Exposure, hazard, and vulnerability all contribute to Schistosoma haematobium re-infection in northern Senegal.

Background: Infectious disease risk is driven by three interrelated components: exposure, hazard, and vulnerability. For schistosomiasis, exposure occurs through contact with water, which is often tied to daily activities. Water contact, however, does not imply risk unless the environmental hazard of snails and parasites is also present in the water.

Young People's Experiences of Engaging With Fitspiration on Instagram: Gendered Perspective.

Background: Fitness inspiration or fitspiration is a term used to describe web-based images of fit people, people in the gym, health foods, or inspirational quotes relating to diet and fitness being shared and consumed via visual social media. The popularity of this content is most notable via the Instagram platform. Currently, the majority of fitspiration research has focused on women's experiences; however, increasingly, studies have pointed to the need to explore the gendered ways by which people engage with this content.

Transcriptome-based polygenic score links depression-related corticolimbic gene expression changes to sex-specific brain morphology and depression risk.

Studies in post-mortem human brain tissue have associated major depressive disorder (MDD) with cortical transcriptomic changes, whose potential in vivo impact remains unexplored. To address this translational gap, we recently developed a transcriptome-based polygenic risk score (T-PRS) based on common functional variants capturing 'depression-like' shifts in cortical gene expression. Here, we used a non-clinical sample of young adults (n = 482, Duke Neurogenetics Study: 53% women; aged 19.

HPRep: Quantifying Reproducibility in HiChIP and PLAC-Seq Datasets.

HiChIP and PLAC-Seq are emerging technologies for studying genome-wide long-range chromatin interactions mediated by the protein of interest, enabling more sensitive and cost-efficient interrogation of protein-centric chromatin conformation. However, due to the unbalanced read distribution introduced by protein immunoprecipitation, existing reproducibility measures developed for Hi-C data are not appropriate for the analysis of HiChIP and PLAC-Seq data. Here, we present HPRep, a stratified and weighted correlation metric derived from normalized contact counts, to quantify reproducibility in HiChIP and PLAC-Seq data.

Comparative Effectiveness of Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) Vaccines in Preventing COVID-19 Hospitalizations Among Adults Without Immunocompromising Conditions - United States, March-August 2021.

Three COVID-19 vaccines are authorized or approved for use among adults in the United States (1,2). Two 2-dose mRNA vaccines, mRNA-1273 from Moderna and BNT162b2 from Pfizer-BioNTech, received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2020 for persons aged ≥18 years and aged ≥16 years, respectively. A 1-dose viral vector vaccine (Ad26.

Parallel characterization of cis-regulatory elements for multiple genes using CRISPRpath.

Current pooled CRISPR screens for cis-regulatory elements (CREs), based on transcriptional output changes, are typically limited to characterizing CREs of only one gene. Here, we describe CRISPRpath, a scalable screening strategy for parallelly characterizing CREs of genes linked to the same biological pathway and converging phenotypes. We demonstrate the ability of CRISPRpath for simultaneously identifying functional enhancers of six genes in the 6-thioguanine–induced DNA mismatch repair pathway using both CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) and CRISPR nuclease (CRISPRn) approaches.

A Low-threshold Comprehensive Shared Medical Appointment Program for Perinatal Substance Use in an Underserved Population.

Objectives: We describe retention in care, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) prescribing, and urine toxicology outcomes of a comprehensive perinatal shared medical appointment model that combined medication, group-based counseling, and recovery supports.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of program retention between 11/1/16 and 3/31/20 in pregnant and postpartum women with substance dependence or use disorder. Disengagement reasons, MOUD prescribing, and urine toxicology were abstracted from medical records.

Might a Single Neuron Solve Interesting Machine Learning Problems Through Successive Computations on Its Dendritic Tree?

Physiological experiments have highlighted how the dendrites of biological neurons can nonlinearly process distributed synaptic inputs. However, it is unclear how aspects of a dendritic tree, such as its branched morphology or its repetition of presynaptic inputs, determine neural computation beyond this apparent nonlinearity. Here we use a simple model where the dendrite is implemented as a sequence of thresholded linear units.

Age and sex-related variability in the presentation of generalized anxiety and depression symptoms.

Background: Generalized anxiety and depression are extremely prevalent and debilitating. There is evidence for age and sex variability in symptoms of depression, but despite comorbidity it is unclear whether this extends to anxiety symptomatology. Studies using questionnaire sum scores typically fail to address this phenotypic complexity.

Patient Perception Regarding the Safety of Elective Joint Arthroplasty Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Total joint arthroplasty (TJA) practices have been dramatically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, no study has assessed trends in patient perceptions regarding the safety of elective TJA.

