Síntomas depresivos y trastorno motor en pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson

Introduction. Complex relations between brain and psychopathology have attracted the interest of researchers, aiming to clarify the neurobiological mechanisms of depression in Parkinson's disease, obviously in addiction to mental features. Aims. The association of motor impairment and decline of personal autonomy with severity of depressive symptoms was the hypothesis of the present study. Aiming to check this hypothesis, the objective of this study consisted in investigating relationships between the severity of depressive symptoms and motor characteristics of Parkinson's disease. Patients and methods. Thirty patients (53 to 80 year-old) with medical diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease in initial clinic stages were studied. The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, Hoehn-Yahr Scale, and Schwab & England Scale were used to assess the clinic signs and symptoms. The depressive symptoms were identified by complete anamnesis, examination of mental condition, and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and the Anxiety and Depression Scale. Statistical analysis was performed by Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analysis. Results. A significant correlation of severity of depression symptoms with disease stage (p < 0.02), with motor signs (p < 0.008), and with functional performance (p < 0.007) was found. Conclusion. There was significant association between motor impairment and severity of depressive symptoms, and between depression and early disease onset or prolonged duration of Parkinson's disease. © 2007, Revista de Neurología.

Behavior analysis of electromyographic activity of the masseter muscle in sleep bruxers

The effects of occlusal splint on the electric activity of masseter were studied in 15 women who presented sleep bruxism using surface electromyography. Sleep bruxism was defined by its clinical characteristics. The signal acquisition was done during mandible occlusion without clenching and maximum voluntary contraction in two situations. The first was after a workday without using the occlusal splint; and the second, after a sleeping night using occlusal splints. Evaluating masseter muscles during mandible occlusion without clenching, it could be observed that lower values were noticed after splint wearing in both sides. The same results were verified in maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). These results confirmed that the use of occlusal splints reduced the electromyographic activity of the right and left masseters, showing its myorelaxing effect. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Clinician rating scale (NPI-C): Reliability and validity of a revised assessment of neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) affect almost all patients with dementia and are a major focus of study and treatment. Accurate assessment of NPS through valid, sensitive and reliable measures is crucial. Although current NPS measures have many strengths, they also have some limitations (e.g. acquisition of data is limited to informants or caregivers as respondents, limited depth of items specific to moderate dementia). Therefore, we developed a revised version of the NPI, known as the NPI-C. The NPI-C includes expanded domains and items, and a clinician-rating methodology. This study evaluated the reliability and convergent validity of the NPI-C at ten international sites (seven languages). Methods: Face validity for 78 new items was obtained through a Delphi panel. A total of 128 dyads (caregivers/patients) from three severity categories of dementia (mild = 58, moderate = 49, severe = 21) were interviewed separately by two trained raters using two rating methods: the original NPI interview and a clinician-rated method. Rater 1 also administered four additional, established measures: the Apathy Evaluation Scale, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Index, and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia. Intraclass correlations were used to determine inter-rater reliability. Pearson correlations between the four relevant NPI-C domains and their corresponding outside measures were used for convergent validity. Results: Inter-rater reliability was strong for most items. Convergent validity was moderate (apathy and agitation) to strong (hallucinations and delusions; agitation and aberrant vocalization; and depression) for clinician ratings in NPI-C domains. Conclusion: Overall, the NPI-C shows promise as a versatile tool which can accurately measure NPS and which uses a uniform scale system to facilitate data comparisons across studies. Copyright © 2010 International Psychogeriatric Association.

Analysis of Abstracts Presented at the Prosthodontic Research Section of IADR General Sessions 2004-2005: Demographics, Publication Rates, and Factors Contributing to Publication

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to describe the demographics of abstracts presented at the prosthodontics section of IADR General Sessions from 2004 to 2005, evaluate the publication rate of abstracts, and analyze the relationship between variables in abstracts and publication.Materials and Methods: Prosthodontics research section abstracts from the IADR General Session in 2004 and 2005 were evaluated for: number of authors, presentation type, origin, affiliation, topic, study design, statistics, study outcome, and funding. The publication rate was calculated following a PubMed search. The journal of publication, year of publication, and the length of time before publication were analyzed. Descriptive statistics were used for the data analysis; the relationships between presentation type, study design, study outcome, statistics, funding, and publication were analyzed using logistic regression (alpha = 0.05).Results: From 346 abstracts, 37.0% were published. For oral presentations, 40.7% were published; 35.8% of poster presentations were published. The mean duration before publicationwas 26.4months. North America had themost abstracts, and Europe had the most publications. Fixed prosthodontic research had the highest number and proportion for publication. A significant association with publication was noted for neutral study outcomes (p = 0.018), studies with funding (p = 0.035), and abstracts from Europe (p = 0.001).Conclusions: The majority of abstracts from the prosthodontics research section of IADR General Sessions from 2004 and 2005 remain unpublished. A significant association for publication was noted with neutral outcomes, funding, and abstracts from Europe.

