Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine: Brussels, Belgium. 15-18 March 2016.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

Factors associated with maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa: an ecological study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Maternal health is one of the major worldwide health challenges. Currently, the unacceptably high levels of maternal mortality are a common subject in global health and development discussions. Although some countries have made remarkable progress, half of the maternal deaths in the world still take place in Sub-Saharan Africa where little or no progress has been made. There is no single simple, straightforward intervention that will significantly decrease maternal mortality alone; however, there is a consensus on the importance of a strong health system, skilled delivery attendants, and women's rights for maternal health. Our objective was to describe and determine different factors associated with the maternal mortality ratio in Sub-Saharan countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An ecological multi-group study compared variables between many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa using data collected between 1997 and 2006. The dependent variable was the maternal mortality ratio, and Health care system-related, educational and economic indicators were the independent variables. Information sources included the WHO, World Bank, UNICEF and UNDP.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Maternal mortality ratio values in Sub-Saharan Africa were demonstrated to be high and vary enormously among countries. A relationship between the maternal mortality ratio and some educational, sanitary and economic factors was observed. There was an inverse and significant correlation of the maternal mortality ratio with prenatal care coverage, births assisted by skilled health personnel, access to an improved water source, adult literacy rate, primary female enrolment rate, education index, the Gross National Income per capita and the per-capita government expenditure on health.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Education and an effective and efficient health system, especially during pregnancy and delivery, are strongly related to maternal death. Also, macro-economic factors are related and could be influencing the others.</p

Probing the Type I Seesaw Mechanism with Displaced Vertices at the LHC

The observation of Higgs decays into heavy neutrinos would be strong evidence for new physics associated to neutrino masses. In this work we propose a search for such decays within the Type I seesaw model in the few-GeV mass range via displaced vertices. Using 300 fb−1 of integrated luminosity, at 13 TeV, we explore the region of parameter space where such decays are measurable. We show that, after imposing pseudorapidity cuts, there still exists a region where the number of events is larger than O(10). We also find that conventional triggers can greatly limit the sensitivity of our signal, so we display several relevant kinematical distributions which might aid in the optimization of a dedicated trigger selection

Influence of a Conductive Material and Different Anaerobic Inocula on Biochemical Methane Potential of Substrates from Alcoholic Beverage Production

The impact of a conductive material as powdered activated carbon (PAC) on the biochemical methane potential of whisky pot ale (PA) and brewery spent yeast (SY) was investigated. The test was carried out with three different types of anaerobic inocula: manure inoculum (MI), sewage sludge (SS) and granular sludge (GR). Brewery spent yeast produced partial (in sewage and granular sludge) and total (in manure inoculum) methanogenesis inhibition due to the toxicity of some of its constituents (hops extract). The inhibition was overcome by the supplementation of PAC, that improved significantly the anaerobic digestion process for SY, allowing to reach biochemical methane potential values between 657-699 L CH4 kg-1 VS and it reduced redox potential from 369 to 398 mV. The activated carbon did not improve the methane yields from whisky PA since microorganisms did not have difficulties to process this substrate; in fact, the redox potential slightly increased from 355 to 330 mV

Impact of Human Management on the Genetic Variation of Wild Pepper, Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum

Management of wild peppers in Mexico has occurred for a long time without clear phenotypic signs of domestication. However, pre-domestication management could have implications for the population's genetic richness. To test this hypothesis we analysed 27 wild (W), let standing (LS) and cultivated (C) populations, plus 7 samples from local markets (LM), with nine polymorphic microsatellite markers. Two hundred and fifty two alleles were identified, averaging 28 per locus. Allele number was higher in W, and 15 and 40% less in LS and C populations, respectively. Genetic variation had a significant population structure. In W populations, structure was associated with ecological and geographic areas according to isolation by distance. When LM and C populations where included in the analysis, differentiation was no longer apparent. Most LM were related to distant populations from Sierra Madre Oriental, which represents their probable origin. Historical demography shows a recent decline in all W populations. Thus, pre-domestication human management is associated with a significant reduction of genetic diversity and with a loss of differentiation suggesting movement among regions by man. Measures to conserve wild and managed populations should be implemented to maintain the source and the architecture of genetic variation in this important crop relative

Radiative Corrections to Light Neutrino Masses in Low Scale Type I Seesaw Scenarios and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

We perform a detailed analysis of the one-loop corrections to the light neutrino mass matrix within low scale type I seesaw extensions of the Standard Model and their implications in experimental searches for neutrinoless double beta decay. We show that a sizable contribution to the effective Majorana neutrino mass from the exchange of heavy Majorana neutrinos is always possible, provided one requires a fine-tuned cancellation between the tree-level and one-loop contribution to the light neutrino masses. We quantify the level of fine-tuning as a function of the seesaw parameters and introduce a generalisation of the Casas-Ibarra parametrization of the neutrino Yukawa matrix, which easily allows to include the one-loop corrections to the light neutrino masses. \ua9 2015, The Author(s)

Maintaining extensivity in evolutionary multiplex networks

In this paper, we explore the role of network topology on maintaining the extensive property of entropy. We study analytically and numerically how the topology contributes to maintaining extensivity of entropy in multiplex networks, i.e. networks of subnetworks (layers), by means of the sum of the positive Lyapunov exponents, HKS, a quantity related to entropy. We show that extensivity relies not only on the interplay between the coupling strengths of the dynamics associated to the intra (short-range) and inter (long-range) interactions, but also on the sum of the intra-degrees of the nodes of the layers. For the analytically treated networks of size N, among several other results, we show that if the sum of the intra-degrees (and the sum of inter-degrees) scales as N?+1, ? > 0, extensivity can be maintained if the intra-coupling (and the inter-coupling) strength scales as N??, when evolution is driven by the maximisation of HKS. We then verify our analytical results by performing numerical simulations in multiplex networks formed by electrically and chemically coupled neurons