Febre Amarela: revisão e situação epidemiológica atual no Brasil

Desde Janeiro de 2017, foram reportados 1563 casos suspeitos de Febre Amarela, sendo confirmados 629 casos, dos quais foram confirmadas 232 mortes devido a doença. A Febre Amarela é uma doença febril hemorrágica, sendo endêmica de regiões tropicais da África e América do Sul. Nos dias atuais, tem apresentado aumento significativo em sua incidência no Brasil, com repercussões e impactos importantes na saúde pública do país. Neste artigo são descritas as causas de Febre Amarela, bem como sua epidemiologia, progressão, os métodos diagnósticos, tratamento e prevenção da doença, de forma a promover atualização epidemiológica e direcionar futuras pesquisas na área. Método: Foram utilizados dados do Pubmed, SciELO, Medline e de fontes governamentais, referentes a Febre Amarela, que datam de 2002 à 2018. Na coleta do dados foram utilizados os seguintes descritores: Febre Amarela, Aedes, Arbovírus, Flavivirus.Since January 2017, there have been at least 1563 suspected cases of Yellow Fever, 629 confirmed cases and 232 confirmed deaths. Yellow fever is a viral hemorrhagic disease endemic to the tropical parts of Africa and South America. At the present time, it has presented a significant increase in its incidence in Brazil, with important repercussions and impacts on the public health. This review paper outlines the causes of yellow fever, as well as the disease epidemiology, progression, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. We conclude by reporting on the current epidemic in Brazil and future directions for research. Method: Data from Pubmed, SciELO, Medline and government sources concerning Yellow Fever were used, dating from 2002 to 2018. In the collection of the data the following descriptors were used: Yellow-fever, Aedes, Arbovirus and Flavivirus

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Self-assembling DNA complexes: an in vitro platform to probe the relation between transcription and condensed DNA phases

DNA organization within a cell is multifaceted and dynamic. Not only does chromatin structure vary with position, as there is significant heterogeneity in the degree of local compaction within the global DNA complex, but it also changes with time, showing dependence on, e.g., the growth stage of a cell. The condensation state of DNA is intimately coupled to gene accessibility and expression: changes to DNA organization can modulate transcription and, in turn, transcribed RNA can reorganize chromatin structure. We sought to develop a more tractable, in vitro platform to probe this complex relationship and utilized a self-assembling DNA nanostar (NS) as the principal component of a chromatin mimic. In this dissertation, I will discuss our research with condensed phases of self-assembled NSs, describing structural properties of the system's two phases (i.e. NS-networks & NS-liquids), features of NS-liquids that enable application as a model of membraneless organelles, and initial work examining the transcription of genes integrated within NS-liquids

Self-assembling DNA complexes: an in vitro platform to probe the relation between transcription and condensed DNA phases

DNA organization within a cell is multifaceted and dynamic. Not only does chromatin structure vary with position, as there is significant heterogeneity in the degree of local compaction within the global DNA complex, but it also changes with time, showing dependence on, e.g., the growth stage of a cell. The condensation state of DNA is intimately coupled to gene accessibility and expression: changes to DNA organization can modulate transcription and, in turn, transcribed RNA can reorganize chromatin structure. We sought to develop a more tractable, in vitro platform to probe this complex relationship and utilized a self-assembling DNA nanostar (NS) as the principal component of a chromatin mimic. In this dissertation, I will discuss our research with condensed phases of self-assembled NSs, describing structural properties of the system's two phases (i.e. NS-networks & NS-liquids), features of NS-liquids that enable application as a model of membraneless organelles, and initial work examining the transcription of genes integrated within NS-liquids

Does brand anthropomorphism and brand intimacy matter to assess consumers’ engagement successfully?

AbstractThis study aims to analyze the impact of Brand Anthropomorphism and Intimacy on the attachment between consumers and the Samsung electronic technology brand. Data were collected by convenience sampling from 357 respondents through an internet survey, using SPSS 25 and AMOS 25 software along with CB-SEM (Covariance-based SEM) analysis technique to evaluate the relationship between structures. Research results show that Brand Anthropomorphism has a direct impact on Intimacy and Brand Engagement, and Intimacy is the mediator between Brand Anthropomorphism and Brand Engagement. In addition, the research results show that in Vietnam, specifically, Ho Chi Minh City, the Brand Anthropomorphism factor in the Samsung technology brand market consists of only three components instead of four components like other brands’ previous research. In addition, this study demonstrates the role of Brand Anthropomorphism in the context of the electronic technology market, which marketing managers can deploy to achieve effective engagement between consumers and brands

Film Distillation with a Porous Condenser for Seawater Desalination: Evaluation of Materials’ Stability in the Tropical Climate of Vietnam

Desalination and treatment of wastewater has become critical for Asia regions with water scarcity. In this work, the concept of thin-film distillation equipped with a porous condenser (FDPC) was considered for its implementation in a tropical climate of Vietnam. It was found that samples with a concentration of biocide of 0.5 wt.% possessed lower biofouling, in contrast to the neat membranes. The FD-PC module was developed and water desalination experiments were conducted in Russia and Vietnam. The experiments showed high reproducibility of the results; in particular, the evaporation rate was (4.9/3.0) kg/m2h in Russia and (4.1/2.0) kg/m2h in Vietnam. In addition, as part of this work, the optimal configuration of the installation was calculated using solar collectors as the main energy source. The calculation showed high energy efficiency: specific energy consumption 0.1–0.5 kWh/m3

Characterization and Optimization of Culture Conditions for Aurantiochytrium sp. SC145 Isolated from Sand Cay (Son Ca) Island, Vietnam, and Antioxidative and Neuroprotective Activities of Its Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Mixture

Aurantiochytrium is a heterotrophic marine microalga that has potential industrial applications. The main objectives of this study were to isolate an Aurantiochytrium strain from Sand Cay (Son Ca) Island, Vietnam, optimize its culture conditions, determine its nutritional composition, extract polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the free (FFA) and the alkyl ester (FAAE) forms, and evaluate the antioxidation and neuroprotection properties of the PUFAs. Aurantiochytrium sp. SC145 can be grown stably under laboratory conditions. Its culture conditions were optimized for a dry cell weight (DCW) of 31.18 g/L, with total lipids comprising 25.29%, proteins 7.93%, carbohydrates 15.21%, and carotenoid at 143.67 µg/L of DCW. The FAAEs and FFAs extracted from Aurantiochytrium sp. SC145 were rich in omega 3–6–9 fatty acids (40.73% and 44.00% of total fatty acids, respectively). No acute or subchronic oral toxicity was determined in mice fed with the PUFAs in FFA or FAAE forms at different doses over 90 days. Furthermore, the PUFAs in the FFA or FAAE forms and their main constituents of EPA, DHA, and ALA showed antioxidant and AChE inhibitory properties and neuroprotective activities against damage caused by H2O2- and amyloid-ß protein fragment 25–35 (Aβ25-35)-induced C6 cells. These data suggest that PUFAs extracted from Aurantiochytrium sp. SC145 may be a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders