This paper investigates the African financial development and financial inclusion gaps relative to other peer developing countries. Using a set of variables related to financial development and ...inclusion, we first estimate the gaps between African countries and other developing countries with similar degrees of economic development. Then, we explore the determinants of financial development and inclusion. We find that population density is considerably more important for financial development and inclusion in Africa than elsewhere. Finally, we show evidence that a recent innovation in financial services, mobile banking, has helped to overcome infrastructural problems and improve financial access.
Evidence suggests that periodontitis contributes to the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. However, few studies have examined the role of ...swallowing and saliva in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal diseases. Saliva contains an enormous number of oral bacteria and is swallowed directly into the intestine. Here, we explored the influence of periodontitis salivary microbiota on colonic inflammation and possible mechanisms in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)–induced colitis. The salivary microbiota was collected from healthy individuals and those with periodontitis and gavaged to C57BL/6 mice. Periodontitis colitis was induced by DSS for 5 d and ligature for 1 wk. The degree of colon inflammation was evaluated through hematoxylin and eosin staining, ELISA, and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Immune parameters were measured with quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, flow cytometry, and immunofluorescence. The gut microbiota and metabolome analyses were performed via 16S rRNA gene sequencing and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. Although no significant colitis-associated phenotypic changes were found under physiologic conditions, periodontitis salivary microbiota exacerbated colitis in a periodontitis colitis model after DSS induction. The immune response more closely resembled the pathology of ulcerative colitis, including aggravated macrophage M2 polarization and Th2 cell induction (T helper 2). Inflammatory bowel disease–associated microbiota, such as Blautia, Helicobacter, and Ruminococcus, were changed in DSS-induced colitis after periodontitis salivary microbiota gavage. Periodontitis salivary microbiota decreased unsaturated fatty acid levels and increased arachidonic acid metabolism in DSS-induced colitis, which was positively correlated with Aerococcus and Ruminococcus, suggesting the key role of these metabolic events and microbes in the exacerbating effect of periodontitis salivary microbiota on experimental colitis. Our study demonstrated that periodontitis contributes to the pathogenesis of colitis through the swallowing of salivary microbiota, confirming the role of periodontitis in systemic disease and providing new insights into the etiology of gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases.
Divertor detachment offers a promising solution to the challenge of plasma-wall interactions for steady-state operation of fusion reactors. Here, we demonstrate the excellent compatibility of ...actively controlled full divertor detachment with a high-performance (β
~ 3, H
~ 1.5) core plasma, using high-β
(poloidal beta, β
> 2) scenario characterized by a sustained core internal transport barrier (ITB) and a modest edge transport barrier (ETB) in DIII-D tokamak. The high-β
high-confinement scenario facilitates divertor detachment which, in turn, promotes the development of an even stronger ITB at large radius with a weaker ETB. This self-organized synergy between ITB and ETB, leads to a net gain in energy confinement, in contrast to the net confinement loss caused by divertor detachment in standard H-modes. These results show the potential of integrating excellent core plasma performance with an efficient divertor solution, an essential step towards steady-state operation of reactor-grade plasmas.
• The vagus nerve is a crucial link between gut signals and the brain regulating various functions such as energy homeostasis, digestion, immune responses, reward, memory, and cognition.• Vagal ...afferents form different terminal endings in the gut, including direct synapses with some enteroendocrine cells named neuropods.• Vagal sensory neurons monitor ingested nutrients and water from the gut and provide fast regulation of food intake and fluid homeostasis.• Afferents in the left and the right vagus nerve exhibit asymmetric anatomical projections in the brain, for example, a reward gut-to-brain circuit is specifically formed by right vagal afferents.
Our understanding of the gut system has been revolutionized over the past decade, in particular regarding its role in immune control and psychological regulation. The vagus nerve is a crucial link between gut and brain, transmitting diverse gut-derived signals, and has been implicated in many gastrointestinal, neurological, and immunological disorders. Using state-of-the-art technologies including single-cell genomic analysis, real-time neural activity recording, trans-synaptic tracing, and electron microscopy, novel physiological functions of vagal gut afferents have been uncovered, and new gut-to-brain pathways have been revealed. Here, we review the most recent findings on vagal sensory neurons and the gut-brain signaling, focusing on the anatomical basis and the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms. Such new discoveries explain some of the old puzzling problems and also raise new questions in this exciting and rapidly growing field.
The cardiovascular system is hardwired to the brain via multilayered afferent and efferent polysynaptic axonal connections. Two major anatomically and functionally distinct though closely interacting ...subcircuits within the cardiovascular system have recently been defined: The artery-brain circuit and the heart-brain circuit. However, how the nervous system impacts cardiovascular disease progression remains poorly understood. Here, we review recent findings on the anatomy, structures, and inner workings of the lesser-known artery-brain circuit and the better-established heart-brain circuit. We explore the evidence that signals from arteries or the heart form a systemic and finely tuned cardiovascular brain circuit: afferent inputs originating in the arterial tree or the heart are conveyed to distinct sensory neurons in the brain. There, primary integration centers act as hubs that receive and integrate artery-brain circuit-derived and heart-brain circuit-derived signals and process them together with axonal connections and humoral cues from distant brain regions. To conclude the cardiovascular brain circuit, integration centers transmit the constantly modified signals to efferent neurons which transfer them back to the cardiovascular system. Importantly, primary integration centers are wired to and receive information from secondary brain centers that control a wide variety of brain traits encoded in engrams including immune memory, stress-regulating hormone release, pain, reward, emotions, and even motivated types of behavior. Finally, we explore the important possibility that brain effector neurons in the cardiovascular brain circuit network connect efferent signals to other peripheral organs including the immune system, the gut, the liver, and adipose tissue. The enormous recent progress vis-à-vis the cardiovascular brain circuit allows us to propose a novel neurobiology-centered cardiovascular disease hypothesis that we term the neuroimmune cardiovascular circuit hypothesis.
Introduction
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder strongly associated with suicidal behaviour up to 20-50 times higher than those in the general population. However, treatments from primary ...healthcare workers and mental health specialists may improve daily function and increase recovery.
Objectives
Our study aims to investigate if the frequency of interactions with healthcare specialists affects suicidal ideation for patients with schizophrenia.
Methods
84 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder were recruited from the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada. Patient medical charts were reviewed to determine the number of therapeutic interactions in two periods: up to three months from baseline, and retrospectively 3 months before baseline.
Results
19 patients with worsening suicidal ideation had an average of 5.1 more visits following baseline (SD = 6.94), compared to 64 patients with non-emergent SI had 12.0 more visits following baseline (SD = 18.8).
Conclusions
Patients with worsening suicidal ideation had fewer visits from healthcare professionals as compared to those without worsening suicidal ideation. However, further research is necessary to determine the correlation between healthcare visits and suicidal ideation in this population.
Disclosure
No significant relationships.
Human walking influences indoor air quality mainly by resuspending dust particles settled on the floor. This study characterized walking‐induced particle resuspension as a function of flooring type, ...relative humidity (RH), surface dust loading, and particle size using a consistent resuspension mechanism. Five types of flooring, including hardwood, vinyl, high‐density cut pile carpet, low‐density cut pile carpet, and high‐density loop carpet, were tested with two levels of RH (40% and 70%) and surface dust loading (2 and 8 g/m2), respectively. Resuspension fraction ra (fraction of surface dust resuspended per step) for house dust was found to be varied from 10−7 to 10−4 (particle size: 0.4–10 µm). Results showed that for particles at 0.4–3.0 µm, the difference in resuspension fraction between carpets and hard floorings was not significant. For particles at 3.0–10.0 µm, carpets exhibited higher resuspension fractions compared with hard floorings. Increased RH level enhanced resuspension on high‐density cut pile carpet, whereas the opposite effect was observed on hard floorings. Higher surface dust loading was associated with lower resuspension fractions on carpets, while on hard floorings the effect of surface dust loading varied with different RH levels.
Niche construction theory states that not only does the environment act on populations to generate Darwinian selection, but organisms reciprocally modify the environment and the sources of natural ...selection. Cancer cells participate in niche construction as they alter their microenvironments and create pre-metastatic niches; in fact, metastasis is a product of niche construction. Here, we present a mathematical model of niche construction and metastasis. Our model contains producers, which pay a cost to contribute to niche construction that benefits all tumor cells, and cheaters, which reap the benefits without paying the cost. We derive expressions for the conditions necessary for metastasis, showing that the establishment of a mutant lineage that promotes metastasis depends on niche construction specificity and strength of interclonal competition. We identify a tension between the arrival and invasion of metastasis-promoting mutants, where tumors composed only of cheaters remain small but are susceptible to invasion whereas larger tumors containing producers may be unable to facilitate metastasis depending on the level of niche construction specificity. Our results indicate that even if metastatic subclones arise through mutation, metastasis may be hindered by interclonal competition, providing a potential explanation for recent surprising findings that most metastases are derived from early mutants in primary tumors.
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