The epidemiology of infection with hepatitis E virus (HEV) in Tepehuanos (a Mexican ethnic group living in rural areas) is largely unknown. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of and ...risk factors associated with HEV infection in Tepehuanos in Durango, Mexico, and to compare this seroprevalence with that in non-Tepehuanos.
Through a case–control seroprevalence study, we studied 146 Tepehuanos and 146 age- and gender-matched control subjects of the general population from rural settings. The frequency of anti-HEV IgG antibodies was determined using an enzyme-linked immunoassay. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to assess the association between seropositivity and socio-demographic, clinical and behavioral characteristics of the Tepehuanos.
IgG antibodies against HEV were found in 5 (3.4%; 95% CI: 1.1–7.8) of 146 Tepehuanos and in 46 (31.5%; 95% CI: 24.1–39.7) of 146 control subjects (OR=0.01; 95% CI: 0.0007–0.20; P<0.000001). Bivariate analysis showed that HEV seropositivity was associated with age, consumption of meat from goat, sheep, boar, turkey and pigeon, and concrete flooring at home. However, these variables were no longer significant when analyzed by logistic regression.
This is first study on the epidemiology of HEV exposure in Tepehuanos. We demonstrated serological evidence of HEV infection in this ethnic group. The seroprevalence of HEV exposure in Tepehuanos is low as compared with that found in non-Tepehuano people living in rural Durango. Further studies to determine the risk factors associated with HEV exposure in Tepehuanos are needed.
Rabies surveillance in the United States during 2019 Ma, Xiaoyue; Monroe, Ben P; Wallace, Ryan M ...
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association,
2021-Jun-01, 2021-06-01, 20210601, Letnik:
258, Številka:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
To provide epidemiological information on animal and human cases of rabies occurring in the United States during 2019 and summaries of 2019 rabies surveillance for Canada and Mexico.
All animals ...submitted for laboratory diagnosis of rabies in the United States during 2019.
State and territorial public health departments and USDA Wildlife Services provided data on animals submitted for rabies testing in the United States during 2019. Data were analyzed temporally and geographically to assess trends in domestic and wildlife rabies cases.
During 2019, 53 jurisdictions submitted 97,523 animal samples for rabies testing, of which 94,770 (97.2%) had a conclusive (positive or negative) test result. Of these, 4,690 tested positive for rabies, representing a 5.3% decrease from the 4,951 cases reported in 2018. Texas (n = 565 12.0%), New York (391 8.3%), Virginia (385 8.2%), North Carolina (315 6.7%), California (276 5.9%), and Maryland (269 5.7%) together accounted for almost half of all animal rabies cases reported in 2019. Of the total reported rabid animals, 4,305 (91.8%) were wildlife, with raccoons (n = 1,545 32.9%), bats (1,387 29.6%), skunks (915 19.5%), and foxes (361 7.7%) as the primary species confirmed with rabies. Rabid cats (n = 245 5.2%) and dogs (66 1.4%) accounted for > 80% of rabies cases involving domestic animals in 2019. No human rabies cases were reported in 2019.
The overall number of animal rabies cases decreased from 2018 to 2019. Laboratory diagnosis of rabies in animals is critical to ensure that human rabies postexposure prophylaxis is administered judiciously.
A mixture of two piezochromic compounds can be used as a universal shock detector, i.e., to determine the shock pressure without knowing a priori the temperature at which the shock occurred. For this ...purpose, both piezochromic compounds must exhibit different temperature influences in their transition-pressure values. This demonstration uses two piezochromic compounds (CoMoO4 and CuMoO4-type oxides) that exhibit a first-order phase transition between their two allotropic forms associated with a drastic color change. The colorimetric coordinates of the mixture indicate the pressure and temperature of a shock.
