Effect of intermediate-term firewood smoke air pollution on cardiometabolic risk factors and inflammatory markers

BackgroundTemuco is a city in Southern Chile with elevated levels of air pollution (AP), mainly due to using wood as combustion throughout the cold season. The study aimed to assess the differences in cardiometabolic risk factors, estimated cardiovascular risk, and blood level of inflammatory markers between high AP (HAP) and low AP (LAP) periods.MethodsA prospective panel study was conducted between January to September 2018. Air pollution was assessed by PM2.5 concentration. Ninety individuals from the general population were included in the study. Measurements were performed in the HAP and LAP, including medical history and lifestyle, physical activity assessment, physical exam, and fasting blood samples for glucose, lipids, and circulatory inflammatory mediators.ResultsIn the high air pollution period, systolic blood pressure was 3 mmHg higher (p = 0.05). HDL-cholesterol was 14.2 mg/dl lower (p < 0.001), Framingham risk score increased from 14.5 to 18.0 (p < 0.001), and highly significant lower levels of interleukins, MCP1, MMP1, MMP2, sICAM, and svCAM were observed.ConclusionsHAP was associated with increased cardiometabolic risk factors and estimated cardiovascular risk. However, a lower level of circulating acute inflammatory molecules was observed. Inflammatory molecules blood levels were not associated with changes in cardiometabolic risk factors

Conocimiento y prácticas de prevención sobre anemia en madres de niños de 0-24 meses, hospital distrital Santa Isabel -2019

La presente investigación se realizó con el objetivo de Determinar el nivel de conocimientos y su relación con las prácticas de prevención sobre anemia en madres de niños 0-24 meses, Hospital Distrital Santa Isabel, 2019. El enfoque teórico se fundamenta en los conceptos de Nola Pender y Ramona Mercer. El tipo de estudio es no experimental, de corte trasversal y de tipo descriptivo correlacional, con una población constituida por 1235 niños con una muestra de 276 madres de niños menores de 2 años. Se utilizó dos instrumentos, los cuales miden los conocimientos y prácticas con 10 ítems respectivamente, que fueron validados por juicios de expertos, se realizó una prueba piloto de 30 madres. Los resultados fueron; que el 84.8% de madres conocen sobre anemia y 15.2 % desconoce. Con respecto a las prácticas de prevención sobre anemia encontramos que el 80.8% tienen prácticas adecuadas y 19.2% inadecuadas. Concluyendo que existe relación entre el conocimiento y prácticas de prevención sobre anemia, según la prueba estadística Chi cuadrado con un nivel de significancia del 5 %, siendo P= 0,0000329

Polyphenols from Chilean Propolis and Pinocembrin Reduce MMP-9 Gene Expression and Activity in Activated Macrophages

Polyphenols from diverse sources have shown anti-inflammatory activity. In the context of atherosclerosis, macrophages play important roles including matrix metalloproteinases synthesis involved in degradation of matrix extracellular components affecting the atherosclerotic plaque stability. We prepared a propolis extract and pinocembrin in ethanol solution. Propolis extract was chemically characterized using LC-MS. The effect of treatments on gene expression and proteolytic activity was measured in vitro using murine macrophages activated with LPS. Cellular toxicity associated with both treatments and the vehicle was determined using MTT and apoptosis/necrosis detection assays. MMP-9 gene expression and proteolytic activity were measured using qPCR and zymography, respectively. Thirty-two compounds were identified in the propolis extract, including pinocembrin among its major components. Treatment with either ethanolic extract of propolis or pinocembrin inhibits MMP-9 gene expression in a dosedependent manner. Similarly, an inhibitory effect was observed in proteolytic activity. However, the effect showed by ethanolic extract of propolis was higher than the effect of pinocembrin, suggesting that MMP-9 inhibition results from a joint contribution between the components of the extract. These data suggest a potential role of polyphenols from Chilean propolis in the control of extracellular matrix degradation in atherosclerotic plaques

