Socioeconomic Factors and All Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality among Older People in Latin America, India, and China: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Cleusa Ferri and colleagues studied mortality rates in over 12,000 people aged 65 years and over in Latin America, India, and China and showed that chronic diseases are the main causes of death and that education has an important effect on mortality

Evaluación de fertilización orgánica en cafeto (Coffea arabica) con pequeños productores de Santander, Colombia

Today, the agricultural sciences face the double challenge of meeting the increasing global food demand and ensuring a sustainable development for humanity. In this study we focused on the coffee production system, evaluating the hypothesis of whether, in the region of the study, the use of organic fertilizers for this crop offers equivalent or better results than those obtained by using traditional fertilizers. Specifically, we aimed to: Evaluate the use of bocashi (fermented rice bran) and worm compost as organic fertilizers to promote vegetative growth, and plant health in the coffee crop; and determine the influence of temperature in preparing bocashi. We applied a randomized complete blocks design with three treatments: bocashi, worm compost and traditional organic compost. The evaluated variables were: plant height, number of leaves per plant, and the incidence of fungal pathogens. Three farms were chosen in different localities in the Municipality of Ocamonte-Santander to cover the agro-climatic conditions of the region, the Castillo variety was used. Physical-chemical soil analysis was performed in order to determine the nutrients available to plants at the moment of planting. Chemical analysis was also performed for the organic composts in order to determine their influence on the evaluated variables. Our results allowed us to accept the hypothesis. Although, the bocashi showed greater values in terms of chemical composition compared with the worm compost, the latter induced a more favorable response in vegetative development in coffee plants.Key words: Bocashi, worm compost, organic coffee, sustainable agriculture.La agricultura en la actualidad tiene el reto de suplir la demanda existente por alimentos a nivel mundial, como también, proporcionar un desarrollo sostenible para la humanidad. Para el presente trabajo el modelo escogido fue café, generando la hipótesis que al utilizar abonos orgánicos para la fertilización del cultivo, se obtendría igual o mejores resultados que al aplicar la fertilización tradicional de la zona de estudio. Para lo cual se plantearon los siguientes objetivos: Evaluar el efecto del bocashi y lombricompuesto como fertilizantes orgánicos en el desarrollo vegetativo y sanidad del cultivo de cafeto; y determinar la influencia de la temperatura en la elaboración de bocashi. Se trabajó un diseño de Bloques Completos al Azar (BCA); los tratamientos fueron: bocashi, lombricompuesto y fertilización tradicional orgánica y las variables evaluadas fueron: altura y número de hojas por planta, así como, incidencia de patógenos fungosos. Se escogieron tres fincas ubicadas en diferentes sectores del municipio de Ocamonte-Santander para tener mayor representación de las condiciones agroclimáticas de la región, donde se estableció la variedad Castillo. Se realizó análisis físico-químico de los suelos, para determinar los nutrientes disponibles a las plantas al momento de la siembra, igualmente, se hizo análisis químico a los abonos orgánicos para determinar su influencia sobre las variables evaluadas. Los resultados obtenidos permitieron aceptar la hipótesis, y aunque químicamente el bocashi registró mayores valores que el lombricompuesto, este último, indujo mejor respuesta en el desarrollo vegetativo del cafeto.Palabras clave: Bocashi, lombricompuesto, café orgánico, agricultura sostenible

Evaluation of organic fertilizers in coffee (Coffea arabica), in small holdings of Santander, Colombia

La agricultura en la actualidad tiene el reto de suplir la demanda existente por alimentos a nivel mundial, como también, proporcionar un desarrollo sostenible para la humanidad. Para el presente trabajo el modelo escogido fue café, generando la hipótesis que al utilizar abonos orgánicos para la fertilización del cultivo, se obtendría igual o mejores resultados que al aplicar la fertilización tradicional de la zona de estudio. Para lo cual se plantearon los siguientes objetivos: Evaluar el efecto del bocashi y lombricompuesto como fertilizantes orgánicos en el desarrollo vegetativo y sanidad del cultivo de cafeto; y determinar la influencia de la temperatura en la elaboración de bocashi. Se trabajó un diseño de Bloques Completos al Azar (BCA); los tratamientos fueron: bocashi, lombricompuesto y fertilización tradicional orgánica y las variables evaluadas fueron: altura y número de hojas por planta, así como, incidencia de patógenos fungosos. Se escogieron tres fincas ubicadas en diferentes sectores del municipio de Ocamonte-Santander para tener mayor representación de las condiciones agroclimáticas de la región, donde se estableció la variedad Castillo. Se realizó análisis físico-químico de los suelos, para determinar los nutrientes disponibles a las plantas al momento de la siembra, igualmente, se hizo análisis químico a los abonos orgánicos para determinar su influencia sobre las variables evaluadas. Los resultados obtenidos permitieron aceptar la hipótesis, y aunque químicamente el bocashi registró mayores valores que el lombricompuesto, este último, indujo mejor respuesta en el desarrollo vegetativo del cafeto

