what is needed to close the implementation gaps?

Funding Information: SH is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR Advanced Fellowship NIHR300072), the Academy of Medical Sciences (SBF005\1111), and the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) through an ESCMID Study Group for Infections in Travellers and Migrants (ESGITM) research grant. MP is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR Post-Doctoral Fellowship, PDF-2015-08-102). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the UK Department of Health. Funding Information: SH is funded by the National Institute for Health Research ( NIHR Advanced Fellowship NIHR300072 ), the Academy of Medical Sciences ( SBF005\1111 ), and the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) through an ESCMID Study Group for Infections in Travellers and Migrants ( ESGITM ) research grant. MP is supported by the National Institute for Health Research ( NIHR Post-Doctoral Fellowship , PDF-2015-08-102 ). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the UK Department of Health. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The AuthorsMigration to the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) affects the epidemiology of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis (TB), HIV, hepatitis B/C, and parasitic diseases. Some sub-populations of migrants are also considered to be an under-immunised group and thus at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases. Providing high-risk migrants access to timely and efficacious screening and vaccination, and understanding how best to implement more integrated screening and vaccination programmes into European health systems ensuring linkage to care and treatment, is key to improving the health of migrants and their communities, alongside meeting national and regional targets for infection surveillance, control, and elimination. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has responded to calls to action to improve migrant health and strengthen universal health coverage by developing evidence-based guidance for policy makers, public health experts, and front-line healthcare professionals on how to approach screening and vaccination in newly arrived migrants within the EU/EEA. In this Commentary, we provide a perspective towards developing efficacious screening and vaccination of newly arrived migrants, with a focus on defining implementation challenges and evidence gaps in high-migrant receiving EU/EEA countries. There is a need now to leverage the increasing momentum around migrant health to both strengthen the evidence-base and to advocate for universal access to health care for all migrants in the EU/EEA, including undocumented migrants. This should include voluntary, confidential, and non-stigmatising screening and vaccination that should be free of charge and facilitate linkage to appropriate care and treatment.publishersversionpublishe

Composição e distribuição do zooplâncton encontrado na enseada de Balneário Camboriú (SC) e sua área marinha adjacente / Composition and distribution of zooplankton found in the inlet of Balneário Camboriú (SC) and its adjacent marine area

O Plâncton é composto por organismos diminutos encontrados na coluna d’água dos ambientes marinhos e dulcícolas e está intimamente ligado às condições do ecossistema onde se encontra. Com ciclo de vida curto, responde rapidamente às variações ambientais e tem papel importante como bioindicador hidrológico e de impacto ambiental. Com isso, a região da enseada de Balneário Camboriú (Balneário Camboriú, SC), que apresenta alta densidade demográfica e diversas atividades humanas no seu entorno, consiste em um local importante para o desenvolvimento de estudos de indicadores biológicos, no caso, o zooplâncton. Os objetivos deste estudo consistem em apresentar um levantamento faunístico do zooplâncton e sua distribuição na praia Central de Balneário Camboriú, do rio Camboriú, do rio Marambaia e de sua área marinha adjacente, realizado pela empresa ACQUAPLAN como cumprimento de Estudo de Impacto Ambiental para o licenciamento da Alimentação Artificial da Praia Central de Balneário Camboriú. O zooplâncton foi coletado em fevereiro de 2013 em dezoito pontos amostrais distribuídos entre os rios Camboriú e Marambaia (ambiente fluvial), a porção interna da enseada (ambiente costeiro) e a porção externa da enseada (ambiente marinho), onde está localizada a jazida marinha, fonte do sedimento arenoso utilizado na engorda da faixa de areia da praia. A amostragem do zooplâncton se deu por arrasto horizontal de sub-superfície com rede de plâncton WP-2 cilindro-cônica com 200 ?m de malha, 30 cm de diâmetro de boca, equipada com fluxômetro. Após a coleta, as amostras foram imediatamente fixadas em solução de formaldeído a 4% para sua análise em laboratório. Em laboratório, as análises quali-quantitativas do zooplâncton foram realizadas em câmaras do tipo Bogorov sob microscópio estereoscópico, a partir de alíquotas que variaram de 1 a 10% da amostra total com o intuito de alcançar o mínimo de 100 organismos. Dados abióticos de temperatura, salinidade, pH, oxigênio dissolvido, transparência e turbidez também foram obtidos. A comunidade zooplanctônica encontrada na área de estudo foi composta por 16 grandes grupos e 58 taxa identificados e sua densidade foi de 701 org.m-3. Considerando os diferentes ambientes, o zooplâncton registrado no ambiente costeiro teve a menor densidade enquanto que o ambiente marinho teve a maior densidade. A composição do zooplâncton também sofreu variação entre os ambientes, assim o ambiente costeiro apontou a maior riqueza de espécies e o marinho a menor riqueza. A relação indireta entre densidade e riqueza de espécies do zooplâncton é comum em sistemas estuarinos. Dentre os grandes grupos, Copepoda foi o dominante e contribuiu com 64% para o zooplâncton total. No ambiente fluvial, no ambiente costeiro e no ambiente marinho o grupo se destacou com 40%, 81% e 72%, respectivamente, mostrando que os diferentes ecossistemas na área de estudo têm forte influência marinha. Dentre os copepodas as espécies dominantes foram Oithona hebes e Paracalanus quasimodo no ambiente fluvial. No costeiro, foram os copepodas Temora turbinata e P. quasimodo. Já no ambiente marinho, as espécies T. turbinata e Oncaea clevei é que dominaram o sistema. Quanto ao meroplâncton, este contribuiu com 23% para o zooplâncton total. Foi dominado por Mollusca com 39%na área de estudo e apontou declínio de sua representatividade em direção ao ambiente marinho. Entre os ambientes, Decapoda dominou no ambiente fluvial com 42%, Cirripedia no costeiro com 62% e Mollusca no marinho com 67%. O domínio do meroplâncton no ambiente fluvial sugere local importante como sítio de desova e de crescimento de espécies de peixes, crustáceos e bivalves (Mollusca). O gradiente salino pareceu influenciar a distribuição do zooplâncton entre os ambientes fluvial, costeiro e marinho, registrando espécies tipicamente eurihalinas e fauna semelhante ao zooplâncton de outros ambientes do litoral brasileiro

