MAXIMS: a computer program for estimating the food consumption of fishes from diel stomach contents data and population parameters

MAXIMS (Computer file), Food consumption, Stomach content, Population characteristics, Computer programmes Pisces

Editorial

Editoria

Atribuição de Estereótipos A Grupos Regionais Por Parte de Alunos do Primeiro Grau

The study was designed to investigate the stereotypes inrelation to people from Rio, São Paulo, Minas, the Northeast and RioGrande do Sul among 480 5th to 8th grade students from public andprivate schools in Brasilia. The instrument included twelve differenttraits (such as intelligent, happy, smart and honest). The students wereasked to give points from 1 to 5 to the different groups on each trait.Different traits were more prominent in each group. It was also observedthat some of the stereotypes common among adults were present in thissample, especially among the students from the later grades.RESUMO — Foi o objetivo do estudo investigar em uma amostra de 480 alunos da 5a a 8a séries de escolas públicas e particulares de Brasilia, D.F. os estereótipos relativos ao carioca, gaúcho, mineiro, nordestino e paulista. O instrumento utilizado incluía uma relação de doze atributos (como inteligente, alegre, esperto e honesto), solicitando-se aos alunos para dar pontos de 1 a 5 aos distintos grupos nestas características. Observou-se que em cada grupo certos traços foram mais salientados. Constatou-se ainda que muitos dos estereótipos observados entre adultos com relação aos diferentes grupos foram também observados na amostra estudada, especialmente entre os alunos de séries mais avançadas

On fitting Somer's equation for seasonally oscillating growth, with emphasis on T-subzero

Growth, Mathematical models

How do university teachers use digital technologies in class?

[EN] The main goal of this article is the description of a peculiar textbook which aims to contribute in a friendly and available way to the teacher-student relationship in a subject devoted to the foundations of a discipline. Analytical Chemistry and Nanotechnology have been selected as case studies. The description of the true concept of innovation in the framework of Einstein and Khun thoughts, as well as the two approaches (top-down and bottom- up) to teach and learn the foundations of an area of knowledge is the subject matter of the Introduction of the paper. The so-named “textbook” is composed by two essential parts. On the one hand, a CD room contains 350 dynamic downloadable images (PowerPoint), and, on the other, a book containing the detailed explanation of each image and its dynamics, a glossary of terms and the detailed responses to 240 questions posed at the end of the chapters. The principal teaching-learning innovation consists of the major relative importance of the images versus the text, which is designed to support images. In this way, the roles of teachers and students are far from the traditional ones. Other innovations are as follows: the fact that an undergraduate student was a full co-author, the permanent cross references of the teaching message and the use of many examples from the real life. This innovation was successively extrapolated to an e-book devoted to the basic divulgation of nanotechnology to the citizens. This approach is subsequently described at the end of the article.[ES] En este artículo se describe una obra docente atípica, con intención de ser rompedora, orientada a contribuir de forma amigable y asequible a una innovación docente-discente de una materia universitaria dedicada a los fundamentos/principios de un área de conocimiento. Como “casos de estudio” se han utilizado la Química Analítica y la Nanotecnología. El contenido del artículo se contextualiza en el apartado Introducción del mismo donde se describe el concepto verdadero de innovación en el marco de los enfoques de Einstein y Khun, y se exponen las dos formas (top-down y bottom-up) de abordar la enseñanza-aprendizaje de los fundamentos de una área de conocimiento. La obra docente consta de un CD con aproximadamente 350 imágenes (descargables en PowerPoint ) con movimientos y un libro de texto que contiene la explicación detallada de cada diapositiva; así como dos anexos con un glosario de 250 términos y la resolución detallada de unas 240 cuestiones, respectivamente. La innovación docente-discente principal que aporta es que las imágenes tienen un mayor peso específico que el texto, lo que implica cambiar los roles del profesor y del estudiante en horas presenciales y no presenciales. Otras innovaciones a destacar son la participación de una estudiante como coautora, las referencias cruzadas permanentes para contextualizar al estudiante; así como el empleo permanente de ejemplos de la vida real y actual para apoyar los conceptos típicos de un libro de fundamentos. Esta innovación se ha extrapolado con éxito a un e-bookde divulgación de la nanotecnología a los ciudadanos, que también se describe sucintamente al final del artículo.Los autores desean mostrar su agradecimiento a la editorial de la Universidad de Córdoba, UCOPRESS, y especialmente a su director, Juan Pedro Monferrer, por la receptividad a estas dos propuestas atípicas (libro de texto y e-book), y su dedicación a superar los problemas que toda innovación (en este caso editorial) implica.González-Alfaya, M.; López-Jiménez, M.; López-Lorente, A.; Soriano Dotor, M.; Valcárcel, M. (2017). ¿Puede un libro de texto atípico inducir a la innovación docente-discente?. REDU. Revista de Docencia Universitaria. 15(2):295-314. doi:10.4995/redu.2017.7777SWORD29531415

