Meta-Analysis of Transcriptomic Studies of Blood and Six Brain Regions Identifies a Consensus of 15 Cross-Tissue Mechanisms in Alzheimer's Disease and Suggests an Origin of Cross-Study Heterogeneity.

The comprehensive genome-wide nature of transcriptome studies in Alzheimer's disease (AD) should provide a reliable description of disease molecular states. However, the genes and molecular systems nominated by transcriptomic studies do not always overlap. Even when results do align, it is not clear if those observations represent true consensus across many studies.

A twin analysis to estimate genetic and environmental factors contributing to variation in weighted gene co-expression network module eigengenes.

Multivariate network-based analytic methods such as weighted gene co-expression network analysis are frequently applied to human and animal gene-expression data to estimate the first principal component of a module, or module eigengene (ME). MEs are interpreted as multivariate summaries of correlated gene-expression patterns and network connectivity across genes within a module. As such, they have the potential to elucidate the mechanisms by which molecular genomic variation contributes to individual differences in complex traits.

BrainGENIE: The Brain Gene Expression and Network Imputation Engine.

In vivo experimental analysis of human brain tissue poses substantial challenges and ethical concerns. To address this problem, we developed a computational method called the Brain Gene Expression and Network-Imputation Engine (BrainGENIE) that leverages peripheral-blood transcriptomes to predict brain tissue-specific gene-expression levels. Paired blood-brain transcriptomic data collected by the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Project was used to train BrainGENIE models to predict gene-expression levels in ten distinct brain regions using whole-blood gene-expression profiles.

Do Women in Nepal Like Playing a Mobile Game? MANTRA: A Mobile Gamified App for Improving Healthcare Seeking Behavior in Rural Nepal.

In Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC), one of the causes of maternal and child mortality is a lack of medical knowledge and consequently the inability to seek timely healthcare. Mobile health (mHealth) technology is gradually becoming a universal intervention platform across the globe due to ubiquity of mobile phones and network coverage. MANTRA is a novel mHealth intervention developed to tackle maternal and child health issues through a serious mobile game app in rural Nepal, which demonstrated a statistically significant knowledge improvement in rural women.

Former Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Fathers' Involvement 4 Years Later: A Qualitative Study.

Purpose: To explore the experience of fathering a previous Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) infant four years after hospitalization.

Design And Methods: Nineteen fathers of former NICU infants were interviewed using a semi-structured schedule.

Results: Most of the fathers had children with ongoing health issues (84%).

MANTRA: Improving Knowledge of Maternal Health, Neonatal Health, and Geohazards in Women in Rural Nepal Using a Mobile Serious Game.

Serious games, conveying educational knowledge rather than merely entertainment, are a rapidly expanding research domain for cutting-edge educational technology. Digital interventions like serious games are great opportunities to overcome challenges in low-and-middle-income countries that limit access to health information, such as social barriers like low-literacy and gender. MANTRA: Increasing maternal and child health resilience before, during and after disasters using mobile technology in Nepal takes on these challenges with a novel digital health intervention; a serious mobile game aimed at vulnerable low-literacy female audiences in rural Nepal.

MANTRA: development and localization of a mobile educational health game targeting low literacy players in low and middle income countries.

Background: Mobile technology is increasingly important for delivering public health interventions to remote populations. This research study developed, piloted, and assessed a serious game for mobile devices that teaches geohazard, maternal, and neonatal health messages. This unique mHealth intervention aimed at low-literacy audiences in low resource settings is part of the Maternal and Neonatal Technologies in Rural Areas (MANTRA) project: Increasing maternal and child health resilience before, during, and after disasters using mobile technology in Nepal.

The Role of the NICU in Father Involvement, Beliefs, and Confidence: A Follow-up Qualitative Study.

Background: Fathers are important to infant outcomes. Infants of involved fathers have improved weight gain, sleep, and psychosocial behaviors. Father involvement with neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) infants reduces the length of stay.

Geochemical and sulfate isotopic evolution of flowback and produced waters reveals water-rock interactions following hydraulic fracturing of a tight hydrocarbon reservoir.

Although multistage hydraulic fracturing is routinely performed for the extraction of hydrocarbon resources from low permeability reservoirs, the downhole geochemical processes linked to the interaction of fracturing fluids with formation brine and reservoir mineralogy remain poorly understood. We present a geochemical dataset of flowback and produced water samples from a hydraulically fractured reservoir in the Montney Formation, Canada, analyzed for major and trace elements and stable isotopes. The dataset consists in 25 samples of flowback and produced waters from a single well, as well as produced water samples from 16 other different producing wells collected in the same field.

