Evaluation of the completion of influenza vaccination

OBJECTIVE: To find the reasons which determine failures to comply with anti-flu vaccinations, so that these can be corrected and the coverage of this preventive action be increased. DESIGN: Observational crossover study, done by means of a telephone survey of people over 65. A questionnaire with closed questions, composed after a pilot study and validated by Cronbach's alpha. SETTING: Primary Care Centre (PCC). PATIENTS: We calculated a population sample for qualitative variables (_ = 0.05; p = 0.60; e = 0.05) of 294 people over 65, chosen from the PCC records, by means of random sampling (K = 4) stratified for age and discounting the telephone selection bias. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: The proportion of vaccinated patients (60.9%) obtained in our study did not significantly differ from that in the general population. The percentage of patients included in the programme for the first time was 14%. Level of satisfaction among those vaccinated was 89.4%, with 8.9% of problems detected being light. Main causes of non-vaccination were: thinking that they didn't need it (63.5%), ignorance of the campaign (35.7%), fear of the reaction (24.3%), forgetting (10.4%). The main form of access to the campaign information was from the PCC, both through individuals and posters. Lack of information was statistically significant (p < 0.00001) as a determinant of non-vaccination, without other factors (age, sex, associated pathologies...) explaining these differences. CONCLUSIONS: Individualised and on-going health education by the PCC is fundamental. This would enable the identification of the group not vaccinated due to their express refusal and the recovery of non-vaccinated patients.     

The potato mitochondrial initiator methionine tRNA gene and its flanking regions: an illustration of the diversity of mitochondrial genome rearrangements among plant species

The initiator methionine transfer RNA (tRNA(fMet)) gene was identified on a 347 bp Eco RI-Hind III DNA fragment of the potato mitochondrial (mt) genome. The sequence of this gene shows 1 to 7 nucleotide differences with the other plant mt tRNAs(fMet) or tRNA(fMet) genes studied so far. Whereas the tRNA(fMet) gene is present as a single copy in the potato mt genome, a tRNA 'pseudogene' corresponding to 60% of a complete tRNA (from the 5' end to the variable region) and located at 105 nucleotides upstream of the tRNA(fMet) gene on the opposite strand was shown to be repeated at least three times. Furthermore, the physical environment of the tRNA(fMet) gene in the mt genome is very different among plants, which suggests that the tRNA(fMet) gene region has often been implicated in recombination events of plant mt genomes leading to important rearrangements in gene order.     

Effect-Size Indices for Dichotomized Outcomes in Meta-Analysis.

It is very common to find meta-analyses in which some of the studies compare 2 groups on continuous dependent variables and others compare groups on dichotomized variables. Integrating all of them in a meta-analysis requires an effect-size index in the same metric that can be applied to both types of outcomes. In this article, the performance in terms of bias and sampling variance of 7 different effect-size indices for estimating the population standardized mean difference from a 2 × 2 table is examined by Monte Carlo simulation, assuming normal and nonnormal distributions. The results show good performance for 2 indices, one based on the probit transformation and the other based on the logistic distribution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metric analysis of the information visibility and diffusion about the European Higher Education Area on Spanish University websites

The purpose of the study proposed in this paper is to evaluate the Spanish public university websites dedicated to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). To do so, the quality of these resources has been analysed in the light of data provided by a series of indicators grouped in seven criteria, most of which were used to determine what information is made available and in what way. The criteria used in our analysis are: visibility, authority, updatedness, accesibility, correctness and completeness, quality assessment and navigability. All in all, the results allow us to carry out an overall diagnosis of the situation and also provide us with information about the situation at each university, thus revealing their main strengths, namely authority and navegability, and also their chief shortcomings: updatedness, accessibility and quality assessment. In this way it is possible to detect the best practices in each of the aspects evaluated so that they can serve as an example and guide for universities with greater deficiencies and thus help them to improve their EHEA websites.     

An architecture for a configurable mixed-signal device

The mixed-signal programmable system-on-chip (PSOC) architecture for high-volume low-cost applications is presented. Programmable analog, digital, and clocking circuits are combined with flash memory and a microcontroller to provide a platform for single-chip solutions for low-cost consumer applications. Both programmable analog and digital circuits are designed to support a moderate level of abstraction, balancing flexibility against cost and performance. A rough comparison of alternative approaches based on functionality and cost is presented.     

Karyotype description of Pomacea patula catemacensis (Caenogastropoda, Ampullariidae), with an assessment of the taxonomic status of Pomacea patula.

