A blended learning approach for capacity strengthening to improve the quality of integrated HIV, TB, and malaria services during antenatal and postnatal care in LMICs: a feasibility study.

Background: The blended learning (BL) approach to training health care professionals is increasingly adopted in many countries because of high costs and disruption to service delivery in the light of severe human resource shortage in low resource settings. The Covid-19 pandemic increased the urgency to identify alternatives to traditional face-to-face (f2f) education approach. A four-day f2f antenatal care (ANC) and postnatal care (PNC) continuous professional development course (CPD) was repackaged into a 3-part BL course; (1) self-directed learning (16 h) (2) facilitated virtual sessions (2.

A combined school survey and reactive case detection reveals minimal local transmission of malaria in the Highlands Region of Papua New Guinea.

Background: The Highlands of Papua New Guinea are non-endemic for malaria compared to the rest of the country. This study aimed to explore the local transmission of malaria in the Highlands through a cross-sectional school survey coupled with reactive case detection.

Methods: Between July and November 2019, 5575 schoolchildren and 1048 household members were screened for malaria using Rapid Diagnostic Tests, subsequently validated by light microscopy.

Effect of different protocols in preventing demineralization in irradiated human enamel, in vitro study.

Background: This in vitro study evaluated the efficacy of professional and home-use fluoride regimens for protecting irradiated enamel, undergoing pH cycling resembling xerostomia.

Methods: Sixty human premolar teeth were irradiated with a total dose of 70 Gy and subsequently sectioned into 3 × 3 cm enamel slabs. These slabs were randomly distributed into five groups (n = 12 per group): professional-use groups received fluoride varnish either weekly (FV1) or biweekly (FV2); home-use groups applied 5000 ppm (FT5) or 1450 ppm (FT) fluoride toothpaste; and a control group (control) received no treatment.

Insights into Treponema pallidum genomics from modern and ancient genomes using a novel mapping strategy.

Background: Treponemal diseases are a significant global health risk, presenting challenges to public health and severe consequences to individuals if left untreated. Despite numerous genomic studies on Treponema pallidum and the known possible biases introduced by the choice of the reference genome used for mapping, few investigations have addressed how these biases affect phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis of these bacteria. In this study, we ascertain the importance of selecting an appropriate genomic reference on phylogenetic and evolutionary analyses of T.

Chemically Hydrophobic and Structurally Antireflective Nanocoatings in Butterflies.

Moth-eye nanostructures, known for their biological antireflective properties, are formed by a self-assembly mechanism. Understanding and replicating this mechanism on artificial surfaces open avenues for the engineering of bioinspired multifunctional nanomaterials. Analysis of corneal nanocoatings from butterflies of the genus reveals a variety of nanostructures with uniformly strong antiwetting properties accompanied by varying antireflective functionalities.

How frictional ruptures and earthquakes nucleate and evolve.

Frictional motion is mediated by rapidly propagating ruptures that detach the ensemble of contacts forming the frictional interface between contacting bodies. These ruptures are similar to shear cracks. When this process takes place in natural faults, these rapid ruptures are essentially earthquakes.

Evaluation of clinical risk stratification to determine benefit from long-term versus short-term androgen deprivation in high-risk localized prostate cancer.

Background: Patients treated with RT and long-term androgen deprivation therapy (ltADT) for high-risk localized prostate cancer (HRLPC) with 1 high-risk factor (any of Gleason ≥8, PSA > 20 ng/mL, ≥cT3; "high-risk") have better outcomes than those with 2-3 factors and/or cN1 disease ("very high risk"). We evaluated whether this risk stratification could determine benefit from ltADT versus short-term (stADT).

Methods: The Intermediate Clinical Endpoints in Cancer of the Prostate (ICECaP) repository of randomized trials was queried to identify eligible patients and trials.

Spin polarization detection via chirality-induced tunnelling currents in indium selenide.

Chirality, a basic property of symmetry breaking, is crucial for fields such as biology and physics. Recent advances in the study of chiral systems have stimulated interest in the discovery of symmetry-breaking states that enable exotic phenomena such as spontaneous gyrotropic order and superconductivity. Here we examine the interaction between light chirality and electron spins in indium selenide and study the effect of magnetic field on emerging tunnelling photocurrents at the Van Hove singularity.

Tandem kinase proteins across the plant kingdom.

Plant pathogens pose a continuous threat to global food production. Recent discoveries in plant immunity research unveiled a unique protein family characterized by an unusual resistance protein structure that combines two kinase domains. This study demonstrates the widespread occurrence of tandem kinase proteins (TKPs) across the plant kingdom.

High-efficiency base editing in the retina in primates and human tissues.

Stargardt disease is a currently untreatable, inherited neurodegenerative disease that leads to macular degeneration and blindness due to loss-of-function mutations in the ABCA4 gene. We have designed a dual adeno-associated viral vector encoding a split-intein adenine base editor to correct the most common mutation in ABCA4 (c.5882G>A, p.

One-quarter of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction.

Freshwater ecosystems are highly biodiverse and important for livelihoods and economic development, but are under substantial stress. To date, comprehensive global assessments of extinction risk have not included any speciose groups primarily living in freshwaters. Consequently, data from predominantly terrestrial tetrapods are used to guide environmental policy and conservation prioritization, whereas recent proposals for target setting in freshwaters use abiotic factors.

New Silurian aculiferan fossils reveal complex early history of Mollusca.

Mollusca is the second most species-rich animal phylum, but the pathways of early molluscan evolution have long been controversial. Modern faunas retain only a fraction of the past forms in this hyperdiverse and long-lived group. Recent analyses have consistently recovered a fundamental split into two sister clades, Conchifera (including gastropods, bivalves and cephalopods) and Aculifera, comprising Polyplacophora ('chitons') and Aplacophora.

