Respiratory viral infection can cause severe disease and hospitalization, especially among children, the elderly, and patients with comorbidities. In Brazil, the official surveillance system of ...severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) investigates influenza A (IAV) and B (IBV) viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus (HAdV), and parainfluenza viruses (hPIV 1–3). In Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, many fatalities associated with SARI between 2013 and 2017 occurred among patients without underlying diseases and for whom the causative agent had not been identified using official protocols. This cross‐sectional study analyzed the presence of coronaviruses (HCoV), bocavirus (HBoV), metapneumovirus (hMPV), and rhinovirus in patients who died of SARI despite not having comorbidities, and that were negative for IAV, IBV, RSV, HAdV, and hPIV. Nasopharyngeal aspirates/swabs from patients were used for nucleic acid extraction. The presence of HCoVs OC43, HKU1, NL63, and 229E; HBoV; hMPV; and rhinovirus was assessed by quantitative reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction. Clinical data were also analyzed. Between 2013 and 2017, 16 225 cases of SARI were reported in RS; 9.8% of the patients died; 20% of all fatal cases were patients without comorbidities and for whom no pathogen was detected using standard protocols. Analysis of 271 of these cases identified HCoV in nine cases; HBoV, hMPV, and rhinovirus were detected in 3, 3, and 10 cases, respectively. Of note, patients infected with HCoV were adults. Results reinforce the importance of including coronaviruses in diagnostic panels used by official surveillance systems because besides their pandemic potential, endemic HCoVs are associated to severe disease in healthy adults.
Highlights
Endemic coronaviruses OC43, HKU1, NL63, and 229E are associated with fatality cases of severe acute respiratory infection in adults with no underlying diseases.
Respiratory viruses commonly associated to mild disease can cause severe respiratory infection and death in healthy adults.
Epidemiological and molecular surveillance of respiratory viruses, including non‐influenza viruses, is important for disease control and prevention.
Dengue in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: 2014 to 2016 Gregianini, Tatiana Schaffer; Tumioto‐Giannini, Gabriela Luchiari; Favreto, Cátia ...
Reviews in medical virology,
January 2018, 2018-Jan, 2018-01-00, 20180101, Letnik:
28, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Summary
The first autochthonous dengue case in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Southern Brazil, occurred in 2007. In 2008 and 2009, only imported cases were reported in RS, but from 2010 to 2013, reports of ...autochthonous infections increased significantly. This study analyzes and discusses laboratory, demographic, and clinical data regarding dengue cases in RS, from 2014 to 2016. This study analyzed 13,420 serum samples from notified patients with suspicion of dengue fever in RS from 2014 to 2016. Seasonality of positive cases, viral serotypes, and clinical and epidemiological aspects were analyzed. There was no difference in gender (P = .4); dengue fever occurred mainly in adults, with similar distribution among age groups. The number of dengue virus (DENV) cases increased from 89 cases in 2014 to 2518 in 2016. Dengue virus 1 was the most prevalent circulating serotype during this period (97.5% of cases). Dengue virus infections show peaks in March and April (late summer and early autumn), after periods of high temperatures and rainfall. In 2014, dengue cases were concentrated in the northwestern and eastern regions of RS, and in 2015 and 2016, the northern region also confirmed a high number of cases. With increase in DENV circulation in RS, a rise in the number of autochthonous infections was also observed, mainly in highly urbanized areas. This study revealed that circulation of DENV in RS increased significantly in 2015 and 2016, with a rise in the number of autochthonous infections and cocirculation with Chikungunya and Zika viruses, recently introduced into RS.
The ATLAS Phase-I upgrade (2019) requires a Trigger and Data Acquisition (TDAQ) system able to trigger and record data from up to three times the nominal LHC instantaneous luminosity. Furthermore, ...the Front-End LInk eXchange (FELIX) system provides an infrastructure to achieve this in a scalable, detector agnostic and easily upgradeable way. It is a PC-based gateway, interfacing custom radiation tolerant optical links from front-end electronics, via PCIe Gen3 cards, to a commodity switched Ethernet or InfiniBand network. FELIX enables reducing custom electronics in favour of software running on commercial servers. Here, the FELIX system, the design of the PCIe prototype card and the integration test results are presented.
