Abstract Background Although an overall gender difference in prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) has been well established, several questions concerning gender differences in the clinical ...manifestation of depression remain. This study aims to identify gender differences in psychopathology, treatment, and public health consequences in patients with MDD. Methods Baseline data from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) were used, including 1115 participants (364 men, 751 women, mean age 41 years) with a DSM-IV diagnosis of current MDD. Characteristics studied included symptom profiles, comorbidity, treatment, and public health consequences. Results Women reported a younger age of onset of single (27.8 years vs. 31.6 years; p =0.001) and recurrent MDD (24.8 years vs. 27.6 years; p =0.014), a higher comorbidity of panic disorder with agoraphobia (24.9% vs. 17.3%; p =0.006) and life-time overall anxiety disorder (77.6% vs. 71.4%; p =0.029) than men. More men than women suffered from comorbid alcohol dependence or abuse (48.1% vs. 24.5%; p <0.001). An increased prevalence of atypical depression in women (24.6% vs. 17.3%; p =0.009) was found. Women were treated more frequently by an alternative caretaker (20.6% vs. 14.8%; p =0.025), men more often in mental health care organizations (61.0% vs. 53.7%; p =0.025). No gender differences in frequency of medication use or counseling were found. Limitations Cross sectional design. Conclusions Main gender differences in the clinical presentation of MDD concerned a younger age of onset, higher anxiety and lower alcohol use comorbidity and higher prevalence of atypical depression in women. These differences were accompanied by differences in health care use.
Acinetobacter baumannii, a Gram-negative multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterium, is now recognized as one of the more common nosocomial pathogens. Because most clinical isolates are found to be ...multidrug resistant, alternative therapies need to be developed to control this pathogen. We constructed a bacteriophage genomic library based on prophages induced from 13 A. baumannii strains and screened it for genes encoding bacteriolytic activity. Using this approach, we identified 21 distinct lysins with different activities and sequence diversity that were capable of killing A. baumannii. The lysin (PlyF307) displaying the greatest activity was further characterized and was shown to efficiently kill (>5-log-unit decrease) all tested A. baumannii clinical isolates. Treatment with PlyF307 was able to significantly reduce planktonic and biofilm A. baumannii both in vitro and in vivo. Finally, PlyF307 rescued mice from lethal A. baumannii bacteremia and as such represents the first highly active therapeutic lysin specific for Gram-negative organisms in an array of native lysins found in Acinetobacter phage.
The scalable synthesis of phase‐pure crystalline manganese nitride (Mn3N2) from a molecular precursor is reported. It acts as a superiorly active and durable electrocatalyst in the oxygen evolution ...reaction (OER) from water under alkaline conditions. While electrophoretically deposited Mn3N2 on fluorine tin oxide (FTO) requires an overpotential of 390 mV, the latter is substantially decreased to merely 270 mV on nickel foam (NF) at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 with a durability of weeks. The high performance of this material is due to the rapid transformation of manganese sites at the surface of Mn3N2 into an amorphous active MnOx overlayer under operation conditions intimately connected with metallic Mn3N2, which increases the charge transfer from the active catalyst surface to the electrode substrates and thus outperforms the electrocatalytic activity in comparison to solely MnOx‐based OER catalysts.
Better late than never: A versatile molecular route has been developed to produce manganese nitride as a suitable high‐performance material for the electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media. The coordinatively unsaturated nature of manganese, the active amorphous surface layer, and the metallic character in the manganese nitride pre‐catalyst are key factors for the outstanding catalytic performance with high durability.
The prevalence of multidrug-resistant
has stimulated development of alternative therapeutics. Bacteriophage peptidoglycan hydrolases, termed lysins, represent an emerging antimicrobial option for ...targeting Gram-positive bacteria. However, lysins against Gram-negatives are generally deterred by the outer membrane and their inability to work in serum. One solution involves exploiting evolved delivery systems used by colicin-like bacteriocins (e.g., S-type pyocins of
) to translocate through the outer membrane. Following surface receptor binding, colicin-like bacteriocins form Tol- or TonB-dependent translocons to actively import bactericidal domains through outer membrane protein channels. With this understanding, we developed lysocins, which are bioengineered
in-bacteri
fusion molecules capable of periplasmic import. In our proof-of-concept studies, components from the
bacteriocin pyocin S2 (PyS2) responsible for surface receptor binding and outer membrane translocation were fused to the GN4 lysin to generate the PyS2-GN4 lysocin. PyS2-GN4 delivered the GN4 lysin to the periplasm to induce peptidoglycan cleavage and log-fold killing of
with minimal endotoxin release. While displaying narrow-spectrum antipseudomonal activity in human serum, PyS2-GN4 also efficiently disrupted biofilms, outperformed standard-of-care antibiotics, exhibited no cytotoxicity toward eukaryotic cells, and protected mice from
challenge in a bacteremia model. In addition to targeting
, lysocins can be constructed to target other prominent Gram-negative bacterial pathogens.
