Quantum mechanics of particles constrained to spiral curves with application to polyene chains.

CONTEXT: Due to advances in synthesizing lower-dimensional materials, there is the challenge of finding the wave equation that effectively describes quantum particles moving on 1D and 2D domains. Jensen and Koppe and Da Costa independently introduced a confining potential formalism showing that the effective constrained dynamics is subjected to a scalar geometry-induced potential; for the confinement to a curve, the potential depends on the curve's curvature function. METHOD: To characterize the π electrons in polyenes, we follow two approaches. First, we utilize a weakened Coulomb potential associated with a spiral curve. The solution to the Schrödinger equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions yields Bessel functions, and the spectrum is obtained analytically. We employ the particle-in-a-box model in the second approach, incorporating effective mass corrections. The π - π ∗ transitions of polyenes were calculated in good experimental agreement with both approaches, although with different wave functions.

Scorpion-Induced Acute Coronary Syndrome: A Stinging Complication.

The Tityus trinitatis, a black scorpion species endemic to the fauna of Trinidad, has been implicated in envenomation with devastating clinical sequelae such as acute pancreatitis and major adverse cardiovascular events. We present the first in-Caribbean case of a 59-year-old Caribbean South Asian male with human immunodeficiency virus who presented with a non-ST-segment-elevation acute coronary syndrome after being stung, which was managed with comprehensive, guideline-directed medical therapy. The clinician should be cognizant of scorpion-induced acute coronary syndrome (ACS) as a potential sequela of envenomation and its clinical management.

Celiac disease prevalence in patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, a cross-sectional study.

Up to 30% of patients with celiac disease (CD) suffer from concurrent autoimmune disease, compared to 3% of the general population. The association between CD and the current clinical phenotypes of inflammatory myopathies (IIM) patients has not been thoroughly addressed. Assess the CD features among patients with IIM and their relationship with the clinical phenotype and the myositis specific (MSA) and associated antibodies (MAA). For this cross-sectional study, we recruited 99 adult patients classified as IIM from a tertiary center in Mexico. We assessed serum MSA, MAA, and CD-associated autoantibodies (IgA anti-tissue transglutaminase (tTG) and both IgA and IgG anti-deaminated gliadin peptide (DGP)). Patients with highly suggestive serology for CD were then tested for IgG anti-endomysium antibodies, and a duodenal biopsy was performed. 70.7% of patients were positive for at least one antibody. Nine duodenal biopsies were taken, revealing findings compatible with celiac disease in two cases. Subjects with anti-MDA5 antibodies were more likely to have positive anti-tTG IgA antibodies (OR 6.76, 95% CI 1.85-24.62, P = 0.013) and suggestive CD serology (OR 6.41, 95% CI 1.62-25.29, P = 0.009). Patients with anti-Mi2 antibodies were more likely to have positive anti-DGP IgG antibodies (OR 3.35, 95% CI 1.12-9.96, P = 0.039), while positivity for these autoantibodies was less frequent in patients with anti-NXP2 antibodies (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.06-0.80, P = 0.035). There is a higher prevalence of serologic and definite CD in patients with IIM compared to the general population. Identifying this subgroup of patients may have prognostic and therapeutic implications. Key points • The study estimated a serological celiac disease (CD) prevalence of 70.7% in patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) and a biopsy-confirmed prevalence of 2%, suggesting that IIM patients should be considered a high-risk population for CD. • We identified a significant association between serological CD and the presence of anti-MDA5 and anti-Mi2 antibodies, suggesting a potential justification for celiac disease screening in this specific subgroup of patients. • The impact of gluten-free diets on IIM patients with serological markers of CD remains untested and warrants further investigation through prospective, randomized studies.

Mixtures of t $$ t $$ factor analysers with censored responses and external covariates: An application to educational data from Peru.

Analysing data from educational tests allows governments to make decisions for improving the quality of life of individuals in a society. One of the key responsibilities of statisticians is to develop models that provide decision-makers with pertinent information about the latent process that educational tests seek to represent. Mixtures of t $$ t $$ factor analysers (MtFA) have emerged as a powerful device for model-based clustering and classification of high-dimensional data containing one or several groups of observations with fatter tails or anomalous outliers. This paper considers an extension of MtFA for robust clustering of censored data, referred to as the MtFAC model, by incorporating external covariates. The enhanced flexibility of including covariates in MtFAC enables cluster-specific multivariate regression analysis of dependent variables with censored responses arising from upper and/or lower detection limits of experimental equipment. An alternating expectation conditional maximization (AECM) algorithm is developed for maximum likelihood estimation of the proposed model. Two simulation experiments are conducted to examine the effectiveness of the techniques presented. Furthermore, the proposed methodology is applied to Peruvian data from the 2007 Early Grade Reading Assessment, and the results obtained from the analysis provide new insights regarding the reading skills of Peruvian students.

