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

Microbial detergent compatible lipases

105-113Most of the companies are not currently manufacturing the detergents alone; they are producing enzyme-based detergents. More than 50% of the detergents produced in the developed countries presently contain enzymes to improve the detergency by removing tough stains. The role of a detergent lipase is to digest the lipidic molecules from the soiled substrates. Most of the chemical detergent ingredients are hazardous to human beings and cause pollution to the environment. The use of alkaline lipase in detergent formulations can reduce or substitute the use of these harmful ingredients in higher amounts. The detergent lipases active at ambient temperature are now preferred as the quality of the cleaned fabric is maintained and energy saved. Review papers on the production, purification, characterization and application of lipases in various industries are available, but no specific review on the microbial alkaline lipases or detergent compatible lipases. In the present review, screening, production and properties of detergent compatible lipases are reported with emphasis on the stability and compatibility of alkaline lipases in detergent and detergent constituents and the methods for examination of oil stain removal

Biotransformation of Δ3-carene by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Penicillium nigricans</i>

217-222A fungus was isolated from forest soil by selective enrichment method with Δ3-carene as a sole source of carbon and identified as Penicillium nigricans. The isolate was capable of transforming Δ3-carene into neutral [dihydrocarvone, carvone, carveol, (+)-trans-p-mentha-5,8-dien-2-ol and (+)-trans-p-mentha-5,8-dien-2-one] and acidic (perillic acid and 2-hydroxy-p-menth-8-ene-7-oic-acid) metabolic compounds. These compounds were identified based on infrared (IR), proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) and mass spectrum (MS) studies. Three pathways have been proposed for the transformation of Δ3-carene into the neutral and acid metabolic compounds based on the study of oxygen consumption by Δ3-carene grown fungal cells. As the different metabolic intermediates of Δ3-carene are much used in the perfume industry, the Δ3-carene, which is abundantly available, can be used as a starting material in the perfume industry by microbial techniques, using this fungal strain

Reactive collisions between electrons and BeT+^+ : Complete set of thermal rate coefficients up to 5000 K

International audienceRate coefficients for the dissociative recombination, vibrational excitation and vibrational de-excitation of the BeT + ion for all vibrational levels of its ground electronic state ( X1Σ+,vi+=0,…,27 ) are reported, including in the calculation the contribution of super-excited states of the BeT complex pertaining to three electronic symmetries - 2Π , 2Σ+ , and 2Δ . These data are suitable for the kinetic modeling of beryllium and tritium containing plasma, as encountered in magnetic fusion devices with beryllium walls (JET, ITER). In the present study we restrict ourselves to incident electron energies from 10 −3 up to 2.7eV , and to electron temperatures between 100 and 5000 K, respectively. Together with our earlier and closely related studies on the BeH + and BeD + systems, this present work completes the isotopic coverage for the beryllium monohydride ions. The vibrational energy (rather than the vibrational quantum state) is identified as a proper isotopic similarity parameter, e.g., for reduced but still isotopically correct plasma chemistry models