Virus Inactivation by Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Fenton-like Processes

Human enteric viruses in water sources cause a great public health risk. Conventional disinfection treatments are not able to completely inactive viruses. However, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have recently been shown to effectively inactivate pathogens. One of the most promising AOPs is the Fenton process. In the framework of this work, the main objective was to characterize the fate of viruses upon inactivation by homogeneous and heterogeneous Fenton and Fenton-like processes, as well as to elucidate the mechanisms governing virus inactivation by these processes. MS2 coliphage, a commonly used surrogate for human enteric viruses, was used as the model organism. Virus inactivation by homogeneous, Cu- or Fe-catalyzed Fenton(-like) reactions, were studied at neutral pH. The effect of the metal (1-10 µM) and H2O2 (3-50 µM) concentrations, HO• production and sunlight on virus inactivation was investigated. Virus inactivation followed first-order kinetic with respect to the H2O2 concentration for both treatments. The influence of the metal concentrations was more complex. For the Cu/H2O2 system, it was found that inactivation was governed by soluble Cu. In contrast, for the Fe/H2O2 system, the colloidal Fe was involved in inactivation rather than dissolved iron. Sunlight only affected the Fe/H2O2 system. HO• production rates measured by electron spin resonance (ESR), could not account for the observed inactivation in Fe/H2O2 system. Other oxidants, such as ferryl species, must therefore play a role. Overall, our results have shown that virus inactivation by Cu- and Fe- catalyzed Fenton reaction may serve as an efficient disinfection method. Virus inactivation by the heterogeneous Fenton process was carried out via iron(hydr-)oxide particles, such as hematite (α-Fe2O3), goethite (α-FeOOH), magnetite (Fe3O4) and amorphous iron (Fe(OH)3), in batch reactors at circumneutral pH. The influence of adsorption and sunlight exposure on the survival of MS2 was investigated. Both mass-based and surface-area normalized pseudo-second order adsorption rate constants followed the same trend of α-FeOOH > α-Fe2O3 > Fe3O4 ≈ Fe(OH)3. Virus adsorption onto all particles was only partly reversible. In addition to irreversible adsorption, adsorption to three of the particles studied (α-FeOOH, Fe3O4, Fe(OH)3) caused slight virus inactivation (85%, 77%, 97%, respectively). Exposure of particle-adsorbed viruses to sunlight and H2O2 resulted in efficient inactivation, whereas inactivation was negligible for suspended viruses. The observed first-order inactivation rate constants were 1.44×10-3, 1.09×10-3, 0,58, 1.48 min-1 for α-Fe2O3, α-FeOOH, Fe3O4 and Fe(OH)3, respectively. Our results showed that in the heterogeneous Fenton system, inactivation was mainly attributed to a particle-mediated photo-Fenton-like reaction. Finally, the extent of genome and protein damage of MS2 coliphage during inactivation by the homogeneous Cu/H2O2 and Fe/H2O2 /sunlight systems were studied. The results showed that both damage to the genome and the capsid protein may contribute on virus inactivation by both treatments. The patterns of damage were different, even though the same oxidant (HO•) was present in both systems, indicating the source of the oxidant is important. For the Cu system, the extent of genome damage was similar to that of inactivation, indicating that inactivation may occur via single-hit kinetics. In contrast, for the Fe system, genome damage was very extensive in comparison to inactivation, consistent with multi-hit inactivation kinetics. For both systems, the most susceptible region of the capsid protein was peptide segment 84-106, which is located on the capsid outer surface. The other regions of the protein are not likely to be involved in inactivation. Overall, our findings suggested that both genome and protein oxidation by Cu and Fe systems may play a role in inactivation, and that the determination of molecular-level mechanisms governing inactivation can be assessed by MALDI-TOF-MS and qPCR

La conflictividad social en clave local. Un ejercicio de ponderación sobre los hechos de rebelión en la Mar del Plata actual (Argentina, 2011-2016)

En el artículo propuesto se presenta un avance de la investigación en curso sobre la conflictividad social en las comunidades portuarias del sudeste bonaerense durante el período 2011-2016. Analizamos el caso de la ciudad puerto de Mar del Plata. En primer lugar, se da cuenta de los distintos clivajes emergentes en los hechos de rebelión, dividiéndolos en dos grandes grupos: los hechos impulsados por personificaciones de la relación capital-trabajo y los hechos emprendidos por personificaciones que se producen por fuera de la relación capital-trabajo. En un segundo lugar, se ensaya una ponderación de los conflictos con el objetivo de arriesgar una caracterización e interpretación global de la dinámica conflictual en aquellos años. La base empírica para dicho ejercicio es el registro normalizado que de la conflictividad social se viene realizando en el marco del Seminario de Investigación Sobre el Movimiento de la Sociedad (SISMOS), cuya fuente de información es el diario local La Capital.En l'article proposat es presenta un avanç de la investigacio en curs sobre la conflictivitat social a les comunitats portua ries del sud-est de Buenos Aires durant el perí ode 2011-2016. Hi analitzem el cas de la ciutat port de Mar del Plata. En primer lloc, es dona compte dels diferents clivatges emergents en els fets de rebel·lio , que es divideixen en dos grans grups: els fets impulsats per personificacions de la relacio capital-treball i els fets empresos per personificacions que es produeixen fora de la relacio capital-treball. En segon lloc, s’hi assaja una ponderacio dels conflictes amb l'objectiu d'arriscar una caracteritzacio i interpretacio global de la dina mica conflictual d’aquells anys. La base empí rica per a aquest exercici e s el registre normalitzat que de la conflictivitat social es realitza en el marc del Seminari d’Investigacio Sobre el Moviment de la Societat (SISMOS), la font d'informacio del qual e s el diari local La CapitalIn this article we present a preview of an ongoing investigation on social conflict situations in the port communities of southeast Buenos Aires in the period 2011-2016. We examine the case of the port city of Mar del Plata. Firstly, we present the several cleavages emerging in the conflicts and divide them in two large groups: capital-labour conflicts and conflicts which happen outside the capital-labour relations. In the second place, we attempt an analysis of the conflicts in order to propose a characterization and global interpretation of conflict dynamics in those years. The empirical base of this exercise is the normalized record of social conflict situations that we are preparing within the Research Seminar on the Movement of Society (SISMOS), whose source of information is the local newspaper La CapitalFil: Nieto, Alejandro Agustín. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; ArgentinaFil: Laitano, María Guillermina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; ArgentinaFil: Rabino, Nicolás. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Nogueira, Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Nogueira, Luciana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Andreozzi, Lucía. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Becher, Pablo Ariel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Fabiani, Luis Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Sánchez, Gabriela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Teijón, Ivana Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Marioli, Eliana Margarita. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; ArgentinaFil: Pironi, Emmanuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; ArgentinaFil: Okada, Camila. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Humanidades. Departamento de Historia. Centro de Estudios Históricos; Argentin

Miradas y voces de la Investigación Educativa III : Formación y desarrollo profesional docente. Innovación Educativa con miras a la justicia social. Aportes desde la Investigación Educativa

Fil: Ferreyra, Horacio Ademar. Universidad Católica de Córdoba. Facultad de Educación; ArgentinaFil: Sañudo Guerra, Lya. Universidad Católica de Córdoba. Facultad de Educación; Argentin

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks