Haematological and cytokine alterations in malaria are a broad and controversial
subject in the literature. However, few studies have simultaneously evaluated various
cytokines in a single patient group during the acute and convalescent phases of
infection. The aim of this study was to sequentially characterise alterations in
haematological patters and circulating plasma cytokine and chemokine levels in
patients infected with Plasmodium vivax or Plasmodium falciparum from a Brazilian
endemic area during the acute and convalescent phases of infection. During the acute
phase, thrombocytopaenia, eosinopaenia, lymphopaenia and an increased number of band
cells were observed in the majority of the patients. During the convalescent phase,
the haematologic parameters returned to normal. During the acute phase, P. vivax and
P. falciparum patients had significantly higher interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-17,
interferon-γ, tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α, macrophage inflammatory protein-1β and
granulocyte-colony stimulating factor levels than controls and maintained high levels
during the convalescent phase. IL-10 was detected at high concentrations during the
acute phase, but returned to normal levels during the convalescent phase. Plasma
IL-10 concentration was positively correlated with parasitaemia in P. vivax and P.
falciparum-infected patients. The same was true for the TNF-α concentration in P.
falciparum-infected patients. Finally, the haematological and cytokine profiles were
similar between uncomplicated P. falciparum and P. vivax infections. 相似文献
The synthesis of comprehensive databases on the identity and distributions of alien organisms is a critical step to developing informed invasion management plans and identifying areas that are data-deficient. Here, we assembled all available records of alien ant distributions for Mexico, based on the literature, databases and unpublished data for a period ranging from 1855 to 2019; we compiled 967 records for 42 ant species non-native to Mexico, distributed across 438 localities. For the first time, we present mapped records and the distribution database of alien ants which is available through The Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics database at www.antmaps.org. The most commonly recorded species were Paratrechina longicornis, Monomorium pharaonis and Anoplolepis gracilipes. The states with the most records were Veracruz, Chiapas, Jalisco and Quintana Roo. The alien ants were most frequently encountered in urban areas (372 records) and in deciduous forest habitats (220). We provide summary of their distribution patterns and other related information useful for the control of these species in Mexico.
Rhopalosiphum padi (Linnaeus, 1758) is abundant and has a broad geographic distribution. It is one of the most important cereal pests. In Brazil, the economic losses associated with this aphid result mainly from the transmission of the barley yellow dwarf viruses.
Decision-making for the adoption of management measures must consider the initial population size, the potential for population increase, and the time when this population will reach levels at which the resulting damage is equal to the costs of control measures. Consequently, the establishment of management programmes and decision support systems should be based on models that estimate the potential population growth of this pest species.
Temperature is one of the main factors that determine the growth rate of insect populations. Generally, controlled experiments are designed to examine the relationship of temperature at fixed intervals in relation to the development phases of insects. In nature, thermal regimes are not constant, and population growth is the result of a series of combined events.
In this work, the effects of different thermal regimes on the population growth of R. padi were compared.
An agent-based model was used to estimate population growth, and the parameters defined in controlled regimes were compared with fluctuating temperatures under natural conditions.
The temperature-driven model presented here can serve as a tool to predict population growth and decision-making for aphid management.
The model structure and the proposed experimental design allow the addition of modules and layers of factors that can progressively affect the populations of aphids to gradually improve the model.
Patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) are currently being increasingly used as primary outcome measures in observational and experimental studies since they inform clinicians and researchers about the health‐status of patients and generate data to facilitate improved care. PROs usually appear as discrete and bounded with U, J, or inverse J shapes, and hence, exponential family members offer inadequate distributional fits. The beta‐binomial distribution has been proposed in the literature to fit PROs. However, the fact that the beta‐binomial distribution does not belong to the exponential family limits its applicability in the regression model context, and classical estimation approaches are not straightforward. Moreover, PROs are usually measured in a longitudinal framework in which individuals are followed up for a certain period. Hence, each individual obtains several scores of the PRO over time, which leads to the repeated measures and defines the correlation structure in the data. In this work, we have developed and proposed an estimation procedure for the analysis of correlated discrete and bounded outcomes, particularly PROs, by a beta‐binomial mixed‐effects model. Additionally, we have implemented the methodology in the PROreg package in R. Because there are similar approaches in the literature to address the same issue, this work also incorporates a comparison study between our proposal and alternative methodologies commonly implemented in R and shows the superior performance of our estimation procedure. This paper was motivated by the analysis of the health‐status of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, where the main objective is the assessment of risk factors that may affect the evolution of the disease. The application of the proposed approach in the study leads to clinically relevant results. 相似文献
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is a pesticide that was commonly used for decades worldwide. The use of DDT was banned in the 1970s and 1980s in Europe because of its high toxicity and persistence in the environment, bioaccumulation in living organisms and biomagnification through food webs. However, monitoring using both invasive and non-invasive methods has routinely reported the occurrence of DDT metabolites such as dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) in wild birds, providing valuable information about the exposure to pesticides and potential differences between species and over time. Here, we analysed the relative proportion of DDE in the uropygial gland secretions of European Blackbirds Turdus merula from two localities in southern Spain. Given the negative effects of this pollutant on animal immunity, we also tested for associations between the prevalence of haemosporidians and the relative proportion of DDE in their secretions. Relative proportions of DDE varied between sampling sites and were higher in females than in males, regardless of their age. In spite of the potential immunosuppressive effect of DDE, haemosporidian infection was not associated with DDE presence. 相似文献