Embodied Conversational Agents Providing Motivational Interviewing to Improve Health-Related Behaviors: Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are advanced human-like interfaces that engage users in natural face-to-face conversations and interactions. These traits position ECAs as innovative tools for delivering interventions for promoting health-related behavior adoption. This includes motivational interviewing (MI), a therapeutic approach that combines brief interventions with motivational techniques to encourage the adoption of healthier behaviors. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify the health issues addressed by ECAs delivering MI interventions, explore the key characteristics of these ECAs (eg, appearance, dialogue mechanism, emotional model), analyze the implementation of MI principles and techniques within ECAs, and examine the evaluation methods and primary outcomes of studies that use ECAs providing MI interventions. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review following the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) methodology. Our systematic search covered the PubMed, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital, and PsycINFO databases for papers published between January 2008 and December 2022. We included papers describing ECAs developed for delivering MI interventions targeting health-related behaviors and excluded articles that did not describe ECAs with human appearances and without the necessary evaluation or MI explanation. In a multistage process, 3 independent reviewers performed screening and data extraction, and the collected data were synthesized using a narrative approach. RESULTS: The initial search identified 404 articles, of which 3.5% (n=14) were included in the review. ECAs primarily focused on reducing alcohol use (n=5, 36%), took on female representations (n=9, 64%), and gave limited consideration to user ethnicity (n=9, 64%). Most of them used rules-driven dialogue mechanisms (n=13, 93%), include emotional behavior to convey empathy (n=8, 57%) but without an automatic recognition of user emotions (n=12, 86%). Regarding MI implementation, of 14 studies, 3 (21%) covered all MI principles, 4 (29%) included all processes, and none covered all techniques. Most studies (8/14, 57%) conducted acceptability, usability, and user experience assessments, whereas a smaller proportion (4/14, 29%) used randomized controlled trials to evaluate behavior changes. Overall, the studies reported positive results regarding acceptability, usability, and user experience and showed promising outcomes in changes in attitudes, beliefs, motivation, and behavior. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed significant advancements in the use of ECAs for delivering MI interventions aimed at promoting healthier behaviors over the past 15 years. However, this review emphasizes the need for a more in-depth exploration of ECA characteristics. In addition, there is a need for the enhanced integration of MI principles, processes, and techniques into ECAs. Although acceptability and usability have received considerable attention, there is a compelling argument for placing a stronger emphasis on assessing changes in attitudes, beliefs, motivation, and behavior. Consequently, inclusion of more randomized controlled trials is essential for comprehensive intervention evaluations.

The South African Flag Sign: An Electrocardiographic Flag for All Coronary Territories?

The South African flag sign (SAFS) is an acute, dynamic electrocardiographic (ECG) finding typically associated with first diagonal (D1) artery occlusion. We report the case of a 47-year-old woman who exhibited this pattern but subsequently revealed the dreaded "widow-maker" lesion (100% occluded proximal left anterior descending [LAD] artery) and severe multivessel disease (90% stenosis of the posterior left ventricular [PLV] artery and 80% stenosis of the left circumflex artery [LCx]).

Meloidogyne Haplanaria: An Emerging Threat to Tomato Production in Florida.

The Mi-gene is widely used in different tomato cultivars to resist several Meloidogyne spp. (root-kot nematode; RKN), including M. incognita, M. javanica, and M. arenaria. Tomato cultivars with the Mi-gene are widely used in fields. However, factors such as temperatures, high initial population densities, and gene dosage can interfere with the expression of this gene. In addition, the presence of virulent species of RKN can limit the usefulness of the gene. One of the virulent species is M. haplanaria, which was identified infecting RKN-resistant tomato in Florida in 2015. The objectives of this study were to determine the initial damage threshold of M. haplanaria on tomato under greenhouse conditions and to analyze the impact of temperature and genetic background on virulence in tomato cultivars. The results showed a preliminary damage threshold of three eggs and J2/cm3 of soil. In addition, it was observed that M. haplanaria has a shorter life cycle than the virulent M. enterolobii and can infect, reproduce, and damage homozygous or heterozygous RKN-resistant tomato plants. This research demonstrated that M. haplanaria should be considered highly virulent on RKN-resistant tomato and is an important threat to agriculture in Florida.

Decoding EEG rhythms offline and online during motor imagery for standing and sitting based on a brain-computer interface.

Motor imagery (MI)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems have shown promising advances for lower limb motor rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to develop an MI-based BCI for the actions of standing and sitting. Thirty-two healthy subjects participated in the study using 17 active EEG electrodes. We used a combination of the filter bank common spatial pattern (FBCSP) method and the regularized linear discriminant analysis (RLDA) technique for decoding EEG rhythms offline and online during motor imagery for standing and sitting. The offline analysis indicated the classification of motor imagery and idle state provided a mean accuracy of 88.51 ± 1.43% and 85.29 ± 1.83% for the sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit transitions, respectively. The mean accuracies of the sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit online experiments were 94.69 ± 1.29% and 96.56 ± 0.83%, respectively. From these results, we believe that the MI-based BCI may be useful to future brain-controlled standing systems.

Extending multivariate Student's- t $$ t $$ semiparametric mixed models for longitudinal data with censored responses and heavy tails.

This article extends the semiparametric mixed model for longitudinal censored data with Gaussian errors by considering the Student's t $$ t $$ -distribution. This model allows us to consider a flexible, functional dependence of an outcome variable over the covariates using nonparametric regression. Moreover, the proposed model takes into account the correlation between observations by using random effects. Penalized likelihood equations are applied to derive the maximum likelihood estimates that appear to be robust against outlying observations with respect to the Mahalanobis distance. We estimate nonparametric functions using smoothing splines under an EM-type algorithm framework. Finally, the proposed approach's performance is evaluated through extensive simulation studies and an application to two datasets from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome clinical trials.

Double right coronary artery diagnosed by computed tomographic angiography: A case report and systematic review of the literature.

Double right coronary artery (RCA) is an extremely uncommon anomaly that is mostly detected incidentally in patients undergoing coronary angiography. It can be a benign and isolated anomaly or associated with other congenital abnormalities, mostly other coronary anomalies. Although atherosclerosis and myocardial ischemia have been frequently reported in patients with double RCA, this likely reflects that the patients were evaluated for chest pain rather than the predisposition to atherosclerosis in double RCA. Paralleling the increased awareness of this entity and the availability of non-invasive and cost-effective imaging of the coronary arteries, the diagnosis of double RCA has increased recently. Here, we present a case of double RCA diagnosed by coronary computed tomographic angiography, and provide a mini-review on the demography, anatomic variants, and clinical significance of double RCA.

Postinfarction Ventricular Septal Rupture: Identification of the Failure Mechanism of a Percutaneous Closure Procedure.

Ventricular septal rupture (VSR) is a rare but highly lethal (∼60%) mechanical complication of myocardial infarction (MI). Although surgical repair has been the gold standard to correct the structural anomaly, percutaneous closure of the defect may represent a valuable therapeutic alternative, with the advantage of immediate shunt reduction to prevent further hemodynamic deterioration in patients with prohibitive surgical risk. Nonetheless, catheter-based VSR closure has faced certain drawbacks that have hampered its application. We describe a clinical case of postinfarction VSR treated with a percutaneous closure device and discuss the procedure's failure mechanism. (Level of Difficulty: Intermediate.).

Assessment of the van der Waals, Hubbard U parameter and spin-orbit coupling corrections on the 2D/3D structures from metal gold congeners clusters.

The coinage-metal clusters possess a natural complexity in their theoretical treatment that may be accompanied by inherent shortcomings in the methodological approach. Herein, we performed a scalar-relativistic density functional theory study, considering Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof (PBE) with (empirical and semi empirical) van der Waals (vdW), spin-orbit coupling (SOC), +U (Hubbard term), and their combinations, to treat the Cu 13 , Ag 13 , and Au 13 clusters in different structural motifs. The energetic scenario is given by the confirmation of the 3D lowest energy configurations for Cu 13 and Ag 13 within all approaches, while for Au 13 there is a 2D/3D competition, depending on the applied correction. The 2D geometry is 0.43 eV more stable with plain PBE than the 3D one, the SOC, +U, and/or vdW inclusion decreases the overestimated stability of the planar configurations, where the most surprising result is found by the D3 and D3BJ vdW corrections, for which the 3D configuration is 0.29 and 0.11 eV, respectively, more stable than the 2D geometry (with even higher values when SOC and/or +U are added). The D3 dispersion correction represents 7.9% (4.4%) of the total binding energy for the 3D (2D) configuration, (not) being enough to change the sd hybridization and the position of the occupied d -states. Our predictions are in agreement with experimental results and in line with the best results obtained for bulk systems, as well as with hybrid functionals within D3 corrections. The properties description undergoes small corrections with the different approaches, where general trends are maintained, that is, the average bond length is smaller (larger) for lower (higher)-coordinated structures, since a same number of electrons are shared by a smaller (larger) number of bonds, consequently, the bonds are stronger (weaker) and shorter (longer) and the sd hybridization index is larger (smaller). Thus, Au has a distinct behavior in relation to its lighter congeners, with a complex potential energy surface, where in addition to the relevant relativistic effects, correlation and dispersion effects must also be considered.

In Situ Calb Enzyme Immobilization in Mesoporous Material Type MCM-48 Synthesis Using Ionic Solid [C14MI]Cl as Structure-Directing Agent.

MCM-48 mesoporous support was synthesized with the ionic solid 1-tetradecyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C14MI]Cl) as a structure-directing agent for in situ immobilization of Candida antarctica B (CALB). The MCM-48[C14MI]Cl support showed characteristics of mesoporous material of interest, with a pore size of 20.30 and 73.41 A for the support without and with the enzyme, respectively. The elongation of the carbonic chain of the ionic solid directly influenced the increase in the specific area and pore volume of the material. In addition, the decrease in the specific area and pore volume for support with the enzyme showed the effectiveness of immobilization in situ. It was possible to obtain the ideal levels for the best activities of esterification of the enzyme with optimization of a mathematical model. The optimized variables were 0.31 g of enzyme and 3.35% of ionic solid with a maximum esterification activity of 392.92 U/g and 688% of yield. The support showed residual activity above 50% when stored under refrigeration for 75 days. At 60 and 80 °C, the enzyme immobilized on the support retained more than 80 and 40% of its residual activity, respectively. In addition, the support presented the possibility of reuse for up to 10 cycles with residual activity of approximately 50%. The support synthesized in the present study presents a great industrial opportunity for the immobilization and use of the CALB enzyme.

Sector salud público y privado de Bogotá firman carta de intención para fortalecer la atención a la ciudadanía

Carta intención Secretaría de Salud - EPS

Sector Salud público y privado de Bogotá firman carta de intención para fortalecer la atención a la ciudadanía

Carta intención Secretaría de Salud - EPS

Más de 10 mil personas beneficiadas con jornada de Salud a mi Barrio en la localidad de Kennedy

La jornada 'Salud A Mi Barrio´ llegó a la localidad de Kennedy y hasta este sábado 21 de mayo hasta las 12 m., 160 profesionales de la salud están recorriendo puerta a puerta los hogares de los barrios Bellavista, Santa Cecilia y Las Brisas para brindar una atención médica integral, eficiente y de calidad.

Tourist Experiences Recommender System Based on Emotion Recognition with Wearable Data.

The collection of physiological data from people has been facilitated due to the mass use of cheap wearable devices. Although the accuracy is low compared to specialized healthcare devices, these can be widely applied in other contexts. This study proposes the architecture for a tourist experiences recommender system (TERS) based on the user's emotional states who wear these devices. The issue lies in detecting emotion from Heart Rate (HR) measurements obtained from these wearables. Unlike most state-of-the-art studies, which have elicited emotions in controlled experiments and with high-accuracy sensors, this research's challenge consisted of emotion recognition (ER) in the daily life context of users based on the gathering of HR data. Furthermore, an objective was to generate the tourist recommendation considering the emotional state of the device wearer. The method used comprises three main phases: The first was the collection of HR measurements and labeling emotions through mobile applications. The second was emotional detection using deep learning algorithms. The final phase was the design and validation of the TERS-ER. In this way, a dataset of HR measurements labeled with emotions was obtained as results. Among the different algorithms tested for ER, the hybrid model of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks had promising results. Moreover, concerning TERS, Collaborative Filtering (CF) using CNN showed better performance.