Morphomettic changes on honeybee Apis mellifera L. workers fat body cells after juvenile hormone topic application at emergence

The effect of topical application of juvenile hormone (JH) over the lifetime of worker bees was evaluated in Apis mellifera, by measuring the area of the two cell types, trophocytes and oenocytes, found in the fat body. Topical application of 1 mu l of a 1 mu g/mu l solution of JH in acetone to the abdomens of newly emerged workers produced an increase in cell size, in both types of cell of 5-day-old treated workers in relation to the untreated control. The treatment was more effective on the oenocytes, since there were significant differences compared to the averages of the treatments and the interaction of the treatments with the age of the workers. The developmental pattern seemed to differ from the treated group. However, subsequent effects were probably dependent on different, natural variations in hormonal levels. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Statistics and kinetics of single-molecule electron transfer dynamics in complex environments: A simulation model study

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Second-order statistics for equal gain and maximal ratio diversity-combining reception

Exact and closed-form expressions for the level crossing rate and average fade duration are presented for equal gain combining and maximal ratio combining schemes, assuming an arbitrary number of independent branches in a Rayleigh environment. The analytical results are thoroughly validated by simulation.

Second-order statistics for diversity-combining, techniques in Nakagami-fading channels

Exact and closed-form expressions for the level crossing rate and average fade duration are presented for the M branch pure selection combining (PSC), equal gain combining (EGC), and maximal ratio combining (MRC) techniques, assuming independent branches in a Nakagami environment. The analytical results are thoroughly validated by reducing the general case to some special cases, for which the solutions are known, and by means of simulation for the more general case. The model developed here is general and can be easily applied to other fading statistics (e.g., Rice).

NUCLEAR DENSITIES AND THE STATISTICS OF NUCLEONIC CONSTITUENTS

In the quark model of the nucleon, the Fermi statistics of the elementary constituents can influence significantly the properties of multinucleon bound systems. In the Skyrme model, on the other hand, the basic quanta are bosons, so that qualitatively different statistics effects can be expected a priori. In order to illustrate this point, we construct schematic one-dimensional quark and soliton models which yield fermionic nucleons with identical baryon densities. We then compare the baryon densities of a two-nucleon bound state in both models. Whereas in the quark model the Pauli principle for quarks leads to a depletion of the density in the central region of the nucleus, the soliton model predicts a slight increase of the density in that region, due to the bosonic statistics of the meson-field quanta.

Tsallis statistics and gradually truncated Levy flight - distribution of an economical index

Tsallis postulated a generalized form for entropy and give rise to a new statistics now known as Tsallis statistics. In the present work, we compare the Tsallis statistics with the gradually truncated Levy flight, and discuss the distribution of an economical index-the Standard and Poor's 500-using the values of standard deviation as calculated by our model. We find that both statistics give almost the same distribution. Thus we feel that gradual truncation of Levy distribution, after certain critical step size for describing complex systems, is a requirement of generalized thermodynamics or similar. The gradually truncated Levy flight is based on physical considerations and bring a better physical picture of the dynamics of the whole system. Tsallis statistics gives a theoretical support. Both statistics together can be utilized for the development of a more exact portfolio theory or to understand better the complexities in human and financial behaviors. A comparison of both statistics is made. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier B.V. B.V.

Size limiting in Tsallis statistics

Power law scaling is observed in many physical, biological and socio-economical complex systems and is now considered an important property of these systems. In general, power law exists in the central part of the distribution. It has deviations from power law for very small and very large variable sizes. Tsallis, through non-extensive thermodynamics, explained power law distribution in many cases including deviation from the power law. In case of very large steps, the used the heuristic crossover approach. In the present we present an alternative model in which we consider that the entropy factor 9 decreases with variable size due to the softening of long range interactions or memory. We apply this model for distribution of citation index of scientists and examination scores and are able to explain the distribution for entire variable range. In the present model, we can have very sharp cut-off without interfering with power law in its central part as observed in many cases. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessment and statistics of Brazilian hydroelectric power plants: Dam areas versus installed and firm power

The Brazilian relief, predominantly composed by small mountains and plateaus, contributed to formation of rivers with high amount of falls. With exception to North-eastern Brazil, the climate of this country are rainy, which contributes to maintain water flows high. These elements are essential to a high hydroelectric potential, contributing to the choice of hydroelectric power plants as the main technology of electricity generation in Brazil. Though this is a renewable source, whose utilized resource is free, dams must to be established which generates a high environmental and social impact. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact caused by these dams through the use of environmental indexes. These indexes are ratio formed by installed power with dam area of a hydro power plant, and ratio formed by firm power with this dam area. In this study, the greatest media values were found in South, Southeast, and Northeast regions respectively, and the smallest media values were found in North and Mid-West regions, respectively. The greatest encountered media indexes were also found in dams established in the 1950s. In the last six decades, the smallest indexes were registered by darns established in the 1980s. These indexes could be utilized as important instruments for environmental impact assessments, and could enable a dam to be established that depletes an ecosystem as less as possible.

Near-infrared Raman spectroscopy to detect anti-Toxoplasma gondii antibody in blood sera of domestic cats: quantitative analysis based on partial least-squares multivariate statistics

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)