Methods: A single-institution, prospective cohort study was conducted between May 11th and August 10th, 2020.

Examining sex differences in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric genetic risk in anxiety and depression.

Anxiety and depression are common mental health disorders and have a higher prevalence in females. They are modestly heritable, share genetic liability with other psychiatric disorders, and are highly heterogeneous. There is evidence that genetic liability to neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with anxiety and depression, particularly in females.

Combatting ischemia reperfusion injury from resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta using adenosine, lidocaine and magnesium: A pilot study.

Background: Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA), a minimally invasive alternative to resuscitative thoracotomy, has been associated with significant ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI). Resuscitation strategies using adenosine, lidocaine, and magnesium (ALM) have been shown to mitigate similar inflammatory responses in hemorrhagic and septic shock models. This study examined the effects of ALM on REBOA-associated IRI using a porcine model.

Sustained Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Vaccines Against COVID-19 Associated Hospitalizations Among Adults - United States, March-July 2021.

Real-world evaluations have demonstrated high effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations (1-4) measured shortly after vaccination; longer follow-up is needed to assess durability of protection. In an evaluation at 21 hospitals in 18 states, the duration of mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna) effectiveness (VE) against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations was assessed among adults aged ≥18 years. Among 3,089 hospitalized adults (including 1,194 COVID-19 case-patients and 1,895 non-COVID-19 control-patients), the median age was 59 years, 48.

The development and clinical use of the Guy's and St Thomas' quality of life questionnaire (GAST) for adult cochlear implant patients.

Objectives: To Review the benefit of the GAST questionnaire (Tilston, S. 2003. Assessing the quality of life in adult cochlear implant users.

Measuring the Rate of In-vitro Drug Release From Polymeric Nanoparticles by F Solution State NMR Spectroscopy.

We report what we believe is the first use of F NMR spectroscopy to directly measure in-vitro release (IVR) from polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs). Using F NMR we selectively measured IVR of AZD2811 from PNPs. Due to rapid nuclear relaxation in solid-like environments only AZD2811 in solution is detected, and physical separation from the PNPs isn't required.

Do Biological Constraints Impair Dendritic Computation?

Computations on the dendritic trees of neurons have important constraints. Voltage dependent conductances in dendrites are not similar to arbitrary direct-current generation, they are the basis for dendritic nonlinearities and they do not allow converting positive currents into negative currents. While it has been speculated that the dendritic tree of a neuron can be seen as a multi-layer neural network and it has been shown that such an architecture could be computationally strong, we do not know if that computational strength is preserved under these biological constraints.

The Role of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Cardiovascular and Diabetes Healthcare: A Scoping Review.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an adapted form of cognitive behavioural therapy. ACT focuses on how thinking affects behaviour and promotes psychological flexibility. The prevalence of psychological distress among people living with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is high, and ACT may offer an alternative treatment approach.

Effectiveness of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Messenger RNA Vaccines for Preventing Coronavirus Disease 2019 Hospitalizations in the United States.

Background: As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination coverage increases in the United States, there is a need to understand the real-world effectiveness against severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and among people at increased risk for poor outcomes.

Methods: In a multicenter case-control analysis of US adults hospitalized March 11-May 5, 2021, we evaluated vaccine effectiveness to prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations by comparing odds of prior vaccination with a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna) between cases hospitalized with COVID-19 and hospital-based controls who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2.

Results: Among 1212 participants, including 593 cases and 619 controls, median age was 58 years, 22.

Delayed ileostomy closure increases the odds of Clostridium difficile infection.

Aim: A diverting ileostomy is typically performed to divert intestinal contents in high-risk colorectal anastomoses. Ileostomy closure is associated with high rates of postoperative Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Risk factors for the development of CDI are unclear; however, a correlation has been observed with delayed closure.

Mood episodes in pregnancy and risk of postpartum recurrence in bipolar disorder: The Bipolar Disorder Research Network Pregnancy Study.

Background: Women with bipolar disorder (BD) are at high risk of mania/psychosis following childbirth. The risk factors for these episodes remain poorly understood and prospective studies are rare. Here, we examine whether mood episodes occurring within pregnancy predict postpartum recurrence in women with BD using a prospective design.

What factors influence clinical decision making for paramedics when attending to paediatric emergencies in the community within one ambulance service trust?

Background: Children's healthcare needs are complex and diverse. Paramedics are expected to respond to a range of emergency calls across the patient demographic spectrum and to make complex clinical decisions, whilst facing growing pressures to seek provisions of care for their patients within the community.

Aim: This study looked to understand the lived experiences of paramedics when attending to paediatric patients, and what factors influenced decision making.