Density Distribution of Pharyngeal Carriage of Meningococcus in Healthy Young Adults: New Approaches to Studying the Epidemiology of Colonization and Vaccine Indirect Effects.

BACKGROUND: Improved understanding of Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) carriage biology and better methods for detection and quantification would facilitate studies of potential impact of new vaccines on colonization and transmission in adolescents. METHODS: We performed plate cultures on 107 oropharyngeal swabs stored frozen in skim milk tryptone glucose glycerol (STGG) broth and previously positive for Nm. We compared quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) detection of Nm in 601 STGG-swabs with culture. Using qPCR (n = 87), a log-phase broth culture standard curve and semiquantitative plate cultures (n = 68), we measured density of carriage. We compared qPCR genogrouping of DNA extracts from STGG-swabs and from plate culture lawns (n = 110) with purified isolates (n = 80). RESULTS: Swab storage resulted in only 10% loss of culture sensitivity. Direct sodC qPCR Nm detection yielded more positives (87/601, 14.5%) than culture (80/601, 13.3%). Most samples (57/110) positive by culture were also positive by qPCR and vice versa, but discrepancies (single positives) were frequent among low-density samples. sodC qPCR was positive in 79/80 isolates but in only 65 by ctrA qPCR. Density both by culture and qPCR varied across 4 orders of magnitude with the majority being low (1000). Genogrouping qPCRs yielded more positive results when performed on DNA extracts from lawn cultures. CONCLUSIONS: We provide the first description of the distribution of Nm carriage density. This could be important for understanding transmission dynamics and population-level effectiveness of adolescent vaccine programs. Storage of swabs frozen in STGG for batched laboratory analysis facilitates carriage studies and direct sodC qPCR for Nm combined with qPCR genogrouping of lawn culture extracts provides accurate, detailed description of colonization

Computational fact checking from knowledge networks

Traditional fact checking by expert journalists cannot keep up with the enormous volume of information that is now generated online. Computational fact checking may significantly enhance our ability to evaluate the veracity of dubious information. Here we show that the complexities of human fact checking can be approximated quite well by finding the shortest path between concept nodes under properly defined semantic proximity metrics on knowledge graphs. Framed as a network problem this approach is feasible with efficient computational techniques. We evaluate this approach by examining tens of thousands of claims related to history, entertainment, geography, and biographical information using a public knowledge graph extracted from Wikipedia. Statements independently known to be true consistently receive higher support via our method than do false ones. These findings represent a significant step toward scalable computational fact-checking methods that may one day mitigate the spread of harmful misinformation

Premenopausal cardiovascular disease and age at natural menopause: a pooled analysis of over 170,000 women

Early menopause is associated with an increased risk of subsequent cardiovascular disease (CVD). Few studies have investigated the converse. We examined whether premenopausal CVD events are associated with early age at menopause. We pooled the individual data of 177,131 women from nine studies. We used multinomial logistic regression models to estimate multivariable relative risk ratios (RRR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the associations between age at onset of premenopausal CVD events-including coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke-and age at natural menopause. Altogether 1561 (0.9%) premenopausal participants reported CVD events (including 1130 CHD and 469 stroke) at a mean age of 41.3 years. Compared with women without any premenopausal CVD events, women who experienced a first CVD event before age 35 years had a twofold risk of menopause before age 45 years (early menopause); adjusted RRR (95% CI) of 1.92 (1.17, 3.14) for any CVD, 1.86 (1.01, 3.43) for CHD and 2.17 (1.43, 3.30) for stroke. Women who experienced a first premenopausal CVD event after age 40 years underwent a natural menopause at the expected age (around 51 years). These associations were robust to adjustment for smoking status, BMI, educational level, race/ethnicity, age at menarche, parity, hypertension and family history of CVD. For premenopausal women, a first CVD event before age 35 years is associated with a doubling of the risk of an early menopause, while a first CVD event occurred after 35 years indicates a normal menopause at around 51 years. Shared genetic and environmental factors (such as smoking), as well as compromised vasculature following CVD events, may contribute to this outcome

