Recognition of and Response to neonatal intrapartum-related complications in home-birth settings in Bangladesh.

Intrapartum-related complications (previously called 'birth asphyxia') are a significant contributor to deaths of newborns in Bangladesh. This study describes some of the perceived signs, causes, and treatments for this condition as described by new mothers, female relatives, traditional birth attendants, and village doctors in three sites in Bangladesh. Informants were asked to name characteristics of a healthy newborn and a newborn with difficulty in breathing at birth and about the perceived causes, consequences, and treatments for breathing difficulties. Across all three sites 'no movement' and 'no cry' were identified as signs of breathing difficulties while 'prolonged labour' was the most commonly-mentioned cause. Informants described a variety of treatments for difficulty in breathing at birth, including biomedical and, less often, spiritual and traditional practices. This study identified the areas that need to be addressed through behaviour change interventions to improve recognition of and response to intrapartum-related complications in Bangladesh

Recognition of and Response to Neonatal Intrapartum-related Complications in Home-birth Settings in Bangladesh

Intrapartum-related complications (previously called \u2018birth asphyxia\u2019) are a significant contributor to deaths of newborns in Bangladesh. This study describes some of the perceived signs, causes, and treatments for this condition as described by new mothers, female relatives, traditional birth attendants, and village doctors in three sites in Bangladesh. Informants were asked to name characteristics of a healthy newborn and a newborn with difficulty in breathing at birth and about the perceived causes, consequences, and treatments for breathing difficulties. Across all three sites \u2018no movement\u2019 and \u2018no cry\u2019 were identified as signs of breathing difficulties while \u2018prolonged labour\u2019 was the most commonly-mentioned cause. Informants described a variety of treatments for difficulty in breathing at birth, including biomedical and, less often, spiritual and traditional practices. This study identified the areas that need to be addressed through behaviour change interventions to improve recognition of and response to intrapartum-related complications in Bangladesh

Human impact parameterizations in global hydrological models improves estimates of monthly discharges and hydrological extremes: a multi-model validation study

Human activities have a profound influence on river discharge, hydrological extremes, and water-related hazards. In this study, we compare the results of five state-of-the-art global hydrological models (GHMs) with observations to examine the role of human impact parameterizations (HIP) in the simulation of the mean, high, and low flows. The analysis is performed for 471 gauging stations across the globe and for the period 1971-2010. We find that the inclusion of HIP improves the performance of GHMs, both in managed and near-natural catchments. For near-natural catchments, the improvement in performance results from improvements in incoming discharges from upstream managed catchments. This finding is robust across GHMs, although the level of improvement and reasons for improvement vary greatly by GHM. The inclusion of HIP leads to a significant decrease in the bias of long-term mean monthly discharge in 36-73% of the studied catchments, and an improvement in modelled hydrological variability in 31-74% of the studied catchments. Including HIP in the GHMs also leads to an improvement in the simulation of hydrological extremes, compared to when HIP is excluded. Whilst the inclusion of HIP leads to decreases in simulated high-flows, it can lead to either increases or decreases in low-flows. This is due to the relative importance of the timing of return flows and reservoir operations and their associated uncertainties. Even with the inclusion of HIP, we find that model performance still not optimal. This highlights the need for further research linking the human management and hydrological domains, especially in those areas with a dominant human impact. The large variation in performance between GHMs, regions, and performance indicators, calls for a careful selection of GHMs, model components, and evaluation metrics in future model applications

Water scarcity hotspots travel downstream due to human interventions in the 20th and 21st century

Water scarcity is rapidly increasing in many regions. In a novel, multi-model assessment, we examine how human interventions (HI: land use and land cover change, man-made reservoirs and human water use) affected monthly river water availability and water scarcity over the period 1971–2010. Here we show that HI drastically change the critical dimensions of water scarcity, aggravating water scarcity for 8.8% (7.4–16.5%) of the global population but alleviating it for another 8.3% (6.4–15.8%). Positive impacts of HI mostly occur upstream, whereas HI aggravate water scarcity downstream; HI cause water scarcity to travel downstream. Attribution of water scarcity changes to HI components is complex and varies among the hydrological models. Seasonal variation in impacts and dominant HI components is also substantial. A thorough consideration of the spatially and temporally varying interactions among HI components and of uncertainties is therefore crucial for the success of water scarcity adaptation by HI

Inhibition of Protein Aggregation: Supramolecular Assemblies of Arginine Hold the Key

BACKGROUND: Aggregation of unfolded proteins occurs mainly through the exposed hydrophobic surfaces. Any mechanism of inhibition of this aggregation should explain the prevention of these hydrophobic interactions. Though arginine is prevalently used as an aggregation suppressor, its mechanism of action is not clearly understood. We propose a mechanism based on the hydrophobic interactions of arginine. METHODOLOGY: We have analyzed arginine solution for its hydrotropic effect by pyrene solubility and the presence of hydrophobic environment by 1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonic acid fluorescence. Mass spectroscopic analyses show that arginine forms molecular clusters in the gas phase and the cluster composition is dependent on the solution conditions. Light scattering studies indicate that arginine exists as clusters in solution. In the presence of arginine, the reverse phase chromatographic elution profile of Alzheimer's amyloid beta 1-42 (Abeta(1-42)) peptide is modified. Changes in the hydrodynamic volume of Abeta(1-42) in the presence of arginine measured by size exclusion chromatography show that arginine binds to Abeta(1-42). Arginine increases the solubility of Abeta(1-42) peptide in aqueous medium. It decreases the aggregation of Abeta(1-42) as observed by atomic force microscopy. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our experimental results we propose that molecular clusters of arginine in aqueous solutions display a hydrophobic surface by the alignment of its three methylene groups. The hydrophobic surfaces present on the proteins interact with the hydrophobic surface presented by the arginine clusters. The masking of hydrophobic surface inhibits protein-protein aggregation. This mechanism is also responsible for the hydrotropic effect of arginine on various compounds. It is also explained why other amino acids fail to inhibit the protein aggregation

Analysis of the impact of sex and age on the variation in the prevalence of antinuclear autoantibodies in Polish population: a nationwide observational, cross-sectional study

The detection of antinuclear autoantibody (ANA) is dependent on many factors and varies between the populations. The aim of the study was first to assess the prevalence of ANA in the Polish adult population depending on age, sex and the cutoff threshold used for the results obtained. Second, we estimated the occurrence of individual types of ANA-staining patterns. We tested 1731 patient samples using commercially available IIFA using two cutoff thresholds of 1:100 and 1:160. We found ANA in 260 participants (15.0%), but the percentage of positive results strongly depended on the cutoff level. For a cutoff threshold 1:100, the positive population was 19.5% and for the 1:160 cutoff threshold, it was 11.7%. The most prevalent ANA-staining pattern was AC-2 Dense Fine speckled (50%), followed by AC-21 Reticular/AMA (14.38%) ANA more common in women (72%); 64% of ANA-positive patients were over 50 years of age. ANA prevalence in the Polish population is at a level observed in other highly developed countries and is more prevalent in women and elderly individuals. To reduce the number of positive results released, we suggest that Polish laboratories should set 1:160 as the cutoff threshold