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Abstract Background Aedes aegypti is associated with dengue, Zika, and chikungunya transmission. These arboviruses are responsible for national outbreaks with severe public health implications. Vector control is one of the tools used to prevent mosquito proliferation, and SumiLarv® 2MR is an alternative commercial product based on pyriproxyfen for larval/pupal control. In this study, the residual effectiveness of SumiLarv® 2MR in different regions of Brazil was evaluated in simulated field conditions. Methods We conducted a multicenter study across four Brazilian states—Amapá, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo—given the importance to the country’s climatic variances in the north, northeast, and southeast regions and their influence on product efficiency. The populations of Ae. aegypti from each location were held in an insectary. Third-instar larvae (L3) were added every 2 weeks to water containers with SumiLarv® 2MR discs in 250-, 500- and 1000-l containers in Amapá and Rio de Janeiro, and 100-l containers in Pernambuco and São Paulo, using concentrations of 0.04, 0.08, and 0.16 mg/l. Results Adult emergence inhibition over 420 days was observed in all tests conducted at a concentration of 0.16 mg/l; inhibition for 308–420 days was observed for 0.08 mg/l, and 224–420 days for 0.04 mg/l. Conclusions Sumilarv® 2MR residual activity demonstrated in this study suggests that this new pyriproxyfen formulation is a promising alternative for Aedes control, regardless of climatic variations and ideal concentration, since the SumiLarv® 2MR showed adult emergence inhibition of over 80% and residual activity greater than 6 months, a period longer than that recommended by the Ministry of Health of Brazil between product re-application in larval breeding sites. Graphical abstract

Abstract Ocotea velloziana (Lauraceae) is a species with cryptic dioecy. The staminate flowers of this species have a pistillode and pistillate flowers have staminodes, which often makes it difficult to describe circumscribe the reproductive system correctly. Therefore, to understand the evolution of dioecy in this species, the morphology of both floral morphotypes needs to be described. We apply traditional and modern approaches to describe the comparative floral anatomy of the two floral morphotypes in O. velloziana. We found that the pistillate flowers have fewer (three) vascular traces in the tepals (compared to five traces in the tepals of the staminate flowers). The pistillode and the staminodes in the flowers of O. velloziana are smaller and less vascularized than their homologous, fertile counterparts, the pistils and stamens. In addition, even though the nectaries are smaller in pistillate flowers, their basic morphology and vascularization are similar in the two floral morphotypes. Our results suggest androtepaly in O. velloziana, however future ontogenetic studies and investigation of the vascularization are necessary in other Lauraceae species to clarify this issue. The nectaries have originated from the hypanthium and may be characterized as nectar-secreting emergencies not homologous to the stamens.

Abstract Background Most cases of malaria in Brazil are concentrated in the Amazon region. One of the vector control alternatives recommended by the WHO is the long-lasting insecticidal net (LLIN). This tool is used in the nine federal states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon, where LLINs are essential for reducing vector density and disease transmission as they prevent contact between the mosquito and the individual. The objective of this study was to evaluate the residuality and use of LLIN insecticides in different health regions in a city located in the Brazilian Amazon. Methods A total of 17,027 LLINs were installed in the third, fifth and ninth health regions of the municipality of Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil. The LLINs were of two types: Olyset (permethrin), for around the bed, and Interceptor (alphacypermethrin), for around hammocks. The residuality of 172 LLINs was evaluated using cone bioassays to verify the mortality rate of the mosquito Nyssorhynchus darlingi, over a period of 2 years. Structured questionnaires on the acceptance and use of LLINs were distributed to the participating population (n = 391), covering a total sample of 1147 mosquito nets. The mortality rate was evaluated both in terms of days after LLIN installation and the type of insecticide used. Statistical analyses were based on analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square and were performed using the SPSS statistical program. Results For the Ny. darlingi mosquito, Interceptor-type LLINs showed residual efficacy, with mortality rates ≥ 80% during the 2-year study period, as determined by the WHO. In contrast, Olyset-type LLINs were associated with a reduction in mortality rates, with 76% and 45% mortality rates in the last two assessments, which occurred during the last 6 months of the study period. Based on the structured questionnaires, the acceptance rate, i.e. percentage of individuals accepting the permanence of the 1147 LLINs sampled, in the three health regions of Porto Velho was 93.8% (of 1076 LLINs). Conclusion The alphacypermethrin-impregnated LLIN was more effective than the LLIN impregnated with permethrin. The results indicate that the correct use of mosquito nets—and consequently the protection of the population—needs to be supported by health promotion actions. These initiatives are considered to be essential for the success of this vector control strategy. New studies that consider the monitoring of the placement of mosquito nets are necessary to provide effective support in the correct use of this methodology. Graphical Abstract

