Deaths caused by malaria in Switzerland 1988-2002

Despite sophisticated intensive medicine, between one and three malaria-associated deaths occur annually in Switzerland. In this retrospective study, 33 deaths (25 men and 8 women) caused by falciparum malaria reported in Switzerland from 1988 to 2002 were analyzed. The case fatality ratio (CFR) for the falciparum infections for the 15-year period was 1.2%, with a peak of 2.2% in 1991. Sub-Saharan Africa was the source of all the imported fatal infections. Non-immune Europeans had a significantly higher case fatality ratio than the non-Europeans (1.7% versus 0.2%; P < 0.001). Careless use or non-use of prophylaxis, sometimes because of physicians giving unsatisfactory pre-travel advice, and initially missed diagnosis post-travel were factors that contributed to the development of severe infections leading to death. Travelers should be sensitized to the risk of malaria by well-informed general practitioners. Updated information is readily available (www.safetravel.ch). Regarding diagnosis and treatment, greater physician awareness of the disease is needed, and expert advice should be sought without hesitation. Rapid malaria tests may be a useful diagnostic adjunct in centers where microscopic expertise is lacking. Falciparum malaria in a non-immune patient is an emergency requiring immediate treatment

Development and validation of a multi-dimensional measure of intellectual humility

This paper presents five studies on the development and validation of a scale of intellectual humility. This scale captures cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motivational components of the construct that have been identified by various philosophers in their conceptual analyses of intellectual humility. We find that intellectual humility has four core dimensions: Open-mindedness (versus Arrogance), Intellectual Modesty (versus Vanity), Corrigibility (versus Fragility), and Engagement (versus Boredom). These dimensions display adequate self-informant agreement, and adequate convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity. In particular, Open-mindedness adds predictive power beyond the Big Six for an objective behavioral measure of intellectual humility, and Intellectual Modesty is uniquely related to Narcissism. We find that a similar factor structure emerges in Germanophone participants, giving initial evidence for the model’s cross-cultural generalizability

Identification of a CYP3A form (CYP3A126) in fathead minnow ( Pimephales promelas ) and characterisation of putative CYP3A enzyme activity

Cytochrome P450-dependent monooxygenases (CYPs) are involved in the metabolic defence against xenobiotics. Human CYP3A enzymes metabolise about 50% of all pharmaceuticals in use today. Induction of CYPs and associated xenobiotic metabolism occurs also in fish and may serve as a useful tool for biomonitoring of environmental contamination. In this study we report on the cloning of a CYP3A family gene from fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas), which has been designated as CYP3A126 by the P450 nomenclature committee (GenBank no. EU332792). The cDNA was isolated, identified and characterised by extended inverse polymerase chain reaction (PCR), an alternative to the commonly used method of rapid amplification of cDNA ends. In a fathead minnow cell line we identified a full-length cDNA sequence (1,863 base pairs (bp)) consisting of a 1,536bp open reading frame encoding a 512 amino acid protein. Genomic analysis of the identified CYP3A isoenzyme revealed a DNA sequence consisting of 13 exons and 12 introns. CYP3A126 is also expressed in fathead minnow liver as demonstrated by reverse transcription PCR. Exposure of fathead minnow (FHM) cells with the CYP3A inducer rifampicin leads to dose-dependent increase in putative CYP3A enzyme activity. In contrast, inhibitory effects of diazepam treatment were observed on putative CYP3A enzyme activity and additionally on CYP3A126 mRNA expression. This indicates that CYP3A is active in FHM cells and that CYP3A126 is at least in part responsible for this CYP3A activity. Further investigations will show whether CYP3A126 is involved in the metabolism of environmental chemicals. Figure Induction of CYP3A activity by rifampicin and inhibition by diazepam in FHM cell

Item Response Model Validation of the German ICD-11 International Trauma Questionnaire for PTSD and CPTSD

BACKGROUND: In the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the complex variant (CPTSD) were newly conceptualised. The International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) was developed as a brief self-report measure to screen for both disorders. The English original version has been rigorously tested and presents convincing psychometric properties. The aim of the current study was to validate the German version by means of item response theory (IRT). METHOD: This is a secondary analysis of a representative, trauma-exposed adult sample from the German general population (N = 500). 1- and 2-parameter logistic IRT models (i.e. examination on an item level), diagnostic rates and confirmatory factor analyses were calculated. RESULTS: All items showed good model fit and acceptable to good performance aligning with the items of the English original except for item C1 (Long time to calm down) which had a high endorsement rate and a low discriminatory power yielding low information gain. CPTSD diagnostic rate of 3.2% was lower than in comparable literature. Confirmatory factor analysis deemed the six first-order, two second-order factors model superior. CONCLUSION: Measurement and factorial validity of the German version of the ITQ was confirmed. The German translation matches the English original in most psychometric properties and can thus be used for research and clinical practice

Graph-based Active Learning for Entity Cluster Repair

Cluster repair methods aim to determine errors in clusters and modify them so that each cluster consists of records representing the same entity. Current cluster repair methodologies primarily assume duplicate-free data sources, where each record from one source corresponds to a unique record from another. However, real-world data often deviates from this assumption due to quality issues. Recent approaches apply clustering methods in combination with link categorization methods so they can be applied to data sources with duplicates. Nevertheless, the results do not show a clear picture since the quality highly varies depending on the configuration and dataset. In this study, we introduce a novel approach for cluster repair that utilizes graph metrics derived from the underlying similarity graphs. These metrics are pivotal in constructing a classification model to distinguish between correct and incorrect edges. To address the challenge of limited training data, we integrate an active learning mechanism tailored to cluster-specific attributes. The evaluation shows that the method outperforms existing cluster repair methods without distinguishing between duplicate-free or dirty data sources. Notably, our modified active learning strategy exhibits enhanced performance when dealing with datasets containing duplicates, showcasing its effectiveness in such scenarios