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Purpose: Anorectal and urogenital dysfunctions are common after rectal surgery and have a significant impact on quality of life. Intraoperative pelvic autonomic nerve monitoring (pIONM) has been proposed as a tool to identify patients at risk of these functional sequelae. This systematic review aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of pIONM in detecting anorectal and urogenital dysfunction following rectal surgery., Methods: A systematic review of articles published since 1990 was conducted using MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. Studies describing pIONM for rectal surgery and reporting anorectal or urogenital functional outcomes were included. The risk of bias was assessed using the QUADS-2 tool. The diagnostic accuracy of pIONM was established with pooled sensitivity and specificity alongside summary receiver-operating characteristic curves., Results: Twenty studies including 686 patients undergoing pIONM were identified, with seven of these studies including a control group. There was heterogeneity in the pIONM technique and reported outcome measures used. Results from five studies indicate pIONM may be able to predict postoperative anorectal (sensitivity 1.00 [95% CI 0.03-1.00], specificity 0.98 [0.91-0.99]) and urinary (sensitivity 1.00 [95% CI 0.03-1.00], specificity 0.99 [0.92-0.99]) dysfunction., Conclusions: This review identifies the diagnostic accuracy of pIONM in detecting postoperative anorectal and urogenital dysfunction following rectal surgery. Further research is necessary before pIONM can be routinely used in clinical practice., Prospero Registration Details: CRD42022313934., Competing Interests: Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical Statement: This systematic review does not require ethical approval as it is not considered research after consultation with the United Kingdom HRA research decision tool. Consent Statement: Informed consent was not required for this systematic review., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

This work shows the design and construction of a servomechanism of a rotator-type joint based on NiTi Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) with an angular position measurement based on a potentiometer sensor and digital electronic position control. The expected application of this prototype is for the use of small charges that emulate the movement of the human being, being bio-inspired and activated by artificial muscles, their potential applications they will be in medical and humanoid robotics. Computer Aided Design (CAD) allows evaluating and validating the most convenient parameters for construction of servomechanism, experimental results validate allowed us to obtain the values of the range of motion ± 20 ° and a maximum torque of 1.01 kg-cm exerted on the axis of rotation for the prototype., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

The data presented in this article is generated by a steady-state simulation for performing a techno-economic assessment for comparing three electrolysis technologies in the PtM context. The data is focused on two aspects. First, the description of the steady-state simulation of six PtM systems modeled using Aspen Custom Modeler (ACM) and Aspen Plus (AP). Second, an economic assessment is carried out for each of the mentioned PtM systems to compare the feasibility, the profitability and performance of these systems on a larger scale to produce synthetic natural gas, power generation and carbon utilization given in the main research article. Three electrolysis technologies (namely Alkaline Electrolysis - AE, Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolysis - PEME and Solid Oxide Electrolysis - SOE) were modeled having in mind two methane applications: a combined cycle for power generation and the syngas generation. In addition, on each PtM system is carried out an economic evaluation by calculating fixed capital investment (FCI) and manufacturing costs (MC)., (© 2024 The Authors.)

It is only partially understood how constitutive allelic methylation at imprinting control regions (ICRs) interacts with other regulation levels to drive timely parental allele-specific expression along large imprinted domains. The Peg13-Kcnk9 domain is an imprinted domain with important brain functions. To gain insights into its regulation during neural commitment, we performed an integrative analysis of its allele-specific epigenetic, transcriptomic, and cis-spatial organization using a mouse stem cell-based corticogenesis model that recapitulates the control of imprinted gene expression during neurodevelopment. We found that, despite an allelic higher-order chromatin structure associated with the paternally CTCF-bound Peg13 ICR, enhancer-Kcnk9 promoter contacts occurred on both alleles, although they were productive only on the maternal allele. This observation challenges the canonical model in which CTCF binding isolates the enhancer and its target gene on either side and suggests a more nuanced role for allelic CTCF binding at some ICRs., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Some statistical analysis techniques may require complete data matrices, but a frequent problem in the construction of databases is the incomplete collection of information for different reasons. One option to tackle the problem is to estimate and impute the missing data. This paper describes a form of imputation that mixes regression with lower rank approximations. To improve the quality of the imputations, a generalisation is proposed that replaces the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the matrix with a regularised SVD in which the regularisation parameter is estimated by cross-validation. To evaluate the performance of the proposal, ten sets of real data from multienvironment trials were used. Missing values were created in each set at four percentages of missing not at random, and three criteria were then considered to investigate the effectiveness of the proposal. The results show that the regularised method proves very competitive when compared to the original method, beating it in several of the considered scenarios. As it is a very general system, its application can be extended to all multivariate data matrices. •The imputation method is modified through the inclusion of a stable and efficient computational algorithm that replaces the classical SVD least squares criterion by a penalised criterion. This penalty produces smoothed eigenvectors and eigenvalues that avoid overfitting problems, improving the performance of the method when the penalty is necessary. The size of the penalty can be determined by minimising one of the following criteria: the prediction errors, the Procrustes similarity statistic or the critical angles between subspaces of principal components., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Author(s).)

