Medical Library

[Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Preventive Activities (Strategic Action Plans) on the Incidence of Non-Fatal Traumatic Occupational Injuries Leading to Disabilities in Spain (1994-2004).]

Backgound: The strategic action plans have been the main preventive activities carried out by the Autonomous Community Governments in relation to occupational injuries in Spain since 1999. This study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of these plans. Methods. A total of 4,714,080 cases of non-fatal traumatic occupational injuries leading to disability having occurred within the 1994-2004 period due to mechanical causes and over-exertion at non-publicly owned service and manufacturing companies were included. Based on the annual incidence rates, the percentage of annual change and the 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were estimated for the periods prior to and following the start-up of the Strategic Action Plans by means of negative binomial regression. Results. The pattern found followed an upward trend during the periods prior to the start-up of the Strategic Actions Plans, followed by a downward trend as of the start-up of these plans. For example, in Aragon, where the Strategic Action Plan was started up in 999, a +5.3% rise was found within the 1994-1999 period, as compared to a -4.9% decrease during the 2000-2004 period. On the Balearic Islands, which started up their Strategic Action Plan in 2002, the corresponding trend was +5.4% for 1994-2001, as compared to -14% for 2002-2004. However, similar trends were found in Madrid (-3.9% for 2000-2004) or in Galicia (-4.8% for 2000-2004), where there is no record of any specific Strategic Action Plan having been gotten under way during the period under study. Conclusions. These results do not make it possible to attribute the widespread drop in the non-fatal traumatic occupational injury incidence as of 2000 in Spain to the Strategic Action Plans. Possibly other actions of a general nature which may have had a bearing on all of the Autonomous Communities in the same manner (including those which have not developed their own Strategic Action Plans) might explain this drop in the incidence of the occupational injuries selected in this analysis.

Benavides FG, Rodrigo F, García AM, Lopez-Ruiz M, Gil J, Boix P, Martínez JM.

Unitat de Recerca en Salut Laboral, Universidad Pompeu Fabra.

[G1 Mumps Virus Outbreak in the Province of Almeria in 2005.]

Background: Despite high levels of triple MMR vaccinations being recorded on Spain, epidemic mumps outbreaks are still being reported. This study is aimed at describing an outbreak reported in the province of Almeria in 2005 and of evaluating the degree to which the vaccinated population was affected. Methods: Descriptive study of reported cases. Variables studied: Basic Health District, municipality, age, sex, type of population (Spanish-born and foreign), date of symptom onset, symptoms, complications, vaccination status, vaccine strain and diagnostic testing. Information sources: disease reporting files, epidemiological surveys, microbiological data, vaccination card, District vaccine software and Andalusian Institute of Statistics demographic data. Rates per 100,000 inhabitants were calculated by age groups and population type. The Student\’s t-test was used for comparing means. Results: A total of 145 cases from 17 municipalities were reported. A total 63.4% were males. The group showing the highest incidence was that of 10-14 years of age, with a rate of 405 per 100,000. The highest rate was among the Spanish-born population (128.7). A total of 52.4% of the cases were found to have been administered some dose of vaccine, 69.7% of them with two doses and 71.1% some Jeryl Lynn strain. Mumps virus was confirmed in 43 cases, the G1 genotype having been identified in 6 cases. Conclusions: An outbreak of G1 genotype mumps virus is confirmed, the Spanish-born population of different age groups having been affected to a greater extent. Over half of the cases were vaccinated individuals.

Barroso García P, Lucerna Méndez MA, Navarro Monzón A.

Sección de Epidemiología, Área de Gestión Sanitaria Norte de Almería.

[Tuberculosis in the Autonomous Region of Madrid, Spain: Incidence among Foreign and Spanish Individuals during the 1996-2004 Period.]

