Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of pneumonia worldwide. However, the burden of pneumococcal pneumonia among adults in low- and middle-income countries is not well described.
Data from ...2008-2012 was analyzed from two surveillance sites in Guatemala to describe the incidence of pneumococcal pneumonia in adults. A case of hospitalized pneumococcal pneumonia was defined as a positive pneumococcal urinary antigen test or blood culture in persons aged ≥ 18 years hospitalized with an acute respiratory infection (ARI).
Among 1595 adults admitted with ARI, 1363 (82%) had either urine testing (n = 1286) or blood culture (n = 338) performed. Of these, 188 (14%) had pneumococcal pneumonia, including 173 detected by urine only, 8 by blood culture only, and 7 by both methods. Incidence rates increased with age, with the lowest rate among 18-24 year-olds (2.75/100,000) and the highest among ≥65 year-olds (31.3/100,000). The adjusted incidence of hospitalized pneumococcal pneumonia was 18.6/100,000 overall, with in-hospital mortality of 5%.
An important burden of hospitalized pneumococcal pneumonia in adults was described, particularly for the elderly. However, even adjusted rates likely underestimate the true burden of pneumococcal pneumonia in the community. These data provide a baseline against which to measure the indirect effects of the 2013 introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in children in Guatemala.
The aim of this study was to identify polymorphisms in the folp1, gyrA, and rpoB genes in leprosy patients treated in Amazonas State, Brazil. Among 197 slit-skin smear samples from untreated or ...relapsed patients, we found three cases of primary resistance to rifampin and one confirmed case of multidrug resistance.
Mango (
.) is an important commercial fruit that shows a noticeable loss of firmness during ripening. Polygalacturonase (PG, E.C. 3.2.1.15) is a crucial enzyme for cell wall loosening during fruit ...ripening since it solubilizes pectin and its activity correlates with fruit softening. Mango PGs were mapped to a genome draft using seventeen PGs found in mango transcriptomes and 48 bonafide PGs were identified. The phylogenetic analysis suggests that they are related to
, which may indicate a recent evolutive divergence and related functions with orthologs in the tree. Gene expression analysis for nine PGs showed differential expression for them during post-harvest fruit ripening,
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were highly up-regulated. PG enzymatic activity also increased during maturation and these results correlate with the loss of firmness observed in mango during post-harvest ripening, between the ethylene production burst and the climacteric peak. The analysis of PGs promoter regions identified regulatory sequences associated to ripening such as MADS-box, ethylene regulation like ethylene insensitive 3 (EIN3) factors, APETALA2-like and ethylene response element factors. During mango fruit ripening the action of at least these nine PGs contribute to softening, and their expression is regulated at the transcriptional level. The prediction of the tridimensional structure of some PGs showed a conserved parallel beta-helical fold related to polysaccharide hydrolysis and a modular architecture, where exons correspond to structural elements. Further biotechnological approaches could target specific softening-related PGs to extend mango post-harvest shelf life.
Few studies have prospectively compared the relative transmissibility and propensity to cause disease of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains with other human-adapted strains of the M. ...tuberculosis complex. We assessed the effect of Beijing strains on the risk for M. tuberculosis infection and disease progression in 9,151 household contacts of 2,223 culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients in Lima, Peru. Child contacts exposed to Beijing strains were more likely than child contacts exposed to non-Beijing strains to be infected at baseline, by 12 months of follow-up, and during follow-up. We noted an increased but nonsignificant tendency for child contacts to develop TB. Beijing strains were not associated with TB in adult contacts. These findings suggest that Beijing strains are more transmissible in children than are non-Beijing strains.
In this research algorithms of support vector machine (SVM) and a logic function were applied to identify automatically sections of carbonate rocks in wells located in the former Barco Concession, ...Catatumbo Basin - Colombia. During training stages the SVMs use neutron, photoelectric factor and gamma ray logs as input; also mean and variance of resistivity acquired for image tool and fractal dimension of resistive images. The first SVM employs in the training stage intervals manually interpreted of fossiliferous limestone, performed by a specialized geologist integrating information of core-logs correlation of a pilot well; afterwards, in classification stages, this SVM automatically recognizes intervals with fossiliferous limestone only using logs data of any well of the field. The second SVM was also trained with nuclear logs, resistivity and fractal dimension, but in this case, with information of intervals composed of calcareous shales interbedded with limestone, recognizing automatically these rock associations during classification stage without interpretations of a geologist as input data. Additionally, a logic function was applied to intervals with photoelectric factor ≥ 4 and all sections not classified by the SVMs were grouped as laminated calcareous rocks. The SVMs and logic function show accuracy of 98.76 %, 94.02 % and 94.60 % respectively in six evaluated wells and might be applied to other wells in the field that have the same dataset. This methodology is highly dependent of the data quality and all intervals affected by bad borehole condition have to be removed prior its application in order to avoid wrong interpretations. Finally, the whole model has to be recalibrated to be applied in other fields of the basin.
Fruit ripening is a physiological and biochemical process genetically programmed to regulate fruit quality parameters like firmness, flavor, odor and color, as well as production of ethylene in ...climacteric fruit. In this study, a transcriptomic analysis of mango (Mangifera indica L.) mesocarp cv. "Kent" was done to identify key genes associated with fruit ripening. Using the Illumina sequencing platform, 67,682,269 clean reads were obtained and a transcriptome of 4.8 Gb. A total of 33,142 coding sequences were predicted and after functional annotation, 25,154 protein sequences were assigned with a product according to Swiss-Prot database and 32,560 according to non-redundant database. Differential expression analysis identified 2,306 genes with significant differences in expression between mature-green and ripe mango 1,178 up-regulated and 1,128 down-regulated (FDR ≤ 0.05). The expression of 10 genes evaluated by both qRT-PCR and RNA-seq data was highly correlated (R = 0.97), validating the differential expression data from RNA-seq alone. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis, showed significantly represented terms associated to fruit ripening like "cell wall," "carbohydrate catabolic process" and "starch and sucrose metabolic process" among others. Mango genes were assigned to 327 metabolic pathways according to Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database, among them those involved in fruit ripening such as plant hormone signal transduction, starch and sucrose metabolism, galactose metabolism, terpenoid backbone, and carotenoid biosynthesis. This study provides a mango transcriptome that will be very helpful to identify genes for expression studies in early and late flowering mangos during fruit ripening.
Tourism is a sector of high relevance worldwide, due to the multiple impacts it generates in local, regional, national, continental, and global economies, and it is a key generator of employment and ...provides sustenance to an innumerable number of people around the world. There have been many challenges at a global level to improve the user experience in a particular tourist place, where technology has played a highly relevant role in strengthening the conditions for tourists to achieve immersion in the culture, gastronomy, and recreation. The objective of this literature review is precisely to know and understand the key contributions that are currently being developed around the implementation of augmented reality as tourist technological support for user experiences. The literature on this topic is quite dispersed in specialized databases; therefore, it constitutes an opportunity to carry out a more detailed exploration of the topic. To address the different developments that have been carried out on tourism and augmented reality, an analysis was carried out based on the fusion of scientometric analysis and the metaphor of the Tree of Science, in which two relevant visions about the data were generated. The first focused on the different scientometric statistics regarding countries, authors, universities, or research or technological development centers that currently generate new applications based on augmented reality for tourism. The second focused on an evolutionary analysis based on the Tree of Science, analyzing the origins of the basic contributions of research and how it has evolved over time. This review indicates that the topic is currently valid and that it has been strengthened even more with the post-pandemic process, where many technological developments have been strengthened that allow people to enjoy tourist and cultural sites even without leaving home.
Bacterial pneumonia is a leading cause of illness and death worldwide, but quantifying its burden is difficult due to insensitive diagnostics. Although World Health Organization (WHO) protocol ...standardizes pediatric chest radiograph (CXR) interpretation for epidemiologic studies of bacterial pneumonia, its validity in adults is unknown.
Patients (age ≥ 15 years) admitted with respiratory infections to two Guatemalan hospitals between November 2007 and March 2012 had urine and nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal (NP/OP) swabs collected; blood cultures and CXR were also performed at physician clinical discretion. 'Any bacterial infection' was defined as a positive urine pneumococcal antigen test, isolation of a bacterial pneumonia pathogen from blood culture, or detection of an atypical bacterial pathogen by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal (NP/OP) specimens. 'Viral infection' was defined as detection of viral pathogens by PCR of NP/OP specimens. CXRs were interpreted according to the WHO protocol as having 'endpoint consolidation', 'other infiltrate', or 'normal' findings. We examined associations between bacterial and viral infections and endpoint consolidation.
Urine antigen and/or blood culture results were available for 721 patients with CXR interpretations; of these, 385 (53%) had endpoint consolidation and 253 (35%) had other infiltrate. Any bacterial infection was detected in 119 (17%) patients, including 106 (89%) pneumococcal infections. Any bacterial infection (Diagnostic Odds Ratio DOR = 2.9; 95% confidence Interval (CI): 1.3-7.9) and pneumococcal infection (DOR = 3.4; 95% CI: 1.5-10.0) were associated with 'endpoint consolidation', but not 'other infiltrate' (DOR = 1.7; 95% CI: 0.7-4.9, and 1.7; 95% CI: 0.7-4.9 respectively). Viral infection was not significantly associated with 'endpoint consolidation', 'other infiltrate,' or 'normal' findings.
'Endpoint consolidation' was associated with 'any bacterial infection,' specifically pneumococcal infection. Therefore, endpoint consolidation may be a useful surrogate for studies measuring the impact of interventions, such as conjugate vaccines, against bacterial pneumonia.
We present recent Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)-based studies of circumstellar envelopes (CSEs) around Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars and pre-Planetary Nebulae (pPNe). In ...only a few years of operation, ALMA is revolutionising the field of AGB-to-PN research by providing unprecedentedly detailed information on the complex nebular architecture (at large but also on small scales down to a few ∼10 AU from the centre), dynamics and chemistry of the outflows/envelopes of low-to-intermediate mass stars in their late stages of the evolution. Here, we focus on continuum and molecular line mapping studies with high angular resolution and sensitivity of some objects that are key to understanding the complex PN-shaping process. In particular, we offer (i) a brief summary of ALMA observations of rotating disks in post-AGB objects and (ii) report on ALMA observations of OH 231.8+4.2 providing the most detailed and accurate description of the global nebular structure and kinematics of this iconic object to date.
A propósito del aumento de la matrícula de niñas y niños de origen extranjero en el sistema educativo chileno, es objetivo de este artículo analizar la relación entre las necesidades de formación ...docente en el ámbito de la interculturalidad y la violencia hacia la niñez migrante con miras hacia una educación antirracista. Se presentan resultados de un estudio realizado en dos regiones del país: Metropolitana y Valparaíso. A través de una metodología cualitativa, se aplicaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a docentes y profesionales que atienden a población escolar migrante. Se concluye que existen discursos que reconocen las problemáticas de racismo y discriminación que sufre esta población, así como otros relatos que lo niegan o minimizan jerarquizando las nacionalidades del estudiantado migrante. También se constata una imperiosa necesidad de Formación Inicial Docente que se desprenda de una política pública promotora de un currículo actualizado en el que la diversidad cultural sea un valor, a la vez que la categoría de infancia se reconozca como un eje de desigualdad prioritario y la acogida sea vista como un punto de partida. En el actual escenario, surgen variados conflictos de convivencia que requieren ser gestionados desde paradigmas amigables con la infancia migrante y metodologías que reconozcan sus derechos y permitan garantizar una verdadera inclusión en nuestro país.
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