Objective To test whether community mobilization adds effectiveness to conventional dengue control.Design Pragmatic open label parallel group cluster randomized controlled trial. Those assessing the ...outcomes and analyzing the data were blinded to group assignment. Centralized computerized randomization after the baseline study allocated half the sites to intervention, stratified by country, evidence of recent dengue virus infection in children aged 3-9, and vector indices.Setting Random sample of communities in Managua, capital of Nicaragua, and three coastal regions in Guerrero State in the south of Mexico.Participants Residents in a random sample of census enumeration areas across both countries: 75 intervention and 75 control clusters (about 140 households each) were randomized and analyzed (60 clusters in Nicaragua and 90 in Mexico), including 85 182 residents in 18 838 households.Interventions A community mobilization protocol began with community discussion of baseline results. Each intervention cluster adapted the basic intervention—chemical-free prevention of mosquito reproduction—to its own circumstances. All clusters continued the government run dengue control program.Main outcome measures Primary outcomes per protocol were self reported cases of dengue, serological evidence of recent dengue virus infection, and conventional entomological indices (house index: households with larvae or pupae/households examined; container index: containers with larvae or pupae/containers examined; Breteau index: containers with larvae or pupae/households examined; and pupae per person: pupae found/number of residents). Per protocol secondary analysis examined the effect of Camino Verde in the context of temephos use.Results With cluster as the unit of analysis, serological evidence from intervention sites showed a lower risk of infection with dengue virus in children (relative risk reduction 29.5%, 95% confidence interval 3.8% to 55.3%), fewer reports of dengue illness (24.7%, 1.8% to 51.2%), fewer houses with larvae or pupae among houses visited (house index) (44.1%, 13.6% to 74.7%), fewer containers with larvae or pupae among containers examined (container index) (36.7%, 24.5% to 44.8%), fewer containers with larvae or pupae among houses visited (Breteau index) (35.1%, 16.7% to 55.5%), and fewer pupae per person (51.7%, 36.2% to 76.1%). The numbers needed to treat were 30 (95% confidence interval 20 to 59) for a lower risk of infection in children, 71 (48 to 143) for fewer reports of dengue illness, 17 (14 to 20) for the house index, 37 (35 to 67) for the container index, 10 (6 to 29) for the Breteau index, and 12 (7 to 31) for fewer pupae per person. Secondary per protocol analysis showed no serological evidence of a protective effect of temephos.Conclusions Evidence based community mobilization can add effectiveness to dengue vector control. Each site implementing the intervention in its own way has the advantage of local customization and strong community engagement. Trial registration ISRCTN27581154
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The fields of tropical biology and conservation face significant transformations due to rapid technological developments in remote sensing. Other fields (e.g. Archeology) are experiencing this ...momentous change even more rapidly. In this article, we review some of the challenges that the fields of tropical biology and conservation face during the first quarter of the twenty-first century from the perspective of various remote sensing technologies, and discuss the transformations that they may bring to these disciplines. In addition, we review two emerging technologies driving paradigm changes in the nexus of ecology, remote sensing, and analytics: near-surface remote sensing and Wireless Sensor Networks. These two technologies, arising from the eScience paradigm, offer unique opportunities to integrate field observations at hyper-temporal and spatial resolutions that were not possible as recently as 5 years ago.
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Abstract
Tropical dry forests (TDFs) worldwide have an environment-sensitive phenological signal, which easily marks their response to the changing climatic conditions, especially precipitation and ...temperature. Using TDF phenological characteristics as a proxy, this study aims to evaluate their current continental response to climate change across the Americas. Here, we show that TDFs are resilient to water stress and droughts by increasing their rain use efficiency (RUE) in drier years and recovering to average RUE in the year following the drought. Additionally, we find that TDF productivity trends over the past 18 years are spatially clustered, with sites in the northern hemisphere experiencing increased productivity, while equatorial regions have no change, and the southern hemisphere exhibiting decreased productivity. The results indicate that the TDF will be resilient under future climatic conditions, particularly if there are increasing drought conditions.
