Global epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage 4 insights from Ecuadorian genomic data.

Tuberculosis is a global public health concern, and understanding Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission routes and genetic diversity of M. tuberculosis is crucial for outbreak control. This study aimed to explore the genomic epidemiology and genetic diversity of M.

Public perceptions of brain health in young and middle-aged adults in Cuba: Opportunities for intervention.

Understanding brain health is increasingly important, particularly in light of growing public health challenges related to neurological and psychiatric conditions. These include the rising prevalence of mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety, as well as neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Lifestyle factors, including stress, poor diet, and insufficient physical activity, also significantly impact cognitive function.

How an emotional intelligence intervention programme impacts the well-being and performance of teachers of basic general education.

Unlabelled: Emotional education helps to develop emotional intelligence skills and to bolster teachers' overall well-being.

Aims: to gauge the effectiveness of the programme designed to enhance the emotional intelligence, life satisfaction, life orientation, and work well-being of teaching staff. A quasi-experimental design was employed with an experimental group and a control group, using pre-test and post-test to measure changes.

Deviant sound frequency and time stimuli in auditory oddball tasks reveal persistent aberrant brain activity in patients with psychosis and symptomatic remission.

The detection of rare or deviant stimuli shares common brain circuits involved in temporal processing and salience, critical for cognitive control. Disruption in these processes may contribute to the mechanisms of the disease and explain cognitive deficits observed in psychosis and related disorders. We designed a neuroimaging study, using oddball task-based functional sequences (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), comparing healthy controls (HC, n = 14, 7 females) and patients with stable psychosis (PSY, n = 20, 10 females).

Historical biogeography of the Mugil cephalus species complex and its rapid global colonization.

Our understanding of speciation processes in marine environments remains very limited and the role of different reproductive barriers are still debated. While physical barriers were considered important drivers causing reproductive isolation, recent studies highlight the importance of climatic and hydrological changes creating unsuitable habitat conditions as factors promoting population isolation. Although speciation in marine fish has been investigated from different perspectives, these studies often have a limited geographical extant.

Linking citation and retraction data reveals the demographics of scientific retractions among highly cited authors.

Retractions are becoming increasingly common but still account for a small minority of published papers. It would be useful to generate databases where the presence of retractions can be linked to impact metrics of each scientist. We have thus incorporated retraction data in an updated Scopus-based database of highly cited scientists (top 2% in each scientific subfield according to a composite citation indicator).

A plasmid with the gene enhances the fitness of strains under laboratory conditions.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major threat to global public health that continues to grow owing to selective pressure caused by the use and overuse of antimicrobial drugs. Resistance spread by plasmids is of special concern, as they can mediate a wide distribution of AMR genes, including those encoding extended-spectrum -lactamases (ESBLs). The CTX-M family of ESBLs has rapidly spread worldwide, playing a large role in the declining effectiveness of third-generation cephalosporins.

Emergence and expansion of dengue in Paltas: possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and climatic variations.

Introduction: Dengue is one of the most widespread arboviruses in Latin America and is now affecting areas previously free of transmission. The COVID-19 pandemic and climatic variations appear to have affected the incidence of the disease, abundance of vectors and health programs related to dengue in some countries.

Objective: To analyze the epidemiology of dengue in Paltas, Ecuador (2016-2022), compare the periods before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, examine entomological reports and discuss the possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and climatic variations.

[Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from mobile phones of nursing students in Cuenca, Ecuador].

Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen in healthcare facilities, with its resistance to a number of antibiotics currently being a global concern. In this report the presence of S.aureus, resistance gene virulence and antibiotic susceptibility profiles were determined in the mobile phones of senior nursing students.

Tracking transmission through transposable elements in uropathogenic and commensal .

Aim: To investigate the nucleotide sequences associated with transposable elements carrying bla allelic variants as potential markers for the transmission of antimicrobial resistance genes between domestic animals, humans and the environment.

Materials & Methods: We conducted whole-genome sequencing and analyzed the nucleotide sequences of most abundant bla allelic variants (bla, bla, and bla) in commensal Escherichia coli ( = 20) from household members in Quito and uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) ( = 149) isolated from nine clinics in Quito, Ecuador.

Morphometric characteristics of organs of female chickens (Pazo de Vilane) supplemented with Curcuma longa.

The breeding and exploitation of chickens at the backyard or commercial family level is an activity of great economic relevance for families in Ecuador. In addition to providing protein of high biological value for food security, it revalues local food resources that could provide productive benefits. With this objective, a study has been conducted in order to explore the effect of C.

Comprehensive analysis of flower extracts: phytochemical composition and toxicity in zebrafish embryos.

(L.) R. Br.

Effects of Low-Intensity Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Neuropsychological Development of Pediatric Subjects With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Longitudinal Retrospective Approach.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous neurobiological condition characterized by behavioral problems and delayed neurodevelopment. Although transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been proposed as an alternative treatment for patients with ASD because of its promising benefits in reducing repetitive behaviors and enhancing executive functions, the use of high-intensity pulses (Hi-TMS) appears to be related to the side effects of the therapy. Low-intensity TMS (Li-TMS) has been partially investigated, but it may have clinical effects on ASD and simultaneously increase treatment safety.

