On sampling collection procedure effectiveness for forest soil characterization

One of the most important measures to prevent wild forest fires is the use of prescribed and controlled burning actions as it reduce the fuel mass availability. The impact of these management activities on soil physical and chemical properties varies according to the type of both soil and vegetation. Decisions in forest management plans are often based on the results obtained from soil-monitoring campaigns. Those campaigns are often man-labor intensive and expensive. In this paper we have successfully used the multivariate statistical technique Robust Principal Analysis Compounds (ROBPCA) to investigate on the sampling procedure effectiveness for two different methodologies, in order to reflect on the possibility of simplifying and reduce the sampling collection process and its auxiliary laboratory analysis work towards a cost-effective and competent forest soil characterization.

Forest fires occurrences and burned area in mainland Portugal: preliminary assessment to a fifteen years period

Portugal, as well as the Mediterranean basin, is favorable to the occurrence of forest fires. In this work a statistical analysis was carried out based on the official information, considering the forest fires occurrences and the corresponding burned area for each of the districts of the mainland Portugal, between 1996 and 2010. Concerning to the forest fires occurrence it was possible to identify three main regions in mainland Portugal, while the burned area can be characterized in two main regions. Associations between districts and years are different in the two approaches. The results obtained provide a synthetic analysis of the phenomenon of forest fires in continental Portugal, based on all the official information available to date.

Soil erosion after forest fires: evaluation of mitigation measures applied to drainage channels in the northwest of Portugal

The development and implementation of measures which promote the reduction of the impacts of forest fires on soils is imperative and should be part of any strategy for forest and soil preservation and recovery, especially considering the actual scenario of continuous growth in the number of fires and burnt area. Consequently, with the dendrocaustologic reality that has characterized the Portuguese mainland in recent decades, a research project promoted by the Center for the Study of Geography and Spatial Planning (CEGOT) was implemented with the objective of applying several erosion mitigation measures in a burned area of the Peneda-Geres National Park in NW Portugal. This paper therefore seeks to present the measures applied in the study area within the project Soil Protec, relating to triggered channel processes and the results of preliminary observations concerning the evaluation of the effectiveness of erosion mitigation measures implemented, as well as their cost/benefit ratio.

Prevalence of antibody to hepatitis B virus in an urban population of northeast Brazil

A sample of 1,288 inhabitants of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, were submitted to the determination of anti-HBs using radioimmunoassay procedure, and analysed according to age, sex and income. Overall prevalence of anti-HBs was 11,8%. ranging from 6,7% among children aged less than three years old to 26,1% among those aged 30 years and older. Males presented prevalence of anti-HBs similar to female individuals, and those with a higher income showed frequencies of anti-HBs greater than those with a lower income level. The following conclusions were drawn: The high prevalence of anti-HBs observed among children suggests early contact with hepatitis B virus, possibly due to vertical transmission and intrafamiliar dissemination of the disease; the frequency of anti-HBs increases with age; the lower prevalence of anti-HBs among those with low income suggests that this group may present higher prevalence of carriers of the hepatitis B virus surface antigen.

Serologic studies on the behaviour of influenza virus type A in persons of greater São Paulo during 1976, 1978 and 1979

Sera of persons of different age groups collected in 1976, 1978 and 1979 were tested for the presence of HI antibodies against various strains of the H3N2 and H1N1 subtypes of influenza virus. The occurrence of infection by H3N2 subtype was recorded during the 1976-1978 period but in 1979, circulation of this subtype of virus was limited. The prevalence of antibody against A/São Paulo/1/78 (H1N1) was significantly higher than that of antibody to A/USSB/90/77 (HIND in 1978. However in 1979 the predominant strain was A/USSR/90/77 (HIND. Persons under 20 years of age were the most affected by H1N1 subtype. Antibodies to H1N1 subtype were detected in sera of individuals older than 20 years in 1976, before the re-emergence of this strain. Serological results indicate that infections by H3N2 subtype in 1978 occurred in 65.4% of young children (0-4 year group). About 47.0% of children from the 0-4 year group had antibodies to H1N1 subtype in 1979. Antibodies to swine influenza virus were detected in 60% of 60+ year old people.

Replicação de sendai virus em células epiteliais primárias de camundongo

Células epiteliais primárias obtidas do trato respiratório de camundongos jovens foram infectadas com o Vírus Hemaglutinante do Japão (HVJ, Sendai Virus) e, a progénie viral, tratada ou não com tripsina foi titulada através do método de Imunofluorescência Indireta. A progénie de Sendai Virus obtida de células epiteliais primárias de camundongo apresentou um título considerável, demonstrando-se que há ativação das partículas virais, capazes de infectar células LLC-MK 2, nas quais, a progénie viral foi titulada.

