Oronasal actinomycosis is an infection seldom described in the literature, especially in the form... more Oronasal actinomycosis is an infection seldom described in the literature, especially in the form of a co-infection with pulmonary tuberculosis. We report the case of a 48-year-old male admitted to the isolation ward due to active pulmonary tuberculosis, with a history of diabetes and alcohol abuse. While hospitalized, the patient complained of dysphagia and nasal regurgitation of food. The examination of the oral cavity revealed an oronasal fistula. The infecting agent was identified, and the treatment was successful. We also present a brief review of the literature, as well as a full description and discussion of the process of investigating this rare clinical case.
Several studies have shown that the anti-inflammatory effect of Pioglitazone extends beyond the c... more Several studies have shown that the anti-inflammatory effect of Pioglitazone extends beyond the cardiovascular system. This study examines the anti-inflammatory effect of Pioglitazone in comparison to reference drugs (Dexamethasone and Indomethacin) in the mouse model of pleurisy induced by carrageenan which is characterized by two distinct phases (4 and 48 h) of inflammation. Pioglitazone (20 and 50 mg/kg, i.p., 0.5 h before pleurisy) inhibited both neutrophil (4 h) and mononuclears (48 h) influxes (P < 0.01), but not exudation (P > 0.05). While one dose of Pioglitazone was effective in inhibiting inflammation at 4 h, additional doses (10 or 20 mg/kg, i.p., 0.5 h before pleurisy induction followed by either a second dose at 24 h after the first one or two further doses at 12 h of time interval after the first one) were necessary to elicit inhibition of the second (48 h) inflammation phase. These effects were associated with a marked decrease in adenosine-deaminase (ADA) activity, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 1-beta (IL-1β) levels (P < 0.01). Myeloperoxidade (MPO) activity was inhibited only at 4 h (P < 0.05). By contrast, reference drugs were able to inhibit all the studied inflammatory parameters (P < 0.05). These results demonstrated an interesting anti-inflammatory property of this thiazolidinedione class and strengthen prior evidence that PPAR pathways constitute another important route of inflammatory process inhibition of this pleurisy model.
This paper presents the Gene Fragment Competition concept that can be used with Hybrid Genetic Al... more This paper presents the Gene Fragment Competition concept that can be used with Hybrid Genetic Algorithms specially in signal and image processing. Memetic Algorithms have shown great success in real-life problems by adding local search operators to improve the quality of the already achieved “good” solutions during the evolutionary process. Nevertheless these traditional local search operators don’t perform well in highly demanding evaluation processes. This stresses the need for a new semi-local non-exhaustive method. Our proposed approach sits as a tradeoff between classical Genetic Algorithms and traditional Memetic Algorithms, performing a quasi-global/quasi-local search by means of gene fragment evaluation and selection. The applicability of this hybrid Genetic Algorithm to the signal processing problem of Polyphonic Music Transcription is shown. The results obtained show the feasibility of the approach.
Oronasal actinomycosis is an infection seldom described in the literature, especially in the form... more Oronasal actinomycosis is an infection seldom described in the literature, especially in the form of a co-infection with pulmonary tuberculosis. We report the case of a 48-year-old male admitted to the isolation ward due to active pulmonary tuberculosis, with a history of diabetes and alcohol abuse. While hospitalized, the patient complained of dysphagia and nasal regurgitation of food. The examination of the oral cavity revealed an oronasal fistula. The infecting agent was identified, and the treatment was successful. We also present a brief review of the literature, as well as a full description and discussion of the process of investigating this rare clinical case.
Several studies have shown that the anti-inflammatory effect of Pioglitazone extends beyond the c... more Several studies have shown that the anti-inflammatory effect of Pioglitazone extends beyond the cardiovascular system. This study examines the anti-inflammatory effect of Pioglitazone in comparison to reference drugs (Dexamethasone and Indomethacin) in the mouse model of pleurisy induced by carrageenan which is characterized by two distinct phases (4 and 48 h) of inflammation. Pioglitazone (20 and 50 mg/kg, i.p., 0.5 h before pleurisy) inhibited both neutrophil (4 h) and mononuclears (48 h) influxes (P < 0.01), but not exudation (P > 0.05). While one dose of Pioglitazone was effective in inhibiting inflammation at 4 h, additional doses (10 or 20 mg/kg, i.p., 0.5 h before pleurisy induction followed by either a second dose at 24 h after the first one or two further doses at 12 h of time interval after the first one) were necessary to elicit inhibition of the second (48 h) inflammation phase. These effects were associated with a marked decrease in adenosine-deaminase (ADA) activity, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 1-beta (IL-1β) levels (P < 0.01). Myeloperoxidade (MPO) activity was inhibited only at 4 h (P < 0.05). By contrast, reference drugs were able to inhibit all the studied inflammatory parameters (P < 0.05). These results demonstrated an interesting anti-inflammatory property of this thiazolidinedione class and strengthen prior evidence that PPAR pathways constitute another important route of inflammatory process inhibition of this pleurisy model.
This paper presents the Gene Fragment Competition concept that can be used with Hybrid Genetic Al... more This paper presents the Gene Fragment Competition concept that can be used with Hybrid Genetic Algorithms specially in signal and image processing. Memetic Algorithms have shown great success in real-life problems by adding local search operators to improve the quality of the already achieved “good” solutions during the evolutionary process. Nevertheless these traditional local search operators don’t perform well in highly demanding evaluation processes. This stresses the need for a new semi-local non-exhaustive method. Our proposed approach sits as a tradeoff between classical Genetic Algorithms and traditional Memetic Algorithms, performing a quasi-global/quasi-local search by means of gene fragment evaluation and selection. The applicability of this hybrid Genetic Algorithm to the signal processing problem of Polyphonic Music Transcription is shown. The results obtained show the feasibility of the approach.
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Papers by Gustavo Reis