Bats are among the most valuable pollinators of economically important crops in Mexico including agaves and columnar cacti. High demand for the agricultural products of these crops has resulted in ...increasing use of agrochemicals, including pesticides and fertilizers, to increase yield and decrease pest damage. However, these compounds can negatively affect crop mutualists such as pollinating bats. In this study, we investigated: (i) how the application of the broad-spectrum pesticide carbamate and/or synthetic fertilizers affect crop yield of the pitaya cacti (Stenocereus queretaroensis); (ii) whether carbamate bioaccumulates in pitaya nectar and fruits; and (iii) whether the application of these agrochemicals affects visitation rates of the pitaya's most efficient pollinators, nectarivorous bats of the genus Leptonycteris. We designed an experiment consisting of four treatments (pesticide, nutrients, both, or neither) applied to pitaya plants. We estimated the effect of each treatment by quantifying pitaya reproductive structures (flower buds and flowers) and fruit yield and quality, performed trace analysis to detect the pesticide in the nectar and fruits, and estimated bat flower visitation rates using camera traps to determine whether the addition of agrochemicals influenced pitaya–bat interactions. We found that none of the treatments increased yield or fruit sweetness, and they did not affect bat visitation rates. Fruit pulp and floral nectar contained pesticide concentrations above those permitted by international environmental agencies. Thus, our results show that adding these agrochemicals to pitaya crops does not improve yield but could negatively affect their crop pollinators, especially since bats apparently do not avoid visiting flowers containing pesticide residues. Los murciélagos están entre los polinizadores más valiosos de cultivos económicamente importantes en regiones megadiversas, como los agaves y los cactus columnares en México. Sin embargo, la alta demanda de productos agrícolas ha resultado en un aumento en el uso de agroquímicos para mantener altos rendimientos y cultivos libres de plagas. Estos compuestos (i.e., pesticidas y fertilizantes) pueden afectar negativamente a los mutualistas de los cultivos, como los murciélagos polinizadores. En este estudio, investigamos (i) cómo la aplicación del plaguicida de amplio espectro carbamato y/o fertilizantes sintéticos afecta el rendimiento del cultivo de pitaya (Stenocereus queretaroensis); (ii) si el carbamato se bioacumula en el néctar y las frutas de pitaya; y (iii) si la aplicación de estos agroquímicos afecta las tasas de visita de los polinizadores más eficientes de la pitaya, los murciélagos nectarívoros del género Leptonycteris. Diseñamos un experimento que consistió en cuatro tratamientos (pesticida, nutrientes, ambos, ninguno) aplicados a las plantas de pitaya. Estimamos el efecto del tratamiento sobre el rendimiento del cultivo midiendo las estructuras reproductivas de la pitaya (botones y flores), el número de frutos producidos, y la concentración de sacarosa de los frutos. Realizamos un análisis de trazas de plaguicidas en el néctar y los frutos recolectados de los tratamientos para determinar la bioacumulación de plaguicidas. Para determinar si la adición de pesticidas a la planta influyó en la interacción con los murciélagos, estimamos (por cada tratamiento) la tasa de visitas de murciélagos a las flores utilizando cámaras trampa. Encontramos que ninguno de los tratamientos aumentó el rendimiento del cultivo y tampoco afectaron la tasa de visitas de los murciélagos. Se registraron trazas de pesticidas tanto en la pulpa de la fruta como en el néctar floral, en concentraciones superiores a las permitidas por las agencias ambientales internacionales. Nuestros resultados muestran que la adición de agroquímicos a los cultivos de cactus no mejora el rendimiento, pero sí podría afectar a los polinizadores de los cultivos, ya que es posible que los murciélagos no logren discriminar las flores que contienen trazas químicas.
This writing aims to highlight from an intersectional view the dynamic tension between structural violence suffered by migrant youth university groups in Chiapas and their agency capability. The ...paper shows social relations between students that are mediated by sociocultural agendas around sexuality and sexual reproductive health. Recommendations for analysis and attention to the violence arising from the findings are given; in addition, this article provides information on intercultural fields.
•Bats are vital pollinators of the pitaya, an important cash fruit crop in Mexico.•Our valuation approach combines exclusion experiment, yield and value chain data.•Bat pollination improves the size ...and yield of the pitaya and thus cash incomes.•Benefits of ~US$2,500/ha support rural livelihoods but mainly accrue to some actors.•Our novel valuation approach provides a basis for other crops and pollinators.
Despite providing important ecosystem services in both natural and agricultural systems in the tropics, bats are often disregarded or considered pests; and research quantifying their importance as pollinators is scarce. We quantified the value and benefit distribution of bat pollination in the production of a major fruit crop in Mexico (pitayas, Stenocereus queretaroensis). We used exclusion experiments to quantify the effect of bat pollinators on crop yield and quality. We then used yield analysis to assess the market value of pollination services, combined with value chain analysis to assess the distribution of these economic benefits among actors. Bat pollination services to pitaya production are worth approximately US$2,500 per ha through increases in both fruit yield and size, with bats contributing around 40% of gross income across producers. Participation in the pitaya value chain provides a key seasonal source of cash income at a time of low agricultural activity, supporting livelihoods and household activities of the rural poor. However, the commercialisation of the pitaya has concentrated economic benefits with privileged groups who have access to land and markets. Our novel approach to valuing pollination services is transferable to other crops and pollinator species to demonstrate disaggregated socio-economic consequences of losing pollinators.