Population normative data for the 10/66 Dementia Research Group cognitive test battery from Latin America, India and China: a cross-sectional survey

Background: 1) To report site-specific normative values by age, sex and educational level for four components of the 10/66 Dementia Research Group cognitive test battery; 2) to estimate the main and interactive effects of age, sex, and educational level by site; and 3) to investigate the effect of site by region and by rural or urban location. Methods: Population-based cross-sectional one phase catchment area surveys were conducted in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, China and India. The protocol included the administration of the Community Screening Instrument for Dementia (CSI 'D', generating the COGSCORE measure of global function), and the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) verbal fluency (VF), word list memory (WLM, immediate recall) and recall (WLR, delayed recall) tests. Only those free of dementia were included in the analysis. Results: Older people, and those with less education performed worse on all four tests. The effect of sex was much smaller and less consistent. There was a considerable effect of site after accounting for compositional differences in age, education and sex. Much of this was accounted for by the effect of region with Chinese participants performing better, and Indian participants worse, than those from Latin America. The effect of region was more prominent for VF and WLM than for COGSCORE and WLR. Conclusion: Cognitive assessment is a basic element for dementia diagnosis. Age- and education-specific norms are required for this purpose, while the effect of gender can probably be ignored. The basis of cultural effects is poorly understood, but our findings serve to emphasise that normative data may not be safely generalised from one population to another with quite different characteristics. The minimal effects of region on COGSCORE and WLR are reassuring with respect to the cross-cultural validity of the 10/66 dementia diagnosis, which uses only these elements of the 10/66 battery.Clinical NeurologySCI(E)SSCI17ARTICLEnull

Identification of Loci Controlling Restriction of Parasite Growth in Experimental Taenia crassiceps Cysticercosis

Human neurocysticercosis (NC) caused by Taenia solium is a parasitic disease of the central nervous system that is endemic in many developing countries. In this study, a genetic approach using the murine intraperitoneal cysticercosis caused by the related cestode Taenia crassiceps was employed to identify host factors that regulate the establishment and proliferation of the parasite. A/J mice are permissive to T. crassiceps infection while C57BL/6J mice (B6) are comparatively restrictive, with a 10-fold difference in numbers of peritoneal cysticerci recovered 30 days after infection. The genetic basis of this inter-strain difference was explored using 34 AcB/BcA recombinant congenic strains derived from A/J and B6 progenitors, that were phenotyped for T. crassiceps replication. In agreement with their genetic background, most AcB strains (A/J-derived) were found to be permissive to infection while most BcA strains (B6-derived) were restrictive with the exception of a few discordant strains, together suggesting a possible simple genetic control. Initial haplotype association mapping using >1200 informative SNPs pointed to linkages on chromosomes 2 (proximal) and 6 as controlling parasite replication in the AcB/BcA panel. Additional linkage analysis by genome scan in informative [AcB55xDBA/2]F1 and F2 mice (derived from the discordant AcB55 strain), confirmed the effect of chromosome 2 on parasite replication, and further delineated a major locus (LOD = 4.76, p<0.01; peak marker D2Mit295, 29.7 Mb) that we designate Tccr1 (T. crassiceps cysticercosis restrictive locus 1). Resistance alleles at Tccr1 are derived from AcB55 and are inherited in a dominant fashion. Scrutiny of the minimal genetic interval reveals overlap of Tccr1 with other host resistance loci mapped to this region, most notably the defective Hc/C5 allele which segregates both in the AcB/BcA set and in the AcB55xDBA/2 cross. These results strongly suggest that the complement component 5 (C5) plays a critical role in early protective inflammatory response to infection with T. crassiceps

Reporting on the Seminar - Risk interpretation and action (RIA): Decision making under conditions of uncertainty

The paper reports on the World Social Science (WSS) Fellows seminar on Risk Interpretation and Action (RIA), undertaken in New Zealand in December, 2013. This seminar was coordinated by the WSS Fellows program of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the RIA working group of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program, the IRDR International Center of Excellence Taipei, the International START Secretariat and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Twenty-five early career researchers from around the world were selected to review the RIA framework under the theme of \u27decision-making under conditions of uncertainty\u27, and develop novel theoretical approaches to respond to and improve this framework. Six working groups emerged during the seminar: 1. the assessment of water-related risks in megacities; 2. rethinking risk communication; 3. the embodiment of uncertainty; 4. communication in resettlement and reconstruction phases; 5. the integration of indigenous knowledge in disaster risk reduction; and 6. multi-scale policy implementation for natural hazard risk reduction. This article documents the seminar and initial outcomes from the six groups organized; and concludes with the collective views of the participants on the RIA framework

Urine biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease: A new opportunity for wastewater-based epidemiology?

While Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis, management, and care have become priorities for healthcare providers and researcher's worldwide due to rapid population aging, epidemiologic surveillance efforts are currently limited by costly, invasive diagnostic procedures, particularly in low to middle income countries (LMIC). In recent years, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a promising tool for public health assessment through detection and quantification of specific biomarkers in wastewater, but applications for non-infectious diseases such as AD remain limited. This early review seeks to summarize AD-related biomarkers and urine and other peripheral biofluids and discuss their potential integration to WBE platforms to guide the first prospective efforts in the field. Promising results have been reported in clinical settings, indicating the potential of amyloid β, tau, neural thread protein, long non-coding RNAs, oxidative stress markers and other dysregulated metabolites for AD diagnosis, but questions regarding their concentration and stability in wastewater and the correlation between clinical levels and sewage circulation must be addressed in future studies before comprehensive WBE systems can be developed.The authors would like to thank the Bioproduction Systems and MARTEC lab from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. The authors appreciate the support of Tecnologico de Monterrey for granting access to literature services and the scholarship awarded to Mónica T. Núñez-Soto (Student ID A00827926). CONACYT is thankfully acknowledged for the scholarships awarded to the authors Arnoldo Armenta-Castro (CVU: 1275527) and partially supporting this work under Sistema Nacional de Investigadores program awarded to Alberto Aguayo-Acosta (CVU: 403948), Mariel A. Oyervides-Muñoz (CVU: 422778), Juan Eduardo Sosa-Hernández (CVU: 375202) and Roberto Parra-Saldívar (CVU: 35753). Figures Created with BioRender.com.Peer reviewe

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30

The AVuPUR project (Assessing the Vulnerabiliy of Peri-Urbans Rivers): experimental set up, modelling strategy and first results

International audienceLe projet AVuPUR a pour objectif de progresser sur la compréhension et la modélisation des flux d'eau dans les bassins versants péri-urbains. Il s'agit plus particulièrement de fournir des outils permettant de quantifier l'impact d'objets anthropiques tels que zones urbaines, routes, fossés sur les régimes hydrologiques des cours d'eau dans ces bassins. Cet article présente la stratégie expérimentale et de collecte de données mise en ½uvre dans le projet et les pistes proposées pour l'amélioration des outils de modélisation existants et le développement d'outils novateurs. Enfin, nous présentons comment ces outils seront utilisés pour simuler et quantifier l'impact des modifications d'occupation des sols et/ou du climat sur les régimes hydrologiques des bassins étudiés. / The aim of the AVuPUR project is to enhance our understanding and modelling capacity of water fluxes within suburban watersheds. In particular, the objective is to deliver tools allowing to quantify the impact of anthropogenic elements such as urban areas, roads, ditches on the hydrological regime of suburban rivers. This paper presents the observation and data collection strategy set up by the project, and the directions for improving existing modelling tools or proposing innovative ones. Finally, we present how these tools will be used to simulate and quantify the impact of land use and climate changes on the hydrological regimes of the studied catchments

Genomic and proteomic analyses of Mycobacterium bovis BCG Mexico 1931 reveal a diverse immunogenic repertoire against tuberculosis infection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies of <it>Mycobacterium bovis </it>BCG strains used in different countries and vaccination programs show clear variations in the genomes and immune protective properties of BCG strains. The aim of this study was to characterise the genomic and immune proteomic profile of the BCG 1931 strain used in Mexico.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>BCG Mexico 1931 has a circular chromosome of 4,350,386 bp with a G+C content and numbers of genes and pseudogenes similar to those of BCG Tokyo and BCG Pasteur. BCG Mexico 1931 lacks Region of Difference 1 (RD1), RD2 and N-RD18 and one copy of IS6110, indicating that BCG Mexico 1931 belongs to DU2 group IV within the BCG vaccine genealogy. In addition, this strain contains three new RDs, which are 53 (RDMex01), 655 (RDMex02) and 2,847 bp (REDMex03) long, and 55 single-nucleotide polymorphisms representing non-synonymous mutations compared to BCG Pasteur and BCG Tokyo. In a comparative proteomic analysis, the BCG Mexico 1931, Danish, Phipps and Tokyo strains showed 812, 794, 791 and 701 protein spots, respectively. The same analysis showed that BCG Mexico 1931 shares 62% of its protein spots with the BCG Danish strain, 61% with the BCG Phipps strain and only 48% with the BCG Tokyo strain. Thirty-nine reactive spots were detected in BCG Mexico 1931 using sera from subjects with active tuberculosis infections and positive tuberculin skin tests.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>BCG Mexico 1931 has a smaller genome than the BCG Pasteur and BCG Tokyo strains. Two specific deletions in BCG Mexico 1931 are described (RDMex02 and RDMex03). The loss of RDMex02 (<it>fadD23</it>) is associated with enhanced macrophage binding and RDMex03 contains genes that may be involved in regulatory pathways. We also describe new antigenic proteins for the first time.</p