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Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have emerged as important peripheral inflammatory biomarkers. Recent data suggest a possible role of the immune system in the pathophysiology of suicidal behavior (SB). The aim of this study is to evaluate the association among NLR, MLR, and PLR and SB in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), and to test its validity as a biomarker for suicidality.
Methods.
We evaluated 538 patients with MDD (mean age [standard deviation] = 43.87 [14.36] years; females: 68.8%). A logistic regression model was estimated to determine the independent factors associated with suicide risk in patients with and without a history of suicide attempt (SA).
Results.
Three hundred ninety-three patients (74.7%) had a personal history of SA. Patients with a previous SA were more frequently female (71.9% vs. 59.6%; p = 0.007), significantly younger (41.20 vs. 51.77 years; p < 0.001), had lower depression severity at enrolment (15.58 vs. 18.42; p < 0.000), and significantly higher mean NLR and PLR ratios (2.27 vs. 1.68, p = 0.001; 127.90 vs. 109.97, p = 0.007, respectively). In the final logistic regression model, after controlling for age, sex, and depression severity, NLR was significantly associated with SB (β = 0.489, p = 0.000; odds ratio [95% confidence intervals] = 1.631 [1.266–2.102]). We propose a cut-off value of NLR = 1.30 (sensitivity = 75% and specificity = 35%).
Conclusions.
Our data suggest that NLR may be a valuable, reproducible, easily accessible, and cost-effective strategy to determine suicide risk in MDD.
We prove that if $M$ is a $\text{JBW}^{\ast }$-triple and not a Cartan factor of rank two, then $M$ satisfies the Mazur–Ulam property, that is, every surjective isometry from the unit sphere of $M$ onto the unit sphere of another real Banach space $Y$ extends to a surjective real linear isometry from $M$ onto $Y$.
Our purpose was to determine the effectiveness and harms of vaccination in patients with any sexual history to prevent the prevalence of papillomavirus infection. A search strategy was conducted in the MEDLINE, CENTRAL, EMBASE and LILACS databases. Searches were also conducted in other databases and unpublished literature. The risk of bias was evaluated with the Cochrane Collaboration's tool. Analysis of fixed effects was conducted. The primary outcome was the infection by any and each human papillomavirus (HPV) genotype, serious adverse effects and short-term adverse effects. The measure of the effect was the risk difference (RD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). The planned interventions were bivalent vaccine/tetravalent/nonavalent vs. placebo/no intervention/other vaccines. We included 29 studies described in 35 publications. Bivalent HPV vaccine offers protection against HPV16 (RD −0.05, 95% CI −0.098 to −0.0032), HPV18 (RD −0.03, 95% CI −0.062 to −0.0004) and HPV16/18 genotypes (RD of −0.1, 95% CI −0.16 to −0.04). On the other side, tetravalent HPV vaccine offered protection against HPV6 (RD of −0.0500, 95% CI −0.0963 to −0.0230), HPV11 (RD −0.0198, 95% CI −0.0310 to −0.0085). Also, against HPV16 (RD of −0.0608, 95% CI −0.1126 to −0.0091) and HPV18 (RD of −0.0200, 95% CI −0.0408 to −0.0123). There was a reduction in the prevalence of HPV16, 18 and 16/18 genotypes when applying the bivalent vaccine, with no increase in adverse effects. Regarding the tetravalent vaccine, we found a reduction in the prevalence of HPV6, 11, 16 and 18 genotypes, with no increase in adverse effects.
