E-Learning Impact on Veterinary Medical Student's Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Veterinary medical students are known to have significant levels of mental illness. The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning have brought increased psychological stress. We used a web-based survey to ask 415 veterinary medical students from Portugal about the impact of the pandemic and online learning on their anxiety levels. Results were analyzed using logistic regressions and Spearman's correlation. Results indicated that 15.4% had no symptoms of anxiety, 39.5% experienced mild anxiety, 21.4% had moderate anxiety, and 23.6% experienced severe anxiety. Having difficulty sleeping, the stress associated with confinement, and family conflicts were risk factors for anxiety, while being male was found to be protective. Most veterinary medical students (77%) were satisfied with online learning. The university's adaptation to online teaching and time spent participating in online classes were significantly associated with anxiety. Due to the known fragility of veterinary medical students' mental health, this group should be monitored and supported closely during life-disrupting events such as public health emergencies.

(R)-Metacycloprodigiosin-HCl: Chiroptical properties and structure.

(R)-Metacycloprodigiosin can exist in three different tautomeric forms, each with hydrogens at C9' and C12 in syn or anti orientation. With the addition of HCl, this structural diversity reduces to syn-(R)-metacycloprodigiosin-HCl (1a) and anti-(R)-metacycloprodigiosin-HCl (1b), each with multiple conformers. Energetics and chiroptical properties, namely, electronic circular dichroism (ECD) and specific optical rotation (SOR), of (R)-metacycloprodigiosin-HCl have been investigated at B3LYP/6-311++G(2d,2p) level. The experimental ECD spectra of (R)-metacycloprodigiosin-HCl have also been measured. Calculations indicated that the lowest energy conformer of 1b is approximately 2.7 kcal/mol lower in energy than that of 1a, and the energy barrier for anti to syn conversion is approximately 13 kcal/mol. The population weighted calculated SORs of 1a and 1b are, respectively, positive and negative. The respective calculated ECD spectra of these pseudoenantiomers show an almost mirror image relationship between them. The experimental SOR and ECD compare well with those predicted for 1b. Thus, 1b is expected to be predominant, a situation confirmed also by nuclear Overhauser effect (NOE) data, with a similar conclusion reached for prodigiosin R1.

Efficacy of proactive long-term maintenance therapy of canine atopic dermatitis with 0.0584% hydrocortisone aceponate spray: a double-blind placebo controlled pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Long-term remission between flares of canine atopic dermatitis (CAD) can be difficult to achieve. Therefore, additional strategic forms of treatment are needed in order to target flare prevention. The concept of proactive therapy is recommended in the European guidelines for the treatment of human atopic eczema. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the efficacy of a proactive treatment regimen with a 0.0584% hydrocortisone aceponate (HCA) spray for CAD. ANIMALS: Client-owned dogs with spontaneous atopic dermatitis (AD) (n = 41). METHODS: This pilot study was conducted as a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blinded clinical trial with an end-point of treatment failure. Dogs were treated once daily to remission, then randomly assigned to receive either the HCA spray (n = 21) or a placebo (n = 20) spray on two consecutive days each week. All dogs were on appropriate flea control. No topical or systemic anti-inflammatory or antimicrobial agents were permitted. Intention-to-treat analysis was used. RESULTS: At Day 0, all the dogs were in remission or had mild AD based on their Canine Atopic Dermatitis Extent and Severity Index, version 3 (CADESI-03) scores. The time to relapse was significantly higher in the HCA group (median 115 d; range 31-260 d) compared to the placebo group (median 33 d; range 15-61 d) (P < 0.0001). No adverse events were attributable to the HCA spray. Four dogs were lost to follow-up and four were withdrawn after receiving prohibited medication. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: These results indicate that proactive long-term therapy of CAD with an HCA spray administered on two consecutive days each week is effective and well-tolerated.

Chiroptical properties of streptorubin B: the synergy between theory and experiment.

