Metagenomics, paratransgenesis and the Anopheles microbiome: a portrait of the geographical distribution of the anopheline microbiota based on a meta-analysis of reported taxa

Anophelines harbour a diverse microbial consortium that may represent an extended gene pool for the host. The proposed effects of the insect microbiota span physiological, metabolic and immune processes. Here we synthesise how current metagenomic tools combined with classical culture-dependent techniques provide new insights in the elucidation of the role of the Anopheles-associated microbiota. Many proposed malaria control strategies have been based upon the immunomodulating effects that the bacterial components of the microbiota appear to exert and their ability to express anti-Plasmodium peptides. The number of identified bacterial taxa has increased in the current “omics” era and the available data are mostly scattered or in “tables” that are difficult to exploit. Published microbiota reports for multiple anopheline species were compiled in an Excel® spreadsheet. We then filtered the microbiota data using a continent-oriented criterion and generated a visual correlation showing the exclusive and shared bacterial genera among four continents. The data suggested the existence of a core group of bacteria associated in a stable manner with their anopheline hosts. However, the lack of data from Neotropical vectors may reduce the possibility of defining the core microbiota and understanding the mosquito-bacteria interactive consortium.

Bernstein's problem on weighted polynomial approximation

We formulate a necessary and sufficient condition for polynomials to be dense in a space of continuous functions on the real line, with respect to Bernstein's weighted uniform norm. Equivalently, for a positive finite measure [lletra "mu" minúscula de l'alfabet grec] on the real line we give a criterion for density of polynomials in Lp[lletra "mu" minúscula de l'alfabet grec entre parèntesis].

Binary proposal for assessing quality of Open Access Institutional Repositories : the case of Spanish repositories

The reason for this study is to propose a new quantitative approach on how to assess the quality of Open Access University Institutional Repositories. The results of this new approach are tested in the Spanish University Repositories. The assessment method is based in a binary codification of a proposal of features that objectively describes the repositories. The purposes of this method are assessing the quality and an almost automatically system for updating the data of the characteristics. First of all a database was created with the 38 Spanish institutional repositories. The variables of analysis are presented and explained either if they are coming from bibliography or are a set of new variables. Among the characteristics analyzed are the features of the software, the services of the repository, the features of the information system, the Internet visibility and the licenses of use. Results from Spanish universities ARE provided as a practical example of the assessment and for having a picture of the state of the development of the open access movement in Spain.

She’s a femme fatale: low-density larval development produces good disease vectors

Two hypotheses for how conditions for larval mosquitoes affect vectorial capacity make opposite predictions about the relationship of adult size and frequency of infection with vector-borne pathogens. Competition among larvae produces small adult females. The competition-susceptibility hypothesis postulates that small females are more susceptible to infection and predicts frequency of infection should decrease with size. The competition-longevity hypothesis postulates that small females have lower longevity and lower probability of becoming competent to transmit the pathogen and thus predicts frequency of infection should increase with size. We tested these hypotheses for Aedes aegypti in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during a dengue outbreak. In the laboratory, longevity increases with size, then decreases at the largest sizes. For field-collected females, generalised linear mixed model comparisons showed that a model with a linear increase of frequency of dengue with size produced the best Akaike’s information criterion with a correction for small sample sizes (AICc). Consensus prediction of three competing models indicated that frequency of infection increases monotonically with female size, consistent with the competition-longevity hypothesis. Site frequency of infection was not significantly related to site mean size of females. Thus, our data indicate that uncrowded, low competition conditions for larvae produce the females that are most likely to be important vectors of dengue. More generally, ecological conditions, particularly crowding and intraspecific competition among larvae, are likely to affect vector-borne pathogen transmission in nature, in this case via effects on longevity of resulting adults. Heterogeneity among individual vectors in likelihood of infection is a generally important outcome of ecological conditions impacting vectors as larvae.

Discrimination in Bankruptcy Situations

In a bankruptcy situation, not all claimants are affected in the same way. In particular, some depositors may enter into a situation of personal bankruptcy if they lose part of their investments. Events of this kind may lead to a social catastrophe. We propose discrimination among the claimants as a possible solution. A fact considered in the American bankruptcy law (among others) that establishes some discrimination on the claimants, or the Santander Bank that in the Madoff’s case reimbursed only the deposits to its particular customers. Moreover, the necessity of discriminating has already been mentioned in different contexts by Young (1988), Bossert (1995), Thomson (2003) and Pulido et al. (2002, 2007), for instance. In this paper, we take a bankruptcy solution as the reference point. Given this initial allocation, we make transfers from richer to poorer with the purpose of distributing not only the personal incurred losses as evenly as possible but also the transfers in a progressive way. The agents are divided into two groups depending on their personal monetary value (wealth, net-income, GDP or any other characteristic). Then, we impose a set of Axioms that bound the maximal transfer that each net-contributor can make and each net-receiver can obtain. Finally, we define a value discriminant solution, and we characterize it by means of the Lorenz criterion. Endogenous convex combinations between solutions are also considered. Keywords: Bankruptcy, Discrimination, Compensation, Rules JEL classification: C71, D63, D71.

