Feeding non-preference by Spodoptera frugiperda and Spodoptera eridania on tomato genotypes

Larvae of the genus Spodoptera spp. are highly polyphagous and can cause economical losses in several agricultural crops. Given their growing importance in the tomato crop, especially for industry, this work aimed to evaluate the feeding non-preference by larvae of Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith, 1797) and Spodoptera eridania (Cramer, 1782) on tomato genotypes and classify them by the levels of resistance. The commercial cultivar Santa Clara was set as the susceptible standard and line PI 134417 as the resistant standard to evaluate the lines PI 134418, PI 126931, LA 462 and LA 716. Feeding non-preference tests were performed under non-choice and free-choice conditions to evaluate the genotype attractiveness to larvae at predetermined times after their release, as well as the leaf area consumed. Overall, the genotypes LA 716 and PI 126931 were the least attractive to S. frugiperda, whereas Santa Clara was the most attractive and consumed. For S. eridania, the genotypes PI 126931, LA 462, LA 716 and PI 134418 were the least preferred for feeding, and Santa Clara and PI 134417 were the most attractive and consumed. The genotypes LA 716 and PI 126931 are moderately resistant to S. frugiperda and S. eridania; PI 134418 and LA 462 are moderately resistant to S. eridania; PI 134417 is susceptible to S. frugiperda and S. eridania; and Santa Clara is highly susceptible to both S. frugiperda and S. eridania.

Mortality among patients with non-affective functional psychoses in a metropolitan area of South-Eastern Brazil

High mortality rates among those suffering from schizophrenia and related psychoses have been consistently described in developed societies. However, to date there is a lack of data on this matter in Brazil. In order to examine this issue, a prospective 2-year follow-up study was carried out in S. Paulo. The sample consisted of 120 consecutive admissions to psychiatric hospitals in a defined catchment area, aged 18 to 44 years old, with clinical diagnoses of non-affective functional psychoses according to the ICD-9. After 2 years, 116 (96.7%) subjects were traced. During the study period there were 7 deaths (6.0% of those traced), 5 (4.3%) due to suicide. All but one of the suicides occurred in the first year after discharge from hospital. Age and sex Standardised Mortality Ratios (relative to rates for the population of the city of Sao Paulo) were 8.4 for overall mortality (95% confidence interval: 4.0-15.9) and 317.9 for deaths due to suicide (95% confidence interval: 125.2-668.3). These results are in agreement with previous studies, and show that in Brazil non-affective functional psychoses are life-threatening illnesses, which need adequate care, particularly when patients go back to live in the community after hospital discharge.

Chagas disease in an area of recent occupation in Cochabamba, Bolivia

INTRODUCTION: A descriptive, entomological and seroepidemiological study on Chagas disease was conducted in a place of recent occupation on the outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia: Avaroa/Primer de Mayo (population:3,000), where the socio-economic level is low and no control measures have been made available. METHODS: The immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT) was used for IgG and IgM anti-Trypanosoma cruzi antibodies in filter paper bloodspot eluates from 128 subjects (73 females, 55 males) selected by systematic sampling. Concerning each subject age, gender, birthplace, occupation, duration of residence and building materials used in their houses were recorded. Vectors were captured both in domestic and peridomestic environments. RESULTS: Seropositive, 12.5% (16/128): females, 15.1% (11/73); males, 9.1% (5/55). Average time of residence: 6.1 years for the whole population sample and 7.4 years for the seropositive subjects. Most houses had adobe walls (76.7% , n= 30), galvanized iron rooves (86.7%) and earthen floors (53.4%) 80% of the walls had crevices. One hundred forty seven specimens of Triatoma infestans were captured, of which 104 (70.7%) were domestic, and 1 peridomestic Triatoma sordida. Precipitin host identification: birds, 67.5%; humans, 27.8%; rodents, 11.9%; dogs, 8.7%; cats, 1.6%. House infestation and density indices were 53.3 and 493.0 respectively. We found 21 (14.3%) specimens of T. infestans infected with trypanosomes, 18 (85.7%) of which in domestic environments. DISCUSSION: The elements for the vector transmission of Chagas disease are present in Avaroa/Primer de Mayo and the ancient custom of keeping guinea pigs indoors adds to the risk of human infection. In neighboring Cochabamba, due to substandard quality control, contaminated blood transfusions are not infrequent, which further aggravates the spread of Chagas disease. Prompt action to check the transmission of this infection, involving additionally the congenital and transfusional modes of acquisition, is required.

Predicting the revolving door phenomenon among patients with schizophrenic, affective disorders and non-organic psychoses

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to identify the variables that predict the revolving door phenomenon in psychiatric hospital at the moment of a second admission. METHODS: The sample consisted of 3,093 patients who have been followed during 5 to 24 years after their first hospital admission due to schizophrenia, and affective or psychotic disorders. Those who had had four or more admissions during the study period were considered as revolving door patients. Logistic regression analyses were used to assess the impact of gender, age, marital status, urban conditions, diagnosis, mean period of stay on the first admission, interval between the first and second admissions on the patterns of hospitalization. RESULTS: The variables with the highest predictive power for readmission were the interval between first and second admissions, and the length of stay in the first admission. CONCLUSIONS: These data may help public health planners in providing optimal care to a small group of patients with more effective utilization of the available services.

