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CNS-invasive aspergillosis following ibrutinib therapy
No full textIbrutinib is Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor that now become the standard of care for the treatment of CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) and other lymphoid cancers. With its increasing usage, oncologists must become more aware of their potential side effect profile. Ibrutinib is typically thought to be less immunosuppressive than standard immunotherapy; however, can still cause devastating side effects. We present a case of CNS-invasive aspergillosis in a patient with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia being managed with ibrutinib. We hypothesize that treatment with ibrutinib can resemble those with X-gammaglobulinemia, thus putting our patient at risk of developing such an invasive fungal infection. Traditional risk factors for CNS-invasive aspergillosis include neutropenia, systemic glucocorticoid treatment, mastoidectomy, spinal anesthesia and paraspinal glucocorticoid injections. Oncologists need to weigh the risks and benefits of ibrutinib therapy in certain populations and more data in the future may suggest potentially adding empiric antifungal coverage with its usage.</p
Dioxygen and reactive oxygen species’ paramagnetic properties are important factors in dermatology
No full textDioxygen (the O2 molecule) is an important component of all tissues including skin. Even small fluctuations of O2 amount (dioxygen concentration changes in the tissue microenvironment) can strongly affect the signaling functions of cells through the reactive oxygen species (ROSs) activity and hence - the whole cellular metabolism, the cell proliferation, and differentiation, etc [1,2].</p
Advancing forensic science: Addressing challenges and embracing emerging technologies
No full textForensic science is an essential component of the criminal justice system, providing scientific evidence to support investigations and prosecutions. However, the field faces several challenges, including the potential for human error, sample contamination, and ongoing scrutiny and criticism. In recent years, emerging technologies have offered new opportunities to address these challenges and enhance the effectiveness of forensic science. This article provides an overview of the current state of forensic science, the challenges it faces, and the ways in which emerging technologies, such as rapid DNA analysis, artificial intelligence, micro-X-ray fluorescence analysis, and 3D scanning and printing, are being used to address those challenges. These technologies offer new opportunities to improve the accuracy and reliability of forensic evidence and enable forensic practitioners to analyze evidence more quickly and efficiently.</p
Quality of life, sexual satisfaction, anxiety and depression status in lymphoma survivors
Get PDFObjective: The progressive development of lymphoma therapies has led to an important prolongation of patient survival. We aimed to investigate anxiety, depression, sexual satisfaction and health-related quality of life status in these lymphoma survivors. We examined the effects of depression, anxiety and sexual satisfaction on the quality of life.Materials and methods: In a prospective study, the data were collected from fifty lymphoma survivors. We used six forms. These forms consist of sociodemographic features, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Hopelessness Scala (BHS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI I-II), Golombock-Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction (GRISS) and European Organization for Research on the treatment of Cancer Questionnaires Quality of Life (QoL) - C30 questionnaires.Results: The mean age of the patients was 50,2 ± 14,8 (20 – 75) years, and 50% of them were females. In our study, we found that 26% of the patients had high depression values above the cutoff (≥ 17 of BDI score). The mean depression score of the patients was 10,6 ± 8 (0 - 32) and the mean hopelessness score was 5,7 ± 4,5 (0 - 19). The patients whose anxiety and depression scores were high role, cognitive and emotional functioning of EORTC-QLQ-C30 was found statistically significantly low. The mean STAI-I score of the patients was 35,6 ± 11,3 (22-73) and the mean STAI-II score was 41,4 ± 10,6 (23 - 67). Statistical significance in terms of emotional and social functioning was found in the patients with high anxiety scores. When all patients were evaluated with respect to GRISS, we found high scores (> 5) for frequency, communication, vaginusmus and premature ejaculation. We compared the EORTC-QoL-C30 scores and GRISS of the patients. There was an association between emotional dysfunction with high scores of frequency (p = 0.040). Also, there was an association between low scores of role functioning with high scores of avoidance and premature ejaculation (p = 0.015, p = 0.003). However, there was a significant correlation between low scores of global QoL with high scores of avoidance, communication, and touch. There was no statistically significant difference between the anxiety and depression levels of the patient according to gender. But, some functional scales including role function (p = 0.001), social function (p = 0.001) and cognitive function (p = 0.027) were lower in female patients.Conclusion: The lymphoma survivors had high anxiety and depression scores, reduced sexual functioning and low functioning scales of QoL. There was an association between sexual dysfunction low role, emotional functioning and global QoL scores in patients.</p
Development online models for automatic speech recognition systems with a low data level
Get PDFSpeech recognition is a rapidly growing field in machine learning. Conventional automatic speech recognition systems were built based on independent components, that is an acoustic model, a language model and a vocabulary, which were tuned and trained separately. The acoustic model is used to predict the context-dependent states of phonemes, and the language model and lexicon determine the most possible sequences of spoken phrases. The development of deep learning technologies has contributed to the improvement of other scientific areas, which includes speech recognition. Today, the most popular speech recognition systems are systems based on an end-to-end (E2E) structure, which trains the components of a traditional model simultaneously without isolating individual elements, representing the system as a single neural network. The E2E structure represents the system as one whole element, in contrast to the traditional one, which has several independent elements. The E2E system provides a direct mapping of acoustic signals in a sequence of labels without intermediate states, without the need for post-processing at the output, which makes it easy to implement. Today, the popular models are those that directly output the sequence of words based on the input sound in real-time, which are online end-to-end models. This article provides a detailed overview of popular online-based models for E2E systems such as RNN-T, Neural Transducer (NT) and Monotonic Chunkwise Attention (MoChA). It should be emphasized that online models for Kazakh speech recognition have not been developed at the moment. For low-resource languages, like the Kazakh language, the above models have not been studied. Thus, systems based on these models have been trained to recognize Kazakh speech. The results obtained showed that all three models work well for recognizing Kazakh speech without the use of external additions.</p
