COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study

Background: The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods: International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms. Results: ‘Typical’ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (≤ 18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (≥ 70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each P < 0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country. Interpretation: This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men

Boas práticas agrícolas no cultivo da banana na comunidade do Faraó, município de Cachoeiras de Macacu, Estado do Rio de Janeiro.

A banana (Musa spp.) é atualmente um dos produtos agrícola mais importante do município de Cachoeiras de Macacu, RJ. Nesse município, a localidade de Faraó, situada na microbacia do rio Batatal, figura entre as principais produtoras de banana. O objetivo do presente documento é apresentar os resultados do diagnóstico realizado na localidade de Faraó a fim de identificar as Boas Práticas Agrícolas (BPA) necessárias para a produção local de banana. Foi utilizada uma metodologia participativa para a identificação das principais práticas agrícolas, das fraquezas e das potencialidades dos sistemas de produção adotados. Como resultado, foi possível indicar as melhores práticas agrícolas passíveis de serem adotadas pelos agricultores, dentre as quais se destacam o plantio em nível, a análise de solos, o maior aporte de nutrientes e matéria orgânica no solo, os cuidados fitossanitários e os cuidados especiais no momento da colheita e pós-colheita.bitstream/item/103908/1/BPD-210-Boas-Praticas-Banana.pd

Evaluation of forest harvesting impacts on forest ecosystems

In the Guarani preservation area 100 ha of forest land was cut to evaluate harvest impact in natural subtropical forest. Two treatments were applied: “commercial logging” in which the logging contractor works in the traditional way, and “improved harvest” in which trees are selected and the skidding trails and landings planned. Forest structure and composition, seedlings and regenerations and soil physical parameters such as soil density, penetration resistance were measured before harvesting. The trees were cut by chainsaw and moved by a rubber tyred skidder to the landing area for loading on a truck. After harvesting, damage by cutting and by skidding was measured. All previous parameters were re-measured and traffic intensity in each plot calculated. The harvest yields were 9.9 m3 ha-1 for the improved harvesting and 16.4 m3 ha-1 for the commercial treatment. Trees felled were 6.8 trees ha-1 for improved harvest and 9.9 trees ha-1 for the commercial harvest. For canopy trees, commercial harvesting reduced the initial dominance 19.3%, while improved harvesting only decreased it 9.5% so forest structure is less affected by the improved harvesting. There was little change in abundance and species composition. Changes were observed in the order of importance of some species, e.g. Parapiptademia rigida was replaced by species of lesser importance. Regeneration after the commercial harvesting was less than in the improved harvesting method. Commercial harvesting had more (60%) traffic intensity (Mg km-1 ha-1) along all the skid trials in the plots

Texture analysis of stereograms of diffuse-porous hardwood: identification of wood species used in Tripitaka Koreana

Tripitaka Koreana is a collection of over 80, 000 Buddhist texts carved on wooden blocks. In this study, we investigated whether six hardwood species used as blocks could be recognized by image recognition. An image dataset comprising stereograms in transverse section was acquired at 10× magnification. After auto-rotation, cropping, and filtering processes, the dataset was analyzed by an image recognition system, which comprised a gray level co-occurrence matrix method for feature extraction and a weighted neighbor distance algorithm for classification. The estimated accuracy obtained by leave-one-out cross-validation was up to 100% after optimizing the pretreatments and parameters, thereby indicating that the proposed system may be useful for the non-destructive analysis of all wooden carvings. We also examined the specific anatomical features represented by textures in the images. Many of the texture features were apparently related to the density of vessels and others were associated with the ray intervals. However, some anatomical features that are helpful for visual inspection were ignored by the proposed system despite its perfect accuracy. In addition to the high analytical accuracy of this system, a deeper understanding of the relationships between the calculated and actual features is essential for the further development of automated recognition