Personalized, disease-stage specific, rapid identification of immunosuppression in sepsis.

Introduction: Data overlapping of different biological conditions prevents personalized medical decision-making. For example, when the neutrophil percentages of surviving septic patients overlap with those of non-survivors, no individualized assessment is possible. To ameliorate this problem, an immunological method was explored in the context of sepsis.

Decoding Immuno-Competence: A Novel Analysis of Complete Blood Cell Count Data in COVID-19 Outcomes.

Background: While 'immuno-competence' is a well-known term, it lacks an operational definition. To address this omission, this study explored whether the temporal and structured data of the complete blood cell count (CBC) can rapidly estimate immuno-competence. To this end, one or more ratios that included data on all monocytes, lymphocytes and neutrophils were investigated.

Geo-temporal patterns to design cost-effective interventions for zoonotic diseases -the case of brucellosis in the country of Georgia.

Introduction: Control of zoonosis can benefit from geo-referenced procedures. Focusing on brucellosis, here the ability of two methods to distinguish disease dissemination patterns and promote cost-effective interventions was compared.

Method: Geographical data on bovine, ovine and human brucellosis reported in the country of Georgia between 2014 and 2019 were investigated with (i) the Hot Spot (HS) analysis and (ii) a bio-geographical (BG) alternative.

Data structuring may prevent ambiguity and improve personalized medical prognosis.

Topics expected to influence personalized medicine (PM), where medical decisions, practices, and treatments are tailored to the individual patient, are reviewed. Lack of discrimination due to different biological conditions that express similar values of numerical variables (ambiguity) is regarded to be a major potential barrier for PM. This material explores possible causes and sources of ambiguity and offers suggestions for mitigating the impacts of uncertainties.

Biologically grounded scientific methods: The challenges ahead for combating epidemics.

The protracted COVID 19 pandemic may indicate failures of scientific methodologies. Hoping to facilitate the evaluation and/or update of methods relevant in Biomedicine, several aspects of scientific processes are here explored. First, the background is reviewed.

Test positivity - Evaluation of a new metric to assess epidemic dispersal mediated by non-symptomatic cases.

Epidemic control may be hampered when the percentage of asymptomatic cases is high. Seeking remedies for this problem, test positivity was explored between the first 60 to 90 epidemic days in six countries that reported their first COVID-19 case between February and March 2020: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Uruguay. Test positivity (TP) is the percentage of test-positive individuals reported on a given day out of all individuals tested the same day.

Early network properties of the COVID-19 pandemic - The Chinese scenario.

Objectives: To control epidemics, sites more affected by mortality should be identified.

Methods: Defining epidemic nodes as areas that included both most fatalities per time unit and connections, such as highways, geo-temporal Chinese data on the COVID-19 epidemic were investigated with linear, logarithmic, power, growth, exponential, and logistic regression models. A z-test compared the slopes observed.

Where and when to vaccinate? Interdisciplinary design and evaluation of the 2018 Tanzanian anti-rabies campaign.

Objectives: Hoping to improve health-related effectiveness, a two-phase vaccination against rabies was designed and executed in northern Tanzania in 2018, which included geo-epidemiological and economic perspectives.

Methods: Considering the local bio-geography and attempting to rapidly establish a protective ring around a city at risk, the first phase intervened on sites surrounding that city, where the population density was lower than in the city at risk. The second phase vaccinated a rural area.

Birth weight, birth order, and age at first solid food introduction influence child growth and body composition in 6- to 8-year-old Maya children: The importance of the first 1000 days of life.

Objectives: To analyze the relationship of birth weight, birth order, breastfeeding duration, and age of introduction of solid foods with height, fat mass, and fat-free mass in a sample of Maya children when aged 6 to 8 years old.

Methods: We collected data on anthropometry, body composition, children's birth weight, birth order, early feeding practices, and household socioeconomic characteristics in a sample of 260 Maya children aged 6 to 8 years living in Merida and Motul, two cities in Yucatan, Mexico. Multiple regression models were performed to identify variables associated with height-for-age (HAZ), fat mass index (FMI), and fat-free mass index (FFMI).

Assessing the Dynamics and Complexity of Disease Pathogenicity Using 4-Dimensional Immunological Data.

Investigating disease pathogenesis and personalized prognostics are major biomedical needs. Because patients sharing the same diagnosis can experience different outcomes, such as survival or death, physicians need new personalized tools, including those that rapidly differentiate several inflammatory phases. To address these topics, a pattern recognition-based method (PRM) that follows an inverse problem approach was designed to assess, in <10 min, eight concepts, and explanatory (pathogenesis).

The Third Cognitive Revolution: The consequences and possibilities for biomedical research.

