Zimbabwe offers the most recent example of the tragedy that befalls a country and its people when cholera strikes. The 2008-2009 outbreak rapidly spread across every province and brought rates of ...mortality similar to those witnessed as a consequence of cholera infections a hundred years ago. In this Review we highlight the advances that will help to unravel how interactions between the host, the bacterial pathogen and the lytic bacteriophage might propel and quench cholera outbreaks in endemic settings and in emergent epidemic regions such as Zimbabwe.
Given the emerging literature regarding the impacts of lockdown measures on mental health, this study aims to describe the psychosocial health of school-aged children and adolescents during the ...COVID-19 Safer-at-Home School mandates.
A cross-sectional study was conducted in April 2020 (n = 280) among K-12 students at a research school in North Central Florida. Bivariate analysis and logistic and multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine socio-demographic and knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) predictors of indicators of anxiety-related, depressive, and obsessive-compulsive disorder(OCD)-related symptoms. Outcomes (anxiety, OCD, and depressive related symptoms) were measured by indices generated based on reported symptoms associated with each psychosocial outcome.
Loss of household income was associated with increased risk for all three index-based outcomes: depressive symptoms aOR = 3.130, 95% CI = (1.41-6.97), anxiety-related symptoms aOR = 2.531, 95%CI = (1.154-5.551), and OCD-related symptoms aOR = 2.90, 95%CI = (1.32-6.36). Being female was associated with being at higher risk for depressive symptoms aOR = 1.72, 95% CI = (1.02-2.93), anxiety-related symptoms aOR = 1.75, 95% CI = (1.04-2.97), and OCD-related symptoms aOR = 1.764, 95%CI = (1.027-3.028). Parental practices protective against COVID-19 were associated with children being at higher risk of depressive symptoms aOR = 1.55, 95% CI = (1.04-2.31). Lower school level was associated with children being at higher risk of anxiety-related and OCD-related symptoms.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, schools should prioritize mental health interventions that target younger, female students, and children of families with income loss. Limiting the spread of COVID-19 through school closure may exacerbate negative psychosocial health outcomes in children, thus school administrators should move quickly to target those at greatest risk.
Although there is frequently an element of variability found in human anatomy, we tend to think of anatomic structures as following the pattern in which we, as surgeons, most frequently encounter ...them. Though it is possible that a variant pattern of a commonly encountered anatomic structure has “never been seen” by us as surgeons, the constant process of learning sometimes leads us to ask ourselves whether we have truly never encountered such a structure or condition before or whether we simply did not recognize it when it “saw us.”
The gram-negative bacterium Vibrio cholerae releases outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) during growth. In this study, we immunized female mice by the intranasal, intragastric, or intraperitoneal route ...with purified OMVs derived from V. cholerae. Independent of the route of immunization, mice induced specific, high-titer immune responses of similar levels against a variety of antigens present in the OMVs. After the last immunization, the half-maximum total immunoglobulin titer was stable over a 3-month period, indicating that the immune response was long lasting. The induction of specific isotypes, however, was dependent on the immunization route. Immunoglobulin A, for example, was induced to a significant level only by mucosal immunization, with the intranasal route generating the highest titers. We challenged the offspring of immunized female mice with V. cholerae via the oral route in two consecutive periods, approximately 30 and 95 days after the last immunization. Regardless of the route of immunization, the offspring was protected against colonization with V. cholerae in both challenge periods. Our results show that mucosal immunizations via both routes with OMVs derived from V. cholerae induce long-term protective immune responses against this gastrointestinal pathogen. These findings may contribute to the development of "nonliving," OMV-based vaccines against V. cholerae and other enteric pathogens, using the oral or intranasal route of immunization.
