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Deep Learning Technology: Sebastian Arnold, Betty van Aken, Paul Grundmann, Felix A. Gers and Alexander Löser. Learning Contextualized Document Representations for Healthcare Answer Retrieval. The Web Conference 2020 (WWW'20)
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The disease is characterized by cutaneous and renal changes with the latter being ultimately fatal.
Common symptoms include, but are not limited to:
- Cutaneous lesions involving erythema, erosion, ulceration occurring mainly on extremities such as distal limbs, muzzle and ventrum
- Pyrexia (fever)
- Lethargy or malaise
- Anorexia
- Vomiting or retching
Biodegradation is the disintegration of materials by bacteria, fungi, or other biological means.
The term is often used in relation to: biomedicine, waste management, ecology, and the bioremediation of the natural environment. It is now commonly associated with environmentally-friendly products, capable of decomposing back into natural elements.
Although often conflated, "biodegradable" is distinct in meaning from: "compostable". While biodegradable simply means "can be consumed by microorganisms", "compostable" makes the further specific demand that the object break down under composting conditions.
Organic material can be degraded aerobically (with oxygen) or anaerobically (without oxygen). Decomposition of biodegradable substances may include both biological and abiotic steps.
Biodegradable matter is generally organic material that provides a nutrient for microorganisms. These are so numerous and diverse that a huge range of compounds can be biodegraded, including hydrocarbons (oils), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pharmaceutical substances.
Microorganisms secrete biosurfactant, an extracellular surfactant, to enhance this process.
Toxic oil syndrome or simply toxic syndrome (Spanish: "síndrome del aceite tóxico" or "síndrome tóxico") is a musculoskeletal disease most famous for a 1981 outbreak in Spain which killed over 600 people and was likely caused by contaminated colza oil. Its first appearance was as a lung disease, with unusual features; though the symptoms initially resembled a lung infection, antibiotics were ineffective. The disease appeared to be restricted to certain geographical localities, and several members of a family could be affected, even while their neighbours had no symptoms. Following the acute phase, a range of other chronic symptoms was apparent.
The most common symptom of all snakebites is overwhelming fear, which contributes to other symptoms, including nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, vertigo, fainting, tachycardia, and cold, clammy skin. Television, literature, and folklore are in part responsible for the hype surrounding snakebites, and people may have unwarranted thoughts of imminent death.
Dry snakebites and those inflicted by a non-venomous species can still cause severe injury. There are several reasons for this: a snakebite may become infected, with the snake's saliva and fangs sometimes harboring pathogenic microbial organisms, including "Clostridium tetani". Infection is often reported with viper bites whose fangs are capable of deep puncture wounds. Bites may cause anaphylaxis in certain people.
Most snakebites, whether by a venomous snake or not, will have some type of local effect. There is minor pain and redness in over 90 percent of cases, although this varies depending on the site. Bites by vipers and some cobras may be extremely painful, with the local tissue sometimes becoming tender and severely swollen within five minutes. This area may also bleed and blister and can eventually lead to tissue necrosis. Other common initial symptoms of pit viper and viper bites include lethargy, bleeding, weakness, nausea, and vomiting. Symptoms may become more life-threatening over time, developing into hypotension, tachypnea, severe tachycardia, severe internal bleeding, altered sensorium, kidney failure, and respiratory failure.
Bites caused by some snakes, such as the kraits, coral snake, Mojave rattlesnake, and the speckled rattlesnake, reportedly cause little or no pain despite being serious potentially life-threatening injuries. Those bitten may also describe a "rubbery", "minty", or "metallic" taste if bitten by certain species of rattlesnake. Spitting cobras and rinkhalses can spit venom in a person's eyes. This results in immediate pain, ophthalmoparesis, and sometimes blindness.
Some Australian elapids and most viper envenomations will cause coagulopathy, sometimes so severe that a person may bleed spontaneously from the mouth, nose, and even old, seemingly healed wounds. Internal organs may bleed, including the brain and intestines and will cause ecchymosis (bruising) of the skin.
Venom emitted from elapids, including sea snakes, kraits, cobras, king cobra, mambas, and many Australian species, contain toxins which attack the nervous system, causing neurotoxicity. The person may present with strange disturbances to their vision, including blurriness. Paresthesia throughout the body, as well as difficulty in speaking and breathing, may be reported. Nervous system problems will cause a huge array of symptoms, and those provided here are not exhaustive. If not treated immediately they may die from respiratory failure.