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

State of the climate in 2018

In 2018, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—continued their increase. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth’s surface was 407.4 ± 0.1 ppm, the highest in the modern instrumental record and in ice core records dating back 800 000 years. Combined, greenhouse gases and several halogenated gases contribute just over 3 W m−2 to radiative forcing and represent a nearly 43% increase since 1990. Carbon dioxide is responsible for about 65% of this radiative forcing. With a weak La Niña in early 2018 transitioning to a weak El Niño by the year’s end, the global surface (land and ocean) temperature was the fourth highest on record, with only 2015 through 2017 being warmer. Several European countries reported record high annual temperatures. There were also more high, and fewer low, temperature extremes than in nearly all of the 68-year extremes record. Madagascar recorded a record daily temperature of 40.5°C in Morondava in March, while South Korea set its record high of 41.0°C in August in Hongcheon. Nawabshah, Pakistan, recorded its highest temperature of 50.2°C, which may be a new daily world record for April. Globally, the annual lower troposphere temperature was third to seventh highest, depending on the dataset analyzed. The lower stratospheric temperature was approximately fifth lowest. The 2018 Arctic land surface temperature was 1.2°C above the 1981–2010 average, tying for third highest in the 118-year record, following 2016 and 2017. June’s Arctic snow cover extent was almost half of what it was 35 years ago. Across Greenland, however, regional summer temperatures were generally below or near average. Additionally, a satellite survey of 47 glaciers in Greenland indicated a net increase in area for the first time since records began in 1999. Increasing permafrost temperatures were reported at most observation sites in the Arctic, with the overall increase of 0.1°–0.2°C between 2017 and 2018 being comparable to the highest rate of warming ever observed in the region. On 17 March, Arctic sea ice extent marked the second smallest annual maximum in the 38-year record, larger than only 2017. The minimum extent in 2018 was reached on 19 September and again on 23 September, tying 2008 and 2010 for the sixth lowest extent on record. The 23 September date tied 1997 as the latest sea ice minimum date on record. First-year ice now dominates the ice cover, comprising 77% of the March 2018 ice pack compared to 55% during the 1980s. Because thinner, younger ice is more vulnerable to melting out in summer, this shift in sea ice age has contributed to the decreasing trend in minimum ice extent. Regionally, Bering Sea ice extent was at record lows for almost the entire 2017/18 ice season. For the Antarctic continent as a whole, 2018 was warmer than average. On the highest points of the Antarctic Plateau, the automatic weather station Relay (74°S) broke or tied six monthly temperature records throughout the year, with August breaking its record by nearly 8°C. However, cool conditions in the western Bellingshausen Sea and Amundsen Sea sector contributed to a low melt season overall for 2017/18. High SSTs contributed to low summer sea ice extent in the Ross and Weddell Seas in 2018, underpinning the second lowest Antarctic summer minimum sea ice extent on record. Despite conducive conditions for its formation, the ozone hole at its maximum extent in September was near the 2000–18 mean, likely due to an ongoing slow decline in stratospheric chlorine monoxide concentration. Across the oceans, globally averaged SST decreased slightly since the record El Niño year of 2016 but was still far above the climatological mean. On average, SST is increasing at a rate of 0.10° ± 0.01°C decade−1 since 1950. The warming appeared largest in the tropical Indian Ocean and smallest in the North Pacific. The deeper ocean continues to warm year after year. For the seventh consecutive year, global annual mean sea level became the highest in the 26-year record, rising to 81 mm above the 1993 average. As anticipated in a warming climate, the hydrological cycle over the ocean is accelerating: dry regions are becoming drier and wet regions rainier. Closer to the equator, 95 named tropical storms were observed during 2018, well above the 1981–2010 average of 82. Eleven tropical cyclones reached Saffir–Simpson scale Category 5 intensity. North Atlantic Major Hurricane Michael’s landfall intensity of 140 kt was the fourth strongest for any continental U.S. hurricane landfall in the 168-year record. Michael caused more than 30 fatalities and $25 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages. In the western North Pacific, Super Typhoon Mangkhut led to 160 fatalities and$6 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages across the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was responsible for 170 fatalities in Vietnam and Laos. Nearly all the islands of Micronesia experienced at least moderate impacts from various tropical cyclones. Across land, many areas around the globe received copious precipitation, notable at different time scales. Rodrigues and Réunion Island near southern Africa each reported their third wettest year on record. In Hawaii, 1262 mm precipitation at Waipā Gardens (Kauai) on 14–15 April set a new U.S. record for 24-h precipitation. In Brazil, the city of Belo Horizonte received nearly 75 mm of rain in just 20 minutes, nearly half its monthly average. Globally, fire activity during 2018 was the lowest since the start of the record in 1997, with a combined burned area of about 500 million hectares. This reinforced the long-term downward trend in fire emissions driven by changes in land use in frequently burning savannas. However, wildfires burned 3.5 million hectares across the United States, well above the 2000–10 average of 2.7 million hectares. Combined, U.S. wildfire damages for the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons exceeded $40 billion (U.S. dollars)

Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories. Using the conventional criterion of statistical significance (p < .05), we found that 15 (54%) of the replications provided evidence of a statistically significant effect in the same direction as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion (p < .0001), 14 (50%) of the replications still provided such evidence, a reflection of the extremely highpowered design. Seven (25%) of the replications yielded effect sizes larger than the original ones, and 21 (75%) yielded effect sizes smaller than the original ones. The median comparable Cohen’s ds were 0.60 for the original findings and 0.15 for the replications. The effect sizes were small (< 0.20) in 16 of the replications (57%), and 9 effects (32%) were in the direction opposite the direction of the original effect. Across settings, the Q statistic indicated significant heterogeneity in 11 (39%) of the replication effects, and most of those were among the findings with the largest overall effect sizes; only 1 effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity according to this measure. Only 1 effect had a tau value greater than .20, an indication of moderate heterogeneity. Eight others had tau values near or slightly above .10, an indication of slight heterogeneity. Moderation tests indicated that very little heterogeneity was attributable to the order in which the tasks were performed or whether the tasks were administered in lab versus online. Exploratory comparisons revealed little heterogeneity between Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures and less WEIRD cultures (i.e., cultures with relatively high and low WEIRDness scores, respectively). Cumulatively, variability in the observed effect sizes was attributable more to the effect being studied than to the sample or setting in which it was studied.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP