Typhoid and paratyphoid fever

Typhoid fever is estimated to have caused 21·6 million illnesses and 216 500 deaths globally in 2000, affecting all ages. There is also one case of paratyphoid fever for every four of typhoid. The global emergence of multidrug-resistant strains and of strains with reduced susceptibility to fluoroquinolones is of great concern. We discuss the occurrence of poor clinical response to fluoroquinolones despite disc sensitivity. Developments are being made in our understanding of the molecular pathogenesis, and genomic and proteomic studies reveal the possibility of new targets for diagnosis and treatment. Further, we review guidelines for use of diagnostic tests and for selection of antimicrobials in varying clinical situations. The importance of safe water, sanitation, and immunisation in the presence of increasing antibiotic resistance is paramount. Routine immunisation of school-age children with Vi or Ty21a vaccine is recommended for countries endemic for typhoid. Vi vaccine should be used for 2-5 year-old children in highly endemic settings

Childhood adversity and asthma prevalence: evidence from 10 US states (2009–2011)

Background: Existing evidence on stress and asthma prevalence has disproportionately focused on pregnancy and postpregnancy early life stressors, largely ignoring the role of childhood adversity as a risk factor. Childhood adversity (neglect, stressful living conditions and maltreatment) may influence asthma prevalence through mechanisms on the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. Methods: Data from the Center for Disease Control's (CDC's) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys were used to examine cross-sectional associations of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) with lifetime and current asthma prevalence. Information on childhood adversity was available from 84 786 adult respondents in 10 US states. Poisson regression models (with robust SE) were used to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) relating overall ACE score and dimensions of exposure ACE to asthma prevalence, adjusting for socioeconomic status. Results: Greater ACE was associated with a higher prevalence of asthma (adjusted PRcat 4=1.78 (95% CI 1.69 to 1.87), adjusted PRcat 1=1.21 (95% CI 1.16 to 1.27)). Reported experiences of sexual abuse (adjusted PR=1.48* (1.42 to 1.55)) and physical abuse (adjusted PR=1.38* (1.33 to 1.43)) were associated with a higher asthma prevalence. No clear socioeconomic gradient was noted, but those reporting lowest education and income levels reported high rates of asthma and adversity. Sensitivity analyses indicated that ACE exposures were interrelated. Conclusions: Report of childhood adversity predicts asthma prevalence among US adults. Frameworks for asthma prevention need to recognise and integrate aspects related to childhood adversity. Further investigation into specific time periods of exposure would provide meaningful inferences for interventions

Inclusive Education and UDL Professional Development for Teachers in Sweden and India

In education, the factors involved in a successful inclusive education classroom are diverse and multidimensional, with a growing research base. Universal design for learning (UDL) can help educators address the varied needs of students through diversification of the design of instructional methods, materials, and assessments. Global interest in UDL has driven the need for more teacher training opportunities. This chapter contributes to the literature base on professional development in UDL cases by presenting two examples from two national contexts, Sweden and India. The authors ground the two cases in the literature on teacher training, inclusive education, and UDL, concluding with a discussion on the contextual impact and insights stemming from the cases

Reconstruction of Network Evolutionary History from Extant Network Topology and Duplication History

Genome-wide protein-protein interaction (PPI) data are readily available thanks to recent breakthroughs in biotechnology. However, PPI networks of extant organisms are only snapshots of the network evolution. How to infer the whole evolution history becomes a challenging problem in computational biology. In this paper, we present a likelihood-based approach to inferring network evolution history from the topology of PPI networks and the duplication relationship among the paralogs. Simulations show that our approach outperforms the existing ones in terms of the accuracy of reconstruction. Moreover, the growth parameters of several real PPI networks estimated by our method are more consistent with the ones predicted in literature.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ISBRA 201

Ability of enteroaggregative Escherichia coli strains to adhere in vitro to human intestinal mucosa

A collection of 44 enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAggEC) strains isolated from infants with diarrhea in India and the United Kingdom were examined for their ability to adhere in vitro to human intestinal mucosa and by electron microscopy for production of putative adherence factors. None of the strains adhered to human duodenal mucosa, and six strains tested did not adhere to ileal mucosa; all 44 strains, however, adhered to human colonic mucosa in localized aggregates. Electron microscopy of infected colonic mucosa indicated fimbrially mediated adhesion of the EAggEC strains. Four morphologically distinct kinds of fimbriae, including a new morphological type of E. coli fimbriae consisting of bundles of fine filaments, were identified among the EAggEC strains; this new type of fimbria was observed in 43 of the 44 EAggEC strains. Forty-three of the 44 EAggEC strains were positive with a DNA probe developed to identify EAggEC, and most of the strains belonged to serotypes unrelated to the other major classes of diarrheic E. coli. These results suggest that EAggEC may be a large-bowel pathogen and colonize the colon by a fimbrially mediated adhesion mechanism

Influence of HOTAIR rs920778 and rs12826786 genetic variants on prostate cancer risk and progression-free survival

