Mitefauna (Arachnida: Acari) associated to grapevine, Vitis vinifera L. (Vitaceae), in the municipalities of Bento Gonçalves and Candiota, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

The mitefauna associated to Merlot and Chardonnay grapevine cultivars and associated plants in the municipalities of Bento Gonçalves and Candiota, Rio Grande do Sul was investigated. The study was developed between October 2006 and September 2007, where 20 grapevine plants were randomly chosen from each municipality and monthly sampled. Three leaves of each plant were taken. A total of 11,598 mites belonging to 14 families and to 52 species were found. Fifty-nine percent of the total specimens were collected in Candiota, being 93% associated to the Merlot cultivar. Higher species richness was observed on associated plants. Phytoseiidae showed the highest species richness, with ten species, and Eriophyidae showed the highest abundance, with 8,675 specimens. Calepitrimerus vitis (Nalepa, 1905) and polyphagotarsonemus latus (Banks, 1904) were the most common phytophagous mites, while Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor, 1954) and Pronematus anconai (Baker, 1943) were the most common predators

Strengths and weaknesses in the implementation of maternal and perinatal death reviews in Tanzania: perceptions, processes and practice.

OBJECTIVES: Tanzania institutionalised maternal and perinatal death reviews (MPDR) in 2006, yet there is scarce evidence on the extent and quality of implementation of the system. We reviewed the national policy documentation and explored stakeholders' involvement in, and perspectives of, the role and practices of MPDR in district and regional hospitals, and assessed current capacity for achieving MPDR. METHODS: We reviewed the national MPDR guidelines and conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Thirty-two informants in Mara Region were interviewed within health administration and hospitals, and five informants were included at the central level. Interviews were analysed for comparison of statements across health system level, hospital, profession and MPDR experience. RESULTS: The current MPDR system does not function adequately to either perform good quality reviews or fulfil the aspiration to capture every facility-based maternal and perinatal death. Informants at all levels express differing understandings of the purpose of MPDR. Hospital reviews fail to identify appropriate challenges and solutions at the facility level. Staff are committed to the process of maternal death review, with routine documentation and reporting, yet action and response are insufficient. CONCLUSION: The confusion between MPDR and maternal death surveillance and response results in a system geared towards data collection and surveillance, failing to explore challenges and solutions from within the remit of the hospital team. This reduces the accountability of the health workers and undermines opportunities to improve quality of care. We recommend initiatives to strengthen the quality of facility-level reviews in order to establish a culture of continuous quality of care improvement and a mechanism of accountability within facilities. Effective facility reviews are an important peer-learning process that should remain central to quality of care improvement strategies.<br/

Ataque exclusivo.

Infestações do ácaro Calepitrimerus vitis foram verificadas nas últimas safras nos parreirais do Sul do Brasil, entre os meses de dezembro e março. A espécie ataca somente videira e provoca deformações nas folhas, queda prematura e até mesmo atraso no desenvolvimento das plantas. A eliminação de restos de poda durante o inverno é importante esttratégia de controle, porque nesse período as fêmeas ficam alojadas nas reentrâncias dos ramos e no interior das brácteas das gemas

Alteration effects of volcanic ash in seawater: Anomalous Y/Ho ratios in coastal waters of the Central Mediterranean sea

This paper presents the results of a study based on data collected during the oceanographic cruise ANSIC 2001 carried out in the Ionian Sea during the explosive activity of Mount Etna in the summer of 2001. Anomalous low values of Y/Ho ratios in seawater suggest extensive scavenging processes on the surfaces of smectitic alteration products, with Y and Ho fractionation controlled by the differences in their electronic configurations and behaviour during solution/surface complexation equilibria. These processes can also be traced through the presence of significant tetrad effects recorded in the chondrite-normalised Rare Earth Elements and Yttrium (YREEs) patterns of suspended particulate matter. This suggests that the preferential Y scavenging from seawater is due to the formation of inner-sphere complexes with OH- groups on montmorillonite crystal surfaces. The preliminary results of kinetic experiments of YREE released from volcanic ash to coexisting seawater, and the related effects on Y/Ho ratios and Ce anomalies, are consistent with the fractionation of Light Rare Earth Elements (LREEs) with respect to Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREEs) observed in dissolved phase. They suggest a behaviour of Y similar to that reported for LREEs, particularly for Ce and Pr. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

First insights into the microbiology of three antarctic briny systems of the northern Victoria land

Different polar environments (lakes and glaciers), also in Antarctica, encapsulate brine pools characterized by a unique combination of extreme conditions, mainly in terms of high salinity and low temperature. Since 2014, we have been focusing our attention on the microbiology of brine pockets from three lakes in the Northern Victoria Land (NVL), lying in the Tarn Flat (TF) and Boulder Clay (BC) areas. The microbial communities have been analyzed for community structure by next generation sequencing, extracellular enzyme activities, metabolic potentials, and microbial abundances. In this study, we aim at reconsidering all available data to analyze the influence exerted by environmental parameters on the community composition and activities. Additionally, the prediction of metabolic functions was attempted by the phylogenetic investigation of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states (PICRUSt2) tool, highlighting that prokaryotic communities were presumably involved in methane metabolism, aromatic compound biodegradation, and organic compound (proteins, polysaccharides, and phosphates) decomposition. The analyzed cryoenvironments were different in terms of prokaryotic diversity, abundance, and retrieved metabolic pathways. By the analysis of DNA sequences, common operational taxonomic units ranged from 2.2% to 22.0%. The bacterial community was dominated by Bacteroidetes. In both BC and TF brines, sequences of the most thermally tolerant and methanogenic Archaea were detected, some of them related to hyperthermophiles

