OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether age influences a change in the spasticity of the ankle plantar flexor after botulinum toxin type A (BTA) injection in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP). METHODS Sixteen children with spastic CP were enrolled in the study. Seven children (group 1) were under 5 years of age, and nine (group 2) were over 5 years of age. They all received BTA injection in the...

Trypanosoma cruzi, the human parasite that causes Chagas disease, contains a functional pentose phosphate pathway, probably essential for protection against oxidative stress and also for R5P (ribose 5-phosphate) production for nucleotide synthesis. The haploid genome of the CL Brener clone of the parasite contains one gene coding for a Type B Rpi (ribose 5-phosphate isomerase), but genes encodi...

Joining of aluminum alloy AA6061 to mild steel was achieved using a friction stir extrusion (FSE) method in which processed extruded into preformed dovetail groove. These joints were subject various in-process cooling (IPC) methods via compressed air, water, granulated dry ice, and liquid nitrogen as well varying weld pitches (WP) the following rotational translational (inches per minute, IPM) ...

Error estimation and adaptive applications help to control the discretization errors in finite element analysis. The study implements radial point interpolation (RPI)-based error-recovery approaches displacement/pressure-based mixed approach is used formulation. RPI considers basis functions (RBF) polynomials together interpolate solutions, i.e., displacement over influence zones recover soluti...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the therapeutic effect of extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) according to treatment session on gastrocnemius muscle spasticity in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP). METHODS Twelve children with spastic CP underwent 1 ESWT and 2 sham ESWT sessions for gastrocnemius (group 1) or 3 ESWT sessions (group 2) once per week for 3 weeks. Modified Ashworth Scale (M...

This work presents an extensive study on Monte Carlo radiation transport simulation and thermoluminescent (TL) dosimetry for characterising mixed radiation fields (neutrons and photons) occurring in nuclear reactors. The feasibility of these methods is investigated for radiation fields at various locations of the Portuguese Research Reactor (RPI). The performance of the approaches developed in ...

Background Low back pain (LBP) is a common pain syndrome in athletes, responsible for 28% of missed training days/year. Psychosocial factors contribute to chronic pain development. This study aims to investigate the transferability of psychosocial screening tools developed in the general population to athletes and to define athlete-specific thresholds. Methods Data from a prospective multicen...

  Introduction: Studies with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) have revealed inconsistent changes of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in schizophrenia. Some studies investigated the rCBF and its relationship with psychopathology, positive and negative symptoms in treated patients. However, there is a little information about the pattern of rCBF in ...

Through structure-based and directed evolution approaches, a new catalytic activity has been established on the (β/α)8 barrel enzyme triosephosphate isomerase (TIM). This work started from ml8bTIM, a monomeric variant of TIM, in which the phosphate-binding loop (loop-8) had been shortened. Structure analysis suggested an additional point mutation (V233A), converting ml8bTIM into A-TIM. A-TIM ha...