During the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing social environmental awareness added... more During the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing social environmental awareness added up to the gradual penetration of environmental thinking into the Latin American states’ developmental policymaking. For Ecuador, this cocktail resulted in the long-run in a particular discourse, which emerged in the dawn of the twenty-first century, buen vivir. Central to rationalize buen vivir was its socioecological dimension, founded on a harmonic relationship between society and nature. Buen vivir was meant to materialize in a plan to save a significant portion of the Ecuadorian Amazonia from oil drilling by leaving about one quarter of the country’s oil reserves under the ground in exchange for an international monetary compensation: The Yasuní-ITT initiative. Despite the fact that the plan mobilized state and society, it succumbed to forty-years of dependence on oil of Ecuadorian economy, politics, and society. The termination of the initiative unveiled two antagonist environmenta...
Platelet counts in newborns are similar to those of adults and children. However, newborn infants... more Platelet counts in newborns are similar to those of adults and children. However, newborn infants admitted to intensive care nurseries have a high prevalence of thrombocytopenia. The mechanisms responsible for the increased susceptibility to thrombocytopenia are not known. In addition, some studies have documented functional abnormalities in newborn platelets. In an effort to understand differences between platelets in newborns and in adults, we examined megakaryocyte ploidy in bone marrow from fetuses and compared it with bone marrow from adults, using a modified Feulgen stain to measure DNA of individual megakaryocytes. Faced with small fixed tissue samples, we developed a technique for use on bone marrow biopsies to estimate megakaryocyte ploidy and compared the results obtained with this method to those obtained from bone marrow aspirates. This study demonstrated that the overall mean ploidy of fetal megakaryocytes is decreased compared with adults. Additionally, fetal megakaryocyte ploidy increases as megakaryocyte maturation increases, but not to the same extent that adult megakaryocyte ploidy increases with megakaryocyte maturation. Over the gestational period studied, there was no relationship between gestational age and mean ploidy. The small size, shift to a less mature population, and decreased ploidy of fetal megakaryocytes indicate that there are differences in the post mitotic phase of megakaryocyte development in the fetus. Such differences may be related to quantitative and qualitative platelet abnormalities in the newborn. Understanding the physiology and regulation of megakaryocytopoiesis in the fetus and newborn will be valuable in determining the pathophysiologic basis of platelet dysfunction in the newborn.
During the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing social environmental awareness added... more During the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing social environmental awareness added up to the gradual penetration of environmental thinking into the Latin American states’ developmental policymaking. For Ecuador, this cocktail resulted in the long-run in a particular discourse, which emerged in the dawn of the twenty-first century, buen vivir. Central to rationalize buen vivir was its socioecological dimension, founded on a harmonic relationship between society and nature. Buen vivir was meant to materialize in a plan to save a significant portion of the Ecuadorian Amazonia from oil drilling by leaving about one quarter of the country’s oil reserves under the ground in exchange for an international monetary compensation: The Yasuní-ITT initiative. Despite the fact that the plan mobilized state and society, it succumbed to forty-years of dependence on oil of Ecuadorian economy, politics, and society. The termination of the initiative unveiled two antagonist environmenta...
Platelet counts in newborns are similar to those of adults and children. However, newborn infants... more Platelet counts in newborns are similar to those of adults and children. However, newborn infants admitted to intensive care nurseries have a high prevalence of thrombocytopenia. The mechanisms responsible for the increased susceptibility to thrombocytopenia are not known. In addition, some studies have documented functional abnormalities in newborn platelets. In an effort to understand differences between platelets in newborns and in adults, we examined megakaryocyte ploidy in bone marrow from fetuses and compared it with bone marrow from adults, using a modified Feulgen stain to measure DNA of individual megakaryocytes. Faced with small fixed tissue samples, we developed a technique for use on bone marrow biopsies to estimate megakaryocyte ploidy and compared the results obtained with this method to those obtained from bone marrow aspirates. This study demonstrated that the overall mean ploidy of fetal megakaryocytes is decreased compared with adults. Additionally, fetal megakaryocyte ploidy increases as megakaryocyte maturation increases, but not to the same extent that adult megakaryocyte ploidy increases with megakaryocyte maturation. Over the gestational period studied, there was no relationship between gestational age and mean ploidy. The small size, shift to a less mature population, and decreased ploidy of fetal megakaryocytes indicate that there are differences in the post mitotic phase of megakaryocyte development in the fetus. Such differences may be related to quantitative and qualitative platelet abnormalities in the newborn. Understanding the physiology and regulation of megakaryocytopoiesis in the fetus and newborn will be valuable in determining the pathophysiologic basis of platelet dysfunction in the newborn.
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Papers by Pedro Alarcon