Backgound: Immigration from countries having a high prevalence of tuberculosis to other more highly-developed countries has a bearing on the overall evolution of tuberculosis in the latter. This study is aimed at describing the influence of the cases of tuberculosis among foreign individuals on the incidence of this disease in the Autonomous Community of Madrid during the 1996-2004 period. Methods: The data was taken from the Regional Tuberculosis Case Registry and from the 1996 census and the continuous censuses from 1998 to 2004. The tuberculosis incidence was estimated by country of origin from 1996 to 2004, by gender and by age groups. A calculation was made of the c2 for the linear trend, reasons for incidence and proportion of cases among foreign individuals. Results: The incidence of tuberculosis went from 34.3 cases per105 inhabitants in 1996 to 16.9 cases per105 inhabitants in 2004. For those born in Spain, it changed from 33.2 cases per 105 inhabitants in 1996 to 12.7 cases per 105 inhabitants in 2004; and for foreign individuals, from 50.5 cases per 105 inhabitants in 1996 to 42.9 cases per 105 inhabitants in 2004. The reason for the incidence between foreign and Spanish individuals was greater than 1 for all years, the maximum figure having been in 2003, when 4.2 cases were detected among foreigners for every case among Spanish individuals (95% CI 3.7-4.7). The percentage of foreign cases went from 5.2% in 1996 to 35.1% in 2004. Conclusions: The incidence of tuberculosis among foreigners was greater than among Spanish individuals and did not significantly decrease in the 1996-2004 period, which is contributing to tuberculosis having stabilized. This situation and the characteristics of this population must be taken into account in the efforts for controlling this disease.

Ordobás Gavín M, Cañellas Llabrés S, Garcia Fernández C, García Comas L, Gutiérrez Rodríguez MA, Rodero Garduño I, García Gutierrez J, Ramirez Fernández R, Rodríguez Artalejo F.

Servicio de Epidemiología, Dirección General de Salud Pública y Alimentación, Comunidad de Madrid.

[Incentives in Primary Care: from Cost Control to Improving Population Health.]

Gérvas J, Ortún V, Palomo L, Ripoll MA.

[Tuberculosis and Inmigration in Spain.]

Chaves Sánchez F, Iñigo Martínez J.

Servicio de Microbiología, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid.

Electrical brain responses in language-impaired children reveal grammar-specific deficits.

BACKGROUND: Scientific and public fascination with human language have included intensive scrutiny of language disorders as a new window onto the biological foundations of language and its evolutionary origins. Specific language impairment (SLI), which affects over 7% of children, is one such disorder. SLI has received robust scientific attention, in part because of its recent linkage to a specific gene and loci on chromosomes and in part because of the prevailing question regarding the scope of its language impairment: Does the disorder impact the general ability to segment and process language or a specific ability to compute grammar? Here we provide novel electrophysiological data showing a domain-specific deficit within the grammar of language that has been hitherto undetectable through behavioural data alone. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We presented participants with Grammatical(G)-SLI, age-matched controls, and younger child and adult controls, with questions containing syntactic violations and sentences containing semantic violations. Electrophysiological brain responses revealed a selective impairment to only neural circuitry that is specific to grammatical processing in G-SLI. Furthermore, the participants with G-SLI appeared to be partially compensating for their syntactic deficit by using neural circuitry associated with semantic processing and all non-grammar-specific and low-level auditory neural responses were normal. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that grammatical neural circuitry underlying language is a developmentally unique system in the functional architecture of the brain, and this complex higher cognitive system can be selectively impaired. The findings advance fundamental understanding about how cognitive systems develop and all human language is represented and processed in the brain.

Fonteneau E, van der Lely HK.

UCL Centre for Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

Automatic physiological waveform processing for FMRI noise correction and analysis.

Functional MRI resting state and connectivity studies of brain focus on neural fluctuations at low frequencies which share power with physiological fluctuations originating from lung and heart. Due to the lack of automated software to process physiological signals collected at high magnetic fields, a gap exists in the processing pathway between the acquisition of physiological data and its use in fMRI software for both physiological noise correction and functional analyses of brain activation and connectivity. To fill this gap, we developed an open source, physiological signal processing program, called PhysioNoise, in the python language. We tested its automated processing algorithms and dynamic signal visualization on resting monkey cardiac and respiratory waveforms. PhysioNoise consistently identifies physiological fluctuations for fMRI noise correction and also generates covariates for subsequent analyses of brain activation and connectivity.

