Perceptions of Unintended Adolescent Pregnancy: Associations with College Students’ Neoliberal Beliefs and Type of Contraceptive Problem

The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of unintended adolescent pregnancy as associated with level of neoliberal beliefs and type of contraceptive problem. Northeastern U.S. undergraduate college students (N = 72) completed a measure of neoliberal beliefs and were randomly assigned to read about a couple that became pregnant after contraceptive non-adherence or a contraceptive accident. As expected, observers with greater neoliberal beliefs perceived an unintended adolescent pregnancy as more controllable than those with lesser neoliberal beliefs. Additionally, a pregnancy following a contraceptive accident was perceived as less controllable and elicited more sympathy than a pregnancy following contraceptive non-adherence. These findings suggest perceptions of unintended adolescent pregnancy are both context-dependent and related to the observer’s level of neoliberal beliefs. This knowledge can be applied to promote the well-being of pregnant and parenting adolescents in social service, clinical, and school settings through increased awareness and improved attitudes toward these individuals

Impact of flow pulsatility on arterial drug distribution in stent-based therapy

Drug-eluting stents reside in a dynamic fluid environment where the extent to which drugs are distributed within the arterial wall is critically modulated by the blood flowing through the arterial lumen. Yet several factors associated with the pulsatile nature of blood flow and their impact on arterial drug deposition have not been fully investigated. We employed an integrated framework comprising bench-top and computational models to explore the factors governing the time-varying fluid dynamic environment within the vasculature and their effects on arterial drug distribution patterns. A custom-designed bench-top framework comprising a model of a single drug-eluting stent strut and a poly-vinyl alcohol-based hydrogel as a model tissue bed simulated fluid flow and drug transport under fully apposed strut settings. Bench-top experiments revealed a relative independence between drug distribution and the factors governing pulsatile flow and these findings were validated with the in silico model. Interestingly, computational models simulating suboptimal deployment settings revealed a complex interplay between arterial drug distribution, Womersley number and the extent of malapposition. In particular, for a stent strut offset from the wall, total drug deposition was sensitive to changes in the pulsatile flow environment, with this dependence increasing with greater wall displacement. Our results indicate that factors governing pulsatile luminal flow on arterial drug deposition should be carefully considered in conjunction with device deployment settings for better utilization of drug-eluting stent therapy.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (grant NIH R01 GM-49039

Youth Suicide and Self-Harm: Latent Class Profiles of Adversity and the Moderating Roles of Perceived Support and Sense of Safety

Research suggests that exposure to adversity can lead to an increased risk of experiencing suicidal and self-injurious thoughts or behaviours, but few studies have examined whether different patterns of adversity are differentially associated with youth suicide/self-harm. The current study aims to explore the relationship between exposure to adversity across various social domains and youth self-harm and suicidality, using a person centred approach, and examines whether access to social support and a sense of safety across home, peer or school settings buffer the relationship between adversity and self-harm/suicidality. Secondary data analyses were carried out on cross-sectional self-report data collected from 4848 (Mage=15.78, SDâ =â 0.59; 50% female) adolescents who participated in the Irish Planet Youth survey. Latent Class Analyses identified four distinct profiles of adversity; low-adversity (nâ =â 2043, 42%); peer-adversity (nâ =â 972, 20%); parental-adversity (nâ =â 1189, 25%); and multiple-adversity (nâ =â 644, 13%). Findings from logistic moderated regressions indicated that there were significant differences in self-harm and suicidality across the adversity classes. Although parental support and perceived safety at school were negatively associated with suicidality and self-harm outcomes, no significant moderation effects were observed. These findings suggest that youth who experience adversity across multiple social domains are more likely to report suicidal and self-harm thoughts and behaviours, and should be key targets for intervention/prevention efforts. While parental support and school safety may act as significant compensatory factors, further work is needed to identify the social resources that can offset the risk imposed by youthâ s adverse experiences.This research was funded by the Health Research Board. Grant Number: SDAP-2021-025. Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium.peer-reviewe

“Catch 22”: biosecurity awareness, interpretation and practice amongst poultry catchers

Campylobacter contamination of chicken on sale in the UK remains at high levels and has a substantial public health impact. This has prompted the application of many interventions in the supply chain, including enhanced biosecurity measures on-farm. Catching and thinning are acknowledged as threats to the maintenance of good biosecurity, yet the people employed to undertake this critical work (i.e. ‘catchers’) are a rarely studied group. This study uses a mixed methods approach to investigate catchers’ (n = 53) understanding of the biosecurity threats posed by the catching and thinning, and the barriers to good biosecurity practice. It interrogated the role of training in both the awareness and practice of good biosecurity. Awareness of lapses in biosecurity was assessed using a Watch-&-Click hazard awareness survey (n = 53). Qualitative interviews (n = 49 catchers, 5 farm managers) explored the understanding, experience and practice of catching and biosecurity. All of the catchers who took part in the Watch-&-Click study identified at least one of the biosecurity threats with 40% detecting all of the hazards. Those who had undergone training were significantly more likely to identify specific biosecurity threats and have a higher awareness score overall (48% compared to 9%, p = 0.03). Crucially, the individual and group interviews revealed the tensions between the high levels of biosecurity awareness evident from the survey and the reality of the routine practice of catching and thinning. Time pressures and a lack of equipment rather than a lack of knowledge appear a more fundamental cause of catcher-related biosecurity lapses. Our results reveal that catchers find themselves in a ‘catch-22′ situation in which mutually conflicting circumstances prevent simultaneous completion of their job and compliance with biosecurity standards