THCCOOH concentrations in whole blood: Are they useful in discriminating occasional from heavy smokers?

Some forensic and clinical circumstances require knowledge of the frequency of drug use. Care of the patient, administrative, and legal consequences will be different if the subject is a regular or an occasional cannabis smoker. To this end, 11-nor-9-carboxy-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THCCOOH) has been proposed as a criterion to help to distinguish between these two groups of users. However, to date this indicator has not been adequately assessed under experimental conditions. We carried out a controlled administration study of smoked cannabis with a placebo. Cannabinoid levels were determined in whole blood using tandem mass spectrometry. Significantly high differences in THCCOOH concentrations were found between the two groups when measured during the screening visit, prior to the smoking session, and throughout the day of the experiment. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were determined and two threshold criteria were proposed in order to distinguish between these groups: a free THCCOOH concentration below 3 µg/L suggested an occasional consumption (≤ 1 joint/week) while a concentration higher than 40 µg/L corresponded to a heavy use (≥ 10 joints/month). These thresholds were tested and found to be consistent with previously published experimental data. The decision threshold of 40 µg/L could be a cut-off for possible disqualification for driving while under the influence of cannabis. A further medical assessment and follow-up would be necessary for the reissuing of a driving license once abstinence from cannabis has been demonstrated. A THCCOOH level below 3 µg/L would indicate that no medical assessment is required. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Using the costs of drug therapy to screen patients for a community pharmacy-based medication review program

Objectives: To measure the positive predictive value (PPV) of the cost of drug therapy (threshold = 2000 Swiss francs [CHF], US$1440, <euro>1360) as a screening criterion for identifying patients who may benefit from medication review (MR). To describe identified drug-related problems (DRPs) and expense problems (EPs), and to estimate potential savings if all recommendations were accepted. Setting Five voluntary Swiss community pharmacies. Methods: Of 12,680 patients, 592 (4.7%) had drug therapy costs exceeding 2000 CHF over a six-month period from July 1 to December 31, 2002. This threshold limit was set to identify high-risk patients for DRPs and EPs. Three pharmacists consecutively conducted a medication review based on the pharmaceutical charts of 125 sampled patients who met the inclusion criterion. Main outcome measure: The PPV of a threshold of 2000 CHF for identifying patients who might benefit from a MR: true positives were patients with at least one DRP, while false positives were patients with no DRP. Results: The selection based on this criterion had a PPV of 86% for detecting patients with at least one DRP and 95% if EPs were also considered. There was a mean of 2.64 (SD = 2.20) DRPs per patient and a mean of 2.14 (SD = 1.39) EPs per patient. Of these patients, 90% were over 65 years old or were treated with at least five chronic medications, two common criteria for identifying patients at risk of DRPs. The main types of DRPs were drug-drug interactions, compliance problems and duplicate drugs. Mean daily drug cost per patient was CHF 14.87 (US$10.70, <euro>10.10). A potential savings of CHF 1.67 (US$1.20, <euro>1.14) per day (11%) was estimated if all recommendations to solve DRPs and EPs suggested herein were implemented. Conclusion: Further studies should investigate whether the potential benefit of medication reviews in preventing DRPs and containing costs in this patient group can be confirmed in a real practice environment. [Authors]

A temporal hierarchy for conspecific vocalization discrimination in humans.

