In several studies, these markers have been studied either singly or combined in different geographical locations4,5, but there are limited studies from Southeast Asia. ...with a view to determine ...the circulating dengue serotype(s) and to study the inter-relationship of all the above markers, this observational study was initiated in a tertiary care hospital of Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh from 2013 to 2016. Dengue virus infection with DEN-1 has been reported from China, Malaysia and India in 2005, 2010 and 2014, respectively11,12,13,14. ...circulation of DEN-1 in Dhaka city may have a link with any of these geographical areas. ...the variations in viral load of each serotype may differ from geographical area to area in which dengue genotype may have a role.
Although South Asian populations have high cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden in the world, their patterns of individual CVD risk factors have not been fully studied. None of the available ...algorithms/scores to assess CVD risk have originated from these populations. To explore the relevance of CVD risk scores for these populations, literature search and qualitative synthesis of available evidence were performed. South Asians usually have higher levels of both “classical” and nontraditional CVD risk factors and experience these at a younger age. There are marked variations in risk profiles between South Asian populations. More than 100 risk algorithms are currently available, with varying risk factors. However, no available algorithm has included all important risk factors that underlie CVD in these populations. The future challenge is either to appropriately calibrate current risk algorithms or ideally to develop new risk algorithms that include variables that provide an accurate estimate of CVD risk.
In the present article, an attempt is made to derive optimal data-driven machine learning methods for forecasting an average daily and monthly rainfall of the Fukuoka city in Japan. This comparative ...study is conducted concentrating on three aspects: modelling inputs, modelling methods and pre-processing techniques. A comparison between linear correlation analysis and average mutual information is made to find an optimal input technique. For the modelling of the rainfall, a novel hybrid multi-model method is proposed and compared with its constituent models. The models include the artificial neural network, multivariate adaptive regression splines, the k-nearest neighbour, and radial basis support vector regression. Each of these methods is applied to model the daily and monthly rainfall, coupled with a pre-processing technique including moving average and principal component analysis. In the first stage of the hybrid method, sub-models from each of the above methods are constructed with different parameter settings. In the second stage, the sub-models are ranked with a variable selection technique and the higher ranked models are selected based on the leave-one-out cross-validation error. The forecasting of the hybrid model is performed by the weighted combination of the finally selected models.
Objective
The present study examined the impact of BP from childhood to mid‐adulthood on retinal microvascular architecture.
Methods
The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study included children ...aged 3–18 years, from five Finnish University cities, with participants chosen randomly from the national population registrar from those areas. The age of participants included in the current analyses in childhood (1980) ranged from three to nine years and in mid‐adulthood (2011) ranged from 34 to 40 years (complete data n = 657). Measures of retinal microvasculature architecture measured in adulthood included diameters, tortuosity, lengths, and LDR.
Results
Regression analysis showed a strong negative association between childhood systolic BP and adult arteriolar diameter (standardized regression coefficient β −0.300; p < 0.001) and with change in systolic BP from childhood to adulthood (β = −0.249; p < 0.001). For arteriolar tortuosity, there was a strong positive association between childhood systolic BP and adult arteriolar tortuosity (β = 0.154; p < 0.001) and no association with change in systolic BP from childhood to adulthood (β = 0.072; p = 0.110).
Conclusions
High BP in childhood and increased BP from childhood to adulthood impacts on retinal microvascular architecture in mid‐adulthood.
Long‐term photometry is commonly used to monitor chromospheric activity of late–type stars. We study standard Johnson differential V photometry of the RS CVn binary BM Canum Venaticorum (BM CVn) ...spanning over a quarter of a century. Our main aims are to determine the activity cycles, the rate of surface differential rotation, and the rotation period of the active longitudes of BM CVn. The continuous period search (CPS) algorithm is applied to the photometry. The changes of the mean and amplitude of the light curves are used to search for activity cycles. The rotation period changes give an estimate of the rate of surface differential rotation. The Kuiper method is applied to the epochs of the primary and secondary minima to search for active longitudes. The photometry reveals the presence of a stable mean light curve (MLC) connected to the orbital period Porb=20.d6252 of this binary. We remove this MLC from the original V magnitudes, which gives us the corrected V′
magnitudes. These two samples of V
and V′
data are analyzed separately with CPS. The fraction of unreliable CPS models decreases when the MLC is removed. The same significant activity cycle of approximately 12.5 years is detected in both V and V′
samples. The estimate for the surface differential rotation coefficient, k⩾0.10, is the same for both samples, but the number of unrealistic period estimates decreases after removing the MLC. The same active longitude period of Pal=20.d511 ± 0.d005 is detected in the V and V′ magnitudes. This long‐term regularity in the epochs of primary and secondary minima of the light curves is not caused by the MLC. On the contrary, the MLC hampers the detection of active longitudes.
Background: Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) liberated by fermentation of complex carbohydrates might stimulate water and salt absorption, and provide energy. The aim of the study was to assess the ...number and proportion of faecal bacteria and the concentration of SCFAs of severely malnourished children with cholera receiving oral rehydration solution (ORS) containing glucose, amylase-resistant starch (ARS) or rice. Methods: Serial faecal samples were collected from 30 malnourished children with cholera until rehydration and partial nutritional recovery. SCFAs were identified and quantitated by high-performance liquid chromatography. In situ hybridization combined with flow cytometry was used to analyse the microbiota in the faeces. Results: Before treatment the concentration of total SCFA in faecal sample of cholera children was found to be 4.7±0.6 mmol/kg and it increased steadily until 95.0±8.7 mmol/kg at day 28. Among different ORS groups, concentration was significantly higher in the Rice-ORS group at day 1 (P<0.011) and at day 2 (P<0.025). During recovery faecal output was significantly reduced and the number of bacteria also increased faster in the Rice-ORS group than in the glucose-ORS group at day 1 and day 2 (P<0.01), and a modest increase in bacterial number was observed in the glucose-ORS plus ARS group (day 1, P=0.07; day 2, P=0.09). Conclusion: Clinical recovery was associated with an increase in bacterial and SCFA concentrations with all three carbohydrates in ORS. However, the increases were significantly higher in children receiving Rice-ORS.
Although ciprofloxacin is one of the recommended drugs of choice for the treatment of gonorrhea, in vitro resistance to this drug has been observed in surveillance studies and case reports from many ...parts of the world, including Bangladesh. However, to our knowledge, there have been no prospective studies of the correlation between in vitro response to the drug and treatment outcome. Therefore, a prospective study of 217 female sex workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was conducted to examine the correlation between the in vitro response of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and the outcome of ciprofloxacin treatment. Overall, 37.8% of the gonococcal isolates recovered from female sex workers were resistant to ciprofloxacin, and there was a good correlation between in vitro resistance and treatment failure. These findings suggest that in vitro resistance to ciprofloxacin is predictive of clinical treatment failure in patients with gonorrhea.
On Aug 17, 2023, WHO designated BA.2.86 as a variant under monitoring.3 We first estimated the effective reproduction number (Re) of BA.2.86 based on genome surveillance data until Sept 4, 2023, in ...Denmark, where multiple XBB subvariants including EG.5.1 are currently co-circulating, and 12 BA.2.86 sequences were reported (appendix p 10). The fact that the lower infectivity of BA.2.86 does not translate into its lower Re is reminiscent of the findings for omicron BA.1 and BA.2: although BA.1 and BA.2 are less infectious than other variants such as delta in cell culture, these omicron variants exhibited greater immune escape capacity.4,5 These observations suggest that Re can be determined by multiple factors such as infectivity and immune evasive potential. ...a neutralisation assay using XBB breakthrough infection sera showed that the 50% neutralisation titre of XBB breakthrough infection sera against BA.2.86 was significantly (1·6-fold) lower than that against EG.5.1 (p<0·0001; appendix p 10).
In late 2022, SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants have become highly diversified, and XBB is spreading rapidly around the world. Our phylogenetic analyses suggested that XBB emerged through the ...recombination of two cocirculating BA.2 lineages, BJ.1 and BM.1.1.1 (a progeny of BA.2.75), during the summer of 2022. XBB.1 is the variant most profoundly resistant to BA.2/5 breakthrough infection sera to date and is more fusogenic than BA.2.75. The recombination breakpoint is located in the receptor-binding domain of spike, and each region of the recombinant spike confers immune evasion and increases fusogenicity. We further provide the structural basis for the interaction between XBB.1 spike and human ACE2. Finally, the intrinsic pathogenicity of XBB.1 in male hamsters is comparable to or even lower than that of BA.2.75. Our multiscale investigation provides evidence suggesting that XBB is the first observed SARS-CoV-2 variant to increase its fitness through recombination rather than substitutions.
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