Malaria and Irrigated Crops, Accra, Ghana

We investigated the prevalence of malaria and associated risk factors in children living in urban Ghana. Malaria prevalence was associated with low hemoglobin concentration, low socioeconomic status, and higher age. Our findings indicate that African urban poor are seriously affected by malaria and that irrigated agriculture may increase this risk

Response of Mica to Weakly Interacting Massive Particles

We calculate spin-dependent cross sections for the scattering from mica of hypothetical weakly interacting dark-matter particles such as neutralinos. The most abundant odd-A isotopes in mica, Al27 and K39, require different shell-model treatments. The calculated cross sections will allow the interpretation of ongoing experiments that look for tracks due to the interaction of dark-matter particles with nuclei in ancient mica.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, 2 uuencoded figures, submittted to Phys. Rev.

Structural and dynamical properties of superfluid helium: a density functional approach

We present a novel density functional for liquid 4He, properly accounting for the static response function and the phonon-roton dispersion in the uniform liquid. The functional is used to study both structural and dynamical properties of superfluid helium in various geometries. The equilibrium properties of the free surface, droplets and films at zero temperature are calculated. Our predictions agree closely to the results of ab initio Monte Carlo calculations, when available. The introduction of a phenomenological velocity dependent interaction, which accounts for backflow effects, is discussed. The spectrum of the elementary excitations of the free surface and films is studied.Comment: 37 pages, REVTeX 3.0, figures on request at [email protected]

Risk assessment on the impact of environmental usage of triazoles on the development and spread of resistance to medical triazoles in Aspergillus species

In recent years, triazole resistance in human Aspergillus diseases appears to have been increasing in several European countries. However, current data on the prevalence of resistance are based on a small number of studies which are only available from a few European countries. If present, triazole resistance can severely limit treatment options since alternatives, which are only available in intravenous form, have been shown to be associated with more side effects and poorer outcomes. Triazole resistance in Aspergillus spp. can evolve during therapy. Several point mutations, particularly in the cyp51A gene, have been associated with the development of resistance. Increasingly however, resistant isolates are also being detected in azole-naive patients. These isolates tend to have a particular genetic alteration consisting of a 34-base pair tandem repeat in the promoter coupled with a point mutation in the cyp51A target gene. This leads to an amino-acid substitution at codon 98 (TR34/L98H) causing multi-azole resistance. In patients whose Aspergillus isolates have developed resistance during azole therapy wildtype isolates, closely related genetically to the resistant isolates, have regularly been recovered from samples taken before the start of therapy or during an earlier phase. To date however, no isogenic isolate with a wild-type phenotype has been recovered from patients infected with an Aspergillus strain carrying the TR34/L98H genetic alteration. This suggests a possible environmental origin of the resistant fungus. This particular resistance mechanism has been observed most frequently in clinical isolates in the Netherlands where it has also been found in the environment. Moreover, the resistance mechanism has been demonstrated in clinical isolates in eight other European countries. Azole fungicides are widely used for crop protection and material preservation in Europe. They protect crops from disease, ensure yields and prevent fungal contamination of produce. It has been proposed that triazole resistance has evolved in the environment and could be driven by the selective pressure of azole fungicides. Although evidence supporting this hypothesis is growing, the link between the environmental use of azole fungicides and the development of triazole resistance in Aspergillus spp. is not yet proven. Triazole therapy has become the established treatment for invasive aspergillosis and is widely used in the treatment of allergic aspergillosis and chronic pulmonary aspergillosis. Antifungal therapy for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis is usually prescribed for a minimum of 6–12 weeks, but often may need to be continued for months depending on the period of immunosuppression. Treatment of allergic aspergillosis and chronic pulmonary aspergillosis may need to continue for years or even throughout a patient’s lifetime. We estimated the burden of allergic, chronic and invasive aspergillosis using population statistics and published literature. Of the 733 million inhabitants in the European region1 [1], at any one time 2 100 000 patients may be suffering from allergic aspergillosis and 240 000 from chronic aspergillosis, that would be an indication for antifungal therapy. For invasive aspergillosis, we have estimated an annual incidence of 63 250 cases, complicating multiple underlying conditions including leukaemia, transplantation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and medical intensive care. The inability to treat these patients with triazoles due to multi-azole resistance would have significant impact on patient management and associated health costs. Early and thorough investigation of this emerging public health problem is warranted in order to avoid the development and spread of resistance. This report examines current evidence for the environmental origin of resistance in Aspergillus spp. and makes recommendations for further steps to assess the risks and consequences of the environmental usage of azole derivatives. Improved surveillance of clinical isolates, including antifungal susceptibility testing, is the key to a better understanding of the magnitude of this emerging problem. Furthermore, the diagnosis of Aspergillus diseases needs to be improved and molecular methods allowing detection of resistance in culture-negative specimens must be further developed and implemented in laboratory practice. Finally, further environmental and laboratory studies are needed to confirm the environmental hypothesi

