Effects of Acaricides on the Functional and Numerical Responses of the Phytoseid Predator Neoseiulus idaeus (Acari: Phytoseiidae) to Spider Mite Eggs.

Integrated control tactics are often necessary for pest management. This is especially true for organisms such as the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch. The management of this mite pest species relies on pesticide use, but its short life cycle associated with high selection pressure results in frequent problems of acaricide resistance and population outbreaks. Therefore, combining acaricides and natural enemies is an appealing strategy for managing this pest species. The predatory mite Neoseiulus idaeus Denmark & Muma (Phytoseiidae) is important in arid environments, where other natural enemies show low efficacy. Thus, we investigated the effects of representative acaricides used for managing spider mites around the world in several crops (i.e., abamectin, fenpyroximate, and azadirachtin), on the functional and numerical responses of the phytoseid predator N. idaeus to increasing egg densities of its prey. Acaricide exposure did not affect the type of N. idaeus functional response or attack rate (a). However, acaricide exposure decreased the amount of consumed prey and increased prey handling time (Th). All acaricides affected the numerical response of the predator, which reduced oviposition rates. Therefore, caution is required in attempts to integrate the control methods.

Elafin expression in mucosa of fallopian tubes is altered by hydrosalpinx.

Elafin is a natural antimicrobial molecule and a member of the antileukoproteinase (Trappin) family. It is normally expressed in the mucosae of fallopian tubes. Hydrosalpinx is a chronic inflammatory process of the fallopian tubes. The objective of this study is to compare the localization of elafin protein and levels of elafin messenger RNA (mRNA) in the mucosa of oviducts with and without hydrosalpinx. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed on tissue sections of hydrosalpinx (n = 10) and normal tubes (n = 22) from paraffin-embedded blocks, obtained from patients who underwent salpingectomy for benign conditions. The main outcome measure was the intensity of staining with 3,3'-diaminobenzidine calculated by ImageJ software and mRNA expression by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The mean intensity of elafin (mean ± standard deviation) in mucosae of the fallopian tubes was 69.68 ± 24.55 in controls and 32.03±18.16 in patients with hydrosalpinx (P < .0001). Elafin mRNA levels were reduced in hydrosalpinx, although not significantly (P = .05, n = 9 from each group). Therefore, tubal epithelium of women with hydrosalpinx seems to have a lower expression of elafin, an elastase inhibitor and a natural antimicrobial molecule, compared to normal tubes.

Assessing erectile neurogenic dysfunction from heart rate variability through a Generalized Linear Mixed Model framework.

BACKGROUND: The low (LF) vs. high (HF) frequency energy ratio, computed from the spectral decomposition of heart beat intervals, has become a major tool in cardiac autonomic system control and sympatho-vagal balance studies. The (statistical) distributions of response variables designed from ratios of two quantities, such as the LF/HF ratio, are likely to non-normal, hence preventing e.g., from a relevant use of the t-test. Even using a non-parametric formulation, the solution may be not appropriate as the test statistics do not account for correlation and heteroskedasticity, such as those that can be observed when several measures are taken from the same patient. OBJECTIVES: The analyses for such type of data require the application of statistical models which do not assume a priori independence. In this spirit, the present contribution proposes the use of the Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) framework to assess differences between groups of measures performed over classes of patients. METHODS: Statistical linear mixed models allow the inclusion of at least one random effect, besides the error term, which induces correlation between observations from the same subject. Moreover, by using GLMM, practitioners could assume any probability distribution, within the exponential family, for the data, and naturally model heteroskedasticity. Here, the sympatho-vagal balance expressed as LF/HF ratio of patients suffering neurogenic erectile dysfunction under three different body positions was analyzed in a case-control protocol by means of a GLMM under gamma and Gaussian distributed responses assumptions. RESULTS: The gamma GLMM model was compared with the normal linear mixed model (LMM) approach conducted using raw and log transformed data. Both raw GLMM gamma and log transformed LMM allow better inference for factor effects, including correlations between observations from the same patient under different body position compared to the raw LMM. The gamma GLMM provides a more natural distribution assumption of a response expressed as a ratio. CONCLUSIONS: A gamma distribution assumption intrinsically models quadratic relationships between the expected value and the variance of the data avoiding prior data transformation. SAS and R source code are available on request.

[Asthma concepts and epidemiological tools for prevalence researches]. / Conceitos de asma e instrumentos de levantamentos epidemiológicos de prevalência.

INTRODUCTION: Asthma, as a multifatorial disease, with high prevalence and frequent recurrence, attack people, independently of age, sex and geographical area. Because of lack of consensus about the definition of asthma, many questionnaires have been developed to standardize epidemiological criteria of suspicion and diagnosis. Among them, the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) is an important tool for prevalence studies on adults aged from 20 to 44 years old, that represented a methodological improvement of epidemiological surveys, turning them comparable about time and place. The objectives of this article are to comment the evolution of asthma concepts and its repercussion on epidemiological surveys, as well as to chronicle the tools used on these surveys, emphasizing the importance of ECRHS and presenting epidemiological data of asthma on 351 universitary hospital servers at Recife City -- Pernambuco -- Brazil.

alpha-Interferon therapy for HBV-related glomerulonephritis.

We report a case of a patient with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN) who showed improvement after interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) therapy. A 35-year-old man with nephrotic syndrome and HBV antigens received a 24-week course of IFN-alpha. At the end of therapy there was an elevation in the level of plasma aminotransferase and an increase in proteinuria, which were followed by antigen/antibody seroconversion. This "flare-up" before seroconversion suggests an increase in disease activity in the liver and kidney, demonstrating in vivo HBV involvement in MGN.

Abscesso do Psoas. / Psoas abscess

O abscesso do musculo psoas (AMP), uma entidade que permaneceu praticamente incognita no seculo passado, onde a tuberculose era o seu representante maximo, vem recebendo cada vez maior numero de publicacoes onde procura-se ressaltar seu polimorfismo decorrente principalmente das multiplas afeccoes que podem origina-lo. Metodos como a ecografia, a tomografia axial computadorizada e o uso de radio-isotopos, entraram nos grandes centros quase que, como metodos rotineiros no arsenal diagnostico desta entidade nosologica. Os autores fazem uma breve revisao da literatura, procurando correlacionar os achados de outros autores com sua casuistica de 13 casos, enfatizando principalmente o diagnostico desde as suas formas classicas ate aquelas mais bizarras