Developments in the scientific and clinical understanding of autoinflammatory disorders

The autoinflammatory diseases, also known as periodic fever syndromes, are disorders of innate immunity which can be inherited or acquired and which cause recurrent, self-limiting, seemingly spontaneous episodes of systemic inflammation and fever in the absence of autoantibody production or infection. There has been much recent progress in elucidating their aetiologies and treatment. With the exception of familial Mediterranean fever, which is common in certain populations, autoinflammatory diseases are mostly rare but should not be overlooked in the differential diagnosis of recurrent fevers since DNA diagnosis and effective therapies are available for many of them

Visualizing Structured Text: A Prototype Graphical Tool for Analyzing Large Document Collections

In its early stages, the field of data visualization focused on representing data, which, though it had physical characteristics, was difficult if not impossible to see. From internal medicine to the ends of our reach into space, tools like magnetic resonance imagers and high-powered telescopes have collected, colored, and differentiated data for us. Those tools have changed the way we work with all kinds of data. But abstract ideas, by their nature, do not have physical attributes, so it is difficult to know where to begin to create representations of things like document structure. This project explores options for providing document visualizations to assist authors and information architects in analyzing their document collections. Though conduct of a user study falls outside the scope of this project, this paper also outlines a proposed method for evaluating the prototype

Playing Rugby: The Emergence of Talent During the Primary and Secondary School Years

This explorative study examines the lives of six young men with a talent for playing rugby in order to understand how that talent emerges. The young men involved in this study had all played rugby for a secondary school first XV team and were members of the Wellington Red Tickets Rugby Academy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain information about the young men's general involvement in sport and their perception of the support they had received during their early years, middle childhood years and adolescent years playing rugby. A small group of people comprising secondary school teachers and a parent were also interviewed to provide further insights into how talent is developed within the secondary school rugby system. The young men all discovered they had an aptitude for playing rugby at an early age and in most cases were encouraged to pursue rugby as a main sport by at least one parent and by others in their extended families. The middle childhood years and early secondary school years were characterised by an increasing degree of specialisation, visits to commercial gyms and an array of injuries. The research participants were very determined in their efforts to represent their college at the highest level and by their late adolescent years most in the group were entertaining ideas about becoming a professional rugby player. Stories told by the participants showed that they possessed, to varying degrees, six characteristics that greatly helped their success to date. These characteristics were: (1) awareness that rugby can be a career for only a select few, (2) responsiveness to coaching, (3) ability to set and work towards a long-term goal or goals, (4) decisiveness and an ability to prioritise, (5) valuing the input of others and (6) attractiveness. To date there has been very little research about where an ability to play rugby at the sub-elite or elite level actually comes from. This study about the processes involved in making it into a secondary school first XV team helps to alleviate this situation and has significance to those, like the New Zealand Rugby Union, who have an interest in building up the player base. It also adds to an existing pool of understanding about excellence in sport and has application to those wishing to attain success in any number of other endeavours

An Economic Evaluation of Preclinical Testing Strategies Compared to the Compulsory Scrapie Flock Scheme in the Control of Classical Scrapie

Cost-benefit is rarely combined with nonlinear dynamic models when evaluating control options for infectious diseases. The current strategy for scrapie in Great Britain requires that all genetically susceptible livestock in affected flocks be culled (Compulsory Scrapie Flock Scheme or CSFS). However, this results in the removal of many healthy sheep, and a recently developed pre-clinical test for scrapie now offers a strategy based on disease detection. We explore the flock level cost-effectiveness of scrapie control using a deterministic transmission model and industry estimates of costs associated with genotype testing, pre-clinical tests and the value of a sheep culled. Benefit was measured in terms of the reduction in the number of infected sheep sold on, compared to a baseline strategy of doing nothing, using Incremental Cost Effectiveness analysis to compare across strategies. As market data was not available for pre-clinical testing, a threshold analysis was used to set a unit-cost giving equal costs for CSFS and multiple pre-clinical testing (MT, one test each year for three consecutive years). Assuming a 40% within-flock proportion of susceptible genotypes and a test sensitivity of 90%, a single test (ST) was cheaper but less effective than either the CSFS or MT strategies (30 infected-sales-averted over the lifetime of the average epidemic). The MT strategy was slightly less effective than the CSFS and would be a dominated strategy unless preclinical testing was cheaper than the threshold price of £6.28, but may be appropriate for flocks with particularly valuable livestock. Though the ST is not currently recommended, the proportion of susceptible genotypes in the national flock is likely to continue to decrease; this may eventually make it a cost-effective alternative to the MT or CSFS

Imagine - Chemistry in the Sixth Grade!

The introduction of an organized science program in the elementary school has brought about a reorganization of the science offerings at the junior and high school levels. The background in science that is dev eloped at the elementary level has made it possible for the junior and senior high school science teachers to expand their programs. The problem that educators face is to determine what phases of science can be most effectively introduced in the elementary school

Investigation of molecular mechanisms underlying tetracycline resistance in thermophilic Campylobacter spp. suggests that previous reports of tet(A)-mediated resistance in these bacteria are premature

peer-reviewedThe true prevalence of tet(A), which codes for a tetracycline efflux pump, in thermophilic Camplyobacter spp. requires clarification after reports emerged in Iran (2014) and Kenya (2016) of the novel detection of tet(A) in Campylobacter. During our investigation of antibiotic resistance mechanisms in a sample of Irish thermophilic Campylobacter broiler isolates, it was determined that 100% of tetracycline-resistant isolates (n = 119) harboured tet(O). Accessory tetracycline-resistance mechanisms were considered as tetracycline minimum inhibitory concentrations ranged from 4 to ≥ 64 mg/L. Primers previously reported for the detection of tet(A) in Campylobacter failed to produce an amplicon using a positive control strain (Escherichia coli K12 SK1592 containing the pBR322 plasmid) and a selection of Campylobacter isolates. Accordingly, we designed new tet(A)-targeting primers on SnapGene2.3.2 that successfully generated a 407 bp product from the positive control strain only. Further in silico analysis using BLASTn and SnapGene2.3.2 revealed that previously reported Campylobacter tet(A) sequences deposited on GenBank shared 100% homology with Campylobacter tet(O). We postulate that this gave rise to the erroneous report of a high tet(A) prevalence among a pool of Kenyan broiler Campylobacter isolates that were tested using primers designed based on these apparent tet(A) sequences. In conclusion, further work would be required to determine whether the homology between tet(A) potentially present in Campylobacter and known tet(A) genes would be sufficient to allow amplification using the primers designed in our study. Finally, the existence of tet(A) in thermophilic Campylobacter spp. remains to be demonstrated

Local Government Stakeholder Perceptions of Legitimacy and Conflict of Interest: The Alcohol Industry and the "Drink Free Days" Campaign in England.

BACKGROUND: Industry involvement in alcohol policy is highly contentious. The Drink Free Days (DFD) campaign (2018- 2019) run by Public Health England (PHE), an executive agency of government, and Drinkaware, an industry-funded 'alcohol education charity' to encourage middle-aged drinkers to abstain from drinking on some days was criticised for perceived industry involvement. We examine the extent to which the DFD campaign was supported by local-authority Directors of Public Health (DPHs) in England - which have a statutory remit for promoting population health within their locality - and their reasons for this. METHODS: Our mixed-methods approach included a stakeholder mapping, online survey, and semi-structured interviews. The stakeholder mapping provided the basis for sampling survey and interview respondents. In total, 25 respondents completed the survey, and we conducted 21 interviews with DPHs and their local authority (LA) representatives. We examined survey responses, and coded free-text survey and interview responses to identify key themes. RESULTS: While some respondents supported the DFD campaign, others did not promote it, or actively opposed it, due mainly to concerns about conflicts of interest and the legitimacy of industry involvement in the campaign. These were considered to undermine PHE's independence and deflect attention from more important, evidence-based policy interventions such as alcohol pricing while conferring vicarious credibility on Drinkaware. We also found low levels of knowledge about alcohol-related harm, the effectiveness of different policies to address these and the policy-influencing strategies used by the alcohol industry. CONCLUSION: The findings highlight the dangers of industry partnership and potential conflicts of interest for government agencies and the ineffectiveness of the campaigns they run at local and national levels. They demonstrate the need for caution in engaging with industry-associated bodies at all levels of government and are thus of potential relevance to studies of other health-harming industries and policy contexts