The Third Cognitive Revolution poses particular challenges for biomedical research to adopt new knowledge. Interdisciplinary education at all levels would help to address these.[Image: see text]

Nature and Consequences of Biological Reductionism for the Immunological Study of Infectious Diseases.

Evolution has conserved "economic" systems that perform many functions, faster or better, with less. For example, three to five leukocyte types protect from thousands of pathogens. To achieve so much with so little, biological systems combine their limited elements, creating complex structures.

Preventing Data Ambiguity in Infectious Diseases with Four-Dimensional and Personalized Evaluations.

Background: Diagnostic errors can occur, in infectious diseases, when anti-microbial immune responses involve several temporal scales. When responses span from nanosecond to week and larger temporal scales, any pre-selected temporal scale is likely to miss some (faster or slower) responses. Hoping to prevent diagnostic errors, a pilot study was conducted to evaluate a four-dimensional (4D) method that captures the complexity and dynamics of infectious diseases.

Comparative Study of Lead Concentration in Feathers of Urban and Rural Passerines in Merida, Mexico.

Lead is a commonly monitored heavy metal because of potential health effects on exposed organisms. We quantified lead in secondary feathers of two passerine bird species, clay-colored thrushes (Turdus grayi) and great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus), from an urban and a rural site in the municipality of Merida, Yucatan. Urban lead concentration was significantly higher than its rural counterpart for both species (p < 0.

Beyond numbers: the informative patterns of immuno-staphylococcal dynamics.

To evaluate new drugs, the immune system should be considered. Here we evaluated a proof-of-concept that uncovers bacterial-leukocyte interactions. Analyzing longitudinal leukocyte data from bovines infected with either methicillin-resistant (MRSA) or methicillin-susceptible (MSSA) Staphylococcus aureus, two methods were investigated: (i) an approach that assesses lymphocytes, monocytes, or neutrophils, separately, and (ii) a method that, using dimensionless indicators (products, ratios, or combinations derived from leukocyte data), explores the dynamics of leukocyte relationships in three-dimensional (3D) space and identifies data subsets of informative value.

Cleaning products, environmental awareness and risk perception in Mérida, Mexico.

Cleaning products are associated with many health and environmental problems. Contamination of water resources by cleaning products is more likely to occur with septic tanks as sewage treatment systems especially in karstic terrains. We explored women's ideas about water sources and the risk cleaning products pose to health and sewage in Mérida, a city in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico.

Feedback-based, system-level properties of vertebrate-microbial interactions.

Background: Improved characterization of infectious disease dynamics is required. To that end, three-dimensional (3D) data analysis of feedback-like processes may be considered.

Methods: To detect infectious disease data patterns, a systems biology (SB) and evolutionary biology (EB) approach was evaluated, which utilizes leukocyte data structures designed to diminish data variability and enhance discrimination.

Development of a brain nucleus involved in song production in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) is disrupted by Aroclor 1248.

We studied whether polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) may alter the development of song control brain nuclei in zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) offspring of pulse-exposed hens. We orally administered 40 microg of Aroclor 1248 to adult female finches before egg laying. When the progeny were 50 d old, we measured the volumes of the song control nuclei robustus arcopallialis (RA) and higher vocal center (HVC) using light microscopy.

Reproductive impairment in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata).

The effects of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as compounds that may disrupt endocrine activity and, consequently, alter reproductive performance were investigated in altricial zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). The breeding performance and breeding cycle of zebra finches differed significantly between nonexposed birds and those experimentally pulse-exposed to Aroclor 1248, a PCB compound (40 microg/bird). Aroclor-exposed birds showed significantly increased numbers of clutches laid, nests constructed per pair, incubation time per pair, and percentage of hatchling mortality compared to controls.

Identification of geographic factors associated with early spread of foot-and-mouth disease.

Objective: To explore whether early analysis of spatial data may result in identification of variables associated with epidemic spread of foot and mouth disease.

Sample Population: 37 farms with infected cattle (ie, case farms) reported within the first 6 days of the 2001 Uruguayan foot-and-mouth disease epidemic.

Procedure: A georeferenced database was created and retrospective analysis was performed on case farm location in relation to farm density, cattle density, farm type (ie, beef vs dairy cattle production), road density, case farm distance to the nearest road, farm size, farm ownership, and day of infection.

Oral treatment of avian lead intoxication with meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid.

The efficacy of meso-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) (succimer) in treating avian lead intoxication was studied in a retrospective, nonrandomized, longitudinal study. Nineteen birds with moderate to high blood lead concentration and neurologic signs compatible with lead toxicity were treated with DMSA (30 mg/kg p.o.