Leishmaniasis tegumentaria: sensibilidad de la inmunofluorescencia indirecta en pacientes con diagnóstico parasitológico

La leishmaniasis tegumentaria es una zoonosis endémica de zonas tropicales y subtropicales del mundo, de difícil diagnóstico laboratorial. En áreas endémicas se realiza el diagnóstico de presunción basado en la presentación clínica y la reactividad a la prueba cutánea de la leishmanina. Sin embargo, un diagnóstico definitivo de la enfermedad requiere la combinación de diferentes métodos, entre los cuales la inmunofluorescencia indirecta (IFI) es uno de los más utilizados. Para determinar la sensibilidad de la IFI, se sometió un total de 95 pacientes con lesiones comprobadas de leishmaniasis a las pruebas de leishmanina, biopsia histopatológica, cultivo e IFI. En 80 pacientes se logró el diagnóstico parasitológico a través de la histopatología y/oel cultivo. De ellos, 58 muestras (72,5 %) dieron reacción positiva en la IFI para Leishmania, aunque 12 de ellas (21%) también mostraron serología positiva para enfermedad de Chagas. La sensibilidad de la IFI para los casos de leishmaniasis mucosa solamente fue 81,3 % (n=16). Se concluye que la IFI es un método de moderada sensibilidad para el diagnóstico de leishmaniasis tegumentaria

Spatio-temporal Models of Lymphangiogenesis in Wound Healing

Several studies suggest that one possible cause of impaired wound healing is failed or insufficient lymphangiogenesis, that is the formation of new lymphatic capillaries. Although many mathematical models have been developed to describe the formation of blood capillaries (angiogenesis), very few have been proposed for the regeneration of the lymphatic network. Lymphangiogenesis is a markedly different process from angiogenesis, occurring at different times and in response to different chemical stimuli. Two main hypotheses have been proposed: 1) lymphatic capillaries sprout from existing interrupted ones at the edge of the wound in analogy to the blood angiogenesis case; 2) lymphatic endothelial cells first pool in the wound region following the lymph flow and then, once sufficiently populated, start to form a network. Here we present two PDE models describing lymphangiogenesis according to these two different hypotheses. Further, we include the effect of advection due to interstitial flow and lymph flow coming from open capillaries. The variables represent different cell densities and growth factor concentrations, and where possible the parameters are estimated from biological data. The models are then solved numerically and the results are compared with the available biological literature.Comment: 29 pages, 9 Figures, 6 Tables (39 figure files in total

Supernova remnants: the X-ray perspective

Supernova remnants are beautiful astronomical objects that are also of high scientific interest, because they provide insights into supernova explosion mechanisms, and because they are the likely sources of Galactic cosmic rays. X-ray observations are an important means to study these objects.And in particular the advances made in X-ray imaging spectroscopy over the last two decades has greatly increased our knowledge about supernova remnants. It has made it possible to map the products of fresh nucleosynthesis, and resulted in the identification of regions near shock fronts that emit X-ray synchrotron radiation. In this text all the relevant aspects of X-ray emission from supernova remnants are reviewed and put into the context of supernova explosion properties and the physics and evolution of supernova remnants. The first half of this review has a more tutorial style and discusses the basics of supernova remnant physics and thermal and non-thermal X-ray emission. The second half offers a review of the recent advances.The topics addressed there are core collapse and thermonuclear supernova remnants, SN 1987A, mature supernova remnants, mixed-morphology remnants, including a discussion of the recent finding of overionization in some of them, and finally X-ray synchrotron radiation and its consequences for particle acceleration and magnetic fields.Comment: Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Reviews. This version has 2 column-layout. 78 pages, 42 figures. This replaced version has some minor language edits and several references have been correcte

Sensitivity of HAWC to high-mass dark matter annihilations

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a wide field-of-view detector sensitive to gamma rays of 100 GeV to a few hundred TeV. Located in central Mexico at 19° North latitude and 4100 m above sea level, HAWC will observe gamma rays and cosmic rays with an array of water Cherenkov detectors. The full HAWC array is scheduled to be operational in Spring 2015. In this paper, we study the HAWC sensitivity to the gamma-ray signatures of high-mass (multi-TeV) dark matter annihilation. The HAWC observatory will be sensitive to diverse searches for dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and gamma-ray emission from nonluminous dark matter subhalos. Here we consider the HAWC sensitivity to a subset of these sources, including dwarf galaxies, the M31 galaxy, the Virgo cluster, and the Galactic center. We simulate the HAWC response to gamma rays from these sources in several well-motivated dark matter annihilation channels. If no gamma-ray excess is observed, we show the limits HAWC can place on the dark matter cross section from these sources. In particular, in the case of dark matter annihilation into gauge bosons, HAWC will be able to detect a narrow range of dark matter masses to cross sections below thermal. HAWC should also be sensitive to nonthermal cross sections for masses up to nearly 1000 TeV. The constraints placed by HAWC on the dark matter cross section from known sources should be competitive with current limits in the mass range where HAWC has similar sensitivity. HAWC can additionally explore higher dark matter masses than are currently constrained

VAMOS: A pathfinder for the HAWC gamma-ray observatory

VAMOS1 was a prototype detector built in 2011 at an altitude of 4100 m a.s.l. in the state of Puebla, Mexico. The aim of VAMOS was to finalize the design, construction techniques and data acquisition system of the HAWC observatory. HAWC is an air-shower array currently under construction at the same site of VAMOS with the purpose to study the TeV sky. The VAMOS setup included six water Cherenkov detectors and two different data acquisition systems. It was in operation between October 2011 and May 2012 with an average live time of 30%. Besides the scientific verification purposes, the eight months of data were used to obtain the results presented in this paper: the detector response to the Forbush decrease of March 2012, and the analysis of possible emission, at energies above 30 GeV, for long gamma-ray bursts GRB111016B and GRB120328B