Psychometric assessment of HIV/STI sexual risk scale among MSM: A Rasch model approach

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Little research has assessed the degree of severity and ordering of different types of sexual behaviors for HIV/STI infection in a measurement scale. The purpose of this study was to apply the Rasch model on psychometric assessment of an HIV/STI sexual risk scale among men who have sex with men (MSM).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study using respondent driven sampling was conducted among 351 MSM in Shenzhen, China. The Rasch model was used to examine the psychometric properties of an HIV/STI sexual risk scale including nine types of sexual behaviors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The Rasch analysis of the nine items met the unidimensionality and local independence assumption. Although the person reliability was low at 0.35, the item reliability was high at 0.99. The fit statistics provided acceptable infit and outfit values. Item difficulty invariance analysis showed that the item estimates of the risk behavior items were invariant (within error).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The findings suggest that the Rasch model can be utilized for measuring the level of sexual risk for HIV/STI infection as a single latent construct and for establishing the relative degree of severity of each type of sexual behavior in HIV/STI transmission and acquisition among MSM. The measurement scale provides a useful measurement tool to inform, design and evaluate behavioral interventions for HIV/STI infection among MSM.</p

Screening Acute HIV Infections among Chinese Men Who Have Sex with Men from Voluntary Counseling & Testing Centers

Recent studies have shown the public health importance of identifying acute HIV infection (AHI) in the men who have sex with men (MSM) of China, which has a much higher risk of HIV transmission. However, cost-utility analyses to guide policy around AHI screening are lacking.An open prospective cohort was recruited among MSM living in Liaoning Province, Northeast China. Blood samples and epidemiological information were collected every 10 weeks. Third-generation ELISA and rapid test were used for HIV antibody screening, western blot assay (WB) served for assay validation. Antibody negative specimens were tested with 24 mini-pool nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT). Specimens with positive ELISA but negative or indeterminate WB results were tested with NAAT individually without mixing. A cost-utility analysis of NAAT screening was assessed. Among the 5,344 follow-up visits of 1,765 MSM in 22 months, HIV antibody tests detected 114 HIV chronic infections, 24 seroconverters and 21 antibody indeterminate cases. 29 acute HIV infections were detected with NAAT from 21 antibody indeterminate and 1,606 antibody negative cases. The HIV-1 prevalence and incidence density were 6.6% (95% CI: 5.5–7.9) and 7.1 (95% CI: 5.4–9.2)/100 person-years, respectively. With pooled NAAT and individual NAAT strategy, the cost of an HIV transmission averted was $1,480. The addition of NAAT after HIV antibody tests had a cost-utility ratio of$3,366 per gained quality-adjusted life year (QALY). The input-output ratio of NAAT was about 1∶16.9.The HIV infections among MSM continue to rise at alarming rates. Despite the rising cost, adding pooled NAAT to the HIV antibody screening significantly increases the identification of acute HIV infections in MSM. Early treatment and target-oriented publicity and education programs can be strengthened to decrease the risk of HIV transmission and to save medical resources in the long run

Determinants of intra-household food allocation between adults in South Asia - a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Nutrition interventions, often delivered at the household level, could increase their efficiency by channelling resources towards pregnant or lactating women, instead of leaving resources to be disproportionately allocated to traditionally favoured men. However, understanding of how to design targeted nutrition programs is limited by a lack of understanding of the factors affecting the intra-household allocation of food. METHODS: We systematically reviewed literature on the factors affecting the allocation of food to adults in South Asian households (in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) and developed a framework of food allocation determinants. Two reviewers independently searched and filtered results from PubMed, Web of Knowledge and Scopus databases by using pre-defined search terms and hand-searching the references from selected papers. Determinants were extracted, categorised into a framework, and narratively described. We used adapted Downs and Black and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklists to assess the quality of evidence. RESULTS: Out of 6928 retrieved studies we found 60 relevant results. Recent, high quality evidence was limited and mainly from Bangladesh, India and Nepal. There were no results from Iran, Afghanistan, Maldives, or Bhutan. At the intra-household level, food allocation was determined by relative differences in household members' income, bargaining power, food behaviours, social status, tastes and preferences, and interpersonal relationships. Household-level determinants included wealth, food security, occupation, land ownership, household size, religion / ethnicity / caste, education, and nutrition knowledge. In general, the highest inequity occurred in households experiencing severe or unexpected food insecurity, and also in better-off, high caste households, whereas poorer, low caste but not severely food insecure households were more equitable. Food allocation also varied regionally and seasonally. CONCLUSION: Program benefits may be differentially distributed within households of different socioeconomic status, and targeting of nutrition programs might be improved by influencing determinants that are amenable to change, such as food security, women's employment, or nutrition knowledge. Longitudinal studies in different settings could unravel causal effects. Conclusions are not generalizable to the whole South Asian region, and research is needed in many countries

Impact of nonoptimal intakes of saturated, polyunsaturated, and trans fat on global burdens of coronary heart disease

