Perceptions of Europe in political and economic elites: a geographical compared analysis of Germany, Spain and Poland

Elite perceptions about Europe are a very important point in order to understand the current European integration process, as well as the future perspectives for the continent. This study makes a comparison between the perceptions which political and economical elites in some European countries have about the European Union process and its mechanisms. The main goal is to identify the differences in positions of each type of elites, as well as the variations among three key countries. The database built thanks to the INTUNE (Integrated and United? A quest for Citizenship in an ¨ever closer Europe¨) Project Survey on European Elites and Masses, funded by the Sixth Framework Programme of the EU [Contract CIT 3-CT-2005-513421] have being used. The questionnaire was applied between February and May 2007, in a total of 18 European countries. The national teams got a total of almost 2000 valid responses at European level. In the analysis we have showed some general descriptive statistics about the perception of Europe taking as a reference two dimensions of the INTUNE project: identity (attachment to the national level, the meaning of being a truly national, and the threats from Turkey that EU is facing at this moment) and representation (trust in European and national institutions, preferences for a national or an European army). The results are presented distinguishing between political (national MP’s in low chambers) and economical elites (presidents of corporations, general managers…) and, at the same time, among three countries: Germany as an original member of the European Union; Spain, incorporated in 1986; and a new member, Poland, joining the EU in 2004.

Current Molecular Imaging of Spinal Tumors in Clinical Practice.

Energy metabolism measurements in spinal cord tumors, as well as in osseous spinal tumors/metastasis in vivo, are rarely performed only with molecular imaging (MI) by positron emission tomography (PET). This imaging modality developed from a small number of basic clinical science investigations followed by subsequent work that influenced and enhanced the research of others. Apart from precise anatomical localization by coregistration of morphological imaging and quantification, the most intriguing advantage of this imaging is the opportunity to investigate the time course (dynamics) of disease-specific molecular events in the intact organism. Most importantly, MI represents one of the key technologies in translational molecular neuroscience research, helping to develop experimental protocols that may later be applied to human patients. PET may help monitor a patient at the vertebral level after surgery and during adjuvant treatment for recurrent or progressive disease. Common clinical indications for MI of primary or secondary CNS spinal tumors are: (i) tumor diagnosis, (ii) identification of the metabolically active tumor compartments (differentiation of viable tumor tissue from necrosis) and (iii) prediction of treatment response by measurement of tumor perfusion or ischemia. While spinal PET has been used under specific circumstances, a question remains as to whether the magnitude of biochemical alterations observed by MI in CNS tumors in general (specifically spinal tumors) can reveal any prognostic value with respect to survival. MI may be able to better identify early disease and to differentiate benign from malignant lesions than more traditional methods. Moreover, an adequate identification of treatment effectiveness may influence patient management. MI probes could be developed to image the function of targets without disturbing them or as treatment to modify the target's function. MI therefore closes the gap between in vitro and in vivo integrative biology of disease. At the spinal level, MI may help to detect progression or recurrence of metastatic disease after surgical treatment. In cases of nonsurgical treatments such as chemo-, hormone- or radiotherapy, it may better assess biological efficiency than conventional imaging modalities coupled with blood tumor markers. In fact, PET provides a unique possibility to correlate topography and specific metabolic activity, but it requires additional clinical and experimental experience and research to find new indications for primary or secondary spinal tumors.

The effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions in primary care settings: a systematic review.

Issues. Numerous studies have reported that brief interventions delivered in primary care are effective in reducing excessive drinking. However, much of this work has been criticised for being clinically unrepresentative. This review aimed to assess the effectiveness of brief interventions in primary care and determine if outcomes differ between efficacy and effectiveness trials. Approach. A pre-specified search strategy was used to search all relevant electronic databases up to 2006. We also hand-searched the reference lists of key articles and reviews. We included randomised controlled trials (RCT) involving patients in primary care who were not seeking alcohol treatment and who received brief intervention. Two authors independently abstracted data and assessed trial quality. Random effects meta-analyses, subgroup and sensitivity analyses and meta-regression were conducted. Key Findings. The primary meta-analysis included 22 RCT and evaluated outcomes in over 5800 patients. At 1 year follow up, patients receiving brief intervention had a significant reduction in alcohol consumption compared with controls [mean difference: -38 g week(-1), 95%CI (confidence interval): -54 to -23], although there was substantial heterogeneity between trials (I(2) = 57%). Subgroup analysis confirmed the benefit of brief intervention in men but not in women. Extended intervention was associated with a non-significantly increased reduction in alcohol consumption compared with brief intervention. There was no significant difference in effect sizes for efficacy and effectiveness trials. Conclusions. Brief interventions can reduce alcohol consumption in men, with benefit at a year after intervention, but they are unproven in women for whom there is insufficient research data. Longer counselling has little additional effect over brief intervention. The lack of differences in outcomes between efficacy and effectiveness trials suggests that the current literature is relevant to routine primary care.

A preliminary checklist and key to the genera and subgenera of Tabanidae (Diptera) of Bolivia with particular reference to Santa Cruz Department

This paper documents 32 genera and 167 species of Tabanidae reported from Bolivia. All available data are cited for each species. A key to genera and subgenera is presented and includes illustrations. This preliminary checklist and key is intended as a baseline for further study, the aim of which is to establish which species are of greatest economic importance.

The dermal leishmaniases of Brazil, with special reference to the eco-epidemiology of the disease in Amazonia

Six species of Leishmania are at present known to cause cutaneous and/or mucocutaneous leishamniasis in Brazil, and they are all to be found in the Amazon region of this country. The eco-epidemiology of each is discussed, with the observation that the Amazonian leishmaniases are all zoonoses, with their source in silvatic mammals and phlebotomine sandfly vectors. With man's destruction of the natural forest in southern Brazil, some sandfly species have survived by adapting to a peridomestic or domiciliary habitat in rural areas. Some domestic animals, such as dogs and equines are seemingly now involved in the epidemiology of the disease. No such process has yet been reported in the Amazon region, but may well take place with the continuing devastation of its forest.

Present development concerning antimalarial activity of phospholipid metabolism inhibitors with special reference to in vivo activity

The systematic screening of more than 250 molecules against Plasmodium falciparum in vitro has previously shown that interfering with phospholipid metabolism is lethal to the malaria parasite. These compounds act by impairing choline transport in infected erythrocytes, resulting in phosphatidylcholine de novo biosynthesis inhibition. A thorough study was carried out with the leader compound G25, whose in vitro IC50 is 0.6 nM. It was very specific to mature parasites (trophozoïtes) as determined in vitro with P. falciparum and in vivo with P. chabaudi -infected mice. This specificity corresponds to the most intense phase of phospholipid biosynthesis activity during the parasite cycle, thus corroborating the mechanism of action. The in vivo antimalarial activity (ED50) against P. chabaudi was 0.03 mg/kg, and a similar sensitivity was obtained with P. vinckei petteri, when the drug was intraperitoneally administered in a 4 day suppressive test. In contrast, P. berghei was revealed as less sensitive (3- to 20-fold, depending on the P. berghei-strain). This difference in activity could result either from the degree of synchronism of every strain, their invasion preference for mature or immature red blood cells or from an intrinsically lower sensitivity of the P. berghei strain to G25. Irrespective of the mode of administration, G25 had the same therapeutic index (lethal dose 50 (LD50)/ED50) but the dose to obtain antimalarial activity after oral treatment was 100-fold higher than after intraperitoneal (or subcutaneous) administration. This must be related to the low intestinal absorption of these kind of compounds. G25 succeeded to completely inhibiting parasitemia as high as 11.2% without any decrease in its therapeutic index when administered subcutaneously twice a day for at least 8 consecutive days to P. chabaudi -infected-rodent model. Transition to human preclinical investigations now requires a synthesis of molecules which would permit oral absorption.

Current concepts of snail control

Schistosomiasis control was impossible without effective tools. Synthetic molluscicides developed in the 1950s spearheaded community level control. Snail eradication proved impossible but repeated mollusciciding to manage natural snail populations could eliminate transmission. Escalating costs, logistical complexity, its labour-intensive nature and possible environmental effects caused some concern. The arrival of safe, effective, single-dose drugs in the 1970s offered an apparently better alternative but experience revealed the need for repeated treatments to minimise reinfection in programmes relying on drugs alone. Combining treatment with mollusciciding was more successful, but broke down if mollusciciding was withdrawn to save money. The provision of sanitation and safe water to prevent transmission is too expensive in poor rural areas where schistosomiasis is endemic; rendering ineffective public health education linked to primary health care. In the tropics, moreover, children (the key group in maintaining transmission) will always play in water. Large scale destruction of natural snail habitats remains impossibly expensive (although proper design could render many new man-made habitats unsuitable for snails). Neither biological control agents nor plant molluscicides have proved satisfactory alternatives to synthetic molluscicides. Biologists can develop effective strategies for using synthetic molluscicides in different epidemiological situations if only, like drugs, their price can be reduced.

Current advances on the study of snail-snail interactions, with special emphasis on competition process

Field work research on population dynamic of snails from the regions of Belo Horizonte and Lagoa Santa give much information about interactions among two or more species of mollusks: Pomacea haustrum, Biomphalaria glabrata, B. tenagophila, B. straminea and Melanoides tuberculata. Data ranging from two years to several decades ago suggest that the Pampulha reservoir is like a cemetery of B. glabrata and B. straminea, species that coexist for more than 14 years in a small part of a stream, whereas only B. glabrata lives in all the streams of the basin. In the last ten to twenty years B. tenagophila has coexisted with P. haustrum and M. tuberculata in the Serra Verde ponds and in the Pampulha dam. However these species have not settled in any of the brooks, except temporarily. The data suggest that the kind of biotope and the habitat conditions are decisive factors for the permanence of each species in its preferencial biotope. B. glabrata, natural from streams and riverheads, quickly disappears from the reservoirs and ponds where it coexists with other species for a short time, independently of the competitive process. Competition needs to be better studied, since in Central America and Caribean islands this kind of study has favored the biological control of planorbid species.

