Interventions to encourage smoke-free homes in remote indigenous Australian communities: a study protocol to evaluate the effects of a community-inspired awareness-raising and motivational enhancement strategy

Introduction: Rates of secondhand smoke exposure are currently significantly higher among remote indigenous communities in the top end of Australia. By implementing a smoke-free home' rule, secondhand smoke exposure can be reduced. Smoke-free Ironies encourage quit attempts and improve the health of children. The prevalence of indigenous smoking rates in remote, discrete communities in Australia is elevated compared with their nonindigenous non indigenous counterparts. The primary aim of this project is to examine the feasibility of conducting a health-driven intervention to encourage community members to make their homes a smoke-free zone. Methods and analysis: This study uses mixed-methods exploratory evaluation design to obtain data from key informants and community householders to assess their willingness to implement a'smoke-free' rule in their Ironies. Initial focus groups will provide guidance on intervention content and deliver evaluation procedures and community requirements. A rapid survey will be conducted to ascertain interest from community members in having the project team visit to discuss study objectives further and to have a particle meter (with consent) placed in the house. Focus groups recordings will he transcribed and analysed thematically. Rapid surveys will he analysed using frequency distributions and tabulations of responses. Ethics and dissemination: The National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines on ethical research approaches to indigenous studies will be adhered to. The James Cook University Human Research Ethics Committee has provided ethics approval

Hand classification of fMRI ICA noise components

We present a practical "how-to" guide to help determine whether single-subject fMRI independent components (ICs) characterise structured noise or not. Manual identification of signal and noise after ICA decomposition is required for efficient data denoising: to train supervised algorithms, to check the results of unsupervised ones or to manually clean the data. In this paper we describe the main spatial and temporal features of ICs and provide general guidelines on how to evaluate these. Examples of signal and noise components are provided from a wide range of datasets (3T data, including examples from the UK Biobank and the Human Connectome Project, and 7T data), together with practical guidelines for their identification. Finally, we discuss how the data quality, data type and preprocessing can influence the characteristics of the ICs and present examples of particularly challenging datasets

Analysis of the Macaca mulatta transcriptome and the sequence divergence between Macaca and human

We report the initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the Macaca mulatta transcriptome. Cloned sequences from 11 tissues, nine animals, and three species (M. mulatta, M. fascicularis, and M. nemestrina) were sampled, resulting in the generation of 48,642 sequence reads. These data represent an initial sampling of the putative rhesus orthologs for 6,216 human genes. Mean nucleotide diversity within M. mulatta and sequence divergence among M. fascicularis, M. nemestrina, and M. mulatta are also reported

The structural basis for the specificity of pyridinylimidazole inhibitors of p38 MAP kinase

AbstractBackground: The p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase regulates signal transduction in response to environmental stress. Pyridinylimidazole compounds are specific inhibitors of p38 MAP kinase that block the production of the cytokines interleukin-1 β and tumor necrosis factor α, and they are effective in animal models of arthritis, bone resorption and endotoxin shock. These compounds have been useful probes for studying the physiological functions of the p38-mediated MAP kinase pathway.Results: We report the crystal structure of a novel pyridinylimidazole compound complexed with p38 MAP kinase, and we demonstrate that this compound binds to the same site on the kinase as does ATP. Mutagenesis showed that a single residue difference between p38 MAP kinase and other MAP kinases is sufficient to confer selectivity among pyridinylimidazole compounds.Conclusions: Our results reveal how pyridinylimidazole compounds are potent and selective inhibitors of p38 MAP kinase but not other MAP kinases. It should now be possible to design other specific inhibitors of activated p38 MAP kinase using the structure of the nonphosphorylated enzyme

ICAM-reg: Interpretable Classification and Regression with Feature Attribution for Mapping Neurological Phenotypes in Individual Scans

Feature attribution (FA), or the assignment of class-relevance to different locations in an image, is important for many classification and regression problems but is particularly crucial within the neuroscience domain, where accurate mechanistic models of behaviours, or disease, require knowledge of all features discriminative of a trait. At the same time, predicting class relevance from brain images is challenging as phenotypes are typically heterogeneous, and changes occur against a background of significant natural variation. Here, we present an extension of the ICAM framework for creating prediction specific FA maps through image-to-image translation

ICAM-reg: Interpretable Classification and Regression with Feature Attribution for Mapping Neurological Phenotypes in Individual Scans

