Prevalence of Salmonella in broilers at retail outlets, processing plants and farms in Malaysia

A study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of Salmonella among broilers retailed at wet-markets and processing plants. Litter and feed samples obtained from both broiler and breeder farms were also examined for Salmonella. A total of 158 out of 445 (35.5%) and 52 out of 104 (50.0%) broiler carcasses obtained from wet-markets and processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, respectively. Salmonella was isolated from 14 out of 98 (14.3%) samples of intestinal content. Litter samples from broiler and breeder farms were positive for Salmonella, 8/40 (20%) and 2/10 (20%), respectively. Salmonella isolates (230) belonging to 15 different serovars were isolated. Predominant serovars were S. enteritidis, S. muenchen, S. kentucky and S. blockley

Bridging the gap: Increasing awareness of sex differences in opioid addiction using social media platforms

HONORABLE MENTION Background: Current efforts to combat the opioid epidemic in the United States do not take into account the sex differences in opioid response, prescription, use, and addiction. There is a need for medical professionals and the general public to understand these differences to properly prevent, address, and treat opioid addiction. Healthcare professionals and patients often use the Internet and social networking websites to access and share medical information. These platforms provide an innovative way to educate these groups on various topics in medicine. The American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) created the Opioid Addiction in Women Task Force to positively impact care for women with opioid addiction. Objectives: Increase health literacy surrounding sex differences in opioid addiction in the general public and healthcare providers via social media platforms Methods/Research: The AMWA Opioid Task Force consists of physicians and medical students across the country who meet virtually each month. With guidance from supervising physicians, educational infographics, pamphlets, and videos are created to facilitate the dissemination of complex scientiffc data in a simple and engaging manner. Information is subsequently shared via social media platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, where they can be easily accessed by healthcare providers, medical students, and the public. Conclusions/Impact: This is one of the few organizations with national exposure that highlights sex and gender differences in the opioid crisis and aims to increase health literacy for both the general public and health care providers. We have successfully distributed information regarding sex differences in opioid addiction during Women’s Health Week 2020 on the national AMWA website, Instagram, and Twitter. Our future plans include producing and sharing videos on YouTube about opioids, addiction, and pain management, especially in women. We hope to encourage current and future physicians to initiate discussions surrounding sex/gender-speciffc health, speciffcally in opioid addiction.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/sexandgenderhealth/1003/thumbnail.jp

Learning from the process evaluation of a complex, pre-conception randomised controlled trial in Malaysia:The Jom Mama project

Background: Seen from a life-course perspective, pre-conception interventions are essential to reduce transmission to the next generation of obesity as a risk factor for later non-communicable diseases. The Malaysian Jom Mama project investigated the effectiveness of a combined behaviour change communication and e-health intervention in young married couples prior to first pregnancy. This paper reports on the extensive process evaluation (PE) that accompanied the Jom Mama trial.Methods: In accordance with the realistic evaluation approach, a programme theory was developed for the Jom Mama project, based on key functions selected for six PE sub-studies, namely: Recruitment; attrition; behaviour change communication (BCC); e-health (the Jom app); peer-support for community health promoters (CHPs); and contextual factors. The results of the first four sub-studies are reported here. Three cycles of data collection were conducted based on triangulation and a mixed-methods approach.Results: The findings permitted distinguishing between theory and implementation challenges in interpreting the outcome of the Jom Mama trial.1 Recruitment and attrition proved to be challenges, and although the PE allowed Jom Mama investigators to improve procedures in order to achieve a sufficient sample size, it also has implications for engaging this age group in future pre-conception interventions. PE sub-studies showed that there were challenges in applying the BCC, and that the uptake of the Jom app varied. In one way this can be seen as an indication of limited fidelity, but it also leads to questions about how best to change the communication culture within the Malaysian health care system.Conclusions: The Jom Mama PE highlighted the challenges of recruiting newly-wed couples for a pre-conception intervention. Despite thorough intervention development preparations, the PE revealed the difficulty of lifestyle behaviour change through Malaysian community health wokers who were trained on new communication strategies combined with e-health solutions, and that six intervention sessions of eight months do not constitute a sufficient dose to affect change.</p

Learning from the process evaluation of a complex, pre-conception randomised controlled trial in Malaysia:The Jom Mama project

