Distribuição da fauna triatomínica e infecção natural pelo Trypanosoma cruzi em diferentes municípios do semiárido do Rio Grande do Norte

The triatomine fauna distribution and the natural infection by Trypanosoma cruzi was evaluated aiming the comprehension of the transmission dynamics of this parasite in the countryside of the State of Rio Grande do Norte. Additionally, the research for Trypanosoma rangeli was also investigated. The captures of triatomines were performed at sylvatic, peridomicile and domicile environments at different municipalities of the central and western mesoregions of this state. The insects were identified and examined by direct method, xenoculture and PCR to detect T. cruzi. The detection of T. rangeli was performed by direct examination of the hemolymph and multiplex PCR of 151 positive specimens for T. cruzi. Of 824 captured insects, the species were distributed in Triatoma brasiliensis (66.4%), Triatoma pseudomaculata (18.2%), Panstrongylus lutzi (12.7%) and Rhodnius nasutus (2.7%), and T. brasiliensis was found in most of the evaluated municipalities. The species were captured at nymph and adult stages, except P. lutzi, exclusively in adult stage. In the sylvatic environment were captured T. brasiliensis (57%), P. lutzi (28%) and T. pseudomaculata (15%) species. At the peridomicile environment were identified T. brasiliensis (74%), T. pseudomaculata (21%) and R. nasutus (5.0%), while in the intradomicile was found only T. brasiliensis. The infection rate of triatomines by T. cruzi was 30.4%, P. lutzi showed highest rate (78%), followed by T. brasiliensis (24.4%), T. pseudomaculata (22.6%) and R. nasutus (4.5%). Infected triatomines indexes at silvatic, peridomicile and domicile environments were of 41.8%, 20.1% and 50.0%, respectively. T. rangeli was only detected by multiplex PCR in 2.6% (4/151) of examined insects, of these 4.4% (3/67) were T. brasiliensis and 1.5% (1/63) P. lutzi species. The data showed that the positivity of P. lutzi allied to its ability to invade domicile attracted by light, suggests a likely participation of this insect between epidemiological transmission cycles of T. cruzi. T. brasiliensis was the only specie present in all environments, what reinforces its importance related to the capacity for adapting to the domestic environment, potential as a vector, and maintenance of sylvatic and domestic transmissions cycles in the semiarid, indicating the necessity of continuous epidemiological surveillance. The presence of T. rangeli in T. brasiliensis and P. lutzi was first recorded in rural zone of this State, broadening the area of occurrence of this protozoan in northeastern Brazil.

DiCER: A distributed consumer experience research method for use in public spaces

Date of Acceptance: 06/03/2015 Acknowledgement: This research was funded by NCR and the Northern Research Partnership

DiCER: A distributed consumer experience research method for use in public spaces

Date of Acceptance: 06/03/2015 Acknowledgement: This research was funded by NCR and the Northern Research Partnership

“Doctor my eyes” : A natural experiment on the demand for eye care services

This paper is dedicated to our friend Divine Ikenwilo, who passed away on the 27th November 2015. Divine was a gifted researcher who was taken from us too early and will be sorely missed by everyone in the team. Our thoughts are with his family. This research was funded by a research grant (CGZ/2/533) from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government. The Health Economics Research Unit is funded by the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate. The usual disclaimer applies.

Personal Storytelling : Using Natural Language Generation for Children with Complex Communication Needs, in the Wild...

Acknowledgements The authors thank the children, their parents and school staff, who participated in this research, and who so willingly gave us their time, help and support. They also thank Steven Knox and Alan Clelland for their work on programming the mobile phone application. Additional thanks to DynaVox Inc. for supplying the Vmax communication devices to run our system on and Sensory Software Ltd for supplying us with their AAC software. This research was supported by the Research Council UKs Digittal Economy Programme and EPSRC (Grant numbers EP/F067151/1, EP/F066880/1, EP/E011764/1, EP/H022376/1, and EP/H022570 /1).

Social media data in research : provenance challenges?

Postprint

DiCER: A distributed consumer experience research method for use in public spaces

Date of Acceptance: 06/03/2015 Acknowledgement: This research was funded by NCR and the Northern Research Partnership

An investigation into the tension arising between natural language and mathematical language experienced by mechanical engineering students

This investigation is grounded within the concept of embodied cognition where the mind is considered to be part of a biological system. A first year undergraduate Mechanical Engineering cohort of students was tasked with explaining the behaviour of three balls of different masses being rolled down a ramp. The explanations given by the students highlighted the cognitive conflict between the everyday interpretation of the word energy and its mathematical use. The results showed that even after many years of schooling, students found it challenging to interpret the mathematics they had learned and relied upon pseudo-scientific notions to account for the behaviour of the balls.

The Irish paradigm on the natural progression of hepatitis C virus infection: an investigation in a homogeneous patient population infected with HCV 1b (Review)

The aetiological agent of chronic hepatitis C is the hepatitis C virus. The hepatitis C virus is spread by parenteral transmission of body fluids, primarily blood or blood products. In 1989, after more than a decade of research, HCV was isolated and characterised. The hepatitis C viral genome is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA molecule approximately 9.4 kb in length, which encodes a polyprotein of about 3100 amino acids. There are 6 main genotypes of HCV, each further stratified by subtype. In 1994, a cohort of women was identified in Ireland as having been iatrogenically exposed to the hepatitis C virus. The women were all young and exposed as a consequence of the receipt of HCV 1b contaminated anti-D immunoglobulin. The source of the infection was identified as an acutely infected female. As part of a voluntary serological screening programme involving 62,667 people, 704 individuals were identified as seropositive for exposure to the hepatitis C virus; 55.4% were found to be positive for the viral genome 17 years after exposure. Of these women 98% had evidence of inflammation, but suprisingly, a remarkable 49% showed no evidence of fibrosis. Clinicopathology and virological analysis has identified associations between viral load and the histological activity index for inflammation, and, between inflammation and levels of the liver enzyme alanine aminotransferase. Infection at a younger age appears to protect individuals from progression to advanced liver disease. Molecular analyses of host immunogenetic elements shows that particular class II human leukocyte associated antigen alleles are associated with clearance of the hepatitis C virus. Additional class II alleles have been identified that are associated with stable viraemia over an extended period of patient follow-up. Although, investigation of large untreated homogeneous cohorts is likely to become more difficult, as the efficacy of anti-viral therapy improves, further investigation of host and viral factors that influence disease progression will help provide an evidence based approach were realistic expectations regarding patient prognosis can be ascertained.

Biological and Physical Factors Affecting the Natural History and Evolution of Encapsulated Development

The evolution of reproductive strategies involves a complex calculus of costs and benefits to both parents and offspring. Many marine animals produce embryos packaged in tough egg capsules or gelatinous egg masses attached to benthic surfaces. While these egg structures can protect against environmental stresses, the packaging is energetically costly for parents to produce. In this series of studies, I examined a variety of ecological factors affecting the evolution of benthic development as a life history strategy. I used marine gastropods as my model system because they are incredibly diverse and abundant worldwide, and they exhibit a variety of reproductive and developmental strategies.

The first study examines predation on benthic egg masses. I investigated: 1) behavioral mechanisms of predation when embryos are targeted (rather than the whole egg mass); 2) the specific role of gelatinous matrix in predation. I hypothesized that gelatinous matrix does not facilitate predation. One study system was the sea slug Olea hansineensis, an obligate egg mass predator, feeding on the sea slug Haminoea vesicula. Olea fed intensely and efficiently on individual Haminoea embryos inside egg masses but showed no response to live embryos removed from gel, suggesting that gelatinous matrix enables predation. This may be due to mechanical support of the feeding predator by the matrix. However, Haminoea egg masses outnumber Olea by two orders of magnitude in the field, and each egg mass can contain many tens of thousands of embryos, so predation pressure on individuals is likely not strong. The second system involved the snail Nassarius vibex, a non-obligate egg mass predator, feeding on the polychaete worm Clymenella mucosa. Gel neither inhibits nor promotes embryo predation for Nassarius, but because it cannot target individual embryos inside an egg mass, its feeding is slow and inefficient, and feeding rates in the field are quite low. However, snails that compete with Nassarius for scavenged food have not been seen to eat egg masses in the field, leaving Nassarius free to exploit the resource. Overall, egg mass predation in these two systems likely benefits the predators much more than it negatively affects the prey. Thus, selection for environmentally protective aspects of egg mass production may be much stronger than selection for defense against predation.

In the second study, I examined desiccation resistance in intertidal egg masses made by Haminoea vesicula, which preferentially attaches its flat, ribbon-shaped egg masses to submerged substrata. Egg masses occasionally detach and become stranded on exposed sand at low tide. Unlike adults, the encased embryos cannot avoid desiccation by selectively moving about the habitat, and the egg mass shape has high surface-area-to-volume ratio that should make it prone to drying out. Thus, I hypothesized that the embryos would not survive stranding. I tested this by deploying individual egg masses of two age classes on exposed sand bars for the duration of low tide. After rehydration, embryos midway through development showed higher rates of survival than newly-laid embryos, though for both stages survival rates over 25% were frequently observed. Laboratory desiccation trials showed that >75% survival is possible in an egg mass that has lost 65% of its water weight, and some survival (<25%) was observed even after 83% water weight lost. Although many surviving embryos in both experiments showed damage, these data demonstrate that egg mass stranding is not necessarily fatal to embryos. They may be able to survive a far greater range of conditions than they normally encounter, compensating for their lack of ability to move. Also, desiccation tolerance of embryos may reduce pressure on parents to find optimal laying substrata.