Abstract
Aim
Enflicoxib, a selective COX-2 inhibitor approved for the treatment of
pain and inflammation associated with osteoarthritis in dogs
(Daxocox
®
Ecuphar/Animalcare Group) was
assessed for ...its genotoxic potential in a battery of
in vitro
and
in
vivo
genotoxicity assays. These comprised a bacterial reverse mutation
assay (Ames test), an
in vitro
human lymphocyte chromosome aberration
assay and an
in vivo
mouse bone marrow micronucleus assay.
Methods
Relevant vehicle and positive control cultures and animals were
included in all assays. In the Ames test, enflicoxib was tested at
concentrations of up to 5000 μg/plate. Signs of
cytotoxicity were observed at the highest tested concentrations for several of
the bacterial strains, both in absence and presence of S9. In human lymphocytes,
enflicoxib was assessed for the induction of chromosomal aberrations when
exposed at concentrations of up to 62.5 (3 hours) and
29.6 µg/mL (20 hours) in the absence of S9, and
up to 66.7 µg/mL (3 hours) in presence of S9.
Signs of cell toxicity, evidenced as a decrease in the mitotic index, were
observed at these concentrations. In the mouse micronucleus assay, enflicoxib
dose levels of up to 2000 mg/kg were administered (single dose)
to male and female animals, and bone marrow samples were taken 24 and
48 hours (high-dose animals only) after administration.
Results
Enflicoxib was shown to lack genotoxic activity in the conducted
assays.
Conclusions
The administration of enflicoxib as a therapeutic analgesic
agent would not pose a genotoxic risk to animals or humans.
Animo Decipiendi? Antonio Guzman, Guzman; Javier Martinez, Martinez
04/2019
eBook
Many new and fruitful avenues of investigation open up when scholars consider forgery as a creative act rather than a crime. We invited authors to contribute work without imposing any restrictions ...beyond a willingness to consider new approaches to the subject of ancient fakes, forgeries and questions of authenticity. The result is this volume, in which our aim is to display some of the many possibilities available to scholarship. Following Splendide Mendax, this is the latest installment of an ongoing inquiry, conducted by scholars in numerous countries, into how the ancient world-its literature and culture, its history and art-appears when viewed through the lens of fakes and forgeries, sincerities and authenticities, genuine signatures and pseudepigrapha.
Increases in liana abundance in tropical forests are pervasive threats to the current and future forest carbon stocks. Never before has the need been more evident for new approaches to detect the ...presence of liana in ecosystems, given their significance as fingerprints of global environmental change. In this study, we explore the use of longwave infrared reflectance (LWIR, 8–11 μm) as a wavelength region for the classification of liana and tree leaves and compare classification results with those obtained using visible-near infrared reflectance data (VIS-NIR, 0.45–0.95 μm). Twenty sun leaves were collected from each of 14 liana species and 21 tree species located at the canopy or forest edge (n = 700) in Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica. LWIR and VIS-NIR reflectance measurements were performed on these leaves using a portable calibrated Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) Agilent ExoScan 4100 and a UniSpec spectral analysis system, respectively. The VIS-NIR and LWIR data were first resampled. Then these two spectral libraries were pre-processed for noise reduction and spectral feature enhancement resulting in three datasets for each spectral region as follows: filtered only, filtered followed by extraction of the first derivative, and continuous wavelet transformation (CWT). Data reduction was then applied to these data sets using principal components analysis (PCA). The outputs obtained from the PCA were used to conduct the supervised classification of liana and tree leaves. In total, 21 classifiers were applied to datasets of training and testing to extract the classification accuracy and agreement for liana and tree leaves. The results suggest that the classification of leaves based on LWIR data can reach accuracy values between 66 and 96% and agreement values between 32 and 92%, regardless of the type of classifier. In contrast, the classification based on VIS-NIR data shows accuracy values between 50 and 70% and agreement values between 0.01 and 40%. The highest classification rates of liana and tree leaves were obtained from datasets pre-processed using the CWT or from the extraction of the first derivative and classified using either random forest, k-nearest neighbor, or support vector machine with radial kernel. The results using the LWIR reflectance highlight the potential of this spectral region for the accurate detection of liana extent in tropical ecosystems. Future studies should consider this potential and test the regional monitoring of lianas.
