Effects of 3-Weeks of High-Intensity Interval Training on Running Economy and Endurance

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Prenatal DDT Exposure in Relation to Anthropometric and Pubertal Measures in Adolescent Males

DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), a pesticide once used widely in agriculture and now limited to public health use, remains a controversial chemical because of a combination of benefits and risks. DDT or its breakdown products are ubiquitous in the environment and in humans. Compounds in the DDT family have endocrine actions and have been associated with reproductive toxicity. A previous study reported associations between prenatal exposure to p,p′-DDE [1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-ethylene] and increased height and weight in adolescent boys. We examined a group with higher exposures to see whether similar associations would occur. Our study group was 304 males born in Philadelphia in the early 1960s who had participated in a previous study. Anthropometric and pubertal measures from one to six visits during their adolescent years were available, as were stored maternal serum samples from pregnancy. We measured p,p′-DDE, p,p′-DDT [1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-ethane], and o,p′-DDT [1,1,1-trichloro-2-(o-chlorophenyl)-2-(p-chlorophenyl)-ethane] in the maternal serum. Outcomes examined in the boys were height, ratio of sitting height to height, body mass index, triceps skinfold thickness, ratio of subscapular to the sum of triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses, skeletal age, serum testosterone, and serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate. No associations between prenatal exposure to any of the DDT compounds and any outcome measure were seen

Automatic text classification of drug-induced liver injury using document-term matrix and XGBoost

Introduction: Regulatory agencies generate a vast amount of textual data in the review process. For example, drug labeling serves as a valuable resource for regulatory agencies, such as U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Europe Medical Agency (EMA), to communicate drug safety and effectiveness information to healthcare professionals and patients. Drug labeling also serves as a resource for pharmacovigilance and drug safety research. Automated text classification would significantly improve the analysis of drug labeling documents and conserve reviewer resources. Methods: We utilized artificial intelligence in this study to classify drug-induced liver injury (DILI)-related content from drug labeling documents based on FDA’s DILIrank dataset. We employed text mining and XGBoost models and utilized the Preferred Terms of Medical queries for adverse event standards to simplify the elimination of common words and phrases while retaining medical standard terms for FDA and EMA drug label datasets. Then, we constructed a document term matrix using weights computed by Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) for each included word/term/token. Results: The automatic text classification model exhibited robust performance in predicting DILI, achieving cross-validation AUC scores exceeding 0.90 for both drug labels from FDA and EMA and literature abstracts from the Critical Assessment of Massive Data Analysis (CAMDA). Discussion: Moreover, the text mining and XGBoost functions demonstrated in this study can be applied to other text processing and classification tasks

Group B streptococcus serotype prevalence in reproductive-age women at a tertiary care military medical center relative to global serotype distribution

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Group B <it>Streptococcus </it>(GBS) serotype (Ia, Ib, II-IX) correlates with pathogen virulence and clinical prognosis. Epidemiological studies of seroprevalence are an important metric for determining the proportion of serotypes in a given population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of individual GBS serotypes at Madigan Healthcare System (Madigan), the largest military tertiary healthcare facility in the Pacific Northwestern United States, and to compare seroprevalences with international locations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To determine serotype distribution at Madigan, we obtained GBS isolates from standard-of-care anogenital swabs from 207 women of indeterminate gravidity between ages 18-40 during a five month interval. Serotype was determined using a recently described molecular method of polymerase chain reaction by capsular polysaccharide synthesis (cps) genes associated with pathogen virulence.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Serotypes Ia, III, and V were the most prevalent (28%, 27%, and 17%, respectively). A systematic review of global GBS seroprevalence, meta-analysis, and statistical comparison revealed strikingly similar serodistibution at Madigan relative to civilian-sector populations in Canada and the United States. Serotype Ia was the only serotype consistently higher in North American populations relative to other geographic regions (p < 0.005). The number of non-typeable isolates was significantly lower in the study (p < 0.005).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study establishes PCR-based serotyping as a viable strategy for GBS epidemiological surveillance. Our results suggest that GBS seroprevalence remains stable in North America over the past two decades.</p

Sex, Drugs, and the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Belle Glade, Florida

Belle Glade, Florida, an agricultural community in the heart of the state's vegetable and sugar cane production areas, has the highest cumulative per capita incidence of AIDS in the United States. A risk reduction intervention program was introduced to lessen unsafe AIDS‐related behaviors and to generate data on the epidemiology of HIV infection. Initial attention focused on individuals who were believed to be at the core of the transmission pattern, injection drug users and their sexual partners. We found, however, that injection drug use was much less widespread than anticipated. Results suggested that the primary mode of HIV transmission is heterosexual intercourse—mediated by drug taking (particularly crack smoking) and a flourishing sex industry—a finding that is corroborated by the increased and disproportionate rate of heterosexual AIDS in Belle Glade. The prevalence and types of risk behaviors engaged in would not have been completely explained without the use of ethnographic methods including observation of, and lengthy interviews with, the populations at risk

Patching the Pathway and Widening the Pipeline: Models for Developing a Diverse Early Childhood Workforce in Chicago

With the growing appreciation of the importance of early learning experiences for children's healthy development, attention to the cultivation and maintenance of a qualified workforce has steadily increased. Such a workforce must have not just the knowledge and skills related to child development and early learning, but also be linguistically and culturally prepared to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse child and family population. To ensure a highly qualified workforce, programs and policymakers must attend to both the “pipeline” through which new early childhood educators (ECEs) enter the workforce and the “pathways” by which ECEs work toward and obtain the necessary education and credentials for different roles within the field. In line with the aims of this special issue, this paper leverages the first-person account style to describe barriers to and creative solutions for the development of practitioners in low-resourced communities in Chicago, with the goal of informing practice and policy. We describe three prior and ongoing partnership programs between community-based organizations and institutions of higher education, each tailored to support a unique population in the ECE pipeline on the pathway for increased educational attainment and credentialing. Each program is grounded in a specific community of Chicago, a diverse city with a sizable population of children raised in non-English speaking homes. Each program addresses specific needs of the communities they serve, especially around the recruitment, retention, and promotion of bilingual ECEs. Program administrators and community members describe each programs’ goals, development, and key components unique to their target population as well as key takeaways. We conclude with an overview of critical components that we identified across these programs in order to create pathways for change within the workforce and the communities they serve