Neural correlates of cognitive intervention in persons at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Cognitive training is an emergent approach that has begun to receive increased attention in recent years as a non-pharmacological, cost-effective intervention for Alzheimer's disease (AD). There has been increasing behavioral evidence regarding training-related improvement in cognitive performance in early stages of AD. Although these studies provide important insight about the efficacy of cognitive training, neuroimaging studies are crucial to pinpoint changes in brain structure and function associated with training and to examine their overlap with pathology in AD. In this study, we reviewed the existing neuroimaging studies on cognitive training in persons at risk of developing AD to provide an overview of the overlap between neural networks rehabilitated by the current training methods and those affected in AD. The data suggest a consistent training-related increase in brain activity in medial temporal, prefrontal, and posterior default mode networks, as well as increase in gray matter structure in frontoparietal and entorhinal regions. This pattern differs from the observed pattern in healthy older adults that shows a combination of increased and decreased activity in response to training. Detailed investigation of the data suggests that training in persons at risk of developing AD mainly improves compensatory mechanisms and partly restores the affected functions. While current neuroimaging studies are quite helpful in identifying the mechanisms underlying cognitive training, the data calls for future multi-modal neuroimaging studies with focus on multi-domain cognitive training, network level connectivity, and individual differences in response to training

Survey of Ground Dwelling Arthropods Associated with Two Habitat Types in the Jos Museum Zoological Garden Jos Plateau State, North Central Nigeria

Little is known about the species composition and ecology of ground dwelling arthropods of Zoological Gardens. Thus, this study was aimed to investigate the species abundance and diversity of ground dwelling arthropods associated with Gallery forest and Rocky outcrop of the Jos Museum Zoological Garden Jos Plateau State, North central Nigeria. Arthropods were collected using Pitfall traps during the raining season of June-July, 2013. A total of 500 arthropods belonging to 6 Classes, 11 Orders, 12 Families, 14 Genera and 14 Species were collected. Out of which 130 arthropods individuals representing 26% of the total were collected from Gallery forest, whereas 370 arthropods individual representing 74% were collected from Rocky outcrop. There is a significant difference in the mean abundance of species of ground dwelling arthropods collected from both habitats. There is no significant difference in the mean abundance of ground dwelling arthropods in relation to taxa. The diversity and distribution of arthropods taxa depicted 73% Insecta and 64.4% Hymenoptera as the most abundant taxa. The Shannon-Weiner diversity index (H) differs significantly between the two habitat types. The Gallery forest had the highest diversity index of 2.2140 and Rocky outcrop had the lowest diversity index of 0.9038. Food availability and vegetation cover were found to be critical to arthropods species abundance and diversity. This is a pointer to the usefulness of vegetation and food as key resources for ground dwelling arthropods. It is therefore recommended that adequate protection of the garden be carried out to curd anthropogenic activities.Key Words: Arthropods, Habitats, Gallery forest, Rocky outcrop and Zoological garde

Sim2Real Transfer of Reinforcement Learning for Concentric Tube Robots

Concentric Tube Robots (CTRs) are promising for minimally invasive interventions due to their miniature diameter, high dexterity, and compliance with soft tissue. CTRs comprise individual pre-curved tubes usually composed of NiTi and are arranged concentrically. As each tube is relatively rotated and translated, the backbone elongates, twists, and bends with a dexterity that is advantageous for confined spaces. Tube interactions, unmodelled phenomena, and inaccurate tube parameter estimation make physical modeling of CTRs challenging, complicating in turn kinematics and control. Deep reinforcement learning (RL) has been investigated as a solution. However, hardware validation has remained a challenge due to differences between the simulation and hardware domains. With simulation-only data, in this work, domain randomization is proposed as a strategy for translation to hardware of a simulation policy with no additionally acquired physical training data. The differences in simulation and hardware forward kinematics accuracy and precision are characterized by errors of 14.74±8.87 mm or 26.61±17.00 % robot length. We showcase that the proposed domain randomization approach reduces errors by 56 % in mean errors as compared to no domain randomization. Furthermore, we demonstrate path following capability in hardware with a line path with resulting errors of 4.37±2.39 mm or 5.61±3.11 % robot length

Biomarker discovery and redundancy reduction towards classification using a multi-factorial MALDI-TOF MS T2DM mouse model dataset

Diabetes like many diseases and biological processes is not mono-causal. On the one hand multifactorial studies with complex experimental design are required for its comprehensive analysis. On the other hand, the data from these studies often include a substantial amount of redundancy such as proteins that are typically represented by a multitude of peptides. Coping simultaneously with both complexities (experimental and technological) makes data analysis a challenge for Bioinformatics

Detection of Vibrio cholerae and Acanthamoeba species from same natural water samples collected from different cholera endemic areas in Sudan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Vibrio cholerae </it>O1 and <it>V. cholerae </it>O139 infect humans, causing the diarrheal and waterborne disease cholera, which is a worldwide health problem. <it>V. cholerae </it>and the free-living amoebae <it>Acanthamoeba </it>species are present in aquatic environments, including drinking water and it has shown that <it>Acanthamoebae </it>support bacterial growth and survival. Recently it has shown that <it>Acanthamoeba </it>species enhanced growth and survival of <it>V. cholerae </it>O1 and O139. Water samples from different cholera endemic areas in Sudan were collected with the aim to detect both <it>V. cholerae </it>and <it>Acanthamoeba </it>species from same natural water samples by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>For the first time both <it>V. cholerae </it>and <it>Acanthamoeba </it>species were detected in same natural water samples collected from different cholera endemic areas in Sudan. 89% of detected <it>V. cholerae </it>was found with <it>Acanthamoeba </it>in same water samples.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The current findings disclose <it>Acanthamoedae </it>as a biological factor enhancing survival of <it>V. cholerae </it>in nature.</p

Educating and Informing Patients Receiving Psychopharmacological Medications: Are Family Physicians in Pakistan up to the Task?

