Brief communication: Significant biases in ERA5 output for the McMurdo Dry Valleys region, Antarctica

The ERA5 climate reanalysis dataset plays an important role in applications such as monitoring and modeling climate system changes in polar regions, so the calibration of the reanalysis to ground observations is of great relevance. Here, we compare the 2 m air temperature time series of the ERA5 reanalysis and the near-surface bias-corrected reanalysis to the near-ground air temperature measured at 17 automatic weather stations (AWSs) in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. We find that the reanalysis data have biases that change with the season of the year and do not clearly correlate with elevation. Our results show that future work should rely on secondary observations to calibrate when using the ERA5 reanalysis in polar regions.</p

How are the ancient cystic fibrosis patients?: Cystic fibrosis diagnosed over 60 years-old

Background and aims To specify the prevalence of patients diagnosed with CF at age of ≥60 year-old and to analyze their characteristics. Patients and methods Observational study of CF patients which were diagnosed at age ≥60 year-old. The analyzed variables were: age, sex, nationality, lung function parameters, conditions present at diagnosis, microbiological characteristics and genetic findings. Results eight patients were included. 7 patients were female (87.5%) with a mean age of 70.6 years (median 71.5 years, range 60–78 years). The most important findings were: sweat test &gt; 60 mEq/l; heterozygotes F508del; bronchiectasis in CT; methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (50%) in sputum. The most patients presented a normal or mild obstructive lung function. Conclusions CF must also be considered a disease diagnosed in adulthood, incorporating the sweat test within the usual techniques of differential diagnosis in patients with different diseases associated with CF, because genetic counselling is esencial

Comportamiento mecánico de restos de pirámides y templos americanos y los edificios históricos construidos sobre ellos

Una característica bastante habitual de monumentos y edificios históricos suele ser el estar construidos sobre otros edificios que bien fueron demolidos para levantar los actuales o bien fueron olvidados. Las nuevas construcciones suelen estar edificadas en parte sobre rellenos artificiales relativamente blandos y sobre zonas rígidas, restos de los muros anteriores. Esta disposición llega a provocar una serie de patologías características. Un caso singular de este tipo de levantamientos es la construcción de iglesias y palacios en Hispanoamérica sobre los restos de las antiguas pirámides. Además de los casos en México D.F., existen bastantes poblaciones en Guatemala y en el resto de México con pirámides parcialmente destruidas que están siendo o fueron utilizadas como base para cimentaciones de “nuevos” edificios históricos. Existen también otros casos en los que, al no disponer de cubrición en su parte superior, permiten el paso del agua de lluvia. En este artículo se muestra como el comportamiento de estas pirámides y construcciones antiguas incluidas en el terreno es más parecido al de estructuras de contención (muros) que al de plataformas horizontales debido a que el agua de lluvia aumenta los empujes sobre las capas exteriores y estos edificios, como sucede con pirámides de Guatemala y México, sufren una degradación importante. Además, se demuestra el efecto de rigidización lateral del terreno y reducción de asientos en las construcciones cimentadas sobre suelos que contienen estos restos, los cuales suponen una mejora importante de la capacidad portante.Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran CanariaColegio Oficial de Ingenieros Industriales de CanariasAgencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Informació

Short-term interaction between silent and devastating earthquakes in Mexico

大地震とスロースリップの相互作用を解明 --メキシコにおける3つの大地震の連鎖的発生のメカニズム--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-04-12.Either the triggering of large earthquakes on a fault hosting aseismic slip or the triggering of slow slip events (SSE) by passing seismic waves involve seismological questions with important hazard implications. Just a few observations plausibly suggest that such interactions actually happen in nature. In this study we show that three recent devastating earthquakes in Mexico are likely related to SSEs, describing a cascade of events interacting with each other on a regional scale via quasi-static and/or dynamic perturbations across the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Such interaction seems to be conditioned by the transient memory of Earth materials subject to the “traumatic” stress produced by seismic waves of the great 2017 (Mw8.2) Tehuantepec earthquake, which strongly disturbed the SSE cycles over a 650 km long segment of the subduction plate interface. Our results imply that seismic hazard in large populated areas is a short-term evolving function of seismotectonic processes that are often observable

Predicting high risk of exacerbations in bronchiectasis: the E-FACED score

BACKGROUND: Although the FACED score has demonstrated a great prognostic capacity in bronchiectasis, it does not include the number or severity of exacerbations as a separate variable, which is important in the natural history of these patients. OBJECTIVE: Construction and external validation of a new index, the E-FACED, to evaluate the predictive capacity of exacerbations and mortality. METHODS: The new score was constructed on the basis of the complete cohort for the construction of the original FACED score, while the external validation was undertaken with six cohorts from three countries (Brazil, Argentina, and Chile). The main outcome was the number of annual exacerbations/hospitalizations, with all-cause and respiratory-related deaths as the secondary outcomes. A statistical evaluation comprised the relative weight and ideal cut-off point for the number or severity of the exacerbations and was incorporated into the FACED score (E-FACED). The results obtained after the application of FACED and E-FACED were compared in both the cohorts. RESULTS: A total of 1,470 patients with bronchiectasis (819 from the construction cohorts and 651 from the external validation cohorts) were followed up for 5 years after diagnosis. The best cut-off point was at least two exacerbations in the previous year (two additional points), meaning that the E-FACED has nine points of growing severity. E-FACED presented an excellent prognostic capacity for exacerbations (areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve: 0.82 for at least two exacerbations in 1 year and 0.87 for at least one hospitalization in 1 year) that was statistically better than that of the FACED score (0.72 and 0.78, P<0.05, respectively). The predictive capacities for all-cause and respiratory mortality were 0.87 and 0.86, respectively, with both being similar to those of the FACED. CONCLUSION: E-FACED score significantly increases the FACED capacity to predict future yearly exacerbations while maintaining the score’s simplicity and prognostic capacity for death

Depression in internal medicine inpatients at the time of hospital discharge and referral to primary care

Background and objectives: This is the first multi-center study intended to document the prevalence, characteristics, and associations of depression in Medicine patients at the time of hospital discharge and their referral to Primary Care (PC). Methods: Adult patients randomly selected among consecutive admissions to Medicine wards in 8 hospitals in Spain, covering health districts, were examined in a two-phase ''case-finding'' procedure. Standardized, Spanish versions of instruments were used, including the Standardized Polyvalent Psychiatric Interview (SPPI) and Cumulative Illness Rating Scale (CIRS). Cases of depression were diagnosed according to ICD-10 general hospital research criteria. Results: Three hundred and twelve patients with treatable depression and 777 non-depressed controls were identified. In a conservative estimate, the global prevalence of major depression was 7.1%, dysthymia 4.2% and adjustment depression 7.1%, and 51.9% of cases were of moderate/ severe intensity. Depression was more frequent in women, the differences being significant in all categories of depression. The prevalence of depression was lower in individuals aged 85 or more years, the differences being significant in cases of both dysthymia and adjustment depression. A clear pattern of decreasing prevalence with age was observed in women. The depressed had as an average five medical systems affected, and higher CIRS scores compared with the controls, the differences being significant in cases of both major depression and dysthymia. Conclusions: This is the first report showing a considerable prevalence of treatable cases of depression in Medicine patients at the time of hospital discharge and referral to PC. Depression is associated with the severity of the medical condition, and differences observed by age and sex have clinical implications. Paper read at the 3rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine, Nuremberg 2015. © 2022 Asociación Universitaria de Zaragoza para el Progreso de la Psiquiatría y la Salud Menta

Real-time whole-genome sequencing for routine typing, surveillance, and outbreak detection of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli.

Fast and accurate identification and typing of pathogens are essential for effective surveillance and outbreak detection. The current routine procedure is based on a variety of techniques, making the procedure laborious, time-consuming, and expensive. With whole-genome sequencing (WGS) becoming cheaper, it has huge potential in both diagnostics and routine surveillance. The aim of this study was to perform a real-time evaluation of WGS for routine typing and surveillance of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC). In Denmark, the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) routinely receives all suspected VTEC isolates. During a 7-week period in the fall of 2012, all incoming isolates were concurrently subjected to WGS using IonTorrent PGM. Real-time bioinformatics analysis was performed using web-tools (www.genomicepidemiology.org) for species determination, multilocus sequence type (MLST) typing, and determination of phylogenetic relationship, and a specific VirulenceFinder for detection of E. coli virulence genes was developed as part of this study. In total, 46 suspected VTEC isolates were characterized in parallel during the study. VirulenceFinder proved successful in detecting virulence genes included in routine typing, explicitly verocytotoxin 1 (vtx1), verocytotoxin 2 (vtx2), and intimin (eae), and also detected additional virulence genes. VirulenceFinder is also a robust method for assigning verocytotoxin (vtx) subtypes. A real-time clustering of isolates in agreement with the epidemiology was established from WGS, enabling discrimination between sporadic and outbreak isolates. Overall, WGS typing produced results faster and at a lower cost than the current routine. Therefore, WGS typing is a superior alternative to conventional typing strategies. This approach may also be applied to typing and surveillance of other pathogens