Copper filtration in pediatric digital X-ray imaging: its impact on image quality and dose.

The effect of copper (Cu) filtration on image quality and dose in different digital X-ray systems was investigated. Two computed radiography systems and one digital radiography detector were used. Three different polymethylmethacrylate blocks simulated the pediatric body. The effect of Cu filters of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 mm thickness on the entrance surface dose (ESD) and the corresponding effective doses (EDs) were measured at tube voltages of 60, 66, and 73 kV. Image quality was evaluated in a contrast-detail phantom with an automated analyzer software. Cu filters of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 mm thickness decreased the ESD by 25-32%, 32-39%, and 40-44%, respectively, the ranges depending on the respective tube voltages. There was no consistent decline in image quality due to increasing Cu filtration. The estimated ED of anterior-posterior (AP) chest projections was reduced by up to 23%. No relevant reduction in the ED was noted in AP radiographs of the abdomen and pelvis or in posterior-anterior radiographs of the chest. Cu filtration reduces the ESD, but generally does not reduce the effective dose. Cu filters can help protect radiosensitive superficial organs, such as the mammary glands in AP chest projections.

Environmental characteristics of the cemeteries of Buenos Aires City (Argentina) and infestation levels of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae)

Cemeteries with many water-filled containers, flowers, sources of human blood, and shade are favorable urban habitats for the proliferation of Aedes aegypti, a vector of yellow fever and dengue. A total of 22,956 containers was examined in the five cemeteries of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The vector was found in four cemeteries that showed an average infestation level of 5.5% (617 positive out of 11,196 water-filled containers). The four cemeteries positive for Ae. aegypti showed significantly different (p<0.01) infestation levels. Vegetation cover and percentage of infestation were significantly correlated (p<0.01), but neither cemetery area nor number of available containers were significantly related to the proportion of positive vases. Our results suggest that the cemeteries of Buenos Aires represent a gradient of habitat favorableness for this vector species, some of which may act as foci for its proliferation and dispersal.

Forensic examination of ink by high-performance thin layer chromatography - The United States Secret Service Digital Ink Library

Forensic examinations of ink have been performed since the beginning of the 20th century. Since the 1960s, the International Ink Library, maintained by the United States Secret Service, has supported those analyses. Until 2009, the search and identification of inks were essentially performed manually. This paper describes the results of a project designed to improve ink samples' analytical and search processes. The project focused on the development of improved standardization procedures to ensure the best possible reproducibility between analyses run on different HPTLC plates. The successful implementation of this new calibration method enabled the development of mathematical algorithms and of a software package to complement the existing ink library.

After Art. Una propuesta de implementación digital en el Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona a través de Google Art Project

L’aplicació de la tecnologia de Google Art Project al Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) com a forma d’aproximació de l’art a un públic més internacional és el plantejament d’aquest treball. Amb aquesta finalitat es desenvoluparà una estratègia de comunicació digital que comprengui aquesta eina com a principal i abasti altres mètodes interactius a xarxes socials i a altres espais de socialització 2.0. L’elaboració d’aquesta estratègia estarà basada dins un context real de l’art contemporani a Barcelona i de la seva màxima compenetració amb aquesta innovadora iniciativa.

EORTC Radiation Oncology Group quality assurance platform: establishment of a digital central review facility.

OBJECTIVE: Quality assurance (QA) in clinical trials is essential to ensure treatment is safely and effectively delivered. As QA requirements have increased in complexity in parallel with evolution of radiation therapy (RT) delivery, a need to facilitate digital data exchange emerged. Our objective is to present the platform developed for the integration and standardization of QART activities across all EORTC trials involving RT. METHODS: The following essential requirements were identified: secure and easy access without on-site software installation; integration within the existing EORTC clinical remote data capture system; and the ability to both customize the platform to specific studies and adapt to future needs. After retrospective testing within several clinical trials, the platform was introduced in phases to participating sites and QART study reviewers. RESULTS: The resulting QA platform, integrating RT analysis software installed at EORTC Headquarters, permits timely, secure, and fully digital central DICOM-RT based data review. Participating sites submit data through a standard secure upload webpage. Supplemental information is submitted in parallel through web-based forms. An internal quality check by the QART office verifies data consistency, formatting, and anonymization. QART reviewers have remote access through a terminal server. Reviewers evaluate submissions for protocol compliance through an online evaluation matrix. Comments are collected by the coordinating centre and institutions are informed of the results. CONCLUSIONS: This web-based central review platform facilitates rapid, extensive, and prospective QART review. This reduces the risk that trial outcomes are compromised through inadequate radiotherapy and facilitates correlation of results with clinical outcomes.

Prevalence and intensity of soil-transmitted helminthiasis in the city of Portoviejo (Ecuador)

We studied the stool samples of 151 school children in a district of the city of Portoviejo (Ecuador) in order to determine the prevalence and intensity of soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH) and their relationships with anthropometric indices. The samples were analyzed with the semiquantitative Kato-Katz technique and the intensity of infections was categorized as light, moderate or high according to the thresholds set by the World Health Organization. Prevalence of soil transmitted helmintiasis was 65% (92 out of 141 collected samples), Ascaris lumbricoides was the most common STH (63%) followed by Trichuris trichiura (10%) and hookworm (1.4%). Heavy intensity infections were found in 8.5% of the stool samples, with T. trichiura showing higher worm burdens than A. lumbricoides. Sixteen percent of the children were below the third percentile for weight (wasted), while 27% were below the third percentile for height (stunted). A significant relationship was found between the worm burden and the degree of stunting. This study suggests that the periodic administration of an antihelminthic drug should be targeted to preschool and school children to allow a normal growth spurt and prevent stunting.

Accounting for Big City Growth in Low Paid Occupations: Immigration and/or Service Class Consumption

Growth of 'global cities' in the 1980s was supposed to have involved an occupational polarisation, including growth of low paid service jobs. Though held to be untrue for European cities, at the time, some such growth did emerge in London a decade later than first reported for New York. The question is whether there was simply a delay before London conformed to the global city model, or whether another distinct cause was at work in both cases. This paper proposes that the critical factor in both cases was actually an upsurge of immigration from poor countries providing an elastic supply of cheap labour. This hypothesis and its counterpart based on growth in elite jobs are tested econometrically for the British case with regional data spanning 1975-2008, finding some support for both effects, but with immigration from poor countries as the crucial influence in late 1990s London. Keywords: regional labour markets; wages; employment; international migration; consumer demand JEL Codes: J21, J23, F22, R12

Occurrence of Cryptosporidial Oocysts and Giardia Cysts in Bottled Mineral Water Commercialized in the City of Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil

The consumption of bottled mineral water has significantly increased in Brazil so that it is in the interest of public health to determine the parasitological and microbiological status of some brands of Brazilian mineral water available in the town of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. For this purpose, detection of protozoa by direct immunofluorescence technique and microbiological parameters were determined for each specimen after membrane filtration. Giardia cysts were not present while cryptosporidial oocysts were detected in two samples. The counts of protozoa varied from 0.2 to 0.5 oocysts/l. The detected level of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and heterotrophic bacteria reflected the level of organic enrichment of the water.