Audio recording devices have changed significantly over the last 50 years, making large datasets of recordings of natural sounds, such as birdsong, easier to obtain. This increase in digital ...recordings necessitates an increase in high‐throughput methods of analysis for researchers. Specifically, there is a need in the community for open‐source methods that are tailored to recordings of varying qualities and from multiple species collected in nature.
We developed Chipper, a Python‐based software to semi‐automate both the segmentation of acoustic signals and the subsequent analysis of their frequencies and durations. For avian recordings, we provide widgets to best determine appropriate thresholds for noise and syllable similarity, which aid in calculating note measurements and determining song syntax. In addition, we generated a set of synthetic songs with various levels of background noise to test Chipper's accuracy, repeatability and reproducibility.
Chipper provides an effective way to quickly generate quantitative, reproducible measures of birdsong. The cross‐platform graphical user interface allows the user to adjust parameters and visualize the resulting spectrogram and signal segmentation, providing a simplified method for analysing field recordings.
Chipper streamlines the processing of audio recordings with multiple user‐friendly tools and is optimized for multiple species and varying recording qualities. Ultimately, Chipper supports the use of citizen‐science data and increases the feasibility of large‐scale multi‐species birdsong studies.
Urban ecosystems are becoming one of the most potentially attractive scenarios for innovating new services and technologies. In parallel, city managers, urban utilities, and other stakeholders are ...fostering the intensive use of advanced technologies aiming at improving present city performance and sustainability. The deployment of such technology entails the generation of massive amounts of information which in many cases might become useful for other services and applications. Hence, aiming at taking advantage of such massive amounts of information and deployed technology as well as breaking down the potential digital barrier, some easy-to-use tools have to be made available to the urban stakeholders. These tools integrated in a platform, operated directly, or indirectly by the city, provide a singular opportunity for exploiting the concept of connected city whilst promoting innovation in all city dimensions and making the co-creation concept a reality, with an eventual impact on government policies.
Human land modification is a known driver of animal-to-human transmission of infectious agents (zoonotic spillover). Infection prevalence in the reservoir is a key predictor of spillover, but ...landscape-level associations between the intensity of land modification and infection rates in wildlife remain largely untested. Bat-borne coronaviruses have caused three major disease outbreaks in humans: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We statistically link high-resolution land modification data with bat coronavirus surveillance records and show that coronavirus prevalence significantly increases with the intensity of human impact across all climates and levels of background biodiversity. The most significant contributors to the overall human impact are agriculture, deforestation, and mining. Regions of high predicted bat coronavirus prevalence coincide with global disease hotspots, suggesting that infection prevalence in wildlife may be an important factor underlying links between human land modification and zoonotic disease emergence.
Fe1-xMgxMoO4 compounds with x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 were obtained after annealing under inert gas at T = 700 °C. All of the compounds exhibit a pressure-induced and/or temperature-induced ...phase transition between the two polymorphs adopted by AMoO4 compounds (A = Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni). For the FeMoO4 compound, for both the α and the β allotropic forms, the structural features have been correlated to the magnetic properties, the Mössbauer signals, and the optical absorption properties to gain a better understanding of the phenomena at the origin of the piezo(thermo)chromic behavior. The different contributions of the Mössbauer signals were attributed to the different Fe(2+) ions or Fe(3+) ions from the structural data (Wyckoff positions, bond distances and angles) and were quantified. Furthermore, the low Fe(3+) concentration (9 and 4 mol %, respectively, in the α and the β allotropic forms) was also quantified based on the magnetic susceptibility measurements. The net increase in the Fe(3+) quantity in the α-form in comparison to the β-form, which is associated with the occurrence of Fe-Mo charge transfer, is at the origin of the important divergence of coloration of the two forms. To design new piezo(thermo)chromic oxides and to control the pressure (temperature) of this first-order phase transition, FeMoO4-MgMoO4 solid solutions were synthesized. The optical contrast between the two allotropic forms was increased due to magnesium incorporation, and the phase transition (β → α) pressure increased steadily with the Mg content. A new generation of nontoxic and chemically stable piezochromic compounds that are sensible to various pressures was proposed.
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