Five rigid ryegrass populations suspected of being resistant to both glyphosate and oxyfluorfen were collected in southern Spain and tested under laboratory-controlled conditions. Four populations (Depuradora, Condado, AlamoRasilla, and Portichuelo) were treated with glyphosate for at least 15 consecutive years, and treatments during the last 5 yr were mixed with oxyfluorfen. The fifth population (4alamos) followed the same glyphosate treatment, although oxyfluorfen was never used to control it. Dose–response assays confirmed glyphosate resistance in all populations, with resistance indexes ranging from 11.7 to 37.5 (GR90). Shikimate accumulation assays consistently supported these data, as the most glyphosate-resistant populations (Depuradora and Condado) displayed the lowest shikimate levels. Surprisingly, four populations (Depuradora, Condado, AlamoRasilla, and Portichuelo) displayed 7.93- to 70.18-fold more resistance (GR90) to oxyfluorfen, despite limited selection pressure, showing a similar resistance pattern as that for glyphosate. The 4alamos population displayed oxyfluorfen GR90 values that were similar to those observed in susceptible plants; however, this population was significantly more resistant in terms of plant survival (LD90). Protoporphyrin IX accumulation assays supported the results of dose–response assays, in that the most oxyfluorfen-resistant populations accumulated less protoporphyrin IX. Although more studies are needed, it seems that these five glyphosate-resistant weed populations display a natural tendency to easily develop resistance to oxyfluorfen, with the populations that have higher resistance to glyphosate also having higher resistance to oxyfluorfen.
In 2007, a partnership was initiated between a small-volume paediatric cardiac surgery unit located in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, and a large-volume cardiac surgery unit located in Milan, Italy. The main goal of this partnership was to provide surgical treatment to children with CHD in the Canary Islands.
Methods
An operative algorithm for performing surgery in elective, urgent, and emergency cases was adopted by the this joint programme. Demographic and in-hospital variables were collected from the medical records of all the patients who had undergone surgical intervention for CHD from January, 2009 to March, 2013. Data were introduced into the congenital database of the European Congenital Heart Surgeons Association Congenital Database and the database was interrogated.
Results
In total, 65 surgical mission trips were performed during the period of this study. The European Congenital Heart Surgeons Association Congenital Database documented 214 total patients with a mean age at operation of 36.45 months, 316 procedures in total with 198 cardiopulmonary bypass cases, 46 non-cardiopulmonary bypass cases, 26 cardiovascular cases without cardiopulmonary bypass, 22 miscellaneous other types of cases, 16 interventional cardiology cases, six thoracic cases, one non-cardiac, non-thoracic procedure on a cardiac patient with cardiac anaesthesia, and one extracorporeal membrane oxygenation case. The 30-day mortality was 6.07% (13 patients).
Conclusions
A joint programme between a small-volume centre and a large-volume centre may represent a valid and reproducible model for safe paediatric cardiac surgery in the context of a peripheral region.
We analyze the dynamics and activity observed in bodies approaching the Earth (perihelion distances q < 1.3 au) in short-period orbits (P < 20 yr), which essentially are near-Earth Jupiter Family Comets (NEJFCs) and near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). In the general definition, comets are “active”, i.e. they show some coma, while asteroids are “inactive”, i.e. they only show a bare nucleus. Besides their activity, NEJFCs are distinguished from NEAs by their dynamical evolution: NEJFCs move on unstable orbits subject to frequent close encounters with Jupiter, whereas NEA orbits are much more stable and tend to avoid close encounters with Jupiter. However, some JFCs are found to move on stable, asteroidal-type orbits, so the question arises if these objects are asteroids that have become active, perhaps upon approach to the Sun. In this sense they may be regarded as the counterparts of the main-belt comets (Hsieh & Jewitt 2006). On the other hand, some seemingly inert NEAs move on unstable, comet-type orbits, so the question about what is a comet and what is an asteroid has become increasingly complex.
At present, bovine neosporosis is an important worldwide concern because of its wide geographic distribution and economic impact. Abortion is the main clinical sign of bovine neosporosis in both dairy and beef cattle. Ruminant challenge models are critical to evaluate potential vaccine candidates to help tackle bovine neosporosis and to study pathogenesis and host responses to infection. Several research groups have developed ruminant models of Neospora caninum infection independently of others, resulting in a high degree of variability due to the use of different species of animals, breeds, strains/isolates of N. caninum, doses, routes and times of inoculation. Standardization is greatly needed to advance research in a more collaborative, timely and efficient manner. In the absence of widely accepted international guidelines, this manuscript serves to summarize and discuss the different models and parameters currently in use. Parameters essential for the development of non-pregnant and pregnant ruminant models are outlined and the main knowledge gaps are identified. This information could act as the basis to develop a consensus for international standard guidelines for ruminant models of neosporosis that would be helpful for researchers in this field worldwide.