Cinéma, machine à mondes : essai sur les films à univers multiples

Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur propose une conceptualisation théorique de la coprésence en un même film de mondes multiples en abordant différents paramètres (hétérogénéité de la facture de l'image, pratiques du montage alterné, typologie des enchâssements, expansion sérielle, etc.) sur la base d'un corpus de films de fiction récents qui appartiennent pour la plupart au genre de la science-fiction (Matrix, Dark City, Avalon, Resident Evil, Avatar,...). Issue de la filmologie, la notion de « diégèse » y est développée à la fois dans le potentiel d'autonomisation dont témoigne la conception mondaine qui semble dominer aujourd'hui à l'ère des jeux vidéo, dans ses liens avec le récit et dans une perspective intermédiale. Les films discutés ont la particularité de mettre en scène des machines permettant aux personnages de passer d'un monde à l'autre : les modes de figuration de ces technologies sont investigués en lien avec les imaginaires du dispositif cinématographique et les potentialité du montage. La comparaison entre les films (Tron et son récent sequel, Totall Recall et son remake) et entre des oeuvres filmiques et littéraires (en particulier les nouvelles de Philip K. Dick et Simlacron 3 de Galouye) constitue un outil d'analyse permettant de saisir la contemporanéité de cette problématique, envisagée sur le plan esthétique dans le contexte de l'imagerie numérique.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa: study of Antibiotic Resistance and Molecular Typing in Hospital Infection Cases in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit from Rio de Janeiro City, Brazil

This study had the objective of to analyze the demographic and bacteriologic data of 32 hospitalized newborns in an neonatal intensive care unit of a public maternity hospital in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil, seized by Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis during a period ranged from July 1997 to July 1999, and to determine the antimicrobial resistance percentage, serotypes and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns of 32 strains isolated during this period. The study group presented mean age of 12.5 days, with higher prevalence of hospital infection in males (59.4%) and vaginal delivery (81.2%), than females (40.6%) and cesarean delivery (18.8%), respectively. In this group, 20 (62.5%) patients received antimicrobials before positive blood cultures presentation. A total of 87.5% of the patients were premature, 62.5% presented very low birth weight and 40.6% had asphyxia. We detected high antimicrobial resistance percentage to b-lactams, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and tetracycline among the isolated strains. All isolated strains were classified as multi-drug resistant. Most strains presented serotype O11 while PFGE analysis revealed seven distinct clones with isolation predominance of a single clone (75%) isolated from July 1997 to June 1998.

Presence of American cutaneous leishmaniasis vectors surrounding the city of Medellín, Colombia

The presence of Lutzomyia (Helcocyrtomyia) hartmanni, as a vector of Leishmania colombiensis and L. columbiana (Verrucarum group), recently incriminated in the transmission of leishmaniasis, and L. pia (Verrucarum group) are reported for the first time in a periurban area of Medellín city. There is thus a risk of leishmaniasis transmission in this town.

Phlebotomine sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) associated with the appearance of urban leishmaniasis in the city of Sincelejo, Colombia

Although once associated only with rural areas, the American leishmaniasis vectors now appear to be associated also with urban and suburban areas of the Neotropics. Following the appearance of the first autochthonous visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis cases in the urban area of the city of Sincelejo, Colombia, a preliminary entomological survey of the sand fly species composition was performed using Shannon and CDC light traps. A total of 486 sand flies representing six Lutzomyia species were collected. L. evansi, L. panamensis and L. gomezi, known vectors of Leishmania spp. were the predominant sand fly species around dwellings. The finding of these species in relation to the appearance of the first cases of leishmaniasis in the city mentioned is discussed.

Suitability of containers from different sources as breeding sites of Aedes aegypti (L.) in a cemetery of Buenos Aires City, Argentina

Cemeteries are ideal urban areas to study the importance of different types of containers as breeding sites of Aedes aegypti (L.). In the present study, the suitability of plastic, glass, ceramic and metal containers was evaluated in four patches within a cemetery of Buenos Aires City, Argentina. Between October 1998 and May 2000, we found 215 breeding sites of Ae. aegypti out of 13,022 water-filled containers examined. In two patches containing microenvironments sheltered from the sun, the use of the different types of containers was proportional to the offer (correlation coefficient = 0.99, P < 0.05 in both cases). In the remaining patches, plastic and metal containers were the most and less frequent breeding sites, respectively (P < 0.001 in both cases). The number of immatures per breeding site (median = 4.5) did not show significant differences among the four types of containers examined (H3, 215 = 1.216, P = 0.749). Differences found in patches from a same cemetery suggest that different microenvironmental conditions affect the suitability of each type of container for Ae. aegypti breeding. Plastic containers appeared as key breeding sites that should be removed to reduce the Ae. aegypti population in the study area.