Background: Seen from a life-course perspective, pre-conception interventions are essential to reduce transmission to the next generation of obesity as a risk factor for later non-communicable diseases. The Malaysian Jom Mama project investigated the effectiveness of a combined behaviour change communication and e-health intervention in young married couples prior to first pregnancy. This paper reports on the extensive process evaluation (PE) that accompanied the Jom Mama trial.Methods: In accordance with the realistic evaluation approach, a programme theory was developed for the Jom Mama project, based on key functions selected for six PE sub-studies, namely: Recruitment; attrition; behaviour change communication (BCC); e-health (the Jom app); peer-support for community health promoters (CHPs); and contextual factors. The results of the first four sub-studies are reported here. Three cycles of data collection were conducted based on triangulation and a mixed-methods approach.Results: The findings permitted distinguishing between theory and implementation challenges in interpreting the outcome of the Jom Mama trial.1 Recruitment and attrition proved to be challenges, and although the PE allowed Jom Mama investigators to improve procedures in order to achieve a sufficient sample size, it also has implications for engaging this age group in future pre-conception interventions. PE sub-studies showed that there were challenges in applying the BCC, and that the uptake of the Jom app varied. In one way this can be seen as an indication of limited fidelity, but it also leads to questions about how best to change the communication culture within the Malaysian health care system.Conclusions: The Jom Mama PE highlighted the challenges of recruiting newly-wed couples for a pre-conception intervention. Despite thorough intervention development preparations, the PE revealed the difficulty of lifestyle behaviour change through Malaysian community health wokers who were trained on new communication strategies combined with e-health solutions, and that six intervention sessions of eight months do not constitute a sufficient dose to affect change.</p

Learning from the process evaluation of a complex, pre-conception randomised controlled trial in Malaysia:The Jom Mama project

Background: Seen from a life-course perspective, pre-conception interventions are essential to reduce transmission to the next generation of obesity as a risk factor for later non-communicable diseases. The Malaysian Jom Mama project investigated the effectiveness of a combined behaviour change communication and e-health intervention in young married couples prior to first pregnancy. This paper reports on the extensive process evaluation (PE) that accompanied the Jom Mama trial.Methods: In accordance with the realistic evaluation approach, a programme theory was developed for the Jom Mama project, based on key functions selected for six PE sub-studies, namely: Recruitment; attrition; behaviour change communication (BCC); e-health (the Jom app); peer-support for community health promoters (CHPs); and contextual factors. The results of the first four sub-studies are reported here. Three cycles of data collection were conducted based on triangulation and a mixed-methods approach.Results: The findings permitted distinguishing between theory and implementation challenges in interpreting the outcome of the Jom Mama trial.1 Recruitment and attrition proved to be challenges, and although the PE allowed Jom Mama investigators to improve procedures in order to achieve a sufficient sample size, it also has implications for engaging this age group in future pre-conception interventions. PE sub-studies showed that there were challenges in applying the BCC, and that the uptake of the Jom app varied. In one way this can be seen as an indication of limited fidelity, but it also leads to questions about how best to change the communication culture within the Malaysian health care system.Conclusions: The Jom Mama PE highlighted the challenges of recruiting newly-wed couples for a pre-conception intervention. Despite thorough intervention development preparations, the PE revealed the difficulty of lifestyle behaviour change through Malaysian community health wokers who were trained on new communication strategies combined with e-health solutions, and that six intervention sessions of eight months do not constitute a sufficient dose to affect change.</p

Learning from the process evaluation of a complex, pre-conception randomised controlled trial in Malaysia:The Jom Mama project

Background: Seen from a life-course perspective, pre-conception interventions are essential to reduce transmission to the next generation of obesity as a risk factor for later non-communicable diseases. The Malaysian Jom Mama project investigated the effectiveness of a combined behaviour change communication and e-health intervention in young married couples prior to first pregnancy. This paper reports on the extensive process evaluation (PE) that accompanied the Jom Mama trial.Methods: In accordance with the realistic evaluation approach, a programme theory was developed for the Jom Mama project, based on key functions selected for six PE sub-studies, namely: Recruitment; attrition; behaviour change communication (BCC); e-health (the Jom app); peer-support for community health promoters (CHPs); and contextual factors. The results of the first four sub-studies are reported here. Three cycles of data collection were conducted based on triangulation and a mixed-methods approach.Results: The findings permitted distinguishing between theory and implementation challenges in interpreting the outcome of the Jom Mama trial.1 Recruitment and attrition proved to be challenges, and although the PE allowed Jom Mama investigators to improve procedures in order to achieve a sufficient sample size, it also has implications for engaging this age group in future pre-conception interventions. PE sub-studies showed that there were challenges in applying the BCC, and that the uptake of the Jom app varied. In one way this can be seen as an indication of limited fidelity, but it also leads to questions about how best to change the communication culture within the Malaysian health care system.Conclusions: The Jom Mama PE highlighted the challenges of recruiting newly-wed couples for a pre-conception intervention. Despite thorough intervention development preparations, the PE revealed the difficulty of lifestyle behaviour change through Malaysian community health wokers who were trained on new communication strategies combined with e-health solutions, and that six intervention sessions of eight months do not constitute a sufficient dose to affect change.</p

Transcriptomic profiling reveals three molecular phenotypes of adenocarcinoma at the gastro-esophageal junction

