A fuzzy logic approach to improve the sensitivity of the rapid entire body assessment method.

Conventional ergonomic observation methods, such as rapid entire body assessment (REBA), are limited in their sensitivity and reliability, particularly in detecting changes in input variables. This study integrates fuzzy logic with the REBA method, utilizing trapezoidal membership functions to fuzzify the input variables. The center of gravity method was employed for defuzzification, and if-then rules were formulated to enhance the REBA method.

Understanding and Improving Pediatric Hearing Care Navigation: A Human-Centered Design Approach.

Objective: Explore the experiences of stakeholders within hearing care pathways using a human-centered design process to design a patient navigator (PN) to improve hearing health equity for deaf or hard-of-hearing children.

Study Design: A qualitative, prospective, observational study utilizing the Empathize, Define, and Ideate phases of Human-Centered Design.

Setting: Academic tertiary children's hospital with interviews over Zoom.

Associations between weather extremes and faecal contamination along pathogen transmission pathways in rural Bangladeshi households: a prospective observational study.

Background: Weather extremes are predicted to influence pathogen exposure but their effects on specific faecal-oral transmission pathways are not well investigated. We evaluated associations between extreme rain and temperature during different antecedent periods (0-14 days) and Escherichia coli along eight faecal-oral pathways in rural Bangladeshi households.

Methods: We used data from the WASH Benefits Bangladesh cluster-randomised controlled trial (NCT01590095).

Paediatric strategy forum for medicinal product development in diffuse midline gliomas in children and adolescents ACCELERATE in collaboration with the European Medicines Agency with participation of the Food and Drug Administration.

Fewer than 10 % of children with diffuse midline glioma (DMG) survive 2 years from diagnosis. Radiation therapy remains the cornerstone of treatment and there are no medicinal products with regulatory approval. Although the biology of DMG is better characterized, this has not yet translated into effective treatments.

Cost-effectiveness of leveraging existing HIV primary health systems and community health workers for hypertension screening and treatment in Africa: An individual-based modeling study.

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality is increasing in Africa, largely due to undiagnosed and untreated hypertension. Approaches that leverage existing primary health systems could improve hypertension treatment and reduce CVD, but cost-effectiveness is unknown. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of population-level hypertension screening and implementation of chronic care clinics across eastern, southern, central, and western Africa.

Synthesizing the Evidence Base to Enhance Coordination between Humanitarian Mine Action and Emergency Care for Casualties of Explosive Ordnance and Explosive Weapons: A Scoping Review.

Background: Humanitarian mine action (HMA) stakeholders have an organized presence with well-resourced medical capability in many conflict and post-conflict settings. Humanitarian mine action has the potential to positively augment local trauma care capacity for civilian casualties of explosive ordnance (EO) and explosive weapons (EWs). Yet at present, few strategies exist for coordinated engagement between HMA and the health sector to support emergency care system strengthening to improve outcomes among EO/EW casualties.

Influence of birthplace and age at migration on cognitive aging among Hispanic/Latino populations in the U.S.: Study of Latinos-Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging (SOL-INCA).

Background And Objectives: While Hispanic/Latino populations in the U.S. are remarkably diverse in terms of birthplace and age at migration, we poorly understand how these factors are associated with cognitive aging.

Food Insecurity in Pregnancy, Receipt of Food Assistance, and Perinatal Complications.

Importance: Food insecurity is a growing public health concern, but its association with perinatal complications remains unclear.

Objective: To examine whether food insecurity in pregnancy was associated with the risk of perinatal complications and determine whether these potential associations differed by receipt of food assistance.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study used data from a pregnancy survey conducted between June 22, 2020, and September 9, 2022, at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, an integrated health care system serving a diverse population of 4.

Vanishing twins, selection , and infant mortality in the United States.

Background And Objectives: Research to identify fetal predictors of infant mortality among singletons born in the United States (US) concludes that poorly understood and unmeasured "confounders" produce a spurious association between fetal size and infant death. We argue that these confounders include Vanishing Twin Syndrome (VTS)-the clinical manifestation of selection against frail male twins . We test our argument in 276 monthly conception cohorts conceived in the US from January 1995 through December 2017.

Depressive Symptoms and Amyloid Pathology.

Importance: Depressive symptoms are associated with cognitive decline in older individuals. Uncertainty about underlying mechanisms hampers diagnostic and therapeutic efforts. This large-scale study aimed to elucidate the association between depressive symptoms and amyloid pathology.

Modeling of magnetic vestibular stimulation experienced during high-field clinical MRI.

Background: High-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful diagnostic tool but can induce unintended physiological effects, such as nystagmus and dizziness, potentially compromising the comfort and safety of individuals undergoing imaging. These effects likely result from the Lorentz force, which arises from the interaction between the MRI's static magnetic field and electrical currents in the inner ear. Yet, the Lorentz force hypothesis fails to explain observed eye movement patterns in healthy adults fully.

