Ceftiofur-loaded PHBV microparticles: A potential formulation for a long-acting antibiotic to treat animal infections

Indexación: Web of Science; ScieloBackground: The infectious diseases in the livestock breeding industry represent a significant drawback that generates substantial economic loss and have led to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. The formulation of polymeric microparticles loaded with antibiotics for veterinary use can: reduce the number of required doses; protect the drug from inactivation; and maintain a sustained-release of the antibiotic drug at effective levels. Accomplishing all of these goals would have a significant economic and animal health impact on the livestock breeding industry. Results: In this work, we formulated ceftiofur-loaded PHBV microparticles (PHBV-CEF) with a spherical shape, a smooth surface and diameter sizes between 1.65 and 2.37 μm. The encapsulation efficiency was 39.5 ± 1.1% w/w, and we obtained a sustained release of ceftiofur in PBS-buffer (pH 7.4) over 7 days. The antibacterial activity of ceftiofur was preserved after the encapsulation procedure, and toxicity of PHBV-CEF microparticles evaluated by MTS was represented by an IC50 > 10 mg/mL. Conclusions: Our results suggest that PHBV-CEF particles have a potential application for improving the treatment of infectious diseases in the livestock breeding industry. Keywords: ceftiofur, drug delivery, livestock breeding industry, PHBV, polymeric microparticle

Factores de riesgo para la presencia de Eventos Supuestamente Atribuidos a la Vacunación o Inmunización (ESAVI) en la vacunación con BBIBP-CorV contra COVID-19 en Trabajadores de EsSalud en La Libertad en 2021

La vacuna BBIBP-CorV fue la primera vacuna para COVID-19 que llegó al Perú, sin embargo, generó muchas dudas en la población sobre su seguridad por su aprobación antes de cumplir con todas las fases correspondientes. Objetivo: Determinar factores de riesgo para la presencia de Eventos Supuestamente Atribuidos a la Vacunación o Inmunización (ESAVI) en la vacunación con BBIBP-CorV en trabajadores de EsSalud en La Libertad. Materiales y métodos: Se realizó un estudio censal, observacional de casos y controles de trabajadores de EsSalud vacunados con BBIBP-CorV en 2021 en La Libertad, Perú. Los datos sobre la vacunación fueron recolectados mediante autoreporte sin datos personales (anónimo) y voluntario en la vacunación. Resultados: Se incluyó 467 vacunados donde 199 fueron los casos y 268 los controles. En el análisis multivariado se halló riesgo estadísticamente significativo únicamente para el sexo femenino (OR: 2,4; IC 95%: 1,6-3,6; p=0.000) y para la presencia de 3 o más comorbilidades (OR: 5,7; IC 95%: 1,2-27,7; p=0.031). Los demás factores analizados no alcanzaron significancia estadística. Conclusión: El sexo femenino y la presencia de 3 o más comorbilidades son factores de riesgo para la presencia de ESAVI en la vacunación con BBIBP-CorV. Se requieren investigaciones posteriores para conocer si los factores de riesgo hallados en la presente investigación podrían coincidir con otras vacunas y mejorar el control de ESAVI en la poblaciónThe BBIBP-CorV vaccine was the first vaccine for COVID-19 that arrived in Peru, however, it generated many doubts in the population about its safety due to its approval before complying with all the corresponding phases. Objective: To determine risk factors for the development of Events Supposedly Attributed to Vaccination or Immunization (ESAVI) in vaccination with BBIBP-CorV in EsSalud workers in La Libertad. Material and methods: A census, observational case-control study of EsSalud workers vaccinated with BBIBP-CorV in 2021 was conducted in La Libertad, Peru. Data on vaccination were collected through self-report without personal data (anonymous) and voluntary in vaccination. Results: We included 467 vaccinated workers, 199 cases and 268 controls. In the multivariate analysis, statistically significant risk was found only for females (OR: 2.4; CI 95%: 1.6-3.6; p=0.000) and for the presence of 3 or more comorbidities (OR: 5.7; CI 95%: 1.2-27.7; p=0.031). The other factors analyzed did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion: Female sex and the presence of 3 or more comorbidities are risk factors for the development of ESAVI in BBIBP-CorV vaccination. Further research is required to know if the risk factors found in the present investigation could coincide with other vaccines and improve the control of ESAVI in the population.Tesi

