By Stones and by Knots: The Counting and Recording of Chili Peppers Stored During the Inca Occupation of the Guarco Administrative Center of Huacones-Vilcahuasi, Lower Canete Valley, Peru

This article discusses the Inca accounting system as exemplified at the site of Huacones-Vilcahuasi in Peru\u27s Canete Valley

Pandemia de Covid-19 y efecto de medidas de contención en población Peruana: Un modelamiento matemático SIR

Introduction: The evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic varies in each population; it has been complicating health systems worldwide. Objective: to analyze the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic, estimating the effect of the containment measures practiced in Peru. Material and Method: The SIR epidemiological mathematical modeling was applied, estimating the COVID-19 evolution in our population. Data analysis was performed following the SIR mathematical model with defined ordinary differential equations to simulate epidemiological behavior; and it was executed in the RStudio programming language. Results: Containment measures decreased the propagation rate, reducing 30% of infected cases until the peak day of infection; however, it is still above the effective reproductive number to control the epidemic and it shows an erratic trend, the result of government actions being 61% in the practice of containment measures. Conclusions: Containment measures are necessary if strategies are considered to make their role effective in our population.Introducción: La evolución de la pandemia del COVID-19 varía en cada población; complicando los sistemas de salud a nivel mundial. Objetivo: analizar la evolución de la pandemia Covid-19 estimando el efecto de las medidas de contención realizadas en Perú. Material y Métodos: Se aplicó el modelamiento matemático epidemiológico SIR, estimando la evolución COVID-19 en nuestra población. Se realizó el análisis de datos siguiendo el modelo matemático SIR con ecuaciones diferenciales ordinarias definidas para simular el comportamiento epidemiológico; y fue ejecutado en el lenguaje de programación RStudio. Resultados: En el estudio las medidas de contención disminuyeron la tasa de propagación, redujeron el 30% de casos infectados hasta el día pico de infección; sin embargo, ésta aún se encuentra por encima del número reproductivo efectivo para control de la epidemia y presenta una tendencia errática, el resultado de las acciones gubernamentales es del 61% en la práctica de medidas de contención. Conclusiones: Las medidas de contención son necesarias; siempre que, se consideren estrategias que permitan hacer efectivo su rol en nuestra población

Prognostic models in COVID-19 infection that predict severity: a systematic review.

Current evidence on COVID-19 prognostic models is inconsistent and clinical applicability remains controversial. We performed a systematic review to summarize and critically appraise the available studies that have developed, assessed and/or validated prognostic models of COVID-19 predicting health outcomes. We searched six bibliographic databases to identify published articles that investigated univariable and multivariable prognostic models predicting adverse outcomes in adult COVID-19 patients, including intensive care unit (ICU) admission, intubation, high-flow nasal therapy (HFNT), extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and mortality. We identified and assessed 314 eligible articles from more than 40 countries, with 152 of these studies presenting mortality, 66 progression to severe or critical illness, 35 mortality and ICU admission combined, 17 ICU admission only, while the remaining 44 studies reported prediction models for mechanical ventilation (MV) or a combination of multiple outcomes. The sample size of included studies varied from 11 to 7,704,171 participants, with a mean age ranging from 18 to 93 years. There were 353 prognostic models investigated, with area under the curve (AUC) ranging from 0.44 to 0.99. A great proportion of studies (61.5%, 193 out of 314) performed internal or external validation or replication. In 312 (99.4%) studies, prognostic models were reported to be at high risk of bias due to uncertainties and challenges surrounding methodological rigor, sampling, handling of missing data, failure to deal with overfitting and heterogeneous definitions of COVID-19 and severity outcomes. While several clinical prognostic models for COVID-19 have been described in the literature, they are limited in generalizability and/or applicability due to deficiencies in addressing fundamental statistical and methodological concerns. Future large, multi-centric and well-designed prognostic prospective studies are needed to clarify remaining uncertainties

Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase in Heart Tissue and Nitric Oxide in Serum of Trypanosoma cruzi-Infected Rhesus Monkeys: Association with Heart Injury

Chagas disease, a neglected tropical disease caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, afflicts from 8 to 15 million people in the Latin America. Chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy (CCC) is the most frequent manifestation of Chagas disease. Currently, patient management only mitigates CCC symptoms. The pathogenic factors leading to CCC remain unknown; therefore their comprehension may contribute to develop more efficient therapies. In patients, high nitric oxide (NO) levels have been associated with CCC severity. In T. cruzi-infected mice, NO, mainly produced via inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS/NOS2), is proposed to work in parasite control. However, the participation of iNOS/NOS2 and NO in T. cruzi control and heart injury has been questioned. Here, infected rhesus monkeys and iNOS/NOS2-deficient mice were used to explore the participation of iNOS/NOS2-derived NO in heart injury in T. cruzi infection. Chronically infected monkeys presented electrical abnormalities, myocarditis and fibrosis, resembling the spectrum of human CCC. Moreover, cardiomyocyte lesion correlated with iNOS/NOS2+ cells infiltrating the cardiac tissue. Our findings support that parasite-driven iNOS/NOS2+ cells accumulation in the cardiac tissue and NO overproduction contribute to cardiomyopathy severity, mainly disturbing the pathway involved in electrical synchrony in T. cruzi infection

C-reactive protein cut-off for early tocilizumab and dexamethasone prescription in hospitalized patients with COVID-19

Dexamethasone and tocilizumab have been associated with reduction in mortality, however, the beneficial effect is not for all patients and the impact on viral replication is not well defined. We hypostatized that C-reactive protein (CRP) could help in the identification of patients requiring anti-inflammatory therapy. Patients admitted for > 48 h in our hospital for a confirmed or suspected infection by SARS-CoV-2 from February 2020 to February 2021 were retrospectively evaluated. The primary outcome was mortality at 30 days. Demographics and the most relevant variables related with the outcome were included. CRP was stratified by percentiles. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed. A total of 3218 patients were included with a median (IQR) age of 66 (74-78) years and 58.9% were males. The rate of intensive care unit admission was 24.4% and the 30-day mortality rate was 11.8%. Within the first 5 days from admission, 1018 (31.7%) patients received dexamethasone and 549 tocilizumab (17.1%). The crude analysis showed a mortality reduction in patients receiving dexamethasone when CRP was > 13.75 mg/dL and > 3.5 mg/dL for those receiving tocilizumab. Multivariate analysis identified the interaction of CRP > 13.75 mg/dL with dexamethasone (OR 0.57; CI 95% 0.37-0.89, P = 0014) and CRP > 3.5 mg/dL with tocilizumab (0.65; CI95%:0.44-0.95, P = 0.029) as independent predictors of mortality. Our results suggest that dexamethasone and tocilizumab are associated with a reduction in mortality when prescribed to patients with a certain inflammatory activity assessed by C-reactive protein

Evolutionary fates of universal stress protein paralogs in Platyhelminthes

Abstract Background Universal stress proteins (USPs) are present in all domains of life. Their expression is upregulated in response to a large variety of stress conditions. The functional diversity found in this protein family, paired with the sequence degeneration of the characteristic ATP-binding motif, suggests a complex evolutionary pattern for the paralogous USP-encoding genes. In this work, we investigated the origin, genomic organization, expression patterns and evolutionary history of the USP gene family in species of the phylum Platyhelminthes. Results Our data showed a cluster organization, a lineage-specific distribution, and the presence of several pseudogenes among the USP gene copies identified. The absence of a well conserved -CCAATCA- motif in the promoter region was positively correlated with low or null levels of gene expression, and with amino acid changes within the ligand binding motifs. Despite evidence of the pseudogenization of various USP genes, we detected an important functional divergence at several residues, mostly located near sites that are critical for ligand interaction. Conclusions Our results provide a broad framework for the evolution of the USP gene family, based on the emergence of new paralogs that face very contrasting fates, including pseudogenization, subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization. This framework aims to explain the sequence and functional diversity of this gene family, providing a foundation for future studies in other taxa in which USPs occur