No time, no money, no luck: Barriers to prenatal care among dalit women in rural Nepal.

In Nepal, a large gap exists between non- and women in regard to maternal mortality and prenatal care. Especially rural are far behind non- in utilizing prenatal care. We explored rural women's prenatal practices and barriers to accessing prenatal care.

Conservation strategies for understanding and combating the primate bushmeat trade on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea.

Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea is among the important places in Africa for the conservation of primates, but a cultural preference for bushmeat and a lack of effective law enforcement has encouraged commercial bushmeat hunting, threatening the survival of the remaining primate population. For over 13 years, we collected bushmeat market data in the Malabo market, recording over 35,000 primate carcasses, documenting "mardi gras" consumption patterns, seasonal carcass availability, and negative effects resulting from government intervention. We also conducted forest surveys throughout Bioko's two protected areas in order to localize and quantify primate populations and hunting pressure.

From frugivore to folivore: Altitudinal variations in the diet and feeding ecology of the Bioko Island drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis).

Variation in the quality and availability of food resources can greatly influence the ecology, behavior, and conservation of wild primates. We studied the influence of altitudinal differences in resource availability on diet in wild drill monkeys (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis) on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea. We compared fecal samples (n = 234) collected across three consecutive dry seasons for drills living in lowland (0-300 m asl) forest with nearby (18 km distance) drills living in montane forest (500-1000 m asl) in the Gran Caldera Southern Highlands Scientific Reserve.

Long-Term Urban Market Dynamics Reveal Increased Bushmeat Carcass Volume despite Economic Growth and Proactive Environmental Legislation on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea.

Bushmeat hunting is extensive in west and central Africa as both a means for subsistence and for commercial gain. Commercial hunting represents one of the primary threats to wildlife in the region, and confounding factors have made it challenging to examine how external factors influence the commercial bushmeat trade. Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea is a small island with large tracts of intact forest that support sizeable populations of commercially valuable vertebrates, especially endemic primates.

Development and evaluation of a 3D printed endoscopic ampullectomy training model (with video).

Background: Endoscopic ampullectomy is a technically challenging, high-risk procedure with limited training opportunities. Although simulation models can assist with endoscopic skill acquisition, an ampullectomy model does not currently exist.

Objective: To develop a training model that can be used to improve technical skills, knowledge, and confidence in performing endoscopic ampullectomy.

List mode with the ORTEC digiBASE-E.

The ORTEC digiBASE-E (ORTEC, 801 S. Illinos Ave., Oak Ridge TN 37831) is a compact photomultiplier tube endcap designed to handle all of the necessary power and signal processing requirements of a scintillation gamma-ray detector.

Laboratory testing the Anaconda.

Laboratory measurements of the performance of the Anaconda are presented, a wave energy converter comprising a submerged water-filled distensible tube aligned with the incident waves. Experiments were carried out at a scale of around 1:25 with a 250 mm diameter and 7 m long tube, constructed of rubber and fabric, terminating in a linear power take-off of adjustable impedance. The paper presents some basic theory that leads to predictions of distensibility and bulge wave speed in a pressurized compound rubber and fabric tube, including the effects of inelastic sectors in the circumference, longitudinal tension and the surrounding fluid.

Calcineurin mediates bladder wall remodeling secondary to partial outlet obstruction.

We hypothesized that the calcineurin-nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT) pathway is activated following partial bladder outlet obstruction (pBOO), which would allow for pharmacologic treatment to prevent the ensuing bladder wall hypertrophy. Using a model of pBOO in male mice, we were able to demonstrate increased nuclear importation of the transcription factors NFAT and myocyte enhanching factor 2 both of which are under control of calcineurin in both the whole bladder wall as well as the urothelium. We further confirmed that this pathway was activated using transgenic mice containing an NFAT-luciferase reporter construct.

Island biogeography reveals the deep history of SIV.

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) lineages have been identified that are endemic to Bioko Island. The time the island formed offers a geological time scale calibration point for dating the most recent common ancestor of SIV. The Bioko viruses cover the whole range of SIV genetic diversity, and each Bioko SIV clade is most closely related to viruses circulating in hosts of the same genus on the African mainland rather than to SIVs of other Bioko species.

Postnatal depression in the community.

Background: Postnatal depression affects 15% of all women derived. Good practice in antenatal and postnatal care suggests that regular contact should take place with members of the primary health care team (PHCT) but, despite this, many cases of postnatal depression are probably not detected. It is also widely perceived that depressed women consult more frequently about themselves and their babies, but it is not clear whether the number of contacts with the primary health care team as a whole reflects this.