SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test Based on a New Anti-Nucleocapsid Protein Monoclonal Antibody: Development and Real-Time Validation.

SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests have become an important tool for pandemic control. Among the alternatives for COVID-19 diagnosis, antigen rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDT) are very convenient and widely used. However, as SARS-CoV-2 variants may continuously emerge, the replacement of tests and reagents may be required to maintain the sensitivity of Ag-RDTs. Here, we describe the development and validation of an Ag-RDT during an outbreak of the Omicron variant, including the characterization of a new monoclonal antibody (anti-DTC-N 1B3 mAb) that recognizes the Nucleocapsid protein (N). The anti-DTC-N 1B3 mAb recognized the sequence TFPPTEPKKDKKK located at the C-terminus of the N protein of main SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. Accordingly, the Ag-RDT prototypes using the anti-DTC-N 1B3 mAB detected all the SARS-CoV-2 variants-Wuhan, Alpha, Gamma, Delta, P2 and Omicron. The performance of the best prototype (sensitivity of 95.2% for samples with Ct ≤ 25; specificity of 98.3% and overall accuracy of 85.0%) met the WHO recommendations. Moreover, results from a patients' follow-up study indicated that, if performed within the first three days after onset of symptoms, the Ag-RDT displayed 100% sensitivity. Thus, the new mAb and the Ag-RDT developed herein may constitute alternative tools for COVID-19 point-of-care diagnosis and epidemiological surveillance.

Soft Tissue Benign Hand Masses in the First Web Space: A Retrospective Case Series.

INTRODUCTION: Hand masses are fairly common. While most of these masses are either ganglion cysts or benign tumors, masses in the first web space are not rare, and they may in fact represent a variety of lesions. These include both benign and malignant tumors, metastases, or congenital and anomalous structures, and may involve nerves, vascular structures, connective tissue, and joints. METHODS: In this retrospective case series, data on 12 cases of first dorsal web space hand mass treated at our center over a period of five years were collected and analyzed. RESULTS:  Twelve consecutive patients presenting with a first dorsal web space hand mass over a period of five years were reviewed. This represented a group of nine females and three males, with a mean age of 53 years (range = 16-70 years). Seven patients had a mass on the right side and five on the left side. The surgical approach to resect the mass in all 12 patients was dorsal. The most common diagnosis was ganglion cyst (50%), followed by lipoma (25%) and aneurysm (16.6%). There was one case of eccrine spiradenoma. CONCLUSION: First dorsal web space hand masses can encompass multiple different pathologies, and the first web space has an intricate anatomy. Both of these factors mandate a careful approach that includes meticulous preoperative planning with appropriate advanced imaging studies, which helps to make the surgical procedure more efficient and accurate.

There might be more to syntactic bootstrapping than being pragmatic: A look at grammatical person and prosody in naturalistic child-directed speech.

In 'Being pragmatic about syntactic bootstrapping', Hacquard (2022) argues that abstract syntax is useful for word learning, but that an additional cue, pragmatics, is both necessary and available for young children during the first steps of language acquisition. She focuses on modals and attitude verbs, where the physical context seems particularly impoverished as the sole basis for deriving meanings, and thus where linguistic cues may be particularly helpful. She convincingly shows how pragmatic and syntactic cues could be combined to help young language learners learn and infer the possible meanings of attitude verbs such as "think", "know" or "want". She also argues that, in some circumstances, syntax and pragmatics would need to be supplemented by semantic information from context - for instance, in the case of modals such as "might", "can", or "must". We agree with Hacquard on the importance of the synergies between these different cues to meaning, and wish to add two other aspects of the input that might also be used by young children in these contexts. The aspects we describe can only be noticed when one analyzes concrete examples of what children hear in their everyday lives, something which Hacquard does very often in her work (e.g., Dieuleveut, van Dooren, Cournane & Hacquard, 2022; Huang, White, Liao, Hacquard & Lidz, 2022; Yang, 2022). Taking into account different cues for meaning would help the field go beyond current models of syntactic bootstrapping, and create an integrated picture of the synergies between different levels of linguistic information.

