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No demographic characteristics identified who might benefit most from pretravel counseling., Among travelers, rabies cases are rare, but animal bites are relatively common. To determine which travelers are at highest risk for rabies, we studied 2,697 travelers receiving care for animal-related exposures and requiring rabies postexposure prophylaxis at GeoSentinel clinics during 1997–2012. No specific demographic characteristics differentiated these travelers from other travelers seeking medical care, making it challenging to identify travelers who might benefit from reinforced pretravel rabies prevention counseling. Median travel duration was short for these travelers: 15 days for those seeking care after completion of travel and 20 days for those seeking care during travel. This finding contradicts the view that preexposure rabies vaccine recommendations should be partly based on longer travel durations. Over half of exposures occurred in Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, China, and India. International travelers to rabies-endemic regions, particularly Asia, should be informed about potential rabies exposure and benefits of pretravel vaccination, regardless of demographics or length of stay.

Background Analysis of a large cohort of business travelers will help clinicians focus on frequent and serious illnesses. We aimed to describe travel-related health problems in business travelers. Methods GeoSentinel Surveillance Network consists of 64 travel and tropical medicine clinics in 29 countries; descriptive analysis was performed on ill business travelers, defined as persons traveling for work, evaluated after international travel 1 January 1997 through 31 December 2014. Results Among 12 203 business travelers seen 1997–2014 (14 045 eligible diagnoses), the majority (97%) were adults aged 20–64 years; most (74%) reported from Western Europe or North America; two-thirds were male. Most (86%) were outpatients. Fewer than half (45%) reported a pre-travel healthcare encounter. Frequent regions of exposure were sub-Saharan Africa (37%), Southeast Asia (15%) and South Central Asia (14%). The most frequent diagnoses were malaria (9%), acute unspecified diarrhea (8%), viral syndrome (6%), acute bacterial diarrhea (5%) and chronic diarrhea (4%). Species was reported for 973 (90%) of 1079 patients with malaria, predominantly Plasmodium falciparum acquired in sub-Saharan Africa. Of 584 (54%) with malaria chemoprophylaxis information, 92% took none or incomplete courses. Thirteen deaths were reported, over half of which were due to malaria; others succumbed to pneumonia, typhoid fever, rabies, melioidosis and pyogenic abscess. Conclusions Diarrheal illness was a major cause of morbidity. Malaria contributed substantial morbidity and mortality, particularly among business travelers to sub-Saharan Africa. Underuse or non-use of chemoprophylaxis contributed to malaria cases. Deaths in business travelers could be reduced by improving adherence to malaria chemoprophylaxis and targeted vaccination for vaccine-preventable diseases. Pre-travel advice is indicated for business travelers and is currently under-utilized and needs improvement.

The dynamics of a mosquito population depends heavily on climatic variables such as temperature and precipitation. Since climate change models predict that global warming will impact on the frequency and intensity of rainfall, it is important to understand how these variables affect the mosquito populations. We present a model of the dynamics of a {\it Culex quinquefasciatus} mosquito population that incorporates the effect of rainfall and use it to study the influence of the number of rainy days and the mean monthly precipitation on the maximum yearly abundance of mosquitoes $M_{max}$. Additionally, using a fracturing process, we investigate the influence of the variability in daily rainfall on $M_{max}$. We find that, given a constant value of monthly precipitation, there is an optimum number of rainy days for which $M_{max}$ is a maximum. On the other hand, we show that increasing daily rainfall variability reduces the dependence of $M_{max}$ on the number of rainy days, leading also to a higher abundance of mosquitoes for the case of low mean monthly precipitation. Finally, we explore the effect of the rainfall in the months preceding the wettest season, and we obtain that a regimen with high precipitations throughout the year and a higher variability tends to advance slightly the time at which the peak mosquito abundance occurs, but could significantly change the total mosquito abundance in a year., Comment: In press in Journal of Theoretical Biology

BACKGROUND: Evans syndrome (ES) is a rare immune disorder in children, manifested by simultaneous or sequential autoimmune cytopenias (ACs) of unknown cause and having a chronic course with periods of exacerbation and remission. Some primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs) may present with autoimmune manifestations without infections, masking suspicion of them. The PIDs that can typically manifest as ES are autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome and common variable immunodeficiency (CVID). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Review of clinical charts and laboratory results of pediatric patients followed-up in the outpatient clinic of PID with a diagnosis of ES and humoral immunodeficiency. RESULTS: Three pediatric patients, a boy and 2 girls, presented with corticosteroid-dependent ES. In the diagnostic approach, autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome was ruled out, and during follow-up, patients showed laboratory signs of humoral immune deficiency and were diagnosed with CVID. After initiating the recommended treatment for CVID with AC, patients improved without new exacerbations. CONCLUSIONS: These cases highlight the importance of detection of possible PID in the context of ES and the establishment of CVID treatment to control AC.

