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Grass species litter have varied trait response to the photodegradation and microbial decomposition in tropical savanna grasslands, South Africa
Get PDFPurpose of the paper: This paper evaluated the effects of microbial and photodegradation on the ten grass species in a tropical grassland ecosystem in South Africa. Despite continuous necromass accumulation in tropical grasslands, the process that governs how the grass litter gets to the soil has often been ignored. In the absence of fire, abiotic factors and biotic factors are drivers of this process of nutrient cycling. Methods and approaches: A classical litterbag experiment was set up to simulate photodegradation (standing litter) versus microbial (soil surface) decomposition using 10 savanna types of grass from the start of the dry season until the beginning of spring. The rates of photodegradation versus microbial decomposition were compared for tropical savanna grasses and plant traits or predictors of decomposition were also investigated. Main results: The results showed that the grass litter decomposed more rapidly when exposed to the activity of soil microbes at the soil surface (k = 0.0028 ) than when held above ground (k = 0.0018) and subjected to photodegradation only. However, examination of the individual litter species revealed up to 4 fold variation between the slowest (0.0001) and fastest (0.006) decomposing species. Differences in decomposition rates were more pronounced for litter decomposed at the soil surface than held above the soil surface. Multiple linear regression analyses did not resolve clear differences between measures of litter quality as drivers of decomposition in the two treatments. Implications: Photodegradation appeared to be a rate-controlling step during the process of decomposition in tropical savanna grasslands. Therefore grasslands dominated by photodegradation-resistant grasses were likely to need fire to get rid of moribund litter, which may be the reason why mesic grasslands need to burn to recycle nutrients. </p
Is asthma over-diagnosed in Cyprus? A clinical study at the outpatient’s primary care level
Get PDFBackground: Although asthma is a common disease accurate diagnosis is missing and it has been reported that often it is over or under-diagnosed.Aim: To investigate if a physician’s diagnosis of asthma in Cyprus is correct by using a structured algorithm at the outpatient primary care level.Subjects and Methods: Sixty adults with a self-reported physician diagnosis of asthma, mean age of 47,8 years (29 males and 31 females) were included in the study. Medical history and physical examination, pre-post bronchodilation spirometry and methacholine bronchial challenge test was used to confirm or rule out the diagnosis as well as a three months follow-up. In addition, the cost of treatment was estimated.Results: Sixteen subjects (27%) had a positive pre-post bronchodilation spirometric test and were considered asthmatics. In 9 out of the 44 remaining subjects a positive Methacholine provocation test confirmed the diagnosis of asthma. The rest of the subjects (n = 35) went into a 3 months observational period during which only 2 showed asthmatic symptoms and were considered asthmatics by a second methacholine test that confirmed the diagnosis. Therefore, a correct asthma diagnosis was established in only 27(45%) of subjects. The annual average cost of medication for asthma confirmed the group was 313 euro/patient (171-454, 95% CI) and the average 2-year unnecessary (asthma ruled-out group) cost of treatment was approximately 297 euro/patient. (179-415, 95% CI).Conclusions: Physician-diagnosed asthma overestimates the actual prevalence of disease in adults in Cyprus since it was shown that more than half of the participants did not have Asthma. These individuals consume unneeded medications at a significant cost. Thus, the correct diagnosis of Asthma should be made by using more specific tests starting at the primary care level.</p
An Experimental Study on Surveillance Robot Using Raspberry Pi
Get PDFRecently, robots have been developed to reduce human resources and observation time in a fast, booming, and rapidly growing technology. In this study, a surveillance robot is designed and manufactured to move around a given surrounding, preferably a domestic environment, record video & audio and send the information to the user through a network. The robot is allowed to be controlled wirelessly using Raspberry Pi technology from a location remotely using IoT technology. This sensor-based robot uses the Raspberry Pi with Ethernet, WI-Fi and Bluetooth for networking purposes. Python is chosen as the programming language in both autonomous and semi-autonomous modes. The manufactured robot was experimentally tested. The recorded videos, images and audio are successfully transferred through a WiFi network to the end user. The user could also control and move the robot in different directions for specific demands. The designed simple robot interests users to record and transfer information for the safety of their indoors. </p
