Latin American formal consensus on the indications for the surgical treatment of massive and irreparable rotator cuff tears.

OBJECTIVES: To implement the Formal Consensus Method among a group of experts in shoulder surgery in Latin America, in order to establish appropriate indications for the surgical treatment of massive and irreparable rotator cuff injuries. METHODS: The Formal Consensus Method was used to develop surgical treatment recommendations for massive and irreparable rotator cuff tears (MIRCT). Three independent groups of experts in shoulder surgery were confirmed. The steering group conducted a systematic literature review and constructed a voting matrix consisting of 348 clinical scenarios. The rating group, composed of 15 members, rated each scenario on two occasions: first anonymously and then during an in-person discussion meeting. The median and voting ranges were used to classify each scenario as inappropriate, uncertain, or appropriate for each surgical technique. Finally, the reading group, consisting of 10 surgeons, reviewed, evaluated and rated the recommendations derived from the detailed analysis of the voting grids. RESULTS: The main finding of the study reveals a high percentage (70%) of clinical scenarios in which consensus was achieved regarding the appropriateness or inappropriateness of different surgical alternatives for the treatment of massive and irreparable rotator cuff injuries. Through a detailed analysis of the voting grids, a total of 20 recommendations were elaborated concerning the appropriateness of various surgical techniques in addressing irreparable rotator cuff tears. CONCLUSIONS: The indications for the operative treatment of MIRCT were determined based on expert consensus and the best available evidence, they seek to provide guidance on the appropriateness of various surgical techniques for different clinical scenarios. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: V.

Analysis of perceptions and emotional repercussions in Twitter users in Colombia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted mental health. Up to a quarter of the population has reported mental health disorders. This has been studied mainly from a nosological perspective, according to diagnostic criteria. Nevertheless, we did not find studies that have explored the daily expressions of the population. Our objective was to evaluate the perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions on the emotional well-being of the Colombian population. METHODS: We performed a Twitter metrics and trend analysis. Initially, in the trend analysis, we calculated the average duration in hours of the 20 most popular trending topics of the day in Colombia and we grouped them into trends related to COVID-19 and unrelated trends. Subsequently, we identified dates of events associated with the pandemic relevant to the country, and they were related to the behaviour of the trends studied. Additionally, we did an exploratory analysis of these, selected the tweets with the greatest reach and categorised them in an inductive way to analyse them qualitatively. RESULTS: Issues not related to COVID-19 were more far-reaching than those related to coronavirus. However, a rise in these issues was seen on some dates consistent with important events in Colombia. We found expressions of approval and disapproval, solidarity and accusation. Inductively, we identified categories of informative tweets, humour, fear, stigma and discrimination, politics and entities, citizen complaints, and self-care and optimism. CONCLUSIONS: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic generates different reactions in the population, which increasingly have more tools to express themselves and know the opinions of others. Social networks play a fundamental role in the communication of the population, so this content could serve as a public health surveillance tool and a useful and accessible means of communication in the management of health crises.

Análisis de percepciones y repercusiones emocionales en usuarios de Twitter en Colombia durante la pandemia de COVID-19