The third study takes a big-picture approach to investigating the evolution of different developmental strategies in cone snails, the largest genus of marine invertebrates. Cone snail species hatch out of their capsules as either swimming larvae or non-dispersing forms, and their developmental mode has direct consequences for biogeographic patterns. Variability in life history strategies among taxa may be influenced by biological, environmental, or phylogenetic factors, or a combination of these. While most prior research has examined these factors singularly, my aim was to investigate the effects of a host of intrinsic, extrinsic, and historical factors on two fundamental aspects of life history: egg size and egg number. I used phylogenetic generalized least-squares regression models to examine relationships between these two egg traits and a variety of hypothesized intrinsic and extrinsic variables. Adult shell morphology and spatial variability in productivity and salinity across a species geographic range had the strongest effects on egg diameter and number of eggs per capsule. Phylogeny had no significant influence. Developmental mode in Conus appears to be influenced mostly by species-level adaptations and niche specificity rather than phylogenetic conservatism. Patterns of egg size and egg number appear to reflect energetic tradeoffs with body size and specific morphologies as well as adaptations to variable environments. Overall, this series of studies highlights the importance of organism-scale biotic and abiotic interactions in evolutionary patterns.

Education - research - practice

Through this paper we will look at links between architecture education, research and practice, using a current project as a vehicle to cover aspects of building, pilot and live project. The first aspect, the building project consists of the refurbishment and extension of a Parnell Cottage for a private client and is located near Cloyne, in East Cork, Ireland. The pilot project falls within the NEES Project, investigating the use of materials and services based on natural or recycled materials to improve the energy performance of new and existing buildings. The live project aims to hold a series of on site workshops and seminars for students of Architecture, Architects and interested parties, demonstrating the integration of the NEES best practice materials and techniques within the built project. The workshops, seminars and key project documents will be digitally recorded for dissemination through a web based publication. The small scale of the building project allowed for flexibility in the early conceptual design stages and the integration of the research and educational aspects.

Three Essays on Economic Development in the Natural Resources Sector

This thesis examines two ongoing development projects that received financial support from international development organizations, and an alternative mining tax proposed by the academia. Chapter 2 explores the impact of commoditization of coffee on its export price in Ethiopia. The first part of the chapter traces how the Ethiopian’s current coffee trade system and commoditization come to be. Using regression analysis, the second part tests and confirms the hypothesis that commoditization has led to a reduction in coffee export price. Chapter 3 conducts a cost-benefit analysis on a controversial, liquefied natural gas export project in Peru that sought to export one-third of the country’s proven natural gas reserves. While the country can receive royalty and corporate income tax in the short and medium term, these benefits are dwarfed by the future costs of paying for alternative energy after gas depletion. The conclusion is robust for a variety of future energy-price and energy-demand scenarios. Chapter 4 quantifies through simulation the economic distortions of two common mining taxes, the royalty and ad-valorem tax, vis-à-vis the resource rent tax. The latter is put forward as a better mining tax instrument on account of its non-distortionary nature. The rent tax, however, necessitates additional administrative burdens and induces tax-avoidance behavior, both leading to a net loss of tax revenue. By quantifying the distortions of royalty and the ad-valorem tax, one can establish the maximum loss that can be incurred by the rent tax. Simulation results indicate that the distortion of the ad-valorem tax is quite modest. If implemented, the rent tax is likely to result in a greater loss. While the subject matters may appear diverse, they are united by one theme. These initiatives were endorsed and supported by authorities and development agencies in the aim of furthering economic development and efficiency, but they are unlikely to fulfill the goal. Lessons for international development can be learnt from successful stories as well as from unsuccessful ones.

