Change in the Prevalence of Testing for Latent Tuberculosis Infection in the United States: 1999–2012

Purpose. There is no information on the change in prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) testing in the United States (US) following the introduction of the interferon gamma release assay (IGRA), a new and alternative diagnostic method for LTBI. The purpose of this study was to evaluate potential changes in the prevalence of LTBI testing in the US following the introduction of IGRA. Methods. This was a multiyear cross-sectional study using nationally representative data from the 1999-2000 and 2011-2012 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Self-reported prevalence of LTBI testing was estimated among groups known to have increased LTBI risk. Descriptive statistics were used. Results. Compared to 1999-2000, significantly fewer individuals self-reported being tested for LTBI in 2011-2012 among Hispanic Americans (68.0% versus 60.7%, p<0.0001) and among those with comorbidities (74.7% versus 72.0%, p=0.02). There were also nonsignificant trends towards less self-reported LTBI testing in 2011-2012 versus 1999-2000 among household contacts of active TB cases, foreign-born individuals, and African Americans. Conclusions. Despite the introduction of IGRA, LTBI testing occurs less frequently in the US among vulnerable groups. Possibly inadequate targeted LTBI testing could result in increased active TB in the US in the future

De la Covid-19 vers une métropole résiliente : l’exemple du Grand Nancy

Cette étude concerne les enjeux sociaux et spatiaux de la gestion de la pandémie, et notamment la préparation à la sortie du confinement sur le territoire de la Métropole du Grand Nancy. Face aux risques sanitaires liés à la Covid-19, la Métropole a mis en place des mesures afin de doter l’ensemble de ses 20 communes de ressources pour préparer au mieux cette sortie du confinement, ainsi que la convalescence de la société grâce à une approche globale de la résilience. L’objectif visé est l’accompagnement des citoyens de manière complémentaire au cadre fixé par l’État. La Métropole a sollicité ses partenaires afin de constituer une cellule de réflexion. Cette cellule pluridisciplinaire de réflexion avant sortie de confinement continue d’aider les représentants des communes à gérer cette situation inédite grâce à un système de communication visant à apporter des réponses concrètes aux problématiques rencontrées. L’ensemble de ces travaux s’est concrétisé sous la forme d’un plan de résilience métropolitaine, à vocation très opérationnelle

From Covid-19 to a resilient metropolis: the example of the Great Nancy

Health promotion is a major focus of the metropolitan project of Grand Nancy. The city’s second-generation local health contract has identified a network of local actors. This paper focuses on social and spatial issues of pandemic management and post containment. In response to the health risks associated with Covid-19, the metropolis has implemented measures to provide all its 20 communes with resources to prepare as best as possible for the ending stay-at-home restrictions in compliance wit..

Intrarater and interrater reliability of the anteromedial reach test in healthy participants

Background: The Anteromedial Reach Test is a performance-based outcome measure for evaluating dynamic knee stability in patients with anterior cruciate ligament injury. No previously published study has adequately evaluated intrarater or interrater reliability of the Anteromedial Reach Test, so the purpose of this study was to assess these measurement properties in healthy participants prior to their investigation in patients with anterior cruciate ligament injury.Methods: Two raters (A and B) tested 39 healthy university staff and students (20 men, 19 women). For the intrarater reliability investigation, rater A tested participants on three separate test occasions (days 1, 2, and 3) at the same time of day. For the interrater reliability investigation, raters A and B independently tested participants on the same test occasion (day 3).Results: There was no significant systematic bias between test occasions or raters. Values of the intraclass correlation coefficient (2,1) were 0.96 for intrarater reliability of both the dominant leg and nondominant leg and 0.97 (dominant leg) and 0.98 (nondominant leg) for interrater reliability. Values for the standard error of measurement were 1.46 (dominant leg) and 1.62 (nondominant leg) for the intrarater investigation, and 1.26 (dominant leg) and 1.04 (nondominant leg) for the interrater investigation. At the 90% confidence level, the minimum detectable change was 3.8% and the error in an individual's score at a given point in time was ±2.7%.Conclusion: The Anteromedial Reach Test demonstrated excellent intrarater and interrater reliability in healthy participants. This provides a basis for future investigation of the measurement properties of the Anteromedial Reach Test in patients with anterior cruciate ligament injury

Advances in archaeomagnetic dating in Britain: New data, new approaches and a new calibration curve

yesArchaeomagnetic dating offers a valuable chronological tool for archaeological investigations, particularly for dating fired material. The method depends on the establishment of a dated record of secular variation of the Earth's magnetic field and this paper presents new and updated archaeomagnetic directional data from the UK and geomagnetic secular variation curves arising from them. The data are taken from publications from the 1950's to the present day; 422 dated entries derived from existing archaeo and geomagnetic databases are re-evaluated and 487 new directions added, resulting in 909 entries with corresponding dates, the largest collection of dated archaeomagnetic directions from a single country. An approach to improving the largest source of uncertainty, the independent dating, is proposed and applied to the British Iron Age, resulting in 145 directions from currently available databases being updated with revised ages and/or uncertainties, and a large scale reassessment of age assignments prior to inclusion into the Magnetic Moments of the Past and GEOMAGIA50 databases. From the significantly improved dataset a new archaeomagnetic dating curve for the UK is derived through the development of a temporally continuous geomagnetic field model, and is compared with previous UK archaeomagnetic dating curves and global field models. The new model, ARCH-UK.1 allows model predictions for any location in the UK with associated uncertainties. It is shown to improve precision and accuracy in archaeomagnetic dating, and to provide new insight into past geomagnetic field changes.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Levels of acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) in Caenorhabditis elegans in microgravity

Both Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients and astronauts in spaceflight suffer from muscle atrophy. Previous research suggests that the enzyme acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) may be involved in the pathogenesis of ALS, but it is not known if ASM influences muscle atrophy in microgravity. In this study, C. elegans were exposed to microgravity conditions on the International Space Station (ISS) within the confines of a Fluid Mixing Enclosure (FME). Return of the FME yielded 72,050 live nematodes, the first demonstration of C. elegans survival of space travel in an FME. After the nematodes returned to Earth, in much larger numbers than seen in previous FME experiments, the size and ASM expression levels in experimental worms were compared to control Earth-bound worms. C. elegans that returned from the ISS were larger in both length and cross-sectional area than the control worms, and they exhibited decreased expression of ASM-1 and ASM-2 proteins. Further research must be conducted to elucidate the role of ASM in muscle atrophy, as there were many limitations to this study. Understanding the role of ASM in muscle atrophy may lead to the discovery of novel targets for treatment of both ALS and muscle atrophy in microgravity. This study was a student led initiative and undertaken as a project within the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP), under the auspices of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Space Education

Clusters and networks as enablers of product and process innovation

One of the strategies adopted in the Philippines to facilitate a more consistent supply of good quality vegetables from smallholder farmers is the clustering approach, whereby a small group or cluster of smallholder farmers is organized to deliver a pre-determined amount of produce to a focal customer (CRS-Philippines, 2007). Developed from the CIAT Territorial Approach, the CRS Eight Step Clustering Approach for Agro-enterprise Development employs a participatory action learning process, where the cluster members proactively plan their production to meet the specifc quality and delivery requirements of their focal customer. The clustering approach is a strategy which allows smallholder farmers to access higher value chains. Evidence is provided to demonstrate how several of the clusters facilitated have utilised the skills and knowledge acquired in servicing their focal customer to develop new products for new markets, to adopt alternative low cost systems of production to reduce their reliance on external inputs, to reduce postharvest losses and product deterioration through improved packaging, to improve access to low cost community-based loans and to take advantage of local and national government grants that provide production inputs and support the development of community-based infrastructure projects

The inositol phosphatase MTMR4 is a novel target of the ubiquitin ligase Nedd4

The inositol phosphatase, MTMR4 (myotubularin-related protein 4), was identified as a novel interactor of the ubiquitin ligase Nedd4 (neural-precursor-cell-expressed developmentally down-regulated 4). hMTMR4 (human MTMR4) and Nedd4 co-immunoprecipitated and co-localized to late endosomes. The PY (Pro-Tyr) motif of hMTMR4 binds to WW (Trp-Trp) domains of hNedd4. MTMR4 expression was decreased in atrophying muscle, whereas Nedd4 expression was increased and hMTMR4 was ubiquitinated by hNedd4, suggesting that this novel interaction may underlie the biological process of muscle breakdown