Social representations of HIV/AIDS in five Central European and Eastern European countries: A multidimensional analysis

Cognitive processing models of risky sexual behaviour have proliferated in the two decades since the first reporting of HIV/AIDS, but far less attention has been paid to individual and group representations of the epidemic and the relationship between these representations and reported sexual behaviours. In this study, 494 business people and medics from Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland and Russia sorted free associations around HIV/AIDS in a matrix completion task. Exploratory factor and multidimensional scaling analyses revealed two main dimensions (labelled ‘Sex’ and ‘Deadly disease’), with significant cultural and gender variations along both dimension scores. Possible explanations for these results are discussed in the light of growing concerns over the spread of the epidemic in this region

Comparison of sapwood invasion by three Phytophthora spp.in different hosts

Many Phytophthora spp. have recently been isolated from native vegetation in Western Australia. As their pathogenicity is often unknown, it is not possible to provide advice to land managers on the impact of site infestation on native plants and how these infestations should be managed. We describe a rapid screening method based on sapwood invasion that has been used to compare the pathogenicity of Phytophthora arenaria, P. cinnamomi and P. multivora. Radial invasion into the xylem of six banksias and three eucalypts was assessed in an excised branch assay in summer and winter. Branches were wound inoculated and invasion was assessed by plating from a strip of tissue cut across the stem at the inoculation point and at 40 mm above and below. A symptomless infection had established in both the bark and sapwood within 6 days. P. arenaria was only isolated from the strip of tissue at the inoculation point. P. cinnamomi was isolated from the sapwood of Banksia attenuata, B. burdettii, B. menziesii and B. speciosa 40 mm above or below the inoculation point in some experiments. P. multivora was isolated from B. speciosa 40 mm below the inoculation point in one experiment. Hyphae of both species were seen in both ray parenchyma cells and xylem vessels. The invasiveness of the Phytophthora spp. was compared on the two groups of hosts using scores for sapwood invasion at the inoculation point. For banksias, P. cinnamomi and P. multivora had significantly higher invasion scores on banksias than P. arenaria but were not significantly different to one another. There was no significant difference between the three Phytophthora spp. on the eucalypt hosts. Assessing sapwood invasion provides a rapid, inexpensive and biologically meaningful way of screening the many Phytophthora spp. that have been isolated from native vegetation

Breed-Specific Hematological Phenotypes in the Dog: A Natural Resource for the Genetic Dissection of Hematological Parameters in a Mammalian Species

Remarkably little has been published on hematological phenotypes of the domestic dog, the most polymorphic species on the planet. Information on the signalment and complete blood cell count of all dogs with normal red and white blood cell parameters judged by existing reference intervals was extracted from a veterinary database. Normal hematological profiles were available for 6046 dogs, 5447 of which also had machine platelet concentrations within the reference interval. Seventy-five pure breeds plus a mixed breed control group were represented by 10 or more dogs. All measured parameters except mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) varied with age. Concentrations of white blood cells (WBCs), neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes, eosinophils and platelets, but not red blood cell parameters, all varied with sex. Neutering status had an impact on hemoglobin concentration, mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), MCHC, and concentrations of WBCs, neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes and platelets. Principal component analysis of hematological data revealed 37 pure breeds with distinctive phenotypes. Furthermore, all hematological parameters except MCHC showed significant differences between specific individual breeds and the mixed breed group. Twenty-nine breeds had distinctive phenotypes when assessed in this way, of which 19 had already been identified by principal component analysis. Tentative breed-specific reference intervals were generated for breeds with a distinctive phenotype identified by comparative analysis. This study represents the first large-scale analysis of hematological phenotypes in the dog and underlines the important potential of this species in the elucidation of genetic determinants of hematological traits, triangulating phenotype, breed and genetic predisposition

Diabetes mellitus in dogs attending UK primary-care practices: frequency, risk factors and survival