The presence of antibodies for hepatitis a virus in amazonia Didelphis marsupialis (Vertebrata, Marsupialia)

Anti-HAV was detected by enzyme - immunoassay in sera collected from 6 (18,75%) of 32 Didelphis marsupialis trapped in the Amazon region. No anti-HAV were found in the sera from 136 other wild animals, including small rodents, reptiles and other marsupials.

Space-time monitoring of prescribed burnt soils performance – an effective tool for forest management

Among the most important measures to prevent wild forest fires is the use of prescribed and controlled burning actions in order to reduce the availability of fuel mass. However, the impact of these activities on soil physical and chemical properties varies according to the type of both soil and vegetation and is not fully understood. Therefore, soil monitoring campaigns are often used to measure these impacts. In this paper we have successfully used three statistical data treatments - the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test followed by the ANOVA and the Kruskall-Wallis tests – to investigate the variability among the soil pH, soil moisture, soil organic matter and soil iron variables for different monitoring times and sampling procedures.

Some reflections on acquisition, processing and analysis of statistical data in forest soils

Beyond the classical statistical approaches (determination of basic statistics, regression analysis, ANOVA, etc.) a new set of applications of different statistical techniques has increasingly gained relevance in the analysis, processing and interpretation of data concerning the characteristics of forest soils. This is possible to be seen in some of the recent publications in the context of Multivariate Statistics. These new methods require additional care that is not always included or refered in some approaches. In the particular case of geostatistical data applications it is necessary, besides to geo-reference all the data acquisition, to collect the samples in regular grids and in sufficient quantity so that the variograms can reflect the spatial distribution of soil properties in a representative manner. In the case of the great majority of Multivariate Statistics techniques (Principal Component Analysis, Correspondence Analysis, Cluster Analysis, etc.) despite the fact they do not require in most cases the assumption of normal distribution, they however need a proper and rigorous strategy for its utilization. In this work, some reflections about these methodologies and, in particular, about the main constraints that often occur during the information collecting process and about the various linking possibilities of these different techniques will be presented. At the end, illustrations of some particular cases of the applications of these statistical methods will also be presented.

Prescribed burning impact on forest soil properties – a fuzzy boolean nets approach

The Portuguese northern forests are often and severely affected by wildfires during the Summer season. These occurrences significantly affect and negatively impact all ecosystems, namely soil, fauna and flora. In order to reduce the occurrences of natural wildfires, some measures to control the availability of fuel mass are regularly implemented. Those preventive actions concern mainly prescribed burnings and vegetation pruning. This work reports on the impact of a prescribed burning on several forest soil properties, namely pH, soil moisture, organic matter content and iron content, by monitoring the soil self-recovery capabilities during a one year span. The experiments were carried out in soil cover over a natural site of Andaluzitic schist, in Gramelas, Caminha, Portugal, which was kept intact from prescribed burnings during a period of four years. Soil samples were collected from five plots at three different layers (0–3, 3–6 and 6–18) 1 day before prescribed fire and at regular intervals after the prescribed fire. This paper presents an approach where Fuzzy Boolean Nets (FBN) and Fuzzy reasoning are used to extract qualitative knowledge regarding the effect of prescribed fire burning on soil properties. FBN were chosen due to the scarcity on available quantitative data. The results showed that soil properties were affected by prescribed burning practice and were unable to recover their initial values after one year.

Ecological aspects of American cutaneous leishmaniasis: 6. Man-biting sandfly fauna of a patch of residual forest in the middle and north-eastern region of the São Paulo State, Brazil

This report shows the phlebotomine vectorial role in the endemic cutaneous leishmaniasis situated in the middle and north-eastern region of the São Paulo, Brazil. Analysis of information encloses a sandfly man-biting fauna of four different patches of residual forest. So, using the human-bait and Shannon trap for a period of one year we have caught 16,869 sandflies. The predominance of Lutzomyia intermedia (85,6%) was clear. Moreover, the low density of Lutzomyia whitmani and Lutzomyia pessoai and their epidemiological implications at present and in the past are discussed. Information about the daily activity of some species is given and we emphasize for the first time, the diurnal activity of Lutzomyia firmatoi in the São Paulo State.

