Jamaica: Macro-socio-economic assessment of the damage done by flood rains and landslides May 2002

This assessment was prepared for the Government of Jamaica following the significant damages to social and economic infrastructure and productive sectors as a result of a period of sustained and unusual rainfall associated with the convergence of a tropical wave over Jamaica and an area of high pressure to the north of the island resulting in periods of heavy and sustained rainfall over the period May 22 – June 2, 2002. A request for technical assistance was directed to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, on May 31, by the Planning Institute of Jamaica. In view of the recent training provided by the ECLAC Caribbean team in the use of the ECLAC methodology to a multi-disciplinary group of 58 persons spanning several sectors, it was felt that this event, while most unfortunate, nonetheless provided an opportune moment for the Jamaican “trainees” to utilize the skills transferred and to apply the methodology which had been taught. Consequently, ECLAC fielded a team of five persons a few days after the request had been made , to give the Jamaican counterpart team the opportunity to collect data of the type and using an approach well suited to the preparation of assessments such as this.

Event shapes and azimuthal correlations in Z plus jets events in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Study of the underlying event at forward rapidity in pp collisions at root s=0.9, 2.76, and 7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Measurement of higher-order harmonic azimuthal anisotropy in PbPb collisions at root s(NN)=2.76 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Event activity dependence of (nS) production in=5.02 TeV pPb and=2.76 TeV pp collisions

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Erosion of an active fault scarp leads to drainage capture in the Amazon region, Brazil

Far from the continental margin, drainage basins in Central Amazonia should be in topographic steady state; but they are not. Abandoned remnant fluvial valleys up to hundreds of square kilometers in size are observed throughout Amazonia, and are evidence of significant landscape reorganization. While major Late Miocene drainage shifts occurred due to initiation of the transcontinental Amazon River, local landscape change has remained active until today. Driven either by dynamic topography, tectonism, and/or climatic fluctuations, drainage captures in Amazonia provide a natural experiment for assessing the geomorphic response of low-slope basins to sudden, capture related base-level falls. This paper evaluates the timing of geomorphic change by examining a drainage capture event across the Baependi fault scarp involving the Cuieiras and TarumA-Mirim River basins northwest of the city of Manaus in Brazil. A system of capture-related knickpoints was generated by base-level fall following drainage capture; through numerical modeling of their initiation and propagation, the capture event is inferred to have occurred between the middle and late Pleistocene, consistent with other studies of landscape change in surrounding areas. In low-slope settings like the Amazon River basin, base-level fall can increase erosion rates by more than an order of magnitude, and moderate to large river basins can respond to episodes of base-level fall over timescales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Calciphylaxis: a rare but potentially fatal event of chronic kidney disease. Case report

Calciphylaxis or calcific uremic arteriolopathy is a rare cutaneous-systemic disease occurring in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease. The classical clinical picture is that of a necrotic and progressive skin ulcer of reticular pattern, mostly in the lower legs and susceptible to local infection. It is a product of mural calcification and occlusion of cutaneous and sub-cutaneous arteries and arterioles. The authors report the case of a 73-year-old male patient in his late stage of renal disease presenting severe necrotic cutaneous ulcers on lower legs followed by local and systemic infection and death due to sepse after parathyroidectomy.

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with gamma-ray Bursts Detected by the Interplanetary Network

We present the results of a search for gravitational waves associated with 223 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the InterPlanetary Network (IPN) in 2005-2010 during LIGO's fifth and sixth science runs and Virgo's first, second, and third science runs. The IPN satellites provide accurate times of the bursts and sky localizations that vary significantly from degree scale to hundreds of square degrees. We search for both a well-modeled binary coalescence signal, the favored progenitor model for short GRBs, and for generic, unmodeled gravitational wave bursts. Both searches use the event time and sky localization to improve the gravitational wave search sensitivity as compared to corresponding all-time, all-sky searches. We find no evidence of a gravitational wave signal associated with any of the IPN GRBs in the sample, nor do we find evidence for a population of weak gravitational wave signals associated with the GRBs. For all IPN-detected GRBs, for which a sufficient duration of quality gravitational wave data are available, we place lower bounds on the distance to the source in accordance with an optimistic assumption of gravitational wave emission energy of 10(-2)M(circle dot)c(2) at 150 Hz, and find a median of 13 Mpc. For the 27 short-hard GRBs we place 90% confidence exclusion distances to two source models: a binary neutron star coalescence, with a median distance of 12 Mpc, or the coalescence of a neutron star and black hole, with a median distance of 22 Mpc. Finally, we combine this search with previously published results to provide a population statement for GRB searches in first-generation LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors and a resulting examination of prospects for the advanced gravitational wave detectors.

Different outcomes of peritoneal catheter percutaneous placement by nephrologists using a trocar versus the Seldinger technique: the experience of two Brazilian centers

A good catheter implantation technique is important to allow effective peritoneal access function and long-term technique survival. Studies regarding results obtained by nephrologists in comparison with different techniques have been limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the rate of early catheter-related complications and catheter survival in two Brazilian centers, according to two different percutaneous methods of catheter implantation performed by nephrologist team. Adult incident patients recruited from January 2006 to July 2013 having undergone first peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheter implantation were included in the analysis. Mechanical and infectious early complication rates were defined as time to the first event occurring up to 3 months. Four hundred and forty-five consecutive Tenckhoff catheters were implanted by nephrologist team percutaneously after antibiotic prophylaxis in an operating room: trocar was used in 349 (78.4 %) and Seldinger technique (ST) in 99 (21.6 %). The ST was significantly associated with a lower rate of leak (16.3 vs 3 %, p = 0.03) and outflow failure due to tip catheter migration (22.6 vs 10.1 %, p = 0.04), while early infectious complication rates were similar between the two groups (p = 0.59). Long-term catheter survival was higher in Seldinger group (log-rank, p = 0.031). By Cox multivariate analysis, adjusted for age, sex, and diabetes, the ST remained independently associated with better catheter survival [HR 0.681 (0.462-0.910), p = 0.04]. As conclusion, our experience showed better PD outcomes with the ST than trocar method of catheter implantation by nephrologist.

Monocyte migration driven by galectin-3 occurs through distinct mechanisms involving selective interactions with the extracellular matrix

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Evaluation of early changes induced by diuron in the rat urinary bladder using different processing methods for scanning electron microscopy

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Multiscale sensing of antibody - antigen interactions by organic transistors and single-molecule force spectroscopy

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Measurement of pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles in proton-proton collisions at root s=8 TeV by the CMS and TOTEM experiments

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Anaphylactoid reaction caused by sodium ceftriaxone in two horses experimentally infected by Borrelia burgdorferi

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Long-Term Adult Population Fluctuations and Distribution of the Spot, Leiostomus xanthurus, in Mississippi

Adult specimens of the spot. Leiostomus xanthurus, were collected from bayou, Mississippi Sound, and barrier island locations along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi from November 1982 to July 1989. 7he mean total length of all spot sampled in comparable gill net sets was 219 mm (± 14 standard deviation, n=4,338). Ninety-five percent of the spot were collected in the island and sound areas, where the salinity was higher than in the bayous. Catch per unit effort was high at island and sound stations in spring and autumn, with relatively few fish caught during the winter spawning season and summer. The relatively high frequency of spot observed at the island stations in the autumn was probably influenced by spawning migrations, and the high spring values may represent a combination of two abundant year classes. The two greatest yearly collections, in 1983 and 1986, may have been influenced by sampling conditions or by environmental conditions favorable to survival either during those years or earlier when those fish were postlarvae. The smallest yearly catch occurred in 1985 and may have reflected the harsh weather conditions that year.