Efficient scaling of large language models with mixture of experts and 3D analog in-memory computing.

Large language models (LLMs), with their remarkable generative capacities, have greatly impacted a range of fields, but they face scalability challenges due to their large parameter counts, which result in high costs for training and inference. The trend of increasing model sizes is exacerbating these challenges, particularly in terms of memory footprint, latency and energy consumption. Here we explore the deployment of 'mixture of experts' (MoEs) networks-networks that use conditional computing to keep computational demands low despite having many parameters-on three-dimensional (3D) non-volatile memory (NVM)-based analog in-memory computing (AIMC) hardware.

A distinct hypothalamus-habenula circuit governs risk preference.

Appropriate risk evaluation is essential for survival in complex, uncertain environments. Confronted with choosing between certain (safe) and uncertain (risky) options, animals show strong preference for either option consistently across extended time periods. How such risk preference is encoded in the brain remains elusive.

Neutron imaging and molecular simulation of systems from methane and p-xylene.

Bulk properties of two-phase systems comprising methane and liquid p-xylene were derived experimentally using neutron imaging and theoretically predicted using molecular dynamics (MD). The measured and predicted methane diffusivity in the liquid, Henry's law constant, apparent molar volume, and surface tension compared well within the experimentally studied conditions (273.15 to 303.

The E3 ubiquitin ligase MARCH1 mediates downregulation of plasma membrane GABA receptors under ischemic conditions by inhibiting fast receptor recycling.

GABA receptors mediate prolonged inhibition in the brain and are important for keeping neuronal excitation and inhibition in a healthy balance. However, under excitotoxic/ischemic conditions, GABA receptors are downregulated by dysregulated endocytic trafficking and can no longer counteract the severely enhanced excitation, eventually triggering neuronal death. Recently, we developed interfering peptides targeting protein-protein interactions involved in downregulating the receptors.

Uncertainty-aware diabetic retinopathy detection using deep learning enhanced by Bayesian approaches.

Deep learning-based medical image analysis has shown strong potential in disease categorization, segmentation, detection, and even prediction. However, in high-stakes and complex domains like healthcare, the opaque nature of these models makes it challenging to trust predictions, particularly in uncertain cases. This sort of uncertainty can be crucial in medical image analysis; diabetic retinopathy is an example where even slight errors without an indication of confidence can have adverse impacts.

The effect of mortality salience and early-life maternal care on neuroendocrine, autonomic, and psychological stress responses.

Adverse early-life experiences alter the regulation of major stress systems such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Low early-life maternal care (MC) has repeatedly been related to blunted cortisol stress responses. Likewise, an acutely increased awareness of mortality (mortality salience [MS]) also has been shown to blunt cortisol responses.

Hypoxia-induced conversion of sensory Schwann cells into repair cells is regulated by HDAC8.

After a peripheral nerve injury, Schwann cells (SCs), the myelinating glia of the peripheral nervous system, convert into repair cells that foster axonal regrowth, and then remyelinate or re-ensheath regenerated axons, thereby ensuring functional recovery. The efficiency of this mechanism depends however on the time needed for axons to regrow. Here, we show that ablation of histone deacetylase 8 (HDAC8) in SCs accelerates the regrowth of sensory axons and sensory function recovery.

Nymphal feeding suppresses oviposition-induced indirect plant defense in rice.

Feeding and oviposition by phytophagous insects are both known to trigger defenses in plants. Whether these two defenses functionally interact remains poorly studied, although these interactions are likely important for pests with overlapping generations. Here we investigated the differences and interaction between feeding- and oviposition-induced plant defenses triggered by the brown planthopper (BPH, Nilaparvata lugens), which gregariously feeds and oviposits on rice.

High-Throughput Effect-Directed Analysis of Androgenic Compounds in Hospital Wastewater: Identifying Effect Drivers through Non-Target Screening Supported by Toxicity Prediction.

The increasing number of contaminants released into the environment necessitates innovative strategies for their detection and identification, particularly in complex environmental matrices like hospital wastewater. Hospital effluents contain both natural and synthetic hormones that might significantly contribute to endocrine disruption in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, HT-EDA has been implemented to identify the main effect-drivers (testosterone, androsterone and norgestrel) from hospital effluent using microplate fractionation, the AR-CALUX bioassay and an efficient data processing workflow.

Rapid High-Sensitivity Analysis of Methane Clumped Isotopes (ΔCHD and ΔCHD) Using Mid-Infrared Laser Spectroscopy.

Mid-infrared laser absorption spectroscopy enables rapid and nondestructive analysis of methane clumped isotopes. However, current analytical methods require a sample size of 20 mL STP (0.82 mmol) of pure CH gas, which significantly limits its application to natural samples.

When conventional approach in toxicity assays falls short for nanomedicines: a case study with nanoemulsions.

The aim of this study was to assess the critical quality attributes of parenteral nanoemulsion formulations by measuring several physicochemical parameters and linking them to their in vitro performance, illustrating how simplistic and routinely used approaches are insufficient for understanding a potential nanomedicine. Physicochemical characterization should encompass size and size distribution through at least two orthogonal techniques, such as dynamic light scattering (DLS) and electron microscopy, with added value from analytical ultracentrifugation. In vitro toxicity assessment was performed using three different assays to determine mitochondrial activity (WST-1), membrane integrity (lactate dehydrogenase release (LDH) assay), and cell viability (propidium iodide (PI) staining).