Structural and Chemical Basis for Anticancer Activity of a Series of beta-Tubulin Ligands: Molecular Modeling and 3D QSAR Studies

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)An important approach to cancer therapy is the design of small molecule modulators that interfere with microtubule dynamics through their specific binding to the beta-subunit of tubulin. In the present work, comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) studies were conducted on a series of discodermolide analogs with antimitotic properties. Significant correlation coefficients were obtained (CoMFA((i)), q(2) = 0.68, r(2) = 0.94; CoMFA((ii)), q(2) = 0.63, r(2) = 0.91), indicating the good internal and external consistency of the models generated using two independent structural alignment strategies. The models were externally validated employing a test set, and the predicted values were in good agreement with the experimental results. The final QSAR models and the 3D contour maps provided important insights into the chemical and structural basis involved in the molecular recognition process of this family of discodermolide analogs, and should be useful for the design of new specific beta-tubulin modulators with potent anticancer activity.204693703Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP

String theoretic QCD axions in the light of PLANCK and BICEP2

The QCD axion solving the strong CP problem may originate from antisymmetric tensor gauge fields in compactified string theory, with a decay constant around the GUT scale. Such possibility appears to be ruled out now by the detection of tensor modes by BICEP2 and the PLANCK constraints on isocurvature density perturbations. A more interesting and still viable possibility is that the string theoretic QCD axion is charged under an anomalous U(1)_A gauge symmetry. In such case, the axion decay constant can be much lower than the GUT scale if moduli are stabilized near the point of vanishing Fayet-Illiopoulos term, and U(1)_A-charged matter fields get a vacuum value far below the GUT scale due to a tachyonic SUSY breaking scalar mass. We examine the symmetry breaking pattern of such models during the inflationary epoch with the Hubble expansion rate 10^{14} GeV, and identify the range of the QCD axion decay constant, as well as the corresponding relic axion abundance, consistent with known cosmological constraints. In addition to the case that the PQ symmetry is restored during inflation, there are other viable scenarios, including that the PQ symmetry is broken during inflation at high scales around 10^{16}-10^{17} GeV due to a large Hubble-induced tachyonic scalar mass from the U(1)_A D-term, while the present axion scale is in the range 10^{9}-5\times 10^{13} GeV, where the present value larger than 10^{12} GeV requires a fine-tuning of the axion misalignment angle. We also discuss the implications of our results for the size of SUSY breaking soft masses.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figure; v3: analysis updated including the full anharmonic effects, references added, version accepted for publication in JHE

Shallow water marine sediment bacterial community shifts along a natural CO2 gradient in the Mediterranean Sea off Vulcano, Italy.

