Comportamiento clínico, epidemiológico y uso de suero antiofídico BIOL, en el manejo de accidentes ofídico en hospitales de Chontales, Rio San Juan, Matagalpa y Jinotega, en el período de Enero a Agosto de 2013

Las mordeduras por serpientes constituyen algunas de las urgencias más importantes que se atienden en las unidades de salud de Nicaragua, el tratamiento clave para este tipo de lesiones es el suero antiofídico. Existen dos familias venenosas de serpientes, elapidaes o corales manejadas con suero anticoral, y familia Viperidaes tratadas con suero polivalente. El suero utilizado para Viperidaes tradicionalmente ha sido el suero del Instituto de Clodomiro Picado, pero recientemente se ha incluido un nuevo suero polivalente (BIOL) para el manejo de los mismos. Con el objetivo de determinar el comportamiento clínico, epidemiológico y uso del suero BIOL en mejorar el cuadro clínico, se realizó un estudio descriptivo de corte transversal, donde se analizaron datos recolectados de los expedientes clínicos de 70 pacientes, con antecedentes de accidentes ofídicos en los departamentos de Matagalpa, Jinotega, Chontales y Río San Juan, entre enero y agosto de 2013. La tasa de incidencia fue de 5.5 casos por 100,000 habitantes, con predominio en el sexo masculino (73%), en edades comprendidas entre 10 y 49 años(62%), realizaban en su mayoría labores agrícolas (32.8%). El género Bothrops asper fue el responsable del 71.4% de los casos. Del total de pacientes lesionados, el 71.4 % acudió por atención a los puestos y centros de salud de su comunidad o municipio, y a un 86 % de estos les fue suministrado suero antiveneno. Los cuadros clínicos más frecuentes al momento del ingreso al hospital fueron edema y dolor en la extremidad. A 38 pacientes se les suministró suero BIOL-CLB, 22 se clasificaron como envenenamiento leve (57.8 %), 12 pacientes en la categoría de envenenamiento moderado (31.6%) y 4 pacientes (10.5 %) en cuadro de envenenamiento severo. Una vez aplicado el suero hubo mejoría en los síntomas y en las determinaciones de laboratorio, además solamente 3 de 38 pacientes sufrieron algún tipo de reacción al suero, prurito generalizado y aumento de calo

Meeting irrigation demands in a water-challenged environment

Presented at Meeting irrigation demands in a water-challenged environment: SCADA and technology: tools to improve production: a USCID water management conference held on September 28 - October 1, 2010 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.Accurate estimates of spatially distributed evapotranspiration (ET) using remote sensing inputs could help improve crop water management, the assessment of regional drought conditions, irrigation efficiency, ground water depletion, and the verification of the use of water rights over large irrigated areas. In this study, ET was mapped using surface reflectance and radiometric temperature images from the Landsat 5 satellite in a surface energy budget algorithm driven by a surface aerodynamic temperature (SAT_ET) model. The SAT_ET model was developed using surface temperature, horizontal wind speed, air temperature and crop biophysical characteristic measured over an irrigated alfalfa field in Southeastern Colorado. Estimates of the remote sensing-based ET for a 4.0 hectare alfalfa field and a 3.5 hectare oats field, during the 2009 cropping season, were evaluated using two monolithic weighing lysimeters located at the Colorado State University Arkansas Valley Research Center (AVRC) in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Although the overall model performance was encouraging, results indicated that the SAT_ET model performed well under dry atmospheric and soil conditions and less accurately under high air relative humidity and soil water content conditions. These findings are evidence that SAT_ET needs to be further developed to perform better under a range of environmental and atmospheric conditions

SEROPREVALENCIA DE Neospora caninum EN BOVINOS LECHEROS CRIADOS AL PASTOREO EN LA PROVINCIA DE MELGAR, PUNO

El objetivo del presente estudio fue establecer la seroprevalencia de Neospora caninum en vacunos lecheros criados al pastoreo de la provincia de Melgar, Puno, mediante la detección de anticuerpos séricos por la técnica de inmunofluorescencia indirecta (IFI). Se evaluaron 419 sueros obtenidos en forma aleatoria de siete fundos ganaderos donde las prevalencias obtenidas variaron desde 4.0 ± 7.7% hasta 37.5 ± 11.9%. La prevalencia general fue considerada moderada (18.1 ± 3.7%). Todos los fundos presentaron, al menos, un animal seropositivo. La edad y el lugar de procedencia representaron factores de riesgo en la prevalencia de la infección.The aim of the current study was to assess the seroprevalence of Neospora caninum in grazing dairy cattle in the province of Melgar, Puno, through serum antibody detection using the immunofluorescence indirect technique (IFI). A total of 419 sera was obtained from seven herds. The seroprevalence varied from 4.0 ± 7.7% to 37.5 ± 11.9%, while the overall prevalence was 18.1 ± 3.7%, which was considered moderate. All herds showed at least one positive animal. Age and location showed to be a risk factor in the prevalence of the infection

Intercomparison of Nine Micrometeorological Stations during the BEAREX08 Field Campaign

Land–atmosphere interactions play a critical role in regulating numerous meteorological, hydrological, and environmental processes. Investigating these processes often requires multiple measurement sites representing a range of surface conditions. Before these measurements can be compared, however, it is imperative that the differences among the instrumentation systems are fully characterized. Using data collected as a part of the 2008 Bushland Evapotranspiration and Agricultural Remote Sensing Experiment (BEAREX08), measurements from nine collocated eddy covariance (EC) systems were compared with the twofold objective of 1) characterizing the interinstrument variation in the measurements, and 2) quantifying the measurement uncertainty associated with each system. Focusing on the three turbulent fluxes (heat, water vapor, and carbon dioxide), this study evaluated the measurement uncertainty using multiple techniques. The results of the analyses indicated that there could be substantial variability in the uncertainty estimates because of the advective conditions that characterized the study site during the afternoon and evening hours. However, when the analysis was limited to nonadvective, quasi-normal conditions, the response of the nine EC stations were remarkably similar. For the daytime period, both the method of Hollinger and Richardson and the method of Mann and Lenschow indicated that the uncertainty in the measurements of sensible heat, latent heat, and carbon dioxide flux were approximately 13 W m‒2, 27 W m‒2, and 0.10 mg m‒2 s‒1, respectively. Based on the results of this study, it is clear that advection can greatly increase the uncertainty associated with EC flux measurements. Since these conditions, as well as other phenomena that could impact the measurement uncertainty, are often intermittent, it may be beneficial to conduct uncertainty analyses on an ongoing basis

Surface Energy Balance Based Evapotranspiration Mapping in the Texas High Plains

Agriculture on the Texas High Plains (THP) uses approximately 89% of groundwater withdrawals from the Ogallala Aquifer. Consequently, groundwater levels are declining faster than the recharge rate. Therefore, efficient agricultural water use is essential for economic viability and sustainability of the THP. Accurate regional evapotranspiration (ET) maps would provide valuable information on actual crop water use. In this study, METRIC (Mapping Evapotranspiration at High Resolution using Internalized Calibration), a remote sensing based ET algorithm, was evaluated for mapping ET in the THP. Two Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper images acquired on 27 June (DOY 178) and 29 July (DOY 210) 2005 were used for this purpose. The performance of the ET model was evaluated by comparing the predicted daily ET with values derived from soil moisture budget at four commercial agricultural fields. Daily ET estimates resulted with a prediction error of 12.7±8.1% (mean bias error ± root mean square error) on DOY 178 and -4.7±9.4% on DOY 210 when compared with ET derived from measured soil moisture through the soil water balance. These results are good considering the prevailing advective conditions in the THP. METRIC have the potential to be used for mapping regional ET in the THP region. However, more evaluation is needed under different agroclimatological conditions

Evaluating the two-source energy balance model using local thermal and surface flux observations in a strongly advective irrigated agricultural area

Application and validation of many thermal remote sensing-based energy balance models involve the use of local meteorological inputs of incoming solar radiation, wind speed and air temperature as well as accurate land surface temperature (LST), vegetation cover and surface flux measurements. For operational applications at large scales, such local information is not routinely available. In addition, the uncertainty in LST estimates can be several degrees due to sensor calibration issues, atmospheric effects and spatial variations in surface emissivity. Time differencing techniques using multi-temporal thermal remote sensing observations have been developed to reduce errors associated with deriving the surface- air temperature gradient, particularly in complex landscapes. The Dual-Temperature-Difference (DTD) method addresses these issues by utilizing the Two-Source Energy Balance (TSEB) model of Norman et al. (1995) [1], and is a relatively simple scheme requiring meteorological input from standard synoptic weather station networks or mesoscale modeling. A comparison of the TSEB and DTD schemes is performed using LST and flux observations from eddy covariance (EC) flux towers and large weighing lysimeters (LYs) in irrigated cotton fields collected during BEAREX08, a large-scale field experiment conducted in the semi-arid climate of the Texas High Plains as described by Evett et al. (2012) [2]. Model output of the energy fluxes (i.e., net radiation, soil heat flux, sensible and latent heat flux) generated with DTD and TSEB using local and remote meteorological observations are compared with EC and LY observations. The DTD method is found to be significantly more robust in flux estimation compared to the TSEB using the remote meteorological observations. However, discrepancies between model and measured fluxes are also found to be significantly affected by the local inputs of LST and vegetation cover and the representativeness of the remote sensing observations with the local flux measurement footprint

Phenethyisoquinoline alkaloids from the leaves of Androcymbium palaestinum

Thirteen compounds were isolated from the methanolic extract of the leaves of Androcymbium palaestinum Baker (Colchicaceae). Of these, three were new, two were new natural products, and eight were known. The new isolated compounds were (+)-1-demethylandrocine (5), (−)-andropalaestine (8), and (+)-2-demethyl-β-lumicolchicone (10), while the new natural products were (+)-O-methylkreysigine-N-oxide (3) and (+)-O,O-dimethylautumnaline (9). Moreover, two known compounds are reported for the first time from this species, specifically (−)-colchicine (11) and (−)-3-demethyldemecolcine (13). The structures of the isolated compounds were elucidated using a series of spectroscopic and spectrometric techniques, principally HRESIMS, 1D-NMR (1H and 13C NMR) and 2D-NMR (COSY, edited-HSQC, and HMBC). ECD spectroscopy was used for assigning the absolute configurations of compounds 3, 5, and 10. The cytotoxic activities of the isolated compounds were evaluated using the MDA-MB-435 (melanoma), MDA-MB-231 (breast), and OVCAR3 (ovary) cancer cell lines. Compound 11 was the most potent against all tested cell lines, with IC50 values of 12, 95 and 23 nM, respectively.This research was supported, in part, by the Deanship of Research, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan (Grant No. 258/2017) and the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA via P01 CA125066. We thank Dr. L. Flores Bocanegra, J. M. Gallagher, Z. Y. Al Subeh, and Dr. N. D. Paguigan from UNCG for technical help and valuable suggestions. This work was performed in part at the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, a member of the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC) and National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant ECCS-1542174)