1,5-Anhydro-2-de­oxy-1,2-C-dichloro­methyl­ene-3,4,6-tri-O-(4-meth­oxy­benz­yl)-d-glycero-d-gulo-hexitol

The pyranosyl ring in the title compound, C31H34Cl2O7, adopts a twist-boat conformation. The 4-meth­oxy­benzyl groups are located in equatorial positions with the meth­oxy groups nearly coplanar with their respective rings [dihedral angles of 0.2 (3) and 9.4 (2)°]. The aromatic rings adopt orientations enabling them to participate in C—H⋯π inter­actions with neighboring meth­oxy groups. The crystal structure is additionally stabilized by weak C—H⋯O inter­actions

Non-invasive estimation of muscle fibre size from high-density electromyography

Because of the biophysical relation between muscle fibre diameter and the propagation velocity of action potentials along the muscle fibres, motor unit conduction velocity could be a non-invasive index of muscle fibre size in humans. However, the relation between motor unit conduction velocity and fibre size has been only assessed indirectly in animal models and in human patients with invasive intramuscular EMG recordings, or it has been mathematically derived from computer simulations. By combining advanced non-invasive techniques to record motor unit activity in vivo, i.e. high-density surface EMG, with the gold standard technique for muscle tissue sampling, i.e. muscle biopsy, here we investigated the relation between the conduction velocity of populations of motor units identified from the biceps brachii muscle, and muscle fibre diameter. We demonstrate the possibility of predicting muscle fibre diameter (R2 = 0.66) and cross-sectional area (R2 = 0.65) from conduction velocity estimates with low systematic bias (∼2% and ∼4% respectively) and a relatively low margin of individual error (∼8% and ∼16%, respectively). The proposed neuromuscular interface opens new perspectives in the use of high-density EMG as a non-invasive tool to estimate muscle fibre size without the need of surgical biopsy sampling. The non-invasive nature of high-density surface EMG for the assessment of muscle fibre size may be useful in studies monitoring child development, ageing, space and exercise physiology, although the applicability and validity of the proposed methodology need to be more directly assessed in these specific populations by future studies

Proceeding Report of the 40th Anniversary of National Meteorological Agency, Official endorsement of the National Framework for Climate Services an International Scientific Conference

Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa within 3–15° N and 33–48° E, bordered by Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti to the east, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, and Somalia to the south and east. It covers an area of about 1.14 million square kilometers. The country's topography consists of high and rugged plateaus and peripheral lowlands. Elevations in the country range from 160 meters below sea level (northern exit of the Rift Valley) to over 4600 meters above sea level (of northern mountainous regions). The highest mountains are concentrated on the northern and southern plateaus of the country. A large percentage of the country consists of high plateaus and mountain ranges, dissected by major rivers such as Blue Nile, Tekeze, Awash, Omo, Wabi Shebelle, etc. Overall, Ethiopia consists of 9 major rivers and 19 lakes. The Blue Nile, the chief headstream of the Nile, rises in Lake Tana in northwest Ethiopia. The meteorological observation started in the 1890s with few meteorological stations. In 1951, meteorological services were established as a small unit in the then Civil Aviation Department to render aeronautical services. Since then, meteorological observation has been expanding over Ethiopia. As the importance of meteorology was realized by other economic sectors, National Meteorological Services Agency (NMSA) was established by the Government Proclamation Number 201/1980. Besides, NMA started seasonal forecasting and advisory service in 1987 for three seasons, namely Belg (February - May), Kiremt (June-September), and Bega (October-January). The primary duty of NMA is to support all country's socio-economic developments by delivering climate services. Moreover, NMA has more than one thousand three hundred conventional Meteorological stations, three hundred automatic weather stations, five AWOS, three air pollution monitoring stations, three upper air stations, one radar, and eleven satellite receiver stations. The government of Ethiopia is determined to eradicate poverty and become a prosperous country by 2030. In this regard, addressing climate variability and change play a pivotal role in achieving this goal. To this effect, NMA is equipping with modern weather observing and monitoring capabilities and improving processing, analyzing, interpreting, and forecasting weather and climate capabilities at a high resolution and accuracy to meet the end-user's demands and effectively support all socio-economic developments of the country. NMA collaborates with all key stakeholders and partners through continuous engagement on climate services. The NFCS, endorsed during the NMA 40th Anniversary, is envisaged to strengthen collaborative co-production between climate services provider (NMA) and climate service beneficiaries institutions (MoWIE, EFCCC, MoA, MoH, and NDRMC). To commemorate its 40th anniversary, NMA has organized a conference with a theme of "Forty Years of Climate and Weather Services in Ethiopia" on May 25-26, 2021, at Skylight Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Generally, three main sessions were held during the conference. These include; Session one: panel discussion and opening ceremony; session two: presentations on the history of NMA and NFCS Ethiopia, official endorsement of NFSC Ethiopia, and certificate wards; and session three: parallel session of four groups and paper presentations on different thematic areas were made. The 40th anniversary was attended by ministers, commissioners, heads of organizations, and representatives from the WMO Africa regional office, international institutes representatives, experts from different organizations, lecturers, researchers, and NMA officials and staff. This document is proceedings of the 40th anniversary, including summaries of the opening session and the presentations

Research Infrastructure Core Facilities at Research Centers in Minority Institutions: Part I-Research Resources Management, Operation, and Best Practices