Kelley DJ, Oakes TR, Greischar LL, Chung MK, Ollinger JM, Alexander AL, Shelton SE, Kalin NH, Davidson RJ.

Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America. djkelley@wisc.edu

Infection of semen-producing organs by SIV during the acute and chronic stages of the disease.

BACKGROUND: Although indirect evidence suggests the male genital tract as a possible source of persistent HIV shedding in semen during antiretroviral therapy, this phenomenon is poorly understood due to the difficulty of sampling semen-producing organs in HIV+ asymptomatic individuals. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using a range of molecular and cell biological techniques, this study investigates SIV infection within reproductive organs of macaques during the acute and chronic stages of the disease. We demonstrate for the first time the presence of SIV in the testes, epididymides, prostate and seminal vesicles as early as 14 days post-inoculation. This infection persists throughout the chronic stage and positively correlates with blood viremia. The prostate and seminal vesicles appear to be the most efficiently infected reproductive organs, followed by the epididymides and testes. Within the male genital tract, mostly T lymphocytes and a small number of germ cells harbour SIV antigens and RNA. In contrast to the other organs studied, the testis does not display an immune response to the infection. Testosteronemia is transiently increased during the early phase of the infection but spermatogenesis remains unaffected. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The present study reveals that SIV infection of the macaque male genital tract is an early event and that semen-producing organs display differential infection levels and immune responses. These results help elucidate the origin of HIV in semen and constitute an essential base to improving the design of antiretroviral therapies to eradicate virus from semen.

Le Tortorec A, Le Grand R, Denis H, Satie AP, Mannioui K, Roques P, Maillard A, Daniels S, Jégou B, Dejucq-Rainsford N.

INSERM U625, Rennes, University of Rennes I, Groupe d\’Etude de la Reproduction chez l\’Homme et les Mammifères, IFR 140, Campus de Beaulieu, Rennes, France.

Small-bodied humans from Palau, Micronesia.

Newly discovered fossil assemblages of small bodied Homo sapiens from Palau, Micronesia possess characters thought to be taxonomically primitive for the genus Homo. BACKGROUND: Recent surface collection and test excavation in limestone caves in the rock islands of Palau, Micronesia, has produced a sizeable sample of human skeletal remains dating roughly between 940-2890 cal ybp. PRINCIPLE FINDINGS: Preliminary analysis indicates that this material is important for two reasons. First, individuals from the older time horizons are small in body size even relative to \”pygmoid\” populations from Southeast Asia and Indonesia, and thus may represent a marked case of human insular dwarfism. Second, while possessing a number of derived features that align them with Homo sapiens, the human remains from Palau also exhibit several skeletal traits that are considered to be primitive for the genus Homo. SIGNIFICANCE: These features may be previously unrecognized developmental correlates of small body size and, if so, they may have important implications for interpreting the taxonomic affinities of fossil specimens of Homo.

Berger LR, Churchill SE, De Klerk B, Quinn RL.

Institute for Human Origins and the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontology, School of GeoSciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Lee.Berger@wits.ac.za

Child mental representations of attachment when mothers are traumatized: The relationship of family-drawings to story-stem completion.

This study examines the relationship between child play-narratives and family drawings by children of violence-exposed mothers with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Family Attachment Drawing Task (FAD-T) and MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB) were administered. Of the 23 children (ages 4-7 years), 16 (70%) created drawings that were coded as being representative of insecure attachment. Attachment insecurity and disorganization of child-caregiver attachment on the FAD-T were significantly associated with trauma-related dimensions of the MSSB, but not to other factors. This study suggests that the FAD-T provides access to child mental representations, which may affect intergenerational transmission of violent trauma.

Schechter DS, Zygmunt A, Trabka KA, Davies M, Colon E, Kolodji A, McCaw JE.

Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, New York, NY, U.S.A.