Introducción: La pandemia de COVID-19 ha impactado negativamente en la salud mental. Hasta un cuarto de la población ha reportado alteraciones de salud mental. Esto se ha estudiado principalmente desde una perspectiva nosológica según criterios diagnósticos; sin embargo, no encontramos estudios que hayan explorado las expresiones cotidianas de la población. Nuestro objetivo es evaluar las percepciones y repercusiones en el bienestar emocional de la población colombiana por la pandemia de COVID-19. Métodos: Se realizó un análisis de métricas y tendencias en Twitter. Inicialmente, en el análisis de tendencias se calculó el promedio de duración en horas de los 20 temas tendencia del día más populares en Colombia y las agrupamos en relacionadas con la COVID-19 y no relacionadas. Después se identificaron fechas de acontecimientos asociados con la pandemia relevantes para el país, y se relacionaron con el comportamiento de las tendencias estudiadas. Además, se hizo un análisis exploratorio de estas, se seleccionaron los tweets con mayor alcance y se categorizaron de forma inductiva para analizarlos cualitativamente. Resultados: Los temas no relacionados con COVID-19 tuvieron mayor alcance que los relacionados con coronavirus. No obstante, se vio un alza de estos temas en algunas fechas concordantes con hechos importantes en Colombia. Se hallaron manifestaciones de aprobación y desaprobación, de solidaridad y de acusación. De manera inductiva, se identificaron categorías de tweets informativos, humor, miedo, estigma y discriminación, política y entidades, denuncia ciudadana, y autocuidado y optimismo. Conclusiones: El impacto de la pandemia de COVID-19 genera diferentes reacciones en la población, que cada vez tienen más herramientas para expresarse y conocer las opiniones de los demás. Las redes sociales tienen un papel primordial en la comunicación de la población, por lo que este contenido podría servir como herramienta de vigilancia en salud pública y medio de comunicación útil y accesible en el manejo de crisis sanitarias.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted mental health. Up to a quarter of the population has reported mental health disorders. This has been studied mainly from a nosological perspective, according to diagnostic criteria. Nevertheless, we did not find studies that have explored the daily expressions of the population. Our objective was to evaluate the perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions on the emotional well-being of the Colombian population. Methods: We performed a Twitter metrics and trend analysis. Initially, in the trend analysis, we calculated the average duration in hours of the 20 most popular trending topics of the day in Colombia and we grouped them into trends related to COVID-19 and unrelated trends. Subsequently, we identified dates of events associated with the pandemic relevant to the country, and they were related to the behaviour of the trends studied. Additionally, we did an exploratory analysis of these, selected the tweets with the greatest reach and categorized them in an inductive way to analyse them qualitatively. Results: Issues not related to COVID-19 were more far-reaching than those related to coronavirus. However, a rise in these issues was seen on some dates consistent with important events in Colombia. We found expressions of approval and disapproval, solidarity and accusation. Inductively, we identified categories of informative tweets, humour, fear, stigma and discrimination, politics and entities, citizen complaints, and self-care and optimism. Conclusions: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic generates different reactions in the population, which increasingly have more tools to express themselves and know the opinions of others. Social networks play a fundamental role in the communication of the population, so this content could serve as a public health surveillance tool and a useful and accessible means of communication in the management of health crises.

Participation of leukaemia inhibitory factor in follicular development and steroidogenesis in rat ovaries.

Leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a cytokine belonging to the interleukin-6 family that is important at the reproductive level in the uterine implantation process. However, there is very little evidence regarding its effect at the ovarian level. The aim of this work was to study the local involvement of the LIF/LIFRß system in follicular development and steroidogenesis in rat ovaries. To carry out this research, LIF/LIFR/GP130 transcript and protein levels were measured in fertile and sub-fertile rat ovaries, and in vitro experiments were performed to assess STAT3 activation. Then, in in vivo experiments, LIF was administered chronically and locally for 28 days to the ovaries of rats by means of an osmotic minipump to enable us to evaluate the effect on folliculogenesis and steroidogenesis. It was determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot that LIF and its receptors are present in fertile and sub-fertile ovaries and that LIF varies during the oestrous cycle, being higher during the oestrus and meta/dioestrus stages. In addition to this, it was found that LIF can activate STAT3 pathways and cause pSTAT3 formation. It was also observed that LIF decreases the number and size of preantral and antral follicles without altering the number of atretic antral follicles and can increase the number of corpora lutea, with a notable increase in the levels of progesterone (P4). It is therefore possible to infer that LIF exerts an important effect in vivo on folliculogenesis, ovulation and steroidogenesis, specifically the synthesis of P4.

Assessment of surface and electrical properties of the TiO2@zeolite hybrid materials.

Degradation of pollutants in aqueous medium is of high interest due to the impact on environment and human health, therefore, design and study of the physico-chemical properties of photocatalysts for water remediation are of major significance. Among properties of photocatalyst, those related to the surface and electrical mechanism are crucial to the photocatalyst´s performance. Here we report the chemical and morphological characteristics of TiO2@zeolite photocatalyst by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) respectively, and a coherent electrical conduction mechanism was proposed based on data obtained from assisted laser impedance spectroscopy (ALIS), in which the zeolite was synthesized from recycled coal fly ash. The results obtained by SEM and XPS verified the presence of spherical particles of TiO2 anatase with presence of Ti3+ state. ALIS results showed that impedance of the entire system increases when the amount of TiO2 increases and the samples with lower capacitive performance allowed a larger transfer of the charges between the solid-liquid interface. All results showed that higher photocatalytic performance of TiO2 growth over hydroxysodalite with 8.7 wt% and 25 wt% of TiO2 can be explained in terms of the morphology of TiO2 and the interactions between substrate-TiO2 mainly.