This paper proposes the transition times of Petri net models of human gait as training features for multiclass random forests (RFs) and classification trees (CTs). These models are designed to support screening for neurodegenerative diseases. The proposed Petri net describes gait in terms of nine cyclic phases and the timing of the nine events that mark the transition between phases. Since the transition times between strides vary, each is represented as a random variable characterized by its mean and standard deviation. These transition times are calculated using the PhysioNet database of vertical ground reaction forces (VGRFs) generated by feet-ground contact. This database comprises the VGRFs of four groups: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the control group, Huntington's disease, and Parkinson disease. The RF produced an overall classification accuracy of 91%, and the specificities and sensitivities for each class were between 80% and 100%. However, despite this high performance, the RF-generated models demonstrated lack of interpretability prompted the training of a CT using identical features. The obtained tree comprised only four features and required a maximum of three comparisons. However, this simplification dramatically reduced the overall accuracy from 90.6% to 62.3%. The proposed set features were compared with those included in PhysioNet database of VGRFs. In terms of both the RF and CT, more accurate models were established using our features than those of the PhysioNet., (© 2022 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

Purpose of Review: Review work to create and evaluate educational materials that could serve as a primary prevention strategy to help both providers and patients in Panama, Colombia, and the USA reduce disease burden of Toxoplasma infections., Recent Findings: Educational programs had not been evaluated for efficacy in Panama, USA, or Colombia., Summary: Educational programs for high school students, pregnant women, medical students and professionals, scientists, and lay personnel were created. In most settings, short-term effects were evaluated. In Panama, Colombia, and USA, all materials showed short-term utility in transmitting information to learners. These educational materials can serve as a component of larger public health programs to lower disease burden from congenital toxoplasmosis. Future priorities include conducting robust longitudinal studies of whether education correlates with reduced adverse disease outcomes, modifying educational materials as new information regarding region-specific risk factors is discovered, and ensuring materials are widely accessible., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest Denis Limone Pharm D,is Chairman , shareholder and CEO and Raphael Piarroux Pharm D, PhD, is RandD Director and employee at LDBio Diagnostics. A patent application was submitted in the United States for the development of the whole blood point of care test with the scientists at the University of Chicago to insure its continued high quality performance and reproducibility. The authors declare no other competing interests..

Purpose of Review: Review international efforts to build a global public health initiative focused on toxoplasmosis with spillover benefits to save lives, sight, cognition and motor function benefiting maternal and child health., Recent Findings: Multiple countries' efforts to eliminate toxoplasmosis demonstrate progress and context for this review and new work., Summary: Problems with potential solutions proposed include accessibility of accurate, inexpensive diagnostic testing, pre-natal screening and facilitating tools, missed and delayed neonatal diagnosis, restricted access, high costs, delays in obtaining medicines emergently, delayed insurance pre-approvals and high medicare copays taking considerable physician time and effort, harmful shortcuts being taken in methods to prepare medicines in settings where access is restricted, reluctance to perform ventriculoperitoneal shunts promptly when needed without recognition of potential benefit, access to resources for care, especially for marginalized populations, and limited use of recent advances in management of neurologic and retinal disease which can lead to good outcomes., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40124-022-00268-x., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest/Competing Interests There are no other disclosures and no other competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

