Observations of the Leaves of Arborescent Lycopods From the Pennsylvanian Rocks of Iowa (Abstract)

In the coal balls of the Des Moines Series (Pennsylvanian System) many arborescent Lycopod leaves arc preserved. A number of these have been investigated anatomically in serial nitrocellulose peels and in thin rock sections. The anatomy and abundance are discussed in the paper

Targeting PCSK9: a promising adjuvant strategy in cancer immunotherapy

No abstract available.publishe

Metabolic Signatures of Lung Cancer in Biofluids: NMR-Based Metabonomics of Blood Plasma

In this work, the variations in the metabolic profile of blood plasma from lung cancer patients and healthy controls were investigated through NMR-based metabonomics, to assess the potential of this approach for lung cancer screening and diagnosis. PLS-DA modeling of CPMG spectra from plasma, subjected to Monte Carlo Cross Validation, allowed cancer patients to be discriminated from controls with sensitivity and specificity levels of about 90%. Relatively lower HDL and higher VLDL + LDL in the patients' plasma, together with increased lactate and pyruvate and decreased levels of glucose, citrate, formate, acetate, several amino acids (alanine, glutamine, histidine, tyrosine, valine), and methanol, could be detected. These changes were found to be present at initial disease stages and could be related to known cancer biochemical hallmarks, such as enhanced glycolysis, glutaminolysis, and gluconeogenesis, together with suppressed Krebs cycle and reduced lipid catabolism, thus supporting the hypothesis of a systemic metabolic signature for lung cancer. Despite the possible confounding influence of age, smoking habits, and other uncontrolled factors, these results indicate that NMR-based metabonomics of blood plasma can be useful as a screening tool to identify suspicious cases for subsequent, more specific radiological tests, thus contributing to improved disease management.ERDF - Competitive Factors Thematic Operational ProgrammeFCT/PTDC/ QUI/68017/2006FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007439SFRH/BD/ 63430/2009National UNESCO Committee - L'Oréal Medals of Honor for Women in Science 200Portuguese National NMR Network - RNRM

Analyzing Heart Rate Variability for COVID-19 ICU Mortality Prediction Using Continuous Signal Processing Techniques

Funding Information: This research was supported by national funds through the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), I.P., under the following grants: DSAIPA/DS/0117/2020, UIDB/00297/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00297/2020), UIDP/00297/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00297/2020) (Center for Mathematics and Applications), project with reference 2023.01951.BD and DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.01951.BD and by UID/04516/NOVA Laboratory for Computer Science and Informatics (NOVA LINCS). Publisher Copyright: © 2025 by the authors.Background/Objectives: Heart rate variability (HRV) has been widely investigated as a predictor of disease and mortality across diverse patient populations; however, there remains no consensus on the optimal set or combination of time and frequency domain nor on nonlinear features for reliable prediction across clinical contexts. Given the relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique clinical profiles of these patients, this retrospective observational study explored the potential of HRV analysis for early prediction of in-hospital mortality using ECG signals recorded during the initial moments of ICU admission in COVID-19 patients. Methods: HRV indices were extracted from four ECG leads (I, II, III, and aVF) using sliding windows of 2, 5, and 7 min across observation intervals of 15, 30, and 60 min. The raw data posed significant challenges in terms of structure, synchronization, and signal quality; thus, from an original set of 381 records from 321 patients, after data pre-processing steps, a final dataset of 82 patients was selected for analysis. To manage data complexity and evaluate predictive performance, two feature selection methods, four feature reduction techniques, and five classification models were applied to identify the optimal approach. Results: Among the feature aggregation methods, compiling feature means across patient windows (Method D) yielded the best results, particularly for longer observation intervals (e.g., using LDA, the best AUC of (Formula presented.) was obtained with Method D versus (Formula presented.) with Method C using 5 min windows). Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was the most consistent classification algorithm, demonstrating robust performance across various time windows and further improvement with dimensionality reduction. Although Gradient Boosting and Random Forest also achieved high AUCs and F1-scores, their performance outcomes varied across time intervals. Conclusions: These findings support the feasibility and clinical relevance of using short-term HRV as a noninvasive, data-driven tool for early risk stratification in critical care, potentially guiding timely therapeutic decisions in high-risk ICU patients and thereby reducing in-hospital mortality.publishersversionpublishe

Budget impact analysis of medicines : updated systematic review and implications

This evaluation determines whether published studies to date meet the key characteristics identified for budget impact analyses (BIA) for medicines, accomplished through a systematic review and assessment against identified key characteristics. Studies from 2001 to 2015 on "budget impact analysis" with "drug" interventions were assessed, selected based on their titles/abstracts and full texts, with their characteristics checked according to key criteria. Out of 1984 studies, 92 were identified. Of these, 95% were published in Europe and the USA. 2012 saw the largest number of publications (16%) with a decline thereafter. 48% met up to 6 or 7 out of the 9 key characteristics. Only 22% stated no conflict of interest. The results indicate low adherence to the key characteristics that should be considered for BIAs and strong conflict of interest. This is an issue since BIAs can be of fundamental importance in managing the entry of new medicines including reimbursement decisions