Complete Acid Ceramidase ablation prevents cancer-initiating cell formation in melanoma cells

Acid ceramidase (AC) is a lysosomal cysteine hydrolase that catalyzes the conversion of ceramide into fatty acid and sphingosine. This reaction lowers intracellular ceramide levels and concomitantly generates sphingosine used for sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) production. Since increases in ceramide and consequent decreases of S1P reduce proliferation of various cancers, AC might offer a new target for anti-tumor therapy. Here we used CrispR-Cas9-mediated gene editing to delete the gene encoding for AC, ASAH1, in human A375 melanoma cells. ASAH1-null clones show significantly greater accumulation of long-chain saturated ceramides that are substrate for AC. As seen with administration of exogenous ceramide, AC ablation blocks cell cycle progression and accelerates senescence. Importantly, ASAH1-null cells also lose the ability to form cancer-initiating cells and to undergo self-renewal, which is suggestive of a key role for AC in maintaining malignancy and self-renewal of invasive melanoma cells. The results suggest that AC inhibitors might find therapeutic use as adjuvant therapy for advanced melanoma

Improvement of community health worker counseling skills through early childhood development (ECD) videos, supervision and mentorship: A mixed methods pre-post evaluation from Tanzania

Background: Community health workers (CHWs) play significant roles in improving health practices in under- resourced communities. This study evaluated an early childhood development (ECD) project in Tanzania assessing the effect of mobile video use, supervision and mentorship to improve quality of CHW counseling skills. Methods: CHWs participating in the Malezi Project in Tabora Region were enrolled in a mixed methods pre-post evaluation. CHWs previously trained in UNICEF’s Care for Child Development package were further trained in counselling caregivers on nurturing care and father engagement using videos. Health providers were trained to provide ECD-focused supervision/mentorship of CHWs in facilities and during home visits. At baseline and endline, CHWs completed interviews and trained study staff observed and scored CHW counseling sessions using a structured checklist which were reduced into six dimensions through principal component analysis: introduce, educate, ask, plan/problem solve, interact/encourage, and responsive care. Twenty-five in-depth interviews were completed with caregivers and four focus group discussions with CHWs were conducted. Results: Almost all (n = 107; 95%) 119 enrolled CHWs completed the expected eight observations (n = 471 baseline; n = 453 endline). At endline, more CHWs reported having one-on-one meetings with their supervisors (51% increasing to 75%; p \u3c .0002) and that supervisors accompanied them to households for mentoring (60% increasing to 89%; p \u3c .0001). We observed a shift in CHW counselling skills in clinic and home sessions. Scores in the categories of introduce, plan/problem solve, and interact/encourage significantly improved between baseline and endline; scores for ask and educate remained unchanged or decreased at both timepoints. Two-thirds of caregivers interviewed reported that father’s involvement with their child increased due to CHW visits. Male participation increased in home observation sessions from 5.6% at baseline to 17.6% at endline (p \u3c .0001). Conclusion: Use of videos, supervision, and mentorship were associated with CHW performance improvements in providing nurturing care counselling and in father engagement, especially in home settings

Shallow water tomography in a highly variable scenario

In October 2000, SiPLAB and the Instituto Hidrografico (IH - PN) conducted the IN-TIFANTE'00 sea trial in a shallow area off the Peninsula of Troia, approximately 50 km south from Lisbon, in Portugal. The experiment itself and results obtained in most of the data set have been reported at various occasions in the last two years. This paper focuses on the data acquired during Event 2, where the acoustic propagation path was approximately range independent and the source ship was held on station at a constant range of 5.8 km from the vertical line array. Although these conditions were, in general, relatively benign for matched-field tomography, retrieval of water column and bottom parameters over a 14-hour-long recording revealed to be extremely difficult. This paper analysis in detail the characteristics of this data set and determines the causes for the observed inversion difficulties. Is is shown that the causes for the poor performance of the conventional methods are mainly the tide induced spatially correlated noise and the relative source-receiver motion during time averaging. An eigenvalue-based criterion is proposed for detecting optimal averaging time. It is shown that this data selection procedure together with hydrophone normalization and an appropriate objective function provide a better model fit and consistent inversion results and thus a better understanding of the environmental variability

Acarinose da videira no Rio Grande do Sul.

bitstream/item/48495/1/Circular-Tecnica-85.pd

CXCL12/SDF-1 from perisynaptic Schwann cells promotes regeneration of injured motor axonterminals

The neuromuscular junction has retained through evolution the capacity to regenerate after damage, but little is known on the inter-cellular signals involved in its functional recovery from trauma, autoimmune attacks, or neurotoxins. We report here that CXCL12, also abbreviated as stromal-derived factor-1 (SDF-1), is produced specifically by perisynaptic Schwann cells following motor axon terminal degeneration induced by -latrotoxin. CXCL12 acts via binding to the neuronal CXCR4 receptor. A CXCL12-neutralizing antibody or a specific CXCR4 inhibitor strongly delays recovery from motor neuron degeneration invivo. Recombinant CXCL12 invivo accelerates neurotransmission rescue upon damage and very effectively stimulates the axon growth of spinal cord motor neurons invitro. These findings indicate that the CXCL12-CXCR4 axis plays an important role in the regeneration of the neuromuscular junction after motor axon injury. The present results have important implications in the effort to find therapeutics and protocols to improve recovery of function after different forms of motor axon terminal damage