High prevalence of HPV 18 and multiple infections with oncogenic HPV genotypes in women at risk of cervical cancer examined in Manaus, Brazil

Cervical cancer is a serious public health problem in Brazil, especially in Manaus (Amazonas), the city with the highest incidence rate of cervical cancer in the country. Persistent infection with oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes is the cause of disease development. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of oncogenic genotypes in women at high risk for cervical precancer examined in two policlinics in Manaus. One hundred and two patients who underwent colposcopy took part in the research. The DNA samples obtained from the cervical epithelium were analyzed by PCR with type-specific primers for the detection of eight oncogenic genotypes, which were chosen based on previous studies. The presence of HPV virus was detected in all samples. The most prevalent oncogenic genotypes were 18 (47.1%) and 16 (45.1%). Interestingly, HPV 18 was considered uncommon in this region. In addition to these, genotypes 31 (19.6%), 58 (19.6%), 33 (18.6%), and 45 (15.7%) also had a relatively high frequency in this population. Fifty-six women (54.9%) had multiple infections with up to five oncogenic types. Also, the presence of genotypes other than 16 and 18 was observed in most samples (57.8%), which also deserves attention since they are not covered by currently available vaccines against HPV in Brazil. The high prevalence and multiple infections with several oncogenic HPV genotypes in association with precursor lesions for cervical cancer highlighted the need to improve strategies to prevent this disease in Amazonas

Solvable Models of Domain Walls in N=1 Supergravity

A class of exactly solvable models of domain walls are worked out in D=4 ${\cal N}=1$ supergravity. We develop a method to embed globally supersymmetric theories with exact BPS domain wall solutions into supergravity, by introducing a gravitationally deformed superpotential. The gravitational deformation is natural in the spirit of maintaining the K\"ahler invariance. The solutions of the warp factor and the Killing spinor are also obtained. We find that three distinct behaviors of warp factors arise depending on the value of a constant term in the superpotential : exponentially decreasing in both sides of the wall, flat in one side and decreasing in the other, and increasing in one side and decreasing in the other. Only the first possibility gives the localized massless graviton zero mode. Models with multi-walls and models with runaway vacua are also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; Misprints in three formulas are correcte

Indicadores das condições nutricionais na região Polonoroeste: V. Desnutrição protéico-energética e parasitoses intestinais em um grupo de crianças de 3 a 72 meses de idade da cidade de Mirassol D'Oeste, Mato Grosso, Brasil

Este trabalho tem por objetivo caracterizar a desnutrição protéico-energética associada a parasitose intestinal em grupo de 149 crianças de ambos os sexos, na faixa etária de 3 a 72 meses, da cidade de Mirassol D'Oeste, na região do Projeto Polonoroeste em Mato Grosso. De cada criança foram coletados os seguintes dados: sexo, peso, idade e amostra de fezes para exame parasitológico. Os dados peso/idade obtidos foram analisados pelos critérios de GOMEZ. Utilizou-se como padrão de referência o National Center for Health Statistic (NCHS). Para diagnóstico dos parasitas intestinais executou-se o método de Hoffman, Pons e Janer. O grupo estudado constitui-se em sua maioria de crianças desnutridas, sendo a forma leve de desnutrição mais comum que as formas moderada e grave. As enteroparasitoses foram encontradas em 69% das amostras examinadas. A "Giardia lamblia" foi o protozoário mais comum e o "Ancilostomídeo" o helminto mais encontrado. O teste X² não mostrou relação de dependência entre o estado nutricional e a freqüência de enteroparasitoses

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

GW190814: gravitational waves from the coalescence of a 23 solar mass black hole with a 2.6 solar mass compact object

We report the observation of a compact binary coalescence involving a 22.2–24.3 Me black hole and a compact object with a mass of 2.50–2.67 Me (all measurements quoted at the 90% credible level). The gravitational-wave signal, GW190814, was observed during LIGO’s and Virgo’s third observing run on 2019 August 14 at 21:10:39 UTC and has a signal-to-noise ratio of 25 in the three-detector network. The source was localized to 18.5 deg2 at a distance of - + 241 45 41 Mpc; no electromagnetic counterpart has been confirmed to date. The source has the most unequal mass ratio yet measured with gravitational waves, - + 0.112 0.009 0.008, and its secondary component is either the lightest black hole or the heaviest neutron star ever discovered in a double compact-object system. The dimensionless spin of the primary black hole is tightly constrained to �0.07. Tests of general relativity reveal no measurable deviations from the theory, and its prediction of higher-multipole emission is confirmed at high confidence. We estimate a merger rate density of 1–23 Gpc−3 yr−1 for the new class of binary coalescence sources that GW190814 represents. Astrophysical models predict that binaries with mass ratios similar to this event can form through several channels, but are unlikely to have formed in globular clusters. However, the combination of mass ratio, component masses, and the inferred merger rate for this event challenges all current models of the formation and mass distribution of compact-object binaries

Structural characterization of the minimal segment of TDP-43 competent for aggregation

TDP-43 is a nuclear protein whose abnormal aggregates are implicated in ALS and FTLD. Recently, an Asn/Gln rich C-terminal segment of TDP-43 has been shown to produce aggregation in vitro and reproduce most of the protein's pathological hallmarks in cells, but little is known about this segment's structure. Here, CD and 2D heteronuclear NMR spectroscopies provide evidence that peptides corresponding to the wild type and mutated sequences of this segment adopt chiefly disordered conformations that, in the case of the wild type sequence, spontaneously forms a β-sheet rich oligomer. Moreover, MD simulation provides evidence for a structure consisting of two β-strands and a well-defined, yet non-canonical structural element. Furthermore, MD simulations of four pathological mutations (Q343R, N345K, G348V and N352S) occurring in this segment predict that all of them could affect this region's structure. In particular, the Q343R variant tends to stabilize disordered conformers, N345K permits the formation of longer, more stable β-strands, and G348V tends to shorten and destabilize them. Finally, N352S acts to alter the β-stand register and when S352 is phosphorylated, it induces partial unfolding. Our results provide a better understanding of TDP-43 aggregation process and will be useful to design effectors capable to modulate its progression. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Peer Reviewe