La fortificación de alimentos con ácido fólico puede ser efectiva en la prevención de los defectos del tubo neural, aunque no existen estudios que demuestren la eficacia de esta medida en la harina de maíz. El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar el efecto del consumo de harina de maíz vitaminada sobre los niveles de folatos sanguíneos, en comparación con la suplementación oral. Se incluyeron 45 mujeres en edad fértil aleatorizadas en tres grupos; grupo A (n=18) harina vitaminada, grupo B (n=17) harina sin vitaminas, grupo C (n=10) suplemento oral 5.0 mg de ácido fólico una vez por semana, durante tres meses. A las participantes se les aplicó una encuesta nutricional y se les midió por radioinmunoensayo el folato intraeritrocitario (FIE) y plasmático (FP) al inicio y final del estudio y se determinó la presencia del polimorfismo C677T del gen MTHFR. En las mujeres con suplemento oral los niveles FIE y FP y el hematocrito se incrementaron significativamente (p< 0.05), mientras que en los grupos A y B se registró un incremento significativo en los valores de FP pero no IE ni hematocrito. La ingesta de otras fuentes de ácido fólico se incrementó significativamente en los grupos A y B. El 15.6% de las mujeres fueron homocigotas TT, 42.2% homocigotas CC y 42.2% heterocigotas CT. La administración de 5 mg de ácido fólico por semana es una medida más eficiente que la ingesta de harina de maíz vitaminada para elevar los niveles de folatos.

This paper presents a systematic evaluation of the ability of theoretical models to reproduce experimental Gamow-Teller transition strength distributions measured via (n,p)-type charge-exchange reactions at intermediate beam energies. The focus is on transitions from stable nuclei in the pf shell (45, Comment: 25 pages, 27 figures

La fortificación de alimentos con ácido fólico puede ser efectiva en la prevención de los defectos del tubo neural, aunque no existen estudios que demuestren la eficacia de esta medida en la harina de maíz. El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar el efecto del consumo de harina de maíz vitaminada sobre los niveles de folatos sanguíneos, en comparación con la suplementación oral. Se incluyeron 45 mujeres en edad fértil aleatorizadas en tres grupos; grupo A (n=18) harina vitaminada, grupo B (n=17) harina sin vitaminas, grupo C (n=10) suplemento oral 5.0 mg de ácido fólico una vez por semana, durante tres meses. A las participantes se les aplicó una encuesta nutricional y se les midió por radioinmunoensayo el folato intraeritrocitario (FIE) y plasmático (FP) al inicio y final del estudio y se determinó la presencia del polimorfismo C677T del gen MTHFR. En las mujeres con suplemento oral los niveles FIE y FP y el hematocrito se incrementaron significativamente (p< 0.05), mientras que en los grupos A y B se registró un incremento significativo en los valores de FP pero no IE ni hematocrito. La ingesta de otras fuentes de ácido fólico se incrementó significativamente en los grupos A y B. El 15.6% de las mujeres fueron homocigotas TT, 42.2% homocigotas CC y 42.2% heterocigotas CT. La administración de 5 mg de ácido fólico por semana es una medida más eficiente que la ingesta de harina de maíz vitaminada para elevar los niveles de folatos. Fortification of foods is now widely used to prevent folate deficiency. Folic acid has been added to corn flour and its efficacy in the prevention of NTD has been proved. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of the intake of fortified corn-flour versus non fortified flour and to folic acid supplement, on blood folate levels in women of childbearing age. Forty-five women were randomized into three groups according to: (A) use of fortified flour (n=18), (B) non-fortified flour (n=17); (C) supplementation with 5 mg of oralfolic acid (n=10). All females answer a dietary and anthropometric questionnaire applied once a month during three months. Blood red cell (IE) and plasmatic (P) folate were measured at the beginning and at the end of the study; also the DNA analysis for the 677T mutation was performed. The corn flour was provided to groups A and B during three months, to be consumed as eight tortillas daily. Group C received 5.0 mg tablet of folic acid (Valdecasas®), once per week, during three months. IE and P folate and hematocrito were significantly increased in women from group C (p

