Actualidad de la meteorología espacial

Peer reviewe

Behavior of the ionosphere over Europe during two geomagnetic storms which caused tongues of ionization over North America

Poster presentado en la EGU General Assembly 2015, 12-17 April, 2015, Vienna, AustriaThis work presents the effect of two geomagnetic storms on the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) over Europe. Those geomagnetic storms occurred on July 14th, 2013 and February 19th, 2014 and originated a tongue of ionization over North America. Following the criteria of Gonzalez et al.(1994), the July storm can be classified as a moderate one because the Dst index reached a value of -72nT, whereas the February storm as an intense event considering that Dst index dropped to -112nT. For this study we have used RINEX files obtained from GNSS stations belonging to International GPS Service, IGS, EUREF Permanent Network, and University Navstar Consortium, UNAVCO, networks. The data has been divided into two groups in function of the region: Europe or North America. For each group we have used all the available stations. The RINEX files have been processed using a technique developed by Ciraolo (2012) which assumes the ionospheric thin shell model to obtain the vertical total electron content (vTEC) from the slant total electron content (sTEC) at the Ionospheric Pierce Point, IPP, the point where the line-of-sight between the satellite and the ground receiver intersects the ionosphere. The data were obtained at 1 minute sampling in periods of geomagnetic storms and quiet days close to them. In both storms a tongue of ionization, ToI, appeared over North America from afternoon to dusk (between 19:00 and 3:00 GMT). The behavior of the ionosphere over Europe was very different in eachcase. In July, the TEC decreased respect the quiet days during the ToI time. In the February storm the behavior of the ionosphere over Europe was similar to that of a quiet day but the following day appeared a phenomenom similar to the ToI.Peer reviewe

Catheter-related bloodstream infection caused by Enterococcus spp.

AbstractThe role of Enterococcus spp. as a cause of catheter-related bloodstream infections (CR-BSI) is almost unexplored. We assessed the incidence and clinical characteristics of enterococcal CR-BSI (ECR-BSI) over an 8-year period in our hospital. We performed a retrospective study (January 2003 to December 2010) in a large teaching institution. We recorded the incidence, and the microbiological and clinical data from patients with ECR-BSI. The incidence per 10 000 admissions for enterococcal BSI and ECR-BSI was 25 and 1.7, respectively. ECR-BSI was the fourth leading cause of CR-BSI in our institution (6%). A total of 75 episodes of ECR-BSI were detected in 73 patients (6% of all enterococcal BSI). The incidence of ECR-BSI increased by 17% annually (95% CI 19.0–21.0%) during the study period. Nineteen percent of ECR-BSI episodes were polymicrobial. Overall mortality was 33%. ECR-BSI is an emerging and increasingly common entity with a high mortality. This finding should be taken into account when selecting empirical treatment for presumptive CR-BSI

Linezolid therapy for infective endocarditis

AbstractLinezolid is not yet recognised as a standard therapy for infective endocarditis. This report describes nine patients with endocarditis treated with linezolid and 33 similar cases from the medical literature. The majority of cases involved multiresistant strains, and the reasons for administering linezolid were refractory disease (60%), intolerance (28%), sequential therapy (12%) and a resistant pathogen (1%). Linezolid was administered for a mean of 37 days, with a successful outcome in 79% of cases. Reversible adverse effects were described in ten cases. The mean follow-up period was 8.5 months. Further data from randomised controlled clinical trials are needed to determine the efficacy and safety of linezolid for treating endocarditis

