Data on prevalence and risk factors associated with Toxocara spp infection, atopy and asthma development in Northeast Brazilian school children.

In the present article, we provide shortly, data on risk factors for acquiring Toxocara spp. infection and investigate possible associations between this infection with atopy and asthma in school children of a small town and its semi-rural areas of Northeast Brazil. The data set are composed by demographic, social and home environment variables. The detection of anti-Toxocara spp. IgG and specific IgE to aeroallergens was determined by ELISA and ImmunocAP/Phadiatrope systems, respectively. The data presented in this article are related to the article entitled "Risk factors for Toxocara spp. seroprevalence and its association with atopy and asthma phenotypes in school-age children in a small town and semi-rural areas of Northeast Brazil" (M.B. Silva, A.L. Amor, L.N. Santos, A.A. Galvão, A.V. Oviedo Vera, E.S. Silva et al., 2016) [1]

Estudio del flujo de energía en un cristal fotónico unidimensional aperiódico compuesto por materiales polímeros

En este trabajo se determin´o el comportamiento de la radiaci´on electromagn´etica para un cuasicristal fot´onico unidimensionalorganizado por una sucesi´on de Fibonacci con polarizaci´on TE (Transversal El´ectrica) y TM (Transversal Magn´etica) para diferentes ´angulos de incidencia. Un cristal fot´onico se clasifica como cuasiperi´odico cuando posee una estructura ordenada y una aperi´ocidad en su ´ındice de refracción. Sus capas se alternan siguiendo una regla recursiva de Fibonacci para materiales polímeros: PS (poliestireno) y PMMA (polimetacrilato de metilo). El comportamiento de la radiación se registra a través de un espectro de transmitancia calculado por el MMT (M´etodo de la Matriz de Transferencia). Se evidencio la presencia de BBFs (Brechas de Banda Fot´onica) las cuales, se controlaron variando parámetros como: la secuencia de Fibonacci, el ´ángulo de incidencia de la luz y el grosor de las capas delos materiales. Se encontró que al aumentar el ´angulo de incidencia de la onda electromagnética sobre el cuasicristal observamos un corrimiento de la BBF (Brechas de Banda Fotónica) hacia frecuencias altas. Además, se comprueba que al incrementar la secuencia de Fibonacci el n´umero de gaps presentes en el espectro de transmisión aumenta, al igual que el número de capas en la estructura. Por otra parte, se demostr´o que la polarizaci´on TM (Transversal Magnética) presenta un mayor número de gaps con valores menores en la transmitancia. Finalmente, al aumentar el grosor de las capas de los materiales, con presión y secuencia constante las BBFs (Brechas de Banda Fot´onica) muestran un corrimiento hacia frecuencias bajas para ambas polarizaciones (TE y TM)

Urinary incontinence related to perineal muscle strength in the first trimester of pregnancy: cross-sectional study

Objective To analyze pelvic floor muscle strength (PFMS), urinary continence and quality of life related to urinary incontinence (UI) of women in the first trimester of pregnancy. Method Cross-sectional study with a sample of 500 women who started prenatal care in a complementary healthcare facility in Guarulhos, state of São Paulo, from 2012 and 2013. Pelvic floor muscle strength was evaluated through perineometry. The pregnant women who presented UI answered the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form (ICIQ-SF). Results It was found that maternal age (OR=1.06; CI95% 1.02-1.11) and prior UI (OR=15.12; 95%CI 8.19-27.92) are the variables that, in tandem, best explain the occurrence of UI at the beginning of pregnancy. The mean score on the ICIQ-SF was 8.2 (SD=3.9), considered a moderate impact on quality of life. Conclusion Older pregnant women with prior UI are more likely to have UI in the first trimester of pregnancy.
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Ghrelin plasma levels, gastric ghrelin cell density and bone mineral density in women with rheumatoid arthritis.

Generalized bone loss can be considered an extra-articular manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that may lead to the occurrence of fractures, resulting in decreased quality of life and increased healthcare costs. The peptide ghrelin has demonstrated to positively affect osteoblasts in vitro and has anti-inflammatory actions, but the studies that correlate ghrelin plasma levels and RA have contradictory results. We aimed to evaluate the correlation between total ghrelin plasma levels, density of ghrelin-immunoreactive cells in the gastric mucosa, and bone mineral density (BMD) in twenty adult women with established RA with 6 months or more of symptoms (mean age of 52.70?11.40 years). Patients with RA presented higher ghrelin-immunoreactive cells density in gastric mucosa (P=0.008) compared with healthy females. There was a positive relationship between femoral neck BMD and gastric ghrelin cell density (P=0.007). However, these same patients presented a negative correlation between plasma ghrelin levels and total femoral BMD (P=0.03). The present results indicate that ghrelin may be involved in bone metabolism of patients with RA. However, the higher density of ghrelin-producing cells in the gastric mucosa of these patients does not seem to induce a corresponding elevation in the plasma levels of this peptide

Coverage-based quality metric of mutation operators for test suite improvement

The choice of mutation operators is a fundamental aspect in mutation testing to guide the tester to an effective test suite. Designing a set of mutation operators is subject to a trade-off between effectiveness and computational cost: a larger mutation population might uncover more faults, but will take longer to analyse. With the aim of resolving this trade-off, several authors have defined an assortment of metrics to determine the most valuable operators. In this work, we extend an existing quality metric by incorporating an additional source of data and coverage information and therefore investigate the extent to which mutants that are often covered but rarely killed can improve the evaluation of mutation operators for the refinement of the test suite. As a case study, we analyse C++ class-level operators based on the new coverage-based quality metric to assess whether the original metric is enhanced. The results when selecting the best-valued operators show that this metric has great potential to help the tester in finding effective mutation operators. In comparison with the metric from which it is derived, the use of coverage data allows to reduce the number of mutants but often loses fewer test cases and, in addition, retains those that seem hard to design