Looking for patterns in the phytoplankton community of the Mediterranean microtidal Venice Lagoon: evidence from ten years of observations

By analysing a ten-year series (1998-2007) of data on hydrochemical properties, phytoplankton abundance and species composition in the Venice Lagoon, we identified i) the average annual phytoplankton biomass cycle, mainly unimodal and fairly well tuned with the fluctuations in temperature and irradiance and (ii) the seasonal succession of the most important species, allowing us to construct a “phytoplankton calendar”. Phytoplankton biomass was significantly lower in the second half of the ten-year period (2003-2007) than in the first half (1998-2002)

Studies on the Descriptions of Lab Test Considerations, Overdosage, Clinical Studies, and Miscellaneous Information in Precaution Section of Prescribing Information for Japanese Ethical Drugs

Du maître expert à l’expert

Garantia do direito à saúde no cuidado de criança em condição crônica*

O artigo apresenta os resultados de um estudo que abordou os efeitos do “remedio juridico” no cuidado a crianca adoecida cronica e tem por objetivo discutir a corresponsabilidade intersetorial dos campos da saude e do direito no acolhimento de suas necessidades. Estudo de situacao que empregou a abordagem da historia de vida, sendo o corpus de analise constituido por registros de observacao e narrativas dos pais da crianca adoecida. A linha de adoecimento da crianca visibilizou os significados da experiencia e a peregrinacao em busca por cuidados empreendida pela familia junto aos servicos de saude e instâncias juridicas ou provocadoras destas, bem como as respostas obtidas. Depreendeu-se a pouca observância e efetivacao do direito a saude da crianca nas instâncias de saude judiciaria, com acento para o cuidado requerido no adoecimento de longo curso.

Avaliação da qualidade de ortoimagens do sensor PRISM/ALOS-2: estudo de caso para São Gabriel, RS, Brasil

IFN-γ–Induced Priming Maintains Long-Term Strain-Transcending Immunity against Blood-Stage Plasmodium chabaudi Malaria

The mechanism by which protective immunity to Plasmodium is lost in the absence of continued exposure to this parasite has yet to be fully elucidated. It has been recently shown that IFN-γ produced during human and murine acute malaria primes the immune response to TLR agonists. In this study, we investigated whether IFN-γ-induced priming is important to maintain long-term protective immunity against Plasmodium chabaudi AS malaria. On day 60 postinfection, C57BL/6 mice still had chronic parasitemia and efficiently controlled homologous and heterologous (AJ strain) challenge. The spleens of chronic mice showed augmented numbers of effector/effector memory (TEM) CD4(+) cells, which is associated with increased levels of IFN-γ-induced priming (i.e., high expression of IFN-inducible genes and TLR hyperresponsiveness). After parasite elimination, IFN-γ-induced priming was no longer detected and protective immunity to heterologous challenge was mostly lost with >70% mortality. Spontaneously cured mice had high serum levels of parasite-specific IgG, but effector T/TEM cell numbers, parasite-driven CD4(+) T cell proliferation, and IFN-γ production were similar to noninfected controls. Remarkably, the priming of cured mice with low doses of IFN-γ rescued TLR hyperresponsiveness and the capacity to control heterologous challenge, increasing the TEM cell population and restoring the CD4(+) T cell responses to parasites. Contribution of TLR signaling to the CD4(+) T cell responses in chronic mice was supported by data obtained in mice lacking the MyD88 adaptor. These results indicate that IFN-γ-induced priming is required to maintain protective immunity against P. chabaudi and aid in establishing the molecular basis of strain-transcending immunity in human malaria.

A Successful Campaign to Encourage Blood Cultures

We launched a campaign to encourage blood cultures at our hospital to enhance the quality of infectious disease diagnosis and treatment. To evaluate the eŠect of this campaign, surveys were conducted on patients hospitalized over a three-year period from 2009 to 2011 to investigate the number of blood cultures, the rate of positive results, contamination rates, and isolated bacteria. The number of blood cultures increased from 1,404 in 2009 to 1,631 in 2010 and 1,833 in 2011, and the number of culture sets taken annually for 1,000 patient-days increased from 9.2 to 11.4 and 13.3 sets, respectively. The rate of multiple blood culture sets of adults increased from 52.0 to 56.5 and 87.4. Contamination rates were reduced steadily from 4.1 to 3.4 and 2.4. Isolation rates of enteric bacteria went up from 21.8 to 28.5 and 33.9. A marked increase in the rate of multiple blood culture sets is considered to re‰ect growing awareness about its importance among clinicians on the strength of the infection control team's campaign. A decrease in contamination rates should re‰ect the eŠects of sampling training sessions, and creation of a sampling manual on electronic medical record terminals. Key wordscampaign to encourage blood cultures, rate of multiple blood culture sets, contamination rate

