Patógenos respiratórios frequentes em casos de infecções do trato respiratório em crianças de creche

OBJETIVOS: Identificar e caracterizar os vírus respiratórios que acometeram crianças de creche que apresentavam sintomas de infecção respiratória e avaliar a associação dos dados clínicos e epidemiológicos da doença com os vírus identificados. MÉTODOS: O estudo foi realizado entre os anos de 2003 e 2005 com 176 crianças que apresentavam sintomas de infecção respiratória e frequentavam uma creche municipal. Amostras de secreção nasofaríngea foram testadas por meio da técnica de reação em cadeia da polimerase com transcrição reversa e as amostras positivas para picornavírus foram sequenciadas. RESULTADOS: Todas as 782 amostras coletadas foram analisadas, e 31,8% foram positivas para algum dos vírus respiratórios estudados. As infecções respiratórias foram caracterizadas pela presença de sintomas moderados do trato respiratório superior, sendo os mais comuns coriza e tosse. Em 2 anos de estudo, a maioria dos casos de infecção ocorreram no outono e no inverno, mas vírus respiratórios foram detectados ao longo de todo o período de estudo. CONCLUSÕES: Vírus respiratórios e as infecções respiratórias causadas por eles fazem parte do cotidiano de crianças que frequentam creches. Nossos resultados mostram o grande impacto gerado pelas infecções respiratórias nessas crianças e sugere que uma maior atenção deve ser dispensada aos patógenos virais

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data