Assessment of beliefs and attitudes about electroconvulsive therapy posted on Twitter: An observational study.

BACKGROUND: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective and safe medical procedure that mainly indicated for depression, but is also indicated for patients with other conditions. However, ECT is among the most stigmatized and controversial treatments in medicine. Our objective was to examine social media contents on Twitter related to ECT to identify and evaluate public views on the matter. METHODS: We collected Twitter posts in English and Spanish mentioning ECT between January 1, 2019 and October 31, 2020. Identified tweets were subject to a mixed method quantitative-qualitative content and sentiment analysis combining manual and semi-supervised natural language processing machine-learning analyses. Such analyses identified the distribution of tweets, their public interest (retweets and likes per tweet), and sentiment for the observed different categories of Twitter users and contents. RESULTS: "Healthcare providers" users produced more tweets (25%) than "people with lived experience" and their "relatives" (including family members and close friends or acquaintances) (10% combined), and were the main publishers of "medical" content (mostly related to ECT's main indications). However, more than half of the total tweets had "joke or trivializing" contents, and such had a higher like and retweet ratio. Among those tweets manifesting personal opinions on ECT, around 75% of them had a negative sentiment. CONCLUSIONS: Mixed method analysis of social media contents on Twitter offers a novel perspective to examine public opinion on ECT, and our results show attitudes more negative than those reflected in studies using surveys and other traditional methods.

Effect of lactic acid bacteria on the control of Fusarium oxysporum and Ralstonia solanacearum on singly infected and co-infected tomato plants.

AIM: To evaluate the effect of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) on the control of Fol59 and Rs on singly infected and co-infected tomato plants and to address molecular pathways that may be involved in this interaction. METHODS AND RESULTS: To assess the development of the disease, individual infection and coinfection were stimulated in plants under controlled conditions, at two concentrations of Rs and Fol59 applied at two different moments. Additionally, the antagonistic activity of LAB against Rs and Fol59 in vitro and its biocontrol efficacy in planta were evaluated. Preliminary results indicate that inoculation with 1 × 106 microconidia ml-1 of Fol59 and 1 × 108 cfu ml-1 of Rs may be a reliable synchronous coinfection method. Of the 68 LAB strains evaluated in vitro, AC13, AC40, and AC49 had an antagonistic effect on both pathogens, with AC40 showing the highest efficacy rate after submerging the seeds in suspension and sowing them in substrate. Finally, gene expression experiments confirmed the AC40 effect on the expression of PR-1a, ERF1, and LoxA genes. CONCLUSION: The delayed appearance of symptoms and the reduced severity of the disease may be associated with the expression of PR-1a, ERF1, and LoxA genes related to salicylic acid, ethylene, and jasmonic acid pathways respectively.

Associations of PFAS-related plasma metabolites with cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations.

The wide-spread environmental pollutants per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have repeatedly been associated with elevated serum cholesterol in humans. However, underlying mechanisms are still unclear. Furthermore, we have previously observed inverse associations with plasma triglycerides. To better understand PFAS-induced effects on lipid pathways we investigated associations of PFAS-related metabolite features with plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. We used 290 PFAS-related metabolite features that we previously discovered from untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectometry metabolomics in a case-control study within the Swedish Västerbotten Intervention Programme cohort. Herein, we studied associations of these PFAS-related metabolite features with plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations in plasma samples from 187 healthy control subjects collected on two occasions between 1991 and 2013. The PFAS-related features did not associate with cholesterol, but 50 features were associated with triglycerides. Principal component analysis on these features indicated that one metabolite pattern, dominated by glycerophospholipids, correlated with longer chain PFAS and associated inversely with triglycerides (both cross-sectionally and prospectively), after adjustment for confounders. The observed time-trend of the metabolite pattern resembled that of the longer chain PFAS, with higher levels during the years 2004-2010. Mechanisms linking PFAS exposures to triglycerides may thus occur via longer chain PFAS affecting glycerophospholipid metabolism. If the results reflect a cause-effect association, as implied by the time-trend and prospective analyses, this may affect the general adult population.