Unique decomposition for a polynomial of low rank

Let $F$ be a homogeneous polynomial of degree $d$ in $m+1$ variables definedover an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0 and suppose that $F$belongs to the $s$-th secant variety of the $d$-uple Veronese embedding of$\mathbb{P}^m$ into $ \PP {{m+d\choose d}-1}$ but that its minimaldecomposition as a sum of $d$-th powers of linear forms requires more than $s$addenda. We show that if $s\leq d$ then $F$ can be uniquely written as$F=M_1^d+\cdots + M_t^d+Q$, where $M_1, \ldots, M_t$ are linear forms with$t\leq (d-1)/2$, and $Q$ a binary form such that $Q=\sum_{i=1}^ql_i^{d-d_i}m_i$ with $l_i$'s linear forms and $m_i$'s forms of degree $d_i$such that $\sum (d_i+1)=s-t$.

Occurrence and natural history of Myrmelachista Roger (Formicidae: Formicinae) in the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil

Information on the biology of the species in Myrmelachista remains notably scarce. The objective of this study was to report the occurrence, analyze the influence of canopy cover on the number of nests in twigs in the litter describe behavioral characteristics of this genus. Hand sampling was performed on trees and twigs deposited in the litter. A total of 84 nests and seven species were found. Myrmelachista ruszkii and M. catharinae were the most frequent and abundant species. In trees, most of the nests were located at the ti ps of dry twigs, and these nests were probably the source of the nests found in the litter of fragments of Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil. Canopy cover is associated with the number of nests that were in twigs. © Sociedad de Biología de Chile

The Fresh Frozen Bone Allograft (FFBA) to Reconstruct the Atrophic Maxilla: Evaluation of the Clinical and Histological Viability at Six and Nine Months in the Maxillary Sinus

This work aimed to analyze clinically and histologically the allogen bone graft behavior at 6 and 9 months. A leukoderm, female, 55 years old patient sought dental care for oral rehabilitation with dental implants and implant supported fixed prosthesis in the maxilla. Bilateral sinus lifting procedure were performed in a same patient, the analysis were made after 6 and 9 months, respectively. At 6 months, there was lack of a better bone remodeling in the region, associated to the presence of fibrous connective tissue within the collected tissue, showing us that this is not the best stage of tissue maturation to place dental implants. The 9 months period showed an improvement, with a more organized bone tissue surrounding particles of homogenous bone, what possibly had increased implant stability at the time of surgery. There is no doubt about the increase of clinical applications of FFBA, but there are no studies available regarding the standardization of time to load implants inserted in allografts. So papers with long-term monitoring are necessary to eliminate questions that still remain to be answered.El objetivo fue analizar clínica e histológicamente el injerto óseo alógeno a los 6 y 9 meses. Una paciente sexo femenino, leucoderma de 55 años de edad consultó por atención odontológica para la rehabilitación oral con implantes y prótesis fija implanto soportada en el maxilar. Procedimientos de elevación del seno maxilar bilateralmente fueron realizados en la misma paciente, y se hicieron los análisis después del sexto y noveno mes, respectivamente. Al sexto mes, se observó una remodelación ósea deficiente de la región asociada a la presencia de tejido conectivo fibroso en el tejido analizado, demostrando que no era la mejor etapa de maduración óseo para instalar los implantes. Al noveno mes se observo una mejora, con un tejido óseo mas organizado rodeando partículas de hueso homogéneo, el cual posiblemente incrementaría la estabilidad del implante en el momento de la cirugía. No hay dudas respecto del incremento de aplicaciones clínicas del FFBA, pero no hay estudios capaces de estandarizar el tiempo de carga de los implantes instalados sobre aloinjertos. Investigaciones con seguimientos a largo plazo son necesarios para eliminar las preguntas que aun se mantienen sin respuesta