Analysis of the calculated and measured optical rotation (OR) together with other calculated chiroptical properties such as electronic circular dichroism (ECD) and vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) of the prodigiosin alkaloid streptorubin B shows that these are dominated by the pseudoenantiomeric atropisomers anti-(S)-streptorubin B (1A) and syn-(S)-streptorubin (1B). Atropisomerism is a dynamic phenomenon with a potentially nonequilibrium population of isomers, and accordingly the measured chiroptical responses may vary with time, concentration, temperature, and the anion of the salts used. Streptorubin also has the potential to form stacked homodimers for which the optical rotations measured at 589 nm can vary greatly due to the presence of ECD-active electronic transitions in this region.

Pharmacological characterization of Solanum cernuum Vell.: 31-norcycloartanones with analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties.

Cycloeucalenone (1) and 24-oxo-31-norcycloartanone (2) obtained from Solanum cernuum Vell. were assayed to explore their pharmacologic roles. Previous studies showed that (2) has selective activity against lung tumor cell line (NCIH460) which expresses high levels of COX-2, suggesting its role in inflammatory process, and also a link between chronic inflammation and cancer-associated process. Dichloromethane crude extract (DCE) significantly reduced writhing and stretching induced by 0.8 % acetic acid at a dose of 100, 300, and 600 mg/kg, po; oral administration of different doses of (1) and (2) also displayed significant analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects in the writhing acetic acid test (p < 0.0001). Selected oral doses of both compounds (100 and 50 mg/kg) were assayed in the carrageenan-induced paw edema model. Compound (2) showed significant activity during the early phase (1.5-6 h) and also in the late phase (48 h) (p < 0.01). The anti-nociceptive activity observed for the compounds (1) and (2) and DCE was found to be related to the inhibition of different mediators involved in inflammation and nociceptive process. Both compounds decrease COX-2 protein expression, although only compound (2) reached a significant response (p < 0.05 vs control). However, in vitro Sirtuin 1 activity and TNF-α production in THP-1 macrophages were not affected.

Antineoplastic 31-norcycloartanones from Solanum cernuum vell.

Triterpenoids with 31-norcycloartanone structure were isolated for the first time from the Solanum genus. Cycloeucalenone and 24-oxo-31-norcycloartanone were the main constituents of the dichloromethane extract of Solanum cernuum Vell. leaves [7% (w/w) and 1.47% (w/w)]. Both triterpenoids were tested against human tumour cell lines, and 24-oxo-31-norcycloartanone was significantly active and selective against the lung tumour cell line NCI-H460 with total growth inhibition at 1.10 microg/mL, growth inhibition 50 at 0.19 microg/mL and lethal concentration 50 at 8.43 microg/mL, while cycloeucalenone showed poor activity. A homologous series of alkanes (C25-C34), beta-sitosterol, and the xanthophyll lutein were also identified. The antiulcer activity was assayed for the dichloromethane extract. In the gastric ulcer model induced by 95% ethanol, administration of 500, 1000 and 2000 mg/kg/po dichloromethane extract gave ulcer lesion indices of, respectively, 38.2, 61.0 and 81.9%, while carbenoxolone inhibited 88.9% at 200 mg/kg. In the gastric ulcer model induced by indomethacin the dichloromethane extract showed a small percentage of lesion inhibition. The ethanol extract was also analyzed and was mainly composed of glycoalkaloids, peptides and disaccharides.

Analytic regularization of uniform cubic B-spline deformation fields.

Image registration is inherently ill-posed, and lacks a unique solution. In the context of medical applications, it is desirable to avoid solutions that describe physically unsound deformations within the patient anatomy. Among the accepted methods of regularizing non-rigid image registration to provide solutions applicable to medical practice is the penalty of thin-plate bending energy. In this paper, we develop an exact, analytic method for computing the bending energy of a three-dimensional B-spline deformation field as a quadratic matrix operation on the spline coefficient values. Results presented on ten thoracic case studies indicate the analytic solution is between 61-1371x faster than a numerical central differencing solution.