New investigations using ovitraps showed its presence the Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) in four neighborhoods in the metropolitan region of Macapa, capital of Amapa, Brazil. An Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus, 1762) Infestation Index Rapid Survey (LIRAa) held in January 2020 indicated the presence of Ae. albopictus in 10 different neighborhoods, demonstrating increase dispersion in the municipality. Monitoring the distribution of Ae. albopictus is necessary due to related arboviruses transmission, such as Dengue, Zika and Chikungunya. Therefore, this research is relevant to public health in Brazil.

Abstract Background Machine learning (ML) has made a significant impact in medicine and cancer research; however, its impact in these areas has been undeniably slower and more limited than in other application domains. A major reason for this has been the lack of availability of patient data to the broader ML research community, in large part due to patient privacy protection concerns. High-quality, realistic, synthetic datasets can be leveraged to accelerate methodological developments in medicine. By and large, medical data is high dimensional and often categorical. These characteristics pose multiple modeling challenges. Methods In this paper, we evaluate three classes of synthetic data generation approaches; probabilistic models, classification-based imputation models, and generative adversarial neural networks. Metrics for evaluating the quality of the generated synthetic datasets are presented and discussed. Results While the results and discussions are broadly applicable to medical data, for demonstration purposes we generate synthetic datasets for cancer based on the publicly available cancer registry data from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program. Specifically, our cohort consists of breast, respiratory, and non-solid cancer cases diagnosed between 2010 and 2015, which includes over 360,000 individual cases. Conclusions We discuss the trade-offs of the different methods and metrics, providing guidance on considerations for the generation and usage of medical synthetic data.

Neurons form complex networks that evolve over multiple time scales. In order to thoroughly characterize these networks, time dependencies must be explicitly modeled. Here, we present a statistical model that captures both the underlying structural and temporal dynamics of neuronal networks. Our model combines the class of Stochastic Block Models for community formation with Gaussian processes to model changes in the community structure as a smooth function of time. We validate our model on synthetic data and demonstrate its utility on three different studies using in vitro cultures of dissociated neurons.

Oncology is a highly siloed field of research in which sub-disciplinary specialization has limited the amount of information shared between researchers of distinct cancer types. This can be attributed to legitimate differences in the physiology and carcinogenesis of cancers affecting distinct anatomical sites. However, underlying processes that are shared across seemingly disparate cancers probably affect prognosis. The objective of the current study is to investigate whether multitask learning improves 5-year survival cancer patient survival prediction by leveraging information across anatomically distinct HPV related cancers. Data were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program database. The study cohort consisted of 29,768 primary cancer cases diagnosed in the United States between 2004 and 2015. Ten different cancer diagnoses were selected, all with a known association with HPV risk. In the analysis, the cancer diagnoses were categorized into three distinct topography groups of varying specificity. The most specific topography grouping consisted of 10 original cancer diagnoses differentiated by the first two digits of the ICD-O-3 topography code. The second topography grouping consisted of cancer diagnoses categorized into six distinct organ groups. Finally, the third topography grouping consisted of just two groups, head-neck cancers and ano-genital cancers. The tasks were to predict 5-year survival for patients within the different topography groups using 14 predictive features which were selected among descriptive variables available in the SEER database. The information from the predictive features was shared between tasks in three different ways, resulting in three distinct predictive models: 1) Information was not shared between patients assigned to different tasks (single task learning); 2) Information was shared between all patients, regardless of task (pooled model); 3) Only relevant information was shared between patients grouped to different tasks (multitask learning). Prediction performance was evaluated with Brier scores. All three models were evaluated against one another on each of the three distinct topography-defined tasks. The results showed that multitask classifiers achieved relative improvement for the majority of the scenarios studied compared to single task learning and pooled baseline methods. In this study, we have demonstrated that sharing information among anatomically distinct cancer types can lead to improved predictive survival models.

