators population too by reducing the rate of visits (to plants) behalf the pollinators. The specific type of interactions between the populations are described by two types of functional responses of type IV. One of these measures what we call “saciety rate” of consuming plants behalf the herbivores. The main result contained in this paper is the proof of the existence of an attracting limit cycle for the ODE system. This emerges from a supercritical Hopf bifurcation. Its existence is proved by using the Hopf-Andronov bifurcation theorem and its stability is proved by using the first Lyapunov coefficient. In addition of the analysis, a series of numerical simulations are carried out on the full ODE system. These show how the stability feature of an equilibrium point changes: from asymptotic locally stable to unstable hence the emergence of a stable limit cycle within the positive octant of the phase space.

Purpose We evaluated the existing risk assessment tools for CML in children. Patients and Methods A total of 55 patients from 1.4 to 18.0 years with newly diagnosed CML between 1996 and 2019 were included. Forty-nine patients presented in the chronic phase, thirty-six of whom were treated with upfront tyrosine kinase inhibitor (CP-TKI group); one presented in the accelerated phase and 4 in the blastic phase. Treatment, survival, responses, and tolerance were evaluated. Results The median follow-up time was 8.7 years (range, 2 months to 24.3 years). All patients in the CP-TKI group received imatinib as their first TKI treatment. Allogenic stem cell transplantation was performed in one patient after complete cytogenetic response was achieved with imatinib and in one patient with imatinib failure. Dasatinib and nilotinib were prescribed as second-line TKI in 5 patients and 4 patients respectively. The 10-year overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and event-free survival (EFS) of TKI treated group was 97%, 91.4% and 72.3% respectively. The rates of major molecular response and deep molecular response of TKIs were 81.2% and 67.5% at 60 months. The EUTOS long-term survival (ELTS) risk grouping did not predict OS, PFS or EFS. The IMAFAIL risk groups are correlated with the risk of imatinib failure. Conclusion TKIs resulted in excellent long-term overall and progression-free survival in children and adolescents with newly diagnosed CML in the chronic phase. Further studies are required to modify the existing prognostic scoring system or develop new ones for children.

Ecological memory refers to the influence of past events on an ecosystem’s response to external or endogenous changes. Whereas memory’s contribution to ecosystem dynamics is well recognized, its role in microbial community dynamics has gained limited attention. Quantitative models of microbial communities have recently shown how resilience and multistability can emerge from interactions between community members under environmental perturbations. Here, we propose a general approach to incorporate memory into dynamical ecological models, and apply it to a topical microbial community model to demonstrate how memory: (1) slows down the overall dynamics, thus enhancing resistance while reducing resilience to perturbations; (2) can prevent state shifts and mitigate hysteresis, thus increasing resilience; (3) favours long transient dynamics, such as long-standing oscillations and delayed regime shifts; and (4) contributes to the emergence and persistence of alternative stable states. These results highlight the fundamental role of memory in key aspects of microbial community dynamics.

Abstract: Unruptured aneurysms of Valsalva sinus are most often asymptomatic conditions discovered accidentally but with fatal potential whenever complications such as rupture occur. Therefore, whenever incidentally diagnosed, these pathologic conditions should be repaired in order to prevent catastrophic complications and even sudden death. Here we describe a case of an asymptomatic 42 young man with a large unruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm (SVA) originating from a noncoronary sinus with a competent tricuspid aortic valve. The diagnosis was made accidentally by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and confirmed by computed tomography angiography (CA) and cardiac catheterization. The aneurysm was resected on a cardiopulmonary by-pass, and the sinus was successfully reconstructed with a bovine pericardial patch preserving the competence of the native aortic valve. In conclusion, bovine pericardial patch might be successfully used in order to reconstruct Valsalva sinus in cases presenting aneurysmal dilatation at this level.

Ayahuasca (Santo Daime or Daime tea) is the Quechua name for a tea obtained from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine (B. caapi) with the leaves of the Psychotria viridis (P.viridis) shrub. For generations, this beverage has been used in spiritual rituals by indigenous communities in the Amazon. Its promising neuropharmacological properties and its use as an alternative therapy in medical procedures has generated discussions about its safety. In this context, more experimental investigations must be encouraged so that the scientific data generated can contribute to its more correct use. For this work, we conducted an in vivo investigation of the possible genotoxic and mutagenic effects of ayahuasca. We used peripheral blood (COMET assay) and bone marrow (MN micronucleus test) from Mus musculus after oral administration of the tea. The results did not indicate genotoxic effects for the COM assay (tail length and percentage of DNA) when compared to the negative control, nor mutagenic effects for the MN test. Therefore, we found no evidence of genotoxicity or mutagenicity that reinforces the discussion about the harmful effects of this beverage.