Does HIV status confer a higher risk of acquiring COVID-19? Using Clinical Decision Science to combat patients’ anxiety

A clinical decision report using del Amo J, Polo R, Moreno S, et al. “Incidence and Severity of COVID-19 in HIV-Positive Persons Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy.” Annals of Internal Medicine. 2020;173(7):536-541. doi.org/10.7326/m20-3689 for a patient with HIV and concerns about COVID-19 for immunocompromised individuals

Streptococcus cristatus bacteremia in a patient with poor oral hygiene: a case report

BACKGROUND: Streptococcus cristatus is a member of the Mitis streptococcus group. Like other members of this group, it resides on mucosal surfaces of the oral cavity. However, little is known about its ability to cause disease as there are only a handful of cases in the literature. Two of these cases involved infective endocarditis with significant complications. However, these cases involved additional microbes, limiting the inferences about the pathogenicity of Streptococcus cristatus. CASE PRESENTATION: A 59-year-old African American male with end-stage cryptogenic cirrhosis and ascites presented with fatigue and confusion. A paracentesis was negative for spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, but two separate blood cultures grew Streptococcus cristatus. Our patient had a history of dental caries and poor oral hygiene, which were likely the source of the infection. Echocardiograms revealed new aortic regurgitation, indicating possible endocarditis per the Modified Duke Criteria. However, since his clinical picture and cardiac function were reassuring, we elected against treatment for infective endocarditis. He was treated for bacteremia with a 2-week course of cephalosporins consisting of 8 days of ceftriaxone, transitioning to cefpodoxime after discharge. Despite having end-stage liver disease, our patient did not experience any significant complications from the infection. CONCLUSION: A patient with end-stage cirrhosis and poor oral hygiene developed bacteremia with an oral bacterium called Streptococcus cristatus. Unlike previous cases in literature, our patient did not meet criteria for a definitive diagnosis of infective endocarditis, and he experienced no other complications from the infection. This suggests coinfectants may have been primarily responsible for the severe cardiac sequelae in prior cases, whereas isolated Streptococcus cristatus infection may be relatively mild

Streptococcus cristatus – an oral bacterium causing a case of mild bacteremia and “possible endocarditis”

Streptococcus cristatus is a member of the Mitis streptococcus group. Like other members of this group, it resides in mucosal surfaces of the oral cavity but rarely causes disease. We present a case of S. cristatus bacteremia and “possible endocarditis” (per the modified Duke criteria) in a 59-year-old male suffering from end- stage cryptogenic cirrhosis. To date, it is the fifth reported case of disease caused by the microbe, and the first adult case in which S. cristatus was the sole microbe identified. Our patient had a history of dental caries and poor dentition, which were likely the source of the infection. Despite having end-stage liver disease, our patient did not suffer serious complications from the infection, which contradicts previous cases that resulted in severe endocarditis. Our patient was successfully treated with ceftriaxone, whereas the only other case involving ceftriaxone resulted in treatment failure

Deriving Inverse Operators for Modal Logic

International audienceSpatial constraint systems are algebraic structures from concurrent constraint programming to specify spatial and epistemic behavior in multi-agent systems. We shall use spatial constraint systems to give an abstract characterization of the notion of normality in modal logic and to derive right inverse/reverse operators for modal languages. In particular, we shall identify the weakest condition for the existence of right inverses and show that the abstract notion of normality corresponds to the preservation of finite suprema. We shall apply our results to existing modal languages such as the weakest normal modal logic, Hennessy-Milner logic, and linear-time temporal logic. We shall discuss our results in the context of modal concepts such as bisimilarity and inconsistency invariance

Evaluation of the development plan with a territorial approach to the macarena-guaviare subregion as a mechanism to counter deforestation

