Publications by authors named "Ana M Espinoza"

Background: Continuous peripheral nerve blocks (CPNB) provide an opioid-free alternative for pain control after orthopaedic surgery. However, postdischarge ambulatory patient care and follow-up concerns have prevented CPNB use at home.

Objective: To address physicians' concerns about the outpatient use of CPNB.

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FMD remains endemic in many Asian and African countries where multiple variants of serotypes O and A, among others, currently circulate. Due to lack of cross-protection between serotypes and incomplete protection between some strains even within a serotype, an important challenge for the application of effective vaccination programs is to select highly immunogenic and widely cross-reactive vaccine strains. Adaptation of a candidate field virus for use as a vaccine can be quite complex, so that whenever possible, the use of well-established vaccine viruses could have enormous advantages.

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Background: Despite the increasing use of regional anesthesia, specific recommendations regarding the type of procedures to be included in residency training programs are not currently available. We aimed to determine the nerve block techniques that practicing Chilean anesthesiologists perceived as essential to master during residency training.

Methods: After institutional ethics committee approval, an online survey was sent to 154 anesthesiologists that graduated between 2005-2012, from the two largest university residency programs in Chile.

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Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus serotype O has been circulating regularly throughout most provinces of Ecuador, one of the two South American countries that still remain endemic, although satisfactory vaccination coverage was reported. This study concentrates in the characterization of isolates collected during 2008-2011, focusing particularly on the antigenic and immunogenic relationships of the field viruses with the O1/Campos vaccine strain in use in the region and with an experimental vaccine formulated with a representative strain of the 2010 epidemic. The results established that antigenically divergent variants poorly protected by the vaccine in use emerged and co-circulated in a limited period of time.

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Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis is the most widely used microbial control agent against mosquitoes and blackflies. Its insecticidal success is based on an arsenal of toxins, such as Cry4A, Cry4B, Cry11A, and Cyt1A, harbored in the parasporal crystal of the bacterium.

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Oryza grandiglumis is a wild species of rice endemic to tropical America. This species was first found in 1998 in the wetlands of Caño Negro, located in the northern part of Costa Rica. Twenty five plants of O.

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Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) synthesizes crystalline inclusions that are toxic to caterpillars (Lepidoptera) and other orders of invertebrates. Materials associated with 37 caterpillars from 16 species, collected while feeding on 15 different species of host plants in dry, cloud and rain forests located in the Area de Conservación Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica, were examined for the presence of Bt. From a total of 101 derived samples, 25 Bt isolates were cultured: 56% from host plant leaves, 8% from caterpillar guts and 36% from caterpillar fecal pellets.

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Costa Rican natural ecosystems are among the most diverse in the world. For this reason, we isolated strains of the entomopathogenic bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to determine their diversity, distribution and abundance. A total of 146 Bt strains were obtained from environmental samples collected from diverse natural ecosystems and life zones of Costa Rica.

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A reliable bioassay procedure was developed to test ingested Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins on the rice delphacid Tagosodes orizicolus. Initially, several colonies were established under greenhouse conditions, using rice plants to nurture the insect. For the bioassay, an in vitro feeding system was developed for third to fourth instar nymphs.

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Tagosodes orizicolus (Homoptera: Delphacidae) is one of the main constraints of the rice production in the Neotropics. This planthopper produces severe damages as a phloem feeder, causes mechanical injury during oviposition and vectors the rice hoja blanca virus (RHBV). The main objective of this study was to determine the genetic diversity of T.

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Tagosodes orizicolus Muir (Homoptera: Delphacidae), the endemic delphacid species of tropical America carries yeast-like symbiotes (YLS) in the abdominal fat bodies and the ovarial tissues, like other rice planthoppers of Asia. These YLS are obligate symbiotes, which are transmitted transovarially, and maintain a mutualistic relationship with the insect host. This characteristic has made in vitro culture and classification of YLS rather difficult using conventional methods.

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The non-structural NS3 protein gene from the rice hoja blanca virus (RHBV) was fused to the glutathione-S-transferase carboxilic end and expressed in Escherichia coli strain JM83. Large quantities of fusion protein were produced in insoluble form. The fusion protein was fractionated in SDS-PAGE and purified by electroelution, polyclonal antibodies were raised in rabbit and the antiserum was absorbed with bacterial crude extract.

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The coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei Ferrari (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) was first reported infecting Costa Rican coffee plantations in the year 2000. Due to the impact that this plague has in the economy of the country, we were interested in seeking new alternatives for the biological control of H. hampei, based on the entomopathogenic bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis.

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Genetic engineering and the food derived from genetically modified crops (GMCs) have been the center of debate worldwide, as has occurred historically with the advent of new technologies. Questions are derived from the potential impact of GMCs to the environment and the safety of the products to the consumers. In relation to the first inquiry, practice has been oriented to a case-by-case-study, according to the own characteristics of the GMC, in order to minimize its impact in the environment.

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With the purpose of increasing the embryogenesis regeneration process in vitroplants obtained from somatic embryos of the indica rice variety CR-5272 (Oryza sativa L.), two independent experiments were performed. The first experiment consisted in the effect of combination of three concentrations of the gelling agent Phytagel (1.

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Orv'za gluniaepatula is a perennial wild rice species, endemic to tropical America, previously known as the Latin American race of Orrza rufipogon. In Costa Rica, it is found in the northern region of the country, mainly in the wetland of the Medio Queso River, Los Chiles, Alajuela. It is diploid, of AA type genome and because of its genetic relatedness to cultivated rice it is included in the O.

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Bacillus thuringiensis strains isolated from Latin American soil samples that showed toxicity against three Spodoptera frugiperda populations from different geographical areas (Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil) were characterized on the basis of their insecticidal activity, crystal morphology, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of parasporal crystals, plasmid profiles, and cry gene content. We found that the different S. frugiperda populations display different susceptibilities to the selected B.

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The use of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines that do not induce antibodies against non-structural proteins (NSP) is extremely relevant for the demonstration of regions "free of FMDV infection" and control strategies. In this study cattle were primed and boosted with five doses of oil vaccines containing high antigenic payloads on days 0, 90, 130, 160 and 200. The serological response against NSP was measured using four commercially available assays: two 3ABC-ELISAs; one 3B-ELISA (and complementary 3A-ELISA) and an enzyme-immunotransfer blot assay (EITB).

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The wild rice species Oryza latifolia is endemic to Tropical America, allotetraploid and has a CCDD genome type. It belongs to the officinalis group of the genus Oryza. This species is widely distributed throughout the lowlands of Costa Rica and it is found on different life zones, having great morphologic diversity.

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