604 research outputs found
Predicting outcome in adults with status epilepticus
Status epilepticus (SE) is a life-threatening state of persisting or repetitive seizure activity with often permanent altered level of consciousness. Despite its high morbidity and mortality there is no consensus about the best strategy to treat specific forms of SE. The compromise between the danger related to untreated and persistent seizure activity and the possible damage induced by unnecessary aggressive treatments is challenging. Knowledge about the determinants and reliable prediction models of outcome early in the course of SE is fundamental for rapid treatment modulation and for planning the level of monitoring. This review compiles the current evidence for outcome prediction based on clinical determinants in adult SE patient
One Health evaluation of brucellosis control in Kazakhstan
Brucellosis is one of the main livestock disease risks in Kazakhstan. Itâs been endemic there since 1930, accounting for over 1300 human cases per annum. The economic loss was 45 million USD in 2015 alone. Since 1952, Kazakhstan has implemented various control strategies with little success. One Health approaches have been suggested to tackle brucellosis, however, there is a lack of evidence for best practices to operationalise One Health in the literature, and methods for implementation are not established. The intention of this study was to introduce the One Health approach during the evaluation phase of the policy cycle. A two-day workshop was organized by the authors to familiarize participants with the evaluation methodology. Twenty-one specialists representing veterinary and public health sector, together with researchers, took part in this study. For two weeks following the workshop, first author conducted individual interviews with workshop participants to obtain individual scorings to assess knowledge integration capacity (One Health-ness). The evaluation results show that there is a lack of knowledge about the perceived damage caused by brucellosis to animal owners and other stakeholders. There is insufficient data available about farmersâ practices, interests and motivations, and also data is missing for important transmission processes such as the amount of unsafe dairy consumption. The absence of such data illustrates the extent of the uncertainty to which decision-makers are exposed despite well-elaborated transmission models and supports the importance of co-producing solutions with participatory methods. The results suggest the need for broader involvement of stakeholders. Outputs of this study could help navigate the initial stages of One Health operationalization
No clear trends in expatriation of non-human primate research from ÂSwitzerland between 2004 and 2017
Animal experimentation is commonly practiced in scientific research worldwide. However, there are no globally accepted standards for regulating the ethical boundaries and accepted practices for animal experimentation. Large differences exist between countries. A report suggested that some researchers, especially from countries with more stringent animal experimentation regulations, may be relocating experimental research to countries with less stringent regulations. We followed a systematic literature review approach to identity publications and determine whether there is an increasing trend in expatriation of non-human primate experimentation by researchers based in Switzerland. We used the Projects People Publications database, which contains projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, to identify researchers conducting experiments using non-human primates. This list of names, together with terms referring to non-human primates were used to search the Web of Science. Publications without an author affiliated to a Swiss institution, no living or only with free non-human primates, and non-original research were excluded. For each publication, we recorded the place of experimentation, funding source, number of animals, species and the statement of ethical approval. We retained 120 publications, involving more than 2,429 non-human primates. Macaca mulatta and Macaca fascicularis were the most common species. We could not confirm an increasing trend in expatriation of non-human primate experimentation outside of Switzerland. Over time, publications appeared to report the ethical approval number more consistently. These results should be interpreted with caution because the sample included only studies that were: 1) published and 2) reported in the Web of Science. Consequently, studies with insignificant results may have been excluded because these studies are rarely published, and studies of poor quality may have been excluded because they are often published in lower quality journals, not indexed by the Web of Science
