Paediatric and adult bronchiectasis: monitoring, cross-infection, role of multi-disciplinary teams and self-management plans

Bronchiectasis is a chronic lung disease associated with structurally abnormal bronchi; clinically manifested by a persistent wet/productive cough, airway infections and recurrent exacerbations. Early identification and treatment of acute exacerbations is an integral part of monitoring and annual review, in both adults and children, to minimise further damage due to infection and inflammation. Common modalities used to monitor disease progression include clinical signs and symptoms, frequency of exacerbations and/or number of hospital admissions, lung function (FEV1 %predicted), imaging (radiological severity of disease) and sputum microbiology (chronic infection with P. aeruginosa). There is good evidence that these monitoring tools can be used to accurately assess severity of disease and predict prognosis in terms of mortality and future hospitalisation. Other tools that are currently used in research settings such as health-related quality of life questionnaires, magnetic resonance imaging and lung clearance index can be burdensome and require additional expertise or resource, which limits their use in clinical practice. Studies have demonstrated that cross-infection, especially with P. aeruginosa between patients with bronchiectasis is possible but infrequent. This should not limit participation of patients in group activities such as pulmonary rehabilitation, and simple infection control measures should be carried out to limit the risk of cross-transmission. A multi-disciplinary approach to care which includes respiratory physicians, chest physiotherapists, nurse specialists and other allied health professionals are vital in providing holistic care. Patient education and personalised self-management plans are also important despite limited evidence it improves quality of life or frequency of exacerbations

Protection conferred by live infectious bronchitis vaccine viruses against variant Middle East IS/885/00-like and IS/1494/06-like isolates in commercial broiler chicks.

The ability of the infectious bronchitis H120 (a Massachusetts strain) and CR88 (a 793B strain) live attenuated vaccine viruses to protect from two Middle East infectious bronchitis virus isolates, IS/885/00-like (IS/885) and IS/1494/06-like (IS/1494) in broiler chicks was investigated. Day-old chicks were separated into three groups, (I) vaccinated with H120 at day-old followed by CR88 at 14 days-old, (II) vaccinated with H120 and CR88 simultaneously at day-old and again with CR88 at 14 days-old, (III) control unvaccinated. At 30 days-old, each of the groups was challenged with virulent IS/885 or IS/1494. Protection was evaluated based on the clinical signs, tracheal and kidney gross lesions and tracheal ciliostasis. Results showed that administering combined live H120 and CR88 vaccines simultaneously at day-old followed by CR88 vaccine at 14 days-old gave more than 80 per cent tracheal ciliary protection from both of the Middle East isolates. In addition, this programme conferred 100 per cent protection from clinical signs and tracheal or kidney lesions. The other vaccination programme, H120 at day-old followed by CR88 at 14 days-old, the tracheal ciliary protection conferred were 60 per cent and 80 per cent from IS/885/00-like and IS/1494/06-like, respectively

N=2 Supersymmetry and Bailey Pairs

We demonstrate that the Bailey pair formulation of Rogers-Ramanujan identities unifies the calculations of the characters of $N=1$ and $N=2$ supersymmetric conformal field theories with the counterpart theory with no supersymmetry. We illustrate this construction for the $M(3,4)$ (Ising) model where the Bailey pairs have been given by Slater. We then present the general unitary case. We demonstrate that the model $M(p,p+1)$ is derived from $M(p-1,p)$ by a Bailey renormalization flow and conclude by obtaining the $N=1$ model $SM(p,p+2)$ and the unitary $N=2$ model with central charge $c=3(1-2/p).$Comment: 32 pages in harvmac, no figure

Influences of swab types and storage temperatures on isolation and molecular detection of Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma synoviae.

Routine diagnosis of Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) and Mycoplasma synoviae (MS) is performed by collecting oropharyngeal swabs, followed by isolation and/or detection by molecular methods. The storage temperature, storage duration and the type of swabs could be critical factors for a successful isolation or molecular detection. The aim of this study was to compare the influence of different types of cotton tipped swabs stored at different temperatures, on detection of MG and MS. To achieve this, a combined use of traditional culture analysis (both agar and broth), with modern molecular detection methods was utilised. Performances of wooden and plastic shaft swabs, both without transport medium, were compared. Successful culture of M. gallisepticum was significantly more efficient from plastic swabs when compared to wooden, whereas no difference was seen for re-isolation of M. synoviae. Storage at 4 oC compared to room temperature also increased the efficiency of culture detection for both Mycoplasma species. When stored at room temperature, PCR detection limits of both MG and MS were significantly lower for wooden compared to plastic swabs. The qPCR data showed similar detection limits for both swab types when stored at both temperatures. Results suggest that swabs with plastic shaft should be preferred for MG and MS detection by both culture and PCR. While a lower storage temperature (4°C) is optimal for culture recovery, it seems that both temperatures investigated here are adequate for molecular detection and it is the swab type which carries a greater influence

Mental health in prisons in Latin America: The effects of COVID-19

Latin America is a vast region of the world. In 2022, it is estimated that nearly 620 million people live in 33 countries spanning almost 20 million km2 across North, South and Central America, and the Caribbean.1 These countries are united by their common historic cultural origins.2 It is estimated that Spanish is spoken by 400 million, and Portuguese by 200 million people in the region.2 Quechua is the most widely spoken indigenous language in the region, with around 8 million speakers; smaller numbers speak around 560 other indigenous languages such as Mayan, Guarani, and Nahuatl.2,3 The region was described as having a total gross domestic product (GDP) of almost 4.7 trillion US dollars in 2020, with substantial contributions from the four largest economies—Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile.4,5 However, Latin American countries are mainly considered developing nations.