OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of an integrated community based environmental management strategy to control Aedes aegypti, the vector of dengue, compared with a routine strategy. Design Cluster randomised trial. Setting Guantanamo, Cuba. Participants 32 circumscriptions (around 2000 inhabitants each). Interventions The circumscriptions were randomly allocated to control clusters (n=16) ...

 Abstract Background: Psoriasis is a chronic proliferative condition of the skin. Its accurate pathogenesis has not been known yet, but interactions between genes and environmental factors have been implicated in its initiation. The role of malassezia in psoriasis is still undetermined, but several reports have associated these lipophilic yeasts with the development of skin lesions in psoriasis...

BACKGROUND Bemisia tabaci MEAM1 (Middle East-Asia Minor 1) feeding alters antioxidative enzyme activity in some plant species. Infestation of B. tabaci nymphs decreases Myzus persicae performance on systemic, but not local leaves of tobacco plants. However, it is unclear if B. tabaci nymphs induced antioxidant activities contributing to the aphid resistance. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We ...

Geographic automata systems composed of agent-based models (ABM) are capable of representing complex, spatio-temporal phenomena such as insect infestation. However, ABMs are often difficult to understand and explain thus imposing limits of their usefulness. This study proposes the integration of spatial network theory and a geospatial ABM to help provide a more complete depiction of ABM behavio...

Thorough wall-plastering of a house infested with the Chagas’ disease vector Triatoma infestans substantially reduced the vector population in that dwelling for a year. These results suggest that plastering with inexpensive local4 available materials can markedly reduce infestation levels sf the plastering is thorough and complete, and sf litter and other objects capable of providing hiding pla...

current study was initiated to generate the information on the effect of row-to-row distance of brassica crop, brassica napus l., on aphids population. three line spacing (20, 30 and 40 cm) with a constant nine cm plant to plant distance were evaluated on aphids infestation and its impact on seed yield. the collected and edited data on fixed parameters indicated that an inverse relation was fou...

Epidemic populations of mountain pine beetle highlight the need to understand landscape scale spatial patterns of infestation. The observed infestation patterns were explored using a randomization procedure conditioned on the probability of forest risk to beetle attack. Four randomization algorithms reflecting different representations of the data and beetle processes were investigated. Local t...