Theta-Burst Stimulation over the pre-Supplementary Motor Area in Schizophrenia and comorbid substance use disorder: Preliminary clinical data
Get PDFSchizophrenia (SZ) is a debilitating disorder, which tremendously impacts the psychological, social, and financial aspects of a patient’s life. Frequently, SZ patients present with poor insight, which can even worsen the symptomatology. Antipsychotic medications frequently result in suboptimal outcomes, especially the ones concerning negative and cognitive symptoms. Accordingly, new therapeutic options are warranted. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) has been adopted in SZ with promising results. Continuous Theta burst stimulation (cTBS) is a particular brief and effective form of TMS. It has been successfully applied in patients with poor cognitive control (e.g., gambling disorder patients) targeting the pre-Supplementary Motor Area (pre-SMA). Given that poor cognitive control has been regarded as a core deficit in SZ, 11 patients with SZ were included in this study and treated with cTBS for a total of 10 sessions during a two-week period. Patients were divided into two groups: patients with a diagnosis of SZ in comorbidity with Substance Use Disorder (SZ + SUD) vs SZ. Patients were evaluated before and after treatment, assessing executive functions, awareness, and nicotine craving. Within-group comparisons showed a significant reduction in the Scale to assess Unawareness in Mental Disorders (SUMD) scores (p < 0.05) and in the test of Fagerstrom (to assess nicotine dependence) scores (p < 0.001) before and after treatment in the SZ + SUD group. These results showed the efficacy of cTBS for craving reduction as well as in improving awareness of the illness and of treatment. This can be considered a remarkable result since better insight has been previously associated with an improved quality of life in SZ. </p
Psychological and attitudinal assessment of patients with Fibromyalgia undergoing antalgic management: a short report
Get PDFObjectives: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a widespread condition that is difficult to manage medically. Often algologists are faced with patients who are poorly compliant with pharmacological treatment or with concomitant mood problems. There are treatments tailored to temperament and character patterns. In this study using the division into pain persistence and pain avoidance patterns, a stratification was hypothesized to facilitate its medical management using self-administered questionnaires. Methods: We screened the population consisting of FM patients to four different questionnaires, namely the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Short form 36 and the INTERMED- Self Assessment.Results: A total of thirty-two patients were enrolled. The analyzed population showed preponderant pain avoidance characteristics (90.7%). The persistence pattern proved to be present in only 9.3% of the population. The FM patients examined also reported an incidence of anxiety disorder of 71.9% and depressive disorder of 75%.Conclusion: Dividing the population with FM into patterns yielded uniform results. This justifies a multidisciplinary approach in these FM patients. The high incidence of anxiety and depression from the test results is an outcome that suggests the adoption of the HADS tool in the antalgic evaluation of FM patients.</p
OG-SLAM: A real-time and high-accurate monocular visual SLAM framework
No full textThe challenge of improving the accuracy of monocular Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is considered, which widely appears in computer vision, autonomous robotics, and remote sensing. A new framework (ORB-GMS-SLAM (or OG-SLAM)) is proposed, which introduces the region-based motion smoothness into a typical Visual SLAM (V-SLAM) system. The region-based motion smoothness is implemented by integrating the Oriented Fast and Rotated Brief (ORB) features and the Grid-based Motion Statistics (GMS) algorithm into the feature matching process. The OG-SLAM significantly reduces the absolute trajectory error (ATE) on the key-frame trajectory estimation without compromising the real-time performance. This study compares the proposed OG-SLAM to an advanced V-SLAM system (ORB-SLAM2). The results indicate the highest accuracy improvement of almost 75% on a typical RGB-D SLAM benchmark. Compared with other ORB-SLAM2 settings (1800 key points), the OG-SLAM improves the accuracy by around 20% without losing performance in real-time. The OG-SLAM framework has a significant advantage over the ORB-SLAM2 system in that it is more robust for rotation, loop-free, and long ground-truth length scenarios. Furthermore, as far as the authors are aware, this framework is the first attempt to integrate the GMS algorithm into the V-SLAM.</p