Reduction of production time in Stage Textile Spinning Company SA by the Theory of Constraints (TOC), in the city of Chiclayo, Lambayeque, Peru

El trabajo fue realizado en una empresa textil de la ciudad de Chiclayo – Lambayeque, con el objetivo de mejorar su proceso de producción aplicando la Teoría de Restricciones. Se diagnosticó la situación actual de la empresa para plantear propuestas de mejora en la producción. Como primer paso se redistribuyó la planta aplicando el método S.L.P, luego se balanceó el proceso disponiendo lotes de 100 kg para poder medir los tiempos del proceso. Se identificó el cuello de botella como restricción principal. Para mejorarla se realizó un balance de línea con estaciones de trabajo. La nueva redistribución de la planta redujo el tiempo del proceso, se calculó el takt-time, se balanceó la línea de producción y se calculó la cantidad óptima de operarios, obteniendo un total de 10 operarios en el 1er turno y 9 en el 2do turno, y un ahorro mensual de S/.3750, 00. Además, al subordinar el proceso al cuello de botella, se generó una capacidad disponible de 2460 minutos, tiempo en el cual la empresa podrá producir 2299 kg generando un incremento en el throughput de S/.4598,13 por mes.Abstract : The investigation was applied in a textile company in Chiclayo City, Lambayeque with the objective of improving its production process by applying Theory of Constraints. The current situation of the company was diagnosed in order to propound ideas for improvement of the production. As a first step, the plant was redistributed applying the S.L.P. method, then the process was balanced arranging lots of 100 kg each so the process times could be measured. Bottleneck was identified as the main constraint. For improving it, a line balance with work stations was done. The new plant layout reduced the process time, takt-time was calculated, production line was balanced and optimal number of operators was calculated, obtaining a total of 10 operators on the day turn and 9 operators at night turn, and a monthly saving of S/3750,00. Besides, by subordinating the process to the bottleneck, an available capacity of 2460 minutes appeared, during that time the company was able to produce 2299 kg more than usual, generating a throughput increase of S/.4598,13 per month

The Case Against Template Informed Consent Procedures in Biomedical Research: Heterogeneity in health Literacy in Chile

Indexación: Web of Science; ScieloSe examinó el alfabetismo en salud en Chile con el fin de determinar si se pueden usar procedimientos de consentimiento informado estándares en esta población. Se evaluó el alfabetismo en salud con la versión abreviada de la prueba SAHLSA. Los resultados se expresaron como el porcentaje de respuestas correctas en cada prueba. El promedio global de respuestas correctas fue 85.4 ± 13.5 % (media aritmética ± desviación estándar, n=762). Hubo diferencias importantes entre los subgrupos examinados. El nivel más bajo de alfabetismo en salud se detectó en pescadores artesanales y sus familias y en estudiantes de liceos públicos, y el más alto en estudiantes universitarios y madres pobladoras atendidas en el sistema público de salud. Los resultados muestran la necesidad que los procedimientos de consentimiento informado tomen en cuenta la heterogeneidad del alfabetismo en salud de la población chilena.Health literacy was examined in Chile to assess whether it is homogenous enough to allow the use of "templates" for informed consent, and to identity subgroups that may need special consideration when recruited for research because of their low health literacy abbreviated SAHLSA test of health literacy was used. Results were expressed as percent of correct answers out of the 50 items of the SAHLSA test. There was high health literacy with 85.4 ± 13.5 % (arithmetic mean ± standard deviation, «=762) of correct answers. There were important differences between groups, with lower scores in artisanal fishermen families and high-school students attending public schools, and higher scores in university students and mothers attending the public health system. Results show that a case by case approach is probably more appropriate when seeking informed consent in this population because of the variability of health literacy.http://ref.scielo.org/nb426

Post-dispersal fate of seeds in the Monte desert of Argentina: patterns of germination in successive wet and dry years

1 Patterns of seed germination of grass and forb species were studied in open Prosopis woodland of the central Monte desert (Argentina) during several years, to test the hypotheses that (i) seed germination is positively affected by both rainfall and protection afforded by vegetation cover (a facilitative effect), (ii) the number of surviving plants is positively influenced by rainfall but negatively affected by established vegetation (a competitive effect), and (iii) seed loss from soil banks owing to germination is lower than that caused by granivorous animals. 2 Forb species germinated during restricted periods, either in early autumn or in spring. Grasses, however, germinated throughout the growing season, but because seedlings could not be identified to species level, it was impossible to discern whether different species germinated in particular seasons, or if all grasses germinated in all seasons. Grass and forb germination were generally of similar magnitude, but grass germination increased by an order of magnitude during a summer of unusually abundant rainfall related to an El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event. 3 Overall, the spatial distribution of neither germinating seeds nor surviving plants could be explained by interactions with established vegetation (facilitation and competition effects, respectively). An alternative explanation may be provided by the distribution of forb and grass seeds in the soil, 4 Seed loss owing to germination was low in both dry and rainy years. For forbs, such loss totalled 4%. Total grass-seed loss to germination was usually < 0.5%, and the 5% reached in 1997-98 corresponded to an interruption of a prolonged drought by unusually abundant rainfall associated with a reduced seed bank. 5 Grass-seed loss caused by germination was one to two orders of magnitude lower than that reported due to autumn-winter granivory in the central Monte desert.Fil: Marone, Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; ArgentinaFil: Horno, Manuel E.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez del Solar, Rafael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; Argentin

Top Universities, Top Libraries: Do Research Services in Academic Libraries Contribute to University Output?

University context is nowadays mostly characterized by the implementation of competitiveness and cost-effectiveness criteria. There are two main characteristics of the new management model: a new relevancy to the university funding and the predominance of the research criteria as excellence indicator. Evidence of the growing role of research in universities are the parameters to rank the excellence of higher education institutions, such as ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) of the University of Shangai, SIR (SCImago Institutions Rankings) or the THE (Times Higher Education World University Rankings). The research orientation also imposes to the academic library, with the growing implementation of services to support research. Evidences are at last reports about trends in academic libraries by ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries), especially at the latest edition: The 2015 Environmental Scan of Academics Libraries. The international survey Bridging the Librarian-Faculty Gap in the Academic Library (2015) also emphasizes the greater impact and relevance of the academic library to research, stressing the perception of the library as essential in this process. This paper tries to establish a connection between excellent universities and the research oriented services by their libraries. Our research hypothesis is: the universities at the top of the rankings have libraries that provide excellent services to support research processes. Ten of the top universities at the ARWU and Times rankings are used as sample and their libraries services analyzed. As research method we used the observation of the selected libraries webpages, with a checklist where the most relevant services to support research processes are identified

Big continuous data: dealing with velocity by composing event streams

International audienceThe rate at which we produce data is growing steadily, thus creating even larger streams of continuously evolving data. Online news, micro-blogs, search queries are just a few examples of these continuous streams of user activities. The value of these streams relies in their freshness and relatedness to on-going events. Modern applications consuming these streams need to extract behaviour patterns that can be obtained by aggregating and mining statically and dynamically huge event histories. An event is the notification that a happening of interest has occurred. Event streams must be combined or aggregated to produce more meaningful information. By combining and aggregating them either from multiple producers, or from a single one during a given period of time, a limited set of events describing meaningful situations may be notified to consumers. Event streams with their volume and continuous production cope mainly with two of the characteristics given to Big Data by the 5V’s model: volume & velocity. Techniques such as complex pattern detection, event correlation, event aggregation, event mining and stream processing, have been used for composing events. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, few approaches integrate different composition techniques (online and post-mortem) for dealing with Big Data velocity. This chapter gives an analytical overview of event stream processing and composition approaches: complex event languages, services and event querying systems on distributed logs. Our analysis underlines the challenges introduced by Big Data velocity and volume and use them as reference for identifying the scope and limitations of results stemming from different disciplines: networks, distributed systems, stream databases, event composition services, and data mining on traces

