Recent Articles

Introduction: Rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus are autoimmune, chronic and progressive diseases, which can be get worst in the presence of muscle mass loss due to physical inactivity and continuous inflammatory. Therefore, estimate body composition can assist in the treatment of these diseases. Objective: To evaluate the correlation of body mass index with handgrip strength and adductor pollicis muscle thickness in elderly patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus followed in a reference center in Brazil. Material and Methods: Cross-sectional study carried out in a rheumatology outpatient clinic in a reference center in Northeastern Brazil (Recife / PE). Elderly patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. Anthropometric measurements of weight, height and Body Mass Index (BMI) were taken, in addition to the measurement of body composition: calf circumference (CC), arm circumference (MUAC), adductor pollicis muscle thickness (APMT) and strength of hand grip (HGS). The data were treated using the SPSS version 17.0 for Windows and Excel 2010. Pearson correlation and the Chi-square test were used for analysis. The level of significance was set at 5%. The IMIP Research Bioethics Committee approved the present study under No. 19163619.1.0000.5201 the participants’ guardians signed the Free and Informed Consent Form (ICF). Results: The study included 19 patients aged 60 to 85 years and a mean age of 70.05 years +/- 8.47 SD, 94.74% of whom were female. The BMI, MUAC, CC, APMT and HGS mean of (26.93g / m2 ± 5.75DP), (28.85 ± 4.06DP), (34.79 ± 3.62DP), (11.52 ± 4.437DP) and (10.81 ± 6.77DP) respectively. The BMI showed that 31.26 were overweight, while HGS showed that 66.7% had a deficit in handgrip strength justified by the high prevalence of depletion of the adductor pollicis muscle, which identified that 97.4% showed signs of depletion of this musculature. There was a moderate…

Lack of diversified diets is a severe problem in the developing world, where diets are pre-dominantly starchy staples with few animal products, seasonal fruits and vegetables. The nutritional status of a woman during pregnancy is important as a suboptimal diet impacts negatively on the health of the mother, the foetus and the new-born. The review aimed to describe the dietary diversity and the nutritional status among pregnant women. Accord-ingly, lower dietary diversity score and undernutrition are highly considerable among women during pregnancy period. Socio- economic, morbidity and cultural factors influ-ence dietary diversity and also the nutritional status of pregnant women. It is important to promote and implement programmes aimed at improving dietary diversity and nutrition status among pregnant women in the Country.

Three triterpenoids, one diterpenoid and two steroids were isolated from the aerial parts of Calophyllum polyathum. The structure-s of these compounds were determined by 1D NMR and mass spectroscopic data. Among them, compounds 1, 3, and 4 was obtained for the first time from Calophyllum polyathum.

Mesenteric cysts are rare intra-abdominal benign tumors (1 in 100,000 cases in adults) with various clinical presentations. [1,2] They commonly originate from the small bowel mesentery, although a proportion has been found to originate from the mesocolon, and retroperitoneum. [1,3] The formation of mesenteric cysts depends on the histologic origin, where they could be classified into cysts of lymphatic origin, cysts of mesothelial origin, cysts of enteric origin, cysts of urogenital origin, dermoid cysts and pseudocysts. [4,5] Diagnosis is extremely difficult since. The Mesenteric cyst is usually asymptomatic, but if symptomatic, abdominal pain (82%), nausea and vomiting (45%), constipation (27%) are the most common presenting symptoms. [2,3] The clinical finding of abdominal mass is encountered in more than 61% of the patients. [2,3]. As this condition is very rare and its symptomatology can resemble any other abdominal diseases, diagnosis is extremely difficult and incorrect preoperative diagnosis is often made. Hence, performing physical examination and conducting radiological investigations such as ultrasonography (USG) and computed tomography (CT) are important in making a correct diagnosis. [2,3] As well as cases of mesothelial cysts, they are typically asymptomatic but occasionally, their symptoms are vague and non-specific. [6,7] As mentioned above, imaging modalities such as USG, CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are great in identifying the character, size, location, surrounding tissues and the wall and content of the cysts. [7] Surgery is the treatment of choice, as a complete resection with negative borders is curative and often prevents recurrence. [3] We report a case of a young female patient who presented with a vague abdominal symptoms and a large cystic mass in lower abdomen. After proper evaluation, surgical exploration revealed a large simple mesothelial cyst.

Taking the Zambezi River Basin as a typical case, this paper studied the location problem of dam group. Based on the topographical and elevation maps of the Zambezi River Basin, we evaluated each region by five indicators (Water head difference elevation, Geological environment, Climatic environment, Population distribution and Biodiversity), and selected the 22 candidate dam sites. Meanwhile, the relative feasibility index of dam construction is calculated by the entropy weight-grey correlation analysis. On this basis, combined with the water management capacity of the dam, a set coverage model of dam selection is established, and the neighborhood adaptive particle swarm optimization algorithm (NAPSO) is used to solve the 12 most suitable dam sites. Comparing with the water management capacity of the original Kariba Dam, the new dams’ water storage and flood control capacity, hydroelectric power generation capacity, domestic water supply capacity and other water supply capacity have been increased by 235.92%, 250.62%, 189.66% and 223.61% respectively. Our study can provide some guidance for the site selection project of river dam group.

CALR mutations, together with JAK-2 and MPL ones, are recognized as “driver” mutations in Philadelphia-negative chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Most frequent CALR mutations are Type-1 deletions (45-55% of cases) and type-2 insertion (32-42% of cases). These mutations are usually associated with younger age, higher platelet counts, lower leukocyte counts, lower hemoglobin levels and a higher incidence of transformation from ET to MF. Recognizing and describing cases with different mutations can be useful to create a database that might help clinicians to include these patients in risk categories and to guide the appropriate therapeutic choices. We report a case of a 77-years old woman who presented a new type-2 like CALR mutation.

Fungi are critical agents of the global carbon cycle, however, our ability to link fungal community composition to ecosystem functioning is constrained by a limited understanding the wood decomposition rates of fungus. Here we examined the wood decomposition rate of fungus and the impact of fungal community diversity on the wood decomposing. To understand the relationship between the wood decomposition rate and the traits of fungi, we introduced 37 types of fungus into the wood decomposition system and set the growth rate and moisture tolerance of fungus as the explanatory variables. In addition, we constructed the competition, parasitic and symbiotic model based on Malthus-block growth comprehensive to analyze and predict the interactions between different fungus. The entropy weight-TOPSIS model was established to understand the biodiversity of fungus and obtain the relative dominance degree which can reflect the advantages and disadvantages of different fungus. The ARIMA model was used in five different environments to predict the impact of fungal community diversity on the overall efficiency of wood decomposing. Our research can not only help us to better understand the fungus community, but also significant for improving the quality of climate and the carbon cycle.

The aims of this research were to identify the topographical slope characteristics most preferred by wild olive trees in the Al-Bahah region. This study successfully identified the degree of the slope preferred for wild olive groves. The findings revealed that the majority (72.9%) of wild olive trees in Al-Bahah region occupy slopes of 5–30°. However, the patterns in Qelwa and Al-Mekhwah districts are a bit different where most of the wild olives were found on steeper slopes of 20–40°. This is probably because these sub-regions have a medium to steep slope, descending gradually toward the west, the altitudes ranging from 200 (400) to 2001 and 2200 m west of Al¬-Bahah city and Uwera, and between 2000 and 2100 m west of Baljurashi. The results further depicted that the wild olive with the medium-large crown diameter mostly occupied the gentler slopes of 0–25° compared to those with small crown diameters at steeper slopes of 5–35°. This indicates that the wild olive trees grow better on gentler slopes. These findings can be regarded as theoretically revealing the potential landform suitable for olive plantation. As a basis for olive plantation site suitability, these factors are the essential prerequisites to be considered. However. In addition, it is obvious that site suitability is subject to the temporal dynamics of environmental variables.

The development of combine harvester has greatly promoted the development of global agricultural mechanization, In this paper, a large number of research results related to power allocation of combine harvesters were collected, The development status of combined harvester transmission system and power test system is summarized through analysis and selection, It is found that there are few researches on the power distribution of the combine harvester, so it is necessary to further study the related research of the combine harvester.

Background: Avulsion fracture of the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS) is a rare form of apophyseal avulsion fracture of the pelvis, and there is a lack of evidence-based guidelines for the selection of treatment options. There are various surgical procedures, but there is the risk of secondary removal of internal fixator and growth disturbance caused by epiphyseal fixation. Methods: We treated 5 patients with avulsion fracture of the anterior superior iliac spine by knotless suture bridge technique who visited our hospital from 2015 to 2020.The surgical treatment results were retrospectively analyzed. Results: 5 patients with fractures were healed after the surgery, no associated complications, the mean postoperative follow-up was 29.2 months (6-60months), all patients were not reported pain symptoms (visual analogue score of 0), they don’t have the limitation of daily activities, and the hip joint function recovered well, and very pleased with the results (Harris score 100 points) at the final follow-up. Conclusion: Knotless suture bridge technique is simple and effective in the repair of the avulsion fracture of anterior superior iliac spine. For such patients, this surgical technique can provide stable and reliable fixation, allow early recovery, and provide a feasible scheme for clinical practice.