Colorectal Cancer, Socioeconomic Distribution and Behavior: A Comparative Analysis of Urban and Rural Counties in the USA

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks second for all cancer related deaths among men and women together and third for either sex when considered separately. Disparities exist in CRC incidence and mortality between rural and urban counties in the USA. This study sought to explore socioeconomic and behavioral factors that may partly explain these observed differences. Methods: Using educational and income levels as measures of socioeconomic status (SES), and average alcohol consumption and smoking frequency as behavioral factors, data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program for analysis were coupled. Results: Results showed statistically significant inequalities for CRC incidence (t = 2.678, p = 0.010) and mortality (t = 2.567, p = 0.013), as well as socioeconomic (i.e., poverty; t = 5.644, p < 0.001) and behavioral (i.e., smoking; t = 2.885, p = 0.006) factors between selected rural and urban counties. Regression analysis for colorectal cancer incidence and mortality rates at the rural, urban, and national levels yielded relative impacts of smoking frequency, alcohol consumption, and educational level. Conclusions: Health policies aimed at reducing disparities between rural and urban populations in the USA must therefore adequately address SES and behavioral factors. Key words: colorectal cancer, rural health, social determinants of health, health behavio

Inequality as a Powerful Predictor of Infant and Maternal Mortality around the World

Background Maternal and infant mortality are highly devastating, yet, in many cases, preventable events for a community. The human development of a country is a strong predictor of maternal and infant mortality, reflecting the importance of socioeconomic factors in determinants of health. Previous research has shown that the Human Development Index (HDI) predicts infant mortality rate (IMR) and the maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Inequality has also been shown to be associated with worse health in certain populations. The main purpose of the present study was to determine the correlation and predictive power of the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) as a measure of inequality with the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), Early Neonatal Mortality Rate (ENMR), Late Neonatal Mortality Rate (LNMR), and the Post Neonatal Mortality Rate (PNMR). Methods and Findings Data for the present study were downloaded from two sources: infant and maternal mortality data were downloaded from the Global Burden of Disease 2013 Cause of Death Database and the Human Development Index (HDI) and Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) data were downloaded from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Pearson correlation coefficients were estimated, following logarithmic transformations to the data, to examine the relationship between HDI and IHDI with MMR, IMR, ENMR, LNMR, and PNMR. Steiger’s Z test for the equality of two dependent correlations was utilized in order to determine whether the HDI or IHDI was more strongly associated with the outcome variables. Lastly, we constructed OLS regression models in order to determine the predictive power of the HDI and IHDI in terms of the MMR, IMR, ENMR, LNMR, and PNMR. Maternal and infant mortality were both strongly and negatively correlated with both HDI and IHDI; however, Steiger’s Z test for the equality of two dependent correlations revealed that IHDI was more strongly correlated than HDI with MMR (Z = 4.897, p \u3c 0.001), IMR (Z = 2.524, p = 0.012), ENMR (Z = 2.936, p = 0.003), LNMR (Z = 2.272, p = 0.023), and PNMR (Z = 2.277, p = 0.023). Furthermore, side-by-side OLS regression models revealed that, when IHDI was used as the predictor variable instead of HDI, the R2 value was 0.053 higher for MMR, 0.025 higher for IMR, 0.038 higher for ENMR, 0.029 higher for LNMR, and 0.026 higher for PNMR. Conclusions Even when both the HDI and the IHDI correlate with the infant and maternal mortality rates, the IHDI is a better predictor for these two health indicators. Therefore, these results add more evidence that inequality is playing an important role in determining the health status of various populations in the world and more efforts should be put into programs to fight inequality

New determination of gypsum isotope fractionation factor

Gypsum is a low temperature mineral of relevance for the understanding of evaporitic and late hydrotermal scenarios. Gypsum deposits are spread all over the geological record and their crystals may contain important information about the history of the seas

Environmental Scan of Web-based Consumer Information on the Risk of HPV-Related Diseases in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp23/1118/thumbnail.jp

Sucesión y restauración en ambientes semiáridos

Extensas áreas abandonadas del sureste peninsular están experimentando actualmente procesos de sucesión secundaria sobre los que tenemos un conocimiento muy escaso. La sucesión secundaria en ambientes áridos es muy lenta y su resultado incierto, ya que el establecimiento de determinadas especies y comunidades está muy limitado. Los esfuerzos para restaurar zonas abandonadas deben basarse en un conocimiento sólido de la sucesión, empleando especies viables, propias de etapas intermedias, capaces de impulsar la sucesión vegetal

Summability of the perturbative expansion for a zero-dimensional disordered spin model

We show analytically that the perturbative expansion for the free energy of the zero dimensional (quenched) disordered Ising model is Borel-summable in a certain range of parameters, provided that the summation is carried out in two steps: first, in the strength of the original coupling of the Ising model and subsequently in the variance of the quenched disorder. This result is illustrated by some high-precision calculations of the free energy obtained by a straightforward numerical implementation of our sequential summation method.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages and 4 figure