Background: Saturated fat (SFA), ω‐6 (n‐6) polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), and trans fat (TFA) influence risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), but attributable CHD mortalities by country, age, sex, and time are unclear. Methods and Results: National intakes of SFA, n‐6 PUFA, and TFA were estimated using a Bayesian hierarchical model based on country‐specific dietary surveys; food availability data; and, for TFA, industry reports on fats/oils and packaged foods. Etiologic effects of dietary fats on CHD mortality were derived from meta‐analyses of prospective cohorts and CHD mortality rates from the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases study. Absolute and proportional attributable CHD mortality were computed using a comparative risk assessment framework. In 2010, nonoptimal intakes of n‐6 PUFA, SFA, and TFA were estimated to result in 711 800 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 680 700–745 000), 250 900 (95% UI 236 900–265 800), and 537 200 (95% UI 517 600–557 000) CHD deaths per year worldwide, accounting for 10.3% (95% UI 9.9%–10.6%), 3.6%, (95% UI 3.5%–3.6%) and 7.7% (95% UI 7.6%–7.9%) of global CHD mortality. Tropical oil–consuming countries were estimated to have the highest proportional n‐6 PUFA– and SFA‐attributable CHD mortality, whereas Egypt, Pakistan, and Canada were estimated to have the highest proportional TFA‐attributable CHD mortality. From 1990 to 2010 globally, the estimated proportional CHD mortality decreased by 9% for insufficient n‐6 PUFA and by 21% for higher SFA, whereas it increased by 4% for higher TFA, with the latter driven by increases in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Conclusions: Nonoptimal intakes of n‐6 PUFA, TFA, and SFA each contribute to significant estimated CHD mortality, with important heterogeneity across countries that informs nation‐specific clinical, public health, and policy priorities.peer-reviewe

Sequence Alignment Based Citation Parser using BLAST and Smith-Waterman algorithm

Abstract — The dramatic increase in the number of academic publications has led to a growing demand for efficient organization of the resources to meet researchers ’ specific needs. As a result, a number of network services have compiled databases from the public resources scattered over the Internet. However, publications in different conferences and journals follow different citation formats, so the problem of accurately extracting metadata from a publication string has also attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. In this paper, we propose a citation parser called BibPro for extracting metadata from citation strings by using a gene sequence alignment tool. The main enhancement of BibPro to previous tools is that BibPro does not need knowledge databases (e.g., an author name database) to generate feature indices for citation strings. Instead, only the order of punctuation marks in a citation string is used to represent its format. Second, BibPro employs the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) to find the most similar citation formats in database and then uses the Smith-Waterman algorithm to choose the best-fit citation format as the extraction template. Index Terms — Data integration, digital libraries, information extraction, sequence alignment. ParaCite has been integrated with the EPrints.org software, and links between it with CiteBase, RefLink, and ISI Web of Science are currently considered. INFOMAP is a hierarchical template-based reference metadata extraction method with an overall average accuracy level of 92.39 % for the six major citation styles detailed in [11]. Rule-based methods are widely used in real-world applications. For example, CiteSeer [1-4] is a well-known search engine and digital library that uses heuristics to extract certain subfields. It identifies titles and author names in citations with roughly 80 % accuracy and page num-

HIGHLY ACTIVE ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY (HAART) REGIMENS PRESCRIBED IN STUDY SUBJECTS ATTENDING GOVERNMENT GENERAL HOSPITAL, VIJAYAWADA, ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

The object of the present study was to assess the Highly Active Antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens prescribed in study subjects attending Government General Hospital, Vijayawada, A.P, India, during April, 2012 to April, 2015. It was the cross-sectional record-based study. Out of 95 HIV infected children recruited for the study, 24 subjects were in pre-HAART era without taking antiretroviral drugs because they have shown CD4 count more than 350 cells/cmm, 60 subjects were in HAART era taking antiretroviral drugs because they have CD4 counts less than 350 cells/cmm and 11 subjects were mortal cases. Out of 60 subjects in HAART era, 29 (4.75%) subjects were on first-line treatment i.e., Stavudine + Lamivudine + Navirapine (SLN) regimen, 19 (32.0%) subjects were on Stavudine + Lamivudine + Efavirenz (SLE) regimen, 7 (12.0%) subjects were on Zidovudine + Lamivudine + Efavirenz (ZLE) regimen, 4 (6.5%) subjects were on Zidovudine + Lamivudine + Navirapine (ZLN) regimen, and only&nbsp; one subject (2.0%) was on Tenofovir containing regimen i.e., Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate + Emitricitabine + Efavirenz (TTE) second-line HAART regimen due to severe drug reaction to&nbsp; Zidovudine, Stavudine and Lamivudine containing regimens. 38.0% of male and 23.0% female subjects on SLE regimen were with mean age of 15.1 years, 9.0% of male and 15.0% of female subjects on ZLE regimen were with mean age of 15.5 years, 44.0% of male and 54.0% of female subjects on SLN regimen were with mean age of 15.2 years, 9.0% of male and 4.0% of female subjects on ZLN regimen with mean age of 17.5 years, and one (4%) female subject on TEE regimen with the age of 20 years. On the whole, the majority of the subjects under HAART shown rise in CD4 counts during the course of treatment indicating that regular therapy to HIV infected subjects prolong their life span

In vitro ANTIMALARIAL ACTIVITY OF Pergularia daemia (L.) AGAINST CHLOROQUINE-SENSITIVE (3D7) AND CHLOROQUINE-RESISTANT (K1) STRAINS OF Plasmodium falciparum

Objective: To find out the in vitro antiplasmodial activity of Pergularia daemia leaf extract against Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine sensitive 3D7 strain and Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistant K1 strain and cytotoxicity against Vero cell line. Methods: The P. daemia plant was collected from Kadaparajupalle at Dornala mandal, Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Leaf crude extracts prepared in Soxhlet apparatus with hexane, chloroform and methanol solvents. These extracts were tested for in vitro antiplasmodial activity against 3D7 and K1 strains by standard laboratory protocol. In vitro Cytotoxicity of the leaf extract was also tested by following standard laboratory method. Results: Hexane, chloroform and methanolic extracts of leaf shown good antiplasmodial activity against 3D7 strain i.e., hexane leaf extract shown IC50 of 11.04 µg/ml, chloroform leaf extract of 7.98 µg/ml and methanolic leaf extract of 6.33 µg/ml. Hexane, chloroform and methanolic extracts showed very active antiplasmodial activity against K1 strain with IC50 values of 4.79 µg/ml, 4.01 µg/ml and 2.91 µg/ml respectively. And all the leaf extracts were non-toxic against Vero cell line with CC50 &gt;20 µg/ml. Conclusion: The methanolic extract of leaf is effective and shown excellent antimalarial activity for the development of new antimalarial drug policies

IMNMAGN: Integrative Multimodal Approach for Enhanced Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases Using fusion of Multidomain Analysis with Graph Networks

The burgeoning field of neurodegenerative disease detection and management necessitates the development of robust and comprehensive diagnostic approaches. Existing methodologies often fall short in effectively capturing the complex interplay of brain signals and genetic markers, which are crucial in the early detection and progression tracking of such diseases. This paper introduces a novel multimodal framework that leverages advanced signal processing and machine learning techniques to address these limitations, providing a more accurate and holistic understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. Our proposed model integrates multiple modalities: EEG signal analysis using Time-Frequency Analysis and Wavelet Transform, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) analyzed through Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Correlation Analysis, Magnetoencephalography (MEG) employing Beamforming and Source Localization Techniques, and Genomic Data analysis using Graph Neural Network for Genetic Pattern Recognition process. This integration is realized through the fusion of modalities using Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) and the classification into disease classes via an efficient 1D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The reasons for selecting these methods are twofold: they address the non-stationary characteristics of EEG signals and exploit spatial information of brain activity, while also identifying functional networks and genetic patterns associated with neurodegeneration conditions. The clinical impact of this work is profound. Tested on the BioGPS and BrainLat datasets, our framework demonstrated a 10.4% increase in precision, 8.5% increase in accuracy, 8.3% increase in recall, 9.4% increase in the Area Under the Curve (AUC), 7.5% increase in specificity, and a 2.9% reduction in delay compared to existing methods

Impact evaluation of iron &#38; iodine fortified salt

As a novel approach to tackle the problems of iron deficiency anaemia and iodine deficiency disorders (IDDs), which often coexist, the National Institute of Nutrition has developed iron and iodine fortified common salt (double fortified salt-DFS) as a public health measure. This salt has undergone a battery of laboratory and field tests to evaluate its feasibility for use in a national programme. The DFS is designed to provide 1 mg of iron and 15 micrograms of iodine per gram of common salt. This was made possible by the inclusion of a polyphosphate stabilizer, sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) at 1 per cent level. The stability of iron and iodine was found to be good up to 6 months. However, the stability of iodine depended upon the quality of the salt used for fortification. The biological effects of long-term consumption of DFS were evaluated in experimental rats and in field trials. Both iron and iodine from the salt were found to be biologically available in regenerating haemoglobin and in increasing excretion of iodine in urine. When this salt was tested in tribal villages endemic for goitre and iron deficiency anaemia, the bioresponse was good with regard to the iodine status but was not uniform in all segments with regard to iron, probably due to confounding variables. In a study carried out in residential school children where such variables did not exist, DFS was found to have significant impact on haemoglobin status in anaemic children and improved their urinary iodine excretion. The consumption of DFS for 2 yr did not have any adverse effects in school children as well as in the tribal population. Parameters related to calcium homeostasis were not altered in children receiving DFS. Histopathological examination of tissues and radiological examination of bone did not reveal any abnormality in DFS fed rats. Similarly serum and urinary parameters related to calcium and phosphorus were not altered in DFS fed rats. Therefore, DFS is presented as a feasible and effective strategy to control the double deficiency of iron and iodine in our community