The Koolungar Moorditj Healthy Skin Project: Elder and Community Led Resources Strengthen Aboriginal Voice for Skin Health

In partnership with local Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, the Elder-led co-designed Koolungar Moorditj Healthy Skin project is guided by principles of reciprocity, capacity building, respect, and community involvement. Through this work, the team of Elders, community members, clinicians and research staff have gained insight into the skin health needs of urban-living Aboriginal koolungar (children); and having identified a lack of targeted and culturally appropriate health literacy and health promotion resources on moorditj (strong) skin, prioritised development of community-created healthy skin resources. Community members self-appointed to Aboriginal Community Advisory Groups (CAG) on Whadjuk (Perth) and Wardandi (Bunbury) boodjar (land/place) provided local leadership and led the development of moorditj skin resources. Over several online and face-to-face meetings facilitated by an Aboriginal project officer, CAG members shared local perspectives and cultural knowledge to develop and inform the messaging, medium, and dissemination of health literacy and health promotion resources for healthy skin. All CAG-created research approaches, resources and materials were presented to the Elder Researchers for discussion, final review, and implementation by the project team. Culturally appropriate moorditj skin resources, designed by community for community, build on knowledge of healthy skin to achieve moorditj skin and moorditj health for urban-living Aboriginal koolungar

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Microglia at center stage: a comprehensive review about the versatile and unique residential macrophages of the central nervous system

Microglia cells are the unique residential macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS). They have a special origin, as they derive from the embryonic yolk sac and enter the developing CNS at a very early stage. They play an important role during CNS development and adult homeostasis. They have a major contribution to adult neurogenesis and neuroinflammation. Thus, they participate in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases and contribute to aging. They play an important role in sustaining and breaking the blood-brain barrier. As innate immune cells, they contribute substantially to the immune response against infectious agents affecting the CNS. They play also a major role in the growth of tumours of the CNS. Microglia are consequently the key cell population linking the nervous and the immune system. This review covers all different aspects of microglia biology and pathology in a comprehensive way

Larvicidal efficacy of essential oil of betel leaf (<i> Piper betle</i> ) on the larvae of the old World screwworm fly, <i> Chrysomya bezziana in vitro</i>

Larvae of Chrysomya bezziana are the commonest cause of wound myiasis in some parts of the world. This obligatory parasite is important in humans and in commercial livestock. Kumarasinghe et al have reported that essential oil of betel leaf (EOBL) is larvicidal to C. megacephala but there are no publications on its effect on C. bezziana . This study was done to evaluate the efficacy of essential oil of betel leaf ( Piper betle ) against the larvae of C. bezziana in vitro . EOBL was prepared at the Industrial Technology Institute Colombo, Sri Lanka, according to a standard protocol. The experiment on larvae was carried out at the Research Institute for Veterinary Sciences in Bogor, Indonesia. EOBL concentrations of 2&#x0025;, 3&#x0025; and 4&#x0025; were prepared with Tween 80. Two ml of 4&#x0025;, 3&#x0025; and 2&#x0025; EOBL in 1&#x0025; Tween 80 (v/v/aq) were poured into separate Petri dishes. Ten 1st and 2nd instar larvae were placed in each Petri dish. Asuntol (Chaumaphos) 1&#x0025; was used as positive control and distilled water with 1&#x0025; tween 80 was the negative control. Larval mortality was assessed half-hourly. The experiment was repeated five times and averages were compared. Sustained immobility of the larvae, after exposure to the relevant substances was considered as death. The efficacy of EOBL depended on, the stages of C. bezziana larvae and the concentration. With 4&#x0025; EOBL, all first instar larvae were killed within two hours and the second instar larvae were killed by four hours. The positive control showed no mortality until four hours but all larvae were weak, from the first 30 minutes. In the negative control, larvae were mobile and active. EOBL 3&#x0025; killed all the first instar larvae by 150 minutes and 74&#x0025; of the second instar at four hours. By 210 minutes, 2&#x0025; preparation had killed 100&#x0025; of the first instars. EOBL is an effective larvicidal for C. bezziana first and second instar larvae in vitro . This natural product has a great potential to be developed as a novel larvicide against this parasite

Detecting water in visual image streams from UAV with flight constraints

Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) require identifying water surfaces during flight maneuvers, mainly for safety in execution and its applications. We introduce two novel techniques to identify water surfaces from front-facing and downward-facing cameras mounted on a UAV. The first method — UNet-RAU, a unique architecture based on UNet and Reflection Attention Units, segments water pixels from front-facing camera views, utilizing the reflection property of water surfaces. On the On-Road and Off-Road datasets of Puddle-1000, UNet-RAU improved its performance by 2% over the state-of-the-art FCN-RAU. Additionally, the UNet-RAU generated an F1-score of 80.97% on our Drone-Water-Front dataset. The second method — Dense Optical Flow based Water Detection (DOF-WD), detects water surfaces in videos of downward-facing cameras. This method utilizes downwash-generated ripples and natural texture features on a water surface to identify water in low and high altitudes, respectively. We empirically validated the performance of the DOF-WD method using our Drone-Water-Down dataset