Objective
To compare the magnitude of relative oral health inequalities between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous persons from Brazil, New Zealand and Australia.
Methods
Data were from surveys in Brazil ...(2010), New Zealand (2009) and Australia (2004‐06 and 2012). Participants were aged 35‐44 years and 65‐74 years. Indigenous and non‐Indigenous inequalities were estimated by prevalence ratios (PR) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for sex, age and income. Outcomes included inadequate dentition, untreated dental caries, periodontal disease and the prevalence of “fair” or “poor” self‐rated oral health in Australia and New Zealand, and satisfaction with mouth/teeth in Brazil (SROH).
Results
Irrespective of country, Indigenous persons had worse oral health than their non‐Indigenous counterparts in all indicators. The magnitude of these ratios was greatest among Indigenous and non‐Indigenous Australians, who, after adjustments, had 2.77 times the prevalence of untreated dental caries (95% CI 1.76, 4.37), 5.14 times the prevalence of fair/poor SROH (95% CI 2.53, 10.43).
Conclusion
Indigenous people had poorer oral health than their non‐Indigenous counterparts, regardless of setting. The magnitude of the relative inequalities was greatest among Indigenous Australians for untreated dental decay and poor SROH.
A Conjugate Point Equatorial Experiment (COPEX) campaign was conducted during the October–December 2002 period in Brazil, with the objective to investigate the equatorial spread F/plasma bubble ...irregularity (ESF) development conditions in terms of the electrodynamical state of the ionosphere along the magnetic flux tubes in which they occur. A network of instruments, including Digisondes, optical imagers, and GPS receivers, was deployed at magnetic conjugate and dip equatorial locations in a geometry that permitted field line mapping of the conjugate E layers to dip equatorial F layer bottomside. We analyze in this paper the extensive Digisonde data from the COPEX stations, complemented by limited all‐sky imager conjugate point observations. The Sheffield University Plasmasphere‐Ionosphere Model (SUPIM) is used to assess the transequatorial winds (TEW) as inferred from the observed difference of hmF2 at the conjugate sites. New results and evidence on the ESF development conditions and the related ambient electrodynamic processes from this study can be highlighted as follows: (1) large‐scale bottomside wave structures/satellite traces at the equator followed by their simultaneous appearance at conjugate sites are shown to be indicative of the ESF instability initiation; (2) the evening prereversal electric field enhancement (PRE)/vertical drift presents systematic control on the time delay in SF onset at off‐equatorial sites indicative of the vertical bubble growth, under weak transequatorial wind; (3) the PRE presents a large latitude/height gradient in the Brazilian sector; (4) conjugate point symmetry/asymmetry of large‐scale plasma depletions versus smaller‐scale structures is revealed; and (5) while transequatorial winds seem to suppress ESF development in a case study, the medium‐term trend in the ESF seems to be controlled more by the variation in the PRE than in the TEW during the COPEX period. Competing influences of the evening vertical plasma drift in favoring the ESF development and that of the TEW in suppressing its growth are discussed, presenting a perspective on the ESF day‐to‐day and medium‐term variabilities.
Cocaine is a psychostimulant drug with high addictive proprieties. Evidence suggests that cocaine use leads to critical changes in the immune system, with significant effects on T, B, and natural ...killer (NK) cells and influencing peripheral levels of cytokines. The presence of abstinence-related symptoms during detoxification treatment is known to influence the prognosis. Here, our aim was to investigate immune profiles in women with cocaine use disorder (CUD) according to withdrawal symptoms severity.
Blood samples and clinical data were collected at onset of detoxification treatment of 50 women with CUD. The patients were stratified according to Cocaine Selective Severity Assessment (CSSA) scores in low withdrawal (L-W) and high withdrawal (H-W) categories. In addition, we also included a control group with 19 healthy women as reference to immune parameters. Peripheral blood was collected and lymphocyte subsets were phenotyped by multi-color flow cytometry (B cells, CD4
T, CD8
T, NK cells, and different stages of T-cell differentiation). PBMCs from patients and healthy controls were stimulated
with phytohemagglutinin (1%) for 72 h to assess the production of Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines.