Venom emitted from some types of cobras, almost all vipers and some sea snakes causes necrosis of muscle tissue. Muscle tissue will begin to die throughout the body, a condition known as rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis can result in damage to the kidneys as a result of myoglobin accumulation in the renal tubules. This, coupled with hypotension, can lead to acute renal failure, and, if left untreated, eventually death.
Alabama rot or idiopathic cutaneous and renal glomerular vasculopathy (CRGV) is an often fatal condition in dogs. It was first identified in the USA in the 1980s in greyhounds. The initial symptoms are skin lesions on the legs, chest and abdomen followed by renal involvement.
In November 2012 the first cases were identified in the UK. In January 2014, the outbreak in England was identified as having the same or similar histological and clinical findings as Alabama rot, although a wide range of breeds were affected. The disease has continued to spread across England, with a case being reported as far north as North Yorkshire in March 2015. A UK map posted on-line shows confirmed (with post-mortem) and unconfirmed (without post-mortem) cases of Alabama rot since December 2012. In May 2017 it was reported that 98 deaths from the disease have occurred in the UK, including 15 in 2017.
Excessive exposure to hand arm vibrations can result in various patterns of diseases casually known as HAVS or VWF. This can affect nerves, joints, muscles, blood vessels or connective tissues of the hand and forearm:
- Tingling 'whiteness' or numbness in the fingers (blood vessels and nerves affected): This may not be noticeable at the end of a working day, and in mild cases may affect only the tips of the fingers. As the condition becomes more severe, the whole finger down to the knuckles may become white. Feeling may also be lost.
- Fingers change colour (blood vessels affected): With continued exposure the person may suffer periodic attacks in which the fingers change colour when exposed to the cold. Initially the fingers rapidly become pale and feeling is lost. This phase is followed by an intense red flush (sometimes preceded by a dusky bluish phase) signalling the return of blood circulation to the fingers and is usually accompanied by uncomfortable throbbing.
- Loss of manual dexterity (nerves and muscles affected): In more severe forms, attacks may occur frequently in cold weather, not only at work, but during leisure activities, such as gardening, car washing or even watching outdoor sports and may last up to an hour causing considerable pain and loss of manual dexterity and reduced grip strength.
In extreme cases, the sufferer may lose fingers. The effects are cumulative. When symptoms first appear, they may disappear after a short time. If exposure to vibration continues over months or years, the symptoms can worsen and become permanent.
Swim bladder disease, also called swim bladder disorder or flipover, is a common ailment in aquarium fish. The swim bladder is an internal gas-filled organ that contributes to the ability of a fish to control its buoyancy, and thus to stay at the current water depth without having to waste energy in swimming. A fish with swim bladder disorder can float nose down tail up, or can float to the top or sink to the bottom of the aquarium.
A remedy, which can work within hours, perhaps by countering constipation, is to feed green pea to affected fish. Fish surgeons can also adjust the buoyancy of the fish by placing a stone in the swim bladder or performing a partial removal of the bladder.
Flacherie (literally: "flaccidness") is a disease of silkworms, caused by silkworms eating infected or contaminated mulberry leaves. Flacherie infected silkworms look weak and can die from this disease. Silkworm larvae that are about to die from Flacherie are a dark brown.
There are two kinds of flacherie: essentially, infectious (viral) flacherie and noninfectious ("bouffee") flacherie. Both are technically a lethal diarrhea.
Bouffée flacherie is caused by heat waves ("bouffée" means "sudden heat spell" in French).
Viral flacherie is ultimately caused by infection with "Bombyx mori" infectious flacherie virus (BmIFV, Iflaviridae), "Bombyx mori" densovirus (BmDNV, Parvoviridae) or "Bombyx mori" cypovirus 1 (BmCPV-1, Reoviridae). This either alone or in combination with bacterial infection destroys the gut tissue. Bacterial pathogens contributing to infectious flaccherie are "Serratia marcescens", and species of "Streptococcus" and "Staphylococcus" in the form known as thatte roga.
Louis Pasteur, who began his studies on silkworm diseases in 1865, was the first one able to recognize that mortality due to viral flacherie was caused by infection. (Priority, however, was claimed by Antoine Béchamp.) Richard Gordon described the discovery: "The French silk industry was meanwhile plummeting from a 130 million to an 8 million francs annual income, because the silkworms had all caught "pébrine," black pepper disease…He [Pasteur] went south from Paris to Alais, and rewarded them by discovering the silkworm epidemic to be inflicted by some sort of living microbe…Pasteur threw in another disease, "flâcherie," silkworm diarrhoea. The cures for both were culling the insects which showed the peppery spots — the peasants bottled the silkworm moths in brandy, for display to the experts — and rigorous hygiene of the mulberry leaf."
Blight refers to a specific symptom affecting plants in response to infection by a pathogenic organism. It is a rapid and complete chlorosis, browning, then death of plant tissues such as leaves, branches, twigs, or floral organs. Accordingly, many diseases that primarily exhibit this symptom are called blights. Several notable examples are:
- Late blight of potato, caused by the water mold "Phytophthora infestans" (Mont.) de Bary, the disease which led to the Great Irish Famine
- Southern corn leaf blight, caused by the fungus "Cochliobolus heterostrophus" (Drechs.) Drechs, anamorph "Bipolaris maydis" (Nisikado & Miyake) Shoemaker, incited a severe loss of corn in the United States in 1970.
- Chestnut blight, caused by the fungus "Cryphonectria parasitica" (Murrill) Barr, has nearly completely eradicated mature American chestnuts in North America.
- Fire blight of pome fruits, caused by the bacterium "Erwinia amylovora" (Burrill) Winslow "et al.", is the most severe disease of pear and also is found in apple and raspberry, among others.
- Bacterial leaf blight of rice, caused by the bacterium "Xanthomonas oryzae" (Uyeda & Ishiyama) Dowson.
- Early blight of potato and tomato, caused by species of the ubiquitous fungal genus "Alternaria"
- Leaf blight of the grasses
On leaf tissue, symptoms of blight are the initial appearance of lesions which rapidly engulf surrounding tissue. However, leaf spot may, in advanced stages, expand to kill entire areas of leaf tissue and thus exhibit blight symptoms.
Blights are often named after their causative agent, for example Colletotrichum blight is named after the fungi "Colletotrichum capsici", and Phytophthora blight is named after the water mold "Phytophthora parasitica".
The cause was traced to the consumption of colza oil that had been intended for industrial rather than food use. To discourage human consumption, the oil was denatured by the addition of aniline to make it smell and taste bad. It was then imported as cheap industrial oil by the company RAPSA at San Sebastián, handled by RAELCA, and illegally refined by ITH in Seville to remove the aniline, resulting in a palatable product that could then be illegally sold. It was sold as "olive oil" by street vendors at weekly street markets, and was used on salads and for cooking. The commonly accepted hypothesis states that toxic compounds derived during the refinement process were responsible.
Once the origin of the syndrome was realised, public health officials organized an exchange programme, whereby those who had bought the oil could exchange it for pure olive oil, thereby quickly ending the outbreak.
Vibration white finger (VWF), also known as hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) or dead finger, is a secondary form of Raynaud's syndrome, an industrial injury triggered by continuous use of vibrating hand-held machinery. Use of the term "vibration white finger" has generally been superseded in professional usage by broader concept of HAVS, although it is still used by the general public. The symptoms of vibrating white finger are the vascular component of HAVS.
HAVS is a widespread recognized industrial disease affecting tens of thousands of workers. It is a disorder that affects the blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and joints, of the hand, wrist, and arm. Its best known effect is vibration-induced white finger (VWF), a term introduced by the Industrial Injury Advisory Council in 1970. Injury can occur at frequencies between 5 and 2000Hz but the greatest risk for fingers is between 50 and 300Hz. The total risk exposure for hand and arm is calculated by the use of ISO 5349-1, which stipulates maximum damage between 8-16Hz and a rapidly declining risk at higher frequencies. The ISO 5349-1 frequency risk assessment does not match the estimated risks for vibration-induced white finger well.
Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is a Gram-negative bacterium that causes Far East scarlet-like fever in humans, who occasionally get infected zoonotically, most often through the food-borne route. Animals are also infected by "Y. pseudotuberculosis". The bacterium is urease positive.
A snakebite is an injury caused by the bite of a snake, especially a venomous snake. A common symptom of a bite from a venomous snake is the presence of two puncture wounds from the animal's fangs. Sometimes venom injection from the bite may occur. This may result in redness, swelling, and severe pain at the area, which may take up to an hour to appear. Vomiting, trouble seeing, tingling of the limbs, and sweating may result. Most bites are on the hands or arms. Fear following a bite is common with symptoms of a racing heart and feeling faint. The venom may cause bleeding, kidney failure, a severe allergic reaction, tissue death around the bite, or breathing problems. Bites may result in the loss of a limb or other chronic problems. The outcome depends on the type of snake, the area of the body bitten, the amount of venom injected, and the health conditions of the person. Problems are often more severe in children than adults, due to their smaller size.
