Trends and patterns of modern contraceptive use and relationships with high-risk births and child mortality in Burkina Faso.

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, few studies have stressed the importance of spatial heterogeneity analysis in modern contraceptive use and the relationships with high-risk births.

Objective: This paper aims to analyse the association between modern contraceptive use, distribution of birth risk, and under-five child mortality at both national and regional levels in Burkina Faso.

Design: The last three Demographic and Health Surveys - conducted in Burkina Faso in 1998, 2003, and 2010 - enabled descriptions of differentials, trends, and associations between modern contraceptive use, total fertility rates (TFR), and factors associated with high-risk births and under-five child mortality.

Trends in contraceptive use and distribution of births with demographic risk factors in Ethiopia: a sub-national analysis.

Background: Evidence shows that family planning contributes to the decline in child mortality by decreasing the proportions of births that are considered high risk. The main objective of the present analysis was to examine the trends in use of modern contraceptives and their relationship with total fertility rate (TFR) and distribution of births by demographic risk factors as defined by mother's age, birth interval, and birth order at the sub-national level in Ethiopia.

Design: Analyses used data from three Demographic and Health Surveys in Ethiopia (2000, 2005, and 2011), which are nationally representative data collected through questionnaire-based interviews from women 15-49 using a stratified, two-stage cluster sampling.

Functional organization of an Mbp enhancer exposes striking transcriptional regulatory diversity within myelinating glia.

In mammals, large caliber axons are ensheathed by myelin, a glial specialization supporting axon integrity and conferring accelerated and energy-efficient action potential conduction. Myelin basic protein (MBP) is required for normal myelin elaboration with maximal mbp transcription in oligodendrocytes requiring the upstream M3 enhancer. To further characterize the mechanism regulating mbp transcription, we defined M3 structure/function relationships by evaluating its evolutionary conservation, DNA footprints and the developmental programing conferred in mice by M3 derivatives.

Cognitive and motor function of neurologically impaired extremely low birth weight children.

Background: Rates of neurological impairment among extremely low birth weight children (ELBW [<1 kg]) have decreased since 2000; however, their functioning is unexamined.

Objective: To compare motor and cognitive functioning of ELBW children with neurological impairment, including cerebral palsy and severe hypotonia/hypertonia, between two periods: 1990 to 1999 (n=83) and 2000 to 2005 (n=34).

Methods: Measures of function at 20 months corrected age included the Mental and Psychomotor Developmental Indexes of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the Gross Motor Functional Classification System as primary outcomes and individual motor function items as secondary outcomes.

Phosphorylation of Glutathione S-Transferase P1 (GSTP1) by Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) Promotes Formation of the GSTP1-c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) Complex and Suppresses JNK Downstream Signaling and Apoptosis in Brain Tumor Cells.

Under normal physiologic conditions, the glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1) protein exists intracellularly as a dimer in reversible equilibrium with its monomeric subunits. In the latter form, GSTP1 binds to the mitogen-activated protein kinase, JNK, and inhibits JNK downstream signaling. In tumor cells, which frequently are characterized by constitutively high GSTP1 expression, GSTP1 undergoes phosphorylation by epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) at tyrosine residues 3, 7, and 198.

The need for a more nuanced conclusion than life is pretty meaningful.

Comments on the original article "Life is pretty meaningful," by S. J. Heintzelman and L.

Measuring the cost-effectiveness of midwife-led versus physician-led intrapartum teams in developing countries.

International agencies have advocated scaling-up of midwifery resources as an important method for improving maternal health and reducing maternal mortality rates (MMR). The cost-effectiveness of midwife-led versus physician-led intrapartum care is an important consideration in the human resource planning required to reduce MMR. Studies suggest that midwife-led teams can achieve comparable effectiveness and outcomes using less medically intensive care compared with physician-led teams.

Sinus pause in association with Lyme carditis.

Lyme disease is the most prevalent tick-borne disease in the United States. It is caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. Cardiac involvement is seen in 4% to 10% of patients with Lyme disease.

Association of persistent and transient worsening renal function with mortality risk, readmissions risk, length of stay, and costs in patients hospitalized with acute heart failure.

Background: Data comparing effects of transient worsening renal function (WRFt) and persistent WRF (WRFp) on outcomes in patients hospitalized with acute heart failure (AHF) are lacking. We determined the characteristics of hospitalized AHF patients who experienced no worsening renal function (non-WRF), WRFt, or WRFp, and the relationship between cohorts and AHF-related outcomes.

Methods And Results: A patient's first AHF hospitalization (index) was identified in the Cerner Health Facts(®) database (January 2008-March 2011).

A Dual-Modality Herpes Simplex Virus 2 Vaccine for Preventing Genital Herpes by Using Glycoprotein C and D Subunit Antigens To Induce Potent Antibody Responses and Adenovirus Vectors Containing Capsid and Tegument Proteins as T Cell Immunogens.

Unlabelled: We evaluated a genital herpes prophylactic vaccine containing herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) glycoproteins C (gC2) and D (gD2) to stimulate humoral immunity and UL19 (capsid protein VP5) and UL47 (tegument protein VP13/14) as T cell immunogens. The HSV-2 gC2 and gD2 proteins were expressed in baculovirus, while the UL19 and UL47 genes were expressed from replication-defective adenovirus vectors. Adenovirus vectors containing UL19 and UL47 stimulated human and murine CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell responses.

Phase II Trial of Upfront Bevacizumab, Irinotecan, and Temozolomide for Unresectable Glioblastoma.

