The use of temephos, the most common intervention for the chemical control of Aedes aegypti over the last half century, has disappointing results in control of the infection. The footprint of Aedes ...and the diseases it carries have spread relentlessly despite massive volumes of temephos. Recent advances in community participation show this might be more effective and sustainable for the control of the dengue vector.
Using data from the Camino Verde cluster randomized controlled trial, a compartmental mathematical model examines the dynamics of dengue infection with different levels of community participation, taking account of gender of respondent and exposure to temephos.
Simulation of dengue endemicity showed community participation affected the basic reproductive number of infected people. The greatest short-term effect, in terms of people infected with the virus, was the combination of temephos intervention and community participation. There was no evidence of a protective effect of temephos 220 days after the onset of the spread of dengue.
Male responses about community participation did not significantly affect modelled numbers of infected people and infectious mosquitoes. Our model suggests that, in the long term, community participation alone may have the best results. Adding temephos to community participation does not improve the effect of community participation alone.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Carriers of the G2019S mutation of LRRK2 provide a great opportunity to investigate the premotor stages of Parkinson’s disease (PD). We have studied by serial clinical and dopamine ...transporter single photon emission computed tomography (DaT‐SPECT) evaluations a cohort of asymptomatic carriers of the LRRK2‐G2019S mutation in order to evaluate the usefulness of these tools as biomarkers. Here we report the results of the extended follow‐up of this cohort at 8 years.
Methods
Seventeen participants, of the 25 available from the 4‐year evaluation, completed the 8‐year assessment. UPDRS‐III, UPSIT test and DaT‐SPECT imaging (123I‐ioflupane) were performed. We used repeated‐measures linear mixed effects models to examine the changes in DaT binding over time.
Results
Three carriers had converted to PD at 4 years. One additional carrier converted at 8 years. PD‐converters had lower striatal DaT binding at baseline than non‐converters. There was a significant decline of DaT binding over time, with a mean annual rate of 3.5%, with somewhat inter‐individual and intra‐individual variability and comparable between PD‐converters and non‐converters. No carrier with DAT binding ratio above an undefined threshold between 0.5 and 0.8 developed PD symptoms. The age‐adjusted UPSIT score did not change significantly over time.
Conclusions
The rate of conversion to PD at 8 years in this cohort aged ~58 years at baseline was 16%. The observed decline of DaT binding over time and its association with the phenotype render DaT‐SPECT a potentially useful tool for monitoring the premotor stage of the disease, although at the individual level its ability to predict phenoconversion is limited.
There is 3.5% annual decline in striatal dopamine transporter (DaT) binding (DaT‐SPECT) in asymptomatic carriers of the the LRRK2‐G2019S mutation. This process takes place over a minimum of 8 years in most carriers. Conversion to Parkinson’s disease occurs when a threshold of DaT binding reduction is reached. This event is difficult to anticipate given the intra‐individual variability of the slope over time.
Este artículo presenta descriptivamente el pensamiento social del religioso franciscano y filósofo chileno, fray Pedro Bustos, particularmente en su propuesta del ahorro como solución a la cuestión ...social chilena en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. La revisión de sus escritos permite encontrarse con un pensamiento basado en autores europeos, pero adaptados al contexto nacional y reforzado por una cercanía personal con el mundo obrero. Desde allí, y en consonancia con el catolicismo social y una antropología integral, interpretaba la cuestión social y el protagonismo de los propios proletarios en su solución, capacitarse y lograr ahorrar, tarea que no era fácil, pues factores culturales, laborales y políticos no la favorecían. Para que esta fuera alcanzada, requería de la subvención de la caridad cristiana.
Ultra-high voltage at transmission systems enables to reduce the electrical power losses due to the Joule effect. However, if the environment is not the proper (i.e., polluted, high humidity, high ...temperatures, etc.) this fact may lead to an air ionization causing a Corona discharge. As a result, electromagnetic parameters in the transmission line may be affected causing reduction in power transfer capacity on the line, or in critical situations, it may cause interruption of the electrical service. To face these challenges, this manuscript presents an innovative mechanism that can be attached to the transmission lines and suppress the impact due to the Corona discharge. Such mechanism contains dielectric oil that is released when the Corona discharge takes place, producing an isolated layer that protects the line from the high electrical fields. The manuscript includes the quantification of the impact of the Corona discharge on the electrical features of the transmission line through COMSOL Multiphysics 5.6 software. Then, the impact of the Corona discharge and the line are modelled as a two-port network in such a way that the operation of the line is analyzed in a circle power diagram. The results reveal that the incorporation of the innovative mechanism reduces or mitigates (in the best-case scenario) the impact of the Corona discharge, opening a pathway to future applications in the power systems protection field.
This article explores the patents of solar energy technologies in the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) applications. The conversion of low-quality thermal energy into electricity is one of the main ...characteristics of an ORC, making efficient and viable technologies available today. However, only a few and outdated articles that analyze patents that use solar energy technologies in ORC applications exist. This leads to a lack of updated information regarding the number of published patents, International Patent Classification (IPC) codes associated with them, technology life cycle status, and the most relevant patented developments. Thus, this article conducts a current investigation of patents published between January 2010 and May 2022 using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology and keywords. One thousand two hundred ninety-nine patents were obtained as part of the study and classified in F and Y groups of the IPC. The time-lapse analyzed was between January 2010 and May 2022. In 2014 and 2015, a peak of published patents was observed. China (CN) was the country that published the most significant number of patents worldwide. However, the European Patent Office (EP), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WO), and the United States (US) publish the patents with the highest number of patent citations. Furthermore, the possible trend regarding the development of patents for each technology is presented. A high-performance theoretical ORC plant based on the patent information analyzed by this article is introduced. Finally, exploration of IPC revealed 17 codes related to solar energy technologies in ORC applications not indexed in the main search.
Natural infection and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 is associated with the development of immunity against the structural proteins of the virus. Specifically, the two most immunogenic are the S ...(spike) and N (nucleocapsid) proteins. Seroprevalence studies performed in university students provide information to estimate the number of infected patients (symptomatic or asymptomatic) and generate knowledge about the viral spread, vaccine efficacy, and epidemiological control. Which, the aim of this study was to evaluate IgG antibodies against the S and N proteins of SARS-CoV-2 at university students from Southern Mexico. A total of 1418 serum samples were collected from eighteen work centers of the Autonomous University of Guerrero. Antibodies were detected by Indirect ELISA using as antigen peptides derived from the S and N proteins. We reported a total seroprevalence of 39.9% anti-S/N (positive to both antigens), 14.1% anti-S and 0.5% anti-N. The highest seroprevalence was reported in the work centers from Costa Grande, Acapulco and Centro. Seroprevalence was associated with age, COVID-19, contact with infected patients, and vaccination. University students could play an essential role in disseminating SARS-CoV-2. We reported a seroprevalence of 54.5% against the S and N proteins, which could be due to the high population rate and cultural resistance to safety measures against COVID-19 in the different regions of the state.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
To evaluate Streptococcus mutans biofilm formation over different restorative dental materials.
Using a bioreactor over 72 hours, four commercially available ceramics were evaluated: IPS E-max Press, ...IPS E-max CAD, Lava Ultimate CAD-CAM, Vita Enamic and two resin composites (SR Nexco Paste and Brilliant NG). The results were evaluated using atomic force microscopy and confocal microscopy, the biofilm was stained and the arbitrary fluorescence units (AFU) quantified.
The results showed that IPS E-max CAD had the lowest roughness values (4.29±1.79 nm), while the highest values were observed for Vita Enamic discs ( (77.13±17.35 nm). Analysis of S. mutans biofilm formation by AFU revealed lower values for IPS E-max CAD (6.77±1.67 nm); the highest values were found for Lava Ultimate (79.99±22.23 nm). Regarding the composite groups, SR Nexco Paste showed roughness values of 15.07±2.77 nm and lower arbitrary fluorescence units of 30.92±12.01 nm than Brilliant NT. There was a correlation between the surface roughness of ceramics and composite with S. mutans biofilm formation.
The adhesion of oral bacteria to restorative dental materials plays a key role in the success of dental treatment; the surface roughness influences the S. mutans biofilm formation.
Knowing exactly how much solar radiation reaches a particular area is helpful when planning solar energy installations. In recent years the use of renewable energies, especially those related to ...photovoltaic systems, has had an impressive up-tendency. Therefore, mechanisms that allow us to predict solar radiation are essential. This work aims to present results for predicting solar radiation using optimization with the Random Forest (RF) algorithm. Moreover, it compares the obtained results with other machine learning models. The conducted analysis is performed in Queretaro, Mexico, which has both direct solar radiation and suitable weather conditions more than three quarters of the year. The results show an effective improvement when optimizing the hyperparameters of the RF and Adaboost models, with an improvement of 95.98% accuracy compared to conventional methods such as linear regression, with 54.19%, or recurrent networks, with 53.96%, without increasing the computational time and performance requirements to obtain the prediction. The analysis was successfully repeated in two different scenarios for periods in 2020 and 2021 in Juriquilla. The developed method provides robust performance with similar results, confirming the validity and effectiveness of our approach.
The influence of particles velocity and mass flow dynamics continues to be a topic of interest to the scientific community, especially for laser metal deposition process. The particles behavior ...between the nozzle and the substrate influence the energy absorption of the particles (along their individual trajectories), the efficiency of raw material consumption, and the quality of the additively manufactured parts. Particle velocity information is essential to develop optimal process windows. A new adaptive particle image velocimetry (PIV) method to in-flight velocity measurement for metallic particles from a three-port coaxial feed nozzle is proposed. The method has three stages. The pre-processing stage removes motion blur in high-speed images streams and highlights particles using a new particle sharpening filter. The second stage calculates the displacement vectors using a new cross-correlation algorithm called
Cuckoo detrended cross-correlation
. The third stage makes validation of the displacement vectors, reducing the false-positive rate in the calculation of speeds. The robustness of the proposed method is validated by comparing results against noise-contaminated synthetic images and experimental images. Besides, the experimental results and performance are compared against three different PIV software for various feeding rates (< 91
g
/
m
i
n
). The results show high precision with an uncertainty less than 1
m
/
s
. Optimal configurations for PIV measurements are proposed based on different particle densities to guarantee less human intervention in the experimental set-up.
In the last two decades, the number of strategies for planning the maintenance of power systems have increased considerably. As societal dependence on power system infrastructure continues to grow, ...there is an increased need to identify the best practices in the field of power system maintenance planning to ensure the continued reliable operation of the grid. This paper presents a comprehensive and systematic state-of-the-art review of advances in power system maintenance and the significance for the field of power system reliability. As the main contributions, this paper systematically organizes the published literature, and analyses the most relevant milestones in the context of power systems adequacy and security enhancement, producing a taxonomy of the different maintenance strategies. This includes detailing existing approaches for power system maintenance planning, and providing clear definitions, models, methods, and characteristics of maintenance policy. The review also includes the most relevant standards employed in the power system maintenance field. Finally, areas requiring further research are identified alongside emerging trends in power system maintenance, to inform industry practice and support further research.