Purpose of Review: Review building of programs to eliminate Toxoplasma infections., Recent Findings: Morbidity and mortality from toxoplasmosis led to programs in USA, Panama, and Colombia to facilitate understanding, treatment, prevention, and regional resources, incorporating student work., Summary: Studies foundational for building recent, regional approaches/programs are reviewed. Introduction provides an overview/review of programs in Panamá, the United States, and other countries. High prevalence/risk of exposure led to laws mandating testing in gestation, reporting, and development of broad-based teaching materials about Toxoplasma. These were tested for efficacy as learning tools for high-school students, pregnant women, medical students, physicians, scientists, public health officials and general public. Digitized, free, smart phone application effectively taught pregnant women about toxoplasmosis prevention. Perinatal infection care programs, identifying true regional risk factors, and point-of-care gestational screening facilitate prevention and care. When implemented fully across all demographics, such programs present opportunities to save lives, sight, and cognition with considerable spillover benefits for individuals and societies., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40124-022-00269-w., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestDenis Limonne Pharm D, PhD and Raphael Piarroux Pharm D, PhD, are the owner and Scientists at LDBio. A patent application was submitted in the United States for the development of the whole blood point of care test with the scientists at the University of Chicago to insure its continued high-quality performance and reproducibility of the results described herein. In the United States and Panama in the more recent studies the LDBio kit was provided for the studies without charge by D Limonne. The Roche kit was provided without charge in Panama. For the predicate test costs for the comparison test for 70 consecutive persons for the feasibility clinical trial the cost of performing the Biorad IgG and IgM tests was provided by Kiphard Foundation. Kamal El Bissati is heading the initiatives to prevent toxoplasmosis in Morocco. Patents have been obtained for the medicine, anti-sense, vaccine, biomarker development work to facilitate their development toward clinical use and sustain availability if/when they are used in clinical practice. RMcLeod was reimbursed for time in performing a literature review concerning Spiramycin by Sanofi Pasteur in accordance with Sunshine laws. RMcLeod (with her colleagues) shared first prize merit award in the Alzgerm initiative to identify the highest quality and rigorously developed and described work demonstrating that a pathogen can initiate, progress and contribute to neurodegenerative diseases, and that there can be effect of this chronic active infection on cognition, motor function and other disease processes. This monetary prize was used to further this ongoing work.Competing InterestsThere are no other disclosures and no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

Synthetic mesh is often utilised for reinforcement in pelvic organ prolapse surgery. Mesh erosion to surrounding structures is a recognised complication following sacrocolpopexy, but translocation to the vagina is more common. We report an unusual case of delayed asymptomatic erosion of the mesh into the rectum 12 years after sacrocolpopexy.

In this contribution, an open-source computational toolbox composed of FEniCS and complementary packages is introduced to the chemical and process engineering field by addressing two case studies. First, the oxidation of o-xylene to phthalic anhydride is modelled and used as a FEniCS' proof-of-concept based on a comparison with the software Aspen Custom Modeler (ACM). The results show a maximum absolute error of 2% and thus a good FEniCS/ACM agreement. Second, synthetic natural gas (SNG) production through CO 2 methanation is covered in further detail. In this instance, a parametric study is performed for a tube bundle fixed-bed reactor employing a two-dimensional and transient pseudo-homogeneous model. An operating window for critical variables is evaluated, discussed, and successfully contrasted with the literature. Therefore, the computational toolbox methodology and the consistency of the results are validated, strengthening FEniCS and complements as an interesting alternative to solve mathematical models concerning chemical reaction engineering., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Tritrichomonas foetus isolates from feline and bovine origin has been previously shown to carry a certain degree of genetic heterogeneity. Here, novel candidate molecular markers were developed by means of multilocus sequence typing of the gap2 gene (encoding for T. foetus glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase), ITS region, the TR7/TR8 variable-length repeat and microsatellite genotyping. These markers were used to characterize T. foetus field isolates from bulls and domestic cats and to compare phylogenetically with the following ATCC isolates: T. foetus isolated from cattle and pig (syn. Tritrichomonas suis), Tritrichomonas mobilensis, Tetratrichomonas gallinarum and Pentatrichomonas hominis. Among them, TFMS10 and TFMS7 were found to be the most polymorphic markers. Moreover, an 809 bp fragment of the gap2 gene was successfully amplified from all the trichomonads included in this study and the sequence analysis revealed differences between T. foetus porcine and feline genotypes and T. mobilensis in comparison to the bovine T. foetus ATCC isolate. The TR7/TR8 repeat pattern was not reproducible, being only consistent the fragments of approximately 110 and 217 bp. Sequence analysis of the latter revealed the existence of 3 SNPs resulting in 98.6 % homology between bovine and feline isolates. A search for similar sequences was carried out to develop a Restriction Length Fragment Polymorphism analysis. A 503 bp region, named TF1, revealed the existence of two BbvI restriction enzyme sites that were able to generate different length fragments for T. foetus feline and bovine isolates. Finally, the neighbour-joining analyses showed that T. foetus porcine genotype clusters together with bovine genotype, whereas T. mobilensis and the feline genotype form a separate cluster., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To identify the capacity to provide appropriate access to facilities and equipment that encourage drinking water consumption at the Universidad de Panamá, as part of its commitment to promote behaviors that benefit the health of this community., Materials and Methods: A descriptive statistical study and a multivariate analysis were carried out using the correspondence analysis technique to explore relationships among the variables "University Group" (students, teachers and administrative staff) vs. "Access to water sources" and "Access to water sources" vs. "Inputs to facilitate water consumption"., Results: 66.3% of the population surveyed recognized drinking water as the most accessible drink for consumption, mainly from water sources, followed by bottled water., Conclusions: This work highlights the importance of promoting water consumption in the university population, suggesting that the Universidad de Panamá has infrastructure conditions that allow water intake, thus promoting healthy habits and fulfilling its commitment to the health of the population.

Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide zoonotic disease but information regarding domestic animals in Central America is scarce and fragmented. The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in domestic cats and dogs in different metropolitan regions of Panama. A total of 576 samples were collected; sera from 120 cats and 456 dogs were tested using a commercial indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The overall seroprevalence of IgG antibodies was 30.73%. There is high seroprevalence of T. gondii in cats and dogs in the metropolitan regions around the Panama Canal; however, differences between these species were not significant. Statistical analysis indicated that there are relevant variables, such as the age of animals, with a direct positive relationship with seroprevalence. None of the variables related to animal welfare (veterinary attention provided, type of dwelling, and access to green areas and drinking water) were associated with seropositivity., (© C. Rengifo-Herrera et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2017.)

Breast cancer currently affects 1 in 8 women in the UK during their lifetime. Common sites for breast cancer metastasis include the axillary lymph nodes, bones, lung, liver, brain, soft tissue and adrenal glands. There is well documented evidence detailing breast metastasis to the gastrointestinal tract but anal metastasis is exceptionally rare. We present the case of a 78-year-old woman with an anal metastasis as the sentinel and isolated presentation of an invasive ductal breast carcinoma. As advances in the treatment of breast cancer improve, and with an ageing and expanding population, there will be an increasing number of cancer survivors, and more of these unusual presentations may be encountered in the future.

A study was conducted to investigate the presence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in Antarctic marine mammals. A total of 270 faecal samples from different species of pinnipeds from different locations in the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula were analysed by immunofluorescence microscopy and PCR. Cryptosporidium was detected by PCR in three samples from Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) and 2 Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii). However, no oocysts were observed in any of the samples by immunofluorescence microscopy. Molecular characterisation of the isolates, using the 18S rDNA, the HSP70 and the COWP loci, revealed the presence of a Cryptosporidium sp., previously reported from an Antarctic Southern elephant seal, in the elephant seals and a novel genotype in Weddell seals. Giardia could not be detected in any of the samples analysed., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The presence of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies was investigated in Antarctic marine mammals. Two hundred and eleven sera from different species of pinnipeds collected in years 2007, 2010 and 2011 from different locations in the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula were analysed using a commercially available agglutination test kit. The presence of antibodies (titres ≥ 1:25) against T. gondii was detected in a total of 28 animals (13.3%). Amongst animal species, percentages of detection were higher in Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) (76.9%; 10/13) followed by Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) (41.9%; 13/31). Antibodies were also found in 4 of 165 (2.4%) Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) and 1 of 2 Crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga). Highest titres (1:100-1:800) were also observed in Southern elephant seals and Weddell seals. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report on the detection of antibodies against T. gondii in Antarctic marine mammals., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The presence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in 221 fecal samples from different species of Antarctic pinnipeds was investigated by immunofluorescence microscopy and PCR. Cryptosporidium, a skunk-like genotype, was detected only in a southern elephant seal. Giardia was not detected. This is the first report of a Cryptosporidium sp. in Antarctic marine mammals.

The presence of Campylobacter spp. was investigated in 41 Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) and 9 Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) at Deception Island, Antarctica. Infections were encountered in six Antarctic fur seals. The isolates, the first reported from marine mammals in the Antarctic region, were identified as Campylobacter insulaenigrae and Campylobacter lari.

In this paper, a new neuromusculoskeletal simulation strategy is proposed. It is based on a cascade control approach with an inner muscular-force control loop and an outer joint-position control loop. The originality of the work is located in the optimization criterion used to distribute forces between synergistic and antagonistic muscles. The cost function and the inequality constraints depend on an estimation of the muscle fiber length and its time derivative. The advantages of a such criterion are exposed by theoretical analysis and numerical tests. The simulation model used in the numerical tests consists in an anthropomorphic arm model composed by two joints and six muscles. Each muscle is modeled as a second-order dynamical system including activation and contraction dynamics. Contraction dynamics is represented using a classical Hill's model.