Dormant Tumor Cell Vaccination: A Mathematical Model of Immunological Dormancy in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a molecular subtype of breast malignancy with a poor clinical prognosis. There is growing evidence that some chemotherapeutic agents induce an adaptive anti-tumor immune response. This reaction has been proposed to maintain the equilibrium phase of the immunoediting process and to control tumor growth by immunological cancer dormancy. We recently reported a model of immunological breast cancer dormancy based on the murine 4T1 TNBC model. Treatment of 4T1 cells in vitro with high-dose chemotherapy activated the type I interferon (type I IFN) signaling pathway, causing a switch from immunosuppressive to cytotoxic T lymphocyte-dependent immune response in vivo, resulting in sustained dormancy. Here, we developed a deterministic mathematical model based on the assumption that two cell subpopulations exist within the treated tumor: one population with high type I IFN signaling and immunogenicity and lower growth rate; the other population with low type I IFN signaling and immunogenicity and higher growth rate. The model reproduced cancer dormancy, elimination, and immune-escape in agreement with our previously reported experimental data. It predicted that the injection of dormant tumor cells with active type I IFN signaling results in complete growth control of the aggressive parental cancer cells injected at a later time point, but also of an already established aggressive tumor. Taken together, our results indicate that a dormant cell population can suppress the growth of an aggressive counterpart by eliciting a cytotoxic T lymphocyte-dependent immune response
Spinon localization in the heat transport of the spin-1/2 ladder compound (CHN)CuBr
We present experiments on the magnetic field-dependent thermal transport in
the spin-1/2 ladder system (CHN)CuBr. The thermal
conductivity is only weakly affected by the field-induced
transitions between the gapless Luttinger-liquid state realized for and the gapped states, suggesting the absence of a direct
contribution of the spin excitations to the heat transport. We observe,
however, that the thermal conductivity is strongly suppressed by the magnetic
field deeply within the Luttinger-liquid state. These surprising observations
are discussed in terms of localization of spinons within finite ladder segments
and spinon-phonon umklapp scattering of the predominantly phononic heat
transport.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
COVID-19 exposes weaknesses in public health in the Peruvian Amazon and highlights opportunities for a One Health approach
The Amazon is home to important wildlife and a biodiversity hotspot of global importance. The ancestral knowledge kept by Indigenous communities about its fauna and flora contributes further to its irreplaceable value. The Peruvian Amazon was heavily struck by the COVID-19 epidemic with a cumulative incidence of 725, a mortality rate of 34 per 100,000 inhabitants, and a case fatality rate of 4.6% by the end of July 2020. In this work, we review scientific literature and media to trace the events that happened at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic in the Peruvian Amazon. Results are synthesized in three observations: (1) the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic within the Peruvian Amazon and the response of the Peruvian health care system, (2) Confusing information about Ivermectin use for COVID-19 treatment and prevalent self-medication (3) The response of the traditional Indigenous health care system to the COVID-19 epidemic. These three observations are interdependent. There is an unexploited potential for integrative approaches linking traditional medical practices (TMP) and biomedical approaches and they may benefit from the interactions that occur between them. Synergies can also be explored between the human and animal health care sector, especially in terms of the use and stewardship of medicines. We conclude that there is a benefit of the One Health approach in the region, which can go through the common ambition to improve the integrated health of people, animals and ecosystems, facilitate the enhancement of equity and inclusion while improving access to health services and conserving biodiversity.
One Health Impact Statement
The Amazon region is home to wildlife flora and fauna and indigenous Amazon communities. The case presented in this work shows that an existing grassroots initiative has been reducing case fatality rates tenfold during the COVID-19 epidemic, while acting in respect towards nature and the environment, and using its resources. This is in stark contrast to the uncontrolled, ineffective self-medication with ivermectin in that same period, which may endanger the biodiversity hotspot through metabolic residues. While the current example seems to illustrate community resilience due to government negligence, it also shows the vastly unexplored potential of integrating biomedical and traditional indigenous knowledge in a solidaric and co-creative framework such as One Health
The dual burden of animal and human zoonoses: A systematic review
Background
Zoonoses can cause a substantial burden on both human and animal health. Globally, estimates of the dual (human and animal) burden of zoonoses are scarce. Therefore, this study aims to quantify the dual burden of zoonoses using a comparable metric, âzoonosis Disability Adjusted Life Yearsâ (zDALY).
Methodology
We systematically reviewed studies that quantify in the same article zoonoses in animals, through monetary losses, and in humans in terms of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). We searched EMBASE, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. We excluded articles that did not provide the data to estimate the zDALY or those for which full text was not available. This study was registered at PROSPERO, CRD42022313081.
Principal findings/Significance
We identified 512 potentially eligible records. After deduplication and screening of the title and abstract, 23 records were assessed for full-text review. Fourteen studies were included in this systematic review. The data contains estimates from 10 countries, a study at continental level (Asia and Africa), and 2 studies on a global scale.
Rabies was the most frequently reported zoonosis where zDALYs were calculated, based on the following included studies: for Kazakhstan 457 (95% CI 342â597), Viet Nam 5316 (95% CI 4382â6244), Asia 1,145,287 (90% CI 388,592â1,902,310), Africa 837,158 (90% CI 283,087â1,388,963), and worldwide rabies 5,920,014 (95% CI 1,547,860â10,290,815). This was followed by echinococcosis, the zDALYs in Peru were 2238 (95% CI 1931â2546), in China 1490 (95% CI 1442â1537), and worldwide cystic echinococcosis 5,935,463 (95% CI 4,497,316â7,377,636). Then, the zDALYs on cysticercosis for Mozambique were 2075 (95% CI 1476â2809), Cameroon 59,540 (95% CR 16,896â101,803), and Tanzania 34,455 (95% CI 12,993â76,193). Brucellosis in Kazakhstan were 2443 zDALYs (95% CI 2391â2496), and brucellosis and anthrax in Turkey 3538 zDALYs (95% CI 2567â6706). Finally, zDALYs on leptospirosis in New Zealand were 196, and Q fever in Netherlands 2843 (95% CI 1071â4603).
The animal burden was superior to the human burden in the following studies: worldwide cystic echinococcosis (83%), brucellosis in Kazakhstan (71%), leptospirosis in New Zealand (91%), and brucellosis, and anthrax in Turkey (52%). Countries priorities on zoonoses can change if animal populations are taken into consideration
Pressure-induced electronic phase separation of magnetism and superconductivity in CrAs
The recent discovery of pressure induced superconductivity in the binary
helimagnet CrAs has attracted much attention. How superconductivity emerges
from the magnetic state and what is the mechanism of the superconducting
pairing are two important issues which need to be resolved. In the present
work, the suppression of magnetism and the occurrence of superconductivity in
CrAs as a function of pressure () were studied by means of muon spin
rotation. The magnetism remains bulk up to ~kbar while its volume
fraction gradually decreases with increasing pressure until it vanishes at
7~kbar. At 3.5 kbar superconductivity abruptly appears with its
maximum ~K which decreases upon increasing the pressure. In the
intermediate pressure region (~kbar) the
superconducting and the magnetic volume fractions are spatially phase separated
and compete for phase volume. Our results indicate that the less conductive
magnetic phase provides additional carriers (doping) to the superconducting
parts of the CrAs sample thus leading to an increase of the transition
temperature () and of the superfluid density (). A scaling of
with as well as the phase separation between magnetism and
superconductivity point to a conventional mechanism of the Cooper-pairing in
CrAs.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Role of multiple subband renormalization in the electronic transport of correlated oxide superlattices
Metallic behavior of band-insulator/ Mott-insulator interfaces was observed
in artificial perovskite superlattices such as in nanoscale SrTiO3/LaTiO3
multilayers. Applying a semiclassical perspective to the parallel electronic
transport we identify two major ingredients relevant for such systems: i) the
quantum confinement of the conduction electrons (superlattice modulation) leads
to a complex, quasi-two dimensional subband structure with both hole- and
electron-like Fermi surfaces. ii) strong electron-electron interaction requires
a substantial renormalization of the quasi-particle dispersion. We characterize
this renormalization by two sets of parameters, namely, the quasi-particle
weight and the induced particle-hole asymmetry of each partially filled
subband. In our study, the quasi-particle dispersion is calculated
self-consistently as function of microscopic parameters using the slave-boson
mean-field approximation introduced by Kotliar and Ruckenstein. We discuss the
consequences of strong local correlations on the normal-state free-carrier
response in the optical conductivity and on the thermoelectric effects.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
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