Differences in the Prevalence of Non-Communicable Disease between Slum Dwellers and the General Population in a Large Urban Area in Brazil.

Residents of urban slums are at greater risk for disease than their non-slum dwelling urban counterparts. We sought to contrast the prevalences of selected non-communicable diseases (NCDs) between Brazilian adults living in a slum and the general population of the same city, by comparing the age and sex-standardized prevalences of selected NCDs from a 2010 survey in Pau da Lima, Salvador Brazil, with a 2010 national population-based telephone survey. NCD prevalences in both populations were similar for hypertension (23.6% (95% CI 20.9⁻26.4) and 22.9% (21.2⁻24.6), respectively) and for dyslipidemia (22.7% (19.8⁻25.5) and 21.5% (19.7⁻23.4)). Slum residents had higher prevalences of diabetes mellitus (10.1% (7.9⁻12.3)) and of overweight/obesity (46.5% (43.1⁻49.9)), compared to 5.2% (4.2⁻6.1) and 40.6% (38.5⁻42.8) of the general population in Salvador. Fourteen percent (14.5% (12.1⁻17.0)) of slum residents smoked cigarettes compared to 8.3% (7.1⁻9.5) of the general population in Salvador. The national telephone survey underestimated the prevalence of diabetes mellitus, overweight/obesity, and smoking in the slum population, likely in part due to differential sampling inside and outside of slums. Further research and targeted policies are needed to mitigate these inequalities, which could have significant economic and social impacts on slum residents and their communities

BiYacc: Roll your parser and reflective printer into one

In: A. Cunha, E. Kindler (eds.): Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Bidirectional Transformations (Bx 2015), L’Aquila, Italy, July 24, 2015, published at http://ceur-ws.orgLanguage designers usually need to implement parsers and printers. Despite being two related programs, in practice they are designed and implemented separately. This approach has an obvious disadvantage: as a language evolves, both its parser and printer need to be separately revised and kept synchronised. Such tasks are routine but complicated and error-prone. To facilitate these tasks, we propose a language called BiYacc, whose programs denote both a parser and a printer. In essence, BiYacc is a domain-specific language for writing putback-based bidirectional transformations — the printer is a putback transformation, and the parser is the corresponding get transformation. The pairs of parsers and printers generated by BiYacc are thus always guaranteed to satisfy the usual round-trip properties. The highlight that distinguishes this reflective printer from others is that the printer — being a putback transformation — accepts not only an abstract syntax tree but also a string, and produces an updated string consistent with the given abstract syntax tree. We can thus make use of the additional input string, with mechanisms such as simultaneous pattern matching on the view and the source, to provide users with full control over the printing-strategies.JSPS -Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(25240009

Estrogen Receptor Alpha (ESR1)-Dependent Regulation of the Mouse Oviductal Transcriptome

Estrogen receptor-α (ESR1) is an important transcriptional regulator in the mammalian oviduct, however ESR1-dependent regulation of the transcriptome of this organ is not well defined, especially at the genomic level. The objective of this study was therefore to investigate estradiol- and ESR1-dependent regulation of the transcriptome of the oviduct using transgenic mice, both with (ESR1KO) and without (wild-type, WT) a global deletion of ESR1. Oviducts were collected from ESR1KO and WT littermates at 23 days of age, or ESR1KO and WT mice were treated with 5 IU PMSG to stimulate follicular development and the production of ovarian estradiol, and the oviducts collected 48 h later. RNA extracted from whole oviducts was hybridized to Affymetrix Genechip Mouse Genome 430–2.0 arrays (n = 3 arrays per genotype and treatment) or reverse transcribed to cDNA for analysis of the expression of selected mRNAs by real-time PCR. Following microarray analysis, a statistical two-way ANOVA and pairwise comparison (LSD test) revealed 2428 differentially expressed transcripts (DEG’s, P \u3c 0.01). Genotype affected the expression of 2215 genes, treatment (PMSG) affected the expression of 465 genes, and genotype x treatment affected the expression of 438 genes. With the goal of determining estradiol/ESR1-regulated function, gene ontology (GO) and bioinformatic pathway analyses were performed on DEG’s in the oviducts of PMSG-treated ESR1KO versus PMSG-treated WT mice. Significantly enriched GO molecular function categories included binding and catalytic activity. Significantly enriched GO cellular component categories indicated the extracellular region. Significantly enriched GO biological process categories involved a single organism, modulation of a measurable attribute and developmental processes. Bioinformatic analysis revealed ESR1-regulation of the immune response within the oviduct as the primary canonical pathway. In summary, a transcriptomal profile of estradiol- and ESR1-regulated gene expression and related bioinformatic analysis is presented to increase our understanding of how estradiol/ESR1 affects function of the oviduct, and to identify genes that may be proven as important regulators of fertility in the future

Probing Nonstandard Neutrino Physics by Two Identical Detectors with Different Baselines

The Kamioka-Korea two detector system is a powerful experimental setup for resolving neutrino parameter degeneracies and probing CP violation in neutrino oscillation. In this paper, we study sensitivities of this same setup to several nonstandard neutrino physics such as quantum decoherence, tiny violation of Lorentz symmetry, and nonstandard interactions of neutrinos with matter. In most cases, the Kamioka-Korea two-detector setup is more sensitive than the one-detector setup, except for the Lorentz symmetry violation with CPT violation, and the nonstandard neutrino interactions with matter. It can achieve significant improvement on the current bounds on nonstandard neutrino physics.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