Overexpression of CLDN16 in ovarian cancer is modulated by PI3K and PKC pathways.

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the gynecological malignant tumor of poorest prognosis and higher mortality rate. Chemotherapy is the base of high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) treatment; however, it favors the emergence of chemoresistance and metastasis. Thus, there is an urge to search for new therapeutic targets, such as proteins related to cellular proliferation and invasion. Herein, we investigated the expression profile of claudin-16 (CLDN16 protein and CLDN16 transcript) and its possible functions in EOC. In silico analysis of CLDN16 expression profile was performed using data extracted from GENT2 and GEPIA2 platforms. A retrospective study was carried out with 55 patients to evaluate the expression of CLDN16. The samples were evaluated by immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, qRT-PCR, molecular docking, sequencing, and immunoblotting assays. Statistical analyzes were performed using Kaplan-Meier curves, one-way ANOVA, Turkey posttest. Data were analyzed using GraphPad Prism 8.0. In silico experiments showed that CLDN16 is overexpressed in EOC. 80.0% of all EOC types overexpressed CLDN16, of which in 87% of the cases the protein is restricted to cellular cytoplasm. CLDN16 expression was not related to tumor stage, tumor cells differentiation status, tumor responsiveness to cisplatin, or patients' survival rate. When compared to data obtained from in silico analysis regarding EOC stage and degree of differentiation, differences were found in the former but not in the later, neither in survival curves. CLDN16 expression in HGSOC OVCAR-3 cells increased by 1.95-fold (p < 0.001), 2.32-fold (p < 0.001), and 6.57-fold (p < 0.001) via PKC, PI3K, and estrogen pathways, respectively. Altogether, our results suggest that despite the low number of samples included in our in vitro studies, adding to the expression profile findings, we provided a comprehensive study of CLDN16 expression in EOC. Therefore, we hypothesize that CLDN16 is a potential target in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

Differential requirement of neutralizing antibodies and T cells on protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.

The current COVID-19 vaccines protect against severe disease, but are not effective in controlling replication of the Variants of Concern (VOCs). Here, we used the existing pre-clinical models of severe and moderate COVID-19 to evaluate the efficacy of a Spike-based DNA vaccine (pCTV-WS) for protection against different VOCs. Immunization of transgenic (K18-hACE2) mice and hamsters induced significant levels of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) to Wuhan and Delta isolates, but not to the Gamma and Omicron variants. Nevertheless, the pCTV-WS vaccine offered significant protection to all VOCs. Consistently, protection against lung pathology and viral load to Wuhan or Delta was mediated by nAbs, whereas in the absence of nAbs, T cells controlled viral replication, disease and lethality in mice infected with either the Gamma or Omicron variants. Hence, considering the conserved nature of CD4 and CD8 T cell epitopes, we corroborate the hypothesis that induction of effector T-cells should be a main goal for new vaccines against the emergent SARS-CoV-2 VOCs.

Revealing the spatiotemporal requirements for accurate subject identification with resting-state functional connectivity: a simultaneous fNIRS-fMRI study.

Significance: Brain fingerprinting refers to identifying participants based on their functional patterns. Despite its success with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), brain fingerprinting with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) still lacks adequate validation. Aim: We investigated how fNIRS-specific acquisition features (limited spatial information and nonneural contributions) influence resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) patterns at the intra-subject level and, therefore, brain fingerprinting. Approach: We performed multiple simultaneous fNIRS and fMRI measurements in 29 healthy participants at rest. Data were preprocessed following the best practices, including the removal of motion artifacts and global physiology. The rsFC maps were extracted with the Pearson correlation coefficient. Brain fingerprinting was tested with pairwise metrics and a simple linear classifier. Results: Our results show that average classification accuracy with fNIRS ranges from 75% to 98%, depending on the number of runs and brain regions used for classification. Under the right conditions, brain fingerprinting with fNIRS is close to the 99.9% accuracy found with fMRI. Overall, the classification accuracy is more impacted by the number of runs and the spatial coverage than the choice of the classification algorithm. Conclusions: This work provides evidence that brain fingerprinting with fNIRS is robust and reliable for extracting unique individual features at the intra-subject level once relevant spatiotemporal constraints are correctly employed.

