Universidade de Pernambuco

About: Universidade de Pernambuco is a education organization based out in Recife, Brazil. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Artificial neural network. The organization has 6147 authors who have published 6948 publications receiving 73648 citations.

Strains of the Propionibacterium acnes type III lineage are associated with the skin condition progressive macular hypomelanosis

Abstract: Progressive macular hypomelanosis (PMH) is a common skin disorder that causes hypopigmentation in a variety of skin types. Although the underlying aetiology of this condition is unclear, there is circumstantial evidence that links the skin bacterium Propionibacterium acnes to the condition. We now describe the first detailed population genetic analysis of P. acnes isolates recovered from paired lesional and non-lesional skin of PMH patients. Our results demonstrate a strong statistical association between strains from the type III phylogenetic lineage and PMH lesions (P = 0.0019), but not those representing other phylogroups, including those associated with acne (type IA1). We also demonstrate, based on in silico 16S rDNA analysis, that PMH isolates previously recovered from patients in Europe are also consistent with the type III lineage. Using comparative genome analysis, we identified multiple genomic regions that are specific for, or absent from, type III strains compared to other phylogroups. In the former case, these include open reading frames with putative functions in metabolism, transport and transcriptional regulation, as well as predicted proteins of unknown function. Further study of these genomic elements, along with transcriptional and functional analyses, may help to explain why type III strains are associated with PMH.

Follow-up brain imaging of 37 children with congenital Zika syndrome: case series study.

Abstract: Objective To compare initial brain computed tomography (CT) scans with follow-up CT scans at one year in children with congenital Zika syndrome, focusing on cerebral calcifications.Design Case series study.Setting Barao de Lucena Hospital, Pernambuco state, Brazil.Participants 37 children with probable or confirmed congenital Zika syndrome during the microcephaly outbreak in 2015 who underwent brain CT shortly after birth and at one year follow-up.Main outcome measure Differences in cerebral calcification patterns between initial and follow-up scans.Results 37 children were evaluated. All presented cerebral calcifications on the initial scan, predominantly at cortical-white matter junction. At follow-up the calcifications had diminished in number, size, or density, or a combination in 34 of the children (92%, 95% confidence interval 79% to 97%), were no longer visible in one child, and remained unchanged in two children. No child showed an increase in calcifications. The calcifications at the cortical-white matter junction which were no longer visible at follow-up occurred predominately in the parietal and occipital lobes. These imaging changes were not associated with any clear clinical improvements.Conclusion The detection of cerebral calcifications should not be considered a major criterion for late diagnosis of congenital Zika syndrome, nor should the absence of calcifications be used to exclude the diagnosis.

Developing an e-Health System Based on IoT, Fog and Cloud Computing

Abstract: The world population's life expectancy has gradually increased. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the life expectation will reach 90 years by 2030, and this quality of life is one of most important aging aspects. The academic and business communities are devoting many efforts to develop new applications that promote quality of life for this portion of the population; services, such as vital signs monitoring, fall detection systems, heart attacks, among others, are increasingly in evidence. Most of these e-health systems are focused on intelligent devices - Internet of Things (IoT). However, IoT by itself is not able to process, store and guarantee the quality of service of these services due to hardware capacity limitations. So, to mitigate this issue, IoT has two major allies in order to be able to provide e-health services with high availability and quality, fog and cloud computing. This paper presents in progress e-health architecture using IoT for data acquisition, fog for data pre-processing and short-term storage, and cloud for data processing, analyze and long-term storage. We also describe main challenges to provide an e-health application with high availability, high performance and accessibility, at low deployment and maintenance cost.

Abdominal obesity in adolescents: prevalence and association with physical activity and eating habits

Abstract: FUNDAMENTO: A obesidade abdominal em adolescentes esta associada a doencas cardiovasculares e metabolicas, mas a prevalencia e os fatores associados a sua ocorrencia sao ignorados. OBJETIVOS: Determinar a prevalencia e verificar se indicadores de atividade fisica e habitos alimentares estao associados a ocorrencia de obesidade abdominal em adolescentes. METODOS: A amostra compreendeu 4.138 estudantes do ensino medio (14-19 anos), selecionados mediante amostragem por conglomerados em dois estagios. Obtiveram-se os dados por meio do Global School-based Health Survey, enquanto medidas antropometricas foram aferidas para determinacao de excesso de peso e obesidade abdominal. Regressao logistica binaria foi empregada para analise dos fatores comportamentais associados a ocorrencia de obesidade abdominal. Identificacao dos casos de obesidade abdominal foi efetuada por analise da circunferencia da cintura, tomando-se como referencia pontos de corte para idade e sexo. RESULTADOS: A idade media foi de 16,8 anos (s =1,4), e 59,8% dos sujeitos eram do sexo feminino; a prevalencia de obesidade abdominal foi de 6% (IC95%:5,3-6,7), significativamente superior entre as mocas (6,7%; IC95%: 5,8-7,8) em comparacao aos rapazes (4,9%; IC95%:3,9-6,0). As analises brutas evidenciaram que sexo e excesso de peso sao fatores associados a ocorrencia de obesidade abdominal. O ajustamento das analises por regressao logistica permitiu observar que a pratica de atividades fisicas esta significativamente associada a ocorrencia de obesidade abdominal nesse grupo (OR = 0,7; IC95%:0,49-0,99), independentemente da presenca de excesso de peso. CONCLUSOES: A Prevalencia de obesidade abdominal foi baixa em comparacao ao observado em levantamentos internacionais, e a pratica de atividades fisicas e um fator associado a ocorrencia desse evento em adolescentes.