Odd–even effect in the formation and extraction performance of Ionic-Liquid-Based aqueous biphasic systems

Ionic-liquid-based aqueous biphasic systems (IL-based ABS) have been extensively investigated in the separation of high-value biomolecules. However, the understanding of the molecular-level mechanisms ruling phase separation and extraction performance of these systems is crucial to successfully design effective separation processes. In this work, IL-based ABS composed of K2HPO4 and cholinium carboxylate ILs ([Ch][CnCO2] with n = 1 to 7, comprising anions with odd and even alkyl chain length) were investigated. The respective ternary phase diagrams, including binodal curves, tie-lengths, tie-line lengths and critical points, as well as the Setschenow salting-out coefficients (ks) that is a quantitative measure of the two-phase formation ability, were determined at 298 K. The extraction performance of these systems was then evaluated for four amino acids (L-tryptophan, L-phenylalanine, L-tyrosine, L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine/L-dopa). It was found that ILs composed of anions with even alkyl chains display slightly higher ks values, meaning that these ILs are more easily salted-out or more easily phase separate to form ABS. On the other hand, ABS formed by ILs with anions comprising odd alkyl chains lead to slightly higher partition coefficients of amino acids. Beyond the neat ILs odd-even effect resulting from their nanostructuration, being this a well-known phenomenon occurring in a series of their thermophysical properties, it is here shown the existence of an odd-even effect displayed by the IL anion aliphatic moiety in aqueous solution, visible both in the two-phase formation ability and extraction performance of ABS. These findings contribute to elucidate the molecular-level mechanisms governing ABS formation and partitioning of biomolecules, ultimately allowing the design of effective separation platforms.publishe

Permanent vascular access in patients with end-stage renal disease, Brazil

OBJECTIVE: To assess factors associated with the establishment of permanent vascular access for patients with end-stage renal disease. METHODS: Cross-sectional study conducted in a nationally representative sample of Brazilian end-stage renal disease patients in dialysis and transplant centers during 2007. The sample comprised only patients who received hemodialysis as a primary therapy modality and reported the type of vascular access for their primary hemodialysis treatment (N=2,276). Data were from the TRS Project - "Economic and Epidemiologic Evaluation of Modalities of Renal Replacement Therapy in Brazil". Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess factors associated with the establishment of permanent vascular access in these patients. RESULTS: About 30% of the patients studied had an arteriovenous vascular access. The following factors were associated with a lower likelihood of having an arteriovenous vascular access as a primary type of access: time of hemodialysis start since the diagnosis of chronic renal failure < 1 year; shorter dialysis therapy; having no private health insurance; living in the central-western, northeastern and southeastern regions of Brazil; and living in the northern region plus having no private health insurance. In the final model there was found a positive association between the outcome and pre-dialysis care and no were association with socioeconomic and comorbidity variables. CONCLUSIONS: The study results showed that the focus should on pre-dialysis care to increase the establishment of an arteriovenous vascular access before starting hemodialysis in Brazil

Duration of temporary catheter use for hemodialysis: an observational, prospective evaluation of renal units in Brazil

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>For chronic hemodialysis, the ideal permanent vascular access is the arteriovenous fistula (AVF). Temporary catheters should be reserved for acute dialysis needs. The AVF is associated with lower infection rates, better clinical results, and a higher quality of life and survival when compared to temporary catheters. In Brazil, the proportion of patients with temporary catheters for more than 3 months from the beginning of therapy is used as an evaluation of the quality of renal units. The aim of this study is to evaluate factors associated with the time between the beginning of hemodialysis with temporary catheters and the placement of the first arteriovenous fistula in Brazil.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This is an observational, prospective non-concurrent study using national administrative registries of all patients financed by the public health system who began renal replacement therapy (RRT) between 2000 and 2004 in Brazil. Incident patients were eligible who had hemodialysis for the first time. Patients were excluded who: had hemodialysis reportedly started after the date of death (inconsistent database); were younger than 18 years old; had HIV; had no record of the first dialysis unit; and were dialyzed in units with less than twenty patients. To evaluate individual and renal unit factors associated with the event of interest, the frailty model was used (N = 55,589).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among the 23,824 patients (42.9%) who underwent fistula placement in the period of the study, 18.2% maintained the temporary catheter for more than three months until the fistula creation. The analysis identified five statistically significant factors associated with longer time until first fistula: higher age (Hazard-risk - HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.99-1.00); having hypertension and cardiovascular diseases (HR 0.94, 95% CI 0.9-0.98) as the cause of chronic renal disease; residing in capitals cities (HR 0.92, 95% CI 0.9-0.95) and certain regions in Brazil - South (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.8-0.87), Midwest (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.83-0.94), Northeast (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.88-0.94), or North (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.83-0.94) and the type of renal unit (public or private).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Monitoring the provision of arteriovenous fistulas in renal units could improve the care given to patients with end stage renal disease.</p