Aim: Evaluate the impact of the single nucleotide polymorphisms rs920778 and rs12826786 in the long noncoding RNA HOTAIR in the susceptibility and prognosis of prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Patients & methods: HOTAIR single nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped by restriction fragment length polymorphism in 151 PCa cases and 180 cancer-free controls. Odds ratio, 95% CIs and prognostic significance were calculated. Results: Our data showed no statistically significant associations between HOTAIR polymorphic variants in rs920778 and rs12826786 and PCa susceptibility. However, the CC genotype in rs12826786 was significantly associated with shorter biochemical recurrence-free survival in pT3-stage PCa patients. Conclusion: Our results indicate that HOTAIR rs12826786 CC genotype may be an independent prognostic biomarker in a particular subset of PCa tumors.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (IF/00601/2012 to BM Costa; SFRH/BD/52287/2013 to AI Oliveira; SFRH/BD/88220/2012 to AX Magalhaes), Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (BM Costa), Liga Portuguesa Contra o Cancro (BM Costa) and Inter-University Doctoral Programme in Ageing and Chronic Disease (PhDOC; to AI Oliveira and AX Magalhaes). Project co-financed by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2-O Novo Norte), Quadro de Referencia Estratégico Nacional (QREN), Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) and a grant (74-CI-IPOP) from Research Center of Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (C Jeronimo).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cobalamin and folate status in infants and young children in a low-to-middle income community in India

Background: Population-based data on the prevalence of cobalamin and folate deficiency in India are lacking. Objective: The objective was to measure the prevalence of cobalamin and folate deficiency among children aged 6-30 mo residing in a low-to-middle income community in North India. Design: Children aged 6-30 mo (n = 2482) were identified through a community survey in a low-to-middle socioeconomic area in New Delhi, India. Non-fasting venous blood samples were collected before enrollment in another trial. Results: The median (interquartile range; IQR) cobalamin concentration in 6-11-mo-old children was substantially lower in breastfed (183; 120-263 pmol/L) than in nonbreastfed (334; 235-463 pmol/L) children. Cobalamin concentrations decreased progressively with increasing age in the nonbreastfed children. Median (IQR) plasma folate concentrations in the 6-11-mo-old group were higher in breastfed (20.3; 11.7-34.4 nmol/L) than in nonbreastfed (5.3; 3.4-7.7 nmol/L) children (P < 0.001). Folate concentrations decreased with increasing age in the breastfed children. In the nonbreastfed children, folate concentrations increased with increasing age. Low concentrations of plasma cobalamin (<150 pmol/L) were were detected in 36% of breastfed and 9% of nonbreastfed children (P < 0.001). The proportions of children with plasma folate concentrations <5 nmol/L in these 2 subgroups were 6% and 33%, respectively (P < 0.001). Conclusions: In north Indian preschool children, cobalamin and folate concentrations were commonly low and were associated with elevated total homocysteine and methylmalonic acid concentrations. Because low cobalamin and folate concentrations have functional consequences, population-based measures for improving cobalamin and folate concentrations need to be seriously considered

Neural Network based Predictors for Evaporation Estimation at Jabalpur in Central India

319-328Free water evaporation is an imperative parameter for estimation of crop water requirement, and irrigation scheduling. This study aims to evaluate different techniques to estimate evaporation with weather parameters inputs. Multilayer Perception (MLR), Radial Basis Function (RBF) based neural network, traditional statistical Linear Regression (LR) approach and conventional empirical methods of Linacre and Christianson were used to estimate the evaporation at Jabalpur station situated under Kymore Plateau and Satpura Hills Agro-climatic Zone of Madhya Pradesh in the Central India. The weather parameters considered for estimation of evaporation are temperature, humidity, sunshine hours and wind speed. Results indicate that MLP and RBF based models with input of all selected weather parameters is able to estimate evaporation much precisely than LR and empirical approaches. It was found that higher accuracy may be obtained with multiple weather data input and low accuracy with only temperature input. It was observed that with temperature used as input the performance accuracy reduces in estimating evaporation with the selected models. However, neural network approach seems to produce better results as compared to statistical and empirical approach. The neural network based model RBF found more efficient in estimation of evaporation as compared to MLP. This study suggests that evaporation can be estimated by RBF model of a station, where there is no standard instrument available for its observation

Induction with Rabbit Antithymocyte Globulin following Orthotopic Liver Transplantation for Hepatitis C

Background: Hepatitis C (HCV) is the most common indication for liver transplantation in the US. Objective: Since steroids are the major stimulus of viral replication, we postulated that steroid-free immunosuppression might be a safer approach. Methods: From January 1995 to October 2002, we used steroid plus calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) immunosuppression after liver transplantation for HCV (steroid group, n=81). From October 2002 to June 2007, rabbit antithymocyte globulin (RATG) induction, followed by CNI and azathioprine (RATG group, n=73) was utilized. Results: There were no differences in 1- and 3-year patient/allograft survival rates. The incidence of acute rejection rate (19% vs. 28%), of biopsy-proven HCV recurrence (70% vs. 75%), and chronic rejection (6% vs. 9%) were comparable. The mean time to develop recurrent HCV was significantly longer in the RATG group (16.2 vs. 9.2 months, p=0.008). The incidence of severe portal fibrosis appears to be lower in RATG group compared to the steroid group; 14% vs. 4% (p=0.07). Conclusions: RATG induction is safe and effective after liver transplantation for HCV, but has no impact on the incidence of HCV recurrence and patient/allograft survival. However, a significant delay in time to HCV recurrence and a trend toward less rejection and portal fibrosis was observed