Mediterranean red coral as a spawning ground for cuttlefish
No full textThe Mediterranean red coral (Corallium rubrum) is a long-lived and slow-growing gorgonian, which suffered intense exploitation due to its precious calcium carbonate skeleton used in jewelry and traded worldwide [1]. </p
Potential effects of genetic polymorphism on anesthesia use for COVID-19 infected patients at intensive care unit
No full textBackground: New coronavirus disease is considered one of the most widely spreading viral infections all over the world. Increased numbers of severe COVID-19 cases are growing up. Severe cases require ICU mechanical ventilation and hence anesthesia requirement. Aim: Reviewing of different genetic polymorphisms which might affect patient clinical response, safety and tolerability to different types of anesthesia used in severe COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Main body of the abstract: Severity of COVID-19 infection resulted from cytokine storm that leads to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) contribute in ICUs mechanical ventilation and anesthesia. Genetic polymorphisms showed to contribute in wide variation in anesthetic responses. Different polymorphic genes of RYR1, CACNA1S, MTHFR, OPRM1, ABCB1, CYP2B6 and others, play a main role in such variations. Different types of anesthesia as sevoflurane, midazolam, suxamethonium, nitrous oxide, fentanyl, and propofol showed altered pharmacokinetics and/or dynamics leading to a lack of anesthetic effect and incidence of life-threatening adverse effects as malignant hyperthermia, myocardial infarction, dyspnea, and others.Short conclusion: Genetic screening is a serious step to take into consideration to identify genetic polymorphic types that may alter the anesthetic effect in ICUs ventilation. Besides, it will avoid possible adverse effects and different sedation response variations. Sevoflurane, Fentanyl, and propofol can be taken into consideration as a safe choice for use in ICUs taking into consideration genetic polymorphic variants. </p
Mental health during the COVID-19 epidemic: The role of social media
No full textCurrently, the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the major health issues in the world [1,2]. In December 2019, a population of patients with pneumonia of unknown etiology was found in Wuhan, China. Many of the first patients were associated with a local seafood shop and live wild animals [1]. Therefore, it was initially thought that the disease was transmitted from animal to human. But after closing the said shop, the number of infected cases increased and it seemed that the second method of transmission of this disease was human-to-human [3].</p
Biochemical applications and application of indicators in blood and lymph after a new feed additive based on bentonite
No full textThe aim of the study was to assess the physiological and biochemical action the new feed additive.The studies were carried out on white laboratory rats of the Spraque Dawley line. The additive consisted of four ingredients - bentonite, barley, wheat, calcium phosphate, in the ratio (2: 8: 8: 2). The use of fortified, enriched with vegetable fat-protein components, feed additive with natural montmorillonite (bentonite) affects the protein, carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body, contributes to an increase in the weight of the animal. After prolonged intake of the feed additive, enzymatic activity and an increase in the content of protein, glucose, and lipids in the blood were observed. The feed additive has a good adsorptive and antioxidant effect, reducing toxic products, participating in the inactivation of free radicals, and exerting a protective effect on cell membranes. When feeding with a fodder additive, the protein content in the diet increased, as compared with the control, it should be noted that the phosphorus content in the blood and lymph increased, the increase in energy costs increased with an increase in muscle mass. The supplement is high in calories, has an antioxidant and adaptogenic effect, maintains a balance of biochemical and oxidative processes and can be recommended as a safe and effective supplement to the daily diet of farm animals.</p