Translating environments

Far from being inert materials activated by human ingenuity, natural resources come to be made and unmade through ongoing processes of translation, through which they acquire new potentialities and meanings. In this introduction, we review the key concept of translation for anthropology and explore some of its multiple analytical possibilities in the context of human-environment relations. Based on insights offered by the articles in this collection, we propose a twofold definition of environments as both translating subjects and objects of translation. In grounding our analytical definition, we focus on the enactment of material transformations (as the result of both relations of mutual determination with humans and processes of objectification of the environment), the implications of incommensurability and erasure in processes of (attempted) translation, and the indeterminacy that accompanies (re)configurations of materials, relations and values

La centralità costante, nascosta e pervasiva del lavoro infermieristico nel Servizio Sanitario Nazionale: Protocollo di studio ENLIGHT- IT

Introduzione Nel contesto sanitario attuale, l’analisi dei costi è incentrata principalmente sulle pratiche di natura medica attraverso il sistema Diagnosis Related Group (DRG). Questo sistema non tiene in considerazione i costi specifici dell’assistenza infermieristica. Obiettivi Il protocollo descrive uno studio che si porrà come obiettivo quello di Individuare e valutare le attività infermieristiche “sommerse” ma pervasive, nelle degenze ospedaliere, negli ambulatori a gestione infermieristica e nei percorsi “See & Treat”, attraverso un confronto dell’erogato assistenziale con il sistema di rimborso dei Diagnosis Related Group (DRG). Materiali e metodi Il protocollo descrive uno studio osservazionale multicentrico che raccoglierà i dati delle prestazioni assistenziali erogate ai pazienti ricoverati in ospedale e ai pazienti assistiti negli ambulatori a gestione infermieristica e nei percorsi “See & Treat”. Lo studio sulle degenze ospedaliere sarà condotto con un disegno retrospettivo attraverso l’analisi dei dati di pazienti presi in carico in ambito medico e chirurgico reperiti dalla scheda di dimissione ospedaliera e dalla cartella infermieristica. Si ipotizza di poter raccogliere i dati retrospettivi dell’assistenza nelle degenze ospedaliere, data la presenza in molti ospedali di sistemi informatizzati che potrebbero consentire l’accessibilità ai dati. Lo studio sugli ambulatori a gestione infermieristica e sui percorsi “See & Treat” sarà condotto attraverso l’analisi retrospettiva e prospettica delle prestazioni assistenziali e della percezione del contesto organizzativo degli infermieri afferenti alle suddette strutture. Questi dati saranno raccolti su documentazione cartacea. Discussione e conclusioni L’applicazione di questo protocollo di ricerca potrebbe fornire dati utili ai fini della programmazione e la distribuzione economica delle risorse all’interno delle organizzazioni sanitarie

Cross-Talk between Signaling Pathways Can Generate Robust Oscillations in Calcium and cAMP

BACKGROUND:To control and manipulate cellular signaling, we need to understand cellular strategies for information transfer, integration, and decision-making. A key feature of signal transduction is the generation of only a few intracellular messengers by many extracellular stimuli. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Here we model molecular cross-talk between two classic second messengers, cyclic AMP (cAMP) and calcium, and show that the dynamical complexity of the response of both messengers increases substantially through their interaction. In our model of a non-excitable cell, both cAMP and calcium concentrations can oscillate. If mutually inhibitory, cross-talk between the two second messengers can increase the range of agonist concentrations for which oscillations occur. If mutually activating, cross-talk decreases the oscillation range, but can generate 'bursting' oscillations of calcium and may enable better filtering of noise. CONCLUSION:We postulate that this increased dynamical complexity allows the cell to encode more information, particularly if both second messengers encode signals. In their native environments, it is unlikely that cells are exposed to one stimulus at a time, and cross-talk may help generate sufficiently complex responses to allow the cell to discriminate between different combinations and concentrations of extracellular agonists

Epidemiology of chronic kidney disease in children

In the past 30 years there have been major improvements in the care of children with chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, most of the available epidemiological data stem from end-stage renal disease (ESRD) registries and information on the earlier stages of pediatric CKD is still limited. The median reported incidence of renal replacement therapy (RRT) in children aged 0–19 years across the world in 2008 was 9 per million of the age-related population (4–18 years). The prevalence of RRT in 2008 ranged from 18 to 100 per million of the age-related population. Congenital disorders, including congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT) and hereditary nephropathies, are responsible for about two thirds of all cases of CKD in developed countries, while acquired causes predominate in developing countries. Children with congenital disorders experience a slower progression of CKD than those with glomerulonephritis, resulting in a lower proportion of CAKUT in the ESRD population compared with less advanced stages of CKD. Most children with ESRD start on dialysis and then receive a transplant. While the survival rate of children with ERSD has improved, it remains about 30 times lower than that of healthy peers. Children now mainly die of cardiovascular causes and infection rather than from renal failure

Move acceptance in local search metaheuristics for cross-domain search

Metaheuristics provide high-level instructions for designing heuristic optimisation algorithms and have been successfully applied to a range of computationally hard real-world problems. Local search metaheuristics operate under a single-point based search framework with the goal of iteratively improving a solution in hand over time with respect to a single objective using certain solution perturbation strategies, known as move operators, and move acceptance methods starting from an initially generated solution. Performance of a local search method varies from one domain to another, even from one instance to another in the same domain. There is a growing number of studies on `more general' search methods referred to as cross-domain search methods, or hyperheuristics, that operate at a high-level solving characteristically different problems, preferably without expert intervention. This paper provides a taxonomy and overview of existing local search metaheuristics along with an empirical study into the effects that move acceptance methods, as components of singlepoint based local search metaheuristics, have on the cross-domain performance of such algorithms for solving multiple combinatorial optimisation problems. The experimental results across a benchmark of nine different computationally hard problems highlight the shortcomings of existing and well-known methods for use as components of cross-domain search methods, despite being re-tuned for solving each domain

The gut microbiome of solitary bees is mainly affected by pathogen assemblage and partially by land use

Pollinators, including solitary bees, are drastically declining worldwide. Among the factors contributing to this decline, bee pathogens and different land uses are of relevance. The link between the gut microbiome composition and host health has been recently studied for social pollinators (e.g. honeybees), whereas the information related to solitary bees is sparse. This work aimed at the characterization of the gut microbiome of the solitary bees Xylocopa augusti, Eucera fervens and Lasioglossum and attempted to correlate the gut microbial composition with the presence and load of different pathogens and land uses. Solitary bees were sampled in different sites (i.e. a farm, a natural reserve, and an urban plant nursery) showing different land uses. DNA was extracted from the gut, 16S rRNA gene amplified and sequenced. Eight pathogens, known for spillover from managed bees to wild ones, were quantified with qPCR. The results showed that the core microbiome profile of the three solitary bees significantly varied in the different species. Pseudomonas was found as the major core taxa in all solitary bees analyzed, whereas Lactobacillus, Spiroplasma and Sodalis were the second most abundant taxa in X. augusti, E. fervens and Lasioglossum, respectively. The main pathogens detected with qPCR were Nosema ceranae, Nosema bombi and Crithidia bombi, although differently abundant in the different bee species and sampling sites. Most microbial taxa did not show any correlation with the land use, apart from Snodgrassella and Nocardioides, showing higher abundances on less anthropized sites. Conversely, the pathogens species and load strongly affected the gut microbial composition, with Bifidobacterium, Apibacter, Serratia, Snodgrassella and Sodalis abundance that positively or negatively correlated with the detected pathogens load. Therefore, pathogens presence and load appear to be the main factor shaping the gut microbiome of solitary bees in Argentina