Judgments of emotional stimuli's valence and arousal can differ based on the perceiver's age. With most of the existing literature on age-related changes in such ratings based on perceptions of ...visually-presented pictures or words, less is known about how youth and adults perceive and rate the affective information contained in auditory emotional stimuli. The current study examined age-related differences in adolescent (
= 31; 45% female; aged 12-17,
= 14.35,
= 1.68) and adult listeners' (
= 30; 53% female; aged 21-30,
= 26.20 years,
= 2.98) ratings of the valence and arousal of spoken words conveying happiness, anger, and a neutral expression. We also fitted closed curves to the average ratings for each emotional expression to determine their relative position on the valence-arousal plane of an affective circumplex. Compared to adults, adolescents' ratings of emotional prosody were generally higher in valence, but more constricted in range for both valence and arousal. This pattern of ratings is suggestive of lesser differentiation amongst emotional categories' holistic properties, which may have implications for the successful recognition and appropriate response to vocal emotional cues in adolescents' social environments.
We fabricate three-dimensional zinc electrodes from emulsion-cast sponges of Zn powder that are thermally treated to produce rugged monoliths. This highly conductive, 3D-wired aperiodic scaffold ...achieves 740 mA h gZn –1 when discharged in primary Zn–air cells (>90% of theoretical Zn capacity). We use scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction to monitor the microstructural evolution of a series of Zn sponges when oxidized in Zn–air cells to specific depths-of-discharge (20, 40, 60, 80% DOD) at a technologically relevant rate (C/40; 4–6 mA cm–2). The Zn sponges maintain their 3D-monolithic form factor at all DOD. The cell resistance remains low under all test conditions, indicating that an inner core of metallic Zn persists that 3D-electrically wires the electrode, even to deep DOD.
Nelson talks about Leah Kalmanson's Cross-Cultural Existentialism. Cross-Cultural Existentialism offers an original and provocative interpretation of existentialist themes and threads running through ...classical and modern East Asian Buddhist and Ruist philosophical sources. The book takes its point of departure in existential questions concerning meaningfulness and meaning-formative practices, as articulated in European existentialism and postexistentialism, and traces how these questions are and can be addressed in their own terms in dharmic and Song dynasty Ruist discourses of karma, vital force, and ritual propriety. The book elucidates existential techniques and practices encompassing case studies of Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, Confucian/Ruist self-cultivation methods, ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination.
Poor threat-safety discrimination reflects prefrontal cortex dysfunction in adult anxiety disorders. While adolescent anxiety disorders are impairing and predict high risk for adult anxiety ...disorders, the neural correlates of threat-safety discrimination have not been investigated in this population. The authors compared prefrontal cortex function in anxious and healthy adolescents and adults following conditioning and extinction, processes requiring threat-safety learning.
Anxious and healthy adolescents and adults (N=114) completed fear conditioning and extinction in the clinic. The conditioned stimuli (CS+) were neutral faces, paired with an aversive scream. Physiological and subjective data were acquired. Three weeks later, 82 participants viewed the CS+ and morphed images resembling the CS+ in an MRI scanner. During scanning, participants made difficult threat-safety discriminations while appraising threat and explicit memory of the CS+.
During conditioning and extinction, the anxious groups reported more fear than the healthy groups, but the anxious adolescent and adult groups did not differ on physiological measures. During imaging, both anxious adolescents and adults exhibited lower activation in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex than their healthy counterparts, specifically when appraising threat. Compared with their age-matched counterpart groups, anxious adults exhibited reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when appraising threat, whereas anxious adolescents exhibited a U-shaped pattern of activation, with greater activation in response to the most extreme CS+ and CS-.
Two regions of the prefrontal cortex are involved in anxiety disorders. Reduced subgenual anterior cingulate cortex engagement is a shared feature in adult and adolescent anxiety disorders, but ventromedial prefrontal cortex dysfunction is age-specific. The unique U-shaped pattern of activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in many anxious adolescents may reflect heightened sensitivity to threat and safety conditions. How variations in the pattern relate to later risk for adult illness remains to be determined.
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