Measuring the contribution of γδ T cells to the persistent HIV reservoir

Objective:To study the contribution of γδ T cells to the persistent HIV reservoir.Design:Fifteen HIV-seropositive individuals on suppressive ART were included. We performed parallel quantitative viral outgrowth assays (QVOA) of resting CD4+ T (rCD4) cells in the presence or absence of γδ T cells.Methods:Resting αβ+CD4+ T cells were magnetically isolated from PBMCs using two different custom cocktails, only one kit contained antibodies to deplete γδ T cells, resulting in two populations: rCD4 cells and rCD4 cells depleted of γδ cells. Frequency of infection was analyzed by QVOA and DNA measurements.Results:Recovery of replication-competent HIV from cultures of rCD4 cells was similar in 11 individuals despite the presence of γδ T cells. In four donors, HIV recovery was lower when γδ T cells were present. Expression of the cytotoxic marker CD16+ on Vδ2 cells was the only variable associated with the lower HIV recovery. Our results highlight the potency of those responses since a mean of 10000 γδ T cells were present within 2.5 million rCD4 cells. However, despite the low frequency of γδ T cells, the presence of cytotoxic Vδ2 cells correlated with lower HIV recovery from cultures of rCD4 cells.Conclusion:Results of this study show that quantification of the contribution of γδ T cells to the reservoir is challenging because of their low numbers compared with conventional rCD4 cells and highlights the potent antiviral function of γδ T cells and the impact of their presence on the frequency of latent HIV infection

Distribution and outcomes of a phenotype-based approach to guide COPD management: Results from the CHAIN cohort

Rationale: The Spanish guideline for COPD (GesEPOC) recommends COPD treatment according to four clinical phenotypes: non-exacerbator phenotype with either chronic bronchitis or emphysema (NE), asthma-COPD overlap syndrome (ACOS), frequent exacerbator phenotype with emphysema (FEE) or frequent exacerbator phenotype with chronic bronchitis (FECB). However, little is known on the distribution and outcomes of the four suggested phenotypes. Objective: We aimed to determine the distribution of these COPD phenotypes, and their relation with one-year clinical outcomes. Methods: We followed a cohort of well-characterized patients with COPD up to one-year. Baseline characteristics, health status (CAT), BODE index, rate of exacerbations and mortality up to one year of follow-up were compared between the four phenotypes. Results: Overall, 831 stable COPD patients were evaluated. They were distributed as NE, 550 (66.2%); ACOS, 125 (15.0%); FEE, 38 (4.6%); and FECB, 99 (11.9%); additionally 19 (2.3%) COPD patients with frequent exacerbations did not fulfill the criteria for neither FEE nor FECB. At baseline, there were significant differences in symptoms, FEV1 and BODE index (all p<0.05). The FECB phenotype had the highest CAT score (17.1±8.2, p<0.05 compared to the other phenotypes). Frequent exacerbator groups (FEE and FECB) were receiving more pharmacological treatment at baseline, and also experienced more exacerbations the year after (all p<0.05) with no differences in one-year mortality. Most of NE (93%) and half of exacerbators were stable after one year. Conclusions: There is an uneven distribution of COPD phenotypes in stable COPD patients, with significant differences in demographics, patient-centered outcomes and health care resources use

Aminobisphosphonates reactivate the latent reservoir in people living with HIV-1

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is not curative due to the existence of cellular reservoirs of latent HIV-1 that persist during therapy. Current research efforts to cure HIV-1 infection include “shock and kill” strategies to disrupt latency using small molecules or latency-reversing agents (LRAs) to induce expression of HIV-1 enabling cytotoxic immune cells to eliminate infected cells. The modest success of current LRAs urges the field to identify novel drugs with increased clinical efficacy. Aminobisphosphonates (N-BPs) that include pamidronate, zoledronate, or alendronate, are the first-line treatment of bone-related diseases including osteoporosis and bone malignancies. Here, we show the use of N-BPs as a novel class of LRA: we found in ex vivo assays using primary cells from ART-suppressed people living with HIV-1 that N-BPs induce HIV-1 from latency to levels that are comparable to the T cell activator phytohemagglutinin (PHA). RNA sequencing and mechanistic data suggested that reactivation may occur through activation of the activator protein 1 signaling pathway. Stored samples from a prior clinical trial aimed at analyzing the effect of alendronate on bone mineral density, provided further evidence of alendronate-mediated latency reversal and activation of immune effector cells. Decay of the reservoir measured by IPDA was however not detected. Our results demonstrate the novel use of N-BPs to reverse HIV-1 latency while inducing immune effector functions. This preliminary evidence merits further investigation in a controlled clinical setting possibly in combination with therapeutic vaccination

Spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020.

Following its emergence in late 2019, the spread of SARS-CoV-21,2 has been tracked by phylogenetic analysis of viral genome sequences in unprecedented detail3–5. Although the virus spread globally in early 2020 before borders closed, intercontinental travel has since been greatly reduced. However, travel within Europe resumed in the summer of 2020. Here we report on a SARS-CoV-2 variant, 20E (EU1), that was identified in Spain in early summer 2020 and subsequently spread across Europe. We find no evidence that this variant has increased transmissibility, but instead demonstrate how rising incidence in Spain, resumption of travel, and lack of effective screening and containment may explain the variant’s success. Despite travel restrictions, we estimate that 20E (EU1) was introduced hundreds of times to European countries by summertime travellers, which is likely to have undermined local efforts to minimize infection with SARS-CoV-2. Our results illustrate how a variant can rapidly become dominant even in the absence of a substantial transmission advantage in favourable epidemiological settings. Genomic surveillance is critical for understanding how travel can affect transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and thus for informing future containment strategies as travel resumes. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited

RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true