The new normal for food insecurity? : a repeated cross-sectional survey over 1 year during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

Background: Food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic has been impacted by necessary public health restrictions. Tasmania, an island state south of the Australian mainland, recorded no community transmission of COVID-19 between May 2020 to November 2021 due to strong border restrictions. This study aimed to determine the changes in prevalence and sociodemographic predictors of food insecurity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in Tasmania, Australia. Methods: In May 2020 (survey 1: during lockdown), September 2020 (survey 2: eased restrictions) and May 2021 (survey 3: 1-year post-lockdown), cross-sectional, online surveys using convenience sampling methods determined food insecurity in Tasmanian adults using the USDA Household Food Security Survey Module: Six-Item Short Form, in addition to key sociodemographic questions. Crude and age-adjusted prevalence of food insecurity was calculated, and binary logistic regression determined at-risk groups and changes in prevalence over time. Results: The age-adjusted prevalence of food insecurity was 27.9% during lockdown (n = 1168), 19.5% when restrictions had eased (n = 1097) and 22.6% 1-year post-lockdown (n = 1100). Young adults, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, individuals with disabilities, families with dependents and temporary residents were at highest risk across all time points. Conclusions: The prevalence of food insecurity was higher than pre-pandemic levels across all three time points. Our results indicate the potential long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security in Australia, where despite easing social distancing restrictions and a lack of COVID-19 transmission, the prevalence of food insecurity reduced, but did not recover to pre-pandemic levels 1-year following a lockdown

Australia’s COVID-19 pandemic housing policy responses

This research reviewed Australia’s COVID-19 housing policy responses to better understand their intervention approach, underlying logic, short and long term goals, target groups and level of success. It considered literature and policy from Australia and a small number of international comparator policies; conducted online surveys of landlords and of economists; and consulted key stake holders. Given Australia’s federated system of government, considerable differences quickly emerged between intervention approaches across states and territories. This was also driven by the extent to which different jurisdictions were impacted by the spread of the virus, the extent and frequency of lockdowns, and damage to state/local economies. The national and state policy measures implemented to support home ownership achieved the desired goal of providing short-term stimulus to the residential building sector and support to the broader economy. However, a range of anticipated and unforeseen consequences have precipitated as a result of concentrated demand-side subsidies, low interest rates and flexible lending conditions. The establishment of an agile infrastructure to support information sharing will support more effective and innovative housing policy development in the future. The state-to-state infrastructure and approaches that were developed rapidly and which supported jurisdictional responses to COVID-19 provide a template for a shelf-ready policy-sharing practice that warrants supported development across governments. This could usefully include local government as well as state and territory and national tiers of governance

Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In subS-aharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first millennium CE, while another posits introduction dating back to 3000 BCE. These distinct scenarios have implications for understanding the emergence of long-distance maritime connectivity, and the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species. Resolution of this longstanding debate requires new efforts, given the lack of well-dated fauna from high-precision excavations, and ambiguous osteomorphological identifications. We analysed faunal remains from 22 eastern African sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range, and applied biomolecular techniques to confirm identifications of two Asian taxa: domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) and black rat (Rattus rattus). Our approach included ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis aided by BLAST-based bioinformatics, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting, and direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. Our results support a late, mid-first millennium CE introduction of these species. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of biological exchange, and emphasize the applicability of our approach to tropical areas with poor bone preservation

Common Genetic Polymorphisms Influence Blood Biomarker Measurements in COPD

Implementing precision medicine for complex diseases such as chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) will require extensive use of biomarkers and an in-depth understanding of how genetic, epigenetic, and environmental variations contribute to phenotypic diversity and disease progression. A meta-analysis from two large cohorts of current and former smokers with and without COPD [SPIROMICS (N = 750); COPDGene (N = 590)] was used to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with measurement of 88 blood proteins (protein quantitative trait loci; pQTLs). PQTLs consistently replicated between the two cohorts. Features of pQTLs were compared to previously reported expression QTLs (eQTLs). Inference of causal relations of pQTL genotypes, biomarker measurements, and four clinical COPD phenotypes (airflow obstruction, emphysema, exacerbation history, and chronic bronchitis) were explored using conditional independence tests. We identified 527 highly significant (p 10% of measured variation in 13 protein biomarkers, with a single SNP (rs7041; p = 10−392) explaining 71%-75% of the measured variation in vitamin D binding protein (gene = GC). Some of these pQTLs [e.g., pQTLs for VDBP, sRAGE (gene = AGER), surfactant protein D (gene = SFTPD), and TNFRSF10C] have been previously associated with COPD phenotypes. Most pQTLs were local (cis), but distant (trans) pQTL SNPs in the ABO blood group locus were the top pQTL SNPs for five proteins. The inclusion of pQTL SNPs improved the clinical predictive value for the established association of sRAGE and emphysema, and the explanation of variance (R2) for emphysema improved from 0.3 to 0.4 when the pQTL SNP was included in the model along with clinical covariates. Causal modeling provided insight into specific pQTL-disease relationships for airflow obstruction and emphysema. In conclusion, given the frequency of highly significant local pQTLs, the large amount of variance potentially explained by pQTL, and the differences observed between pQTLs and eQTLs SNPs, we recommend that protein biomarker-disease association studies take into account the potential effect of common local SNPs and that pQTLs be integrated along with eQTLs to uncover disease mechanisms. Large-scale blood biomarker studies would also benefit from close attention to the ABO blood group

Review and publication of protocol submissions to Trials - what have we learned in 10 years?

Abstract Trials has 10 years of experience in providing open access publication of protocols for randomised controlled trials. In this editorial, the senior editors and editors-in-chief of Trials discuss editorial issues regarding managing trial protocol submissions, including the content and format of the protocol, timing of submission, approaches to tracking protocol amendments, and the purpose of peer reviewing a protocol submission. With the clarification and guidance provided, we hope we can make the process of publishing trial protocols more efficient and useful to trial investigators and readers

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

The Tasmania Project : running out of food an ongoing issue for Tasmanians during COVID-19 : report 37

Even as the supermarket shelves return to Key findings normal and panic buying becomes a thing of the past, rates of food insecurity* reported by Tasmanians have not greatly improved since earlier in the pandemic. In our latest survey of 1,133 Tasmanians, we found an alarming number (close to 1 in 5) have run out of food because they could not afford to buy more during the COVID19 pandemic. This represents an increase relative to pre-COVID levels and shows there has been little improvement compared to results from the Food Survey we conducted in June. The same groups of people within the Tasmanian community continue to experience the highest rates of food insecurity - those whose jobs have been impacted, and vulnerable groups such as those with disabilities, single people with dependents, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, temporary residents, and young people

Finding and building connections: moving beyond skill- based matchmaking in videogames

Social isolation is a predictor of poor mental health outcomes while social connectedness leads to positive mental health and wellbeing outcomes. Although videogames offer the technical capabilities to play with others globally, historically limited support has been provided to connect with others who have similar goals, interests and motivations. Skill-based matchmaking is the dominant approach to connecting players, however, a number of services have emerged which seek to connect players based on factors other than skill, such as game type, play style, location, and interests. This has potential for gameplay to facilitate social connectedness and positively impact wellbeing. As part of a larger program of research, we present a review of existing matchmaking services which connect players on the basis of factors other than skill. A total of eight services were identified, two of which were strongly socially motivated

Gamification and serious games within the domain of domestic energy consumption: A systematic review

Energy consumption is a significant and critical social issue. Gamification and serious games offer a means of influencing people regarding energy consumption. A systematic review of articles (written in English) was conducted according to the specifications of the PRISMA checklist, in order to examine the literature and assess empirical support for the effectiveness of gamification and serious games in impacting domestic energy consumption. The search strategy included a combination of terms relating to gamification and serious games, and domestic energy consumption. Only primary studies reporting empirical data relating to the value of gamification and serious games on energy consumption were included. More comprehensive selection criteria were applied throughout the selection process (reported in full in the main text). Twenty-five primary studies published in 26 research articles were included in the final review. The findings indicate that gamification and serious games appear to be of value within the domain of energy consumption, conservation and efficiency, with varying degrees of evidence of positive influence found for behaviour, cognitions, knowledge and learning and the user experience. A common feature across many articles reviewed was the limited amount and quality of empirical evidence, which suggests that more rigorous follow-up studies are required to address this gap. The article makes specific recommendations to help address this challenge