Cancers occurring at the gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) are classified as predominantly esophageal or gastric, which is often difficult to decipher. We hypothesized that the transcriptomic profile might reveal molecular subgroups which could help to define the tumor origin and behavior beyond anatomical location. The gene expression profiles of 107 treatment‐naïve, intestinal type, gastroesophageal adenocarcinomas were assessed by the Illumina‐HTv4.0 beadchip. Differential gene expression (limma), unsupervised subgroup assignment (mclust) and pathway analysis (gage) were undertaken in R statistical computing and results were related to demographic and clinical parameters. Unsupervised assignment of the gene expression profiles revealed three distinct molecular subgroups, which were not associated with anatomical location, tumor stage or grade (p > 0.05). Group 1 was enriched for pathways involved in cell turnover, Group 2 was enriched for metabolic processes and Group 3 for immune‐response pathways. Patients in group 1 showed the worst overall survival (p = 0.019). Key genes for the three subtypes were confirmed by immunohistochemistry. The newly defined intrinsic subtypes were analyzed in four independent datasets of gastric and esophageal adenocarcinomas with transcriptomic data available (RNAseq data: OCCAMS cohort, n = 158; gene expression arrays: Belfast, n = 63; Singapore, n = 191; Asian Cancer Research Group, n = 300). The subgroups were represented in the independent cohorts and pooled analysis confirmed the prognostic effect of the new subtypes. In conclusion, adenocarcinomas at the GEJ comprise three distinct molecular phenotypes which do not reflect anatomical location but rather inform our understanding of the key pathways expressed

Preparation and characterization of polypyrrole/graphene nanocomposite films and their electrochemical performance

A one-step electrochemical process had been employed to synthesize nanocomposite films of polypyrrole/graphene (PPy/GR) by electrochemical polymerisation on indium tin oxide (ITO) from an aqueous solution containing pyrrole monomer, graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets and sodium p-toluenesulfonate (NapTS). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns showed that the typical peak of GO at 9.9o was missing from the nanocomposite’s diffraction pattern, suggesting that the GO had been stripped off of its oxygenous groups after the reaction. We postulated that a nanocomposite film was produced through a layer-by-layer deposition based on field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) images. The Raman spectroscopy profiles exhibited that the D/G intensity ratio (ID/IG) of PPy was not altered by the inclusion of GO due to the low concentration of the material used. However, the concentration was sufficient to increase the specific capacitance of the nanocomposite by 20 times compared to that of pure PPy, reflecting a synergistic effect between PPy and GR, as analysed by a three-electrode electrochemical cell. The electrochemical performance of the nanocomposites was affected by varying the deposition parameters such as concentrations of pyrrole and GO, scan rate, deposition time and deposition potential

Rearrangement processes and structural variations show evidence of selection in oesophageal adenocarcinomas

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) provides an ideal case study to characterize large-scale rearrangements. Using whole genome short-read sequencing of 383 cases, for which 214 had matched whole transcriptomes, we observed structural variations (SV) with a predominance of deletions, tandem duplications and inter-chromosome junctions that could be identified as LINE-1 mobile element (ME) insertions. Complex clusters of rearrangements resembling breakage-fusion-bridge cycles or extrachromosomal circular DNA accounted for 22% of complex SVs affecting known oncogenes. Counting SV events affecting known driver genes substantially increased the recurrence rates of these drivers. After excluding fragile sites, we identified 51 candidate new drivers in genomic regions disrupted by SVs, including ETV5, KAT6B and CLTC. RUNX1 was the most recurrently altered gene (24%), with many deletions inactivating the RUNT domain but preserved the reading frame, suggesting an altered protein product. These findings underscore the importance of identification of SV events in OAC with implications for targeted therapies

The 3′ Splice Site of Influenza A Segment 7 mRNA Can Exist in Two Conformations: A Pseudoknot and a Hairpin

The 3′ splice site of influenza A segment 7 is used to produce mRNA for the M2 ion-channel protein, which is critical to the formation of viable influenza virions. Native gel analysis, enzymatic/chemical structure probing, and oligonucleotide binding studies of a 63 nt fragment, containing the 3′ splice site, key residues of an SF2/ASF splicing factor binding site, and a polypyrimidine tract, provide evidence for an equilibrium between pseudoknot and hairpin structures. This equilibrium is sensitive to multivalent cations, and can be forced towards the pseudoknot by addition of 5 mM cobalt hexammine. In the two conformations, the splice site and other functional elements exist in very different structural environments. In particular, the splice site is sequestered in the middle of a double helix in the pseudoknot conformation, while in the hairpin it resides in a two-by-two nucleotide internal loop. The results suggest that segment 7 mRNA splicing can be controlled by a conformational switch that exposes or hides the splice site