Community Perspectives on Optimizing Community Health Volunteer Roles for HIV Prevention Services in Kenya and Uganda.

Community health workers (CHWs) play a significant role in supporting health services delivery in communities with few trained health care providers. There has been limited research on ways to optimize the role of CHWs in HIV prevention service delivery. This study explored CHWs' experiences with offering HIV prevention services [HIV testing and HIV pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP)] during three pilot studies in rural communities in Kenya and Uganda, which aimed to increase biomedical HIV prevention coverage via a structured patient-centered HIV prevention delivery model.

Self-Efficacy Effects on Symptom Experiences in Daily Life and Early Treatment Success in Anxiety Patients.

Self-efficacy is a key construct in behavioral science affecting mental health and psychopathology. Here, we expand on previously demonstrated between-persons self-efficacy effects. We prompted 66 patients five times daily for 14 days before starting cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to provide avoidance, hope, and perceived psychophysiological-arousal ratings.

APPLICATIONS OF MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING TO GENETIC BIOCONTROL.

We review existing approaches to optimizing the deployment of genetic biocontrol technologies-tools used to prevent vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue-and formulate a mathematical program that enables the incorporation of crucial ecological and logistical details. The model is comprised of equality constraints grounded in discretized dynamic population equations, inequality constraints representative of operational limitations including resource restrictions, and an objective function that jointly minimizes the count of competent mosquito vectors and the number of transgenic organisms released to mitigate them over a specified time period. We explore how nonlinear programming (NLP) and mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) can advance the state of the art in designing the operational implementation of three distinct transgenic public health interventions, two of which are presently in active use around the world.

A comparative analysis of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika manifestations in a pediatric cohort over 18 years.

Background: Dengue, chikungunya, and Zika are mosquito-borne diseases of major human concern. Differential diagnosis is complicated in children and adolescents by their overlapping clinical features (signs, symptoms, and complete blood count results). Few studies have directly compared the three diseases.

A Class 1 OLD family nuclease encoded by is countered by a vibriophage-encoded direct inhibitor.

Bacteria are constantly threatened by their viral predators (phages), which has resulted in the development of defense systems for bacterial survival. One family of defense systems found widely across bacteria are OLD (for overcoming lysogeny defect) family nucleases. Despite recent discoveries regarding Class 2 and 4 OLD family nucleases and how phages overcome them, Class 1 OLD family nucleases warrant further study as there has only been one anti-phage Class 1 OLD family nuclease described to date.

Using latent profile analysis to classify US states into typologies of structural racism.

Structural racism is a fundamental cause of racial health inequities; however, it is a complex construct that is difficult to quantitatively analyze due to its multi-dimensionality. We classified fifty US states into three typologies of structural racism using a latent profile analysis. Five domains of structural racism were included in the analysis: Black-White inequities in educational attainment, employment, homeownership, incarceration, and income.

An Interprofessional Collaboration Between a Community-Based Doula Organization and Clinical Partners: The Champion Dyad Initiative.

As access to doula services expands through state Medicaid coverage and specific initiatives aimed at improving maternal health equity, there is a need to build and improve upon relationships between the doula community, hospital leaders, and clinical staff. Previous research and reports suggest rapport-building, provider education, and forming partnerships between community-based organizations and hospitals can improve such relationships. However, few interventions or programs incorporating such approaches are described in the literature.

Population Genomics Reveals Local Adaptation Related to Temperature Variation in Two Stream Frog Species: Implications for Vulnerability to Climate Warming.

Identifying populations at highest risk from climate change is a critical component of conservation efforts. However, vulnerability assessments are usually applied at the species level, even though intraspecific variation in exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity play a crucial role in determining vulnerability. Genomic data can inform intraspecific vulnerability by identifying signatures of local adaptation that reflect population-level variation in sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

Association of Hospital-Based Social Needs Interventions with Potentially Preventable Admissions.

Background: External incentives increasingly encourage hospitals to address health-related social needs, yet limited evidence exists about whether social needs interventions are associated with quality indicators like potentially preventable admissions.

Objective: We analyze whether four hospital interventions-meal delivery, transportation to health services, mobile clinics, and community-oriented violence prevention programs-are associated with potentially preventable hospitalizations.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of survey-based and claims-based data.

Permeability Benchmarking: Guidelines for Comparing , , and Measurements.

Permeability is a measure of the degree to which cells can transport molecules across biological barriers. Units of permeability are distance per unit time (typically cm/s), where accurate measurements are needed to define drug delivery in homeostasis and to model dysfunction occurring during disease. This perspective offers a set of community-led guidelines to benchmark permeability data across multidisciplinary approaches and different biological contexts.