Prevalence of Alcohol Consumption and Hazardous Drinking, Tobacco and Drug use in urban Tanzania, and Their associated Risk Factors.

Evidence suggests substance abuse in Tanzania is a growing public health problem. A random sample of 899 adults aged 15-59 in two urban sites of differing levels of poverty surveyed alcohol, tobacco and illicit substance use. Rates of substance use were 17.2%. 8.7% and 0.8% for alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, respectively. Living in the less affluent area was associated with higher lifetime rates of tobacco and alcohol use. Substance use is less prevalent in Tanzania than in richer countries, but lifetime consumption is higher in poorer areas. The association of substance use with a range of socio-economic factors warrants further research

Prevalence of psychosis in black ethnic minorities in Britain: analysis based on three national surveys

Purpose A considerable excess of psychosis in black ethnic minorities is apparent from clinical studies, in Britain, as in other developed economies with white majority populations. This excess is not so marked in population surveys. Equitable health service provision should be informed by the best estimates of the excess. We used national survey data to establish the difference in the prevalence of psychosis between black ethnic groups and the white majority in the British general population. Methods Analysis of the combined datasets (N = 26,091) from the British national mental health surveys of 1993, 2000 and 2007. Cases of psychosis were determined either by the use of the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN), or from a combination of screening items. We controlled for sex, age, social class, unemployment, design features and other putative confounders, using a Disease Risk Score. Results People from black ethnic minorities had an excess prevalence rate of psychosis compared with the white majority population. The OR, weighted for study design and response rate, was 2.72 (95 % CI 1.3–5.6, p = 0.002). This was marginally increased after controlling for potential confounders (OR = 2.90, 95 % CI 1.4–6.2, p = 0.006). Conclusions The excess of psychosis in black ethnic minority groups was similar to that in two previous British community surveys, and less than that based on clinical studies. Even so it confirms a considerable need for increased mental health service resources in areas with high proportions of black ethnic minority inhabitants

Mood disorders in primary care

The majority of patients with mental health problems are treated solely within primary care. This article discusses the epidemiology, diagnosis, and management of mood disorders in primary care. Factors influencing recognition, the use of screening instruments, and somatization are discussed. The article also outlines the latest recommendations for the management of depression in primary care using a stepped care model

Acquiring and processing verb argument structure : distributional learning in a miniature language

Adult knowledge of a language involves correctly balancing lexically-based and more language-general patterns. For example, verb argument structures may sometimes readily generalize to new verbs, yet with particular verbs may resist generalization. From the perspective of acquisition, this creates significant learnability problems, with some researchers claiming a crucial role for verb semantics in the determination of when generalization may and may not occur. Similarly, there has been debate regarding how verb-specific and more generalized constraints interact in sentence processing and on the role of semantics in this process. The current work explores these issues using artificial language learning. In three experiments using languages without semantic cues to verb distribution, we demonstrate that learners can acquire both verb-specific and verb-general patterns, based on distributional information in the linguistic input regarding each of the verbs as well as across the language as a whole. As with natural languages, these factors are shown to affect production, judgments and real-time processing. We demonstrate that learners apply a rational procedure in determining their usage of these different input statistics and conclude by suggesting that a Bayesian perspective on statistical learning may be an appropriate framework for capturing our findings

Anti-cancer effects and mechanism of actions of aspirin analogues in the treatment of glioma cancer

INTRODUCTION: In the past 25 years only modest advancements in glioma treatment have been made, with patient prognosis and median survival time following diagnosis only increasing from 3 to 7 months. A substantial body of clinical and preclinical evidence has suggested a role for aspirin in the treatment of cancer with multiple mechanisms of action proposed including COX 2 inhibition, down regulation of EGFR expression, and NF-κB signaling affecting Bcl-2 expression. However, with serious side effects such as stroke and gastrointestinal bleeding, aspirin analogues with improved potency and side effect profiles are being developed. METHOD: Effects on cell viability following 24 hr incubation of four aspirin derivatives (PN508, 517, 526 and 529) were compared to cisplatin, aspirin and di-aspirin in four glioma cell lines (U87 MG, SVG P12, GOS – 3, and 1321N1), using the PrestoBlue assay, establishing IC50 and examining the time course of drug effects. RESULTS: All compounds were found to decrease cell viability in a concentration and time dependant manner. Significantly, the analogue PN517 (IC50 2mM) showed approximately a twofold increase in potency when compared to aspirin (3.7mM) and cisplatin (4.3mM) in U87 cells, with similar increased potency in SVG P12 cells. Other analogues demonstrated similar potency to aspirin and cisplatin. CONCLUSION: These results support the further development and characterization of novel NSAID derivatives for the treatment of glioma

Perceived complexity in Sauvignon Blanc wines: influence of domain-specific expertise

Background and Aims Complexity is a multidimensional and poorly defined term that is frequently employed to characterise wine sensorially. The present study aimed to investigate the sensorial nature of perceived complexity in wine as a function of domain-specific expertise. Methods and Results Eighty-seven French participants (16 wine professionals, 30 connoisseurs and 41 wine consumers) evaluated 13 Sauvignon Blanc wines. The wines were produced in New Zealand as part of a project aimed at increasing perceived complexity in Sauvignon wines. Participants evaluated the wines by free sorting and by judging complexity via a questionnaire. Sorting behaviour across groups was similar qualitatively, but significant differences were observed in variability between wine professionals and consumers. Complexity questionnaire data showed differences in ratings as a function of both participant expertise and wine. Conclusions The results are more in keeping with theories that perceived complexity is associated with aspects of harmony and wine balance, rather than with perceptual separability of wine components. Significance of the Study The current work reports innovative methodology and new information that furthers the field of sensory science, and specifically investigation of complexity in wine