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an important endocrine disorder of dogs. The objectives of this study were to estimate prevalence and incidence of DM in dogs, and to explore risk factors for DM and the survival of DM cases in primary-care clinics in the UK. Results: A case-control study nested in the cohort of dogs (n = 480,469) aged ≥3 years presenting at 430 VetCompass clinics was used to identify risk factors for DM, using multivariable logistic regression. Overall 409 new and 863 pre-existing DM cases (total 1272) were identified in 2016, giving an apparent annual prevalence of 0.26% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.25–0.28%), and an annual incidence risk of 0.09% (95%CI: 0.08–0.09%) in dogs aged ≥3 years. Factors associated with increased odds for DM diagnosis were all age categories > 8 years, female entire dogs (odds ratio (OR): 3.03, 95% CI 1.69–5.44, p < 0.001) and male neutered dogs (OR: 1.99, 95% CI 1.18–3.34, p = 0.010) compared to male entire dogs, Border Terriers (OR: 3.37, 95% CI 1.04–10.98, p = 0.043) and West Highland White Terriers (WHWT) (OR: 2.88, 95% CI 1.49–5.56, p = 0.002) compared to crossbreeds. Dogs that had received previous glucocorticoid treatment (OR: 2.19, 95% CI 1.02–4.70, p = 0.044) and those with concurrent conditions (documented obese, pancreatitis, hyperadrenocorticism) also had increased odds for DM diagnosis. Cox regression modelling was used to evaluate factors associated with survival in the 409 incident DM cases in 2016. Increased hazard of death following diagnosis of DM was shown in dogs that were ≥ 10 years age, Cocker Spaniels (HR: 2.06, 95% CI 1.06–4.01, p = 0.034) compared to crossbreeds, had a blood glucose (BG) level at diagnosis > 40 mmol/L (HR: 2.73, 95% CI 1.35–5.55, p = 0.005) compared to < 20 mmol/L at diagnosis, or had received previous glucocorticoid treatment (HR: 1.86, 95% CI 1.21–2.86, p = 0.005). Dogs at reduced hazard of death included neutered dogs (HR: 0.58, 95% CI 0.42–0.79, p = 0.001), Border Collies (HR: 0.39, 95% CI 0.17–0.87, p = 0.022) and those starting insulin treatment (HR: 0.08 95% CI 0.05–0.12, p < 0.001). Conclusions: Certain breeds and concurrent health conditions are associated with an increased risk of DM. In addition to certain signalment factors, a high BG level at diagnosis and prior glucocorticoid treatment were adversely associated with survival of dogs with DM. Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Risk factors, Survival, Case-control study, Benchmarking, VetCompas

Intestinal fatty-acid binding protein and gut permeability responses to exercise

Purpose Intestinal cell damage due to physiological stressors (e.g. heat, oxidative, hypoperfusion/ischaemic) may contribute to increased intestinal permeability. The aim of this study was to assess changes in plasma intestinal fatty acid-binding protein (I-FABP) in response to exercise (with bovine colostrum supplementation, Col, positive control) and compare this to intestinal barrier integrity/permeability (5 h urinary lactulose/rhamnose ratio, L/R). Methods In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, 18 males completed two experimental arms (14 days of 20 g/day supplementation with Col or placebo, Plac). For each arm participants performed two baseline (resting) intestinal permeability assessments (L/R) pre-supplementation and one post-exercise following supplementation. Blood samples were collected pre- and post-exercise to determine I-FABP concentration. Results Two-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed an arm?×?time interaction for L/R and I-FABP (P?<?0.001). Post hoc analyses showed urinary L/R increased post-exercise in Plac (273% of pre, P?<?0.001) and Col (148% of pre, P?<?0.001) with post-exercise values significantly lower with Col (P?<?0.001). Plasma I-FABP increased post-exercise in Plac (191% of pre-exercise, P?=?0.002) but not in the Col arm (107%, P?=?0.862) with post-exercise values significantly lower with Col (P?=?0.013). Correlations between the increase in I-FABP and L/R were evident for visit one (P?=?0.044) but not visit two (P?=?0.200) although overall plots/patterns do appear similar for each. Conclusion These findings suggest that exercise-induced intestinal cellular damage/injury is partly implicated in changes in permeability but other factors must also contribute

Mixing patterns and the spread of close-contact infectious diseases

Surprisingly little is known regarding the human mixing patterns relevant to the spread of close-contact infections, such as measles, influenza and meningococcal disease. This study aims to estimate the number of partnerships that individuals make, their stability and the degree to which mixing is assortative with respect to age. We defined four levels of putative at-risk events from casual (physical contact without conversation) to intimate (contact of a sexual nature), and asked university student volunteers to record details on those they contacted at these levels on three separate days. We found that intimate contacts are stable over short time periods whereas there was no evidence of repeat casual contacts with the same individuals. The contacts were increasingly assortative as intimacy increased. Such information will aid the development and parameterisation of models of close contact diseases, and may have direct use in outbreak investigations

VPR-Bench: An Open-Source Visual Place Recognition Evaluation Framework with Quantifiable Viewpoint and Appearance Change

Visual place recognition (VPR) is the process of recognising a previously visited place using visual information, often under varying appearance conditions and viewpoint changes and with computational constraints. VPR is related to the concepts of localisation, loop closure, image retrieval and is a critical component of many autonomous navigation systems ranging from autonomous vehicles to drones and computer vision systems. While the concept of place recognition has been around for many years, VPR research has grown rapidly as a field over the past decade due to improving camera hardware and its potential for deep learning-based techniques, and has become a widely studied topic in both the computer vision and robotics communities. This growth however has led to fragmentation and a lack of standardisation in the field, especially concerning performance evaluation. Moreover, the notion of viewpoint and illumination invariance of VPR techniques has largely been assessed qualitatively and hence ambiguously in the past. In this paper, we address these gaps through a new comprehensive open-source framework for assessing the performance of VPR techniques, dubbed “VPR-Bench”. VPR-Bench (Open-sourced at: https://github.com/MubarizZaffar/VPR-Bench) introduces two much-needed capabilities for VPR researchers: firstly, it contains a benchmark of 12 fully-integrated datasets and 10 VPR techniques, and secondly, it integrates a comprehensive variation-quantified dataset for quantifying viewpoint and illumination invariance. We apply and analyse popular evaluation metrics for VPR from both the computer vision and robotics communities, and discuss how these different metrics complement and/or replace each other, depending upon the underlying applications and system requirements. Our analysis reveals that no universal SOTA VPR technique exists, since: (a) state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance is achieved by 8 out of the 10 techniques on at least one dataset, (b) SOTA technique in one community does not necessarily yield SOTA performance in the other given the differences in datasets and metrics. Furthermore, we identify key open challenges since: (c) all 10 techniques suffer greatly in perceptually-aliased and less-structured environments, (d) all techniques suffer from viewpoint variance where lateral change has less effect than 3D change, and (e) directional illumination change has more adverse effects on matching confidence than uniform illumination change. We also present detailed meta-analyses regarding the roles of varying ground-truths, platforms, application requirements and technique parameters. Finally, VPR-Bench provides a unified implementation to deploy these VPR techniques, metrics and datasets, and is extensible through templates

Genotyping faecal samples of Bengal tiger Panthera tigris tigris for population estimation: A pilot study

BACKGROUND: Bengal tiger Panthera tigris tigris the National Animal of India, is an endangered species. Estimating populations for such species is the main objective for designing conservation measures and for evaluating those that are already in place. Due to the tiger's cryptic and secretive behaviour, it is not possible to enumerate and monitor its populations through direct observations; instead indirect methods have always been used for studying tigers in the wild. DNA methods based on non-invasive sampling have not been attempted so far for tiger population studies in India. We describe here a pilot study using DNA extracted from faecal samples of tigers for the purpose of population estimation. RESULTS: In this study, PCR primers were developed based on tiger-specific variations in the mitochondrial cytochrome b for reliably identifying tiger faecal samples from those of sympatric carnivores. Microsatellite markers were developed for the identification of individual tigers with a sibling Probability of Identity of 0.005 that can distinguish even closely related individuals with 99.9% certainty. The effectiveness of using field-collected tiger faecal samples for DNA analysis was evaluated by sampling, identification and subsequently genotyping samples from two protected areas in southern India. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using tiger faecal matter as a potential source of DNA for population estimation of tigers in protected areas in India in addition to the methods currently in use

The effect of bovine colostrum supplementation on intestinal injury and circulating intestinal bacterial DNA following exercise in the heat

Purpose Exercise-induced changes in intestinal permeability are exacerbated in the heat. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of 14 days of bovine colostrum (Col) supplementation on intestinal cell damage (plasma intestinal fatty acid-binding protein, I-FABP) and bacterial translocation (plasma bacterial DNA) following exercise in the heat. Methods In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, 12 males completed two experimental arms (14 days of 20 g/day supplementation with Col or placebo, Plac) consisting of 60 min treadmill running at 70% maximal aerobic capacity (30 ??C, 60% relative humidity). Blood samples were collected pre-exercise (Pre-Ex), post-exercise (Post-Ex) and 1 h post-exercise (1 h Post-Ex) to determine plasma I-FABP concentration, and bacterial DNA (for an abundant gut species, Bacteroides). Results Two-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed an arm ?~ time interaction for I-FABP (P = 0.005, with greater Post- Ex increase in Plac than Col, P = 0.01: Plac 407 ?} 194% of Pre-Ex vs Col, 311 ?} 134%) and 1 h Post-Ex (P = 0.036: Plac 265 ?} 80% of Pre-Ex vs Col, 229 ?} 56%). There was no interaction (P = 0.904) but there was a main effect of arm (P = 0.046) for plasma Bacteroides/total bacterial DNA, with lower overall levels evident in Col. Conclusion This is the first investigation to demonstrate that Col can be effective at reducing intestinal injury following exercise in the heat, but exercise responses (temporal pattern) of bacterial DNA were not influenced by Col (although overall levels may be lower).publishersversionPeer reviewe

Low urine pH and acid excretion do not predict bone fractures or the loss of bone mineral density: a prospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The acid-ash hypothesis, the alkaline diet, and related products are marketed to the general public. Websites, lay literature, and direct mail marketing encourage people to measure their urine pH to assess their health status and their risk of osteoporosis.</p> <p>The objectives of this study were to determine whether 1) low urine pH, or 2) acid excretion in urine [sulfate + chloride + 1.8x phosphate + organic acids] minus [sodium + potassium + 2x calcium + 2x magnesium mEq] in fasting morning urine predict: a) fragility fractures; and b) five-year change of bone mineral density (BMD) in adults.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Design: Cohort study: the prospective population-based Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study. Multiple logistic regression was used to examine associations between acid excretion (urine pH and urine acid excretion) in fasting morning with the incidence of fractures (6804 person years). Multiple linear regression was used to examine associations between acid excretion with changes in BMD over 5-years at three sites: lumbar spine, femoral neck, and total hip (n = 651). Potential confounders controlled included: age, gender, family history of osteoporosis, physical activity, smoking, calcium intake, vitamin D status, estrogen status, medications, renal function, urine creatinine, body mass index, and change of body mass index.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no associations between either urine pH or acid excretion and either the incidence of fractures or change of BMD after adjustment for confounders.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Urine pH and urine acid excretion do not predict osteoporosis risk.</p