Following a pretest-posttest design with no control group, this paper evaluates
the efficacy of an intervention program. Consisting of twelve sessions, the
program endeavored to increase knowledge and use of self-regulated learning
strategies, as well as study time, in 277 first-year students in the Spanish
secondary education system. The intervention’s efficacy was assessed
in terms of three variables: knowledge of self-regulated learning strategies,
use of self-regulated learning strategies, and study time. The results of
post-intervention data analysis indicate that statistically significant changes
occurred in students’ knowledge of self-regulated learning strategies
and weekly study time, but not in their use of self-regulated learning
strategies. When the sample was stratified into three groups (high, moderate,
and low) according to baseline scores on the dependent variables, our findings
show that students in the lower group profited most from the intervention on all
three variables. This suggests that participation in the program is especially
useful for at-risk students (i.e. those with little knowledge and use of
effective learning strategies).
We analyze the flux of new and evolved long-period comets (LPCs) reaching the Earth's neighborhood (perihelion distances q < 1.3 AU), their physical lifetimes, and their implications as regards to the amount of meteoritic matter that is being deposited in the near-Earth region. The flux of LPCs with q < 1.3 au is found to be of about 340 ± 40, brighter than absolute total magnitude 8.6 (radius R ~ 0.6 km) (Fernández and Sosa 2012). Bearing in mind that most of these comets disintegrate into meteoritic matter, this represents a large contribution to the interplanetary dust complex which requires an amount of matter of about 10 tons s−1 to keep it in steady state. These aspects, as well as the impact rate with Earth of meteoroids of LPC origin, will be discussed in this presentation.
Division III, with 1126 members, is the third largest of the 12 IAU Divisions, focusing on subject matter related to the physical study of interplanetary dust, comets, minor planets, satellites, planets, planetary systems and astrobiology. Within the Division are very active working groups that are responsible for planetary system and small body nomenclature, as well as a newly created working group on Near Earth Objects which was established order to investigate the requirements for international ground-and/or space-based NEO surveys to characterize 90% of all NEOs with diameters >40m in order to establish a permanent international NEO Early Warning System.
Fluorescence microscopy can be used to study certain single molecules in solution or attached to a surface. Two conflicting challenges to overcome are: (1) to image freely moving molecules for long times and (2) to image immobilized single molecules when there is a highly fluorescent background. The fact that these two goals are inversely related is illustrated by epifluorescence, which is good for observing freely diffusing molecules but poor for detecting single molecules, whereas the reverse is true for zero-mode waveguides. Plus, these and other techniques require elaborate (read: expensive) equipment with computerized controls. Sabrina Leslie, Alexander Fields, and Adam Cohen have developed an ingenious (relatively) simple technique that can image freely moving single molecules.
The CSBN meeting held in Rio de Janeiro on August 11 was attended by just six members, including Pam Kilmartin as the acting chair, and several visitors. Since there was not a quorum of members, it was not possible to make any decisions. But there was a good discussion on many topics, from which several points emerged that should be more fully discussed by the whole committee during the next few months:
We have for this General Assembly 25 new applications for C20 membership, which represents about 10% increase with respect to the total number of members. We are very satisfied with the increase rate of our commission membership, which reflects the high degree of activity in our field. Nevertheless we note that there are not many people involved in the commission business.
The meeting was opened by Ted Bowell, president, at 11 am. The 2006 Division III meetings were reviewed by Guy Consolmagno, secretary; as the minutes of those meetings have already been published, they were assumed to be approved.
