Un estudio sobre la paloma doméstica Columba livia var. en la ciudad de Jena, Alemania

Se estudió una población de palomas domésticas, Columba livia var. en la ciudad de Jena, Alemania, entre julio y diciembre de 2007, mediante censos diarios en diez transectos de un sector de la ciudad, cinco en áreas urbanas y cinco en áreas suburbanas. La densidad poblacional de palomas en las zonas urbanas resultó mayor que en las zonas suburbanas, aunque no se encontraron diferencias significativas entre ambas áreas. Las actividades de comportamiento registradas por las palomas fueron de descanso, de mantenimiento del plumaje, de vuelo, alimentación, baños de sol y elección de lugares donde posarse. Las actividades se producen en lugares como tejados altos y aleros de edificios en zonas urbanas y tejados y aleros de balcones en zonas suburbanas. El fenotipo de plumaje más abundante para ambas áreas durante el periodo del censo fue Blue bar. Palabras clave: Columba livia var., paloma doméstica, aves urbanas, Jena, Alemania.A population of feral pigeons, Columba livia var. was conducted in the city of Jena, Germany, from July to December 2007. Daily censuses were conducted by walking ten transects in a selected area of the city, five transects in built up areas and five in the suburbs. Pigeon population density was higher in urban areas than in suburbs but differences were not significant. Main behavioural activities recorded were resting, preening, flying, eating, sunning and roosting. Regular locations of activities were rooftops and roof edges in urban areas, and rooftops, eaves on balconies in suburban areas. The plumage phenotype most frequently recorded in both areas was Blue bar. Key words: Columba livia var., Feral pigeons, Urban birds, Jena city, Germany.Se estudió una población de palomas domésticas, Columba livia var. en la ciudad de Jena, Alemania, entre julio y diciembre de 2007, mediante censos diarios en diez transectos de un sector de la ciudad, cinco en áreas urbanas y cinco en áreas suburbanas. La densidad poblacional de palomas en las zonas urbanas resultó mayor que en las zonas suburbanas, aunque no se encontraron diferencias significativas entre ambas áreas. Las actividades de comportamiento registradas por las palomas fueron de descanso, de mantenimiento del plumaje, de vuelo, alimentación, baños de sol y elección de lugares donde posarse. Las actividades se producen en lugares como tejados altos y aleros de edificios en zonas urbanas y tejados y aleros de balcones en zonas suburbanas. El fenotipo de plumaje más abundante para ambas áreas durante el periodo del censo fue Blue bar. Palabras clave: Columba livia var., paloma doméstica, aves urbanas, Jena, Alemania

Oxalate Oxidase Model Studies – Substrate Reactivity

The synthesis and structure of [MnLCl]0.5H2O (1·0.5H2O, HL = 1‐benzyl‐4‐acetato‐1,4,7‐triazacyclononane) is reported. Complex 1 exists as a coordination polymer in the solid state, and the MnII center is bonded to three amine nitrogen atoms, one carboxylate oxygen atom, a chlorido ligand, and an adjacent carboxylate group in a chelating fashion to afford a seven‐coordinate center. The dissolution of 1 in acetonitrile containing excess oxalate (ox) ions results in a monomeric species. When mixtures of 1 and oxalate ions are exposed to oxygen under ambient conditions, a dark pink EPR‐silent species is generated. The pink species is believed to be [MnIII(ox)2]–, which results from the displacement of the ligand L– by an oxalate ion. The decomposition of this species ultimately results in the formation of 1 equiv. of CO2 per oxalate ion consumed, a HCO3– ion, and a MnII species. Further reaction of the resulting MnII species with excess oxalate in the presence of oxygen leads to additional oxalate degradation.MnLCl (HL = 1‐benzyl‐4‐acetato‐1,4,7‐triazacyclononane) is investigated as a structural and functional model for oxalate oxidase. MnLCl effects the catalytic degradation of oxalate ions under ambient conditions. MnLCl is converted to a light‐sensitive intermediate during catalysis. Analysis of the reaction mixture indicates that 1 equiv. of CO2 per oxalate ion is produced along with a HCO3– ion.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110613/1/646_ftp.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110613/2/ejic_201402835_sm_miscellaneous_information.pd

Bacterial Contamination of Imported and Local Corn Kernel (Used as Animal Feed) in Iraq

This study was carried out to determine bacterial contamination of imported and local corn kernel (used as animal feed) in Iraq, which causes diseases and great economic losses. A total of 163 samples were collected (100 samples of the imported corn kernel from border points and 63 samples of the local corn kernel from the provinces) and cultured then Isolates were identified according to morphological Characteristics, biochemical tests and Agglutination test. The results indicated a total Gram-negative bacteria in 94 samples of the total samples (163) at (58%), includes: 57 Isolates from the imported corn kernel at (57%), which includes :Salmonella spp. in 14 samples at (14%), Escherichia coli in 21 samples at (21%), Klebsiella spp. in 13 samples at (13%), Proteus spp. in 9 samples at (9%) but absence of Serratia spp. and Enterobacter spp. . Addition to 37 Isolates from the local corn kernel at (60%),which includes: Salmonella spp. in 10 samples at (16%), Escherichia coli in 15 samples at (24%), Proteus spp. in 6 samples at (10%), Serratia spp. in 3 samples at (5%), Enterobacter spp. in 3 samples at (5%) but absence of Klebsiella spp. This study concluded that must be evaluated the microbial quality of imported and local corn kernel (used as animal feed) by manufacturers and health authorities to ensure safety and quality of corn to prevent diseases and great economic losses

Bacterial Contamination of Imported and Local Corn Kernel (Used as Animal Feed) in Iraq

This study was carried out to determine bacterial contamination of imported and local corn kernel (used as animal feed) in Iraq, which causes diseases and great economic losses. A total of 163 samples were collected (100 samples of the imported corn kernel from border points and 63 samples of the local corn kernel from the provinces) and cultured then Isolates were identified according to morphological Characteristics, biochemical tests and Agglutination test. The results indicated a total Gram-negative bacteria in 94 samples of the total samples (163) at (58%), includes: 57 Isolates from the imported corn kernel at (57%), which includes :Salmonella spp. in 14 samples at (14%), Escherichia coli in 21 samples at (21%), Klebsiella spp. in 13 samples at (13%), Proteus spp. in 9 samples at (9%) but absence of Serratia spp. and Enterobacter spp. . Addition to 37 Isolates from the local corn kernel at (60%),which includes: Salmonella spp. in 10 samples at (16%), Escherichia coli in 15 samples at (24%), Proteus spp. in 6 samples at (10%), Serratia spp. in 3 samples at (5%), Enterobacter spp. in 3 samples at (5%) but absence of Klebsiella spp. This study concluded that must be evaluated the microbial quality of imported and local corn kernel (used as animal feed) by manufacturers and health authorities to ensure safety and quality of corn to prevent diseases and great economic losses

Genome-wide analysis of genetic correlation in dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Open Access funded by Wellcome TrustThe similarities between dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and both Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) are many and range from clinical presentation, to neuropathological characteristics, to more recently identified, genetic determinants of risk. Because of these overlapping features, diagnosing DLB is challenging and has clinical implications since some therapeutic agents that are applicable in other diseases have adverse effects in DLB. Having shown that DLB shares some genetic risk with PD and AD, we have now quantified the amount of sharing through the application of genetic correlation estimates, and show that, from a purely genetic perspective, and excluding the strong association at the APOE locus, DLB is equally correlated to AD and PD.Rita Guerreiro and Jose Bras are supported by Research Fellowships from the Alzheimer's Society. This work was supported in part by a Parkinson's UK Innovation Award (K-1204) in collaboration with the Lewy Body Society and by the Wellcome Trust/MRC Joint Call in Neurodegeneration award (WT089698) to the UK Parkinson's Disease Consortium whose members are from the UCL Institute of Neurology, the University of Sheffield, and the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee and by an anonymous Foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge Elena Lorenzo for her technical assistance. This study was supported in part by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and InnovationSAF2006-10126 (2006–2009) and SAF2010-22329-C02-01 (2011–2013) and SAF2013-47939-R (2013–2015) to Pau Pastor and by the UTE project FIMA to Pau Pastor. They acknowledge the Oxford Brain Bank, supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC), Brains for Dementia Research (BDR) (Alzheimer Society and Alzheimer Research UK), Autistica UK, and the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. The sample collection and database of the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort was funded by Stichting Dioraphte and Stichting VUMC fonds. Glenda M. Halliday is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. For the neuropathologically confirmed samples from Australia, brain tissue was received from the Sydney Brain Bank, which is supported by Neuroscience Research Australia, the University of New South Wales, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. This study was also partially funded by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Ontario Research Fund. The Nottingham Genetics Group is supported by ARUK and The Big Lottery Fund. The effort from Columbia University was supported by the Taub Institute, the Panasci Fund, the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, and NIH grants NS060113 (Lorraine Clark), P50AG008702 (P.I. Scott Small), P50NS038370 (P.I. R. Burke), and UL1TR000040 (P.I. H. Ginsberg). Owen A. Ross is supported by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, NINDS R01# NS078086. The Mayo Clinic Jacksonville is a Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence (NINDS P50 #NS072187) and is supported by the Mangurian Foundation for Lewy body research. This work has received support from The Queen Square Brain Bank at the UCL Institute of Neurology. Some of the tissue samples studies were provided by the MRC London Neurodegenerative Diseases Brain Bank and the Brains for Dementia Research project (funded by Alzheimer's Society and ARUK). This research was supported in part by the NIHR UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, the Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Dementia Biomedical Research Unit and Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College Hospital, London. This work was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services; project AG000951-12. Funding to pay the Open Access publication charges for this article was provided by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council

A comprehensive screening of copy number variability in dementia with Lewy bodies

The role of genetic variability in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is now indisputable; however, data regarding copy number variation (CNV) in this disease has been lacking. Here, we used whole-genome genotyping of 1454 DLB cases and 1525 controls to assess copy number variability. We used 2 algorithms to confidently detect CNVs, performed a case-control association analysis, screened for candidate CNVs previously associated with DLB-related diseases, and performed a candidate gene approach to fully explore the data. We identified 5 CNV regions with a significant genome-wide association to DLB; 2 of these were only present in cases and absent from publicly available databases: one of the regions overlapped LAPTM4B, a known lysosomal protein, whereas the other overlapped the NME1 locus and SPAG9. We also identified DLB cases presenting rare CNVs in genes previously associated with DLB or related neurodegenerative diseases, such as SNCA, APP, and MAPT. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting genome-wide CNVs in a large DLB cohort. These results provide preliminary evidence for the contribution of CNVs in DLB risk.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Heritability and genetic variance of dementia with Lewy bodies

Recent large-scale genetic studies have allowed for the first glimpse of the effects of common genetic variability in dementia withLewy bodies (DLB), identifying risk variants with appreciable effect sizes. However, it is currently well established that asubstantial portion of the genetic heritable component of complex traits is not captured by genome-wide significant SNPs. Toovercome this issue, we have estimated the proportion of phenotypic variance explained by genetic variability (SNP heritability)in DLB using a method that is unbiased by allele frequency or linkage disequilibrium properties of the underlying variants. Thisshows that the heritability of DLB is nearly twice as high as previous estimates based on common variants only (31% vs 59.9%).We also determine the amount of phenotypic variance in DLB that can be explained by recent polygenic risk scores from eitherParkinson’s disease (PD) or Alzheimer's disease (AD), and show that, despite being highly significant, they explain a low amountof variance. Additionally, to identify pleiotropic events that might improve our understanding of the disease, we performed geneticcorrelation analyses of DLB with over 200 diseases and biomedically relevant traits. Our data shows that DLB has a positivecorrelation with education phenotypes, which is opposite to what occurs in AD. Overall, our data suggests that novel genetic riskfactors for DLB should be identified by larger GWAS and these are likely to be independent from known AD and PD risk variants

Empirical studies on informal patient payments for health care services: a systematic and critical review of research methods and instruments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Empirical evidence demonstrates that informal patient payments are an important feature of many health care systems. However, the study of these payments is a challenging task because of their potentially illegal and sensitive nature. The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic review and analysis of key methodological difficulties in measuring informal patient payments.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The systematic review was based on the following eligibility criteria: English language publications that reported on empirical studies measuring informal patient payments. There were no limitations with regard to the year of publication. The content of the publications was analysed qualitatively and the results were organised in the form of tables. Data sources were Econlit, Econpapers, Medline, PubMed, ScienceDirect, SocINDEX.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Informal payments for health care services are most often investigated in studies involving patients or the general public, but providers and officials are also sample units in some studies. The majority of the studies apply a single mode of data collection that involves either face-to-face interviews or group discussions.</p> <p>One of the main methodological difficulties reported in the publication concerns the inability of some respondents to distinguish between official and unofficial payments. Another complication is associated with the refusal of some respondents to answer questions on informal patient payments.</p> <p>We do not exclude the possibility that we have missed studies that reported in non-English language journals as well as very recent studies that are not yet published.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Given the recent evidence from research on survey methods, a self-administrated questionnaire during a face-to-face interview could be a suitable mode of collecting sensitive data, such as data on informal patient payments.</p