Big data and other challenges in the quest for orthologs.

Given the rapid increase of species with a sequenced genome, the need to identify orthologous genes between them has emerged as a central bioinformatics task. Many different methods exist for orthology detection, which makes it difficult to decide which one to choose for a particular application. Here, we review the latest developments and issues in the orthology field, and summarize the most recent results reported at the third 'Quest for Orthologs' meeting. We focus on community efforts such as the adoption of reference proteomes, standard file formats and benchmarking. Progress in these areas is good, and they are already beneficial to both orthology consumers and providers. However, a major current issue is that the massive increase in complete proteomes poses computational challenges to many of the ortholog database providers, as most orthology inference algorithms scale at least quadratically with the number of proteomes. The Quest for Orthologs consortium is an open community with a number of working groups that join efforts to enhance various aspects of orthology analysis, such as defining standard formats and datasets, documenting community resources and benchmarking. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: All such materials are available at http://questfororthologs.org. CONTACT: erik.sonnhammer@scilifelab.se or c.dessimoz@ucl.ac.uk.

Biological comparison between three clones of Trypanosoma cruzi and the strain of origin (Bolivia) with reference to clonal evolution studies

After isolating three clones of Trypanasoma cruzi (Bolivia), we first characterized them according to parasitaemia, pleomorphism and virulence, and then histopathologically. The study's interest lies on the hypothesis that clonal evolution of T. cruzi has a major impact on biologically relevant properties of this parasite. Data obtained from the studies of parasitaemia, pleomorphism and virulence showed no differences between the groups studied. As a final point, the histopathological study shows us a muscular tissue tropism both in clones and in their mother strain (Bolivia). In this paper, we conclude that Bolivia strain and clones isolated from it, pertaining to the same major clone share similar biological properties.

Biological Parameters and Molecular Markers of Clone CL Brener - The Reference Organism of the Trypanosoma cruzi Genome Project

Clone CL Brener is the reference organism used in the Trypanosoma cruzi Genome Project. Some biological parameters of CL Brener were determined: (a) the doubling time of epimastigote forms cultured in liver infusion-tryptose (LIT) medium at 28oC is 58±13 hr; (b) differentiation of epimastigotes to metacyclic trypomastigotes is obtained by incubation in LIT-20% Grace´s medium; (c) trypomastigotes infect mammalian cultured cells and perform the complete intracellular cycle at 33 and 37oC; (d) blood forms are highly infective to mice; (e) blood forms are susceptible to nifurtimox and benznidazole. The molecular typing of CL Brener has been determined: (a) isoenzymatic profiles are characteristic of zymodeme ZB; (b) PCR amplification of a 24Sa ribosomal RNA sequence indicates it belongs to T. cruzi lineage 1; (c) schizodeme, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and DNA fingerprinting analyses were performed

Towards the Physical Map of the Trypanosoma cruzi Nuclear Genome: Construction of YAC and BAC Libraries of the Reference Clone T. cruzi CL-Brener

Strategies to construct the physical map of the Trypanosoma cruzi nuclear genome have to capitalize on three main advantages of the parasite genome, namely (a) its small size, (b) the fact that all chromosomes can be defined, and many of them can be isolated by pulse field gel electrophoresis, and (c) the fact that simple Southern blots of electrophoretic karyotypes can be used to map sequence tagged sites and expressed sequence tags to chromosomal bands. A major drawback to cope with is the complexity of T. cruzi genetics, that hinders the construction of a comprehensive genetic map. As a first step towards physical mapping, we report the construction and partial characterization of a T. cruzi CL-Brener genomic library in yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) that consists of 2,770 individual YACs with a mean insert size of 365 kb encompassing around 10 genomic equivalents. Two libraries in bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) have been constructed, BACI and BACII. Both libraries represent about three genome equivalents. A third BAC library (BAC III) is being constructed. YACs and BACs are invaluable tools for physical mapping. More generally, they have to be considered as a common resource for research in Chagas disease

Diseño y desarrollo de un equipo de caracterización de ISFET para la medida de analitos iónicos

En este proyecto se desarrolla una unidad de medida para investigar la cuantificación de la concentración de analitos iónicos en análisis clínico mediante sensores ISFET. Para su desarrollo se precisa de un elemento que simule el comportamiento de un ISFET por lo que también se desarrolla un simulador de ISFET. Para realizar la unidad de medida se diseñan unos circuitos SMU que permiten polarizar en tensión y medir la corriente de cada terminal de un ISFET y del electrodo de referencia que actúa de puerta. El simulador se realiza con un MOSFET de la misma geometría que el ISFET y dos generadores de tensión programables. Desarrollados y validados los circuitos correspondientes, obtenemos unos excelentes resultados en el simulador que se revela de gran utilidad para la puesta en marcha de la unidad de medida, la cual ofrece unos resultados bastante buenos, si bien se aprecian ciertas corrientes de fuga que no permiten alcanzar toda la exactitud que se pretendía. Ello es debido a los circuitos impresos que deberán ser mejorados hasta conseguir la exactitud deseada. Sin embargo pueden darse por válidos los circuitos de medida diseñados.