In this paper we study homogenisation problems for Sobolev trace embedding H1(Ω) ↪ Lq(∂Ω) in a bounded smooth domain. When q = 2 this leads to a Steklov-like eigenvalue problem. We deal with the best constant of the Sobolev trace embedding in rapidly oscillating periodic media, and we consider H1 and Lq spaces with weights that are periodic in space. We find that extremals for these embeddings converge to a solution of a homogenised limit problem, and the best trace constant converges to a homogenised best trace constant. Our results are in fact more general; we can also consider general operators of the form aɛ(x, ∇u) with non-linear Neumann boundary conditions. In particular, we can deal with the embedding W1,p(Ω) ↪ Lq(∂Ω).
We analyze a sample of 58 Oort cloud comets (OCCs) (original orbital energies x in the range 0 < x < 100, in units of 10−6 AU−1), plus 45 long-period comets with negative orbital energies or poorly determined or undetermined x, discovered during the period 1999-2007. To analyze the degree of completeness of the sample, we use Everhart's (1967 Astr. J 72, 716) concept of “excess magnitude” (in magnitudes × days), defined as the integrated magnitude excess that a given comet presents over the time above a threshold magnitude for detection. This quantity is a measure of the likelihood that the comet will be finally detected. We define two sub-samples of OCCs: 1) new comets (orbital energies 0 < x < 30) as those whose perihelia can shift from outside to the inner planetary region in a single revolution; and 2) inner cloud comets (orbital energies 30 ≤ x < 100), that come from the inner region of the Oort cloud, and for which external perturbers (essentially galactic tidal forces and passing stars) are not strong enough to allow them to overshoot the Jupiter-Saturn barrier. From the observed comet flux and making allowance for missed discoveries, we find a flux of OCCs brighter than absolute total magnitude 9 of ≃0.65 ± 0.18 per year within Earth's orbit. From this flux, about two-thirds corresponds to new comets and the rest to inner cloud comets. We find striking differences in the q-distribution of these two samples: while new comets appear to follow an uniform q-distribution, inner cloud comets show an increase in the rate of perihelion passages with q.
We present results from numerical simulations of a Jupiter family comet (JFC) population (orbital periods P < 20 yr and Tisserand parameters in the range 2 < T < 3.1) originated in the Scattered Disk and transferred to the Jupiter's zone through gravitational interactions with the Jovian planets. We shall call ‘non-JFCs’ those comets coming from the same source, but that do not fulfill the previous criteria (mainly because they have periods P > 20 yr). We have carried out series of numerical simulations of fictitious comets with a purely dynamical model and also with a more complete dynamical - physical model that includes besides nongravitational forces, sublimation and splitting mechanisms. We obtained better fits with models including physical effects, and in particular our best fits are for four splitting models with a relative weak dependence on q, and a mass loss in every splitting event that is smaller/greater for higher/lower frequencies respectively. The mean lifetime of JFCs with radii R > 1 km and q < 1.5 AU is found to be of about 150-200 revolutions (~103 yr). We find a total population of JFCs with radii R > 1 km within Jupiter's zone of 450 ± 50 and a mean lifetime of about 150-200 revolutions (~103 yr) for those getting q < 1.5 AU. The population of JFCs + non-JFCs with radii R > 1 km in Jupiter-crossing orbits may be about ~2,250 ± 250. Most of non-JFCs have perihelia close to Jupiter's orbit.
We also present maps of the densest zones of JFCs in the orbital element space.
By means of a simple non-gravitational force model of the cometary nucleus, which relies on the observed light curves assumed to be a good representation of the water sublimation rate, we estimate the masses of a sample of long-period comets (LPCs).
A critical issue of our method is the assumption of a correlation between visual heliocentric magnitudes and water production rates. This is a necessary assumption because of the sparse observational data of gas production rates (with the exception of very few comets like Hale-Bopp or Hyakutake). In this regard we present here a new correlation for LPCs. We also present the preliminary results for the masses of comets Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake.