IntroductionCommunity engagement has been considered a fundamental component of past outbreaks, such as Ebola. However, there is concern over the lack of involvement of communities and ‘bottom-up’ ...approaches used within COVID-19 responses thus far. Identifying how community engagement approaches have been used in past epidemics may support more robust implementation within the COVID-19 response.MethodologyA rapid evidence review was conducted to identify how community engagement is used for infectious disease prevention and control during epidemics. Three databases were searched in addition to extensive snowballing for grey literature. Previous epidemics were limited to Ebola, Zika, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndromeand H1N1 since 2000. No restrictions were applied to study design or language.ResultsFrom 1112 references identified, 32 articles met our inclusion criteria, which detail 37 initiatives. Six main community engagement actors were identified: local leaders, community and faith-based organisations, community groups, health facility committees, individuals and key stakeholders. These worked on different functions: designing and planning, community entry and trust building, social and behaviour change communication, risk communication, surveillance and tracing, and logistics and administration.ConclusionCOVID-19’s global presence and social transmission pathways require social and community responses. This may be particularly important to reach marginalised populations and to support equity-informed responses. Aligning previous community engagement experience with current COVID-19 community-based strategy recommendations highlights how communities can play important and active roles in prevention and control. Countries worldwide are encouraged to assess existing community engagement structures and use community engagement approaches to support contextually specific, acceptable and appropriate COVID-19 prevention and control measures.
T-REX (Tree and reticulogram REConstruction) is a web server dedicated to the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees, reticulation networks and to the inference of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) ...events. T-REX includes several popular bioinformatics applications such as MUSCLE, MAFFT, Neighbor Joining, NINJA, BioNJ, PhyML, RAxML, random phylogenetic tree generator and some well-known sequence-to-distance transformation models. It also comprises fast and effective methods for inferring phylogenetic trees from complete and incomplete distance matrices as well as for reconstructing reticulograms and HGT networks, including the detection and validation of complete and partial gene transfers, inference of consensus HGT scenarios and interactive HGT identification, developed by the authors. The included methods allows for validating and visualizing phylogenetic trees and networks which can be built from distance or sequence data. The web server is available at: www.trex.uqam.ca.
Revisiting physico-chemical hazards of ionic liquids Diallo, Alpha O.; Len, Christophe; Morgan, Alexander B. ...
Separation and purification technology,
09/2012, Letnik:
97, Številka:
SI
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
► Explicits reasons appealing for more research devoted to physico-chemical hazards evaluation of ionic liquids. ► Sorts out myths from reality with physico-chemical hazards of ionic liquids. ► ...Provides early findings regarding heats of combustion of ionic liquids by predictive models. ► Provides heat release of imidazolium-based ionic liquids by use of pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry (PCFC). ► Gives first indications on how physico-chemical safety performance can be addressed as soon as design stage of ILs.
This paper is a consolidated overview of what was originally presented by the co-authors at the ILSEPT 2011 conference regarding physico-chemical safety issues pertaining to ionic liquids (ILs). Indeed safety performance of ILs relating to physico-chemical hazards is very rarely investigated as it is often perceived as a non existing issue due to the lack of traditional flashpoint for these liquids. The paper outlines: (a) why it is justified to have a detailed look of physico-chemical properties of ILs in the context of separation and purification technologies, (b) sort out misleading from true general statements regarding actual safety, (c) discuss physico-chemical hazard rating systems and their limitation in the context of overall risk evaluation, and (d) report on the early findings of a joint initiative regarding the development of predictive tools for heats of combustion for ILs and experimental results obtained by use of the pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry (PCFC) on the effective rate of heat release from ILs in fire conditions. Finally, perspectives regarding future work with regard to better knowledge and assessment of ILs physico-chemical related issues are given with the aim of serving sustainable design and use of ILs.
In this letter, the performance of a diffractive gradient index lens antenna, constructed by using dielectric subwavelength structuration and manufactured by three-dimensional printing, is compared ...to the ones of conventional lens antennas in a small footprint configuration. It discusses the advantages and drawbacks of each configuration and compares the simulated and measured gain performances. It shows that structured lens antenna can achieve gain superior to conventional approaches, combined with a 1 dB bandwidth of 10.9%, thanks to the engineering of artificial gradient index. All these benefits are coming with a significant decrease in the antenna weight for the same footprint.
The case fatality ratio (CFR) of Ebola virus disease (EVD) can vary over time and space for reasons that are not fully understood. This makes it difficult to define the baseline CFRs needed to ...evaluate treatments in the absence of randomized controls. Here, we investigate whether viremia in EVD patients may be used to evaluate baseline EVD CFRs.
We analyzed the laboratory and epidemiological records of patients with EVD confirmed by reverse transcription PCR hospitalized in the Conakry area, Guinea, between 1 March 2014 and 28 February 2015. We used viremia and other variables to model the CFR. Data for 699 EVD patients were analyzed. In the week following symptom onset, mean viremia remained stable, and the CFR increased with viremia, V, from 21% (95% CI 16%-27%) for low viremia (V < 104.4 copies/ml) to 53% (95% CI 44%-61%) for intermediate viremia (104.4 ≤ V < 105.2 copies/ml) and 81% (95% CI 75%-87%) for high viremia (V ≥ 105.2 copies/ml). Compared to adults (15-44 y old y.o.), the CFR was larger in young children (0-4 y.o.) (odds ratio OR: 2.44; 95% CI 1.02-5.86) and older adults (≥ 45 y.o.) (OR: 2.84; 95% CI 1.81-4.46) but lower in children (5-14 y.o.) (OR: 0.46; 95% CI 0.24-0.86). An order of magnitude increase in mean viremia in cases after July 2014 compared to those before coincided with a 14% increase in the CFR. Our findings come from a large hospital-based study in Conakry and may not be generalizable to settings with different case profiles, such as with individuals who never sought care.
Viremia in EVD patients was a strong predictor of death that partly explained variations in CFR in the study population. This study provides baseline CFRs by viremia group, which allow appropriate adjustment when estimating efficacy in treatment studies. In randomized controlled trials, stratifying analysis on viremia groups could reduce sample size requirements by 25%. We hypothesize that monitoring the viremia of hospitalized patients may inform the ability of surveillance systems to detect EVD patients from the different severity strata.
GH-secreting pituitary adenomas can be hypo-, iso- or hyper-intense on T2-weighted MRI sequences. We conducted the current multicenter study in a large population of patients with acromegaly to ...analyze the relationship between T2-weighted signal intensity on diagnostic MRI and hormonal and tumoral responses to somatostatin analogs (SSA) as primary monotherapy. Acromegaly patients receiving primary SSA for at least 3 months were included in the study. Hormonal, clinical and general MRI assessments were performed and assessed centrally. We included 120 patients with acromegaly. At diagnosis, 84, 17 and 19 tumors were T2-hypo-, iso- and hyper-intense, respectively. SSA treatment duration, cumulative and mean monthly doses were similar in the three groups. Patients with T2-hypo-intense adenomas had median SSA-induced decreases in GH and IGF-1 of 88% and 59% respectively, which were significantly greater than the decreases observed in the T2-iso- and hyper-intense groups (P < 0.001). Tumor shrinkage on SSA was also significantly greater in the T2-hypo-intense group (38%) compared with the T2-iso- and hyper-intense groups (8% and 3%, respectively; P < 0.0001). The response to SSA correlated with the calculated T2 intensity: the lower the T2-weighted intensity, the greater the decrease in random GH (P < 0.0001, r = 0.22), IGF-1 (P < 0.0001, r = 0.14) and adenoma volume (P < 0.0001, r = 0.33). The T2-weighted signal intensity of GH-secreting adenomas at diagnosis correlates with hormone reduction and tumor shrinkage in response to primary SSA treatment in acromegaly. This study supports its use as a generally available predictive tool at diagnosis that could help to guide subsequent treatment choices in acromegaly.
In January 2021, Senegal reported the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus A(H5N1), which was detected on a poultry farm in Thies, Senegal, and in great white pelicans in the Djoudj ...National Bird Sanctuary. We report evidence of new transcontinental spread of H5N1 from Europe toward Africa.
Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is the most important cause of human encephalitis throughout Asia and the Pacific. Although JE is a vector-borne disease, it has been demonstrated experimentally that ...transmission between pigs can occur through direct contact. Whether pig-to-pig transmission plays a role in the natural epidemiological cycle of JE remains unknown. To assess whether direct transmission between pigs may occur under field conditions, we built two mathematical models of JE transmission incorporating vector-borne transmission alone or a combination of vector-borne and direct transmission. We used Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques to estimate the parameters of the models. We fitted the models to (i) two serological datasets collected longitudinally from two pig cohorts (C1 and C2) during two periods of four months on a farm on the outskirts of Phnom-Penh, Cambodia and to (ii) a cross-sectional (CS) serological survey dataset collected from 505 swine coming from eight different provinces of Cambodia. In both cases, the model incorporating both vector-borne and direct transmission better explained the data. We computed the value of the basic reproduction number R0 (2.93 for C1, 2.66 for C2 and 2.27 for CS), as well as the vector-borne reproduction number Rpv and the direct transmission reproduction number Rpp. We then determined the contribution of direct transmission on R0 (11.90% for C1, 11.62% for C2 and 7.51% for CS). According to our results, the existence of pig-to-pig transmission is consistent with our swine serological data. Thus, direct transmission may contribute to the epidemiological cycle of JE in Cambodia. These results need to be confirmed in other eco-climatic settings, in particular in temperate areas where pig-to-pig transmission may facilitate the persistence of JE virus (JEV) during cold seasons when there are no or few mosquitoes.
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are caused by mutations in diverse genes involved in different cellular functions, although there can be crosstalk, or convergence, between molecular pathways ...affected by different NDDs. To assess molecular convergence, we generated human neural progenitor cell models of 9q34 deletion syndrome, caused by haploinsufficiency of EHMT1, and 18q21 deletion syndrome, caused by haploinsufficiency of TCF4. Using next-generation RNA sequencing, methylation sequencing, chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing, and whole-genome miRNA analysis, we identified several levels of convergence. We found mRNA and miRNA expression patterns that were more characteristic of differentiating cells than of proliferating cells, and we identified CpG clusters that had similar methylation states in both models of reduced gene dosage. There was significant overlap of gene targets of TCF4 and EHMT1, whereby 8.3% of TCF4 gene targets and 4.2% of EHMT1 gene targets were identical. These data suggest that 18q21 and 9q34 deletion syndromes show significant molecular convergence but distinct expression and methylation profiles. Common intersection points might highlight the most salient features of disease and provide avenues for similar treatments for NDDs caused by different genetic mutations.
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