The effects of increasing atmospheric CO(2) on ocean ecosystems are a major environmental concern, as rapid shoaling of the carbonate saturation horizon is exposing vast areas of marine sediments to corrosive waters worldwide. Natural CO(2) gradients off Vulcano, Italy, have revealed profound ecosystem changes along rocky shore habitats as carbonate saturation levels decrease, but no investigations have yet been made of the sedimentary habitat. Here, we sampled the upper 2 cm of volcanic sand in three zones, ambient (median pCO(2) 419 μatm, minimum Ω(arag) 3.77), moderately CO(2)-enriched (median pCO(2) 592 μatm, minimum Ω(arag) 2.96), and highly CO(2)-enriched (median pCO(2) 1611 μatm, minimum Ω(arag) 0.35). We tested the hypothesis that increasing levels of seawater pCO(2) would cause significant shifts in sediment bacterial community composition, as shown recently in epilithic biofilms at the study site. In this study, 454 pyrosequencing of the V1 to V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene revealed a shift in community composition with increasing pCO(2). The relative abundances of most of the dominant genera were unaffected by the pCO(2) gradient, although there were significant differences for some 5 % of the genera present (viz. Georgenia, Lutibacter, Photobacterium, Acinetobacter, and Paenibacillus), and Shannon Diversity was greatest in sediments subject to long-term acidification (>100 years). Overall, this supports the view that globally increased ocean pCO(2) will be associated with changes in sediment bacterial community composition but that most of these organisms are resilient. However, further work is required to assess whether these results apply to other types of coastal sediments and whether the changes in relative abundance of bacterial taxa that we observed can significantly alter the biogeochemical functions of marine sediments

Ecological research in the Large-scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia: Early results

Copyright by the Ecological Society of America ©2004 Michael Keller, Ane Alencar, Gregory P. Asner, Bobby Braswell, Mercedes Bustamante, Eric Davidson, Ted Feldpausch, Erick Fernandes, Michael Goulden, Pavel Kabat, Bart Kruijt, Flavio Luizão, Scott Miller, Daniel Markewitz, Antonio D. Nobre, Carlos A. Nobre, Nicolau Priante Filho, Humberto da Rocha, Pedro Silva Dias, Celso von Randow, and George L. Vourlitis 2004. ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE LARGE-SCALE BIOSPHERE– ATMOSPHERE EXPERIMENT IN AMAZONIA: EARLY RESULTS. Ecological Applications 14:3–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/03-6003The Large-scale Biosphere–Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) is a multinational, interdisciplinary research program led by Brazil. Ecological studies in LBA focus on how tropical forest conversion, regrowth, and selective logging influence carbon storage, nutrient dynamics, trace gas fluxes, and the prospect for sustainable land use in the Amazon region. Early results from ecological studies within LBA emphasize the variability within the vast Amazon region and the profound effects that land-use and land-cover changes are having on that landscape. The predominant land cover of the Amazon region is evergreen forest; nonetheless, LBA studies have observed strong seasonal patterns in gross primary production, ecosystem respiration, and net ecosystem exchange, as well as phenology and tree growth. The seasonal patterns vary spatially and interannually and evidence suggests that these patterns are driven not only by variations in weather but also by innate biological rhythms of the forest species. Rapid rates of deforestation have marked the forests of the Amazon region over the past three decades. Evidence from ground-based surveys and remote sensing show that substantial areas of forest are being degraded by logging activities and through the collapse of forest edges. Because forest edges and logged forests are susceptible to fire, positive feedback cycles of forest degradation may be initiated by land-use-change events. LBA studies indicate that cleared lands in the Amazon, once released from cultivation or pasture usage, regenerate biomass rapidly. However, the pace of biomass accumulation is dependent upon past land use and the depletion of nutrients by unsustainable land-management practices. The challenge for ongoing research within LBA is to integrate the recognition of diverse patterns and processes into general models for prediction of regional ecosystem function

Multifield Dynamics in Higgs-otic Inflation

In Higgs-otic inflation a complex neutral scalar combination of the $h^0$ and $H^0$ MSSM Higgs fields plays the role of inflaton in a chaotic fashion. The potential is protected from large trans-Planckian corrections at large inflaton if the system is embedded in string theory so that the Higgs fields parametrize a D-brane position. The inflaton potential is then given by a DBI+CS D-brane action yielding an approximate linear behaviour at large field. The inflaton scalar potential is a 2-field model with specific non-canonical kinetic terms. Previous computations of the cosmological parameters (i.e. scalar and tensor perturbations) did not take into account the full 2-field character of the model, ignoring in particular the presence of isocurvature perturbations and their coupling to the adiabatic modes. It is well known that for generic 2-field potentials such effects may significantly alter the observational signatures of a given model. We perform a full analysis of adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations in the Higgs-otic 2-field model. We show that the predictivity of the model is increased compared to the adiabatic approximation. Isocurvature perturbations moderately feed back into adiabatic fluctuations. However, the isocurvature component is exponentially damped by the end of inflation. The tensor to scalar ratio varies in a region $r=0.08-0.12$, consistent with combined Planck/BICEP results.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figure