52 research outputs found
Current use and acceptability of novel diagnostic tests for active tuberculosis : a worldwide survey
CITATION: Amicosante, M., et al. 2017. Current use and acceptability of novel diagnostic tests for active tuberculosis : a worldwide survey. Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia, 43(5):380-392, doi:10.1590/S1806-37562017000000219.The original publication is available at http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1806-37132017000500380&lng=en&tlng=enObjective: To determine the current use and potential acceptance (by tuberculosis
experts worldwide) of novel rapid tests for the diagnosis of tuberculosis that are in line
with World Health Organization target product profiles. Methods: A multilingual survey
was disseminated online between July and November of 2016. Results: A total of 723
individuals from 114 countries responded to the survey. Smear microscopy was the most
commonly used rapid tuberculosis test (available to 90.9% of the respondents), followed
by molecular assays (available to 70.7%). Only a small proportion of the respondents
in middle- and low-income countries had access to interferon-gamma-release assays.
Serological and lateral flow immunoassays were used by more than a quarter (25.4%)
of the respondents. Among the respondents who had access to molecular tests, 46.7%
were using the Xpert assay overall, that proportion being higher in lower middle-income
countries (55.6%) and low-income countries (76.6%). The data also suggest that there
was some alignment of pricing for molecular assays. Respondents stated they would
accept novel rapid tuberculosis tests if available, including molecular assays (acceptable
to 86.0%) or biomarker-based serological assays (acceptable to 81.7%). Simple
biomarker-based assays were more commonly deemed acceptable in middle- and lowincome
countries. Conclusions: Second-generation molecular assays have become
more widely available in high- and low-resource settings. However, the development
of novel rapid tuberculosis tests continues to be considered important by tuberculosis
experts. Our data also underscore the need for additional training and education of end
users.http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1806-37132017000500380Publisher's versio
Adaptive signal coloration maintained in the face of gene flow in a Hispaniolan Anolis Lizard
Effects of 174 G/C polymorphism in the promoter region of the interleukin-6 gene on plasma IL-6 levels and muscle strength in elderly women
HIGH PREVALENCE OF Blastocystis spp. INFECTION IN CHILDREN AND STAFF MEMBERS ATTENDING PUBLIC URBAN SCHOOLS IN SÃO PAULO STATE, BRAZIL
Diversity, distribution and conservation of the terrestrial reptiles of Oman (Sauropsida, Squamata)
All authors:
Salvador Carranza ,
Meritxell Xipell,
Pedro Tarroso,
Andrew Gardner,
Edwin Nicholas Arnold,
Michael D. Robinson,
Marc Simó-Riudalbas,
Raquel Vasconcelos,
Philip de Pous,
Fèlix Amat,
Jiřà ŠmÃd,
Roberto Sindaco,
Margarita Metallinou †,
Johannes Els,
Juan Manuel Pleguezuelos,
Luis Machado,
David Donaire,
Gabriel MartÃnez,
Joan Garcia-Porta,
Tomáš Mazuch,
Thomas Wilms,
Jürgen Gebhart,
Javier Aznar,
Javier Gallego,
Bernd-Michael Zwanzig,
Daniel Fernández-Guiberteau,
Theodore Papenfuss,
Saleh Al Saadi,
Ali Alghafri,
Sultan Khalifa,
Hamed Al Farqani,
Salim Bait Bilal,
Iman Sulaiman Alazri,
Aziza Saud Al Adhoobi,
Zeyana Salim Al Omairi,
Mohammed Al Shariani,
Ali Al Kiyumi,
Thuraya Al Sariri,
Ahmed Said Al Shukaili,
Suleiman Nasser Al Akhzami.In the present work, we use an exceptional database including 5,359 records of 101 species of Oman’s terrestrial reptiles together with spatial tools to infer the spatial patterns of species richness and endemicity, to infer the habitat preference of each species and to better define conservation priorities, with especial focus on the effectiveness of the protected areas in preserving this unique arid fauna. Our results indicate that the sampling effort is not only remarkable from a taxonomic point of view, with multiple observations for most species, but also for the spatial coverage achieved. The observations are distributed almost continuously across the two-dimensional climatic space of Oman defined by the mean annual temperature and the total annual precipitation and across the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the multivariate climatic space and are well represented within 17 out of the 20 climatic clusters grouping 10% of the explained climatic variance defined by PC1 and PC2. Species richness is highest in the Hajar and Dhofar Mountains, two of the most biodiverse areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and endemic species richness is greatest in the Jebel Akhdar, the highest part of the Hajar Mountains. Oman’s 22 protected areas cover only 3.91% of the country, including within their limits 63.37% of terrestrial reptiles and 50% of all endemics. Our analyses show that large areas of the climatic space of Oman lie outside protected areas and that seven of the 20 climatic clusters are not protected at all. The results of the gap analysis indicate that most of the species are below the conservation target of 17% or even the less restrictive 12% of their total area within a protected area in order to be considered adequately protected. Therefore, an evaluation of the coverage of the current network of protected areas and the identification of priority protected areas for reptiles using reserve design algorithms are urgently needed. Our study also shows that more than half of the species are still pending of a definitive evaluation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).This work was funded by grants CGL2012-36970, CGL2015-70390-P from the Ministerio de EconomÃa y Competitividad, Spain (cofunded by FEDER) to SC, the project Field study for the conservation of reptiles in Oman, Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Oman (Ref: 22412027) to SC and grant 2014-SGR-1532 from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya to SC. MSR is funded by a FPI grant from the Ministerio de EconomÃa y Competitividad, Spain (BES-2013-064248); RV, PT and LM were funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through post-doc grants (SFRH/BPD/79913/2011) to RV, (SFRH/BPD/93473/2013) to PT and PhD grant (SFRH/BD/89820/2012) to LM, financed by Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH) – Quadro de Referência Estrategico Nacional (QREN) from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministerio da Educação e Ciência
Estratégia Saúde da FamÃlia: avaliando o acesso ao SUS a partir da percepção dos usuários da Unidade de Saúde de Resistência, na região de São Pedro, no municÃpio de Vitória (ES)
Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities
Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees
Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities
Trees structure the Earth's most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1-6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth's 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world's most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees
Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to a dark matter signal from the Galactic centre
We provide an updated assessment of the power of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to search for thermally produced dark matter at the TeV scale, via the associated gamma-ray signal from pair-annihilating dark matter particles in the region around the Galactic centre. We find that CTA will open a new window of discovery potential, significantly extending the range of robustly testable models given a standard cuspy profile of the dark matter density distribution. Importantly, even for a cored profile, the projected sensitivity of CTA will be sufficient to probe various well-motivated models of thermally produced dark matter at the TeV scale. This is due to CTA's unprecedented sensitivity, angular and energy resolutions, and the planned observational strategy. The survey of the inner Galaxy will cover a much larger region than corresponding previous observational campaigns with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. CTA will map with unprecedented precision the large-scale diffuse emission in high-energy gamma rays, constituting a background for dark matter searches for which we adopt state-of-the-art models based on current data. Throughout our analysis, we use up-to-date event reconstruction Monte Carlo tools developed by the CTA consortium, and pay special attention to quantifying the level of instrumental systematic uncertainties, as well as background template systematic errors, required to probe thermally produced dark matter at these energies
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