Objective: This study sought to understand the current experiences and subsequent needs of digital maternal health application users based on an interdisciplinary analysis of features currently available in the digital marketplace (including mobile applications and mobile-friendly websites).
Methods: Following secondary analysis of previously collected interview and focus group data, we used qualitative thematic analysis to observe recurring themes within current maternal health applications and prospective augmentation of related technology for future development.
Results: Study findings suggested tailored features would best serve the target population, and eleven unique themes comprising additions and improvements to maternal health applications emerged.
We have used surface plasmon resonant metal gratings to induce and probe the dielectric response (i.e., electro-optic modulation) of ionic liquids (ILs) at electrode interfaces.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this Letter, a digital self-aligned focusing schlieren (D-SAFS) system is introduced. This system uses a digital transparent micro liquid crystal display (μLCD), in combination with a linear polarizer, to act on the linear polarization state of light transmitted in both the forward and reverse directions, essentially acting as both the source and cutoff grids. The use of the μLCD display allows for on-the-fly changes to the cutoff pattern type, spatial frequency, and orientation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev Lett
September 2023
We measured the nuclear-recoil ionization yield in silicon with a cryogenic phonon-sensitive gram-scale detector. Neutrons from a monoenergetic beam scatter off of the silicon nuclei at angles corresponding to energy depositions from 4 keV down to 100 eV, the lowest energy probed so far. The results show no sign of an ionization production threshold above 100 eV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNavigation gets us from place to place, creating a path to arrive at a goal. We trained a monkey to steer a motorized cart in a large room, beginning at its trial-by-trial start location and ending at a trial-by-trial cued goal location. While the monkey steered its autonomously chosen path to its goal, we recorded neural activity simultaneously in both the hippocampus (HPC) and medial superior temporal (MST) cortex.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBetween 2014 and 2016, there were two severe community water system (CWS) failures in Flint, Michigan (MI), USA and Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. These events had profound implications for public health in their respective countries. While the nature of both crises was different, certain aspects of the failings were strikingly similar.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExpert Opin Pharmacother
October 2022
Introduction: Strongyloidiasis, an infection caused by the soil-transmitted helminth , can lead immunocompromised people to a life-threatening syndrome. We highlight here current and emerging pharmacotherapeutic strategies for strongyloidiasis and discuss treatment protocols according to patient cohort. We searched PubMed and Embase for papers published on this topic between 1990 and May 2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF•Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) represent a threat to the health, wellbeing and economic prosperity of billions of people worldwide, often causing serious disease or death. •Commonly considered diseases of low and middle-income nations, the presence of NTDs in high income countries such as Australia is often overlooked. •Seven of the 20 recognised NTDs are endemic in Australia: scabies, soil-transmitted helminths and strongyloidiasis, echinococcosis, Buruli ulcer, leprosy, trachoma, and snakebite envenoming.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Cryogenic Dark Matter Search low ionization threshold experiment (CDMSlite) achieved efficient detection of very small recoil energies in its germanium target, resulting in sensitivity to lightly ionizing particles (LIPs) in a previously unexplored region of charge, mass, and velocity parameter space. We report first direct-detection limits calculated using the optimum interval method on the vertical intensity of cosmogenically produced LIPs with an electric charge smaller than e/(3×10^{5}), as well as the strongest limits for charge ≤e/160, with a minimum vertical intensity of 1.36×10^{-7} cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1} at charge e/160.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present limits on spin-independent dark matter-nucleon interactions using a 10.6 g Si athermal phonon detector with a baseline energy resolution of σ_{E}=3.86±0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The aim of this investigation was to determine if acute or repeated applications of ischemic preconditioning (IPC) could enhance the recovery process, following exercise induced muscle damage (EIMD).
Design: Randomized control trial.
Methods: Twenty-three healthy males were familiarised with the muscle damaging protocol (five sets of 20 drop jumps from a 0.
Strongyloidiasis and HTLV-I (human T-lymphotropic virus-1) are important infections that are endemic in many countries around the world with an estimated 370 million infected with Strongyloides stercoralis alone, and 5-10 million with HTVL-I. Co-infections with these pathogens are associated with significant morbidity and can be fatal. HTLV-I infects T-cells thus causing dysregulation of the immune system which has been linked to dissemination and hyperinfection of S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To determine the prevalence of enteric infections in Aboriginal children aged 0-2 years using conventional and molecular diagnostic techniques and to explore associations between the presence of pathogens and child growth.
Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of Aboriginal children (n = 62) residing in a remote community in Northern Australia, conducted from July 24th - October 30th 2017. Stool samples were analysed for organisms by microscopy (directly in the field and following fixation and storage in sodium-acetate formalin), and by qualitative PCR for viruses, bacteria and parasites and serology for Strongyloides-specific IgG.
The 2019 SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has illustrated the need for rapid and accurate diagnostic tests. In this work, a multiplexed grating-coupled fluorescent plasmonics (GC-FP) biosensor platform was used to rapidly and accurately measure antibodies against COVID-19 in human blood serum and dried blood spot samples. The GC-FP platform measures antibody-antigen binding interactions for multiple targets in a single sample, and has 100% selectivity and sensitivity (n = 23) when measuring serum IgG levels against three COVID-19 antigens (spike S1, spike S1S2, and the nucleocapsid protein).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The life-threatening clinical manifestations of strongyloidiasis are preventable with early detection and effective treatment. The aim of this study was to assess if there was an increase to the number and proportion of persons tested for chronic strongyloidiasis, as a result of integrating Strongyloides stercoralis serology into the existing preventive health assessment system in four Aboriginal health services in endemic communities.
Methodology: A prospective, longitudinal, before-and-after intervention study was conducted in four Aboriginal health services in remote endemically infected communities in the Northern Territory, Australia, from July 2012 to December 2016.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces
April 2020
We demonstrate the hot electron injection of photoexcited carriers in an Ag-based plasmon resonant grating structure. By varying the incident angle of irradiation, sharp dips are observed in the reflectance with p-polarized light (electric field perpendicular to grating lines) when there is wavevector matching between the incident light and the plasmon resonant modes of the grating and no angle dependence is observed with s-polarized light. This configuration enables us to compare photoelectrochemical current produced by plasmon resonant excitation with that of bulk metal interband absorption simply by rotating the polarization of the incident light while keeping all other parameters of the measurement fixed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLyme disease (LD) diagnosis using the current two-tier algorithm is constrained by low sensitivity for early-stage infection and ambiguity in determining treatment response. We recently developed a protein microarray biochip that measures diagnostic serum antibody targets using grating-coupled fluorescent plasmonics (GC-FP) technology. This strategy requires microliters of blood serum to enable multiplexed biomarker screening on a compact surface and generates quantitative results that can be further processed for diagnostic scoring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study describes the illness narratives that inform treatment-seeking behaviours for acute abdominal conditions in Cambodia, and thereby explores factors impeding the timely delivery of surgical intervention. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were undertaken with patients who had undergone abdominal surgery at Siem Reap Provincial Hospital between 2011 and 2014. Interviews collected basic demographic information and also patient narratives based on Groleau's McGill Illness Narrative Interview (MINI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlasmon resonant grating structures provide an effective platform for distinguishing between the effects of plasmon resonant excitation and bulk metal absorption via interband transitions. By simply rotating the polarization of the incident light, we can switch between resonant excitation and non-resonant excitation, while keeping all other parameters of the measurement constant. With light polarized perpendicular to the lines in the grating (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: This study examined lower extremity kinematics in healthy weight (HW) and overweight (OW) children during water- and land-based stationary exercises (stationary running, frontal kick, and butt kick) at light submaximal intensity.
Methods: Participants included OW (N = 10; body fat percentage: 34.97 [8.
Objective: Strength training acute programme variables (APVs) can impact tibiofemoral joint injury outcomes. Exercise descriptors (EDs; e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: This study examined differences in lower extremity kinematics and muscle activation patterns between normal weight (NW) and overweight (OW) children during stationary exercises (running in place, frontal kick, and butt kick) at submaximal intensity.
Methods: Healthy children (aged 10-13 y) were stratified into OW (n = 10; body fat percentage: 34.97 [8.
Strongyloidiasis is an infection caused by the helminth, . Up to 370 million people are infected with the parasite globally, and it has remained endemic in the Indigenous Australian population for many decades. Strongyloidiasis has been also reported in other Australian populations.
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