Immediate identification of travellers' diarrhoea-causing pathogens may not be possible in remote settings, but samples can be stored for epidemiological and related research. We collected pilot data to evaluate the utility of three different preservation media for testing stored faecal samples compared to immediate testing of fresh samples using the BioFire FilmArray multiplex PCR gastrointestinal panel (bioMérieux). No previous studies have demonstrated the utility of testing faecal samples directly by PCR BioFire FilmArray following prolonged storage and transportation in OMNIgene, DNA shield and FTA cards.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Climate change is now the greatest threat to human survival. The healthcare system contributes significantly to global pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Individual practitioners play an important role in helping to reduce these impacts in day-to-day practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To explore rural physician-community engagement through three case studies in order to understand the role that these relationships can play in increasing community-level resilience to climate change and ecosystem disruption.
Design: Qualitative secondary case study analysis.
Setting: Three Canadian rural communities (BC n = 2, Ontario n = 1).
Objective: To provide family physicians with prescribing and diagnostic strategies that can reduce carbon emissions associated with inhalers.
Sources Of Information: This review is based on the authors' experience developing the climate-conscious inhaler prescribing playbooks and courses for CASCADES (Creating a Sustainable Canadian Health System in a Climate Crisis). The approach was refined through patient and provider feedback since the first playbook was published in 2021.
Open Forum Infect Dis
January 2024
Background: We report clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory features of a large diarrhea outbreak caused by a novel subtype during British military training in Kenya between February and April 2022.
Methods: Data were collated from diarrhea cases, and fecal samples were analyzed on site using the multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) BioFire FilmArray. Water was tested using Colilert kits (IDEXX, UK).
Objective: Receiving instruments from surgical technicians during endoscopic laryngeal and airway microsurgery (ELAM) has challenges including repeated, expeditious handling of delicate instruments and passing them to the surgeon's hand opposite of where the surgical assistant is standing. Optimizing this interaction may reduce surgical errors and improve operative efficiency.
Methods: A proprietary ELAM instrument holder was attached to both sides of the operating room bed.
Although Synsepalum dulcificum is viewed as one of the most economically promising orphan tree crops worldwide, its genetic improvement and sustainable conservation are hindered by a lack of understanding of its evolutionary history and current population structure. Here, we report for the first time the application of genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping to a diverse panel of S. dulcificum accessions to depict the genetic diversity and population structure of the species in the Dahomey Gap (DG) and Upper Guinea (UG) regions to infer its evolutionary history.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: From the onset of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in January 2020 to Election Day in November, the United States experienced over 9,400,000 cases and 232,000 deaths. This crisis largely defined the campaign between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, centering on the Trump administration's efforts in mitigating the number of cases and deaths. While conventional wisdom suggested that Trump and his party would lose support due to the severity of COVID-19 across the country, such an effect is hotly debated empirically and theoretically.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to determine the impact of two nudge interventions on customers' produce purchases at a rural Canadian grocery store. A pre- and post-intervention observational study design was used. Sales data were gathered before and after the staggered implementation of two nudge-based interventions to encourage produce purchases: grocery cart dividers to encourage shoppers to fill one-third of their cart with produce and grocery cart plaques with information about how many fruits and vegetables were typically purchased in the store.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany of the complex determinants of obesity originate during infancy when small changes in the environment can permanently influence appetite, behavior, and energy metabolism. Parent feeding style ("how" rather than "what" to feed) has emerged as a potentially important factor in early obesity prevention. (1) To assess the feasibility of conducting a brief responsive feeding education intervention by public health nurses during routine well-baby visits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe linkage in new and creative ways of existing plant breeding methods responsive to different global trends and values provides a 'systems approach' to address a broad set of global production challenges more effectively. Here, we illustrate such an approach through its application to trees, chosen because of their extensive diversity in features, uses, users, production contexts, and domestication pathways. We coin the resulting strategy 'tree diversity breeding' and consider it with reference to trends and values related to participation, environment, biotechnology, and markets as examples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA defining component of agroforestry parklands across Sahelo-Sudanian Africa (SSA), the shea tree () is central to sustaining local livelihoods and the farming environments of rural communities. Despite its economic and cultural value, however, not to mention the ecological roles it plays as a dominant parkland species, shea remains semi-domesticated with virtually no history of systematic genetic improvement. In truth, shea's extended juvenile period makes traditional breeding approaches untenable; but the opportunity for genome-assisted breeding is immense, provided the foundational resources are available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Pharm Biomed Anal
September 2021
Sodium triacetoxyborohydride (STAB) is a mild, selective, and frequently used reducing agent for reductive amination transformations. STAB has been reported to undergo degradation when exposed to air, often requiring additional sub-stoichiometric reagent charges to drive reactions to completion. We report the development and qualification of a rapid, quantitative GC derivatization method using 3,4-dihydroisoquinoline to enable accurate hydride assay determination of STAB.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Health outcomes in rural populations are known to be generally worse than in urban populations but there are some exceptions to this trend. Most research evaluating these disparities has focused on rural communities with poor health outcomes. The current study set out to explore the factors that make some rural communities healthier than others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFand are two tetraploid wheat species sharing as a common ancestor, and domesticated accessions from both of these allopolyploids exhibit nonbrittle rachis (i.e., nonshattering spikes).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe geographical origin of watermelon () remains debated. While a first hypothesis suggests the center of origin to be West Africa, where the endemic sister species thrives, a second hypothesis suggests northeastern Africa where the white-fleshed Sudanese Kordophan melon is cultivated. In this study, we infer biogeographical and haplotype genealogy for , and using noncoding cpDNA sequences (T-L and F32 regions) from a global collection of 135 accessions.
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