The Spanish SpaceWeather Service SeNMEs. A Case Study on the Sun-Earth Chain

Comunicación presentada en el Coimbra Solar Physics Meeting, 5-9 October 2015, Coimbra, PortugalThe Spanish Space Weather Service SeNMEs, www.senmes.es, is a portal created by the SRG-SW of the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain, to meet societal needs of near real-time space weather services. This webpage-portal is divided in different sections to fulfill users needs about space weather effects: radio blackouts, solar energetic particle events, geomagnetic storms and presence of geomagnetically induced currents. In less than one year of activity, this service has released a daily report concerning the solar current status and interplanetary medium, informing about the chances of a solar perturbation to hit the Earth’s environment. There are also two different forecasting tools for geomagnetic storms, and a daily ionospheric map. These tools allow us to nowcast a variety of solar eruptive events and forecast geomagnetic storms and their recovery, including a new local geomagnetic index, LDiñ, along with some specific new scaling. In this paper we also include a case study analysed by SeNMEs. Using different high resolution and cadence data from space-borne solar telescopes SDO, SOHO and GOES, along with ionospheric and geomagnetic data, we describe the Sun-Earth feature chain for the event.MINECO project AYA2013-47735PPeer reviewe

Candida tropicalis fungaemia: incidence, risk factors and mortality in a general hospital

AbstractThe risk factors and clinical features of patients with Candida tropicalis fungaemia have not been fully defined. We performed a case–control study comparing 59 cases of C. tropicalis fungaemia with 177 episodes of fungaemia caused by other species of Candida in our hospital over a 24-year period (January 1985 to December 2008). Patients with C. tropicalis fungaemia were more likely to be older (median age, 67 vs. 56 years; p 0.01), to have cancer (45.5% vs. 31.6%, p 0.04), and to have the abdomen as the portal of entry (32.2% vs. 11.9%, p 0.001), and had a higher in-hospital mortality rate (61% vs. 44%, p 0.03). Multivariate analysis showed that the independent risk factors for C. tropicalis fungaemia were cancer (OR 4.5; 95% CI 1.05–3.83; p 0.03) and the abdomen as the portal of entry (OR 13.6; 95% CI 1.9–8.2; p <0.001). When survivors were compared with non-survivors, the risk factors associated with a poor outcome were neutropenia (19.4% vs. 0; p 0.03), corticosteroid treatment (36% vs. 13%; p 0.07), and septic shock (50% vs. 17.4%; p 0.01). The independent risk factors for mortality in the multivariate analysis were corticosteroid treatment (OR 8.2; 95% CI 0.9–27.7; p 0.04) and septic shock (OR 14.6; 95% CI 2.4–90.2; p 0.004), whereas urinary tract infection (OR 0.07; 95% CI 0.01–0.8; p 0.03) and catheter removal (OR 0.06; 95% CI 0.01–0.4; p 0.002) were protective factors. C. tropicalis is the fourth most common cause of fungaemia in our hospital. It is associated with underlying malignancy, the abdomen as the portal of entry, and poor outcome

Identification and conservation of remnant genetic resources of brown trout in relict populations from Western Mediterranean streams

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Hydrobiologia. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-012-1402-8Brown trout is a cold-adapted freshwater species with restricted distribution to headwater streams in rivers of the South European peninsulas, where populations are highly vulnerable because Mediterranean regions are highly sensitive to the global climatic warming. Moreover, these populations are endangered due to the introgressive hybridization with cultured stocks. Individuals from six remnant populations in Western Mediterranean rivers were sequenced for the complete mitochondrial DNA control region and genotyped for 11 nuclear markers. Three different brown trout lineages were present in the studied region. Significant genetic divergence was observed among locations and a strong effect of genetic drift was suggested. An important stocking impact (close to 25%) was detected in the zone. Significant correlations between mitochondrial-based rates of hatchery introgression and water flow variation suggested a higher impact of stocked females in unstable habitats. In spite of hatchery introgression, all populations remained highly differentiated, suggesting that native genetic resources are still abundant. However, climatic predictions indicated that suitable habitats for the species in these rivers will be reduced and hence trout populations are highly endangered and vulnerable. Thus, management policies should take into account these predictions to design upstream refuge areas to protect remnant native trout in the regionThis study has been supported by the Generalitat Valenciana Autonomous Government (Spain) project (2008/CI446)S

Evaluation of bone marrow and blood cultures for the recovery of mycobacteria in the diagnosis of disseminated mycobacterial infections

