Characterizing Disabilities in Preschool Aged Children with Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome with the ICF Model.

Understanding functioning and disabilities in children with Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) is essential for health planning. We describe disabilities present in children with CZS followed in a reference hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, based on the biopsychosocial model of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). This was a cohort study of children >3 years of age with CZS. Disability was characterized through outcomes related to ICF components assessed via clinical and motor development evaluations. Among 50 children, with a median age of 40 months, 47 (94%) presented with severe impairment and 46 (92%) had microcephaly. Damage to the head and neck was found in most children, with abnormal central nervous system imaging universally present. Most children had cognitive impairment (92%), muscle tone problems (90%), and speech deficits (94%). We found movement limitations in all categories but more pervasively (80-94%), in postural transfers and displacements. The main environmental factors identified in the ICF model were the use of products or substances for personal consumption and access to health services. Children with CZS have extremely high rates of disability beyond aged 3 years, particularly regarding motor activity. ICF-based models can contribute to the assessment of health domains

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Diretriz Brasileira sobre a Saúde Cardiovascular no Climatério e na Menopausa – 2024

Women, who represent approximately half of the global population according to estimates as of January 2024, may experience signs and symptoms of menopause for at least one-third of their lives, during which they have a higher risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The effects of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) on the progression of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD) events vary depending on the age at which MHT is initiated and the time since menopause until its initiation. Beneficial effects on CVD outcomes and all-cause mortality have been observed when MHT was initiated before the age of 60 or within 10 years after menopause. The decision regarding the initiation, dose, regimen, and duration of MHT should be made individually after discussing the benefits and risks with each patient. For primary prevention of postmenopausal chronic conditions, the combined use of estrogen and progestogen is not recommended in asymptomatic women, nor is the use of estrogen alone in hysterectomized women. Hormone-dependent neoplasms contraindicate MHT. For the treatment of genitourinary syndrome of menopause, vaginal estrogen therapy may be used in patients with known cardiovascular risk factors or established CVD. For women with contraindications to MHT or who refuse it, non-hormonal therapies with proven efficacy (antidepressants, gabapentin, and fezolinetant) may improve vasomotor symptoms. Compounded hormonal implants, or "bioidentical" and "compounded" hormones, and "hormone modulation" are not recommended due to lack of scientific evidence of their effectiveness and safety.Mujeres, que representan aproximadamente la mitad de la población mundial según estimaciones de enero de 2024, pueden experimentar signos y síntomas de la menopausia durante al menos un tercio de sus vidas, durante los cuales tienen un mayor riesgo de morbilidad y mortalidad cardiovascular. Los efectos de la terapia hormonal de la menopausia (THM) en la progresión de la aterosclerosis y los eventos de enfermedad cardiovascular (ECV) varían según la edad en que se inicia la THM y el tiempo transcurrido desde la menopausia hasta su inicio. Se han observado efectos beneficiosos en los resultados de ECV y la mortalidad por todas las causas cuando la THM se inició antes de los 60 años o dentro de los 10 años posteriores a la menopausia. La decisión sobre la iniciación, dosis, régimen y duración de la THM debe tomarse individualmente después de discutir los beneficios y riesgos con cada paciente. Para la prevención primaria de condiciones crónicas en la posmenopausia, no se recomienda el uso combinado de estrógeno y progestágeno en mujeres asintomáticas, ni el uso de estrógeno solo en mujeres histerectomizadas. Las neoplasias dependientes de hormonas contraindican la THM. Para el tratamiento del síndrome genitourinario de la menopausia, se puede usar terapia estrogénica vaginal en pacientes con factores de riesgo cardiovascular conocidos o ECV establecida. Para mujeres con contraindicaciones a la THM o que la rechazan, las terapias no hormonales con eficacia demostrada (antidepresivos, gabapentina y fezolinetant) pueden mejorar los síntomas vasomotores. Los implantes hormonales compuestos, o hormonas "bioidénticas" y "compuestas", y la "modulación hormonal" no se recomiendan debido a la falta de evidencia científica sobre su efectividad y seguridad.As mulheres, que representam cerca de metade da população mundial segundo estimativas de janeiro de 2024, podem sofrer com sinais e sintomas da menopausa durante pelo menos um terço de suas vidas, quando apresentam maiores risco e morbimortalidade cardiovasculares. Os efeitos da terapia hormonal da menopausa (THM) na progressão de eventos de aterosclerose e doença cardiovascular (DCV) variam de acordo com a idade em que a THM é iniciada e o tempo desde a menopausa até esse início. Efeitos benéficos nos resultados de DCV e na mortalidade por todas as causas ocorreram quando a THM foi iniciada antes dos 60 anos de idade ou nos 10 anos que se seguiram à menopausa. A decisão sobre o início, a dose, o regime e a duração da THM deve ser tomada individualmente após discussão sobre benefícios e riscos com cada paciente. Para a prevenção primária de condições crônicas na pós-menopausa, não se recomendam o uso combinado de estrogênio e progestagênio em mulheres assintomáticas nem o uso de estrogênio sozinho em mulheres histerectomizadas. Neoplasias hormônio-dependentes contraindicam a THM. Para tratamento da síndrome geniturinária da menopausa, pode-se utilizar terapia estrogênica por via vaginal em pacientes com fatores de risco cardiovascular conhecidos ou DCV estabelecida. Para mulheres com contraindicação à THM ou que a recusam, terapias não hormonais com eficácia comprovada (antidepressivos, gabapentina e fezolinetante) podem melhorar os sintomas vasomotores. Os implantes hormonais manipulados, ou hormônios “bioidênticos” “manipulados”, e a ‘modulação hormonal’ não são recomendados pela falta de evidência científica de sua eficácia e segurança

Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in ZZ-tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at s=\sqrt{s}=13 TeV

Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against a $Z$ boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 $< p_{\textrm{T}} < 100$ GeV and in the pseudorapidity range $2.5 < \eta < 4$. The data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb$^{-1}$. Triple differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb public pages

Study of the B−→Λc+Λˉc−K−B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-} decay

The decay $B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-}$ is studied in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ collected by the LHCb experiment. In the $\Lambda_{c}^+ K^{-}$ system, the $\Xi_{c}(2930)^{0}$ state observed at the BaBar and Belle experiments is resolved into two narrower states, $\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}$ and $\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}$, whose masses and widths are measured to be $$m(\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}) = 2924.5 \pm 0.4 \pm 1.1 \,\mathrm{MeV}, \\ m(\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}) = 2938.5 \pm 0.9 \pm 2.3 \,\mathrm{MeV}, \\ \Gamma(\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}) = \phantom{000}4.8 \pm 0.9 \pm 1.5 \,\mathrm{MeV},\\ \Gamma(\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}) = \phantom{00}11.0 \pm 1.9 \pm 7.5 \,\mathrm{MeV},$$ where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. The results are consistent with a previous LHCb measurement using a prompt $\Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-}$ sample. Evidence of a new $\Xi_{c}(2880)^{0}$ state is found with a local significance of $3.8\,\sigma$, whose mass and width are measured to be $2881.8 \pm 3.1 \pm 8.5\,\mathrm{MeV}$ and $12.4 \pm 5.3 \pm 5.8 \,\mathrm{MeV}$, respectively. In addition, evidence of a new decay mode $\Xi_{c}(2790)^{0} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-}$ is found with a significance of $3.7\,\sigma$. The relative branching fraction of $B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-}$ with respect to the $B^{-} \to D^{+} D^{-} K^{-}$ decay is measured to be $2.36 \pm 0.11 \pm 0.22 \pm 0.25$, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from the branching fractions of charm hadron decays.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-028.html (LHCb public pages

Measurement of the ratios of branching fractions R(D∗)\mathcal{R}(D^{*}) and R(D0)\mathcal{R}(D^{0})

The ratios of branching fractions $\mathcal{R}(D^{*})\equiv\mathcal{B}(\bar{B}\to D^{*}\tau^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\tau})/\mathcal{B}(\bar{B}\to D^{*}\mu^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\mu})$ and $\mathcal{R}(D^{0})\equiv\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to D^{0}\tau^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\tau})/\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to D^{0}\mu^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\mu})$ are measured, assuming isospin symmetry, using a sample of proton-proton collision data corresponding to 3.0 fb${ }^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment during 2011 and 2012. The tau lepton is identified in the decay mode $\tau^{-}\to\mu^{-}\nu_{\tau}\bar{\nu}_{\mu}$. The measured values are $\mathcal{R}(D^{*})=0.281\pm0.018\pm0.024$ and $\mathcal{R}(D^{0})=0.441\pm0.060\pm0.066$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The correlation between these measurements is $\rho=-0.43$. Results are consistent with the current average of these quantities and are at a combined 1.9 standard deviations from the predictions based on lepton flavor universality in the Standard Model.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-039.html (LHCb public pages

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost