Pharmacological Pain Treatment in Older Persons

Pharmacological pain treatment in older persons is presented by a multi-disciplinary group of European pain experts. Drugs recommended for acute or chronic nociceptive pain, also for neuropathic pain and the routes of administration of choice are the same as those prescribed for younger persons but comorbidities and polypharmacy in older persons increase the risk of adverse effects and drug interactions. Not all drugs are available or authorised in all European countries. For mild-to-moderate pain, non-opioids including paracetamol and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are first-line treatments, followed by nefopam and metamizole. Codeine, dihydrocodeine and tramadol are prescribed for moderate to severe pain and ‘strong’ opioids, including morphine, hydromorphone, oxycodone, fentanyl, buprenorphine, methadone and tapentadol, for severe pain. Chronic neuropathic pain treatment relies on coanalgesics, including anti-epileptics (gabapentinoids) and anti-depressants with additional option of topical lidocaine and capsaicine. The choice of analgesic(s) and the route of administration should be guided by the pain characteristics, as well as by the patient’s comorbidities, organ function and medications. Several directions have been highlighted to optimise pharmacological pain management in older individuals: (1) before starting pain treatment adequately detect and assess pain and always perform a full geriatric assessment, (2) consider kidney function systematically to adjust the doses of analgesics and avoid the risks of overdose, (3) start with the lowest dose of an analgesic and increase it gradually under the control of the effect, (4) involve the older persons and family in their treatment, (5) reevaluate pain regularly during treatment and (6) combine pharmacological treatment with non-pharmacological approaches

Optical 3D-storage in sol-gel materials with a reading by Optical Coherence Tomography-technique

We report on the recording of 3D optical memories in sol-gel materials by using a non-linear absorption effect. This effect induces a local change of the optical properties of the material which is read and quantified with a high resolution full-field Optical Coherence Tomography setup. It is the first time that this technique is used for this purpose. Data recording was performed by focused picosecond (ps) single-pulse irradiation at 1064 nm with energy densities of 10 and 33 J/cm2 per pulse.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

Plasmonic DNA: Towards Genetic Diagnosis Chips

"Plasmonics and DNA" special issueInternational audienc

La Pedagogía Teatral como Ciencia de la Educación Teatral

El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar una visión panorámica de las diferentes prácticas educativas que configuran el campo de la educación teatral, y proponer, como consecuencia, la necesidad de desarrollar, en su dimensión científica y académica, aquella disciplina llamada a ofrecer una descripción sistemática, rigurosa y normativa de lo que es la educación teatral en tanto ámbito específico de educación, y de sus características pertinentes y diferenciales frente a otros ámbitos próximos. También se señalan procesos básicos a desarrollar en la construcción de la Pedagogía Teatral como ciencia y disciplina, en la formación de formadores y en una investigación específica

Twist exome capture allows for lower average sequence coverage in clinical exome sequencing

Background Exome and genome sequencing are the predominant techniques in the diagnosis and research of genetic disorders. Sufficient, uniform and reproducible/consistent sequence coverage is a main determinant for the sensitivity to detect single-nucleotide (SNVs) and copy number variants (CNVs). Here we compared the ability to obtain comprehensive exome coverage for recent exome capture kits and genome sequencing techniques. Results We compared three different widely used enrichment kits (Agilent SureSelect Human All Exon V5, Agilent SureSelect Human All Exon V7 and Twist Bioscience) as well as short-read and long-read WGS. We show that the Twist exome capture significantly improves complete coverage and coverage uniformity across coding regions compared to other exome capture kits. Twist performance is comparable to that of both short- and long-read whole genome sequencing. Additionally, we show that even at a reduced average coverage of 70× there is only minimal loss in sensitivity for SNV and CNV detection. Conclusion We conclude that exome sequencing with Twist represents a significant improvement and could be performed at lower sequence coverage compared to other exome capture techniques

A Solve-RD ClinVar-based reanalysis of 1522 index cases from ERN-ITHACA reveals common pitfalls and misinterpretations in exome sequencing

Purpose Within the Solve-RD project (https://solve-rd.eu/), the European Reference Network for Intellectual disability, TeleHealth, Autism and Congenital Anomalies aimed to investigate whether a reanalysis of exomes from unsolved cases based on ClinVar annotations could establish additional diagnoses. We present the results of the “ClinVar low-hanging fruit” reanalysis, reasons for the failure of previous analyses, and lessons learned. Methods Data from the first 3576 exomes (1522 probands and 2054 relatives) collected from European Reference Network for Intellectual disability, TeleHealth, Autism and Congenital Anomalies was reanalyzed by the Solve-RD consortium by evaluating for the presence of single-nucleotide variant, and small insertions and deletions already reported as (likely) pathogenic in ClinVar. Variants were filtered according to frequency, genotype, and mode of inheritance and reinterpreted. Results We identified causal variants in 59 cases (3.9%), 50 of them also raised by other approaches and 9 leading to new diagnoses, highlighting interpretation challenges: variants in genes not known to be involved in human disease at the time of the first analysis, misleading genotypes, or variants undetected by local pipelines (variants in off-target regions, low quality filters, low allelic balance, or high frequency). Conclusion The “ClinVar low-hanging fruit” analysis represents an effective, fast, and easy approach to recover causal variants from exome sequencing data, herewith contributing to the reduction of the diagnostic deadlock

Dye-Doped Sol-Gel Materials For Two-Photon Absorption Induced Fluorescence

Two-photon absorption (TPA) and subsequent fluorescence properties of laser dyes are retained when doped into solid state sol-gel materials. These properties were demonstrated to be applicable in true 3D displays. © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V

Strategic decision-making processes in family businesses: The founding shareholder’s power play

This article proposes to understand strategic decision-making within family businesses (FBs), with particular emphasis on the role of the different stakeholders in this decision-making. For this, we carried out a qualitative casuistic study. The convenience sampling method enabled us to constitute a sample of eight cases of FBs, with which we conducted semi-structured interviews. Thematic data analysis was made with the content of these interviews. The results obtained show that the decision-making process is not identical within the FBs. However, it remains a power play controlled directly and at different levels by the founding shareholder and indirectly by the members of his nuclear family. This process differs from the model of Fama (1980) and Fama and Jensen (1983) either by the size of the process and the intertwining of roles (Model 1) or by the level of involvement of the nuclear family in the process (Model 2). This article highlights the permanent involvement, formal and/or informal, of the family in the decision-making process and the need to encourage the establishment of a code of governance specific to these FBs</jats:p

Importance of dye host on absorption, propagation losses and amplified spontaneous emission for dye-doped polymer thin films

International audienceThe absorption spectra of dye-doped polymer thin films made from a variety of five dyes and six matrices, either organic or organomineral, are analyzed to evaluate the residual absorption in the red wavelength tail and in particular at amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) wavelengths. An absorption cutoff wavelength is defined as the extrapolated wavelength at which the absorption losses are expected to become negligible compared to the structure losses. Such absorption-spectrum-extrapolated wavelengths are compared to the ASE wavelengths and found to correlate for most of the dye-matrix couples. The propagation losses of PM597-doped organic polymers are also measured and accordingly found to increase with the glass transition temperature of the host matri