A relação entre arte e vida em vigotski: uma análise conceitual / The relationship between art and life in vygotsky: a conceptual analysis / La relación entre arte y vida en vigotski: un análisis conceptual

Este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar a relação entre arte e vida segundo Vigotski. Para isso, foi realizada uma análise conceitual dos capítulos 1, 7, 9, 10 e 11 da Psicologia da Arte, do capítulo 13 da Psicologia Pedagógica e do texto O significado histórico da crise da Psicologia: Uma investigação metodológica. A pesquisa conceitual consiste na análise semântica dos principais conceitos de uma teoria com o intuito de elucidar seus sentidos ocultos ou confusos e desvendar possíveis contradições e ambiguidades no quadro teórico. Podemos observar que a arte é um fenômeno dialético tanto em sua criação como em seus efeitos. A influência da vida, isto é, da realidade sócio-histórica, na criação artística é indireta, pois ela é sempre mediada pelo psiquismo particular do artista. Já o efeito da arte sobre a vida possibilita que o ser humano se conscientize de sua realidade social e se engaje para mudá-la. A arte é, portanto, transformadora, pois reorganiza o psiquismo e possibilita uma mudança nas condições materiais dos seres humanos.(AU)

This study aims to analyze the relationship between art and life according to Vygotsky. Therefore, a conceptual analysis of chapters 1, 7, 9, 10, and 11 of Psychology of Art, chapter 13 of Educational Psychology and the text The Historical meaning of the Crisis of Psychology: A Methodological Investigation was carried out. Conceptual research consists of the semantic analysis of the main concepts of a theory to elucidate its hidden or confused meanings and to reveal possible contradictions and ambiguities in the theoretical framework. Results show that art is a dialectical phenomenon both in its creation and its effects. The influence of life, that is, of socio-historical reality, on artistic creation is indirect since it is always mediated by the artist's particular psyche. The effect of art on life, on the other hand, allows human beings to become aware of their social reality and engage to change it. Art is, therefore, transformative, as it reorganizes the psyche and enables a change in the material conditions of human beings.(AU)

Este proyecto tuve como objetivo analizar la relación entre el arte y la vida, según Vigotski. Para esto, fue realizado un análisis de los capítulos 1, 7, 9, 10 y 11 de Psicología del arte, del capítulo 13 de Psicología Pedagógica y del texto Él significado histórico de la crisis de la Psicología: una investigación metodológica. La pesquisa conceptual consiste en la analice semántica de los conceptos de una teoría, para aclarar sus significados ocultos o confusos y desvendar contradicciones y ambigüedades em el cuadro teórico. Pudimos observar que, el arte es un fenómeno dialéctico en su creación tanto como en sus efectos. La influencia de la vida, esto es, de la realidad socio-histórica, en la creación artística es indirecta, pues es mediada por el psiquismo particular de lo artista. Así, el efecto del arte sobre la vida habilita que lo ser humano adquiera conciencia de su realidad social y que se comprometa a cambiarla. El arte, consiguientemente, transformadora, pues reorganiza lo psiquismo y habilita un cambio en las condiciones materiales de los seres humanos.(AU)

Monitoring the Establishment of VOC Gamma in Minas Gerais, Brazil: A Retrospective Epidemiological and Genomic Surveillance Study.