Parallel nonconvex generalized Benders decomposition for natural gas production network planning under uncertainty

A scenario-based two-stage stochastic programming model for gas production network planning under uncertainty is usually a large-scale nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programme (MINLP), which can be efficiently solved to global optimality with nonconvex generalized Benders decomposition (NGBD). This paper is concerned with the parallelization of NGBD to exploit multiple available computing resources. Three parallelization strategies are proposed, namely, naive scenario parallelization, adaptive scenario parallelization, and adaptive scenario and bounding parallelization. Case study of two industrial natural gas production network planning problems shows that, while the NGBD without parallelization is already faster than a state-of-the-art global optimization solver by an order of magnitude, the parallelization can improve the efficiency by several times on computers with multicore processors. The adaptive scenario and bounding parallelization achieves the best overall performance among the three proposed parallelization strategies.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MHC-INDEPENDENT NATURAL KILLER CELL RECEPTORS IN THE IMMUNOREGULATION OF MURINE PREGNANCY

Numerous leukocyte populations are essential for pregnancy success. Uterine natural killer (uNK) cells are chief amongst these leukocytes and represent a unique lineage with limited cytotoxicity but abundant angiokine production. They possess a distinct phenotype of activating and inhibitory receptors that recognize major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, such as the killer immunoglobulin like receptors (KIRs; mouse Ly49), and MHC-independent activating receptors, including the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) and natural cytotoxicity receptor 1 (NCR1). While the roles of MHC-dependent receptors are widely addressed in pregnancy, MHC-independent receptors are relatively unstudied. This thesis investigated the roles of MHC-independent receptors in promotion of mouse pregnancy and characterized early leukocyte interactions in the presence and absence of NCR1. It was hypothesized that loss of MHC-independent receptors impairs uNK cell development resulting in aberrations in leukocyte function and decidual vasculature. Implantation sites from Ahr-/- and Ncr1Gfp/Gfp mice were assessed using whole mount in situ immunohistochemistry (WM-IHC) and histochemical techniques. Leukocyte interactions identified during preliminary WM-IHC studies were confirmed as immune synapses. The novel identification of immune synapses in early mouse pregnancy compelled further examination of leukocyte conjugates in wildtype C57BL/6 and Ncr1Gfp/Gfp mice. In Ahr-/- and Ncr1Gfp/Gfp mice, receptor loss resulted in reduced uNK cell diameters, impaired decidual vasculature, and failures in spiral artery remodeling. Ahr-/- mice had severe fertility deficits whereas Ncr1Gfp/Gfp mice had increased fetal resorption indicating differing receptor requirements in pregnancy success. NCR1 loss primarily affected uNK cell maturation and function as identified by alterations in granule ultrastructure, lytic protein expression, and angiokine production. Leukocyte conjugates were frequent in early C57BL/6 decidua basalis and included uNK cells conjugating first with antigen presenting cells and then with T cells. Overall conjugate formation was reduced in the absence of NCR1, but specific uNK cell conjugations were unaffected by receptor loss. While KIR-MHC interactions are associated with numerous pregnancy complications in humans, the role of other uNK cell receptors are not well characterized. These results illustrate the importance of MHC-independent receptors in uNK cell activation during early pregnancy in mice and encourage further studies of pregnancy complications that may occur independently of maternal KIR-MHC contributions.

The Effect of Foam Core Density on the Flexural and Axial Behaviour of Sandwich Panels of Varying Slenderness with Natural Flax-FRP and Glass-FRP Composite Skins

This study investigates the effect of foam core density and skin type on the behaviour of sandwich panels as structural beams tested in four-point bending and axially compressed columns of varying slenderness and skin thickness. Bio-composite unidirectional flax fibre-reinforced polymer (FFRP) is compared to conventional glass-FRP (GFRP) as the skin material used in conjunction with three polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam cores with densities of 32, 64 and 96 kg/m3. Eighteen 1000 mm long flexural specimens were fabricated and tested to failure comparing the effects of foam core density between three-layer FFRP skinned and single-layer GFRP skinned panels. A total of 132 columns with slenderness ratios (kLe/r) ranging from 22 to 62 were fabricated with single-layer GFRP skins, and one-, three-, and five-layer FFRP skins for each of the three foam core densities. The columns were tested to failure in concentric axial compression using pinned-end conditions to compare the effects of each material type and panel height. All specimens had a foam core cross-section of 100x50 mm with 100 mm wide skins of equal thickness. In both flexural and axial loading, panels with skins comprised of three FFRP layers showed equivalent strength to those with a single GFRP layer for all slenderness ratios and core densities examined. Doubling the core density from 32 to 64 kg/m3 and tripling the density to 96 kg/m3 led to flexural strength increases of 82 and 213%, respectively. Both FFRP and GFRP columns showed a similar variety of failure modes related to slenderness. Low slenderness of 22-25 failed largely due to localized single skin buckling, while those with high slenderness of 51-61 failed primarily by global buckling followed by secondary skin buckling. Columns with intermediate slenderness experienced both localized and global failure modes. High density foam cores more commonly exhibited core shear failure. Doubling the core density of the columns resulted in peak axial load increases, across all slenderness ratios, of 73, 56, 72 and 71% for skins with one, three and five FFRP layers, and one GFRP layer, respectively. Tripling the core density resulted in respective peak load increases of 116, 130, 176 and 170%.