Introduction: Discrimination of species-specific vocalizations is fundamental for survival and social interactions. Its unique behavioral relevance has encouraged the identification of circumscribed brain regions exhibiting selective responses (Belin et al., 2004), while the role of network dynamics has received less attention. Those studies that have examined the brain dynamics of vocalization discrimination leave unresolved the timing and the inter-relationship between general categorization, attention, and speech-related processes (Levy et al., 2001, 2003; Charest et al., 2009). Given these discrepancies and the presence of several confounding factors, electrical neuroimaging analyses were applied to auditory evoked-potential (AEPs) to acoustically and psychophysically controlled non-verbal human and animal vocalizations. This revealed which region(s) exhibit voice-sensitive responses and in which sequence. Methods: Subjects (N=10) performed a living vs. man-made 'oddball' auditory discrimination task, such that on a given block of trials 'target' stimuli occurred 10% of the time. Stimuli were complex, meaningful sounds of 500ms duration. There were 120 different sound files in total, 60 of which represented sounds of living objects and 60 man-made objects. The stimuli that were the focus of the present investigation were restricted to those of living objects within blocks where no response was required. These stimuli were further sorted between human non-verbal vocalizations and animal vocalizations. They were also controlled in terms of their spectrograms and formant distributions. Continuous 64-channel EEG was acquired through Neuroscan Synamps referenced to the nose, band-pass filtered 0.05-200Hz, and digitized at 1000Hz. Peri-stimulus epochs of continuous EEG (-100ms to 900ms) were visually inspected for artifacts, 40Hz low-passed filtered and baseline corrected using the pre-stimulus period . Averages were computed from each subject separately. AEPs in response to animal and human vocalizations were analyzed with respect to differences of Global Field Power (GFP) and with respect to changes of the voltage configurations at the scalp (reviewed in Murray et al., 2008). The former provides a measure of the strength of the electric field irrespective of topographic differences; the latter identifies changes in spatial configurations of the underlying sources independently of the response strength. In addition, we utilized the local auto-regressive average distributed linear inverse solution (LAURA; Grave de Peralta Menendez et al., 2001) to visualize and statistically contrast the likely underlying sources of effects identified in the preceding analysis steps. Results: We found differential activity in response to human vocalizations over three periods in the post-stimulus interval, and this response was always stronger than that to animal vocalizations. The first differential response (169-219ms) was a consequence of a modulation in strength of a common brain network localized into the right superior temporal sulcus (STS; Brodmann's Area (BA) 22) and extending into the superior temporal gyrus (STG; BA 41). A second difference (291-357ms) also followed from strength modulations of a common network with statistical differences localized to the left inferior precentral and prefrontal gyrus (BA 6/45). These two first strength modulations correlated (Spearman's rho(8)=0.770; p=0.009) indicative of functional coupling between temporally segregated stages of vocalization discrimination. A third difference (389-667ms) followed from strength and topographic modulations and was localized to the left superior frontal gyrus (BA10) although this third difference did not reach our spatial criterion of 12 continuous voxels. Conclusions: We show that voice discrimination unfolds over multiple temporal stages, involving a wide network of brain regions. The initial stages of vocalization discrimination are based on modulations in response strength within a common brain network with no evidence for a voice-selective module. The latency of this effect parallels that of face discrimination (Bentin et al., 2007), supporting the possibility that voice and face processes can mutually inform one another. Putative underlying sources (localized in the right STS; BA 22) are consistent with prior hemodynamic imaging evidence in humans (Belin et al., 2004). Our effect over the 291-357ms post-stimulus period overlaps the 'voice-specific-response' reported by Levy et al. (Levy et al., 2001) and the estimated underlying sources (left BA6/45) were in agreement with previous findings in humans (Fecteau et al., 2005). These results challenge the idea that circumscribed and selective areas subserve con-specific vocalization processing.

The New EU’s External Action: A significant step forward towards the EU’s single voice?ction problems and rhetorical action

The aim of this paper is to analyse the main agreements on the EU’s External Action agreed within the European Convention and the IGC taking into account why, how and who reached the consensus on them. In other words, this paper will explore the principles followed in order to improve the instruments of the EU’s External Action such as authority, coherence, visibility, efficiency and credibility.

El blog y otras herramientas comunicativas de la biblioteca del Área de Gestión Sanitaria Este de Málaga - Axarquía

In 2006 the Library of the Andalusian Public Health System (BVSSPA) is constituted as a Virtual Library which provides Resources and Services that are accessed through inter-hospital local area network (corporate intranet) and Internet. On the other hand, the Hospital de la Axarquia still did not have any institutional or self-presence on the Internet and the librarian ask the need to create a space for communication with the "digital users" of the Library of the area through a website. MATERIALS AND METHODS. The reasons why we opted for a blog were: -It was necessary to make no financial outlay for its establishment. It allowed for great versatility, both in its administration and in its management by users. -The ability to compile on the same platform different Web 2.0 communication tools. Between different options available we chose Blogger Google Inc. The blog allowed entry to the 2.0 services or Social Web in the library. The benefits offered were many, especially the visibility of the service and communication with the user. 2.0 tools that have been incorporated into the library are: content syndication (RSS) which allowed users to stay informed about updates to the blog. Share documents and other multimedia as presentations through SlideShare, images through Flickr or Picasa, or videos (YouTube). And the presence on social network like Facebook and Twitter. RESULTS. The analysis of the activity we has been traking by Google Analytics tool, helping to determine the number of blog visits. Since its stablishment, on November 17th 2006, until November 29th 2010 the blog has received 15,787 visitors, 38,422 page views were consulted, at each visit on average 2.4 pages were consulted and each visit has an average stay at the site of 4'31''. DISCUSSION. The blog has served as a communication and information tool with the user. Since the creation of the blog we have incorporated technologies and tools to interact with the user. With all the tools used we have applied the concept of "open source" and the contents were generated from the activities organized in the Knowledge Management Unit from the anatomo-clinical sessions, the training activities, dissemination events, etc. The result has been the customization of library services, contextualized in the Knowledge Management Unit - Axarquia. In social networks we have shared information and files with the professionals and the community. CONCLUSIONS. The blog has allowed us to explore technologies that allow us to communicate with the user and the community, disseminate information and documents with the participation of users and become the "Interactive Library" we aspire to be.

Harmonic active contours.

We propose a segmentation method based on the geometric representation of images as 2-D manifolds embedded in a higher dimensional space. The segmentation is formulated as a minimization problem, where the contours are described by a level set function and the objective functional corresponds to the surface of the image manifold. In this geometric framework, both data-fidelity and regularity terms of the segmentation are represented by a single functional that intrinsically aligns the gradients of the level set function with the gradients of the image and results in a segmentation criterion that exploits the directional information of image gradients to overcome image inhomogeneities and fragmented contours. The proposed formulation combines this robust alignment of gradients with attractive properties of previous methods developed in the same geometric framework: 1) the natural coupling of image channels proposed for anisotropic diffusion and 2) the ability of subjective surfaces to detect weak edges and close fragmented boundaries. The potential of such a geometric approach lies in the general definition of Riemannian manifolds, which naturally generalizes existing segmentation methods (the geodesic active contours, the active contours without edges, and the robust edge integrator) to higher dimensional spaces, non-flat images, and feature spaces. Our experiments show that the proposed technique improves the segmentation of multi-channel images, images subject to inhomogeneities, and images characterized by geometric structures like ridges or valleys.

Ser catalans : una visió dels visitants de Barcelona... més enllà dels tòpics

Es tracta d'un treball en què s'analitzen les dades obtingudes de quatre entrevistes a estudiants estrangers que viuen a Barcelona sobre la seva visió de la catalanitat. També hi ha reflexions sobre quina visibilitat té la llengua catalana en aquest concepte d'identitat catalana.

Are sustainable companies less risky and more profitable?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were significant differences in accounting indicators when comparing sustainable enterprises to other similar companies that are not considered as sustainable. The Corporate Sustainability Index of BM (São Paulo Stock, Commodities and Futures Exchange) was the criterion selected to break down the samples into sustainable and non-sustainable enterprises. The accounting indicators were separated into two kinds: risk (dividend payout, percentage growth of assets, financial leverage, current liquidity, asset size, variability of earnings, and accounting beta) and return (ROA, ROE, asset turnover, and net margin). We individually analyzed the companies in the energy sector, followed by those in the banking sector, as well as the entire ISE portfolio as of 2008/2009, including all the sectors. Mann-Whitney tests were performed in order to verify the difference of the means between the groups (ISE and non-ISE). The results, considering the method chosen and the time span covered by the study, indicate that there are no differences between sustainable companies and the others, when they are assessed by the accounting indicators used here.

Decision Support Methods for Global Optomization

Immobile location-allocation (LA) problems is a type of LA problem that consists in determining the service each facility should offer in order to optimize some criterion (like the global demand), given the positions of the facilities and the customers. Due to the complexity of the problem, i.e. it is a combinatorial problem (where is the number of possible services and the number of facilities) with a non-convex search space with several sub-optimums, traditional methods cannot be applied directly to optimize this problem. Thus we proposed the use of clustering analysis to convert the initial problem into several smaller sub-problems. By this way, we presented and analyzed the suitability of some clustering methods to partition the commented LA problem. Then we explored the use of some metaheuristic techniques such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing or cuckoo search in order to solve the sub-problems after the clustering analysis

Assessment of melanocytic skin lesions with a high-definition laser Doppler imaging system.

BACKGROUND: Early detection is a major goal in the management of malignant melanoma. Besides clinical assessment many noninvasive technologies such as dermoscopy, digital dermoscopy and in vivo laser scanner microscopy are used as additional methods. Herein we tested a system to assess lesional perfusion as a tool for early melanoma detection.¦METHODS: Laser Doppler flow (FluxExplorer) and mole analyser (MA) score (FotoFinder) were applied to histologically verified melanocytic nevi (33) and malignant melanomas (12).¦RESULTS: Mean perfusion and MA scores were significantly increased in melanoma compared to nevi. However, applying an empirically determined threshold of 16% perfusion increase only 42% of the melanomas fulfilled the criterion of malignancy, whereas with the mole analyzer score 82% of the melanomas fulfilled the criterion of malignancy.¦CONCLUSION: Laser Doppler imaging is a highly sensitive technology to assess skin and skin tumor perfusion in vivo. Although mean perfusion is higher in melanomas compared to nevi the high numbers of false negative results hamper the use of this technology for early melanoma detection.