The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic pinpointed the vulnerability of nations to disasters regardless of their relative level of development. The coordination of their emergency management response organisations was seen as extremely important in not only dealing with the global health emergency, but also with respect to natural hazards and public health threats in the future. Coming to these conclusions and working to enhance a country's coordination of emergency management actors are, however, two very different things.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVirulent infectious agents such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and methicillin-resistant (MRSA) induce tissue damage that recruits neutrophils, monocyte, and macrophages, leading to T cell exhaustion, fibrosis, vascular leak, epithelial cell depletion, and fatal organ damage. Neutrophils, monocytes, and macrophages recruited to pathogen-infected lungs, including SARS-CoV-2-infected lungs, express phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase gamma (PI3Kγ), a signaling protein that coordinates both granulocyte and monocyte trafficking to diseased tissues and immune-suppressive, profibrotic transcription in myeloid cells. PI3Kγ deletion and inhibition with the clinical PI3Kγ inhibitor eganelisib promoted survival in models of infectious diseases, including SARS-CoV-2 and MRSA, by suppressing inflammation, vascular leak, organ damage, and cytokine storm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLess common tropical fruits have been the subject of little research, leaving a vast field to be explored. In this context, a comprehensive study was carried out on the bioactive compounds and antioxidant capacity of 51 non-traditional fruits consumed in Ecuador. Vitamin C, organic acids, carotenoids, and phenolic compounds were evaluated using microextraction and rapid resolution liquid chromatography (RRLC) techniques, while antioxidant activity was measured using microplate readings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFYES. Low-dose naltrexone is as effective as amitriptyline in the treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy and has a superior safety profile (strength of recommendation [SOR], B; single randomized controlled trial [RCT]). Low-dose naltrexone significantly reduced pain by 32% in inflammatory conditions and 44% in neuropathic conditions (SOR, B; single retrospective cohort study).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTetrahymena are ciliated protists that have been used to study the effects of toxic chemicals, including anticancer drugs. In this study, we tested the inhibitory effects of six pyrimidine analogs (5-fluorouracil, floxuridine, 5'-deoxy-5-fluorouridine, 5-fluorouridine, gemcitabine, and cytarabine) on wild-type CU428 and conditional mutant NP1 Tetrahymena thermophila at room temperature and the restrictive temperature (37°C) where NP1 does not form the oral apparatus. We found that phagocytosis was not required for pyrimidine analog entry and that all tested pyrimidine analogs inhibited growth except for cytarabine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Disaster Risk Reduct
April 2023
Although the federal government has made official recommendations to the public advocating vaccinations against COVID-19 various communities have decided against doing so. In this regard, various studies have indicated that trust in government to provide accurate information about vaccines during a pandemic are related to whether people get vaccinated. Various studies have investigated factors contributing to vaccine decision-making, but none specifically focus on Hispanic and Latinos in the United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: As the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in social restrictions around the globe, this cross-sectional survey aimed to assess the impact of social isolation on self- or proxy-reported symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) during the pandemic.
Patients And Methods: The survey was distributed among 7109 subscribers of the Parkinson and Movement Disorders Alliance (PMD Alliance) News and Information list and was open only to people with PD (PwP) and care partners (CP, defined as main caregivers of PwP and serving as proxy respondents). No attempt was made to identify PwP and CP pairs.
Nat Hazards (Dordr)
August 2020
Individual household emergency planning is the most fundamental and can be the least expensive way to prepare for natural disasters. However, despite government and nonprofit educational campaigns, many Americans still do not have a household plan. Using a national sample of Americans, this research observes factors that influence people's likelihood of developing a household emergency plan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study focuses on coastal counties in Texas, United States, affected by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to gauge the influence of individual and contextual characteristics on people's ability to return to normalcy in the short term. Data from a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Episcopal Health Foundation between October and November 2017 were utilised in the analysis. The paper observes, based on the results of an ordered logistic regression, and contrary to previous work, that age, gender, levels of poverty, and social capital are not significant predictors of a return to normalcy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: To address the lack of genomic data from Hispanic/Latino (H/L) patients with lung cancer, the Latino Lung Cancer Registry was established to collect patient data and biospecimens from H/L patients.
Methods: This retrospective observational study examined lung cancer tumor samples from 163 H/L patients, and tumor-derived DNA was subjected to targeted-exome sequencing (>1000 genes, including EGFR, KRAS, serine/threonine kinase 11 gene [STK11], and tumor protein p53 gene [TP53]) and ancestry analysis. Mutation frequencies in this H/L cohort were compared with those in a similar cohort of non-Hispanic white (NHW) patients and correlated with ancestry, sex, smoking status, and tumor histologic type.
Clinicians routinely prescribe adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) for resected non-small cell lung cancer patients. However, ACT only improves five-year disease-free survival in stage I-III non-small cell lung cancer by 5-15%, with most patients deriving no benefit. Herein, deregulation of the E2F pathway was explored as a biomarker in lung adenocarcinoma patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe study reported here examined the effect of repetition on age differences in associative recognition using a paradigm designed to encourage recollection at test. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs presented one, two, four, or eight times. Test lists contained old (intact) pairs, pairs consisting of old words that had been studied with other partners (rearranged lures), and pairs consisting of two unstudied words (new lures).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis exploratory study sought to observe the perceptions, usage, and planned management of spontaneous volunteers in disaster planning and response within various urban environments. The authors discuss the perceptions of spontaneous volunteerism in America, specifically the challenges of using spontaneous volunteers in disaster response activities. A content analysis of the 50 largest cities in the US Office of Emergency Management Web sites and a survey instrument administered to emergency managers in these 50 cities were used to explore various questions raised throughout the discussion of the literature.
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