Introduction: Studies have shown a high prevalence of psychiatric illnesses among Patients in primary health care settings. Family physicians have a fundamental role in managing psychiatric illness with psychopharmacological medications. Providing information about the disease, its management and the potential adverse effects of the medications is an important part of the management of mental illnesses. Our objective was to determine if Patients who were prescribed psychopharmacological drugs by family physicians at a community health center in Karachi, Pakistan were provided adequate education about their disease and its management. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Community Health Centre (CHC), Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi, Pakistan. Details about the prescriptions and Patient education were acquired from the Patients after their consultations. Results: A total of 354 adult Patients were interviewed during 3 days. Among them, 73 (20.6%) were prescribed psychopharmacological medications. Among Patients receiving psychopharmacological medicines, 37 (50.7%) did not know their diagnosis, 50 (68.5%) were unaware of the disease process, 52 (71.2%) were unaware of alternative treatments, 63 (86.3%) were not cautioned about the potential adverse effects of the drugs, 24 (32.9%) were unaware of the duration of treatment and in 60 (82.2%) of the participants an appropriate referral had not been discussed. For all aspects of education, Patients prescribed psychopharmacological medications knew less as compared to those Patients that were prescribed other medications. Discussion: The practice of imparting information to Patients who receive psychopharmacological medications seems to be inadequate in Pakistan. We have hypothesized about the possible reasons for our findings, and identified a need for further research to determine the cause for such findings and to address them accordingly. At the same time there is a need to educate family physicians in Pakistan about the special importance of providing adequate information to such Patients

The health workforce crisis in Bangladesh: shortage, inappropriate skill-mix and inequitable distribution

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bangladesh is identified as one of the countries with severe health worker shortages. However, there is a lack of comprehensive data on human resources for health (HRH) in the formal and informal sectors in Bangladesh. This data is essential for developing an HRH policy and plan to meet the changing health needs of the population. This paper attempts to fill in this knowledge gap by using data from a nationally representative sample survey conducted in 2007.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study population in this survey comprised all types of currently active health care providers (HCPs) in the formal and informal sectors. The survey used 60 unions/wards from both rural and urban areas (with a comparable average population of approximately 25 000) which were proportionally allocated based on a 'Probability Proportion to Size' sampling technique for the six divisions and distribution areas. A simple free listing was done to make an inventory of the practicing HCPs in each of the sampled areas and cross-checking with community was done for confirmation and to avoid duplication. This exercise yielded the required list of different HCPs by union/ward.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>HCP density was measured per 10 000 population. There were approximately five physicians and two nurses per 10 000, the ratio of nurse to physician being only 0.4. Substantial variation among different divisions was found, with gross imbalance in distribution favouring the urban areas. There were around 12 unqualified village doctors and 11 salespeople at drug retail outlets per 10 000, the latter being uniformly spread across the country. Also, there were twice as many community health workers (CHWs) from the non-governmental sector than the government sector and an overwhelming number of traditional birth attendants. The village doctors (predominantly males) and the CHWs (predominantly females) were mainly concentrated in the rural areas, while the paraprofessionals were concentrated in the urban areas. Other data revealed the number of faith/traditional healers, homeopaths (qualified and non-qualified) and basic care providers.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Bangladesh is suffering from a severe HRH crisis--in terms of a shortage of qualified providers, an inappropriate skills-mix and inequity in distribution--which requires immediate attention from policy makers.</p

Narrative Exposure Therapy as a treatment for child war survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder: Two case reports and a pilot study in an African refugee settlement

BACKGROUND: Little data exists on the effectiveness of psychological interventions for children with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that has resulted from exposure to war or conflict-related violence, especially in non-industrialized countries. We created and evaluated the efficacy of KIDNET, a child-friendly version of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), as a short-term treatment for children. METHODS: Six Somali children suffering from PTSD aged 12–17 years resident in a refugee settlement in Uganda were treated with four to six individual sessions of KIDNET by expert clinicians. Symptoms of PTSD and depression were assessed pre-treatment, post-treatment and at nine months follow-up using the CIDI Sections K and E. RESULTS: Important symptom reduction was evident immediately after treatment and treatment outcomes were sustained at the 9-month follow-up. All patients completed therapy, reported functioning gains and could be helped to reconstruct their traumatic experiences into a narrative with the use of illustrative material. CONCLUSIONS: NET may be safe and effective to treat children with war related PTSD in the setting of refugee settlements in developing countries

The Long March: A Sample Preparation Technique that Enhances Contig Length and Coverage by High-Throughput Short-Read Sequencing

High-throughput short-read technologies have revolutionized DNA sequencing by drastically reducing the cost per base of sequencing information. Despite producing gigabases of sequence per run, these technologies still present obstacles in resequencing and de novo assembly applications due to biased or insufficient target sequence coverage. We present here a simple sample preparation method termed the “long march” that increases both contig lengths and target sequence coverage using high-throughput short-read technologies. By incorporating a Type IIS restriction enzyme recognition motif into the sequencing primer adapter, successive rounds of restriction enzyme cleavage and adapter ligation produce a set of nested sub-libraries from the initial amplicon library. Sequence reads from these sub-libraries are offset from each other with enough overlap to aid assembly and contig extension. We demonstrate the utility of the long march in resequencing of the Plasmodium falciparum transcriptome, where the number of genomic bases covered was increased by 39%, as well as in metagenomic analysis of a serum sample from a patient with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related acute liver failure, where the number of HBV bases covered was increased by 42%. We also offer a theoretical optimization of the long march for de novo sequence assembly