BACKGROUND: Mexico and Central America are important travel destinations for North American and European travelers. There is limited information on regional differences in travel related morbidity. METHODS: We describe the morbidity among 4779 ill travelers returned from Mexico and Central America who were evaluated at GeoSentinel network clinics during December 1996 to February 2010. RESULTS: The most frequent presenting syndromes included acute and chronic diarrhea, dermatologic diseases, febrile systemic illness, and respiratory disease. A higher proportion of ill travelers from the United States had acute diarrhea, compared with their Canadian and European counterparts (odds ratio, 1.9; P < .0001). During the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak from March 2009 through February 2010, the proportionate morbidity (PM) associated with respiratory illnesses in ill travelers increased among those returned from Mexico, compared with prior years (196.0 cases per 1000 ill returned travelers vs 53.7 cases per 1000 ill returned travelers; P < .0001); the PM remained constant in the rest of Central America (57.3 cases per 1000 ill returned travelers). We identified 50 travelers returned from Mexico and Central America who developed influenza, including infection due to 2009 H1N1 strains and influenza-like illness. The overall risk of malaria was low; only 4 cases of malaria were acquired in Mexico (PM, 2.2 cases per 1000 ill returned travelers) in 13 years, compared with 18 from Honduras (PM, 79.6 cases per 1000 ill returned travelers) and 14 from Guatemala (PM, 34.4 cases per 1000 ill returned travelers) during the same period. Plasmodium vivax malaria was the most frequent malaria diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Travel medicine practitioners advising and treating travelers visiting these regions should dedicate special attention to vaccine-preventable illnesses and should consider the uncommon occurrence of acute hepatitis A, leptospirosis, neurocysticercosis, acute Chagas disease, onchocerciasis, mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, neurocysticercosis, HIV, malaria, and brucellosis.

Presenters describe the goals of the information, education and communication strategy as: to draw and test innovations in technology and information packaging and dissemination among SANREM partners and to effect increased awareness, develop positive attitude and persuade and motivate farmers to adopt technologies and practices towards sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. The objectives of the strategy are: popularize, package and disseminate project outputs using an innovative communication strategy; provide timely and appropriate information that will help strengthen capacities for environmental decision making among communities, government and academic institutions; mainstream research results into the formal curriculum in the Philippines and Vietnam

Se construyó un electrolizador de agua constituido por cuatro celdas divididas, conectadas bipolarmente, cuyo módulo se ensambla en forma de filtro prensa y con distribución hidráulica en paralelo. Los diafragmas son de fibras de asbesto. El material electródico se compone por laminas de níquel. Su consumo energético a 60°C evaluado a una tensión de celda de 2,25 V fue de 5,38 kWh/m3(CNPT)H2., Tema: Nuevas tecnologías., Asociación Argentina de Energía Solar

Context: Previous reports informed about the species-specific condition of plant phenolic profiles and the association between phenolic composition and plant antioxidant properties. The species-specific condition of phenolic patterns offers the opportunity to develop chemical quality markers for plants used in traditional medicine. However, changes in phenolic composition can occur during plant growth. Physalis angulata is an important medicinal plant for which the age-related variation of phenolic composition and antioxidant properties is unknown. Aims: To assess the phenolic composition and antioxidant properties of above- and under-ground parts of P. angulata at four growth stages and evaluate their potential as chemical quality indicators. Methods: A method of HPLC-DAD was used to assess the phenolic profiles. Anti-radical potential, total antioxidant capacity and iron reducing power were evaluated by spectrometric methods. Sample distinctiveness was determined by cluster analyses. Results: The HPLC-DAD analysis revealed 21 phenolic compounds, which were accumulated in a tissue- and age-specific manner. On the contrary, a clear distinctiveness between phenolic contents and antioxidant properties of samples was not observed. Mature flowers highlighted for its total phenolic content (6.50 mg/g fresh tissue) and total antioxidant capacity (416.1 µg/mL). Young leaves were outstanding for its flavonoid content (37.86 µg/g fresh tissue) and reducing power (A700nm = 4.04). Immature calyces were worthy for its phenolic acid concentration (1.28 µg/g fresh tissue) and its free radical scavenging activity (EC50 = 0.12 mg/mL). Conclusions: Phenolic profiles represent reliable chemical quality indicators for determining plant age, tissular origin, authenticity, and adulteration of herbal preparations of P. angulata.