Improving the timeliness of birth registration in Fiji through a financial incentive.

Background: Fiji is a Pacific Island nation with the predominant ethnic groups indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) (62 %) and Fijians of Indian descent (31 %). This study reports on the effect of a Parental Assistance Payment Program (PAPP) tied to on-time birth registration, available in Fiji from August 2018 to July 2020.

Methods: Unit record birth registration data ( = 117,829) for children born during 2016-22 were used to calculate mean birth-to-registration intervals and the likelihood of on-time birth registration (within 365 days) before the PAPP (January 2016-July 2018) compared to during the PAPP (August 2018-July 2020), by population disaggregations (sex, ethnicity, age, marital status).

Extended Sentinel Monitoring of Resistance to Cry and Vip3Aa Toxins in Bt Sweet Corn: Assessing Changes in Phenotypic and Allele Frequencies of Resistance.

Transgenic corn and cotton that produce Cry and Vip3Aa toxins derived from (Bt) are widely planted in the United States to control lepidopteran pests. The sustainability of these Bt crops is threatened because the corn earworm/bollworm, (Boddie), is evolving a resistance to these toxins. Using Bt sweet corn as a sentinel plant to monitor the evolution of resistance, collaborators established 146 trials in twenty-five states and five Canadian provinces during 2020-2022.

A qualitative study exploring nursing home care environments where nurse practitioners work.

Research is needed to support the growing nurse practitioner workforce to assure higher quality care for older adults in nursing homes. Nursing homes with optimal care environments that support nurse practitioner roles, increased visibility, independence, and relationships are better positioned to support care of older adults. This study reports findings of thirteen qualitative interviews with nurse practitioners to explore facets of nursing home care environments and adapt a tool to measure care environments.

Massively parallel unsupervised single-particle cryo-EM data clustering via statistical manifold learning.

Structural heterogeneity in single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) data represents a major challenge for high-resolution structure determination. Unsupervised classification may serve as the first step in the assessment of structural heterogeneity. However, traditional algorithms for unsupervised classification, such as K-means clustering and maximum likelihood optimization, may classify images into wrong classes with decreasing signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) in the image data, yet demand increased computational costs.

Effects of vitamin A deficiency in the postnatal mouse heart: role of hepatic retinoid stores.

To determine whether hepatic depletion of vitamin A (VA) stores has an effect on the postnatal heart, studies were carried out with mice lacking liver retinyl ester stores fed either a VA-sufficient (LRVAS) or VA-deficient (LRVAD) diet (to deplete circulating retinol and extrahepatic stores of retinyl esters). There were no observable differences in the weights or gross morphology of hearts from LRVAS or LRVAD mice relative to sex-matched, age-matched, and genetically matched wild-type (WT) controls fed the VAS diet (WTVAS), but changes in the transcription of functionally relevant genes were consistent with a state of VAD in LRVAS and LRVAD ventricles. In silico analysis revealed that 58/67 differentially expressed transcripts identified in a microarray screen are products of genes that have DNA retinoic acid response elements.

MDI Biological Laboratory Arsenic Summit: Approaches to Limiting Human Exposure to Arsenic.

This report is the outcome of the meeting "Environmental and Human Health Consequences of Arsenic" held at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Salisbury Cove, Maine, August 13-15, 2014. Human exposure to arsenic represents a significant health problem worldwide that requires immediate attention according to the World Health Organization (WHO). One billion people are exposed to arsenic in food, and more than 200 million people ingest arsenic via drinking water at concentrations greater than international standards.

Balancing "we" and "me".

The open office is the dominant form of workspace design for good reason: It fosters collaboration, promotes learning, and nurtures strong culture. But what most companies fail to realize is that collaboration has a natural rhythm that requires both interaction and private contemplation. Companies have been trying for decades to find the balance between public and private workspace that best supports collaboration.

Common features of microRNA target prediction tools.

The human genome encodes for over 1800 microRNAs (miRNAs), which are short non-coding RNA molecules that function to regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. Due to the potential for one miRNA to target multiple gene transcripts, miRNAs are recognized as a major mechanism to regulate gene expression and mRNA translation. Computational prediction of miRNA targets is a critical initial step in identifying miRNA:mRNA target interactions for experimental validation.

No-boundary thinking in bioinformatics research.

Currently there are definitions from many agencies and research societies defining "bioinformatics" as deriving knowledge from computational analysis of large volumes of biological and biomedical data. Should this be the bioinformatics research focus? We will discuss this issue in this review article. We would like to promote the idea of supporting human-infrastructure (HI) with no-boundary thinking (NT) in bioinformatics (HINT).

An Exploration Into Improving DNA Motif Inference by Looking for Highly Conserved Core Regions.

Although most verified functional elements in noncoding DNA contain a highly conserved core region, this concept is not generally incorporated into motif inference systems. In this work, we explore the utility of adding the notion of conserved core regions into a comparative genomics approach for the search for putative functional elements in noncoding DNA. By modifying the scoring function for GAMI, Genetic Algorithms for Motif Inference, we investigate tradeoffs between the strength of conservation of the full motif vs.

Bioinformatic prediction of arthropod/nematode-like peptides in non-arthropod, non-nematode members of the Ecdysozoa.

The Onychophora, Priapulida and Tardigrada, along with the Arthropoda, Nematoda and several other small phyla, form the superphylum Ecdysozoa. Numerous peptidomic studies have been undertaken for both the arthropods and nematodes, resulting in the identification of many peptides from each group. In contrast, little is known about the peptides used as paracrines/hormones by species from the other ecdysozoan taxa.

An evaluation of information content as a metric for the inference of putative conserved noncoding regions in DNA sequences using a genetic algorithms approach.

In previous work, we presented GAMI, an approach to motif inference that uses a genetic algorithms search. GAMI is designed specifically to find putative conserved regulatory motifs in noncoding regions of divergent species, and is designed to allow for analysis of long nucleotide sequences. In this work, we compare GAMI's performance when run with its original fitness function (a simple count of the number of matches) and when run with information content, as well as several variations on these metrics.

Estimating patient's length of stay in the Emergency Department with an artificial neural network.

Predicting a patient's expected length of stay for an Emergency Department encounter is valuable to anticipate impending operational bottlenecks that may lead to diversion. We developed and validated an artificial neural network using data from >16,000 patients using clinical and operational parameters that are commonly available early during an encounter. Performance on the training set predicted length of stay within an average of 2 hours (sigmae2<500), but declined to an average of 7.

Rubella, rubeola, and mumps in pregnant women: susceptibilities and strategies for testing and vaccinating.

Objective: To estimate rubella, rubeola, and mumps (MMR) susceptibilities in pregnant women and determine the percentage not immune to rubeola or mumps, depending on rubella immunity status. A secondary objective was to assess costs of vaccination and testing programs aimed at eliminating these viral susceptibilities to determine an optimal strategy.

Methods: This was an observational study of women presenting for prenatal care.

Lymphatic tissue changes in rats flown on Spacelab Life Sciences-2.

Thymus, spleen, inguinal lymph node, and bone marrow specimens from rats flown on the 14-day Spacelab Life Sciences-2 mission were examined after staining of tissue sections. The primary observation was a transient retrogressive change in lymphatic tissues in the rats within a few hours after landing. There was a diffuse increase in tingible body-containing macrophages in the cortex of the thymus, thymus-dependent areas of the splenic white pulp, and inguinal lymph node.

Effects of spaceflight on the number of rat peripheral blood leukocytes and lymphocyte subsets.

Experiments were carried out on peripheral blood leukocytes and spleen lymphocytes from 29 male rats that were flown during the Spacelab Life Sciences 1 (SLS-1) nine-day mission on the shuttle Columbia in June 1991 and on appropriate ground controls. On the day of landing, there was a significant decrease in the total white blood cell counts (P < 0.0001) of flight animals in comparison to controls.

The first official meeting of the International Society for Experimental Hematology.

In 1972, 85 scientists from 10 countries came to Milwaukee to participate in the first official meeting of the International Society for Experimental Hematology. We summarize here some of the events leading up to the meeting, fondly recollect the enthusiastic spirit of the meeting and reprint the program, which is not all that different in content from the program of the 21st meeting.

A review of certain low-level ionizing radiation studies in mice and guinea pigs.

Starting in the early 1940s, Egon Lorenz and collaborators at the National Cancer Institute began an extended study of chronic low-level ionizing radiation effects in what was then the tolerance range for man. Observations on life span, body weight and radiation carcinogenesis, among others, were made in mice, guinea pigs and rabbits. At the then-permissible exposure level, 0.

Hematological measurements in rats flown on Spacelab shuttle, SL-3.

Previous studies have shown that a decrease in red cell mass occurs in astronauts, and some studies indicate a leukocytosis occurs. A life science module housing young and mature rats was flown on shuttle mission Spacelab 3 (SL-3), and the results of hematology studies of flight and control rats are presented. Statistically significant increases in the hematocrit, red blood cell counts, and hemoglobin determinations, together with a mild neutrophilia and lymphopenia, were found in flight animals.

Mammary gland tumors in irradiated and untreated guinea pigs.

This is a report of mammary gland tumors from 62 guinea pigs. The tumors arose in the terminal ductal-lobular units as either lobular acinar carcinoma or cystadenocarcinoma or as papillary carcinomas within large ducts near the mammilla. About half the number of the males had terminal ductal-lobular carcinomas and all but 2 of the papillary duct carcinomas also arose in males.

A study of a Caucasian family with variant von Willebrand's disease in association with vascular telangiectasia and haemoglobinopathy.

A family was identified which carries multi-haematological disorders including Type IIA von Willebrand's disease, vascular telangiectasia, and a haemoglobinopathy (haemoglobin S trait). In the affected individuals, the von Willebrand's disease varies in its expression from an asymptomatic form to a severe form especially in those patients with telangiectasia. Some patients have vascular telangiectasia in the mucous membranes of the mouth and lips.

Hymenolepis nana: intestinal tissue phase in actively immunized mice.

We investigated the fate of the intestinal cestode Hymenolepis nana in immunized mice. Immunity was induced by infection with the parasite eggs. These immunized animals and unimmunized controls were then challenged with 50,000 H.

Adenocarcinoma of the gallbladder in guinea pigs.

Adenocarcinoma of the gallbladder developed in 17 of 68 untreated and in 26 of 83 irradiated guinea pigs of inbred strains 2 and 13. The carcinomas spread widely by direct extension and through lymphatic and blood vessels to lymph nodes, mesenteries, omenta, abdominal wall, liver, lungs, bones, and spleen. Whole-body exposure to gamma or X-radiation increased both the number of tumors and metastases in male inbred guinea pigs but not in females.