Geometric properties and continuity of the pre-duality mapping in Banach space

We use the preduality mapping in proving characterizations of some geometric properties of Banach spaces. In particular, those include nearly strongly convexity, nearly uniform convexity-a property introduced by K. Goebel and T. Sekowski-, and nearly very convexity.We thank a referee for the careful reading of the manuscript. His/her observations substantially improved the overall aspect of the present work, detected several misprints and made some convenient changes. This work was supported by: (1) The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 11271248). (2) Specific Academic Discipline Project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Grant no. B-8932-13-0136). (3) Project MTM2011-22417, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain (V. Montesinos).Zhang, ZH.; Montesinos Santalucia, V.; Liu, CY.; Gong, WZ. (2015). Geometric properties and continuity of the pre-duality mapping in Banach space. Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales. Serie A. Matematicas. 109(2):407-416. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0190-6S4074161092Bandyopadhyay, P., Huang, D., Lin, B.L., Troyanski, S.L.: Some generalizations of local uniform rotundity. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 252, 906–916 (2000)Bandyopadhyay, P., Li, Y., Lin, B., Narayana, D.: Proximinality in Banach spaces. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 341, 309–317 (2008)Diestel, J.: Geometry of Banach Spaces. Selected Topics, LNM, vol. 485. Springer, Berlin (1975)Fabian, M., Habala, P., Hájek, P., Montesinos, V., Zizler, V.: Banach Space Theory. The Basis for Linear and Nonlinear Analysis, CMS Books in Mathematics. Springer, Berlin (2011)Giles, J.R., Gregory, D.A., Sims, B.: Geometrical implications of upper semi-continuity of the duality mapping on a Banach space. Pacific J. Math. 79(1), 99–109 (1978)Goebel, K., Sekowski, T.: The modulus of non-compact convexity. Ann. Univ. M. Curie-Sklodowska, Sect. A 38, 41–48 (1984)Guirao, A.J., Montesinos, V.: A note in approximative compactness and continuity of metric projections in Banach spaces. J. Convex Anal. 18, 397–401 (2011)Huff, R.: Banach spaces which are nearly uniformly convex. Rocky Mountain J. Math. 10(4), 743–749 (1980)Kutzarova, D., Rolewicz, S.: On nearly uniformly convex sets. Arch. Math. 57, 385–394 (1991)Kutzarova, D., Lin, B.L., Zhang, W.: Some geometrical properties of Banach spaces related to nearly uniform convexity. Contemp. Math. 144, 165–171 (1993)Kutzarova, D., Prus, S.: Operators which factor through nearly uniformly convex spaces. Boll. Un. Mat. Ital. B (7) 9, 2, 479–494 (1995)Montesinos, V.: Drop property equals reflexivity. Studia Math. 87, 93–100 (1987)Phelps, R.R.: Convex Functions, Monotone Operators and Differentiability, LNM, vol. 1364, 2nd edn. Springer, Berlin (1993)Rolewicz, S.: On drop property. Studia Math. 85, 27–37 (1986)Rolewicz, S.: On $$\Delta$$ Δ -uniform convexity and drop property. Studia Math. 87, 181–191 (1987)Wu, C.X., Li, Y.J.: Strong convexity in Banach spaces. J. Math. Wuhan Univ. 13(1), 105–108 (1993)Wang, J.H., Nan, C.X.: The continuity of subdifferential mapping. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 210, 206–214 (1997)Wang, J.H., Zhang, Z.H.: Characterization of the property (C-K). Acta Math. Sci. Ser. A Chin. Ed. 17(A)(3), 280–284 (1997)Zhang, Z.H., Liu, C.Y.: Some generalization of locally and weakly locally uniformly convex space. Nonlinear Anal. 74(12), 3896–3902 (2011)Zhang, Z.H., Liu, C.Y.: Convexity and proximinality in Banach spaces. J. Funct. Spaces Appl. 2012, 11 (2012). doi: 10.1155/2012/724120 . Article ID 724120Zhang, Z.H., Liu, C.Y.: Convexity and existence of the farthest point. Abstract Appl. Anal. 2011, 9 (2011). doi: 10.1155/2011/139597 . Article ID 139597Zhang, Z.H., Shi, Z.R.: Convexities and approximative compactness and continuity of the metric projection in Banach spaces. J. Approx. Theory 161(2), 802–812 (2009)Zhang, Z.H., Zhang, C.J.: On very rotund Banach spaces. Appl. Math. Mech. (English Ed.) 21(8), 965–970 (2000