Since its first identification in Brazil, the variant of concern (VOC) Gamma has been associated with increased infection and transmission rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. Minas Gerais (MG), the second-largest populated Brazilian state with more than 20 million inhabitants, observed a peak of cases and deaths in March-April 2021. We conducted a surveillance study in 1240 COVID-19-positive samples from 305 municipalities distributed across MG's 28 Regional Health Units (RHU) between 1 March to 27 April 2021. The most common variant was the VOC Gamma (71.2%), followed by the variant of interest (VOI) zeta (12.4%) and VOC alpha (9.6%). Although the predominance of Gamma was found in most of the RHUs, clusters of Zeta and Alpha variants were observed. One Alpha-clustered RHU has a history of high human mobility from countries with Alpha predominance. Other less frequent lineages, such as P.4, P.5, and P.7, were also identified. With our genomic characterization approach, we estimated the introduction of Gamma on 7 January 2021, at RHU Belo Horizonte. Differences in mortality between the Zeta, Gamma and Alpha variants were not observed. We reinforce the importance of vaccination programs to prevent severe cases and deaths during transmission peaks.

Tracking the turnover of SARS-CoV-2 VOCs Gamma to Delta in a Brazilian state (Minas Gerais) with a high-vaccination status.

The emergence and global dissemination of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern (VOCs) have been described as the main factor driving the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic. In Brazil, the Gamma variant dominated the epidemiological scenario during the first period of 2021. Many Brazilian regions detected the Delta variant after its first description and documented its spread. To monitor the introduction and spread of VOC Delta, we performed Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) genotyping and genome sequencing in ten regional sentinel units from June to October 2021 in the State of Minas Gerais (MG). We documented the introduction and spread of Delta, comprising 70 per cent of the cases 8 weeks later. Comparing the viral loads of the Gamma and Delta dominance periods, we provide additional evidence that the latter is more transmissible. The spread and dominance of Delta did not culminate in the increase in cases and deaths, suggesting that the vaccination may have restrained the epidemic growth. Analysis of 224 novel Delta genomes revealed that Rio de Janeiro state was the primary source for disseminating this variant in the state of MG. We present the establishment of Delta, providing evidence of its enhanced transmissibility and showing that this variant shift did not aggravate the epidemiological scenario in a high immunity setting.

Asymptomatic Plasmodium vivax malaria in the Brazilian Amazon: Submicroscopic parasitemic blood infects Nyssorhynchus darlingi.

Individuals with asymptomatic infection due to Plasmodium vivax are posited to be important reservoirs of malaria transmission in endemic regions. Here we studied a cohort of P. vivax malaria patients in a suburban area in the Brazilian Amazon. Overall 1,120 individuals were screened for P. vivax infection and 108 (9.6%) had parasitemia detected by qPCR but not by microscopy. Asymptomatic individuals had higher levels of antibodies against P. vivax and similar hematological and biochemical parameters compared to uninfected controls. Blood from asymptomatic individuals with very low parasitemia transmitted P. vivax to the main local vector, Nyssorhynchus darlingi. Lower mosquito infectivity rates were observed when blood from asymptomatic individuals was used in the membrane feeding assay. While blood from symptomatic patients infected 43.4% (199/458) of the mosquitoes, blood from asymptomatic infected 2.5% (43/1,719). However, several asymptomatic individuals maintained parasitemia for several weeks indicating their potential role as an infectious reservoir. These results suggest that asymptomatic individuals are an important source of malaria parasites and Science and Technology for Vaccines granted by Conselho Nacional de may contribute to the transmission of P. vivax in low-endemicity areas of malaria.

Adjusting the Cut-Off and Maximum Pool Size in RT-qPCR Pool Testing for SARS-CoV-2.

Reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA is an essential test to monitor the occurrence of COVID-19. A methodology is proposed for the determination of maximum pool size and adjustments of cut-off values of cycle threshold (Ct in RT-qPCR pool testing, to compensate for the dilution caused by pooling. The trade-off between pool size and test sensitivity is stated explicitly. The procedure was designed to ensure that samples that would be detectable in individual testing remain detectable in pool testing. The proposed relaxation in cut-off is dependent on the pool size, allowing a relatively tight correction to avoid loss of detection of positive samples. The methodology was evaluated in a study of pool testing of adults attending a public emergency care unit, reference for COVID-19 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and presenting flu-like symptoms. Even samples on the edge of detectability in individual testing were detected correctly. The proposed procedure enhances the consistency of RT-qPCR pool testing by enforcing that the scales of detectability in pool processing and in individual sample processing are compatible. This may enhance the contribution of pool testing to large-scale testing for COVID-19.

The use of denaturing solution as collection and transport media to improve SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection and reduce infection of laboratory personnel.

Accurate testing to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA is key to counteract the virus spread. Nonetheless, the number of diagnostic laboratories able to perform qPCR tests is limited, particularly in developing countries. We describe the use of a virus-inactivating, denaturing solution (DS) to decrease virus infectivity in clinical specimens without affecting RNA integrity. Swab samples were collected from infected patients and from laboratory personnel using a commercially available viral transport solution and the in-house DS. Samples were tested by RT-qPCR, and exposure to infective viruses was also accessed by ELISA. The DS used did not interfere with viral genome detection and was able to maintain RNA integrity for up to 16 days at room temperature. Furthermore, virus loaded onto DS were inactivated, as attested by attempts to grow SARS-CoV-2 in cell monolayers after DS desalt filtration to remove toxic residues. The DS described here provides a strategy to maintain diagnostic accuracy and protects diagnostic laboratory personnel from accidental infection, as it has helped to protect our lab crew.

"The tiger is hitting! the duck too!" 3-year-olds can use prosodic information to constrain their interpretation of ellipsis.

This work aims to investigate French children's ability to use phrasal boundaries for disambiguation of a type of ambiguity not yet studied, namely stripping sentences versus simple transitive sentences. We used stripping sentences such as "[Le tigre tape]! [Le canard aussi]!" ("[The tiger is hitting]! [The duck too]!", in which both the tiger and the duck are hitting), which, without the prosodic information, would be ambiguous with a transitive sentence such as "[Le tigre] [tape le canard aussi]!" ("[The tiger] [is hitting the duck too]!", in which the tiger is hitting the duck). We presented 3-to-4-year-olds and 28-month-olds with one of the two types of sentence above, while they watched two videos side-by-side on a screen: one depicting the transitive interpretation of the sentences, and another depicting the stripping interpretation. The stripping interpretation video showed the two characters as agents of the named action (e.g. a duck and a tiger hitting a bunny), and the transitive interpretation video showed only the first character as an agent, and the second character as a patient of the action (e.g. the tiger hitting the duck and the bunny). The results showed that 3-to-4-year-olds use prosodic information to correctly distinguish stripping sentences from transitive sentences, as they looked significantly more at the appropriate video, while 28-month-olds show only a trend in the same direction. While recent studies demonstrated that from 18 months of age, infants are able to use phrasal prosody to guide the syntactic analysis of ambiguous sentences, our results show that only 3-to-4-year-olds were able to reliably use phrasal prosody to constrain the parsing of stripping sentences. We discuss several factors that can explain this delay, such as differences in the frequency of these structures in child-directed speech, as well as in the complexity of the sentences and of the experimental task. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence on the role of prosody in constraining parsing in young children.

"Look! It is not a bamoule!": 18- and 24-month-olds can use negative sentences to constrain their interpretation of novel word meanings.

Two word-learning experiments were conducted to investigate the understanding of negative sentences in 18- and 24-month-old children. In Experiment 1, after learning that bamoule means "penguin" and pirdaling means "cartwheeling," 18-month-olds (n = 48) increased their looking times when listening to negative sentences rendered false by their visual context ("Look! It is not a bamoule!" while watching a video showing a penguin cartwheeling); however, they did not change their looking behavior when negative sentences were rendered true by their context ("Look! It is not pirdaling!" while watching a penguin spinning). In Experiment 2, 24-month-olds (n = 48) were first exposed to a teaching phase in which they saw a new cartoon character on a television (e.g., a blue monster). Participants in the affirmative condition listened to sentences like "It's a bamoule!" and participants in the negative condition listened to sentences like "It's not a bamoule!." At test, all participants were asked to find the bamoule while viewing two images: the familiar character from the teaching phase versus a novel character (e.g., a red monster). Results showed that participants in the affirmative condition looked more to the familiar character (i.e., they learned the familiar character was a bamoule) than participants in the negative condition. Together, these studies provide the first evidence for the understanding of negative sentences during the second year of life. The ability to understand negative sentences so early might support language acquisition, providing infants with a tool to constrain the space of possibilities for word meanings.

Chemical and sensory characteristics in the selection of bourbon genotypes

The evaluation of coffee quality in Brazil for commercialization is conducted mainly through sensory analysis, also known as the "cup test", in which professional tasters evaluate and score various attributes. The adoption of chemical methods could complement the sensory classification of beverages, if correlations between these chemical and sensory analyses exist, making classification less subjective. This work aimed to identify the relationships between the chemical and sensorial traits of coffee-beverage quality and to evaluate the use of these traits as criteria for the selection of Bourbon cultivars. Twenty coffee genotypes from the first three harvests across five municipalities of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil were evaluated. The genotypic values, predicted for each genotype, were used to determine the index based on the sum of ranks from Mulamba and Mock. The genetic correlations among the evaluated traits were also estimated. The presented evaluations were not able to efficiently detect genetic and phenotypic relationships between the chemical and sensorial characteristics of drink quality, but as selection criteria for generation advancement in the beverage quality, it is possible to use these characteristics. Bourbon Amarelo LCJ 9-IAC, Bourbon Amarelo-Procafé, Bourbon Amarelo-Boa Vista, Bourbon Vermelho-São João Batista, and Bourbon Amarelo-Samambaia were the genotypes with the most promising cup quality in the studied regions. Through the selection of these five genotypes, the selection gain was 1.65% for sensory score for beverage quality, when the interaction among the studied environments was removed. The heritability was 92% for improving this trait.

Early use of nitazoxanide in mild COVID-19 disease: randomised, placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Nitazoxanide is widely available and exerts broad-spectrum antiviral activity in vitro. However, there is no evidence of its impact on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. METHODS: In a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, adult patients presenting up to 3 days after onset of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms (dry cough, fever and/or fatigue) were enrolled. After confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection using reverse transcriptase PCR on a nasopharyngeal swab, patients were randomised 1:1 to receive either nitazoxanide (500 mg) or placebo, three times daily, for 5 days. The primary outcome was complete resolution of symptoms. Secondary outcomes were viral load, laboratory tests, serum biomarkers of inflammation and hospitalisation rate. Adverse events were also assessed. RESULTS: From June 8 to August 20, 2020, 1575 patients were screened. Of these, 392 (198 placebo, 194 nitazoxanide) were analysed. Median (interquartile range) time from symptom onset to first dose of study drug was 5 (4-5) days. At the 5-day study visit, symptom resolution did not differ between the nitazoxanide and placebo arms. Swabs collected were negative for SARS-CoV-2 in 29.9% of patients in the nitazoxanide arm versus 18.2% in the placebo arm (p=0.009). Viral load was reduced after nitazoxanide compared to placebo (p=0.006). The percentage viral load reduction from onset to end of therapy was higher with nitazoxanide (55%) than placebo (45%) (p=0.013). Other secondary outcomes were not significantly different. No serious adverse events were observed. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with mild COVID-19, symptom resolution did not differ between nitazoxanide and placebo groups after 5 days of therapy. However, early nitazoxanide therapy was safe and reduced viral load significantly.

Toddlers exploit referential and syntactic cues to flexibly adapt their interpretation of novel verb meanings.