The cytotoxicity of 3-bromopyruvate in breast cancer cells depends on extracellular pH

Although the anti-cancer properties of 3BP have been described previously, its selectivity for cancer cells still needs to be explained. In the work reported here we characterized the kinetic parameters of radiolabelled [14C]-3BP uptake in three breast cancer cell lines that display different levels of resistance to 3BP: ZR-75-1 < MCF-7 < SK-BR-3. At pH 6.0 the affinity of cancer cells for 3BP transport, correlates with their sensitivity, a pattern that does not occur at pH 7.4. In the three cell lines, the uptake of 3BP is dependent on the proton motive force and is decreased by MCTs inhibitors. In the SK-BR-3 cell line, a sodium-dependent transport also occurs. Butyrate promotes the localization of MCT-1 at the plasma membrane and increases the level of MCT-4 expression, leading to a higher sensitivity for 3BP. Here, we demonstrate that this phenotype is accompanied by an increase in affinity for 3BP uptake. Our results confirm the role of MCTs, especially MCT-1 in 3BP uptake and the importance of CD147 glycosylation in this process. We find that the affinity for 3BP transport is higher when the extracellular milieu is acid. This is a typical phenotype of tumor microenvironment and explains the lack of secondary effects of 3BP already described in in vivo studies.FEDER (Fundo Europeu deDesenvolvimento Regional), through POFC (Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade) – COMPETE, and by Portuguese National Funds from FCT (Fundac¸˜ao para a Ciˆencia e Tecnologia) in the scope of the project PEst-OE/BIA/U14050/2014. JAS [grant number SFRH/BD/76038/2011] received a fellowship from the Portuguese government from the FCT through FSE (Fundo Social Europeu) and POPH (Programa Operacional Potencial Humano)

Smart Companion Pillow – An EPS@ISEP 2019 Project

Part of the Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book seriesThis paper describes the design and development of a Smart Companion Pillow, named bGuard, designed by a multinational and multidisciplinary team enrolled in the European Project Semester (EPS) at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) in the spring of 2019. Nowadays, parents spend most of the day at work and become naturally worried about the well-being of their young children, specially babies. The aim of bGuard is to provide a 24-hour remotely accessible baby monitoring service, contributing to reduce parenting stress. The team, based on the survey of related products, as well as on marketing, sustainability, ethics and deontology analyses, developed a remotely interactive Smart Companion Pillow to monitor the baby’s health and room air quality. The collected data, once it is saved on an Internet of Things (IoT) platform, becomes remotely accessible. The bGuard pillow, thanks to its shape, reduces the risk of the baby rolling from back to tummy, lowering the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Impact of Environment and Social Gradient on Leptospira Infection in Urban Slums

Leptospirosis, a life-threatening zoonotic disease, has become an important urban slum health problem. Epidemics of leptospirosis now occur in cities throughout the developing world, as the growth of slum settlements has produced conditions for rat-borne transmission of this disease. In this prevalence survey of more than 3,000 residents from a favela slum community in Brazil, Geographical Information System (GIS) and modeling approaches identified specific deficiencies in the sanitation infrastructure of slum environments—open sewers, refuse, and inadequate floodwater drainage—that serve as sources for Leptospira transmission. In addition to the environmental attributes of the slum environment, low socioeconomic status was found to independently contribute to the risk of infection. These findings indicate that effective prevention of leptospirosis will need to address the social factors that produce unequal health outcomes among slum residents, in addition to improving sanitation

Transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells decreases oxidative stress, apoptosis, and hippocampal damage in brain of a spontaneous stroke model

Stroke is the most common cause of motor disabilities and is a major cause of mortality worldwide. Adult stem cells have been shown to be effective against neuronal degeneration through mechanisms that include both the recovery of neurotransmitter activity and a decrease in apoptosis and oxidative stress. We chose the lineage stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHRSP) as a model for stem cell therapy. SHRSP rats can develop such severe hypertension that they generally suffer a stroke at approximately 1 year of age. the aim of this study was to evaluate whether mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) decrease apoptotic death and oxidative stress in existing SHRSP brain tissue. the results of qRT-PCR assays showed higher levels of the antiapoptotic BcI-2 gene in the MSC-treated animals, compared with untreated. Our study also showed that superoxide, apoptotic cells, and by-products of lipid peroxidation decreased in MSC-treated SHRSP to levels similar those found in the animal controls, Wistar Kyoto rats. in addition, we saw a repair of morphological damage at the hippocampal region after MSC transplantation. These data suggest that MSCs have neuroprotective and antioxidant potential in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats. (c) 2014 the Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biofis, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Ctr Desenvolvimento Modelos Expt Med & Biol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Morfol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Fisiol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniv Santa Cecilia, Dept Odontol, Santos, SP, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Nefrol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biofis, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Ctr Desenvolvimento Modelos Expt Med & Biol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Morfol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Fisiol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Nefrol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilFAPESP: 05/60630-1FAPESP: 10/00106-5Web of Scienc

Eschar-associated Spotted Fever Rickettsiosis, Bahia, Brazil

In Brazil, Brazilian spotted fever was once considered the only tick-borne rickettsial disease. We report eschar-associated rickettsial disease that occurred after a tick bite. The etiologic agent is most related to Rickettsia parkeri, R. africae, and R. sibirica and probably widely distributed from São Paulo to Bahia in the Atlantic Forest