Developing City Development Strategies (CDS) for Vietnamese cities: a guide to assist city leaders

This Guide explains a methodology to develop City Development Strategies (CDS). It has been developed to assist city leaders in Viet Nam along with the other relevant stakeholders develop a CDS for their city

Flavonoid intake and the risk of age-related cataract in China’s Heilongjiang Province

Background/Objectives: Epidemiological evidence suggests that diets rich in flavonoids may reduce the risk of developing age-related cataract (ARC). Flavonoids are widely distributed in foods of plant origin and the objective of this study was to evaluate retrospectively the association between the intakes of the five flavonoid subclasses and the risk of ARC.  Subjects/Methods: A population-based case-control study (249 cases and 66 controls) was carried out in Heilongjiang province, which is located in the Northeast of China, and where intakes and availability of fresh vegetables and fruits can be limited. Dietary data gathered by food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) were used to calculate flavonoid intake. Adjusted odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated by logistic regression.  Results: No linear associations between risk of developing ARC and intakes of total dietary flavonoids, anthocyanidins, flavon-3-ol, flavanone, total flavones or total flavonols were found, but quercetin and isorhamnetin intake was inversely associated with ARC risk (OR 11.78, 95% CI: 1.62-85.84, P<0.05, and OR 6.99, 95% CI:1.12-43.44, P<0.05, quartile 4 vs quartile 1, respectively).  Conclusion: As quercetin is contained in many plant foods and isorhamnetin is only contained in very few foods, we concluded that higher quercetin intake may be an important dietary factor in the reduction of risk of age-related cataract

Occult Hepatitis B Virus in Gezira State Sudan

Background: Occult hepatitis B infection (OBI) is simply defined as serologically undetectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg-ve), despite the presence of circulating HBV DNA.Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of occult HBV among Screened HBsAg subjects in Gezira State, Sudan.Materials and Methods: A total of 176 subjects including cancer patients, hospital based controls and health care workers were screened for HBsAg by ELISA, and their DNA was extracted by using polymerase chain reaction.Results: 49/176 (27.8%) were positive for occult HBV as follows: cancer patients had 31/81 (38.2%) cases, while 18.9% were reported among hospital based controls. 11.2%, 2.2% were positive for both HBsAg and DNA respectively. Ten out of the 50 (20%) healthcare workers, who were negative for HBsAg, were found to be positive for HBV DNA, while one out of the 19, who were positive for HBsAg, was found to be positive for HBV DNA. Occult HBV among this study groups showed an approximately equal distribution among males and females 18.2% and 20.5 %, respectively.Conclusion: This study concluded that the prevalence of OBI among healthcare workers, hospital based controls and cancer patients, is remarkably increasing compared with the prevalence of the disease. More molecular epidemiological studies are needed to delineate a link between OBI and cancer. Proper HBV screening should be carried out to avoid occult hepatitis B infection transmission.Keywords: Hepatitis B virus, Gezira State, cancer, healthcare workers, Suda

Advances in 3D Bioprinting for Cancer Biology and Precision Medicine: From Matrix Design to Application

The tumor microenvironment is highly complex owing to its heterogeneous composition and dynamic nature. This makes tumors difficult to replicate using traditional 2D cell culture models that are frequently used for studying tumor biology and drug screening. This often leads to poor translation of results between in vitro and in vivo and is reflected in the extremely low success rates of new candidate drugs delivered to the clinic. Therefore, there has been intense interest in developing 3D tumor models in the laboratory that are representative of the in vivo tumor microenvironment and patient samples. 3D bioprinting is an emerging technology that enables the biofabrication of structures with the virtue of providing accurate control over distribution of cells, biological molecules, and matrix scaffolding. This technology has the potential to bridge the gap between in vitro and in vivo by closely recapitulating the tumor microenvironment. Here, a brief overview of the tumor microenvironment is provided and key considerations in biofabrication of tumor models are discussed. Bioprinting techniques and choice of bioinks for both natural and synthetic polymers are also outlined. Lastly, current bioprinted tumor models are reviewed and the perspectives of how clinical applications can greatly benefit from 3D bioprinting technologies are offered

Vision loss following snakebite in a patient with controlled aplastic anemia

Viper venoms act mainly on blood and blood vessels. Reports of ophthalmic manifestations after snakebite include ptosis and ophthalmoplegia. In the current study, we describe a case that developed bilateral retinal and subretinal hemorrhage following snakebite. Bilateral retinal hemorrhage is a rare ocular complication of snake envenomation and has not been reported with fundus photographs in the literature so far

Research into the Economic, Social and Environmental Implications of Population Growth in Australian Cities: Case Study - Mandurah, WA

Made available by the Northern Territory Library via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT)."The data analysis conducted here suggests a number of implications of population growth in Palmerston. Quantitative environmental data appears to be scarce; however anecdotal evidence does indicate that the population increase has and will continue to put pressure on the natural environment, due to increased gross potable water usage and further threats to vegetation communities, both through the encroachment of residential development, and practices such as garden waste dumping.Case study summary -- Glossary -- Background and context -- Environmental, social and economic indicators -- Stakeholders -- Positive and negative views about population growth -- Information gaps and opportunities -- Summary of theme and indicator data for Palmerston -- References -- Appendix.Report prepared by the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney for the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

A parametric level-set method for partially discrete tomography

This paper introduces a parametric level-set method for tomographic reconstruction of partially discrete images. Such images consist of a continuously varying background and an anomaly with a constant (known) grey-value. We represent the geometry of the anomaly using a level-set function, which we represent using radial basis functions. We pose the reconstruction problem as a bi-level optimization problem in terms of the background and coefficients for the level-set function. To constrain the background reconstruction we impose smoothness through Tikhonov regularization. The bi-level optimization problem is solved in an alternating fashion; in each iteration we first reconstruct the background and consequently update the level-set function. We test our method on numerical phantoms and show that we can successfully reconstruct the geometry of the anomaly, even from limited data. On these phantoms, our method outperforms Total Variation reconstruction, DART and P-DART.Comment: Paper submitted to 20th International Conference on Discrete Geometry for Computer Imager

Anti-CTLA-4 therapy for malignant mesothelioma

Immunotherapy is an emerging therapeutic strategy with a promising clinical outcome in some solid tumors, particularly metastatic melanoma. One approach to immunotherapy is immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as blockage of CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1. This special report aims to describe the state of clinical trials of tremelimumab in patients with unresectable malignant mesothelioma (MM) in particular with regard to the clinical efficacy, safety and tolerability. Criticism and perspective of this treatment are also discussed. Biological and clinical considerations rule out the use of tremelimumab as single agent for MM and, more generally, the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors for MM is still largely questionable and not supported by evidences