Developing a predictive modelling capacity for a climate change-vulnerable blanket bog habitat: Assessing 1961-1990 baseline relationships

Aim: Understanding the spatial distribution of high priority habitats and developing predictive models using climate and environmental variables to replicate these distributions are desirable conservation goals. The aim of this study was to model and elucidate the contributions of climate and topography to the distribution of a priority blanket bog habitat in Ireland, and to examine how this might inform the development of a climate change predictive capacity for peat-lands in Ireland. Methods: Ten climatic and two topographic variables were recorded for grid cells with a spatial resolution of 1010 km, covering 87% of the mainland land surface of Ireland. Presence-absence data were matched to these variables and generalised linear models (GLMs) fitted to identify the main climatic and terrain predictor variables for occurrence of the habitat. Candidate predictor variables were screened for collinearity, and the accuracy of the final fitted GLM was evaluated using fourfold cross-validation based on the area under the curve (AUC) derived from a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) plot. The GLM predicted habitat occurrence probability maps were mapped against the actual distributions using GIS techniques. Results: Despite the apparent parsimony of the initial GLM using only climatic variables, further testing indicated collinearity among temperature and precipitation variables for example. Subsequent elimination of the collinear variables and inclusion of elevation data produced an excellent performance based on the AUC scores of the final GLM. Mean annual temperature and total mean annual precipitation in combination with elevation range were the most powerful explanatory variable group among those explored for the presence of blanket bog habitat. Main conclusions: The results confirm that this habitat distribution in general can be modelled well using the non-collinear climatic and terrain variables tested at the grid resolution used. Mapping the GLM-predicted distribution to the observed distribution produced useful results in replicating the projected occurrence of the habitat distribution over an extensive area. The methods developed will usefully inform future climate change predictive modelling for Irelan

Cross-ancestry genome-wide association analysis of corneal thickness strengthens link between complex and Mendelian eye diseases

Central corneal thickness (CCT) is a highly heritable trait associated with complex eye diseases such as keratoconus and glaucoma. We perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis of CCT and identify 19 novel regions. In addition to adding support for known connective tissue-related pathways, pathway analyses uncover previously unreported gene sets. Remarkably, >20% of the CCT-loci are near or within Mendelian disorder genes. These included FBN1, ADAMTS2 and TGFB2 which associate with connective tissue disorders (Marfan, Ehlers-Danlos and Loeys-Dietz syndromes), and the LUM-DCN-KERA gene complex involved in myopia, corneal dystrophies and cornea plana. Using index CCT-increasing variants, we find a significant inverse correlation in effect sizes between CCT and keratoconus (r =-0.62, P = 5.30 × 10-5) but not between CCT and primary open-angle glaucoma (r =-0.17, P = 0.2). Our findings provide evidence for shared genetic influences between CCT and keratoconus, and implicate candidate genes acting in collagen and extracellular matrix regulation

UBVRI Light curves of 44 Type Ia supernovae

We present UBVRI photometry of 44 Type la supernovae (SNe la) observed from 1997 to 2001 as part of a continuing monitoring campaign at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The data set comprises 2190 observations and is the largest homogeneously observed and reduced sample of SNe la to date, nearly doubling the number of well-observed, nearby SNe la with published multicolor CCD light curves. The large sample of [U-band photometry is a unique addition, with important connections to SNe la observed at high redshift. The decline rate of SN la U-band light curves correlates well with the decline rate in other bands, as does the U - B color at maximum light. However, the U-band peak magnitudes show an increased dispersion relative to other bands even after accounting for extinction and decline rate, amounting to an additional ∼40% intrinsic scatter compared to the B band

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely