A cluster randomised controlled trial of a comprehensive accreditation intervention to reduce alcohol consumption at community sports clubs: study protocol

Introduction: Excessive alcohol consumption isresponsible for considerable harm from chronicdisease and injury. Within most developed countries,members of sporting clubs consume alcohol at levels above that of communities generally. Despite the potential benefits of interventions to address alcohol consumption in sporting clubs, there have been no randomised controlled trials to test the effectiveness of these interventions. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a comprehensive accreditation intervention with community football clubs (Rugby League, Rugby Union, soccer/association football and Australian Rules football) in reducing excessive alcohol consumption by club members.Methods and analysis: The study will be conducted in New South Wales, Australia, and employ a cluster randomised controlled trial design. Half of the football clubs recruited to the trial will be randomised to receive an intervention implemented over two and a half winter sporting seasons. The intervention is based on social ecology theory and is comprehensive in nature, containing multiple elements designed to decrease the supply of alcohol to intoxicated members, cease the provision of cheap and free alcohol, increase the availability and costattractiveness of non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic beverages, remove high alcohol drinks and cease drinking games. The intervention utilises a three-tiered accreditation framework designed to motivate intervention implementation. Football clubs in the control group will receive printed materials on topics unrelated to alcohol. Outcome data will be collected pre- and postintervention through cross-sectional telephone surveys of club members. The primary outcome measure will be alcohol consumption by club members at the club, assessed using a graduated frequency index and a seven day diary.Ethics and dissemination: The study was approved by The University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: H-2008-0432). Study findings will be disseminated widely through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.<br /

Tackling risky alcohol consumption in sport: a cluster randomised controlled trial of an alcohol management intervention with community football clubs

BACKGROUND: An increased prevalence of risky alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm has been reported for members of sporting groups and at sporting venues compared with non-sporting populations. While sports clubs and venues represent opportune settings to implement strategies to reduce such risks, no controlled trials have been reported. The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of an alcohol management intervention in reducing risky alcohol consumption and the risk of alcohol-related harm among community football club members. METHOD: A cluster randomised controlled trial of an alcohol management intervention was undertaken with non-elite, community football clubs and their members in New South Wales, Australia. Risky alcohol consumption (5+ drinks) at the club and risk of alcohol-related harm using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) were measured at baseline and postintervention. RESULTS: Eighty-eight clubs participated in the trial (n=43, INTERVENTION; n=45, CONTROL) and separate cross-sectional samples of club members completed the baseline (N=1411) and postintervention (N=1143) surveys. Postintervention, a significantly lower proportion of intervention club members reported: risky alcohol consumption at the club ( INTERVENTION: 19%; CONTROL: 24%; OR: 0.63 (95% CI 0.40 to 1.00); p=0.05); risk of alcohol-related harm ( INTERVENTION: 38%; CONTROL: 45%; OR: 0.58 (95% CI 0.38 to 0.87); p&lt;0.01); alcohol consumption risk ( INTERVENTION: 47%; CONTROL: 55%; OR: 0.60 (95% CI 0.41 to 0.87); p&lt;0.01) and possible alcohol dependence ( INTERVENTION: 1%; CONTROL: 4%; OR: 0.20 (95% CI 0.06 to 0.65); p&lt;0.01). CONCLUSIONS: With large numbers of people worldwide playing, watching and sports officiating, enhancing club-based alcohol management interventions could make a substantial contribution to reducing the burden of alcohol misuse in communities.<br /

Community-based benchmarking improves spike rate inference from two-photon calcium imaging data

In recent years, two-photon calcium imaging has become a standard tool to probe the function of neural circuits and to study computations in neuronal populations. However, the acquired signal is only an indirect measurement of neural activity due to the comparatively slow dynamics of fluorescent calcium indicators. Different algorithms for estimating spike rates from noisy calcium measurements have been proposed in the past, but it is an open question how far performance can be improved. Here, we report the results of the spikefinder challenge, launched to catalyze the development of new spike rate inference algorithms through crowd-sourcing. We present ten of the submitted algorithms which show improved performance compared to previously evaluated methods. Interestingly, the top-performing algorithms are based on a wide range of principles from deep neural networks to generative models, yet provide highly correlated estimates of the neural activity. The competition shows that benchmark challenges can drive algorithmic developments in neuroscience

Disruption of plasmepsin-4 and merozoites surface protein-7 genes in Plasmodium berghei induces combined virulence-attenuated phenotype

Blood stage malaria parasites causing a mild and self limited infection in mice have been obtained with either radiation or chemical mutagenesis showing the possibility of developing an attenuated malaria vaccine. Targeted disruption of plasmepsin-4 (pm4) or the merozoite surface protein-7 (msp7) genes also induces a virulence-attenuated phenotype in terms of absence of experimental cerebral malaria (ECM), delayed increase of parasitemia and reduced mortality rate. The decrease in virulence in parasites lacking either pm4 or msp7 is however incomplete and dependent on the parasite and mouse strain combination. The sequential disruption of both genes induced remarkable virulence-attenuated blood-stage parasites characterized by a self-resolving infection with low levels of parasitemia and no ECM. Furthermore, convalescent mice were protected against the challenge with P. berghei or P. yoelii parasites for several months. These observations provide a proof-of-concept step for the development of human malaria vaccines based on genetically attenuated blood-stage parasites

Rehabilitation versus surgical reconstruction for non-acute anterior cruciate ligament injury (ACL SNNAP): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

BackgroundAnterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a common debilitating injury that can cause instability of the knee. We aimed to investigate the best management strategy between reconstructive surgery and non-surgical treatment for patients with a non-acute ACL injury and persistent symptoms of instability.MethodsWe did a pragmatic, multicentre, superiority, randomised controlled trial in 29 secondary care National Health Service orthopaedic units in the UK. Patients with symptomatic knee problems (instability) consistent with an ACL injury were eligible. We excluded patients with meniscal pathology with characteristics that indicate immediate surgery. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) by computer to either surgery (reconstruction) or rehabilitation (physiotherapy but with subsequent reconstruction permitted if instability persisted after treatment), stratified by site and baseline Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score—4 domain version (KOOS4). This management design represented normal practice. The primary outcome was KOOS4 at 18 months after randomisation. The principal analyses were intention-to-treat based, with KOOS4 results analysed using linear regression. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN10110685, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02980367.FindingsBetween Feb 1, 2017, and April 12, 2020, we recruited 316 patients. 156 (49%) participants were randomly assigned to the surgical reconstruction group and 160 (51%) to the rehabilitation group. Mean KOOS4 at 18 months was 73·0 (SD 18·3) in the surgical group and 64·6 (21·6) in the rehabilitation group. The adjusted mean difference was 7·9 (95% CI 2·5–13·2; p=0·0053) in favour of surgical management. 65 (41%) of 160 patients allocated to rehabilitation underwent subsequent surgery according to protocol within 18 months. 43 (28%) of 156 patients allocated to surgery did not receive their allocated treatment. We found no differences between groups in the proportion of intervention-related complications.InterpretationSurgical reconstruction as a management strategy for patients with non-acute ACL injury with persistent symptoms of instability was clinically superior and more cost-effective in comparison with rehabilitation management

Correction: Bayesian hypothesis testing and experimental design for two-photon imaging data.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007205.]

Top algorithms make highly correlated predictions.

<p><b>A.-B.</b> Example cells from the test set for dataset 1 (OGB-1) and dataset 3 (GCaMP6s) show highly similar predictions between most algorithms. <b>C.</b> Average correlation coefficients between predictions of different algorithms across all cells in the test set at 25 Hz (40 ms bins).</p

Overview over datasets with training and test data used in the competition.

<p>Overview over datasets with training and test data used in the competition.</p

Different spike inference metrics reach similar conclusions.

<p><b>A.</b> Area under the curve (AUC) of the inferred spike rate used as a binary predictor for the presence of spikes (evaluated at 25 Hz, 50 ms bins) on the test set. Colors indicate different datasets. Black dots are mean correlation coefficients across all <i>N</i> = 32 cells in the test set. Colored dots are jittered for better visibility. STM: Spike-triggered mixture model [<a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006157#pcbi.1006157.ref015" target="_blank">15</a>]; f-oopsi: fast non-negative deconvolution [<a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006157#pcbi.1006157.ref009" target="_blank">9</a>] <b>B.</b> Information gain of the inferred spike rate about the true spike rate on the test set (evaluated at 25 Hz, 40 ms bins).</p

Summary of algorithm performance.

<p>Δ correlation is computed as the mean difference in correlation coefficient compared to the STM algorithm. Δ var. exp. in % is computed as the mean relative improvement variance explained (<i>r</i>²). Note that since variance explained is a nonlinear function of correlation, algorithms can be ranked differently according to the two measures. All means are taken over <i>N</i> = 32 recordings in the test set, except for training correlation, which is computed over <i>N</i> = 60 recordings in the training set.</p