Deep-Channel uses deep neural networks to detect single-molecule events from patch-clamp data

Single-molecule research techniques such as patch-clamp electrophysiology deliver unique biological insight by capturing the movement of individual proteins in real time, unobscured by whole-cell ensemble averaging. The critical first step in analysis is event detection, so called “idealisation”, where noisy raw data are turned into discrete records of protein movement. To date there have been practical limitations in patch-clamp data idealisation; high quality idealisation is typically laborious and becomes infeasible and subjective with complex biological data containing many distinct native single-ion channel proteins gating simultaneously. Here, we show a deep learning model based on convolutional neural networks and long short-term memory architecture can automatically idealise complex single molecule activity more accurately and faster than traditional methods. There are no parameters to set; baseline, channel amplitude or numbers of channels for example. We believe this approach could revolutionise the unsupervised automatic detection of single-molecule transition events in the future

Screening Practices for Infectious Diseases among Burmese Refugees in Australia

Helicobacter pylori and Strongyloides spp. infections were the most common conditions found

Clinical benefit of glasdegib plus low-dose cytarabine in patients with de novo and secondary acute myeloid leukemia: long-term analysis of a phase II randomized trial

This analysis from the phase II BRIGHT AML 1003 trial reports the long-term efficacy and safety of glasdegib + low-dose cytarabine (LDAC) in patients with acute myeloid leukemia ineligible for intensive chemotherapy. The multicenter, open-label study randomized (2:1) patients to receive glasdegib + LDAC (de novo, n = 38; secondary acute myeloid leukemia, n = 40) or LDAC alone (de novo, n = 18; secondary acute myeloid leukemia, n = 20). At the time of analysis, 90% of patients had died, with the longest follow-up since randomization 36 months. The combination of glasdegib and LDAC conferred superior overall survival (OS) versus LDAC alone; hazard ratio (HR) 0.495; (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.325–0.752); p = 0.0004; median OS was 8.3 versus 4.3 months. Improvement in OS was consistent across cytogenetic risk groups. In a post-hoc subgroup analysis, a survival trend with glasdegib + LDAC was observed in patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (HR 0.720; 95% CI 0.395–1.312; p = 0.14; median OS 6.6 vs 4.3 months) and secondary acute myeloid leukemia (HR 0.287; 95% CI 0.151–0.548; p < 0.0001; median OS 9.1 vs 4.1 months). The incidence of adverse events in the glasdegib + LDAC arm decreased after 90 days’ therapy: 83.7% versus 98.7% during the first 90 days. Glasdegib + LDAC versus LDAC alone continued to demonstrate superior OS in patients with acute myeloid leukemia; the clinical benefit with glasdegib + LDAC was particularly prominent in patients with secondary acute myeloid leukemia. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01546038.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This study was funded by Pfizer.Peer reviewe

Decrease in plasma miR-27a and miR-221 after concussion in Australian football players

Introduction: Sports-related concussion (SRC) is a common form of brain injury that lacks reliable methods to guide clinical decisions. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can influence biological processes involved in SRC, and measurement of miRNAs in biological fluids may provide objective diagnostic and return to play/recovery biomarkers. Therefore, this prospective study investigated the temporal profile of circulating miRNA levels in concussed male and female athletes. Methods: Pre-season baseline blood samples were collected from amateur Australian rules football players (82 males, 45 females). Of these, 20 males and 8 females sustained an SRC during the subsequent season and underwent blood sampling at 2-, 6- and 13-days post-injury. A miRNA discovery Open Array was conducted on plasma to assess the expression of 754 known/validated miRNAs. miRNA target identified were further investigated with quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) in a validation study. Data pertaining to SRC symptoms, demographics, sporting history, education history and concussion history were also collected. Results: Discovery analysis identified 18 candidate miRNA. The consequent validation study found that plasma miR-221-3p levels were decreased at 6d and 13d, and that miR-27a-3p levels were decreased at 6d, when compared to baseline. Moreover, miR-27a and miR-221-3p levels were inversely correlated with SRC symptom severity. Conclusion: Circulating levels of miR-27a-3p and miR-221-3p were decreased in the sub-acute stages after SRC, and were inversely correlated with SRC symptom severity. Although further studies are required, these analyses have identified miRNA biomarker candidates of SRC severity and recovery that may one day assist in its clinical management