Esta investigación expone inicialmente el contexto de cómo el conflicto armado en Colombia ha contribuido en la problemática de deforestación que se presenta a nivel general en el país, luego de ello se explica los términos generales bajo los cuales se desarrollan los planes de desarrollo con enfoque territorial (PDET) como producto del primer punto del acuerdo de paz con la guerrilla de las FARC asociado a la reforma rural integral, acto seguido se muestran los municipios que dentro de la región Macarena – Guaviare presentan mayores núcleos de deforestación exponiendo algunas de sus causas en la actualidad, posteriormente se exhibe lo planteado en el PDET para esta región, específicamente en su Plan de Acción para la Transformación Regional y los Pactos Municipales para la Transformación Regional desglosando las iniciativas que fueron planteadas y que pueden llegar a ser de utilidad tanto para prevenir como para mitigar la deforestación, teniendo como énfasis 3 de los 8 pilares que componen los PDET debido a su estrecha relación con el manejo de recursos naturales, exponiendo su idoneidad, debilidades y fortalezas, por último se anuncia brevemente las condiciones actuales bajo las cuales actores armados en la región siguen siendo promotores de frentes de deforestación y de algunas recomendaciones generales producto de todo el proceso investigativo.This research initially exposes the context of how the armed conflict in Colombia has contributed to the deforestation problem that occurs at a general level in the country, after which the general terms under which development plans with a territorial approach are developed are explained. (PDET) as a product of the first point of the peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla associated with comprehensive rural reform, the municipalities that within the Macarena - Guaviare region show the greatest nuclei of deforestation are exposed immediately after exposing some of their causes in Currently, what is set out in the PDET for this region is subsequently exhibited, specifically in its Action Plan for Regional Transformation and the Municipal Pacts for Regional Transformation, breaking down the initiatives that were raised and that can be useful both in preventing as to mitigate deforestation, having as emphasis 3 of the 8 pillars that com put the PDETs due to their close relationship with natural resource management, exposing their suitability, weaknesses and strengths, lastly the current conditions under which armed actors in the region continue to be promoters of deforestation fronts and some recommendations are briefly announced general products of the entire investigative process.Especializació

A Comparative Analysis of Weed Images Classification Approaches in Vegetables Crops

This paper exposes a comparative analysis of three weed classification strategies based on area and texture features over images of vegetable crops, focus on provide a technological tool to support farmers in their maintenance tasks. The classification alternatives embrace a basic approach which defines an umbral according to scene features, indeed, a detection with a certain degree of uncertainty on the decision region is purposed and a rigid boundary decision arrangement are exposed. A first mode carry out an unsupervised learning, it uses area and color features with a practical thresholding classifier to differentiate between weed and vegetable classes, the following two, extracts statistical measures of autocorrelation, contrast, correlation and others, from grey level co-occurrence matrices to calculate texture features, next, a principal component analysis is made for dimensionality reduction. These patterns serve as basis for training K-Nearest Neighbor and Support Vector Machine classifiers. The algorithms performance is measured calculating sensitivity (SN), specificity (SP), positive and negative predicted values (PPV and NPV), also, the execution time is stored and tabulated in order to evaluate the proposed methods. Finally, the results show a similar performance of correct classification over 90 and 80% on SN and SP indices respectively, however, approaches present a clear difference in execution time respect of train an evaluation stages.This paper exposes a comparative analysis of three weed classification strategies based on area and texture features over images of vegetable crops, focus on provide a technological tool to support farmers in their maintenance tasks. The classification alternatives embrace a basic approach which defines an umbral according to scene features, indeed, a detection with a certain degree of uncertainty on the decision region is purposed and a rigid boundary decision arrangement are exposed. A first mode carry out an unsupervised learning, it uses area and color features with a practical thresholding classifier to differentiate between weed and vegetable classes, the following two, extracts statistical measures of autocorrelation, contrast, correlation and others, from grey level co-occurrence matrices to calculate texture features, next, a principal component analysis is made for dimensionality reduction. These patterns serve as basis for training K-Nearest Neighbor and Support Vector Machine classifiers. The algorithms performance is measured calculating sensitivity (SN), specificity (SP), positive and negative predicted values (PPV and NPV), also, the execution time is stored and tabulated in order to evaluate the proposed methods. Finally, the results show a similar performance of correct classification over 90 and 80% on SN and SP indices respectively, however, approaches present a clear difference in execution time respect of train an evaluation stages