Neisseria gonorrhoeae challenge increases matrix metalloproteinase-8 expression in fallopian tube explants

Indexación: Scopus.Background: Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ngo) is the etiological agent of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection that initially infects the female lower genital tract. In untreated women, the bacteria can ascend to the upper genital reproductive tract and infect the fallopian tube (FTs), which is associated with salpingitis and can lead to impaired FT function and infertility. The extracellular matrix (ECM) plays an important role in cell migration and differentiation in the female genital tract, and some pathogens modify the ECM to establish successful infections. The ECM is regulated by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), their endogenous inhibitors; MMP deregulation causes pathological conditions in a variety of tissues. Results: The aim of this work was to analyze the expression and localization of MMP-3, MMP-8, MMP-9, and TIMP-1 in FT explants during Ngo infection using real-time PCR, immunohistochemistry, zymography and ELISA. No significant variations in MMP-3, MMP-9, and TIMP-1 transcript levels were observed. In contrast, a significant increase (p < 0.05) was observed for MMP-8 expression and was accompanied by stromal immunoreactivity in infected explants. ELISA results supported these findings and showed that MMP-8 release increased upon gonococcal infection. Conclusions: Our results indicate that gonococcal infection induces increased MMP-8 expression, which might contribute to FT damage during infection. © 2017 Juica, Rodas, Solar, Borda, Vargas, Muñoz, Paredes, Christodoulides and Velasquez.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2017.00399/ful

Mejores prácticas en seguridad y control de fronteras

El objetivo de este documento es analizar nuevas formas de abordar el control de una frontera, en respuesta a tres necesidades básicas: contribuir a elevar los niveles de la seguridad civil, ejerciendo un control sobre los tránsitos internacionales; mejorar la competitividad nacional, facilitando el tráfico internacional lícito de personas y mercancías; e integrar el desarrollo de la seguridad de fronteras con el resto de las líneas de actuación nacional, en particular con las de desarrollo de la seguridad interior, progreso socioeconómico y relaciones internacionales. Para ello, este documento presenta un primer modelo conceptual de actuación y aborda, en forma de un caso de estudio y notas con mejores prácticas, diferentes aspectos considerados clave en el desarrollo de una estrategia de control de fronteras que une seguridad y facilitación. Todo ello en un marco de respeto a los derechos fundamentales y de minimización del impacto sobre la población residente en las zonas fronterizas.Integración y comercio, Seguridad ciudadana y prevención de la delincuencia, fronteras, control de fronteras, seguridad internacional, tráfico internacional, derecho comparado

Clima institucional y desempeño docente en la Institución Educativa Privada “San Juan Bosco” del distrito de Ayacucho, 2017

El estudio desarrollado tuvo como objetivo conocer la relación que existe entre el Clima institucional y desempeño docente en la Institución Educativa Privada “San Juan Bosco”. Ayacucho, 2017. El enfoque utilizado fue el cuantitativo y el diseño asumido para realizar todo el proceso investigativo fue el descriptivo correlacional de tipo transversal. La población y muestra estuvo conformado por 41 docentes de la Institución Educativa Privada “San Juan Bosco” de Ayacucho. El recojo, procesamiento, presentación, análisis e interpretación de los datos demandó el uso de técnicas estadísticas. La técnica utilizada en el recojo de datos fue la encuesta y el instrumento utilizado para registrar los datos fue el cuestionario. Los resultados registran que el 51,2% de los docentes consideran que el clima institucional es regular y en ese mismo porcentaje se ubican en la valoración en proceso en lo que concierne al desempeño docente. Las conclusiones afirman que, existe relación entre el clima institucional y el desempeño docente, en la medida que el valor de Tau_b = 0,724, mientras que al ser el p_valor=0,000 que resulta ser menor al nivel de significancia α=0,05 se ha asumido la hipótesis alterna y se ha rechazado la hipótesis nula, con un nivel de significancia del 5% y un intervalo de confianza del 95%