Active immunization against hepatitis B virus (HBV) with low-doses of plasma-derived vaccine by intradermal route

Schedule for vaccination against HBV infection has usually been based on three separate injections of 20 meg of the vaccine by intramuscular route. One of the main shortcomings to its use in large scale programs has been its high cost. Ninety out of 300 health workers were submitted to three injections of 2 meg of plasma-derived vaccine (PDV) by intradermal (ID) route on days 0, 30, and 180. Anti-HBs was detected in 74 (82.2%) after the second dose and in 80 (88.9%) after the third dose, a non-significant difference. However, levels above 10 times the cut-off were observed in 29 (32.2%) and 77 (85.5%), respectively (p < 0.001). The results showed that a low-dose schedule is effective when used in health workers and should be tried with other risk groups.

Relationship between the prevalence of antibodies to arbovirus and hepatitis B virus in the Vale do Ribeira region, Brazil

280 students, between 6 and 14 years old, residents in the Iguape county, southern coast of the State of São Paulo, were studied in order to identify the existence of a possible association between the prevalence of specific antibodies to the hepatitis B virus and the exposure to haematophagous mosquitoes, evaluated indirectly through the prevalence of antibodies to 17 arboviruses isolated in Brazil. The children were from 4 areas with different topographical characteristics: 89 of the children were from the urban zone of the town of Iguape, 89 were from the periurban zone, 30 were from the rural area with extensive banana plantations, and 72 were from the jungle zone. Previous studies had shown significantly higher prevalence of antibodies to different arboviruses in the cultivated zone and the jungle zone, when compared to the urban and periurban zones of Iguape. The detection of antibodies to the HBV surface antigen (HBs Ag) was done through the radioimmunoassay (Ausab, Abbott Laboratory). The cases considered positive were confirmed through the presence of anti-core HBV antibodies (anti-HBc-EIA Roche). A significantly higher prevalence of anti-HBV antibodies was observed in children from the jungle zone (26/72 = 36,1% ) when compared to those from the urban zone (5/89 = 5,6%), peri-urban (6/89 = 6,7%) or from the cultivated zone (0/30 = 0%). The result suggest the existence of a common factor in the dissemination of the arboviruses and the hepatitis B virus, supporting the hypothesis that mosquitoes may play an important role in the HBV transmission in tropical forested region.

Paracoccidioidomicose e infecção pelo virus da imunodeficiência humana

São apresentados dois casos de paracoccidioidomicose, um em paciente com a síndrome da imunodeficiência adquirida e o outro em paciente com infecção pelo HIV. Trata-se dos primeiros relatos em que esta associação é descrita na literatura. No primeiro, a micose se evidenciou durante o acompanhamento de paciente com AIDS, que passou a apresentar hépato-esplenomegalia e febre elevada. A ecografia, radiografia simples e tomografia computadorizada do abdômen, demonstraram nódulos sólidos, alguns calcificados, no parênquima esplénico. A punção aspirativa da medula óssea confirmou o diagnóstico; o conjunto dos achados caracterizou a forma aguda disseminada da paracoccidioidomicose, a qual levou o paciente ao óbito. No segundo relato, em paciente com infecção pelo HIV, a propósito de investigação de tumoração na região inguinal e fossa ilíaca à direita, constatou-se a associação de doença de Hodgkin, tipo celularidade mista e paracoccidioidomicose. Avalia-se a importância destes relatos frente a expansão da infecção pelo HIV e estima-se que mais casos venham a ser relatados em pacientes com AIDS, procedentes de áreas endêmicas desta micose. Propõe-se a inclusão da paracoccidioidomicose como infecção oportunística potencial em pacientes HIV positivos nestas áreas.

Comparison of serum hepatitis B virus replication markers in patients with chronic hepatitis B: studies on HBeAg/Anti-HBe system, viral dna polymerase and HBV-DNA

The detection of HBV-DNA in serum by molecular hybridization is the most sensitive and specific marker of replication and infectivity of hepatitis B virus and currently is proposed as a routine diagnostic technique in the follow-up of HBV - related diseases. Comparing different techniques already described, we found that direct spotting of serum samples on nitrocellulose membranes under vacuum filtration, followed by denaturing and neutralizing washes is more practical, simple, sensible and reproducible. DNA polymerase assay using phosphonoformic acid as specific viral inhibitor has shown 86.8% of concordance with HBV-DNA detection, and so, it is an useful alternative in the follow-up of hepatitis B chronic patients. We found 19.2% HBeAg positive samples with no other markers of viral replication and no anti-HBe positive sample had detectable HBV-DNA. Discordance between the 2 systems have been extensively described, and we confirm this for the first time in our country. Molecular biological techniques are essential to determine the replication status of chronic hepatitis B patients.