The ATLAS experiment at CERN is planning full deployment of a new unified optical link technology for connecting detector front end electronics on the timescale of the LHC Run 4 (2025). It is ...estimated that roughly 8000 GBT (GigaBit Transceiver) links, with transfer rates up to 10.24 Gbps, will replace existing links used for readout, detector control and distribution of timing and trigger information. A new class of devices will be needed to interface many GBT links to the rest of the trigger, data-acquisition and detector control systems. In this paper FELIX (Front End LInk eXchange) is presented, a PC-based device to route data from and to multiple GBT links via a high-performance general purpose network capable of a total throughput up to O(20 Tbps). FELIX implies architectural changes to the ATLAS data acquisition system, such as the use of industry standard COTS components early in the DAQ chain. Additionally the design and implementation of a FELIX demonstration platform is presented and hardware and software aspects will be discussed.
The direct CP violation parameter Re(ϵ′/ϵ) has been measured from the decay rates of neutral kaons into two pions using the NA48 detector at the CERN SPS. The 2001 running period was devoted to ...collecting additional data under varied conditions compared to earlier years (1997–1999). The new data yield the result: Re(ϵ′/ϵ)=(13.7±3.1)×10−4. Combining this result with that published from the 1997, 98 and 99 data, an overall value of Re(ϵ′/ϵ)=(14.7±2.2)×10−4 is obtained from the NA48 experiment.
For new detector and trigger systems to be installed in the ATLAS experiment after LHC Run 2, a new approach will be followed for Front-End electronics interfacing. The FELIX (Front-End LInk ...eXchange) system will function as gateway connecting: on one side to detector and trigger electronics links, as well as providing timing and trigger information; and on the other side a commodity switched network built using standard technology (either Ethernet or Infiniband). The new approach is described in this paper, and results achieved so far are presented.
A novel type of particle detector based on scintillation, with precise spatial resolution and high radiation hardness, is being studied. It consists of a single microfluidic channel filled with a ...liquid scintillator and is designed to define an array of scintillating waveguides each independently coupled to a photodetector. Prototype detectors built using an SU-8 epoxy resin have been tested with electrons from a radioactive source. The experimental results show a light yield compatible with the theoretical expectations and confirm the validity of the approach.
Microfluidic channels obtained by SU-8 photolithography and filled with liquid scintillators were recently demonstrated to be an interesting technology for the implementation of novel particle ...detectors. The main advantages of this approach are the intrinsic radiation resistance resulting from the simple microfluidic circulation of the active medium and the possibility to manufacture devices with high spatial resolution and low material budget using microfabrication techniques. Here we explore a different technological implementation of this concept, reporting on scintillating detectors based on silicon microfluidic channels. A process for manufacturing microfluidic devices on silicon substrates, featuring microchannel arrays suitable for light guiding, was developed. Such process can be in principle combined with standard CMOS processing and lead to a tight integration with the readout photodetectors and electronics in the future. Several devices were manufactured, featuring microchannel geometries differing in depth, width and pitch. A preliminary characterization of the prototypes was performed by means of a photomultiplier tube coupled to the microchannel ends, in order to detect the scintillation light produced upon irradiation with beta particles from a super(90)Sr source. The photoelectron spectra thus obtained were fitted with the expected output function in order to extract the light yield.
The ATLAS ReadOut System (ROS) receives data fragments from ∼1600 detector readout links, buffers them and provides them on demand to the second-level trigger or to the event building system. The ROS ...is implemented with ∼150PCs. Each PC houses a few, typically 4, custom-built PCI boards (ROBIN) and a 4-port PCIe Gigabit Ethernet NIC. The PCs run a multi-threaded object-oriented application managing the requests for data retrieval and for data deletion coming through the NIC, and the collection and output of data from the ROBINs. At a nominal event fragment arrival rate of 75kHz the ROS has to concurrently service up to approximately 20kHz of data requests from the second-level trigger and up to 3.5kHz of requests from event building nodes. The full system has been commissioned in 2007. Performance of the system in terms of stability and reliability, results of laboratory rate capability measurements and upgrade scenarios are discussed in this paper.
A novel liquid scintillation detector with high spatial resolution is being developed with standard microfabrication techniques. It consists of a dense array of scintillating waveguides obtained by ...filling microfluidic channels with an organic liquid scintillator and optically coupled to a pixellated photodetector. Such a microfluidic device can be designed and processed to meet the requirements of a wide range of applications like medical imaging, homeland security and high-energy physics. High-spatial resolution miniaturized detectors as well as large-area detectors can easily be fabricated. The fabrication process of a prototype detector and experimental results are presented in this paper.
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