Glomeruli are histological structures of the kidney cortex formed by interwoven blood capillaries, and are responsible for blood filtration. Glomerular lesions impair kidney filtration capability, leading to protein loss and metabolic waste retention. An example of lesion is the glomerular hypercellularity, which is characterized by an increase in the number of cell nuclei in different areas of the glomeruli. Glomerular hypercellularity is a frequent lesion present in different kidney diseases. Automatic detection of glomerular hypercellularity would accelerate the screening of scanned histological slides for the lesion, enhancing clinical diagnosis. Having this in mind, we propose a new approach for classification of hypercellularity in human kidney images. Our proposed method introduces a novel architecture of a convolutional neural network (CNN) along with a support vector machine, achieving near perfect average results with the FIOCRUZ data set in a binary classification (lesion or normal). Our deepbased classifier outperformed the state-of-the-art results on the same data set.Additionally, classification of hypercellularity sub-lesions was also performed, considering mesangial, endocapilar and both lesions; in this multi-classification task, our proposed method just failed in 4% of the cases. To the best of our * First two authors contributed equally.knowledge, this is the first study on deep learning over a data set of glomerular hypercellularity images of human kidney.

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The growing use of control access systems based on face recognition shed light over the need for even more accurate systems to detect face spoofing attacks. In this paper, an extensive analysis on face spoofing detection works published in the last decade is presented. The analyzed works are categorized by their fundamental parts, i.e., descriptors and classifiers. This structured survey also brings a comparative performance analysis of the works considering the most important public data sets in the field. The methodology followed in this work is particularly relevant to observe temporal evolution of the field, trends in the existing approaches, * Corresponding author: Luciano Oliveira, tel. +55 71 3283-9472Email addresses: luiz.otavio@ufba.br (Luiz Souza), lrebouca@ufba.br (Luciano Oliveira), mauricio@dcc.ufba.br (Mauricio Pamplona), papa@fc.unesp.br (Joao Papa) to discuss still opened issues, and to propose new perspectives for the future of face spoofing detection.

ABSTRACT:The destruction of natural ecosystems has caused several problems to humans and other animals; herein we investigate the close relationship among vampire bats, humans and domestic animals. Toxoplasma gondii and Leptospira spp. infections are two worldwide zoonoses that provoke serious damage to animals. To determine the prevalence of bats seropositive for toxoplasmosis and leptospirosis in the Botucatu region, 204 serum samples of vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) were tested for T. gondii antibodies by modified agglutination test (MAT-t) and for Leptospira spp. by microscopic agglutination test (MAT-l). No animal was tested positive for T. gondii while leptospiral positivity was 7.8% for Pyrogenes, Shermani and Javanica serovars, with titers varying from 100 to 1,600. Thus, it was verified that D. rotundus does not play a relevant role in toxoplasmosis epidemiology. However, these bats can be important in the maintenance of Leptospira spp. in the environment.

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RESUMO.-[Fatores de risco e presença de anticorpos para Toxoplasma gondii em cães do litoral do Estado de São Paulo.] A toxoplasmose é causada por um protozoário parasita intracelular obrigatório, Toxoplasma gondii, e acomete vertebrados homeotérmicos incluindo animais de companhia e o homem. O cão apresenta importância epidemiológica por atuar como sentinela da infecção para o homem. O presente estudo objetivou determinar a ocorrência de anticorpos para T. gondii em 205 amostras de soro de cães do município de Ubatuba, SP, Brasil, pela reação de imunofluorescência indireta (RIFI), assim como os fatores de risco relacionados à infecção nos animais, como raça, idade, sexo, acesso a rua, ingestão de comida caseira, acesso a água não tratada e presença de roedores. 52/205 (25,4%) Toxoplasmosis is caused by the obligate intracellular protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii and affects warm-blooded vertebrates, including pets and man. Dogs are epidemiologically important since they act as sentinels for the infection in humans. The present study aimed to determine the presence of antibodies to T. gondii in 205 serum samples from dogs in Ubatuba, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, through indirect immunofluorescence reaction (IFAT), as well as the risk factors related to toxoplasmosis in the animals such as breed, age, sex, access to outdoors, homemade food ingestion, access to untreated water, and contact with rodents. Toxoplasmosis-positive samples accounted for 52/205 (25.4%), with titers ranging from 16 to 256. The serological results presented significant association (P<0.05) with homemade food ingestion (45/118; 38.1%; CI95% 29.9%-47.2%) (OR=7.0; CI95% 3.0-16.6), and with access to outdoors where those that do not have access to the street were prevalent (37/121; 30.6%; CI95% 23.1%-39.3%) (OR=0.5; CI95% 0.2-1.0). These results show that toxoplasmosis in this region is related to problems of sanitary education, mainly concerning the appropriate cooking of foods, since most positive animals did not show significant association with the presence of rodents or untreated water consumption but showed, instead association with ingestion of homemade food. Thus, toxoplasmosis is a public health problem in the studied region, and sanitary measures are needed to control the infection due to the strict relationship between man and dog and the presented risk factors. e acesso a rua, em que aqueles que não tinham acesso a rua foram prevalentes (37/121; 30,6%; IC95% 23,1%-39,3%) (OR=0,5; CI95% 0,2-1,0). Estes resultados demonstram que a toxoplasmose na região está relacionada com problema de educação sanitária, principalmente quanto ao adequado cozimento dos alimentos, visto que a maioria dos animais positivos não apresentou associação significativa com presença de roedores ou consumo de água não tratada, porém os mesmos permaneciam em casa aos quais fora oferecida comida caseira. Portanto, a toxoplasmose consiste em um problema de saúde pública na região estudada, sendo necessárias medidas sanitári-as para o controle da infecção, visto a...

ABSTRACT:Brazilian spotted fever is caused by the bacterium Rickettsia rickettsii, which is the most pathogenic species of the spotted-fever rickettsiae group and is transmitted by the bite of infected ticks. Amblyomma cajennense is the most important tick species involved in the cycle of this zoonosis in Brazil as it presents low host specificity, great number of natural reservoirs and wide geographic distribution. It was first described in the state of São Paulo in 1929 and later in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Bahia. The number of cases decreased in the 1940's with the development of new plague control techniques and antibiotics. In the last decades, the number of new cases has increased. The current review aimed at reporting some of the epidemiological and public health aspects of this reemergent disease with new foci, mainly in the southeastern region of Brazil.

ABSTRACT:The chiropterans constitute 25% of the world's mammal fauna. Due to the destruction of their natural ecosystem, the vampire bats have moved from nature to artificial roosts closer to man and domestic animals. This phenomenon has happened particularly in rural areas. Rabies is a viral anthropozoonosis, 100% lethal, and vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) represent an important role in its epidemiology. D. rotundus were captured at night with mesh nets in partnership with the Botucatu Defense Office and sent to the Zoonosis Diagnostic Service, at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Husbandry, UNESP. Serum samples from 204 bats were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and fluorescent antibody viral neutralization test (FAVN) for rabies antibody detection. The results showed 7.4% of sera with titers higher or equal to 0.5 U for rabies antibodies, which demonstrated viral flow circulation among the studied region. Data suggest a need for constant monitoring accomplished by epidemiological and sanitary measures.