Abstract Despite the effectiveness of hydroxyurea, adherence remains low for adolescents and young adults (AYA) living with sickle cell disease (SCD). This study evaluated the feasibility, ...acceptability, and initial efficacy of a clinic‐based, multicomponent (e.g., storytelling, problem solving) intervention with 20 AYA living with SCD. Results found that adherence significantly improved from intervention to follow‐up 1 t (19) = −2.213, p = .039. AYA also were generally satisfied with the intervention. These findings, although promising, should be replicated on a larger scale.
Various heartworm (HW) diagnostic testing modalities detect products of, or reactions to, different life cycle stages of Dirofilaria immitis. Microfilariae (Mf) can be directly visualized in blood, ...antigen (Ag) from immature and adult heartworms may be detected on commercial assays, and antibody (Ab) tests detect the host immune response to larval stages. Ag and Mf tests are commonly used in dogs, which frequently carry adult HW infections, but Ab tests have only been validated for use in cats. In some HW-infected dogs, Ag is blocked by immune complexing leading to false-negative results. Heat-treatment (HT) to disrupt these complexes can increase the sensitivity of HW Ag tests. The aim of this study was to compare different methods for diagnosing HW infection in dogs at high risk using individual and paired diagnostic tests, including an exploration of using Ab tests designed for cats to test canine samples.
One hundred stray adult (≥ 2-year-old) dogs in Florida shelters were tested using Mf, HW Ag, and HW Ab tests (feline HW Ab tests currently not commercially validated/approved for use in dogs); two versions of each test platform were used.
Fourteen dogs tested positive using point-of-care (POC) Ag tests; an additional 2 dogs tested positive with microtiter well assay, and an additional 12 dogs tested positive using HT Ag testing. For individual tests, Ag test sensitivity/specificity compared to HT Ag was 50-57%/100%, and Ab tests were 46-64%/82-94%. Sensitivity estimates for individual tests were higher when comparing to non-HT Ag. Pairing POC Ag tests with Mf tests improved sensitivity without loss of specificity, while pairing POC Ag and Ab tests modestly increased sensitivity at the expense of specificity.
Screening dogs for HW infection using both POC Ag and Mf detection, which is recommended by the American Heartworm Society, improved diagnostic performance in this study compared to single Ag test use, but may have missed more than one in four infected dogs. The need to improve access to highly accurate, rapid, and inexpensive large-scale HW testing for dogs in animal shelters remains largely unmet by current testing availability. The development of practical and validated protocols that incorporate heat or chemical treatment to disrupt Ag-Ab complexes in POC testing or decreasing the cost and time required for such testing in reference laboratories might provide solutions to this unmet need. Similar studies performed in countries where the prevalence of parasites such as D. repens or A. vasorum is different to the USA could potentially yield very different positive predictive values for both HT and non-HT Ag tests.
A cohort of 1,056 normotensive, healthy, young men initially examined in 1940 at the mean age of 24 years was followed at three periodic intervals through 1964. The cohort demonstrated little rise in ...mean systolic blood pressure beyond age 35; a portion of this cohort showed no change of systolic blood pressure with age. If the men are classified by quintile according to systolic blood pressure in 1940, those men in the upper quintile tend to remain high; when classified by quintile in 1951, those men at the extremes maintained their relative position through 1964. Predictive utility of a systolic blood pressure may be a function of its actual level as well as the age of the individual. Two factors further influenced the systolic blood pressure of this cohort, namely, parental longevity and gain in weight. The significant effect of parental longevity became less important relative to gain in weight as time progressed and after 1940 affected primarily those men who had gained weight.
•Most of the items from the BDI-II are nonlinearly related to cocaine use severity.•Prior research has not explored the nonlinear nature of these relationships.•Findings support use of machine ...learning algorithms to understand drug abuse data.•Best predictors of cocaine use were emotional volatility and disregard for future.•Future interventions may target these depressive symptoms.
Depressive symptoms may contribute to cocaine use. However, tests of the relationship between depression and severity of cocaine use have produced mixed results, possibly due to heterogeneity in individual symptoms of depression. Our goal was to establish which symptoms of depression are most strongly related to frequency of cocaine use (one aspect of severity) in a large sample of current cocaine users. We utilized generalized additive modeling to provide data-driven exploration of the relationships between depressive symptoms and cocaine use, including examination of non-linearity. We hypothesized that symptoms related to anhedonia would demonstrate the strongest relationship to cocaine use.
772 individuals screened for cocaine use disorder treatment studies. To measure depressive symptoms, we used the items of the Beck Depression Inventory, 2nd Edition. Cocaine use frequency was measured as proportion of self-reported days of cocaine use over the last 30 days using the Addiction Severity Index.
Models identified 18 significant predictors of past-30-day cocaine use. The strongest predictors were Crying, Pessimism, Changes in Appetite, Indecisiveness, and Loss of Interest. Noteworthy effect sizes were found for specific response options on Suicidal Thoughts, Worthlessness, Agitation, Concentration Difficulty, Tiredness, and Self Dislike items.
The strongest predictors did not conform to previously hypothesized “subtypes” of depression. Non-linear relationships between items and use were typical, suggesting BDI-II items may not be monotonically increasing ordinal measures with respect to predicting cocaine use. Qualitative analysis of strongly predictive response options suggested emotional volatility and disregard for the future as important predictors of use.
The SABRE project and the SABRE Proof-of-Principle Antonello, M.; Barberio, E.; Baroncelli, T. ...
The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields,
04/2019, Letnik:
79, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
SABRE aims to directly measure the annual modulation of the dark matter interaction rate with NaI(Tl) crystals. A modulation compatible with the standard hypothesis, in which our Galaxy is immersed ...in a dark matter halo, has been measured by the DAMA experiment in the same target material. Other direct detection experiments, using different target materials, seem to exclude the interpretation of such modulation in the simplest scenario of WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering. The SABRE experiment aims to carry out an independent search with sufficient sensitivity to confirm or refute the DAMA claim. The goal of the SABRE experiment is to achieve the lowest background rate for a NaI(Tl) experiment (order of 0.1 cpd/kg/keV
ee
in the energy region of interest for dark matter). This challenging goal could be achievable by operating high-purity crystals inside a liquid scintillator veto for active background rejection. In addition, twin detectors will be located in the northern and southern hemispheres to identify possible contributions to the modulation from seasonal or site-related effects. The SABRE project includes an initial Proof-of-Principle phase at LNGS (Italy), to assess the radio-purity of the crystals and the efficiency of the liquid scintillator veto. This paper describes the general concept of SABRE and the expected sensitivity to WIMP annual modulation.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
To examine the effects of sleep traits on glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c).
This study triangulated evidence across multivariable regression (MVR) and one- (1SMR) and two-sample Mendelian randomization ...(2SMR) including sensitivity analyses on the effects of five self-reported sleep traits (i.e., insomnia symptoms difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, napping, and chronotype) on HbA1c (in SD units) in adults of European ancestry from the UK Biobank (for MVR and 1SMR analyses) (n = 336,999; mean SD age 57 8 years; 54% female) and in the genome-wide association studies from the Meta-Analyses of Glucose and Insulin-Related Traits Consortium (MAGIC) (for 2SMR analysis) (n = 46,368; 53 11 years; 52% female).
Across MVR, 1SMR, 2SMR, and their sensitivity analyses, we found a higher frequency of insomnia symptoms (usually vs. sometimes or rarely/never) was associated with higher HbA1c (MVR 0.05 SD units 95% CI 0.04-0.06; 1SMR 0.52 0.42-0.63; 2SMR 0.24 0.11-0.36). Associations remained, but point estimates were somewhat attenuated after excluding participants with diabetes. For other sleep traits, there was less consistency across methods, with some but not all providing evidence of an effect.
Our results suggest that frequent insomnia symptoms cause higher HbA1c levels and, by implication, that insomnia has a causal role in type 2 diabetes. These findings could have important implications for developing and evaluating strategies that improve sleep habits to reduce hyperglycemia and prevent diabetes.
Individuals often interact more closely with some members of the population (e.g., offspring, siblings, or group members) than they do with other individuals. This structuring of interactions can ...lead to multilevel natural selection, where traits expressed at the group-level influence fitness alongside individual-level traits. Such multilevel selection can alter evolutionary trajectories, yet is rarely quantified in the wild, especially for species that do not interact in clearly demarcated groups. We quantified multilevel natural selection on two traits, postnatal growth rate and birth date, in a population of North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). The strongest level of selection was typically within-acoustic social neighborhoods (within 130 m of the nest), where growing faster and being born earlier than nearby litters was key, while selection on growth rate was also apparent both withinlitters and within-study areas. Higher population densities increased the strength of selection for earlier breeding, but did not influence selection on growth rates. Females experienced especially strong selection on growth rate at the within-litter level, possibly linked to the biased bequeathal of the maternal territory to daughters. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering multilevel and sex-specific selection in wild species, including those that are territorial and sexually monomorphic.
Highlights ► PLGA possess adjuvant properties. ► Antigen and β-glucan co-entrapped in PLGA NPs. ► Sampled from lymphoid tissues after i.p.-injection in Atlantic salmon. ► Pro-inflammatory and T cell ...cytokines, effector molecules and transcription factor responses evaluated by Q-PCR. ► PLGA NPs have adjuvant properties in Atlantic salmon.
Based upon three simple assumptions about the information-conveying properties of consonants, vowels, syllables and the relative positions of letters and letter groups within parent words, a ...prototype abbreviation-generating algorithm was constructed. It was reasoned, based on previous studies (Streeter et al. 1980, Reber 1976) and because of the invariant rules which are fundamental to the algorithm, that abbreviations produced by the algorithm should be more readily decoded than naturally produced, popular abbreviations. Experiment I revealed that popular abbreviations were more easily reconstructed than were their rule-based counterparts, although the margin was reliable only for abbreviations of parent words of relatively long letter length. Results of experiment II demonstrated that when feedback was provided to the subject following each reconstruction, accuracy in decoding the algorithm abbreviations improved with practice. No improvement was observed for subjects who were not provided knowledge of performance. The parent words chosen for study were sampled from a population of commonly used, general communication terms. Consideration is given to the effectiveness of rule-based procedures when applied to hierarchically defined contexts, as in labelling instrumentation in modern aircraft cockpits and in producing abbreviated commands for advanced, computer-interactive systems. The findings provide an empirical foundation for continued development of the algorithm.
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