AbstractThis study evaluated the validity of bone marrow (BM) and blood specimens for the diagnosis of disseminated mycobacterial infections (DMIs). From 1990 to February 1997, all specimens were processed with the lysis-centrifugation procedure; thereafter (until December 2001), they were processed with the BACTEC Myco/F Lytic system. Twenty-three paired BM-blood specimens with mycobacteria in at least one specimen were studied from 23 patients. The strains isolated were 14 Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and nine M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC). Blood specimens had a statistically significant greater sensitivity for the isolation of MAC than BM (100% vs. 57.1%, respectively), whereas sensitivity for the isolation of MTBC was equal for the two specimen types (66.7%). Although not statistically significant, the times required to detect mycobacteria from blood specimens were lower than those from BM in the MycoF/Lytic system. Overall, blood cultures represented a more sensitive and less invasive alternative to BM cultures for the diagnosis of disseminated mycobacteriosis caused by MAC, especially when the MycoF/Lytic system was used, but provided no advantage for the diagnosis of DMI caused by MTBC

Differences in the robustness of clusters involving the Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains most frequently isolated from immigrant cases in Madrid

AbstractTuberculosis cases infected by the same Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) strain are considered to be clustered and involved in a transmission chain. Large clusters are assumed to represent active transmission chains in a population. In the present study, we focused on the analysis of large clusters defined by IS6110-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing in the immigrant population in Madrid. We identified 12 large clusters (involving 43% of the isolates) comprising 4–23 representatives. We proposed a gradient of epidemiological certainty for these large clusters. For a cluster to be considered robust and a good indicator of recent transmission, the MTB strain involved should not have been identified in a geographically and epidemiologically unrelated population and the cluster had to be re-confirmed by another highly discriminative molecular marker (MIRU-VNTR). The clusters that we discovered were classified into three categories: high, intermediate and low expected epidemiological value. In the largest cluster in the study (cluster M6; 23 representatives), failures by both criteria were identified: the representative seven-band RFLP pattern was also the most prevalent in the unrelated population (25 cases) and the cluster was fully split by MIRU-15, suggesting a lack of epidemiological value. The RFLP pattern representative of this cluster was also identified in 64 isolates from five countries in the Latin American genotype database, and again proved to be heterogeneous according to the MIRU-15 analysis. Specific analysis of large clusters, combined with the application of criteria for evaluating their robustness, could help identify uninformative clusters and target epidemiological resources towards those clusters with higher expected epidemiological value

Fecal microbiota of toxigenic clostridioides difficile-associated diarrhea

Producción CientíficaClostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is currently one of the most important causes of infectious diarrhea in developed countries and the main cause in healthcare settings. Here, we characterized the gut microbiota from the feces of 57 patients with diarrhea from nosocomial and community-acquired CDI. We performed an ecological analysis by high-throughput sequencing of the V3-V4 region of 16S rRNA amplicons and evaluated the association of the various ecological profiles with CDI risk factors. Among all samples Bacteroidaceae 31.01%, Enterobacteriaceae 9.82%, Lachnospiraceae 9.33%, Tannerellaceae 6,16%, and Ruminococcaceae 5.64%, were the most abundant families. A reduced abundance of Bacteroides was associated with a poor CDI prognosis, with severe diarrhea and a high incidence of recurrence. This reduction was associated with a weakened host immune system and previous aggressive antibiotherapy. Peptostreptococcaceae family was 1.56% overall and within the family the only identified member was the genus Clostridioides, positively correlated with the presence of Akkermansia that may be predictive of the presence of a CDI. Finally, a relevant aspect that must be considered in clinical practice is the misdiagnosis of CDI, as patients with a stool sample that tests positive for C. difficile are usually diagnosed with CDI and subsequently treated as such. However, co-infection with other pathogenic agents often plays an important role in the development of diarrhea, and must be considered when prescribing antibiotic treatment.La Gerencia Regional de Salud de la Junta de Castilla y León (Número de subvención GRS 1780 / A / 18).Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (beca FPI2014-020