•Life form classification using visible-near infrared or longwave infrared spectra.•Four pre-processing approaches and 21 classifiers were evaluated.•Best classification of life forms obtained with longwave infrared reflectance.•Best discrimination by pre-processing with continuous wavelet transformation.•Radial kernel SVM and random forest are of the most promising classifiers.
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This paper examines the known immunological and genetic factors associated with sheep resistance to infection by Haemonchus contortus. Such resistance is an inheritable genetic trait (h2, 0.22–0.63) ...associated with certain sheep breeds. Resistant sheep do not completely reject the disease; they only harbor fewer parasites than susceptible sheep and therefore have a lower fecal egg count. Protective immune response to haemonchosis is an expression of genetic resistance. Genes associated with resistance and susceptibility are described. Genetically resistant sheep have nonspecific mechanisms that block the initial colonization by Haemonchus contortus larvae. These sheep also have an efficacious Th2 type response (e.g., increases in blood and tissue eosinophils, specific IgE class antibodies, mast cells, IL-5, IL-13, and TNFα) that protects them against the infection; in contrast, susceptible sheep do not efficiently establish this type of immune response. Finally, the main reported antigens of H. contortus were reviewed.
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Abstract
Background
Daxocox® Ecuphar/Animalcare Group contains the selective COX-2 inhibitor enflicoxib, approved in the EU for the treatment of pain and inflammation associated with osteoarthritis ...in dogs. The safety of Daxocox
®
was evaluated in a target animal safety study: Groups of 4 dogs per sex each were treated once weekly with placebo or Daxocox tablets at 1-, 3- and 5-times (1X, 3X and 5X) the maximum recommended therapeutic dose of enflicoxib (0, 4, 12 or 20 mg/kg, respectively). After an initial loading dose, dogs in the placebo control, 1X and 3X groups were administered for 32 weeks, and those in the 5X group were administered for 13 weeks. Dogs were subjected to daily food consumption measurements and clinical and dose observations. Body weight measurements, physical examinations, clinical pathology, urinalysis, faecal occult blood (FOB) and electrocardiographic (ECG) and blood pressure measurements, buccal mucosal bleeding time (BMBT), ophthalmology and gastroduodenal endoscopy examinations were conducted throughout the study. At study completion, all dogs were subjected to gross necropsy. Histopathology was performed on selected tissues from all animals in all groups.
Results
No clinical signs were noted, and no toxicologically relevant dose-associated effects were observed.
Conclusions
Results show that Daxocox® is well-tolerated and has a broad safety margin when administered as directed in dogs.
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This paper studies the implementation issues of a discrete-time super-twisting controller on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). It is shown how it is possible to enhance this implementation ...using a pipelining technique. The controller is designed on the basis of a discrete-time vehicle model recently presented. The super-twisting algorithm ensures some robustness properties in the presence of unknown bounded perturbations. It is shown that the pipelined implementation of the super-twisting controller on an FPGA allows lower execution times, and hence, smaller sampling times than its naive implementation. Therefore, the pipelining technique allows the implementation of more sophisticated controllers for vehicle control. Moreover, it is shown that the power consumption of the pipelined control algorithm is lower than a conventional one, which is an important aspect for onboard automobile systems. Since the pipelined implementation of the controller requires shorter times, even if the controller performance is similar to that of the no-pipelined one, the use of pipelining techniques allows the consideration of cheaper FPGAs with less performance. Such results show that the FPGA technology, along with methodological solutions for optimal controller implementation, represents an appealing alternative to electronic control units.
Background
Studies on the writing of students with intellectual disabilities have been scarce and unrepresentative. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to analyse this group of students' ...abilities to plan their texts
Method
A collective case study was carried out, with an eminently qualitative approach, although aided by an initial quantitative analysis. Fifteen students with unspecified intellectual disabilities were interviewed using open‐ended questions. For data interpretation, content analysis and quantification of responses were used.
Results
The results revealed the abilities and limitations of these students regarding the knowledge and use of one of the key processes of written expression (writing planning).
Conclusion
The cognitive operations of planning, in which these students admitted the greatest problems, were the ordering and recording of ideas, and textual structuring.
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