Environmental impact on the bacteriological quality of domestic water supplies in Lagos, Nigeria

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of town planning, infrastructure, sanitation and rainfall on the bacteriological quality of domestic water supplies. METHODS: Water samples obtained from deep and shallow wells, boreholes and public taps were cultured to determine the most probable number of Escherichia coli and total coliform using the multiple tube technique. Presence of enteric pathogens was detected using selective and differential media. Samples were collected during both periods of heavy and low rainfall and from municipalities that are unique with respect to infrastructure planning, town planning and sanitation. RESULTS: Contamination of treated and pipe distributed water was related with distance of the collection point from a utility station. Faults in pipelines increased the rate of contamination (p<0.5) and this occurred mostly in densely populated areas with dilapidated infrastructure. Wastewater from drains was the main source of contamination of pipe-borne water. Shallow wells were more contaminated than deep wells and boreholes and contamination was higher during period of heavy rainfall (p<0.05). E. coli and enteric pathogens were isolated from contaminated supplies. CONCLUSIONS: Poor town planning, dilapidated infrastructure and indiscriminate siting of wells and boreholes contributed to the low bacteriological quality of domestic water supplies. Rainfall accentuated the impact.

Entomological aspects of Chagas' disease transmission in the domestic habitat, Argentina

OBJECTIVE: To study the risk of Trypanosoma cruzi domestic transmission using an entomological index and to explore its relationship with household's characteristics and cultural aspects. METHODS: There were studied 158 households in an endemic area in Argentina. Each household was classified according to an entomological risk indicator (number of risky bites/human). A questionnaire was administered to evaluate risk factors among householders. RESULTS: Infested households showed a wide range of risk values (0 to 5 risky bites/human) with skewed distribution, a high frequency of lower values and few very high risk households. Of all collected Triatoma infestans, 44% had had human blood meals whereas 27% had had dogs or chickens blood meals. Having dogs and birds sharing room with humans increased the risk values. Tidy clean households had contributed significantly to lower risk values as a result of low vector density. The infested households showed a 24.3% correlation between time after insecticide application and the number of vectors. But there was no correlation between the time after insecticide application and T. infestans' infectivity. The statistical analysis showed a high correlation between current values of the entomological risk indicator and Trypanosoma cruzi seroprevalence in children. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of T. cruzi domestic transmission assessed using an entomological index show a correlation with children seroprevalence for Chagas' disease and householders' habits.

Quality of life, life satisfaction and happiness in shift- and non-shiftworkers

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the quality of life, life satisfaction, happiness and demands of work in workers with different work schedules. METHODS: The survey was carried out on professional workers in social care. Some were shiftworkers whose schedule included night shifts (N=311), some were shiftworkers without night shifts (N=207) and some were non-shiftworkers (N=1,210). Surveys were mailed and the response rate was 86%. For the purpose of this study several variables were selected from the Survey: The Quality of Life Profile, which measures importance, satisfaction, control and opportunities in nine domains of life plus measures of happiness, life satisfaction and demands of work. RESULTS: While both groups of shiftworkers, compared to non-shiftworkers, reported needing more physical effort to complete their work, and reported 'being' more physically tired, no differences were found in reports of overall happiness, life satisfaction or total quality of life. However, night-shiftworkers reported greater percentage of time unhappy than the other two groups of workers. In analyses of the quality of life, night-shiftworkers were less satisfied with domains of spiritual 'being' and physical and community 'belonging' than day-shiftworkers and non-shiftworkers. They also reported having fewer opportunities to improve their physical 'being', leisure, and personal growth than the other two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Quality of life in specific domains in night-shiftworkers was rated worse than in other groups of workers. Domain-based quality of life assessment gives more information regarding the particular needs of workers than overall or global measures of well-being.

Health, sleep and lack of time: relations to domestic and paid work in nurses

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether reported morbidity and complaints of lack of time and sleep are associated with the burden of professional work and housework among nurses. METHODS: A cross-sectional exploratory study was carried out among female nurses and nurse assistants (N=206) of a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire. The prevalence ratio and 95% confidence intervals were estimated. RESULTS: Mean duration of professional work and housework time was 40.4 and 31.6 hours/week, respectively. Long professional working time (over 44 hours/week) were associated with mild emotional disorders (PR=1.37; 95% CI: 1.05-1.80), complaints of lack of time for resting/leisure (PR=1.61; 95% CI: 1.31-1.97), housework (PR=1.48; 95% CI: 1.12-1.97), and childcare (PR=1.99; 95% CI: 1.51-2.63). Long housework time (over 28 hours/week) was associated with lower prevalence of lack of time for childcare (PR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.46-0.84). High housework load was associated with lack of personal time and complaints of varicose veins (PR=1.31; 95% CI: 1.14-1.50 and PR=1.31; 95% CI: 1.08-1.58, respectively). Complaints of varicose veins were also frequent among female nurses with a total work load above 84 hours (PR=1.30; 95% CI: 1.05-1.61), though this group has shown a lower prevalence of arterial hypertension and recurrent headaches (PR=0.35; 95% CI: 0.15-0.83 and PR=0.53; 95% CI: 0.32-0.89, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that both professional and home environments are relevant in the evaluation of work overload on nurses' health and their family and social life. It is stressed the need for instruments for analyzing total workload among female populations.