Functional Morphology of Hatching: Ontogeny and Distribution of Hatching Gland Cells in Red-Eyed Treefrogs and a New Marker for Anuran Hatching Enzyme.

Environmentally cued hatching (ECH) is widespread in animals and requires regulation of hatching mechanisms. Enzymatic digestion of the egg membrane is a common hatching mechanism in vertebrates and invertebrates. In amphibians and fishes, hatching enzymes (HE) are synthesized and released by hatching gland cells (HGC), whose functional ontogeny determines when hatching can occur.

Predisposing Factors of Progression from Refractory Status Epilepticus to Super-Refractory Status Epilepticus in ICU-Admitted Patients: Multicenter Retrospective Cohort Study in a Resource-Limited Setting.

Background: Super-refractory status epilepticus (SRSE) is an extremely serious neurological emergency. Risk factors and mechanisms involved in transition from refractory status epilepticus (RSE) to SRSE are insufficiently studied.

Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients diagnosed and treated for RSE at two reference hospital over 5 years in Ecuador.

Epidemiology of colistin resistance mediated by mcr-1 in carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales in Ecuador in three periods from 2016 to 2022.

Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) have increased in the last decade. In low-income countries, colistin is considered a last resort antimicrobial to treat CPE infections, whose most worrisome mechanism of resistance is MCR-1 production. This study aims to understand the epidemiology of colistin resistance in CPE in the region, through the surveillance of the mcr-1 gene in CPE isolates in Ecuador.

A Probabilistic View of Forbidden Links: Their Prevalence and Their Consequences for the Robustness of Plant-Hummingbird Communities.

The presence in ecological communities of unfeasible species interactions, termed forbidden links, due to physiological or morphological exploitation barriers has been long debated, but little direct evidence has been found. Forbidden links are likely to make ecological communities less robust to species extinctions, stressing the need to assess their prevalence. Here, we used a dataset of plant-hummingbird interactions, coupled with a Bayesian hierarchical model, to assess the importance of exploitation barriers in determining species interactions.

Signatures of natural selection may indicate a genetic basis for the beneficial effects of oily fish intake in indigenous people from coastal Ecuador.

Atahualpa is a rural village located in coastal Ecuador, a region that has been inhabited by people as early as 10,000 years ago. The traditional diet of their indigenous inhabitants is rich in oily fish and they have, therefore, served as a model for investigating the beneficial effects of such a diet. However, the genetic background of this population has not been studied.

Measurement of multidifferential cross sections for dijet production in proton-proton collisions at .

A measurement of the dijet production cross section is reported based on proton-proton collision data collected in 2016 at by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 36.3 . Jets are reconstructed with the anti- algorithm for distance parameters of and 0.

Anticancer Attributes and Multifaceted Pharmacological Implications of Laetrile and Amygdalin.

Laetrile, known as vitamin B17, is often used interchangeably with amygdalin. Laetrile is a semi-synthesis product of amygdalin, whereas amygdalin is a naturally occurring substance in many plants. Both compounds have a nitrile functional group that, when activated by the intestinal enzyme β-glucosidases, releases hydrogen cyanide.

Fiddler Crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Ocypodidae) From Coastal Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands: Species Descriptions and DNA Barcodes.

Neotropical regions near the equator are recognized as speciation "hot spots" reflecting their abundant biodiversity. In western South America, the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, the Galápagos Archipelago, and northern Peru form the Tropical Eastern Pacific biome. This area has the greatest heterogeneity of sympatric fiddler crab species of any portion of the planet.

Pandemic-associated food insecurity in northern, coastal Ecuador.

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened food insecurity worldwide. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of the pandemic on perceived food insecurity among households in rural Esmeraldas, Ecuador. We conducted a cross-sectional survey to characterize pandemic impacts on household livelihoods and food insecurity in five communities.

Internal migration and its association with childhood asthma in Ecuador: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Differences in asthma prevalence between urban and rural areas have been observed worldwide. Epidemiological studies in middle- and low-income countries suggest that internal migration processes may partly explain these disparities.

Objective: To investigate the association between internal migration and asthma in children living in transitional areas of Ecuador.

AI-assisted neurocognitive assessment protocol for older adults with psychiatric disorders.

Introduction: Evaluating neurocognitive functions and diagnosing psychiatric disorders in older adults is challenging due to the complexity of symptoms and individual differences. An innovative approach that combines the accuracy of artificial intelligence (AI) with the depth of neuropsychological assessments is needed.

Objectives: This paper presents a novel protocol for AI-assisted neurocognitive assessment aimed at addressing the cognitive, emotional, and functional dimensions of older adults with psychiatric disorders.

Understanding trends in osteoporosis drug prescribing: implications for reducing futile biomedical research.

Introduction: Osteoporosis is a significant geriatric condition, considering its impact on fracture-related morbidity and mortality, particularly among older women. The interplay of clinical evidence, diagnostic tools availability, and broader societal attitudes toward aging and treatment efficacy affect medical attitude and prescribing behaviors. Using the example of osteoporosis in France and England, the study aims to unravel the intricacies of medical decision-making in geriatric care, offering insights into the evolving landscape of healthcare policy and practice, which in turn can help reduce futile biomedical research.