Following stimulation, lymphocytes from women with CUD produced increased levels of Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines. However, higher levels of IL-2 and IL-17 were observed only in the L-W group, while higher levels of IL-6 were detected in the H-W group compared to controls. H-W group showed lower percentage of early-differentiated Th cells (CD4
CD27
CD28
), elevated percentage of Th cells (CD3
CD4
), intermediate-differentiated Th cells (CD4
CD27
CD28
), and B cells (CD3
CD19
). Both CUD groups showed decreased percentages of naïve T cells (CD3
CD4
CD45RA
and CD3
CD8
CD45RA
).
Our data demonstrated that CUD can lead to increased production of Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines and lymphocyte changes.
Connected to the experiment performed at the Stockholm electron beam ion trap, a systematic relativistic configuration-interaction calculation is carried out to compare with the experimental spectra. ...In particular, separate rate coefficients are calculated for dominant recombination and excitation processes in the range of the impact electron energy determined by the experiment. By means of the relevant experimental parameters, the presently calculated dielectronic recombination rate coefficients for and S14+ ions and electron-impact excitation ones for S15+, S14+, and S13+ ions are employed further to synthesize overall theoretical spectra for comparison with the experimentally measured spectra. Overall, very good agreements with the experimental results are found except for one missing excitation peak around the impact electron energy 2.52 keV, which cannot be explained by the present calculations and thus remains open.
Populations willing to participate in randomized trials may not correspond well to policy-relevant target populations. Evidence of effectiveness that is complementary to randomized trials may be ...obtained by combining the 'target trial' causal inference framework with whole-of-population linked administrative data.
We demonstrate this approach in an evaluation of the South Australian Family Home Visiting Program, a nurse home visiting programme targeting socially disadvantaged families. Using de-identified data from 2004-10 in the ethics-approved Better Evidence Better Outcomes Linked Data (BEBOLD) platform, we characterized the policy-relevant population and emulated a trial evaluating effects on child developmental vulnerability at 5 years (n = 4160) and academic achievement at 9 years (n = 6370). Linkage to seven health, welfare and education data sources allowed adjustment for 29 confounders using Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation (TMLE) with SuperLearner. Sensitivity analyses assessed robustness to analytical choices.
We demonstrated how the target trial framework may be used with linked administrative data to generate evidence for an intervention as it is delivered in practice in the community in the policy-relevant target population, and considering effects on outcomes years down the track. The target trial lens also aided in understanding and limiting the increased measurement, confounding and selection bias risks arising with such data. Substantively, we did not find robust evidence of a meaningful beneficial intervention effect.
This approach could be a valuable avenue for generating high-quality, policy-relevant evidence that is complementary to trials, particularly when the target populations are multiply disadvantaged and less likely to participate in trials.
The first steps towards gender equity in science are measuring the magnitude of inequity and increasing awareness of the problem.
To describe trends in gender disparities in first and last authorship ...in the most cited dental publications and general dental literature over a 20-year period.
Articles and bibliometric data were retrieved from the Scopus database for the period 1996 to 2015. Two groups of 1000 articles each were retrieved: a random sample and another sample of top-cited articles for each year. The gender of the first and last author of each publication was manually identified. When this was not possible, we used an online software platform (https://genderize.io/). Descriptive analyses identified the proportion of women first and last authors in both samples, stratifying by dental discipline and geographic region. Trends were ascertained by frequency metrics across years. Gender disparity was observed in both first and last authorship, with a larger gap being observed in the top-cited sample.
Women led 28.4% and 20.3% of articles in the random and top-cited samples, respectively. A similar pattern was observed for the last authorship group (22.1% and 16.1%, respectively). An increasing trend in the proportion of articles led by women over time was observed in both samples. This increase was larger in the top-cited sample (from 15.0% in 1996-2000 to 25.1% in 2015) than in the random sample (from 26.3% in 1996-2000 to 33.2% in 2011).
Clear gender disparities in dental research publications in the last 20 years were identified in both general and top-cited manuscripts, across dental disciplines, across countries, across first and last authorship, and over time. It is paramount that actions are taken to attract, retain and promote women in science, as well as to monitor and ensure progress towards gender equity.
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