Non-adherence to telemedicine interventions for drug users: systematic review

OBJECTIVE To estimate rates of non-adherence to telemedicine strategies aimed at treating drug addiction. METHODS A systematic review was conducted of randomized controlled trials investigating different telemedicine treatment methods for drug addiction. The following databases were consulted between May 18, 2012 and June 21, 2012: PubMed, PsycINFO, SciELO, Wiley (The Cochrane Library), Embase, Clinical trials and Google Scholar. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation was used to evaluate the quality of the studies. The criteria evaluated were: appropriate sequence of data generation, allocation concealment, blinding, description of losses and exclusions and analysis by intention to treat. There were 274 studies selected, of which 20 were analyzed. RESULTS Non-adherence rates varied between 15.0% and 70.0%. The interventions evaluated were of at least three months duration and, although they all used telemedicine as support, treatment methods differed. Regarding the quality of the studies, the values also varied from very poor to high quality. High quality studies showed better adherence rates, as did those using more than one technique of intervention and a limited treatment time. Mono-user studies showed better adherence rates than poly-user studies. CONCLUSIONS Rates of non-adherence to treatment involving telemedicine on the part of users of psycho-active substances differed considerably, depending on the country, the intervention method, follow-up time and substances used. Using more than one technique of intervention, short duration of treatment and the type of substance used by patients appear to facilitate adherence.

Treatment of relapsing chronic infections of the respiratory tract: a comparative study of the effectiveness of non specific immunotherapy with the immunoadjuvant p40 and of vaccinotherapy

The treatment of relapsing chronic infections (RCI) encounters many difficulties. In the present study, the use of the immuno adjuvant P40 either alone or in association with vaccinotherapy for the treatment of RCI turned out to be very effective, whereas vaccinotherapy alone was not. It is hypothesized that cell-mediated immunity may play a major role in controlling RCI, since the clinical improvement of the patients kept up with the positivation of previously negative skin tests carried out with either the specific infecting agent or with recall-anti gens.

Occurrence of campylobacter jejuni in diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic children in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Campylobacter jejuni was looked for in the feaces of 262 children, beeing 189 with acute diarrhoea, 31 with chronic diarrhoea and 42 controls. The organism was isolated from 14 (7.4%), 2 (6.5%) and 6 (14.3%) of the children, and each group, respectively.

Epidemiological role of humans, dogs and cats in the transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi in a central area of Argentina

Trypanosoma cruzi prevalence rates of human, dog and cat populations from 47 households of 3 rural localities of the phytogeographical Chaqueña area of Argentina were determined both by serological and xenodiagnostic procedures. Human prevalence rates were uniform and ranged from 49.6 to 58.7%. Overall prevalence rate in dogs (75.0%) was significantly higher than in humans (51.0%). The overall proportion of parasitemic individuals assessed by xenodiagnosis was significantly higher in either dog (64.2%) or cat (63.6%) populations than among humans (12.5%). Although both the average number of resident as well as infected individuals per household was higher for people than for dogs (6.5 vs. 3.3, and 3.4 vs. 2.4, respectively), the reverse was recorded when parasitemic individuals were considered (1.0 vs. 2.1). Results are discussed in relation to dog between dogs and people, and dogs and bugs. In the light of present data, dogs must be considered as the major donors of parasites to vector bugs and thus, principal contributors to transmission in this region of Argentina.

Water-contact patterns and schistosoma mansoni infection in a rural community in northeast Brazil

We evaluated the influence of water-related human activities, contaminative behaviour, house location, education and socio-economic status on endemic Schistosoma mansoni infection. The study was conducted in a hilry non-irrigated area of rural northeast Brazil amongst a defined population of subsistence farmers, of whom 93% were infected by age 20. The area was mapped, water bodies were surveyed, and a detailed questionnaire was performed on each household. Infection was assessed by duplicate stool examinations using the sensitive Bell technique to quantify egg excretion. For each household, and index of intensity of infection was computed by grouping individual log-transformed egg counts as an age-sex adjusted Z score. Few households had a sanitary installation or a domestic water supply. However, neither water-contact nor contaminative behavior were indiscriminate. The people made considerable effort to defaecate far from a water source, to obtain household drinking water from the cleanest source, and to bathe only at certain sites where privacy is assured. Land ownership and literacy correlated poorly with the household index of intensity of infection. The key influence on infection status was the relative location of the house and snail-free or snail colonized water sources. In this area, a safe domestic water supply is the critical input needed to achieve definitive control of endemic Schistosomiasis.