Towards understanding insect species introduction and establishment: A community-level barcoding approach using island beetles.

Since Darwin put forward his opposing hypotheses to explain the successful establishment of species in areas outside their native ranges, the preadaptation and competition-relatedness hypotheses, known as Darwin's naturalization conundrum, numerous studies have sought to understand the relative importance of each. Here, we take advantage of well-characterized beetle communities across laurel forests of the Canary Islands for a first evaluation of the relative support for Darwin's two hypotheses within arthropods. We generated a mitogenome backbone tree comprising nearly half of the beetle genera recorded within the Canary Islands for the phylogenetic placement of native and introduced species sampled in laurel forests, using cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) sequences.

Prone positioning in COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome and invasive mechanical ventilation.

Objective: To identify adverse events related to prone positioning in COVID-19 patients with severe disease and acute respiratory distress syndrome, to analyze the risk factors associated with the development of anterior pressure ulcers, to determine whether the recommendation of prone positioning is associated with improved clinical outcomes.

Methods: Retrospective study performed in 63 consecutive patients with COVID-19 pneumonia admitted to intensive care unit on invasive mechanical ventilation and treated with prone positioning between March and April 2020. Association between prone-related pressure ulcers and selected variables was explored by the means of logistic regression.

[Prone positioning in Covid-19 patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome and invasive mechanical ventilation].

Objective: To identify adverse events related to prone positioning in COVID-19 patients with severe disease and acute respiratory distress syndrome, to analyze the risk factors associated with the development of anterior pressure ulcers, to determine whether the recommendation of prone positioning is associated with improved clinical outcomes.

Methods: Retrospective study performed in 63 consecutive patients with COVID-19 pneumonia admitted to intensive care unit on invasive mechanical ventilation and treated with prone positioning between March and April 2020. Association between prone-related pressure ulcers and selected variables was explored by the means of logistic regression.

Telehealth Secure Solution to Provide Childhood Obesity Monitoring.

Childhood obesity causes not only medical and psychosocial problems, it also reduces the life expectancy of the adults that they will become. On a large scale, obese adults adversely affect labor markets and the gross domestic product of countries. Monitoring the growth charts of children helps to maintain their body weight within healthy parameters according to the World Health Organization.

Revealing community assembly through barcoding: Mediterranean butterflies and dispersal variation.

In Focus: Scalercio, S., Cini, A., Menchetti, M.

Suitability of therapeutic effort in paediatric intensive care units: Opinion and attitude of professionals.

Objective: To determine the opinion and describe the attitude of different health professionals on suitability of therapeutic effort.

Method: Multi-centre, cross-sectional observational study carried out with nurses and doctors who work in the paediatric intensive care units of four hospitals in the Madrid region. A self-administered questionnaire, previously piloted to assess its viability, was used and a sealed box was set up at the nursing station to hand it in.

Molecular Epidemiology of ALK Rearrangements in Advanced Lung Adenocarcinoma in Latin America.

Objective: Latin American countries are heterogeneous in terms of lung cancer incidence and exposure to potential carcinogens. We evaluated the frequency and clinical characteristics of ALK rearrangements (ALKr) in Latin America.

Methods: A total of 5,130 lung cancer patients from 10 Latin American countries were screened for inclusion.

Smart Device-Based Notifications to Promote Healthy Behavior Related to Childhood Obesity and Overweight.

Obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century and it is a threat to the life of people according to World Health Organization. In this scenario, family environment is important to establish healthy habits which help to reduce levels of obesity and control overweight in children. However, little efforts have been focused on helping parents to promote and have healthy lifestyles.

Simplex optimization of the variables influencing the determination of pefloxacin by time-resolved chemiluminescence.

A new chemiluminescence (CL) detection system combined with flow injection analysis (FIA) for the determination of Pefloxacin is proposed. The determination is based on an energy transfer from Pefloxacin to terbium (III). The metal ion enhances the weak CL signal produced by the KMnO/HSO/Pefloxacin system.

[Thoracic drainage].

Pleural pathology is a frequent clinical problem. In some cases, treatment includes draining the cavity which can be carried out by thoracentesis evacuators, but on occasions treatment requires maintaining a drainage permanently inside the pleural cavity Pleural drainage consists in inserting a catheter in the pleural sack to drain the presence of air; liquid or blood which causes a variable degree of lung collapse having a clinical consequence in function of the reserve breathing capacity the patient previously had and the degree of collapse. There are various models of thoracic tubes as well as systems to drain the pleural cavity and their spot for insertion depends on the type of pathology being dealt with for the patient under treatment.

[Plastic surgery].

The terrorist attack of 11 March tested the response of the Plastic Surgery Department of our center to respond to a mass casualty event. The work performed in the first few hours continued with the same intensity for several days because some patients required more than one intervention and because we were called on by other services to attend patients who could not be evaluated in the Emergency Department. In the present article, we describe the distribution of work and the types of injury produced by terrorist explosions.

The N-terminal POZ domain of GAGA mediates the formation of oligomers that bind DNA with high affinity and specificity.

The Drosophila GAGA factor self-oligomerizes both in vivo and in vitro. GAGA oligomerization depends on the presence of the N-terminal POZ domain and the formation of dimers, tetramers, and oligomers of high stoichiometry is observed in vitro. GAGA oligomers bind DNA with high affinity and specificity.

The interaction of zinc(II) ions with antiparallel-stranded d(GA)n DNA homoduplexes.

In the presence of specific metal-ions (namely zinc but also cadmium, cobalt and manganese), d(GA x TC)n DNA sequences can form non-B-DNA conformations. At low metal-ion concentration they form [GA(GA x TC)] intramolecular triplexes but, upon increasing the metal concentration, the formation of (GA x GA) intramolecular hairpins is detected. In this paper we address the question of the specific effects of zinc on the structure of the d(GA x TC)n sequences.

The GAGA factor of Drosophila binds triple-stranded DNA.

The Drosophila GAGA factor binds specifically to simple repeating d(GA.TC)n DNA sequences. These sequences are known to be capable of forming triple-stranded DNA as well as other non-B-DNA conformations.

Formation of triple-stranded DNA at d(GA.TC)n sequences prevents nucleosome assembly and is hindered by nucleosomes.

Simple repeating d(GA.TC)n DNA sequences are frequently found at eukaryotic promoters, and in some cases they have been shown to be nucleosome free in vivo. These sequences show a high degree of structural polymorphism and are capable of adopting several types of non-B-DNA conformations.

Zinc(II) ions selectively interact with DNA sequences present at the TFIIIA binding site of the Xenopus 5S-RNA gene.

It has been known for some time that zinc, as well as most transition metal ions, is capable of binding to the DNA bases. However, little is known about the presence and distribution of metal binding sites along naturally occurring genomic DNA molecules. In this paper, the interaction of zinc with the Xenopus 5S-RNA gene has been studied and several metal binding sites have been identified on the basis of the changes in chemical reactivity observed in the presence of the metal.

Elsamicin A can convert the Z-form of poly[d(G-C)] and poly[(G-m5C)] back to B-form DNA.

The interaction of poly[(G-C)] and poly[d(G-m5C)] with the antitumor antibiotic elsamicin A, which binds to alternating guanine + cytosine tracts in DNA, has been studied under the B and Z conformations. Both the rate and the extent of the B-to-Z transition are diminished by the antibiotic, as inferred by spectroscopic methods under ionic conditions that otherwise favor the left-handed conformation of the polynucleotides. Moreover, elsamicin converts the Z-form DNA back to the B-form.