Physical contradictions ruling out photonic quantum nonlocality
Get PDFA series of physical contradictions can be identified in an opinion article published in December 2015 (A. Aspect, “Closing the Door on Einstein and Bohr’s Quantum Debate,” Physics 8, 123, 2015) claiming definitive proof of quantum nonlocality based on entangled pairs of photons. For example, experimental results published simultaneously in Physical Review Letters (250401 and 250402, 2015) were theoretically fitted with distributions containing a dominant unentangled component, contradicting the need for maximally entangled states underpinning quantum nonlocality. Such contradictions were ignored by the 2022 Nobel Prize Committee raising doubts about the validity of their decision.</p
Different approaches to system science
Get PDFThe goal of the paper is to present a new definition of a holistic approach to the description of complex systems including features such as emergent behavior, exaptation, contingency, self-organization, etc. The presented approach is based on concepts such as singularity (internal behavior of a partial system component without any links), duality (analyses of links between pairs of system components) and a plurality (links between clusters of system components). Energetics is presented as a new science (third-order cybernetics) using the results of the theory of complex systems connected with the algorithms of artificial intelligence so that a better coexistence between humans and machines occurs.</p
A case report on Anaesthesia and Ventriculo-Peritoneal Shunt with Hydrocephalus
Get PDFChildhood hydrocephalus is a common disorder in which too much Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) accumulates within the ventricles (fluid-containing spaces) of the brain and is usually the-ted by cerebrospinal fluid shunting using a ventriculoperitoneal or ventriculoarterial shunts. The most common condition is hydrocephalus, where there is dilation of the ventricular system due to an obstruction in the flow of CSF or decreased absorption of CSF by the arachnoid villi. Shunting of CSF is the treatment of choice in childhood hydrocephalus. </p
Dissipation kinetics and the pre-harvest residue of chlorantraniliprole in pigeon pea Cajanus cajan L. succulent pods Using Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Photodiode array detector (UHPLC-PDA)
Get PDFStudies were conducted to evaluate insecticide residues of Chlorantraniliprole in pigeon pea succulent pods after foliar application. Chlorantraniliprole was sprayed at 0.6ml/l on pigeon pea crop at the pod formation stage to control pod borers like Helicoverpa armigera and Maruca vitrata. Samples were drawn at 0, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 days after spray. A validated liquid chromatography method with a Photodiode Array (PDA) detector was used for the residue analysis of chlorantraniliprole. Separation was achieved through the C18 column in the reverse phase. The calibration graphs of chlorantraniliprole in acetonitrile solvent or five blank matrices were linear within the tested interval of 0.1 to 1ppm with a coefficient of determination over 0.9990. Dissipation of chlorantraniliprole was studied in first-order kinetic models (for which the coefficient of determination, R2 was 0.8684). Residues of chlorantraniliprole was 3.57, 3.16, 1.61, 1.13, 0.49, 0.21, 0.05 and 0.00mg/kg at 0, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 days after spraying. The residue level reached below the tolerance limit (MRL) (2mg/kg BW) of Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) on Pesticide Residues after 5 days of spray and below the detectable level after 25 days of spray in succulent pods and recorded a biological half-life of 4.36 days.</p
Metal and organic characterization of bladder stones removed surgically from VesicoVaginal Fistula patients at the National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State
Get PDFObjectives: Complication of obstetric fistula is the formation of bladder stones which rarely occur in Vagina-Vesico Fistula (VVF) patients. In this study, the metal and organic characterization of bladder stones removed between 2010-2019 from vesicovaginal fistula patients managed at the National Obstetric Fistula Centre (NOFIC), Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria were carried out. Methods: The solubility of the bladder stones in different solvents were investigated and metal compositions were determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma- Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OESS). The qualitative chemical composition was determined following standard procedures while the structural chemical characterization and functional groups were determined using the Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Results: Distilled water and aqueous solvent chloroform extract of W. lateritia demonstrated significant capacity to dissolve bladder stones in-vitro. Chemical compounds identified include uric acid, oxalate, cysteine, and phosphate from the bladder stones. The metals found in the bladder stones were: Ca, Na, Cu, Zn, Mg, B, Pb, and Al. Trace elements can influence the external morphology of growing crystals and may increase or decrease the speed of the crystallization process. The GC-MS revealed the presence of the following compounds: methyl 2-Hydroxyethyl sulfoxide; methylene chloride; mercaptamine;1,1diethoxy, dichloroactealdehyde; Cyclopentasiloxane; monoammonium salt; di-Allo-Cystathionine; dichloroacetaldehyde; 2-(2Furyl)-2,5-dimethyltetrahydrofuran; Methenamine; 1,1-Difluoro-1-sila-5-thiacyclooctane; Triacetonetriperoxde; 4-Aminosalicylic acid, 3-Trimethylsilyl (3TMS) derivative;Pentanethiol; and 2,5-Bis-(5-hexyl-[1,3,2]dioxaborinan-2-yloxy)-benzene. FTIR revealed the following: hydroxyl, carboxylic, ester, aromatic, and aliphatic groups, confirming the compounds identified. Conclusion: Metals (Mg, Ca, Pb, etc), organic metabolites (oxalate, cystine, uric acid, phosphate, methenamine, methylene chloride, 4-Aminosalicylic acid, 3-Trimethylsilyl, etc) were found in the bladder stones. </p