Because linguistic communication is often noisy and uncertain, adults flexibly rely on different information sources during sentence processing. We tested whether toddlers engage in a similar process and how that process interacts with verb learning. Across two experiments, we presented French 28-month-olds with right-dislocated sentences featuring a novel verb ("Hei is VERBing, the boyi"), where a clear prosodic boundary after the verb indicates that the sentence is intransitive (such that the NP "the boy" is coreferential with the pronoun "he" and the sentence means "The boy is VERBing"). By default, toddlers incorrectly interpreted the sentence based on the number of NPs (assuming, e.g., that someone is VERBing the boy). Yet, when children were provided with additional information about the syntactic contexts (Experiment 1, N = 81) or the referential/semantic content (Experiment 2, N = 72) of the novel verb, they successfully used the prosodic information as a cue to reach the correct syntactic structure of the sentence and infer the probable meaning of the novel verb. These results suggest that toddlers can flexibly adjust their interpretations of sentences depending on the reliability of the linguistic cues available. Thus, failure to parse a sentence in an adult-like fashion might not necessarily reflect the immaturity of children's parsing system but rather might be indicative of what cues children consider reliable in that context.

Familiar words can serve as a semantic seed for syntactic bootstrapping.

Young children can exploit the syntactic context of a novel word to narrow down its probable meaning. But how do they learn which contexts are linked to which semantic features in the first place? We investigate if 3- to 4-year-old children (n = 60) can learn about a syntactic context from tracking its use with only a few familiar words. After watching a 5-min training video in which a novel function word (i.e., 'ko') replaced either personal pronouns or articles, children were able to infer semantic properties for novel words co-occurring with the newly learned function word (i.e., objects vs. actions). These findings implicate a mechanism by which a distributional analysis, associated with a small vocabulary of known words, could be sufficient to identify some properties associated with specific syntactic contexts.

Use of the Facial Artery for Free Functioning Muscle Transfers: An Alternative Pedicle for Salvage in Brachial Plexus Lesions with Vascular Injuries.

Free functional muscle transfer (FFMT) is a salvage procedure recommended in cases of brachial plexus injury with late presentations or failures of primary nerve reconstruction. The workhorse for most authors is the gracilis, and the most common indication is the restoration of elbow flexion. For successful revascularization of the muscle, donor vessels must be in proximity of the site of the muscle fixation and allow direct coaptation to a donor nerve, ideally without the use of nerve grafts. A major problem occurs when patients have sustained concomitant vascular injuries to the subclavian and/or axillary arteries and had previous surgical dissections in the area where the most common vascular pedicles are located. The authors report the use of the rerouted facial vessels as donors in these complex cases. The surgical technique is presented, along with three cases where the procedure was used. The flaps survived in all the patients and grade > 3/5 muscle contraction was observed in the two patients who had adequate follow-up. Conclusion: the use of the facial vessels as donor vessels is an option to revascularize a FFMT in the setting of severe vascular injury to the subclavian and axillary arteries.

A dúvida: tireotoxicose versus hipertireoidismo descompensado / The doubt: Thyrotoxicosis X Decompensated Hyperthyroidism

Relata-se o caso de paciente do sexo masculino, atendido em um hospital universitário, após quadro duvidoso e arrastado de alteração cardíaca e hipertireoidiana, com a propedêutica sequencial própria para crise tireotóxica. Destaca-se a necessidade de identificação precoce da apresentação clínica, com atendimento de emergência, e a capacidade da realização de diagnósticos diferenciais com alterações cardíacas primárias, evitando-se sequelas e desfechos inesperados.

We report the case of a male patient seen in a University Hospital after a dubious and protracted picture of cardiac and hyperthyroid alteration, with adequate sequential propaedeutic for thyrotoxic crisis. The need for early identification of clinical presentation with emergency care, and the ability to perform differential diagnoses with primary cardiac changes are highlighted, to avoid unexpected sequelae and outcomes.