COVID-19 Management in Clinical Dental Care Part II: Personal Protective Equipment for the Dental Care Professional

Background: Facing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) challenge on a global level, dental care professionals are encouraged to optimize universal precautions and adopt measures that ensure protection against infection by contaminated aerosols and droplets. Although aerosol transmission is possible, direct contact through large droplets is probably responsible for the vast majority of transmissions. Methods: This paper is the second of a series of 3 on the management of COVID-19 in clinical dental care settings and aims to describe the selection and use of personal protection equipment (PPE) by dental care professionals (DCP), with consideration of the level of risk associated with the planned procedures. PPE selection depends directly on the local epidemiological setting, the patient's characteristics, and the level of risk of the planned procedures. The procedures performed in the office environment are classified as low-, moderate-, or high-risk. Moderate risk includes 2 further sublevels associated with the cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization of materials for clinical procedures that do not generate aerosols. The training of DCP on how to properly don (put on) and doff (remove) PPE is as important as choosing the appropriate PPE because it can be associated with a risk of infection. Discussion: When there is limited availability of PPE, measures should be adjusted to the risk associated with the intervention. Assuming that an effective COVID-19 vaccine will be developed, once it becomes widely available for DCP, PPE requirements will likely be different. Conclusion: The proper use of PPE, together with the adoption of other operational procedures, can provide effective protection against microorganisms being transmitted via body fluids or in the air.This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors

‘Solo datasets’: unexpected behavioural patterns uncovered by acoustic monitoring of single individuals

A holistic understanding of the life-history strategies of marine populations is often hindered by complex population dynamics, exacerbated by an intricate movement ecology across their life history (Nathan et al. 2008; Parsons et al. 2008; Jeltsch et al. 2013). Movement patterns and spatial ecology can vary spatially and temporally for different reasons, mainly related to the organism’s life history and environmental variability (Abecasis et al. 2009, 2013; Afonso et al. 2009). Changes in spatial use and movement can occur daily when visiting feeding grounds or avoiding predators, or seasonally, when sexually mature individuals migrate to spawning/breeding grounds (Kozakiewicz 1995; Sundström et al. 2001). However, observed shifts in spatial use and movement patterns, as a result of behavioural plasticity, may also vary greatly from one individual to another of the same species and/or population (Afonso et al. 2009). Further, ontogeny can also play an important role and explain a possible change in individual spatial variation. Noticeable differences in the behaviour and movements of mature and immature individuals have been documented in various marine organisms (Lowe et al. 1996; Lecchini and Galzin 2005). Permanent habitat shifts have been associated with ontogenesis in pigeye sharks (Carcharhinus amboinensis), moving from inshore to offshore areas after reaching maturity (Knip et al. 2011).This research was partially funded by the EU LIFE-BIOMARES Project (LIFE06 NAT/P/000192).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Taenia solium cysticercosis in Eastern and Southern Africa: an emerging problem in agriculture and public health

Pig production has increased tremendously in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), particularly in smallholder rural communities. The increase in pig production has mainly been due to land scarcity, increase in pork consumption in many areas including urban centers, and the recognition by many communities of the fast and greater return of the pig industry, compared with other domesticated livestock industries. Concurrent with the increase in smallholder pig keeping and pork consumption, there have been increasing reports of Taenia solium cysticercosis in pigs and humans in the ESA region, although the problems are under-recognized by all levels in many ESA countries. Having recognizing this, scientists researching T. solium in ESA formed a regional cysticercosis working group (CWGESA) to increase awareness of the problem and enable effective and sustainable control of T. solium. This article summarizes the status of T. solium infections in humans and pigs in the ESA countries and highlights the formation and progress of the CWGESA

f(R) theories

Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations, and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom

The low-virulent African swine fever virus (ASFV/NH/P68) induces enhanced expression and production of relevant regulatory cytokines (IFNα, TNFα and IL12p40) on porcine macrophages in comparison to the highly virulent ASFV/L60

The impact of infection by the low-virulent ASFV/NH/P68 (NHV) and the highly virulent ASFV/L60 (L60) isolates on porcine macrophages was assessed through the quantification of IFNα, TNFα, IL12p40, TGFβ and ASFV genes by real-time PCR at 2, 4 and 6 h post-infection. Increased IFNα, TNFα and IL12p40 expression was found in infection with NHV, in which expression of TGFβ was lower than in infection with L60. Principal component analysis showed a positive interaction of cytokines involved in cellular immune mechanisms, namely IFNα and IL12p40 in the NHV infection. Quantification by ELISA confirmed higher production of IFNα, TNFα and IL12p40 in the NHV-infected macrophages. Overall, our studies reinforce and clarify the effect of the NHV infection by targeting cellular and cellular-based immune responses relevant for pig survival against ASFV infection

Surveillance of active human cytomegalovirus infection in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HLA sibling identical donor): search for optimal cutoff value by real-time PCR

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection still causes significant morbidity and mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Therefore, it is extremely important to diagnosis and monitor active CMV infection in HSCT patients, defining the CMV DNA levels of virus replication that warrant intervention with antiviral agents in order to accurately prevent CMV disease and further related complications.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>During the first 150 days after allogeneic HSTC, thirty patients were monitored weekly for active CMV infection by <it>pp65 </it>antigenemia, nested-PCR and real-time PCR assays. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) plot analysis was performed to determine a threshold value of the CMV DNA load by real-time PCR.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using ROC curves, the optimal cutoff value by real-time PCR was 418.4 copies/10⁴PBL (sensitivity, 71.4%; specificity, 89.7%). Twenty seven (90%) of the 30 analyzed patients had active CMV infection and two (6.7%) developed CMV disease. Eleven (40.7%) of these 27 patients had acute GVHD, 18 (66.7%) had opportunistic infection, 5 (18.5%) had chronic rejection and 11 (40.7%) died - one died of CMV disease associated with GVHD and bacterial infection.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The low incidence of CMV disease in HSCT recipients in our study attests to the efficacy of CMV surveillance based on clinical routine assay. The quantification of CMV DNA load using real-time PCR appears to be applicable to the clinical practice and an optimal cutoff value for guiding timely preemptive therapy should be clinically validated in future studies.</p