An important goal of medical imaging is to be able to precisely detect patterns of disease specific to individual scans; however, this is challenged in brain imaging by the degree of heterogeneity of shape and appearance. Traditional methods, based on image registration to a global template, historically fail to detect variable features of disease, as they utilise population-based analyses, suited primarily to studying group-average effects. In this paper we therefore take advantage of recent developments in generative deep learning to develop a method for simultaneous classification, or regression, and feature attribution (FA). Specifically, we explore the use of a VAE-GAN translation network called ICAM, to explicitly disentangle class relevant features from background confounds for improved interpretability and regression of neurological phenotypes. We validate our method on the tasks of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) cognitive test score prediction for the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort, as well as brain age prediction, for both neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration, using the developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) and UK Biobank datasets. We show that the generated FA maps can be used to explain outlier predictions and demonstrate that the inclusion of a regression module improves the disentanglement of the latent space. Our code is freely available on Github https://github.com/CherBass/ICAM

The impact of low input DNA on the reliability of DNA methylation as measured by the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip

DNA methylation (DNAm) is commonly assayed using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip, but there is currently little published evidence to define the lower limits of the amount of DNA that can be used whilst preserving data quality. Such evidence is valuable for analyses utilizing precious or limited DNA sources. We used a single pooled sample of DNA in quadruplicate at three dilutions to define replicability and noise, and an independent population dataset of 328 individuals (from a community-based study including US-born non-Hispanic Black and white persons) to assess the impact of total DNA input on the quality of data generated using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip. We found that data are less reliable and more noisy as DNA input decreases to 40ng, with clear reductions in data quality; and that low DNA input is associated with a reduction in power to detect EWAS associations, requiring larger sample sizes. We conclude that DNA input as low as 40ng can be used with the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip, provided quality checks and sensitivity analyses are undertaken

Post-release reforms for short prison sentences: re-legitimising and widening the net of punishment

Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) promised a ‘revolution’ in the way offenders are managed, providing a renewed focus on short sentence prisoners. The TR reforms extends mandatory post-release supervision and tailored through-the-gate resettlement provisions to a group that has predominately faced a ‘history of neglect’ yet often present with the most acute needs within the criminal justice system. However, existing literature underlines that serving short sentences lack ‘utility’ and can be counter-productive to facilitating effective rehabilitation. This article explores the purposes of providing post release supervision for short sentences, firstly exploring a previous attempt to reform short sentences; (the now defunct) ‘Custody Plus’ within the 2003 Criminal Justice Act and then the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 within the TR reforms. This article contends that both post release reforms have sought to re-affirm and re-legitimise prison as the dominant form of punishment in society- or what Carlen refers to as ‘carceral clawback’. This article will also use Cohen’s analysis on social control to establish that post release supervision will serve to ‘widen the net’ extend the period of punishment and oversight and will only reinforce a form of enforced ‘state obligated rehabilitation’ that will undermine efforts made to resettle short sentence prisoners

Obesity prevention in child care: A review of U.S. state regulations

<p>ABSTRACT</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To describe and contrast individual state nutrition and physical activity regulations related to childhood obesity for child care centers and family child care homes in the United States.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a review of regulations for child care facilities for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We examined state regulations and recorded key nutrition and physical activity items that may contribute to childhood obesity. Items included in this review were: 1) Water is freely available; 2) Sugar-sweetened beverages are limited; 3) Foods of low nutritional value are limited; 4) Children are not forced to eat; 5) Food is not used as a reward; 6) Support is provided for breastfeeding and provision of breast milk; 7) Screen time is limited; and 8) Physical activity is required daily.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Considerable variation exists among state nutrition and physical activity regulations related to obesity. Tennessee had six of the eight regulations for child care centers, and Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, and Nevada had five of the eight regulations. Conversely, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Nebraska and Washington had none of the eight regulations. For family child care homes, Georgia and Nevada had five of the eight regulations; Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia had four of the eight regulations. California, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska did not have any of the regulations related to obesity for family child care homes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Many states lack specific nutrition and physical activity regulations related to childhood obesity for child care facilities. If widely implemented, enhancing state regulations could help address the obesity epidemic in young children in the United States.</p

Marine invertebrates and noise

Within the set of risk factors that compromise the conservation of marine biodiversity, one of the least understood concerns is the noise produced by human operations at sea and from land. Many aspects of how noise and other forms of energy may impact the natural balance of the oceans are still unstudied. Substantial attention has been devoted in the last decades to determine the sensitivity to noise of marine mammals—especially cetaceans and pinnipeds—and fish because they are known to possess hearing organs. Recent studies have revealed that a wide diversity of invertebrates are also sensitive to sounds, especially via sensory organs whose original function is to allow maintaining equilibrium in the water column and to sense gravity. Marine invertebrates not only represent the largest proportion of marine biomass and are indicators of ocean health but many species also have important socio-economic values. This review presents the current scientific knowledge on invertebrate bioacoustics (sound production, reception, sensitivity), as well as on how marine invertebrates are affected by anthropogenic noises. It also critically revisits the literature to identify gaps that will frame future research investigating the tolerance to noise of marine ecosystems