Transitions of cardio-metabolic risk factors in the Americas between 1980 and 2014

Describing the prevalence and trends of cardiometabolic risk factors that are associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is crucial for monitoring progress, planning prevention, and providing evidence to support policy efforts. We aimed to analyse the transition in body-mass index (BMI), obesity, blood pressure, raised blood pressure, and diabetes in the Americas, between 1980 and 2014

Doenças de bovinos no Sul do Brasil: 6.706 casos

As doenças que acometem bovinos na região Sul do Brasil foram analisadas através de um estudo dos protocolos de necropsia de 6.706 bovinos examinados pelo Laboratório de Patologia Veterinária da Universidade Federal de Santa (LPV-UFSM), Rio Grande do Sul, de 1964-2008. Desses, 20,9% foram necropsias realizadas no LPV-UFSM e 79,1% foram amostras de tecidos submetidos por veterinários de campo. Dos 6.706 exames, 62,9% tinham diagnóstico conclusivo. A autólise ou material insuficiente foram as principais razões para a ocorrência de casos com diagnóstico inconclusivo. A intoxicação por Senecio spp. foi a principal causa de morte de bovinos neste estudo. As plantas tóxicas e as toxiinfecções juntas, responderam por 22,8% dos casos com diagnóstico conclusivo. As doenças inflamatórias e as parasitoses juntas contribuíram com mais de 30% das doenças de bovinos e a tristeza parasitária bovina foi a principal doença nessa categoria. As demais categorias distribuíram-se na seguinte ordem: neoplasmas e lesões tumoriformes (13,87%), doenças causadas por agentes físicos (2,7%), doenças metabólicas e nutricionais (2,46%), distúrbios circulatórios (1,4%), doenças degenerativas (1,1%), distúrbios do desenvolvimento (0,54%), distúrbios iatrogênicos (0,16%), distúrbios imunogênicos (0,19%) e, outros distúrbios (0,21%). A alta prevalência de tumores em bovinos foi atribuída a ingestão crônica de Pteridium aquilinum, uma toxicose comum na região. As principais doenças de bovinos na região estudada estão relacionadas a fatores ambientais resultante do manejo característico de criação predominantemente extensiva adotado na região.The diseases affecting cattle in southern Brazil were studied through a review of the necropsy reports filed at the Laboratório de Patologia Veterinária of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (LPV-UFSM), Rio Grande do Sul, and pertaining to the examination of 6.076 cattle during 1964-2008. Of those exams 29.9% were necropsies performed at the LPV-UFSM and 79.1% were mailed-in organ fragments from necropsies performed at the field by veterinary practitioners. Autolysis and non-representative sampling o mailed in organs were the main reasons for non-conclusive diagnosis. Poisoning by Senecio spp. was the main cause of death in cattle in this study and poisonous plants together with toxi-infections accounted for 22.8% of the cases with conclusive diagnosis. Inflammatory diseases together with parasitic diseases accounted for more than 30% of cattle diseases and babesiosis and anaplasmosis were the main diseases in this category. Other categories were distributed in the following order: neoplasms and tumor-like lesions (13.87%), diseases caused by physical agents (2.7%), metabolic and nutritional diseases (2.46%), circulatory disturbances (1.4%), degenerative diseases (1.1%), developmental disorders (0.54%), iatrogenic diseases and sundry lesions. The high prevalence of tumors in cattle in this study was attributed to the chronic ingestion of Pteridium aquilinum, a common toxicosis in the region. The main diseases in cattle from the studied region are related to environmental factors associated to the predominantly husbandry practices adopted in the region

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

Healthy Eating Index: Evaluation Of Adapted Version And Its Applicability [Índice De Qualidade Da Dieta: Avaliação Da Adaptação E Aplicabilidade]

Objective: This study was to adapt and to applied the U.S.A.'s Healthy Eating Index to evaluate the diet quality of individuals (n=50) residing in Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil. Methods: The food intake was measured by the 24-hour dietary recall method, and evaluated by an adapted Healthy Eating Index. The index was obtained by a score of the distribution of the ten components of the considered healthy diet. Results: The mean Healthy Eating Index was 51,5; it was found that 12 percent of individuals had "good" diets; 74 percent, had diets that "needed improvement"; and 14 percent, had "poor" diets. There were a negative and significant correlation (p<0,05) between the Healthy Eating Index and the total dietary fat, fatty acids, cholesterol and sodium. The mean retinol and fiber intakes, presented a positive and significant correlation with the Healthy Eating Index. Conclusion: The results showed that the use of Healthy Eating Index in a target population is feasible.173301308Willet, W.C., (1998) Nutritional Epidemiology. 2nd Ed., , New York: Oxford University Press(1990) Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases: Report of a WHO Study Group, , Study Group on Diet, Nutrition and Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases. Geneva: World Health OrganizationBurr, M.L., Antioxidants and cancer (1994) J Hum Nutr Diet, 7, pp. 409-416Flagg, E.W., Coates, R.J., Greenberg, R.S., Epidemiologic studies of antioxidants and cancer in humans (1995) J Am Coll Nutr, 14, pp. 419-427Mertz, W., Foods and nutrients (1984) J Am Diet Assoc, 84, pp. 769-770Popkin, B.M., Nutritional patterns and transitions (1993) Popul Dev Rev, 19, pp. 138-157Estudo multicêntrico sobre consumo alimentar (1997) Cad Deb, , Volume especialMondini, L., Monteiro, C.A., Mudanças no padrão de alimentação (1995) Velhos e Novos Males da Saúde no Brasil, pp. 79-89. , Monteiro CA, organizador. São Paulo: HucitecKennedy, E.T., Ohls, J., Carlson, S., Fleming, K., The Healthy Eating Index: Design and applications (1995) J Am Diet Assoc, 95, pp. 1103-1109Bowman, A.S., Lino, M., Gerrior, A.S., Basiotis, P.P., (1998) The Healthy Eating Index: 1994-96, , http://www.USDA.gov/fcs/cnpp.htm, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. CNPP-5. [online] [cited 2000 Dec 15]Thompson, F.E., Byers, T., Dietary assessment resource manual (1994) J Nutr, 124 (SUPPL.), pp. 2245-2317Philippi, S.T., Latterza, A.R., Cruz, A.T.R., Ribeiro, L.C., Pirâmide alimentar adaptada: Guia para escolha dos alimentos (1999) Rev Nutr, 12, pp. 65-80(1995) Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, , Washington, DC: U.S. Dept of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service(1989) Diet and Health: Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk, , Committe On Diet And Health. Washington: National Academy PressPatterson, R.E., Haines, P.S., Popkin, B.M., Diet Quality Index capturing a multidimensional behavior (1994) J Am Diet Assoc, 94, pp. 57-64Haines, P.S., Siega-Riz, A.M., Popkin, B.M., The Diet Quality Index revised: A measurement instrument for populations (1999) J Am Diet Assoc, 99, pp. 697-704Hann, C.S., Rock, C.L., King, I., Drewnowski, A., Validation of the Healthy Eating Index with use of plasma biomarkers in a clinical sample of women (2001) Am J Clin Nutr, 74, pp. 479-486(2000) Consumo de Alimentos de Risco e Proteção para Doenças Cardiovasculares Entre Funcionários Públicos Estaduais do Município de São Paulo, , [dissertação]. São Paulo: Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São PauloRego, R.A., Fatores de risco para doenças crônicas não transmissíveis: Inquérito domiciliar no Município de São Paulo, SP (Brasil): Metodologia e resultados preliminares (1990) Rev Saude Publica, 24, pp. 277-28