Mitotic chromosomes of the freshwater snail Pomacea patula catemacensis (Baker 1922) were analyzed on gill tissue of specimens from the type locality (Lake Catemaco, Mexico). The diploid number of chromosomes is 2n = 26, including nine metacentric and four submetacentric pairs; therefore, the fundamental number is FN = 52, No sex chromosomes could be identified. The same chromosome number and morphology were already reported for P. flagellata, i.e., the other species of the genus living in Mexico. The basic haploid number for family Ampullariidae was reported to be n = 14 in the literature; so, its reduction to n = 13 is probably an apomorphy of the Mexican Pomacea snails. Lanistes bolteni, from Egypt, also shows n = 13, but its karyotype is much more asymmetrical, and seems to have evolved independently from P. flagellata and P. patula catemacensis. The nominotypical subspecies, P. patula patula (Reeve 1856), is a poorly known taxon, whose original locality is unknown. A taxonomical account is presented here, and a Mexican origin postulated as the most parsimonious hypothesis.     

Basal ganglia organization in amphibians: catecholaminergic innervation of the striatum and the nucleus accumbens

The aim of the present study was to determine the origin of the catecholaminergic inputs to the telencephalic basal ganglia of amphibians. For that purpose, retrograde tracing techniques were combined with tyrosine hydroxylase immunohistochemistry in the anurans Xenopus laevis and Rana perezi and the urodele Pleurodeles waltl. In all three species studied, a topographically organized dopaminergic projection was identified arising from the posterior tubercle/mesencephalic tegmentum and terminating in the striatum and the nucleus accumbens. Although essentially similar, the organization of the mesolimbic and mesostriatal connections in anurans seems to be more elaborate than in urodeles. The present study has also revealed the existence of a noradrenergic projection to the basal forebrain, which has its origin in the locus coeruleus. Additional catecholaminergic afferents to the striatum and the nucleus accumbens arise from the nucleus of the solitary tract, where catecholaminergic neurons appear to give rise to the bulk of the projections to the basal forebrain. In other regions, such as the olfactory bulb, the anterior preoptic area, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and the thalamus, retrogradely labeled neurons (after basal forebrain tracer-applications) and catecholaminergic cells were intermingled, but none of these centers contained double-labeled cell bodies. It is concluded that the origin of the catecholaminergic innervation of the striatum and the nucleus accumbens in amphibians is largely comparable to that in amniotes. The present study, therefore, strongly supports the existence of a common pattern in the organization of the catecholaminergic inputs to the basal forebrain among tetrapod vertebrates.     

Drying with Chemical Reaction in Cocoa Beans

Desirable flavor qualities of cocoa are dependent on how the cocoa beans are fermented, dried, and roasted. During fermentation and drying, polyphenols such as leucocyanidin and apecatechin are oxidized by polyphenols oxidase to form o-quinone, which later react nonenzymatically with a hydroquinone in a condensation reaction to form browning products and moisture. The objective of this article is to model the cocoa beans drying together with the browning reaction. A Luikov drying model for the moisture and a simple Fick's law diffusion model combined with first-order reactions for both the enzymatic oxidation and nonenzymatic condensation reactions were constructed. Both models were used to identify moisture diffusivity coefficient and total polyphenols diffusivity in cocoa beans from experimental drying and polyphenols degradation data and published kinetic data of the reactions. The theoretical drying model fitted the experimental cocoa bean drying curves with low mean square of residuals. The polyphenols diffusion and reaction model also fitted the experimental polyphenols degradation curves with minimum mean residual squares. The rate of polyphenols degradation in the cocoa beans increases at higher temperature and higher relative humidity. This is because the increasing reaction rate of polyphenols oxidation reaction as well as higher moisture diffusion at higher relative humidity and temperature. The effective moisture diffusivity in cocoa beans is estimated to be between 8.194 × 10^-9 and 8.542 × 10^-9 m²·s^-1, which is of the same order of magnitude as published data. The effective total polyphenols diffusivity is estimated to be between 8.333 × 10^-12 to 1.000 × 10^-11 m²·s^-1 with minimum mean residual squares. It is three orders of magnitude less than the estimated moisture diffusivity because of the larger polyphenols molecules. The estimated polyphenols diffusivity is very close to those published in the literature for sorption and ultrafiltration processes.     

Deep-MEG: spatiotemporal CNN features and multiband ensemble classification for predicting the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease with magnetoencephalography

Neural Computing and Applications - In this paper, we present the novel Deep-MEG approach in which image-based representations of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data are combined with ensemble...