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Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree of agreement between the Fagerstrom Test for Cigarette Dependence (FTCD) and the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI) in daily smokers admitted to smoking cessation clinics from National Healthcare System in Spain and Argentine Republic. Material and methods: An observational, longitudinal, multicenter study (prospective cohort) conducted in smoking clinics in daily clinical practice. The patients were consecutively included as they attended the consultations. The statistical analysis was descriptive, and correlation and concordance tests as well as analysis and regression models were used. Results: In total, 308 subjects were included [161 women (52.3%)], with a mean age of 51.4 (10.8) years. We found an absence of agreement and the existence of a proportional difference between both tests [Regression coefficient for global series: 0.55 (0.52-0.59) p < .001]. This difference increased as the value of the FTCD score increased; that is, the higher the value of the FTCD score was, the greater the difference in relation to the value of the HSI score. Likewise, Cohen's kappa concordance coefficient, according to various combinations of categorization of both tests, showed that the agreement between these variables was only good. Approximately 20% of the subjects were not classified with the same degree of dependence by the two tests. Thus, a classification mismatch existed. Conclusions: We found an absence of agreement between both tests. These data imply that we should not substitute one test for the other when we analyze nicotine dependence in a population of smokers.

Tropical estuarine deltas generally present poorly buffered waters in their freshwaters. Carbonate chemistry predicts that mixture of such warm freshwater with seawater will create rapid consumption of the freshwater carbon dioxide (CO2) by the carbonate buffering capacity of the seawater. In this study, we used the Paraiba do Sul River as a laboratory to investigate how thermodynamics compare with biological processes, gas exchange, and tidal advection from mangrove. We conducted three spatial surveys covering the salinity gradient of the main channel and surrounding mangrove waters and one 24-h mooring in a mangrove creek. In the main channel, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA) showed closely conservative distribution along the salinity gradient, increasing seaward. The partial pressure of CO2 (pCO(2)) followed a bell-shaped curve predicted by carbonate chemistry for conservative mixing of river and ocean endmembers. During high river flow, pCO(2) sharply decreased between salinities 0 and 5 (1800 to 390 ppmv), a pCO(2) drawdown attributed to riverine outgassing and thermodynamics. Indeed, the mixing of TA-poor freshwater (363 +/- 16 mu mol kg(-1)) with TA-rich seawater creates a deficit of dissolved CO2 not related to biotic processes. During low river flow, the entire mixing zone was undersaturated in pCO(2) with an increasing trend seaward. However, observed pCO(2) values were slightly above those predicted by conservativity. Approximately half of this deviation was attributed to biological activity (net heterotrophy), and remaining deviation was assigned to the effects of gas exchange (18%) and water heating (36%). The effect of gas exchange was higher in fresh and low salinity waters, reflecting the higher outgassing/ingassing of CO2, and lower buffering capacity. Water heating was more important in mid- to high-salinities as a result of diel patterns of solar irradiance. Heterotrophy was slight and not able to outcompete thermodynamics and generate outgassing during estuarine mixing. Consistently, stable isotopic signatures of DIC (delta C-13-DIC) presented slight deviations below the conservative mixing, corroborating net heterotrophy in the main channel. Areas of CO2 uptake due to phytoplankton activity were identified but restricted to the freshwater endmember during low river flow, with lowest pCO(2) (up to 41 ppmv) and the highest chlorophyll a (up to 21.3 mu g L-1). The estuary was a CO2 sink during low river flow ( - 1.34 to -5.26 mmolC m(-2) d(-1)) and a source during high river flow (5.71 to 19.37 mmolC m(-2) d(-1)). In the mangrove creek, the pCO(2), DIC, delta C-13-DIC and TA presented deviations from the conservativity, with slopes between TA and DIC demonstrating organic carbon degradation mediated by aerobic respiration and sulphate reduction. Mangrove creek waters were a CO2 source (average of 134.81 mmolC m(-2) d(-1)), exhibiting high values of pCO(2) (up to 21,720 ppmv). The results reveal that the low buffering capacity in the main channel of tropical estuarine deltas can be the predominant driver of pCO(2), generating CO2 undersaturation along the mixing zone, a process overlooked in estuarine systems. Moreover, air-water CO2 exchange, thermal variability, and biological activities contribute to deviation of the carbonate system from conservative mixing in specific estuarine areas, also modulating pCO(2) variability.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2471/BLT.18.213090.].

