Intersecting motivations for leaving abusive relationships, substance abuse, and transactional sex among HIV high-risk women

Background: Women bear a significant burden of the HIV epidemic in the United States. Women classified as ‘HIV high-risk’ often bring co-existing histories of intimate partner violence (IPV), drug use, and transactional sex. To help inform future comprehensive HIV prevention strategies, we aimed to explore common motivating reasons and barriers to leaving and/or terminating engagement in each of these riskpromoting situations. Methods: Between August and November 2014, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 HIV high-risk women in Atlanta, Georgia who had experienced IPV in the previous 12 months, and used drugs and/or engaged in transactional sex in the previous five years. Participants were asked about histories of IPV, drug use, and/or engagement in transactional sex, and the motivating reasons and barriers to terminating each. Results: Women reported a range of motivating reasons for leaving IPV, drug use, and transactional sex. Overlapping themes included impact on children, personal physical health/safety, and life dissatisfaction. Financial need was identified as a common barrier to leaving. Conclusions: Future HIV prevention research should further explore the perceived impact of IPV, drug use, and transactional sex on physical health/safety, life dissatisfaction, one’s children, and financial need as motivators and barriers to reducing upstream HIV risk

Matrix tablet: a review

In order to achieve the therapeutic purpose, the choice of the most suitable delivery route is of indisputable importance. Therefore, certain factors must be taken into consideration when delivering a active substance, namely its own properties, the disease to be diagnosed and the desired beneficial time. The active substances can be directly to the target tissue or organ or can be delivered by systemic routes

Optical, electrochemical, thermal, and structural properties of synthesized fluorene/dibenzosilole-benzothiadiazole dicarboxylic imide alternating organic copolymers for photovoltaic applications

In this work, four donor–acceptor copolymers, PFDTBTDI-DMO, PFDTBTDI-8, PDBSDTBTDI-DMO, and PDBSDTBTDI-8, based on alternating 2,7-fluorene or 2,7-dibenzosilole flanked by thienyl units, as electron-donor moieties and benzothiadiazole dicarboxylic imide (BTDI) as electron-accepting units, have been designed and synthesized for photovoltaic applications. All polymers were synthesized in good yields via Suzuki polymerization. The impact of attaching two different alkyl chains (3,7-dimethyloctyl vs. n-octyl) to the BTDI units upon the solubilities, molecular weights, optical and electrochemical properties, and thermal and structural properties of the resulting polymers was investigated. PFDTBTDI-8 has the highest number average molecular weight (Mn = 24,900 g·mol−1) among all polymers prepared. Dibenzosilole-based polymers have slightly lower optical band gaps relative to their fluorene-based analogues. All polymers displayed deep-lying HOMO levels. Their HOMO energy levels are unaffected by the nature of either the alkyl substituents or the donor moieties. Similarly, the LUMO levels are almost identical for all polymers. All polymers exhibit excellent thermal stability with Td exceeding 350 °C. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) studies have shown that all polymers have an amorphous nature in the solid state

Hematological Study in Three Lines of Quail and Their Crosses

The present study was conducted at poultry laboratories, department of animal production, Agriculture College, Duhok University, Kurdistan region, Iraq, (2016). Three lines of quail (White, light brown and dark brown) and their crosses that resulted from diallel cross design; aged 8 weeks old were used. A total of 54 blood samples by about 5 ml, from both sexes within each genotype aged 8 weeks old, were collected directly after slaughtering and bleeding for 3 second. PVC %, hemoglobin (Hb), Hetrophyl (H), Lymphocyte (L), H/L ratio, total protein, globulin, albumen and cholesterol were studied. The results showed insignificant differences among genotypes and between sexes for both PVC and Hb, while H, L, H/L, total protein, globulin, albumen and cholesterol appeared high significant (p<0.01) differences among the nine studied genotypes. The effect of sex was significant (p<0.05) for H, L and cholesterol. Interaction between genotype and sex was just significant for albumen. There was a significant negative correlation between H/L ratio and globulin (-0.39). Dependence of H/L ratio on globulin, resulted in derives a prediction equation