Viral Zoonoses That Fly with Bats: A Review

Emerging infectious diseases are a growing threat to human health and a great challenge for global medical attention systems. Governmental agencies in tropical regions with abundant zoonotic pathogens should implement an active vigilance/monitoring model in bat reservoir populations because of their species richness, abundance and dispersal capabilities. Chiropterans represent approximately 20% of all mammal species, the second largest order in terms of number of species after rodents. Importantly, bats constitute natural reservoirs for potential infection of humans of several infectious disease agents such as Coronavirus, Filovirus, Lyssavirus, Paramyxovirus, and Flavivirus. Local disease outbreaks caused by new pathogens can expand globally as a result of human intrusion on wildlife ecosystems and subsequent dispersion of pathogens facilitated by international travel—for example, what happened in 2003 during the severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic (SARS). At this time, it is not possible to predict which pathogen will cross the species barrier in the future. Nonetheless, a better understanding of a holistic transmission process could help the design of strategies to prevent and control of future pandemics. In this work, we present a summary of the potential societal (economic and epidemiological) effect of disease outbreaks of virus families associated with bats, and the preventive and control measures that could be anticipated

Viral Zoonoses That Fly with Bats: A Review

Emerging infectious diseases are a growing threat to human health and a great challenge for global medical attention systems. Governmental agencies in tropical regions with abundant zoonotic pathogens should implement an active vigilance/monitoring model in bat reservoir populations because of their species richness, abundance and dispersal capabilities. Chiropterans represent approximately 20% of all mammal species, the second largest order in terms of number of species after rodents. Importantly, bats constitute natural reservoirs for potential infection of humans of several infectious disease agents such as Coronavirus, Filovirus, Lyssavirus, Paramyxovirus, and Flavivirus. Local disease outbreaks caused by new pathogens can expand globally as a result of human intrusion on wildlife ecosystems and subsequent dispersion of pathogens facilitated by international travel—for example, what happened in 2003 during the severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic (SARS). At this time, it is not possible to predict which pathogen will cross the species barrier in the future. Nonetheless, a better understanding of a holistic transmission process could help the design of strategies to prevent and control of future pandemics. In this work, we present a summary of the potential societal (economic and epidemiological) effect of disease outbreaks of virus families associated with bats, and the preventive and control measures that could be anticipated

Análisis y comparación de topologías de PLL para sistemas monofásicos

En este artículo se presenta una revisión de tres topologías de PLL monofásicos de referencia de marco sincrónico. Se sugiere un procedimiento de diseño para el controlador de lazo interno de los PLL. Se analiza el desfase constante existente entre el ángulo obtenido por PLL y el ángulo de fase de la señal de entrada. Se realizan algunas comparaciones de comportamiento de tres topologías mediante simulación ante una señal de entrada de bus AC con y sin distorsión armónica

A Strong Contractile Actin Fence and Large Adhesions Direct Human Pluripotent Colony Morphology and Adhesion

Cell-type-specific functions and identity are tightly regulated by interactions between the cell cytoskeleton and the extracellular matrix (ECM). Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have ultimate differentiation capacity and exceptionally low-strength ECM contact, yet the organization and function of adhesion sites and associated actin cytoskeleton remain poorly defined. We imaged hPSCs at the cell-ECM interface with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy and discovered that adhesions at the colony edge were exceptionally large and connected by thick ventral stress fibers. The actin fence encircling the colony was found to exert extensive Rho-ROCK-myosin-dependent mechanical stress to enforce colony morphology, compaction, and pluripotency and to define mitotic spindle orientation. Remarkably, differentiation altered adhesion organization and signaling characterized by a switch from ventral to dorsal stress fibers, reduced mechanical stress, and increased integrin activity and cell-ECM adhesion strength. Thus, pluripotency appears to be linked to unique colony organization and adhesion structure.Peer reviewe