Subjective and objectives measures of frailty among adults with advanced chronic kidney disease: a cross-sectional analysis of clinician misclassification.

Background: Frailty is a recognisable clinical measure of impaired physiological reserve and vulnerability to adverse outcomes that is validated among patients with kidney disease. Practice patterns reveal inconsistent use of objective frailty measures by nephrologists, with clinicians prioritising subjective clinical impressions, possibly risking misclassification and discrimination.

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine correlations between subjective and objective measures of frailty in a cohort of patients attending routine nephrologist review.

Patient perspectives and preferences for rehabilitation among people living with frailty and chronic kidney disease: a qualitative evaluation.

Background: Understanding the patient perspective of frailty is critical to offering holistic patient-centred care. Rehabilitation strategies for patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) and frailty are limited in their ability to overcome patient-perceived barriers to participation, resulting in high rates of drop-out and non-adherence. The aim of this study was to explore patient perspectives and preferences regarding experiences with rehabilitation to inform a CKD/Frailty rehabilitation model.

Remote monitoring for neonates requiring continued nasogastric tube feeding: implementation, patient characteristics, and early outcomes.

Objective: Our neonatal intensive care unit utilizes remote patient monitoring to facilitate hospital discharge with nasogastric tube (NGT) feeds. Program implementation, patient characteristics, and initial outcomes are described.

Study Design: Data was collected prospectively in this implementation study.

The needs and experiences of women with gestational diabetes mellitus from minority ethnic backgrounds in high-income nations: A systematic integrative review.

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) represents a growing challenge worldwide, with significant risks to both the mother and baby that extend beyond the duration of the pregnancy and immediate post-partum period. Women from ethnic minority groups who access GDM care in high-income settings face particular challenges. The aim of this systematic integrative review is to explore the experiences and needs of women with GDM from select ethnic groups in high-income healthcare settings.

Reverse-Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Has High Accuracy for Detecting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Saliva and Nasopharyngeal/Oropharyngeal Swabs from Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Individuals.

Previous studies have described reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) for the rapid detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal swab and saliva samples. This multisite clinical evaluation describes the validation of an improved sample preparation method for extraction-free RT-LAMP and reports clinical performance of four RT-LAMP assay formats for SARS-CoV-2 detection. Direct RT-LAMP was performed on 559 swabs and 86,760 saliva samples and RNA RT-LAMP on extracted RNA from 12,619 swabs and 12,521 saliva samples from asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals across health care and community settings.

100,000 Genomes Pilot on Rare-Disease Diagnosis in Health Care - Preliminary Report.

Background: The U.K. 100,000 Genomes Project is in the process of investigating the role of genome sequencing in patients with undiagnosed rare diseases after usual care and the alignment of this research with health care implementation in the U.

"A 15% Reduction in Physical Inactivity Will Be Achieved in Australasia by 2030"-Audience Votes Negative in Online Debate.

The Australasian Society for Physical Activity aims to advance the science and practice of physical activity in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Fun, enjoyment, and cross-disciplinary discourse are important to ensure the network of physical activity professionals and our collective voice continues to grow. In May 2021, Australasian Society for Physical Activity's Early Career Network curated an engaging online Physical Activity Debate attended by 206 professionals.

Genome-Inferred Correspondence between Phylogeny and Metabolic Traits in the Wild Drosophila Gut Microbiome.

Annotated genome sequences provide valuable insight into the functional capabilities of members of microbial communities. Nevertheless, most studies on the microbiome in animal guts use metagenomic data, hampering the assignment of genes to specific microbial taxa. Here, we make use of the readily culturable bacterial communities in the gut of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to obtain draft genome sequences for 96 isolates from wild flies.

Predicted Metabolic Function of the Gut Microbiota of Drosophila melanogaster.

An important goal for many nutrition-based microbiome studies is to identify the metabolic function of microbes in complex microbial communities and their impact on host physiology. This research can be confounded by poorly understood effects of community composition and host diet on the metabolic traits of individual taxa. Here, we investigated these multiway interactions by constructing and analyzing metabolic models comprising every combination of five bacterial members of the gut microbiome (from single taxa to the five-member community of and species) under three nutrient regimes.

Non-Target Effects of dsRNA Molecules in Hemipteran Insects.

Insect pest control by RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated gene expression knockdown can be undermined by many factors, including small sequence differences between double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and the target gene. It can also be compromised by effects that are independent of the dsRNA sequence on non-target organisms (known as sequence-non-specific effects). This study investigated the species-specificity of RNAi in plant sap-feeding hemipteran pests.

On the evolutionary origins of host-microbe associations.

Many microorganisms with high prevalence in host populations are beneficial to the host and maintained by specialized transmission mechanisms. Although microbial promotion of host fitness and specificity of the associations undoubtedly enhance microbial prevalence, it is an open question whether these symbiotic traits are also a prerequisite for the evolutionary origin of prevalent microbial taxa. To address this issue, we investigate how processes without positive microbial effects on host fitness or host choice can influence the prevalence of certain microbes in a host population.

The impact of the gut microbiome on memory and sleep in .

The gut microbiome has been proposed to influence diverse behavioral traits of animals, although the experimental evidence is limited and often contradictory. Here, we made use of the tractability of for both behavioral analyses and microbiome studies to test how elimination of microorganisms affects a number of behavioral traits. Relative to conventional flies (i.

Evaluation of RNA Interference for Control of the Grape Mealybug (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae).

The grape mealybug (Ehrhorn, 1900) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) is a significant pest of grapevines ( spp.) and a vector of disease-causing grape viruses, linked to its feeding on phloem sap. The management of this pest is constrained by the lack of naturally occurring resistance traits in .

How gut microbiome interactions affect nutritional traits of .

Most research on the impact of the gut microbiome on animal nutrition is designed to identify the effects of single microbial taxa and single metabolites of microbial origin, without considering the potentially complex network of interactions among co-occurring microorganisms. Here, we investigated how different microbial associations and their fermentation products affect host nutrition, using colonized with three gut microorganisms (the bacteria and , and the yeast ) in all seven possible combinations. Some microbial effects on host traits could be attributed to single taxa (e.

The role of the microbiome in host evolution.

In the last decade, we have witnessed a major paradigm shift in the life sciences: the recognition that the microbiome, i.e. the set of microorganisms associated with healthy animals (including humans) and plants, plays a crucial role in the sustained health and fitness of its host.

Housing microbial symbionts: evolutionary origins and diversification of symbiotic organs in animals.

In many animal hosts, microbial symbionts are housed within specialized structures known as symbiotic organs, but the evolutionary origins of these structures have rarely been investigated. Here, I adopt an evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) approach, specifically to apply knowledge of the development of symbiotic organs to gain insights into their evolutionary origins and diversification. In particular, host genetic changes associated with evolution of symbiotic organs can be inferred from studies to identify the host genes that orchestrate the development of symbiotic organs, recognizing that microbial products may also play a key role in triggering the developmental programme in some associations.

B-vitamin nutrition in the pea aphid-Buchnera symbiosis.

Various insects that utilize vitamin-deficient diets derive a supplementary supply of these micronutrients from their symbiotic microorganisms. Here, we tested the inference from genome annotation that the symbiotic bacterium Buchnera aphidicola in the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum provides the insect with vitamins B and B but no other B-vitamins. Contrary to expectation, aphid survival over five days of larval development on artificial diets individually lacking each B-vitamin not synthesized by Buchnera was not significantly reduced, despite significantly lower carcass B, B, B and B concentrations in the aphids on diets lacking each of these B-vitamins than on the vitamin-complete diet.

The genome sequence of the grape phylloxera provides insights into the evolution, adaptation, and invasion routes of an iconic pest.

Background: Although native to North America, the invasion of the aphid-like grape phylloxera Daktulosphaira vitifoliae across the globe altered the course of grape cultivation. For the past 150 years, viticulture relied on grafting-resistant North American Vitis species as rootstocks, thereby limiting genetic stocks tolerant to other stressors such as pathogens and climate change. Limited understanding of the insect genetics resulted in successive outbreaks across the globe when rootstocks failed.

Impact of Facultative Bacteria on the Metabolic Function of an Obligate Insect-Bacterial Symbiosis.

Beneficial microorganisms associated with animals derive their nutritional requirements entirely from the animal host, but the impact of these microorganisms on host metabolism is largely unknown. The focus of this study was the experimentally tractable tripartite symbiosis between the pea aphid , its obligate intracellular bacterial symbiont , and the facultative bacterium which is localized primarily to the aphid hemolymph (blood). Metabolome experiments on, first, multiple aphid genotypes that naturally bear or lack and, second, one aphid genotype from which was experimentally eliminated revealed no significant effects of on aphid metabolite profiles, indicating that does not cause major reconfiguration of host metabolism.