A visual and curatorial approach to clinical variant prioritization and disease gene discovery in genome-wide diagnostics

Background: Genome-wide data are increasingly important in the clinical evaluation of human disease. However, the large number of variants observed in individual patients challenges the efficiency and accuracy of diagnostic review. Recent work has shown that systematic integration of clinical phenotype data with genotype information can improve diagnostic workflows and prioritization of filtered rare variants. We have developed visually interactive, analytically transparent analysis software that leverages existing disease catalogs, such as the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database (OMIM) and the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO), to integrate patient phenotype and variant data into ranked diagnostic alternatives. Methods: Our tool, “OMIM Explorer” (http://www.omimexplorer.com), extends the biomedical application of semantic similarity methods beyond those reported in previous studies. The tool also provides a simple interface for translating free-text clinical notes into HPO terms, enabling clinical providers and geneticists to contribute phenotypes to the diagnostic process. The visual approach uses semantic similarity with multidimensional scaling to collapse high-dimensional phenotype and genotype data from an individual into a graphical format that contextualizes the patient within a low-dimensional disease map. The map proposes a differential diagnosis and algorithmically suggests potential alternatives for phenotype queries—in essence, generating a computationally assisted differential diagnosis informed by the individual’s personal genome. Visual interactivity allows the user to filter and update variant rankings by interacting with intermediate results. The tool also implements an adaptive approach for disease gene discovery based on patient phenotypes. Results: We retrospectively analyzed pilot cohort data from the Baylor Miraca Genetics Laboratory, demonstrating performance of the tool and workflow in the re-analysis of clinical exomes. Our tool assigned to clinically reported variants a median rank of 2, placing causal variants in the top 1 % of filtered candidates across the 47 cohort cases with reported molecular diagnoses of exome variants in OMIM Morbidmap genes. Our tool outperformed Phen-Gen, eXtasy, PhenIX, PHIVE, and hiPHIVE in the prioritization of these clinically reported variants. Conclusions: Our integrative paradigm can improve efficiency and, potentially, the quality of genomic medicine by more effectively utilizing available phenotype information, catalog data, and genomic knowledge

Communications Research

Contains reports on five research projects

Integrating CRASH, Hospital, and Roadway Data to Investigate the Effect of Cable Median Barriers on Injury Severity

Executive Summary In median-involved crashes, the odds of a police-reported injury were estimated to be 42% lower on road segments with a cable median barrier (CMB) than on road segments with a concrete median barrier, and the difference was statistically significant [odds ratio 0.58, 95% confidence interval (0.43, 0.78)]. In median-involved crashes, the odds of having an injury severity score of 8 or greater were estimated to be 34% higher on road segments with a CMB than on road segments with a concrete median barrier; however, the difference was not statistically significant [odds ratio 1.34, 95% confidence interval (0.67, 2.66). In median-involved crashes, the odds of having a police-reported injury were estimated to be 48% lower on road segments with a CMB than on road segments with a no median barrier; however, the difference was not statistically significant [odds ratio 0.52, 95% confidence interval (0.20, 1.31). In median-involved crashes, the odds of having an injury severity score of 4 or greater were estimated to be 65% lower on road segments with a CMB than on road segments with a no median barrier; however, the difference was not statistically significant [odds ratio 0.35, 95% confidence interval (0.04, 3.02). Sample size (numbers of vehicles and occupants involved in median-involved crashes for each median barrier type) was smaller than anticipated, resulting in low statistical power to assess differences in injury risk for different median barrier types. The findings raise the possibility that in some cases conclusions based on physician-based injury severity measures differ from conclusions based on police-reported injury severity measures The question of differences in police- vs. physician-reported injury severity measures bears further investigation using approaches that address lessons learned from this pilot study. This study did not address the question of which type of median barrier is most effective at preventing crashes altogether; it only assessed the risk of injury in crashes that occurred and were reported by polic

Using multi-scale distribution and movement effects along a montane highway to identify optimal crossing locations for a large-bodied mammal community

Roads are a major cause of habitat fragmentation that can negatively affect many mammal populations. Mitigation measures such as crossing structures are a proposed method to reduce the negative effects of roads on wildlife, but the best methods for determining where such structures should be implemented, and how their effects might differ between species in mammal communities is largely unknown. We investigated the effects of a major highway through south-eastern British Columbia, Canada on several mammal species to determine how the highway may act as a barrier to animal movement, and how species may differ in their crossing-area preferences. We collected track data of eight mammal species across two winters, along both the highway and pre-marked transects, and used a multi-scale modeling approach to determine the scale at which habitat characteristics best predicted preferred crossing sites for each species. We found evidence for a severe barrier effect on all investigated species. Freely-available remotely-sensed habitat landscape data were better than more costly, manually-digitized microhabitat maps in supporting models that identified preferred crossing sites; however, models using both types of data were better yet. Further, in 6 of 8 cases models which incorporated multiple spatial scales were better at predicting preferred crossing sites than models utilizing any single scale. While each species differed in terms of the landscape variables associated with preferred/avoided crossing sites, we used a multi-model inference approach to identify locations along the highway where crossing structures may benefit all of the species considered. By specifically incorporating both highway and off-highway data and predictions we were able to show that landscape context plays an important role for maximizing mitigation measurement efficiency. Our results further highlight the need for mitigation measures along major highways to improve connectivity between mammal populations, and illustrate how multi-scale data can be used to identify preferred crossing sites for different species within a mammal community