Invasive fungal infections, such as aspergillosis, candidiasis, and cryptococcosis, have significantly increased among immunocompromised people. To tackle these infections the first and most decisive step is the accurate identification of the causal pathogen. Routine identification of invasive fungal infections has progressed away from culture-dependent methods toward molecular techniques, including DNA barcoding, a highly efficient and widely used diagnostic technique. Fungal DNA barcoding previously relied on a single barcoding region, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. However, this allowed only for 75% of all fungi to be correctly identified. As such, the translational elongation factor 1α (TEF1α) was recently introduced as the secondary barcode region to close the gap. Both loci together form the dual fungal DNA barcoding scheme. As a result, the ISHAM Barcoding Database has been expanded to include sequences for both barcoding regions to enable practical implementation of the dual barcoding scheme into clinical practice. The present study investigates the impact of the secondary barcode on the identification of clinically important fungal taxa, that have been demonstrated to cause severe invasive disease. Analysis of the barcoding regions was performed using barcoding gap analysis based on the genetic distances generated with the Kimura 2-parameter model. The secondary barcode demonstrated an improvement in identification for all taxa that were unidentifiable with the primary barcode, and when combined with the primary barcode ensured accurate identification for all taxa analyzed, making DNA barcoding an important, efficient and reliable addition to the diagnostic toolset of invasive fungal infections. Copyright © 2019 Hoang, Irinyi, Chen, Sorrell, the ISHAM Barcoding of Medical Fungi Working Group and Meyer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Dry root disease of yam (Dioscorea spp.), caused by Scutellonema bradys, Pratylenchus coffeae and brachyurus, isprominent among the plant disease problems of yam in Brazil. In order to evaluate the association of these nematode species withweeds, field sampling was performed during 2016 and 2017 in yam-growing areas with a history of the disease within the majorcounties in the state of Alagoas, Brazil. The frequency of occurrence of both weeds and nematodes was determined, in addition tothe estimated population of nematodes in roots. Forty-three weed species were found, of which 23 were infected with at least one ofthe causal agents of the dry rot disease, Pratylenchus spp. being the most prevalent in the fields. Ageratum conyzoides, Commelina benghalensisandEmilia coccinea (in Zona da Mata) and C. benghalensis (Agreste region) were especially important due to theirhigh frequency of occurrence and also for supporting populations of bradysan Pratylenchus spp. Cyperus flavus, coccinea and permacoce verticillataare now recorded as new weed species associated with. bradys. Made available in DSpace on 2020-01-15T00:37:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marissonia.NEMY3255DeAlmeida.pdf: 190800 bytes, checksum: 7558f1ac8512666fd7f56dcc2516f709 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019

Most inverse problems in the industry (and particularly in geophysical exploration) are highly underdetermined because the number of model parameters too high to achieve accurate data predictions and because the sampling of the data space is scarce and incomplete; it is always affected by different kinds of noise. Additionally, the physics of the forward problem is a simplification of the reality. All these facts result in that the inverse problem solution is not unique; that is, there are different inverse solutions (called equivalent), compatible with the prior information that fits the observed data within similar error bounds. In the case of nonlinear inverse problems, these equivalent models are located in disconnected flat curvilinear valleys of the cost-function topography. The uncertainty analysis consists of obtaining a representation of this complex topography via different sampling methodologies. In this paper, we focus on the use of a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to sample the region of equivalence in nonlinear inverse problems. Although this methodology has a general purpose, we show its application for the uncertainty assessment of the solution of a geophysical problem concerning gravity inversion in sedimentary basins, showing that it is possible to efficiently perform this task in a sampling-while-optimizing mode. Particularly, we explain how to use and analyze the geophysical models sampled by exploratory PSO family members to infer different descriptors of nonlinear uncertainty.

A utilização de material propagativo sadio constitui importante medida de controle para os nematoides da bananeira (Musa spp.), pois, assim, evita-se a introdução desses patógenos em áreas isentas. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito da aplicação de Bacillus subtilis (Nemathel®) no tratamento de mudas, do tipo chifre, de bananeira subgrupo Terra cv. Comprida, infectadas por uma população mista com Radopholus similis, Meloidogyne spp., Pratylenchus spp. e Helicotylenchus spp. Foram testadas diferentes doses do produto (50; 100; 150; 200 e 250 mL/10 L de água) mais as testemunhas positiva (nematicida) e negativa (água). As mudas foram imersas em cada um dos tratamentos por 30 minutos e plantadas em vasos com solo esterilizado. A avaliação foi realizada após quatro meses e as doses de 200 e 250 mL do produto por 10 L de água proporcionaram as maiores reduções das populações dos nematoides em raízes e rizomas. Made available in DSpace on 2019-03-13T00:26:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ZeMauro.pdf: 279201 bytes, checksum: 19989ff2e145380cba20ecdb12d8c8aa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-03-12