BCI-Based Control for Ankle Exoskeleton T-FLEX: Comparison of Visual and Haptic Stimuli with Stroke Survivors.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) remains an emerging tool that seeks to improve the patient interaction with the therapeutic mechanisms and to generate neuroplasticity progressively through neuromotor abilities. Motor imagery (MI) analysis is the most used paradigm based on the motor cortex's electrical activity to detect movement intention. It has been shown that motor imagery mental practice with movement-associated stimuli may offer an effective strategy to facilitate motor recovery in brain injury patients. In this sense, this study aims to present the BCI associated with visual and haptic stimuli to facilitate MI generation and control the T-FLEX ankle exoskeleton. To achieve this, five post-stroke patients (55-63 years) were subjected to three different strategies using T-FLEX: stationary therapy (ST) without motor imagination, motor imagination with visual stimulation (MIV), and motor imagination with visual-haptic inducement (MIVH). The quantitative characterization of both BCI stimuli strategies was made through the motor imagery accuracy rate, the electroencephalographic (EEG) analysis during the MI active periods, the statistical analysis, and a subjective patient's perception. The preliminary results demonstrated the viability of the BCI-controlled ankle exoskeleton system with the beta rebound, in terms of patient's performance during MI active periods and satisfaction outcomes. Accuracy differences employing haptic stimulus were detected with an average of 68% compared with the 50.7% over only visual stimulus. However, the power spectral density (PSD) did not present changes in prominent activation of the MI band but presented significant variations in terms of laterality. In this way, visual and haptic stimuli improved the subject's MI accuracy but did not generate differential brain activity over the affected hemisphere. Hence, long-term sessions with a more extensive sample and a more robust algorithm should be carried out to evaluate the impact of the proposed system on neuronal and motor evolution after stroke.

Socioeconomic position over the life-course and subjective social status in relation to nutritional status and mental health among Guatemalan adults.

OBJECTIVE: We study how life course objective socioeconomic position (SEP) predicts subjective social status (SSS) and the extent to which SSS mediates the association of objective SEP with nutritional status and mental health outcomes. METHODS: We use data from participants of the INCAP Longitudinal Study 1969-2018 (n = 1258) from Guatemala. We use the MacArthur ladder for two measures of SSS - perceived community respect and perceived economic status. We estimate the association of SSS with health outcomes after adjusting for early life characteristics and life course objective SEP (wealth, schooling, employment) using linear regression. We use path analysis to study the extent of mediation by SSS on the health outcomes of body mass index (BMI; kg/m2), psychological distress (using the WHO Self-Reported Questionnaire; SRQ-20) and happiness, using the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS). RESULTS: Median participant rating was 5 [IQR: 3-8] for the perceived community respect and 3 [IQR: 1-5] for the perceived economic status, with no differences by sex. Objective SEP in early life and adulthood were predictive of both measures of SSS in middle adulthood as well as health outcomes (BMI, SRQ-20 and SHS). Perceived community respect (z-scores; 1 z = 3.1 units) was positively associated with happiness (0.13, 95 % CI: 0.07, 0.19). Perceived economic status (z-scores; 1 z = 2.3 units) was inversely associated with psychological distress (-0.28, 95 % CI: -0.47, -0.09). Neither measure of SSS was associated with BMI. Neither perceived community respect nor perceived economic status attenuated associations of objective SEP with health outcomes on inclusion as a mediator. CONCLUSIONS: Subjective social status was independently associated with happiness and psychological distress in middle adulthood after adjusting for objective SEP. Moreover, association of objective SEP with health was not mediated by SSS, suggesting potentially independent pathways.

Nb-MCM-Type Mesoporous Material Synthesis Using Ionic Solid as Structure-Directing Agent for In Situ Lipase Immobilization.

MCM-41 and MCM-48 with niobium were successfully synthesized using 1-tetradecyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C14MI]Cl) as a structure-directing agent. The best Si/Nb molar ratio was chosen (Si/Nb = 20) and the CALB enzyme was immobilized in situ in the synthesized Nb-MCM. SEM micrographs showed the formation of very regular spherical agglomerates with a diameter between 0.25 and 0.75 µm. The material presented a surface area of 954 and 704 m2/g and a pore volume of 0.321 and 0.286 cm3/g, for Nb-MCM-41 and Nb-MCM-48, respectively. Also, both materials showed a pore size of 2.261 nm. The number of recycles obtained for the CALB enzyme immobilized in Nb-MCM-41 and Nb-MCM-48 was 26 recycles with a residual activity of 49.62% and 16 recycles with a residual activity of 53.01%, respectively. For both materials, enzymatic activity remained stable for 5 months of storage at room temperature and refrigeration. The supports were able to catalyze the esterification reaction at 40, 60, and 80 °C, showing industrial application in reactions that require high temperatures. This methodology allows the preparation of new highly active and selective enzyme catalysts using niobium and [C14MI]Cl. Also, the new materials can provide greater viability in processes, ensuring a longer service life of catalysts. Graphical abstract.