Thoracoscopy as a safe and effective technique for exploring calves affected with bovine respiratory disease

( Natividad Perez-villalobos ),( Inaki Espinosa-crespo ),( Jose Sampayo-cabrera ),( Juan-vicente Gonzalez-martin ),( Antonio Gonzalez-bulnes ),( Susana Astiz ) 한국동물자원과학회(구 한국축산학회) 2017 한국축산학회지 Vol.59 No.3

Background: Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is one of the leading causes of economic losses in the beef and dairy industry. Reliable antemortem tools for diagnosing BRD would improve the efficacy of treatment and reduce costs. Here we examined whether the relatively simple technique of thoracoscopy can support BRD diagnosis under field conditions. We also compared various equipment set-ups in order to optimize the safety and efficacy of the procedure. A total of 24 thoracoscopic procedures were performed in 17 calves diagnosed with BRD and in 2 healthy control calves. Rigid and flexible endoscopes and industrial videoscopes were tested using various insertion approaches. The suitability of the technique was assessed in terms of duration, volume of air extracted, visualization score, and image quality. Safety was assessed in terms of rectal temperature, body weight, breaths/min, presence of fibrinogen, pain score, recovery time, intraoperative complications and risk of laceration or threatening collapse. Results: Insertion of a flexible endoscope via a right, dorso-caudal approach at the 5^th intercostal space allowed complete examination of the right lung in 15 min, as well as identification of main lung lesions and adherences in calves with BRD, without compromising calf welfare. While the dorso-caudal approach was optimal, it was associated with substantial discomfort when rigid endoscopes were used, minimal complications or mortality due to thoracoscopy were observed up to 28 days after the procedure. Videoscopes were as safe and easy to use as endoscopes, but endoscopes provided better image quality. Conclusion: This study provides the first field evidence that thoracoscopy can be safe to explore BRD-diseased calves. These results justify a larger study to rigorously assess the diagnostic performance of the technique.

Sticking and Desorption of Atomic Hydrogen on the Armchair Edges of Bilayer Graphene

Natividad, Michelle,Arboleda Jr., Nelson,Kasai, Hideaki The Korean Electrochemical Society 2016 Journal of electrochemical science and technology Vol.7 No.3

The coupled channel method via the Local Reflection (LORE) matrix is employed to investigate the quantum mechanical behavior of the sticking or adsorption and desorption of hydrogen (H) atom on bilayer graphene via the armchair edge. The sticking and desorption probabilities of H are calculated and are plotted against the initial translational energy of H. The sticking probability plot shows a barrierless reaction indicating that hydrogen is easily adsorbed on the armchair edge of graphene. The desorption probability plot, however, shows that desorption of H from the graphene sheets is an activated process with a barrier height of 4.19 eV suggesting that a strong bond exists between the adsorbed H atom and the edge carbon atom. Thus, temperatures higher than the operating temperatures (300 - 1500 K) of conventional fuel cells are necessary to release the adsorbed H atom from the armchair edge of graphene.

Pursuit of optimal synthetic conditions for obtaining colloidal zero-valent iron nanoparticles by scanning pulsed laser ablation in liquids

Ruth Lahoz,Eva Natividad,Álvaro Mayoral,Christian Rentenberger,Daniel Díaz-Fernández,Eduardo J. Félix,Leonardo Soriano,Wolfgang Kautek,Oscar Bomati-Miguel 한국공업화학회 2020 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.81 No.-

Liquid-Assisted Pulsed Laser Ablation (LA-PLA) is a promising top-down method to directly synthesizecolloidal dispersions of nanoparticles in a eco-friendly manner. However, the role of LA-PLA synthesisparameters is not yet fully agreed. This work seeks to optimize the production of nanoscale zero-valentiron (nZVI) particles suitable for biomedical or environmental applications using nanosecond LA-PLA oniron targets with different ablation media, laser and target scanning parameters. The use of alcohols assolvents produces iron-iron oxide core-shell nanoparticles with amorphous cores, except for a smallcrystalline fraction corresponding to the biggest core sizes. Decreasing carbon chain length andcomplexity leads to a thinning of the carbonaceous material coatings and an increase of the colloidalstability and the nanoparticle productivity. Moreover, a decrease of solvent density and surface tensionallows obtaining reduced sizes and polydispersity values. Among, laser and scanning parameters, thepulse accumulation per spot displayed a clear effect in boosting size and productivity. As main outcome,aqueous dispersions with suitable colloidal properties are obtained, either by transferring to water ofoptimized nZVI particles produced in ethanol, or by direct formation of nZVI particles and in situ coatingwith hydrophilic molecules in aqueous solutions of these molecules.

Current status and prospects of automatic sleep stages scoring: Review

Maksym Gaiduk,Ángel Serrano Alarcón,Ralf Seepold,Natividad Martínez Madrid 대한의용생체공학회 2023 Biomedical Engineering Letters (BMEL) Vol.13 No.3

The scoring of sleep stages is one of the essential tasks in sleep analysis. Since a manual procedure requires considerable human and financial resources, and incorporates some subjectivity, an automated approach could result in several advantages. There have been many developments in this area, and in order to provide a comprehensive overview, it is essential to review relevant recent works and summarise the characteristics of the approaches, which is the main aim of this article. To achieve it, we examined articles published between 2018 and 2022 that dealt with the automated scoring of sleep stages. In the final selection for in-depth analysis, 125 articles were included after reviewing a total of 515 publications. The results revealed that automatic scoring demonstrates good quality (with Cohen's kappa up to over 0.80 and accuracy up to over 90%) in analysing EEG/EEG + EOG + EMG signals. At the same time, it should be noted that there has been no breakthrough in the quality of results using these signals in recent years. Systems involving other signals that could potentially be acquired more conveniently for the user (e.g. respiratory, cardiac or movement signals) remain more challenging in the implementation with a high level of reliability but have considerable innovation capability. In general, automatic sleep stage scoring has excellent potential to assist medical professionals while providing an objective assessment.

Depression in family caregivers of elderly people with dementia

LVAREZ, Yanelys Taset A,TORNES, Alisa Natividad Delgado,LEON, Diurkis Yarenis Madrigal Korea FoodHealth Convergence Association 2020 식품보건융합연구 (KJFHC) Vol.6 No.3

The caregivers of elderly people with dementia suffer an affectation in the psychological and social order due to the low probability of total rehabilitation of the elderly and the progressive course of this pathology. In the municipality of Guisa, Granma Province there is a health problem regarding this problem since family caregivers of the elderly with dementia constantly go to the Psychology and Psychiatry consultations, in search of specialized help because they report feeling depressed. For this reason, this research was carried out with the objective of determining the main manifestations of depression in these caregivers. The results emanating from the triangulation of methods (scientific observation) and techniques (questionnaire, interviews and inventory Beck), employees at three stages of work where it was found that the main manifestations of depression of these caregivers are: poss of interest or the ability to enjoy activities that were previously pleasurable, loss of emotional reactivity to pleasant environmental events and circumstances, sleep disturbances, marked loss of appetite, weight loss, irritability, muscular tension, feelings of sadness unmotivated that produces discomfort and sufferings, ansiety, entities of handicap, blame, loss of self-confidence and feelings of inferiority, gloomy perspective of the future.