Diffuse-illumination holographic optical coherence tomography.

Holographic optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful imaging technique, but its ability to reveal low-reflectivity features is limited. In this study, we performed holographic OCT by incoherently averaging volumes with changing diffuse illumination of numerical aperture (NA) equal to the detection NA. While the reduction of speckle from singly scattered light is only modest, we discovered that speckle from multiply scattered light can be arbitrarily reduced, resulting in substantial improvements in image quality.

Widening the lens of population-based health research to climate change impacts and adaptation: the climate change and health evaluation and response system (CHEERS).

Background: Climate change significantly impacts health in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), exacerbating vulnerabilities. Comprehensive data for evidence-based research and decision-making is crucial but scarce. Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites (HDSSs) in Africa and Asia provide a robust infrastructure with longitudinal population cohort data, yet they lack climate-health specific data.

The relative effect of climate variability on malaria incidence after scale-up of interventions in western Kenya: A time-series analysis of monthly incidence data from 2008 to 2019.

Background: Despite considerable progress made over the past 20 years in reducing the global burden of malaria, the disease remains a major public health problem and there is concern that climate change might expand suitable areas for transmission. This study investigated the relative effect of climate variability on malaria incidence after scale-up of interventions in western Kenya.

Methods: Bayesian negative binomial models were fitted to monthly malaria incidence data, extracted from records of patients with febrile illnesses visiting the Lwak Mission Hospital between 2008 and 2019.

Wavefront sensor-less adaptive optics using deep reinforcement learning.

Image degradation due to wavefront aberrations can be corrected with adaptive optics (AO). In a typical AO configuration, the aberrations are measured directly using a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor and corrected with a deformable mirror in order to attain diffraction limited performance for the main imaging system. Wavefront sensor-less adaptive optics (SAO) uses the image information directly to determine the aberrations and provide guidance for shaping the deformable mirror, often iteratively.

Tourism and urban development as drivers for invertebrate diversity loss on tropical islands.

Oceanic islands harbour a disproportionately high number of endemic and threatened species. Rapidly growing human populations and tourism are posing an increasing threat to island biota, yet the ecological consequences of these human land uses on small oceanic island systems have not been quantified. Here, we investigated and compared the impact of tourism and urban island development on ground-associated invertebrate biodiversity and habitat composition on oceanic islands.

Coastal accumulation of microplastic particles emitted from the Po River, Northern Italy: Comparing remote sensing and hydrodynamic modelling with in situ sample collections.

Microplastic research has mainly concentrated on open seas, while riverine plumes remain largely unexplored despite their hypothesized importance as a microplastic source to coastal waters. This work aimed to model coastal accumulation of microplastic particles (1-5 mm) emitted by the Po River over 1.5 years.

NUTRItion and CLIMate (NUTRICLIM): investigating the relationship between climate variables and childhood malnutrition through agriculture, an exploratory study in Burkina Faso.

Malnutrition remains a leading cause of death in children in low- and middle-income countries; this will be aggravated by climate change. Annually, 6.9 million deaths of children under 5 were attributable directly or indirectly to malnutrition.

Improving AfriPop dataset with settlement extents extracted from RapidEye for the border region comprising South-Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique.

For modelling the spatial distribution of malaria incidence, accurate and detailed information on population size and distribution are of significant importance. Different, global, spatial, standard datasets of population distribution have been developed and are widely used. However, most of them are not up-to-date and the low spatial resolution of the input census data has limitations for contemporary, national- scale analyses.

Geostatistical modelling of the malaria risk in Mozambique: effect of the spatial resolution when using remotely-sensed imagery.

The study of malaria spatial epidemiology has benefited from recent advances in geographic information system and geostatistical modelling. Significant progress in earth observation technologies has led to the development of moderate, high and very high resolution imagery. Extensive literature exists on the relationship between malaria and environmental/climatic factors in different geographical areas, but few studies have linked human malaria parasitemia survey data with remote sensing-derived land cover/land use variables and very few have used Earth Observation products.

Earth observation in support of malaria control and epidemiology: MALAREO monitoring approaches.

Malaria affects about half of the world's population, with the vast majority of cases occuring in Africa. National malaria control programmes aim to reduce the burden of malaria and its negative, socioeconomic effects by using various control strategies (e.g.

Assessing the relationship between environmental factors and malaria vector breeding sites in Swaziland using multi-scale remotely sensed data.

Many entomological studies have analyzed remotely sensed data to assess the relationship between malaria vector distribution and the associated environmental factors. However, the high cost of remotely sensed products with high spatial resolution has often resulted in analyses being conducted at coarse scales using open-source, archived remotely sensed data. In the present study, spatial prediction of potential breeding sites based on multi-scale remotely sensed information in conjunction with entomological data with special reference to presence or absence of larvae was realized.

Geostatistical analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of powdery mildew and leaf rust in wheat.

Plant diseases are dynamic systems that progress or regress in spatial and temporal dimensions. Site-specific or temporally optimized disease control requires profound knowledge about the development of each stressor. The spatiotemporal dynamics of leaf rust (Puccinia recondite f.

Depletion of serum L-arginine in patients with acute pancreatitis.

Introduction: Acute pancreatitis may be initiated by interference with the pancreatic outflow to the duodenum. This flow is normally regulated by reflex relaxation of the sphincter of Oddi in which nitric oxide is an important mediator.

Aim: To test the hypothesis that acute pancreatitis involves a depletion in serum L-arginine resulting in impaired production of nitric oxide.