Triclocarban (TCC) is among the top 10 most commonly detected wastewater contaminants in both concentration and frequency. Its presence in water, as well as its propensity to bioaccumulate, has raised numerous questions about potential endocrine and developmental effects. Here, we investigated whether exposure to an environmentally relevant concentration of TCC could result in transfer from mother to offspring in CD-1 mice during gestation and lactation using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). 14C-TCC (100 nM) was administered to dams through drinking water up to gestation day 18, or from birth to post-natal day 10. AMS was used to quantify 14C-concentrations in offspring and dams after exposure. We demonstrated that TCC does effectively transfer from mother to offspring, both trans-placentally and via lactation. TCC-related compounds were detected in the tissues of offspring with significantly higher concentrations in the brain, heart and fat. In addition to transfer from mother to offspring, exposed offspring were heavier in weight than unexposed controls demonstrating an 11% and 8.5% increase in body weight for females and males, respectively. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used to examine changes in gene expression in liver and adipose tissue in exposed offspring. qPCR suggested alterations in genes involved in lipid metabolism in exposed female offspring, which was consistent with the observed increased fat pad weights and hepatic triglycerides. This study represents the first report to quantify the transfer of an environmentally relevant concentration of TCC from mother to offspring in the mouse model and evaluate bio-distribution after exposure using AMS. Our findings suggest that early-life exposure to TCC may interfere with lipid metabolism and could have implications for human health.

Relata-se a primeira ocorrência de Lutzomyia longipalpis, o mais importante vetor biológico do agente causador da Leishmaniose Visceral Americana (LVA), no município de Ferreira Gomes, estado do Amapá, Brasil e por tratar-se de uma espécie com grande importância epidemiológica, os autores alertam as autoridades locais. Palavras-chave: Amapá, Ferreira Gomes, Lutzomyia longipalpis, Leishmaniose Visceral Americana. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18561/2179-5746/biotaamazonia.v3n2p179-183

Objetivo: Este estudo transversal analisou as características epidemiológicas de adolescentes internados por ferimentos por armas de fogo e armas brancas em três serviços de emergência de Campo Grande, MS, e estimou os gastos hospitalares dessas internações. Métodos: Os dados, de 78 adolescentes (71 masculinos e 7 femininas) de 10 a 19 anos, foram coletados de prontuários abrangendo o período de um ano. Dados sobre custos provieram dos espelhos de autorizações de internação hospitalar. Resultados: Dos pacientes masculinos, 46 (58,9%) foram vítimas de armas de fogo e 25 (32,1%) de armas brancas; nas pacientes, esses números foram 1 (14,3%) e 6 (85,7%), respectivamente. O tempo médio de internação foi de 6,8 dias, com custo médio de R$ 935,00.Conclusão: Constatou-se que em adolescentes as lesões causadas por ambos os tipos de arma são frequentes e têm alto custo econômico e social para as vítimas, suas famílias e a sociedade.

Background: Aedes aegypti is associated with dengue, Zika, and chikungunya transmission. These arboviruses are responsible for national outbreaks with severe public health implications. Vector control is one of the tools used to prevent mosquito proliferation, and SumiLarv® 2MR is an alternative commercial product based on pyriproxyfen for larval/pupal control. In this study, the residual effectiveness of SumiLarv® 2MR in different regions of Brazil was evaluated in simulated field conditions. Methods: We conducted a multicenter study across four Brazilian states—Amapá, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo—given the importance to the country's climatic variances in the north, northeast, and southeast regions and their influence on product efficiency. The populations of Ae. aegypti from each location were held in an insectary. Third-instar larvae (L3) were added every 2 weeks to water containers with SumiLarv® 2MR discs in 250-, 500- and 1000-l containers in Amapá and Rio de Janeiro, and 100-l containers in Pernambuco and São Paulo, using concentrations of 0.04, 0.08, and 0.16 mg/l. Results: Adult emergence inhibition over 420 days was observed in all tests conducted at a concentration of 0.16 mg/l; inhibition for 308–420 days was observed for 0.08 mg/l, and 224–420 days for 0.04 mg/l. Conclusions: Sumilarv® 2MR residual activity demonstrated in this study suggests that this new pyriproxyfen formulation is a promising alternative for Aedes control, regardless of climatic variations and ideal concentration, since the SumiLarv® 2MR showed adult emergence inhibition of over 80% and residual activity greater than 6 months, a period longer than that recommended by the Ministry of Health of Brazil between product re-application in larval breeding sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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