Attractive targeted sugar baits for malaria control in western Kenya (ATSB-Kenya): enrolment characteristics of cohort children and households.

Background: In western Kenya, a cluster-randomized trial is assessing the impact of attractive targeted sugar baits (ATSBs) on malaria in children enrolled in three consecutive cohorts. Here, characteristics of children and households at enrolment, and factors associated with baseline malaria prevalence are described.

Methods: Children aged 1 to < 15 years were randomly selected by cluster (n = 70) from a census database.

Greater lesion damage is bidirectionally related with accelerated brain aging after stroke.

Regional neuron loss following stroke can result in remote brain changes due to diaschisis and secondary brain atrophy. Whole brain changes post-stroke can be captured by the predicted brain age difference (brain-PAD), a neuroimaging-derived biomarker of global brain health previously associated with poorer chronic stroke outcomes. We hypothesized that greater lesion damage would be longitudinally associated with worsening brain-PAD during subacute stroke, and conversely, that poorer baseline brain-PAD would be associated with enlarged lesion damage.

Genetic diversity and Wolbachia infection in the Japanese encephalitis virus vector Culex tritaeniorhynchus in the Republic of Korea.

Background: Culex tritaeniorhynchus, a major vector of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), is found across a broad geographical range, including Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. Understanding the population structure and genetic diversity of pathogen vectors is increasingly seen as important for effective disease control. In China and Japan, two countries in close proximity to the Republic of Korea (ROK), Cx.

A case of lead migration after sacral neuromodulation with erosion into the rectum.

We present a case of a 73-year-old female with medication refractory overactive bladder treated with the InterStim® sacral neuromodulation device. Five months post implantation she developed drainage over the lead site and rectal bleeding. Evaluation identified lead migration with rectal perforation requiring surgical removal of the battery and lead.

Waning success: a 2013-2022 spatial and temporal trend analysis of malaria in Ethiopia.

Background: Despite consecutive decades of success in reducing malaria transmission, Ethiopia went off track towards its goal of malaria elimination by 2030, as outlined in the NMCP malaria strategy. Recent malaria outbreaks in Ethiopia are attributed to the emergence and spread of diagnostic and drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum, increased insecticide resistance in major vectors and the spread of invasive Anopheles stephensi. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental anomalies and internal conflicts have also potentially played a role in increasing malaria transmission.

Copy number variants underlie major selective sweeps in insecticide resistance genes in Anopheles arabiensis.

To keep ahead of the evolution of resistance to insecticides in mosquitoes, national malaria control programmes must make use of a range of insecticides, both old and new, while monitoring resistance mechanisms. The outdoor-biting malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis is of increasing concern for malaria transmission because it is apparently less susceptible to many indoor control interventions, yet knowledge of its mechanisms of resistance remains limited. Furthermore, comparatively little is known in general about resistance to non-pyrethroid insecticides such as pirimiphos-methyl (PM), which are crucial for effective control in the context of globally high resistance to pyrethroids.

Larval source management in Ethiopia: modelling to assess its effectiveness in curbing malaria surge in dire Dawa and Batu Towns.

Background: Ethiopia faces several severe challenges in terms of malaria elimination, including drug resistance and diagnostic evasion in the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, insecticide resistance in the primary Anopheles malaria vector, and, most recently, the invasion of the Asian malaria vector Anopheles stephensi. Novel malaria control methods are therefore needed, and in this paper, we describe the evaluation of a larval source management (LSM) strategy implemented in response to An. stephensi.

Narrow Therapeutic Index Drugs: FDA Experience, Views, and Operations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has defined narrow therapeutic index (NTI) drugs as "those drugs where small differences in dose or blood concentration may lead to serious therapeutic failures and/or adverse drug reactions that are life-threatening or result in persistent or significant disability or incapacity.

Divergence in smoking and drinking trends: Results from age-period-cohort analytical approach.

Background: Smoking has dropped substantially over time while alcohol consumption has increased. Understanding how smoking and drinking relate to age, time-period or birth cohorts may improve public health measures.

Method: The cross-sectional Continuous Household Survey in Northern Ireland provided bi-annual, household-level data on smoking and drinking from 1985 to 2015.

Integrated Approach Using Intuitionistic Fuzzy Multicriteria Decision-Making to Support Classifier Selection for Technology Adoption in Patients with Parkinson Disease: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is reported to be among the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases globally, presenting ongoing challenges and increasing burden on health care systems. In an effort to support patients with PD, their carers, and the wider health care sector to manage this incurable condition, the focus has begun to shift away from traditional treatments. One of the most contemporary treatments includes prescribing assistive technologies (ATs), which are viewed as a way to promote independent living and deliver remote care.

Comparing Open, Laparoscopic and Robotic Liver Resection for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer-A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.

Colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) can be surgically managed through open resections (OLR), laparoscopic resections (LLR), or robotic liver resections (RLR). However, there is ongoing uncertainty regarding the safety and effectiveness of minimally invasive approaches like LLR and RLR. This study aims to clarify these issues by conducting a network meta-analysis (NMA) to compare outcomes across OLR, LLR and RLR for patients with CRLM.

"I feel like I'm always on edge": Perceptions of parole supervision by parolees with substance use disorders.

Introduction: While extant research has looked at parole and its various actors as an institution, few studies recount the parole experience from the perspective of parolees. Additionally, despite the prevalence of substance use disorders (SUDs) within the criminal justice system, research that assesses the additional challenges this population faces throughout parole supervision is even scarcer.

Methods: To address this gap, we analyze in-depth qualitative interviews (n = 51) conducted with reentering men with SUDs as they navigate parole in Pennsylvania.

Plasma exchange does not improve overall survival in patients with acute liver failure in a real-world cohort.

Background & Aims: Therapeutic plasma exchange (PEX) has emerged as a potential treatment option for patients with acute liver failure (ALF). The effect of PEX on survival outcomes outside of clinical trials is not yet well established. In this study we aimed to evaluate the real-world use and outcomes of PEX for the treatment of ALF.

Mechanisms of transcriptional regulation in revealed by allele-specific expression.

Malaria control relies on insecticides targeting the mosquito vector, but this is increasingly compromised by insecticide resistance, which can be achieved by elevated expression of detoxifying enzymes that metabolize the insecticide. In diploid organisms, gene expression is regulated both in , by regulatory sequences on the same chromosome, and by acting factors, affecting both alleles equally. Differing levels of transcription can be caused by mutations in -regulatory modules (CRM), but few of these have been identified in mosquitoes.

Investigating the association between household exposure to Anopheles stephensi and malaria in Sudan and Ethiopia: A case-control study protocol.

Background: Endemic African malaria vectors are poorly adapted to typical urban ecologies. However, Anopheles stephensi, an urban malaria vector formerly confined to South Asia and the Persian Gulf, was recently detected in Africa and may change the epidemiology of malaria across the continent. Little is known about the public health implications of An.

Choosing to Provide: Early Medical Abortion and Clinician Conscience in Ireland.

Providers are essential to the delivery of abortion care. Yet, they often occupy an ambiguous space in political discourse around abortion. The introduction of a new abortion service in Ireland invites us to look afresh at providers.

Evaluation of model-integrated evidence approaches for pharmacokinetic bioequivalence studies using model averaging methods.

Conventional approaches for establishing bioequivalence (BE) between test and reference formulations using non-compartmental analysis (NCA) may demonstrate low power in pharmacokinetic (PK) studies with sparse sampling. In this case, model-integrated evidence (MIE) approaches for BE assessment have been shown to increase power, but may suffer from selection bias problems if models are built on the same data used for BE assessment. This work presents model averaging methods for BE evaluation and compares the power and type I error of these methods to conventional BE approaches for simulated studies of oral and ophthalmic formulations.

AnoPrimer: Primer Design in malaria vectors informed by range-wide genomic variation.

The major malaria mosquitoes, and , are some of the most studied organisms in medical research and also some of the most genetically diverse. When designing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or hybridisation-based molecular assays, reliable primer and probe design is crucial. However, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in primer binding sites can prevent primer binding, leading to null alleles, or bind suboptimally, leading to preferential amplification of specific alleles.