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Program fosters the development and implementation of innovative research aimed at improving minority health and reducing or eliminating health disparities. Currently, there are 21 RCMI Specialized (U54) Centers that share the same framework, comprising four required core components, namely the Administrative, Research Infrastructure, Investigator Development, and Community Engagement Cores. The Research Infrastructure Core (RIC) is fundamentally important for biomedical and health disparities research as a critical function domain. This paper aims to assess the research resources and services provided and evaluate the best practices in research resources management and networking across the RCMI Consortium. We conducted a REDCap-based survey and collected responses from 57 RIC Directors and Co-Directors from 98 core leaders. Our findings indicated that the RIC facilities across the 21 RCMI Centers provide access to major research equipment and are managed by experienced faculty and staff who provide expert consultative and technical services. However, several impediments to RIC facilities operation and management have been identified, and these are currently being addressed through implementation of cost-effective strategies and best practices of laboratory management and operation

The burden of unintentional drowning : global, regional and national estimates of mortality from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

Background Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study's objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017. Methods Unintentional drowning from GBD 2017 was estimated for cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs), age, sex, country, region, Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile, and trends from 1990 to 2017. GBD 2017 used standard GBD methods for estimating mortality from drowning. Results Globally, unintentional drowning mortality decreased by 44.5% between 1990 and 2017, from 531 956 (uncertainty interval (UI): 484 107 to 572 854) to 295 210 (284 493 to 306 187) deaths. Global age-standardised mortality rates decreased 57.4%, from 9.3 (8.5 to 10.0) in 1990 to 4.0 (3.8 to 4.1) per 100 000 per annum in 2017. Unintentional drowning-associated mortality was generally higher in children, males and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 51.2% of all drowning deaths in 2017. Oceania was the region with the highest rate of age-standardised YLLs in 2017, with 45 434 (40 850 to 50 539) YLLs per 100 000 across both sexes. Conclusions There has been a decline in global drowning rates. This study shows that the decline was not consistent across countries. The results reinforce the need for continued and improved policy, prevention and research efforts, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.Peer reviewe

The burden of unintentional drowning: Global, regional and national estimates of mortality from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

__Background:__ Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study's objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017. __Methods:__ Unintentional drowning from GBD 2017 was estimated for cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs), age, sex, country, region, Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile, and trends from 1990 to 2017. GBD 2017 used standard GBD methods for estimating mortality from drowning. __Results:__ Globally, unintentional drowning mortality decreased by 44.5% between 1990 and 2017, from 531 956 (uncertainty interval (UI): 484 107 to 572 854) to 295 210 (284 493 to 306 187) deaths. Global age-standardised mortality rates decreased 57.4%, from 9.3 (8.5 to 10.0) in 1990 to 4.0 (3.8 to 4.1) per 100 000 per annum in 2017. Unintentional drowning-associated mortality was generally higher in children, males and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 51.2% of all drowning deaths in 2017. Oceania was the region with the highest rate of age-standardised YLLs in 2017, with 45 434 (40 850 to 50 539) YLLs per 100 000 across both sexes. __Conclusions:__ There has been a decline in global drowning rates. This study shows that the decline was not consistent across countries. The results reinforce the need for continued and improved policy, prevention and research efforts, with a focus on low-and middle-income countries

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

The burden of unintentional drowning: Global, regional and national estimates of mortality from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

This article was previously published with errors in authorship and affiliations. Please note the below updates: The updated affiliations for Rakhi Dandona 4,5,39 are 4 Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA. 5 Department of Health Metrics Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA. 39 Public Health Foundation of India, Gurugram, India. Author Hai Quang Pham has been added prior to Suzanne Polinder. The affiliation for Hai Quang Pham 107 is 107 Institute for Global Health Innovations, Duy Tan University, Hanoi, Vietnam Author Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar has been added prior to Saleem Muhammad Rana. The affiliation for Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar 123 is 123 Sina Trauma and Surgery Research Centre, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Author Bach Xuan Tran has been added prior to Pascual R Valdez. The affiliation for Bach Xuan Tran 151 is 151 Department of Health Economics, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam. This affiliation has been added in the affiliation list. Please see: https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043484corr1.© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Background: Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study's objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017. Methods: Unintentional drowning from GBD 2017 was estimated for cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs), age, sex, country, region, Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile, and trends from 1990 to 2017. GBD 2017 used standard GBD methods for estimating mortality from drowning. Results: Globally, unintentional drowning mortality decreased by 44.5% between 1990 and 2017, from 531 956 (uncertainty interval (UI): 484 107 to 572 854) to 295 210 (284 493 to 306 187) deaths. Global age-standardised mortality rates decreased 57.4%, from 9.3 (8.5 to 10.0) in 1990 to 4.0 (3.8 to 4.1) per 100 000 per annum in 2017. Unintentional drowning-associated mortality was generally higher in children, males and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 51.2% of all drowning deaths in 2017. Oceania was the region with the highest rate of age-standardised YLLs in 2017, with 45 434 (40 850 to 50 539) YLLs per 100 000 across both sexes. Conclusions: There has been a decline in global drowning rates. This study shows that the decline was not consistent across countries. The results reinforce the need for continued and improved policy, prevention and research efforts, with a focus on low-and middle-income countries.Royal Life Saving Society - Australi