Infection dynamics and effective control strategies of tuberculosis in badgers and cattle in Ireland

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic inflammatory disease of cattle caused by infection with Mycobacterium bovis. In Ireland, a comprehensive control/eradication programme for M. bovis commenced in 1954, and by 1965, cattle incidence had been reduced by more than 95%. Despite this early and rapid success, the infection has remained relatively stable since. The inability to eradicate the disease by focusing on strategies that aimed at reducing cattle to cattle transmission suggested the presence of one or more reservoirs of the pathogen outside the cattle population. M. bovis was first isolated from a badger (Meles meles) in Ireland in 1974. Since then, a large amount of literature looking at different epidemiological aspects was dedicated to investigating the role of badgers in bTB maintenance. Evidence of the role of badgers as a disease-maintenance-host in areas of known cattle infection was gathered from the results of two large field studies carried in Ireland, the East Offaly and the four area projects. Following the proactive removal of badgers in some of the study areas, these studies demonstrated a significant reduction in cattle incidence in comparison to control areas where no badger removals were carried. In Ireland, badger culling commenced in 2000 as a short/medium term strategy to reduce the incidence of the infection in badgers, with the aim to achieve eradication in cattle. Nonetheless, there were expectations that BCG vaccination of badgers in the field, by helping to reduce M. bovis transmission in badgers and subsequently in the cattle population, would be the long term solution. In this thesis, a field trial enabling quantification of the efficacy of BCG vaccination on M. bovis transmission in badgers under field conditions was designed and analysed. Vaccine efficacy for susceptibility was estimated as VES=59% (95% CI =6.5%-82%) whereas vaccine efficacy for infectivity (VEI) was 0%, implying that there was a complete lack of effect from BCG vaccination on the infectivity of vaccinated and subsequently infected badgers. Also, the quantitative role of each of these two host species in the transmission of M. bovis within the system was assessed. Algorithms to estimate the Next Generation Matrix (NGM) and the reproduction ratio for the cattle-badger system were developed, and all plausible NGMs describing the transmission between the two species were calculated from prevalence data and the number of cattle herds and badgers, collected at the endemic steady state. Taking into account the results obtained for vaccine efficacy, and the reproduction ratios obtained, it was possible to demonstrate that for almost all these plausible transmission scenarios, BCG vaccination of badgers in addition to current controls could successfully achieve eradication of M. bovis infection in the system. Further, the small number of transmission scenarios where eradication of M. bovis from the system (by adding BCG badger vaccination to the current controls) was not feasible, were classified as highly unlikely to represent transmission in the field.</p

Hierarchy and Competition in CSCW applications: Model and case study

CSCW applications need to adapt themselves to the functional and organizational structures of people that use them. However they do not usually support division in groups with a certain hierarchical structure among them. In this paper, we propose and study a theoretical model of groupware appliations that reflects those hierarchical interactions. The proposed model is also intended to evaluate the effects in performance derived from competitive and collaborative relationships among the components of a hierarchy of groups. In order to demonstrate the above ideas, a groupware game, called Alymod, was designed and implemented using a modified version of a well-known CSCW Toolkit, namely Groupkit. Groupkit was modified in order to support group interactions in the same CSCW application. In Alymod, participants compete or collaborate within a hierarchical structure to achieve a common goal (completing gaps in a text, finishing numerical series, resolving University course examinations, etc.).Publicad

Ausencia de implicación de la cistatina C en el remodelado ventricular y la insuficiencia cardiaca

La cistatina C (CisC) es una proteasa codificada por genes de mantenimiento («housekeeping genes»). Aunque su valor pronóstico en la insuficiencia cardiaca (IC) es bien conocido, se debate si es debido a su mayor precisión en la estimación del filtrado glomerular, o a su implicación en el remodelado ventricular patológico. El propósito de este estudio fue comprobar si la expresión de CisC se modificaba en el miocardio de fetos de diferentes edades y en el de adultos con diversas enfermedades cardiovasculares, así como analizar la correlación entre sus concentraciones séricas y la estructura y morfología cardiaca en un grupo de pacientes con IC.Pacientes y métodosSe analizaron las correlaciones (test de Pearson y Spearman) entre la CisC sérica y los parámetros ecocardiográficos de 351 pacientes con IC. También se realizó una tinción inmunohistoquímica para CisC, metaloproteinasa 9 (MMP-9) y desmina en 9 muestras de tejido cardiaco procedentes de las autopsias de 4 fetos con diferente edad gestacional y 5 adultos sanos o con enfermedad cardiovascular.ResultadosEn pacientes con IC no se encontró correlación entre las concentraciones de CisC y los parámetros cardiacos medidos por ecocardiografía 2 D. La inmunohistoquímica mostró una débil tinción de fondo para CisC en todas las muestras, independientemente de la edad y la presencia o no de enfermedades cardiovasculares.ConclusionesNuestros resultados sugieren que la CisC no tiene un papel significativo en el remodelado patológico del ventrículo izquierdo en la IC. Cystatin C (CysC) is a protease encoded by housekeeping genes. Although its prognostic value in heart failure (HF) is well known, it is debatable whether this value is due to the greater accuracy of CysC in calculating the glomerular filtration rate or to its involvement in pathological ventricular remodelling. The aim of this study was to determine whether CysC expression changes in the myocardium of foetuses of different ages and in the myocardium of adults with various cardiovascular diseases, as well as to analyse the correlation between its serum concentrations and cardiac structure and morphology in a patient group with HF. Patients and methods We analysed the correlations (Pearson''s r and Spearman''s test) between the serum CysC levels and echocardiographic parameters of 351 patients with HF. We also performed immunohistochemical staining for CysC, metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and desmin in 9 cardiac tissue samples from autopsies of 4 foetuses of different gestational ages and 5 healthy adults or adults with cardiovascular disease. Results For the patients with HF, there was no correlation between the CysC concentrations and the cardiac parameters measured by 2 D echocardiography. The immunohistochemistry showed a weak background staining for CysC in all samples, regardless of age and the presence or absence of cardiovascular diseases. Conclusions Our results suggest that CysC does not have a significant role in the pathological remodelling of the left ventricle in HF

Dietary α‐Linolenic Acid, Marine ω‐3 Fatty Acids, and Mortality in a Population With High Fish Consumption: Findings From the PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea (PREDIMED) Study

Background: Epidemiological evidence suggests a cardioprotective role of α‐linolenic acid (ALA), a plant‐derived ω‐3 fatty acid. It is unclear whether ALA is beneficial in a background of high marine ω‐3 fatty acids (long‐chain n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) intake. In persons at high cardiovascular risk from Spain, a country in which fish consumption is customarily high, we investigated whether meeting the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids recommendation for dietary ALA (0.7% of total energy) at baseline was related to all‐cause and cardiovascular disease mortality. We also examined the effect of meeting the society's recommendation for long‐chain n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (≥500 mg/day). Methods and Results: We longitudinally evaluated 7202 participants in the PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea (PREDIMED) trial. Multivariable‐adjusted Cox regression models were fitted to estimate hazard ratios. ALA intake correlated to walnut consumption (r=0.94). During a 5.9‐y follow‐up, 431 deaths occurred (104 cardiovascular disease, 55 coronary heart disease, 32 sudden cardiac death, 25 stroke). The hazard ratios for meeting ALA recommendation (n=1615, 22.4%) were 0.72 (95% CI 0.56–0.92) for all‐cause mortality and 0.95 (95% CI 0.58–1.57) for fatal cardiovascular disease. The hazard ratios for meeting the recommendation for long‐chain n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n=5452, 75.7%) were 0.84 (95% CI 0.67–1.05) for all‐cause mortality, 0.61 (95% CI 0.39–0.96) for fatal cardiovascular disease, 0.54 (95% CI 0.29–0.99) for fatal coronary heart disease, and 0.49 (95% CI 0.22–1.01) for sudden cardiac death. The highest reduction in all‐cause mortality occurred in participants meeting both recommendations (hazard ratio 0.63 [95% CI 0.45–0.87]). Conclusions: In participants without prior cardiovascular disease and high fish consumption, dietary ALA, supplied mainly by walnuts and olive oil, relates inversely to all‐cause mortality, whereas protection from cardiac mortality is limited to fish‐derived long‐chain n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Clinical Trial Registration URL: http://www.Controlled-trials.com/. Unique identifier: ISRCTN35739639

Towards reusability and tailorability in collaborative learning systems using IMS-LD and grid services

CSCL applications are complex distributed systems that pose/nspecial requirements towards achieving success in educational/nsettings. Flexible and efficient design of collaborative activities/nby educators is a key precondition in order to provide CSCL tailorable systems, capable of adapting to the needs of each/nparticular learning environment. Furthermore, some parts of/nthose CSCL systems should be reused as often as possible in/norder to reduce development costs. In addition, it may be necessary to employ special hardware devices, computational resources that reside in other organizations, or even exceed the/npossibilities of one specific organization. Therefore, the/nproposal of this paper is twofold: collecting collaborative/nlearning designs (scripting) provided by educators, based on/nwell-known best practices (collaborative learning flow patterns) in a standard way (IMS-LD) in order to guide the tailoring of CSCL systems by selecting and integrating reusable CSCL software units; and, implementing those units in the form of grid services offered by third party providers. More specifically, this paper outlines a grid-based CSCL system having these features and illustrates its potential scope and applicability by means of a sample collaborative learning scenario