Snakes bite both as a method of hunting and as a means of protection. Risk factors for bites include working outside with one's hands such as in farming, forestry, and construction. Snakes commonly involved in poisonings include elapids (such as kraits, cobras and mambas), vipers, and sea snakes. The majority of snake species do not have venom and kill their prey by squeezing them. Venomous snakes can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Determining the type of snake that caused a bite is often not possible. The World Health Organization says snakebites are a "neglected public health issue in many tropical and subtropical countries".
Prevention of snake bites can involve wearing protective footwear, avoiding areas where snakes live, and not handling snakes. Treatment partly depends on the type of snake. Washing the wound with soap and water and holding the limb still is recommended. Trying to suck out the venom, cutting the wound with a knife, or using a tourniquet is not recommended. Antivenom is effective at preventing death from bites; however, antivenoms frequently have side effects. The type of antivenom needed depends on the type of snake involved. When the type of snake is unknown, antivenom is often given based on the types known to be in the area. In some areas of the world getting the right type of antivenom is difficult and this partly contributes to why they sometimes do not work. An additional issue is the cost of these medications. Antivenom has little effect on the area around the bite itself. Supporting the person's breathing is sometimes also required.
The number of venomous snakebites that occur each year may be as high as five million. They result in about 2.5 million poisonings and 20,000 to 125,000 deaths. The frequency and severity of bites vary greatly among different parts of the world. They occur most commonly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with rural areas more greatly affected. Deaths are relatively rare in Australia, Europe and North America. For example, in the United States, about seven to eight thousand people per year are bitten by venomous snakes (about one in 40 thousand people) and about five people die (about one death per 65 million people).
Aphantasia is the suggested name for a condition where one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and cannot visualize imagery. The phenomenon was first described by Francis Galton in 1880, but has remained largely unstudied since. Interest in the phenomenon renewed after the publication of a study conducted by a team led by Prof. Adam Zeman of the University of Exeter, which also coined the term "aphantasia". Research on the subject is still scarce, but further studies are planned.
In rabbits of the genus "Sylvilagus" (cottontail rabbits) living in the Americas, myxomatosis causes only localized skin tumors, but the European rabbit ("Oryctolagus cuniculus") is more severely affected. At first, normally the disease is visible by lumps (myxomata) and puffiness around the head and genitals. It may progress to acute conjunctivitis and possibly blindness; however, this also may be the first visible symptom of the disease. The rabbits become listless, lose appetite, and develop a fever. Secondary bacterial infections occur in most cases, which cause pneumonia and purulent inflammation of the lungs. In cases where the rabbit has little or no resistance, death may take place rapidly, often in as little as 48 hours; most cases result in death within 14 days. Often the symptoms like blindness make the infected rabbit more vulnerable to predators.
Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is a sexual attraction or sexual act involving corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association.
Rosman and Resnick (1989) reviewed information from 34 cases of necrophilia describing the individuals' motivations for their behaviors: these individuals reported the desire to possess a non-resisting and non-rejecting partner (68%), reunions with a romantic partner (21%), sexual attraction to corpses (15%), comfort or overcoming feelings of isolation (15%), or seeking self-esteem by expressing power over a homicide victim (12%).
In animals, "Y. pseudotuberculosis" can cause tuberculosis-like symptoms, including localized tissue necrosis and granulomas in the spleen, liver, and lymph nodes.
In humans, symptoms of Far East scarlet-like fever are similar to those of infection with "Yersinia enterocolitica" (fever and right-sided abdominal pain), except that the diarrheal component is often absent, which sometimes makes the resulting condition difficult to diagnose. "Y. pseudotuberculosis" infections can mimic appendicitis, especially in children and younger adults, and, in rare cases, the disease may cause skin complaints (erythema nodosum), joint stiffness and pain (reactive arthritis), or spread of bacteria to the blood (bacteremia).
Far East scarlet-like fever usually becomes apparent five to 10 days after exposure and typically lasts one to three weeks without treatment. In complex cases or those involving immunocompromised patients, antibiotics may be necessary for resolution; ampicillin, aminoglycosides, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, or a cephalosporin may all be effective.
The recently described syndrome "Izumi-fever" has been linked to infection with "Y. pseudotuberculosis".
The symptoms of fever and abdominal pain mimicking appendicitis (actually from mesenteric lymphadenitis) associated with "Y. pseudotuberculosis" infection are not typical of the diarrhea and vomiting from classical food poisoning incidents. Although "Y. pseudotuberculosis" is usually only able to colonize hosts by peripheral routes and cause serious disease in immunocompromised individuals, if this bacterium gains access to the blood stream, it has an LD comparable to "Y. pestis" at only 10 CFU.
Their color is typically similar to that of the skin. Small black dots may occur on the surface. One or more may occur in an area. They may result in pain with pressure such that walking may be difficult.
Melancholia (from , '), also lugubriousness, from the Latin "lugere", to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin "morosus", self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English "wist": intent, or saturnine, was a concept in ancient and pre-modern medicine. Melancholy was one of the four temperaments matching the four humours. In the 19th century, "melancholia" could be physical as well as mental, and melancholic conditions were classified as such by their common cause rather than by their properties.
Rabbits helped keep vegetation in their environments short through grazing and short grasses are conducive to habitation by the butterfly, "Plebejus argus""." When the population of rabbits experienced a decline due to Myxomatosis, grass lengths increased, limiting the environments in which "P. argus" could live, thereby contributing to the decline of the butterfly population.
In practice, almost all chemical compounds and materials are subject to biodegradation processes. The significance, however, is in the relative rates of such processes, such as days, weeks, years or centuries. A number of factors determine the rate at which this degradation of organic compounds occurs. Salient factors include light, water and oxygen. Temperature is also important because chemical reactions proceed more quickly at higher temperatures. The degradation rate of many organic compounds is limited by their bioavailability. Compounds must be released into solution before organisms can degrade them.
Biodegradability can be measured in a number of ways. Respirometry tests can be used for aerobic microbes. First one places a solid waste sample in a container with microorganisms and soil, and then aerates the mixture. Over the course of several days, microorganisms digest the sample bit by bit and produce carbon dioxide – the resulting amount of CO serves as an indicator of degradation. Biodegradability can also be measured by anaerobic microbes and the amount of methane or alloy that they are able to produce. In formal scientific literature, the process is termed bioremediation.
Barcoo fever is an illness once common in the Australian outback that is now virtually unknown. It was characterised by nausea and vomiting exacerbated by the sight or smell of food and, unlike the usual gastro-intestinal infections, by constipation rather than diarrhoea. Fever and myalgia were also symptoms. Severe cases developed inanition and even death. It was seen in travelers in the outback rather than in cities or towns, but occasionally entire settlements were affected, such as occurred in Toowoomba in 1903. The aboriginal population knew to avoid the ailment by not drinking from certain water sources and by taking water from soaks or pits dug in the dry sandy bed of a stream.
It is postulated that the disease may be due to ingestion of cyanobacterial (blue-green algal) toxins, in particular cylindrospermopsin, a toxin from "Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii" and other cyanobacteria, which is a hepatotoxin. The symptoms of the disease are consistent with a hepatitis or liver disorder, and "Cylindrospermopsis" is known to be widespread in inland Australian water sources. The toxin is not destroyed by boiling and, although it would flavor water, this flavor would be masked by tea, the common beverage in the Australian bush. Provision of safe drinking water sources in Australia, with the development of bores and covered tanks to collect rainwater, explain the demise of a once-common illness.
In psychiatry, derailment (also loosening of association, asyndesis, asyndetic thinking, knight's move thinking, or entgleisen) is a thought disorder characterized by discourse consisting of a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.
In a mild manifestation, this thought disorder is characterized by slippage of ideas further and further from the point of a discussion. Derailment can often be manifestly caused by intense emotions such as euphoria or hysteria. Some of the synonyms given above ("loosening of association", "asyndetic thinking") are used by some authors to refer just to a "loss of goal": discourse that sets off on a particular idea, wanders off and never returns to it. A related term is tangentiality—it refers to off-the-point, oblique or irrelevant answers given to questions. In some studies on creativity, "knight's move thinking", while it describes a similarly loose association of ideas, is not considered a mental disorder or the hallmark of one; it is sometimes used as a synonym for lateral thinking.
Clonorchiasis is an infectious disease caused by the Chinese liver fluke, "Clonorchis sinensis", and two related species.
Clonorchiasis is a known risk factor for the development of cholangiocarcinoma, a neoplasm of the biliary system.
Symptoms of opisthorchiasis caused by "Opisthorchis viverrini" and by "Opisthorchis felineus" are indistinguishable from clonorchiasis caused by "Clonorchis sinensis", so the disease by these three parasites should be referred as clonorchiasis.