Structured Illumination Microscopy Improves Spot Detection Performance in Spatial Transcriptomics

Spatial biology is a rapidly growing research field that focuses on the transcriptomic or proteomic profiling of single cells within tissues with preserved spatial information. Imaging-based spatial transcriptomics uses epifluorescence microscopy, which has shown remarkable results for the identification of multiple targets in situ. Nonetheless, the number of genes that can be reliably visualized is limited by the diffraction of light. Here, we investigate the effect of structured illumination (SIM), a super-resolution microscopy approach, on the performance of single-gene transcript detection in spatial transcriptomics experiments. We performed direct mRNA-targeted hybridization in situ sequencing for multiple genes in mouse coronal brain tissue sections. We evaluated spot detection performance in widefield and confocal images versus those with SIM in combination with 20×, 25× and 60× objectives. In general, SIM increases the detection efficiency of gene transcript spots compared to widefield and confocal modes. For each case, the specific fold increase in localizations is dependent on gene transcript density and the numerical aperture of the objective used, which has been shown to play an important role, especially for densely clustered spots. Taken together, our results suggest that SIM has the capacity to improve spot detection and overall data quality in spatial transcriptomics

Productividad de la Revista Pediatría, periodo 2002–2012

Introducción: La generación y divulgación de la producción científica nacional constituye una de las herramientas para la mejora de la salud de la población. Objetivo: Describir las características de la producción científica de la revista Pediatría, periodo 2002-2012. Metodología: Estudio descriptivo, retrospectivo de carácter exploratorio. Fueron incluidos los artículos de la sección de originales, casos clínicos y revisiones publicados en los números normales. Fueron analizados: año de publicación, tipo de artículo, número de artículos, número de autores, eje temático, institución firmante, procedencia de los autores principales y cantidad de citaciones de los artículos de la sección de originales en Google Scholar. Resultados: En total se incluyó 161 artículos, 598 autores y 217 instituciones. El promedio de artículos publicados por año fue de entre 6 a 8 por número. El promedio de autores por artículos 3,714.  Se encontró predominio de eje temático en el área de Salud Pública (41 artículos). La mayor contribución fue de la Universidad Nacional de Asunción con 58 artículos, Ministerio de Salud Pública y Bienestar Social con 45 artículos y Hospital Central del Instituto de Previsión Social con 20 artículos. Las contribuciones por autoría, se encontró un máximo de 8 artículos publicados en carácter de primer autor. El máximo de citas recibido, según Google Scholar fue de 40 citas en su mayoría provenientes de fuentes secundarias (SciELO Chile). Conclusión: La revista cuenta con una amplia cobertura a través de la integración en las diversas instituciones y colaboración entre autores y goza con reconocimiento nacional e internacional a través de los trabajos publicados. Sin embargo, la producción y la visibilidad internacional es aún limitada. 

Covid-19 pandemic and effect of containment measures in the Peruvian population: A SIR mathematical modeling [Pandemia de Covid-19 y efecto de medidas de contención en población peruana: un modelamiento matemático SIR]

ABSTRACT Introduction: The evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic varies in each population; it has been complicating health systems worldwide. Objective: to analyze the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic, estimating the effect of the containment measures practiced in Peru. Material and Method: The SIR epidemiological mathematical modeling was applied, estimating the COVID-19 evolution in our population. Data analysis was performed following the SIR mathematical model with defined ordinary differential equations to simulate epidemiological behavior; and it was executed in the RStudio programming language. Results: Containment measures decreased the propagation rate, reducing 30% of infected cases until the peak day of infection; however, it is still above the effective reproductive number to control the epidemic and it shows an erratic trend, the result of government actions being 61% in the practice of containment measures. Conclusions: Containment measures are necessary if strategies are considered to make their role effective in our population