Lessons Learned: Trials focusing on unresectable multifocal glioblastoma are needed because of the extremely poor prognosis and challenges in receiving standard therapy, such as concurrent radiation and chemotherapy.Developing a strategy to chemically debulk tumors before radiation and/or surgery is warranted.

Background: Extent of resection remains a key prognostic factor in glioblastoma (GBM), with gross total resection providing a better prognosis than biopsy or subtotal resection.

Flowering shoots of ornamental crops as a model to study cellular and molecular aspects of plant gravitropism.

Flowering shoots offer a very convenient and excellent model system for in-depth study of shoot gravitropism in regular stems rather than in special aboveground organs, showing how plants cope with the force of gravity on Earth and change in orientation. Regarding the emerging notion that roots and shoots execute their gravitropic bending by different mechanisms, the use of flowering shoots offers additional confirmation for the suggested shoot-sensing mechanisms initially found in Arabidopsis. As a part of confirming this mechanism, studying this unique model system also enabled elucidation of the sequence of events operating in gravity signalling in shoots.

Reduced walking speed and distance as harbingers of the approaching grim reaper.

Although treadmill exercise testing can provide an assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness, which serves as an independent prognostic indicator, numerous studies now suggest that usual gait speed, time, or distance covered during walk performance tests and weekly walking distance/time are powerful predictors of mortality and future cardiovascular events in selected patients. This review summarizes the relation between these variables and their association with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality, with specific reference to potential underlying mechanisms and implications for the clinician. Contemporary health care providers have escalating opportunities to promote lifestyle physical activity using pedometers, accelerometers, and smartphone-based health and wellness applications.

Novel role of hematopoietic stem cells in immunologic rejection of malignant gliomas.

Adoptive cellular therapy (ACT) after lymphodepletive conditioning can induce dramatic clinical responses, but this approach has been largely limited to melanoma due to a lack of reliable methods for expanding tumor-specific lymphocytes from the majority of other solid cancers. We have employed tumor RNA-pulsed dendritic cells (DCs) to reliably expand CD4 and CD8 tumor-reactive T lymphocytes for curative ACT in a highly-invasive, chemotherapy- and radiation-resistant malignant glioma model. Curative treatment of established intracranial tumors involved a synergistic interaction between myeloablative (MA) conditioning, adoptively transferred tumor-specific T cells, and tumor RNA-pulsed DC vaccines.

Pre-symptomatic transcriptome changes during cold storage of chilling sensitive and resistant peach cultivars to elucidate chilling injury mechanisms.

Background: Cold storage induces chilling injury (CI) disorders in peach fruit (woolliness/mealiness, flesh browning and reddening/bleeding) manifested when ripened at shelf life. To gain insight into the mechanisms underlying CI, we analyzed the transcriptome of 'Oded' (high tolerant) and 'Hermoza' (relatively tolerant to woolliness, but sensitive to browning and bleeding) peach cultivars at pre-symptomatic stages. The expression profiles were compared and validated with two previously analyzed pools (high and low sensitive to woolliness) from the Pop-DG population.

Tetanus toxoid and CCL3 improve dendritic cell vaccines in mice and glioblastoma patients.

After stimulation, dendritic cells (DCs) mature and migrate to draining lymph nodes to induce immune responses. As such, autologous DCs generated ex vivo have been pulsed with tumour antigens and injected back into patients as immunotherapy. While DC vaccines have shown limited promise in the treatment of patients with advanced cancers including glioblastoma, the factors dictating DC vaccine efficacy remain poorly understood.

Toward optimal outcome following pivotal response treatment: a case series.

There is a growing literature on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who respond favorably to behavioral treatment, which is often termed "optimal outcome." Rates and definitions of optimal outcome vary widely. The current case series describes an empirically validated behavioral treatment approach called Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT).

Drosophila muller f elements maintain a distinct set of genomic properties over 40 million years of evolution.

The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D.

Spirituality as a scientific construct: testing its universality across cultures and languages.

Using data obtained from 4004 participants across eight countries (Canada, India, Japan, Korea, Poland, Slovakia, Uganda, and the U.S.), the factorial reliability, validity and structural/measurement invariance of a 30-item version of Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (ESI-R) was evaluated.

Patterns of medication utilization and costs associated with the use of etanercept, adalimumab, and ustekinumab in the management of moderate-to-severe psoriasis.

Background: Dose escalations of biologic agents may be attempted in the management of moderate-to-severe psoriasis. This has implications for the real-world cost of treatment.

Objective: To examine the utilization patterns and costs associated with the use of etanercept, adalimumab, and ustekinumab among patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis.

Leveraging HIV Programming to Enhance Access to Noncommunicable Disease Care in Southern Botswana.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess whether HIV programming in southern Botswana could be leveraged to provide care for patients with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed to determine the spectrum and complexity of NCDs seen by HIV-focused outreach programming delivered between July 2011 and December 2013, to 9 facilities in southern Botswana. The association of HIV status and specific International Classification of Disease codes was examined using bivariate analysis.

Prognostic marker analysis in pediatric intracranial ependymomas.

Histologic grading methods dependent upon H&E staining review have not been shown to reliably predict survival in children with intracranial ependymomas due to the subjectivity of the analytical methods. We hypothesized that the immunohistochemical detection of MIB-1, Tenascin C, CD34, VEGF, and CA IX may represent objective markers of post-operative survival (Progression Free and Overall Survival; PFS, OS) in these patients. Intracranial ependymomas from patients aged 22 years or less were studied.

Pivotal Response Treatment: Case Reports.

The current paper provides an overview of an evidence-based treatment, Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The paper describes PRT principles and then illustrates the approach using two case reports. The children are preschool-aged children with high-functioning ASD.