Complicaciones en la anestesia general del perro : revisión de 265 casos

Un total de 265 perros fueron anestesiados por diferentes motivos diagnósticos y terapéuticos en los Servicios Clínicos de la Facultad de Veterinaria de Córdoba,siguiendo diversos protocolos anestésicos

Vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal, dark septate endophytes and root anatomy in Fragaria ananassa var. Camino Real (Rosaceae) in the province of Tucumán, Argentina

En la provincia de Tucumán el cultivo de frutilla ocupa una superficie de 350 hectáreas. El mismo es invernal, con cosechas periódicas de fines de mayo a noviembre inclusive. Para evitar esta discontinuidad de producción, se incorporan al espectro de variedades precoces (Fortuna y Festival), variedades tardías, entre ellas Camino Real. Los objetivos de este trabajo fueron estudiar las micorrizas vesículo-arbusculares, los endófitos septados oscuros y caracterizar la anatomía radical en Fragaria ananassa var. Camino Real en cultivo comercial en la provincia de Tucumán. El muestreo fue realizado en el INTA-EEA Famaillá, Tucumán, Argentina. Se recolectaron los sistemas radicales correspondientes a un total de 20 individuos; los que fueron tratados con técnicas convencionales. Los sistemas radicales de la variedad Camino Real presentan las células del parénquima cortical colonizadas por micorrizas vesículo-arbusculares con dos tipos morfológicos simultáneos: Arum y Paris, siendo la morfología Arum la de mayor frecuencia. Además, el tejido cortical presenta endófitos septados oscuros. La anatomía radical de la estructura primaria presenta una histología típica con estelas de tipo diarca a tetrarca. Mientras que la estructura secundaria de la raíz muestra diferentes estadios de crecimiento, con restos de epidermis y parénquima cortical adheridos a la polidermis en formación. Se describen por primera vez, para Argentina, las micorrizas vesículoarbusculares, los endófitos septados oscuros y la anatomía radical en Fragaria ananassa var. Camino Real.In the province of Tucumán strawberry cultivation occupies an area of 350 hectares. It is a winter crop, with periodic harvests since late May to November inclusive. To avoid this discontinuity of production, a late variety (Camino Real) was added to the spectrum of early varieties (Fortuna and Festival). This paper aims to evaluate the vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhiza, dark septate endophytes and characterize the radical anatomy in Fragaria ananassa variety Camino Real in the province of Tucumán. The sampling was carried out at INTA-EEA Famaillá, Tucumán, Argentina. The radicals systems corresponding to 20 individuals were collected and treated with conventional techniques. The root systems of the variety Camino Real, show cortical parenchyma cells colonized by vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae which have two simultaneous morphological types: Arum and Paris. The Arum morphology is the most frequent. In addition, the cortical tissue has dark septate endophytes. The radical anatomy of the primary structure presents a typical histology with diarca to tetrarch stela, while the secondary root structure show different stages of growth with traces of epidermis and cortical parenchyma attached to the polidermis in development. The vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae, dark septate endophytes and radical anatomy of Fragaria ananassa var. ‘Camino Real’ were described for the first time for ArgentinaFil: Lizarraga, Sofía Valentina. Fundación Miguel Lillo; ArgentinaFil: Ruiz, A. I.. Fundación Miguel Lillo; ArgentinaFil: Salazar, Sergio Miguel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Diaz Ricci, Juan Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas; ArgentinaFil: Albornoz, Patricia Liliana. Fundación Miguel Lillo; Argentin

The involvement of McpB chemoreceptor from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 in virulence

Work in Dr. Manzanera’s laboratory was funded by the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness, within the context of the research projects CTM2017-84332-R, and CGL2017-91737-EXP. Dr. Krell’s laboratory was supported by FEDER funds and Fondo Social Europeo through grants from the Junta de Andalucía (grant CVI-7335) and the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness (grants BIO2013-42297 and BIO2016-76779-P). We thank Prof. Caroline Harwood (University of Washington) for providing a P. aeruginosa PAO1 wt strain and the mcpB mutant, that were used for initial experiments not reported here.Supplementary information accompanies this paper at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49697-7.Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen causing infections in a variety of plant and animal hosts. The gene mcpB, part of the chemosensory gene cluster II, encodes a soluble chemoreceptor whose function remains unknown. Previous studies show that the cheB2 gene, also located in the chemosensory cluster II, is involved in a specific response during infection and it is required for full pathogenicity of P. aeruginosa. To determine whether the McpB (or Aer2) chemoreceptor is involved in virulence processes, we generated a mcpB mutant and tested its phenotype using a virulence-measuring system. This system was developed by our group and is based on different bioassays using organisms living at different soil trophic levels, including microbial, nematode, arthropod, annelid, and plant model systems. The deletion of mcpB resulted in an attenuation of bacterial virulence in different infection models, and wild-type virulence was restored following genetic complementation of the mutant strain. Our study indicates that the McpB chemoreceptor is linked to virulence processes and may constitute the basis for the development of alternative strategies against this pathogen.CTM2017-84332-RCGL2017-91737-EXPFEDER funds and Fondo Social Europeo through grants from the Junta de Andalucía (grant CVI-7335)Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness (grants BIO2013-42297 and BIO2016-76779-P