The role of viral and bacterial infections in the pathogenesis of IPF: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic progressive lung disease. Several risk factors such as smoking, air pollution, inhaled toxins, high body mass index and infectious agents are involved in the pathogenesis of IPF. In the present study, this meta-analysis study investigates the prevalence of viral and bacterial infections in the IPF patients and any possible association between these infections with pathogenesis of IPF. Methods: The authors carried out this systematic literature review from different reliable databases such as PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar to December 2020.Keywords used were the following �Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis�, �Infection�, �Bacterial Infection� and �Viral Infection�, alone or combined together with the Boolean operators "OR�, �AND� and �NOT� in the Title/Abstract/Keywords field. Pooled proportion and its 95 CI were used to assess the prevalence of viral and bacterial infections in the IPF patients. Results: In this systematic review and meta-analyses, 32 studies were selected based on the exclusion/inclusion criteria. Geographical distribution of included studies was: eight studies in American people, 8; in European people, 15 in Asians, and one in Africans. The pooled prevalence for viral and bacterial infections w ere 53.72 (95 CI 38.1�69.1) and 31.21 (95 CI 19.9�43.7), respectively. The highest and lowest prevalence of viral infections was HSV (77.7 95 CI 38.48�99.32), EBV (72.02, 95 CI 44.65�90.79) and Influenza A (7.3, 95 CI 2.66�42.45), respectively. Whereas the highest and lowest prevalence in bacterial infections were related to Streptococcus sp. (99.49, 95 CI 96.44�99.9) and Raoultella (1.2, 95 CI 0.2�3.08), respectively. Conclusions: The results of this review were confirmed that the presence of viral and bacterial infections are the risk factors in the pathogenesis of IPF. In further analyses, which have never been shown in the previous studies, we revealed the geographic variations in the association strengths and emphasized other methodological parameters (e.g., detection method). Also, our study supports the hypothesis that respiratory infection could play a key role in the pathogenesis of IP. © 2021, The Author(s)

Cholera outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa during 2010-2019: a descriptive analysis

Background: Cholera remains a public health threat but is inequitably distributed across sub-Saharan Africa. Lack of standardized reporting and inconsistent outbreak definitions limit our understanding of cholera outbreak epidemiology. Methods: From a database of cholera incidence and mortality, we extracted data from sub-Saharan Africa and reconstructed outbreaks of suspected cholera starting in January 2010 to December 2019 based on location-specific average weekly incidence rate thresholds. We then described the distribution of key outbreak metrics. Results: We identified 999 suspected cholera outbreaks in 744 regions across 25 sub-Saharan African countries. The outbreak periods accounted for 1.8 billion person-months (2% of the total during this period) from January 2010 to January 2020. Among 692 outbreaks reported from second-level administrative units (e.g., districts), the median attack rate was 0.8 per 1000 people (interquartile range (IQR), 0.3-2.4 per 1000), the median epidemic duration was 13 weeks (IQR, 8-19), and the median early outbreak reproductive number was 1.8 (range, 1.1-3.5). Larger attack rates were associated with longer times to outbreak peak, longer epidemic durations, and lower case fatality risks. Conclusions: This study provides a baseline from which the progress toward cholera control and essential statistics to inform outbreak management in sub-Saharan Africa can be monitored

Sexual Behavior and Network Characteristics and Their Association with Bacterial Sexually Transmitted Infections among Black Men Who Have Sex with Men in the United States

Black men who have sex with men (MSM) have a high prevalence of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and individual risk behavior does not fully explain the higher prevalence when compared with other MSM. Using the social-ecological framework, we evaluated individual, social and sexual network, and structural factors and their association with prevalent STIs among Black MSM

Mapping geographical inequalities in access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities. Methods We used a Bayesian geostatistical model and data from 600 sources across more than 88 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to estimate access to drinking water and sanitation facilities on continuous continent-wide surfaces from 2000 to 2017, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. We estimated mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subcategories of facilities for drinking water (piped water on or off premises, other improved facilities, unimproved, and surface water) and sanitation facilities (septic or sewer sanitation, other improved, unimproved, and open defecation) with use of ordinal regression. We also estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths in children younger than 5 years attributed to unsafe facilities and estimated deaths that were averted by increased access to safe facilities in 2017, and analysed geographical inequality in access within LMICs. Findings Across LMICs, access to both piped water and improved water overall increased between 2000 and 2017, with progress varying spatially. For piped water, the safest water facility type, access increased from 40.0% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 39.4-40.7) to 50.3% (50.0-50.5), but was lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to piped water was mostly concentrated in urban centres. Access to both sewer or septic sanitation and improved sanitation overall also increased across all LMICs during the study period. For sewer or septic sanitation, access was 46.3% (95% UI 46.1-46.5) in 2017, compared with 28.7% (28.5-29.0) in 2000. Although some units improved access to the safest drinking water or sanitation facilities since 2000, a large absolute number of people continued to not have access in several units with high access to such facilities (>80%) in 2017. More than 253 000 people did not have access to sewer or septic sanitation facilities in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe, despite 88.6% (95% UI 87.2-89.7) access overall. Many units were able to transition from the least safe facilities in 2000 to safe facilities by 2017; for units in which populations primarily practised open defecation in 2000, 686 (95% UI 664-711) of the 1830 (1797-1863) units transitioned to the use of improved sanitation. Geographical disparities in access to improved water across units decreased in 76.1% (95% UI 71.6-80.7) of countries from 2000 to 2017, and in 53.9% (50.6-59.6) of countries for access to improved sanitation, but remained evident subnationally in most countries in 2017. Interpretation Our estimates, combined with geospatial trends in diarrhoeal burden, identify where efforts to increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are most needed. By highlighting areas with successful approaches or in need of targeted interventions, our estimates can enable precision public health to effectively progress towards universal access to safe water and sanitation. Copyright (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe