The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change

The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change is an international, multidisciplinary research collaboration between academic institutions and practitioners across the world. It follows on from the work of the 2015 Lancet Commission, which concluded that the response to climate change could be “the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century”. The Lancet Countdown aims to track the health impacts of climate hazards; health resilience and adaptation; health co-benefits of climate change mitigation; economics and finance; and political and broader engagement. These focus areas form the five thematic working groups of the Lancet Countdown and represent different aspects of the complex association between health and climate change. These thematic groups will provide indicators for a global overview of health and climate change; national case studies highlighting countries leading the way or going against the trend; and engagement with a range of stakeholders. The Lancet Countdown ultimately aims to report annually on a series of indicators across these five working groups. This paper outlines the potential indicators and indicator domains to be tracked by the collaboration, with suggestions on the methodologies and datasets available to achieve this end. The proposed indicator domains require further refinement, and mark the beginning of an ongoing consultation process—from November, 2016 to early 2017—to develop these domains, identify key areas not currently covered, and change indicators where necessary. This collaboration will actively seek to engage with existing monitoring processes, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and WHO's climate and health country profiles. The indicators will also evolve over time through ongoing collaboration with experts and a range of stakeholders, and be dependent on the emergence of new evidence and knowledge. During the course of its work, the Lancet Countdown will adopt a collaborative and iterative process, which aims to complement existing initiatives, welcome engagement with new partners, and be open to developing new research projects on health and climate change

Asymmetric correlation between experienced parental attachment and event-related potentials evoked in response to parental faces.

This study aims to explore the modulation effects of attachment relationships with parents on the neural correlates that are associated with parental faces. The event-related potentials elicited in 31 college students while viewing facial stimuli of their parents in two single oddball paradigms (father vs. unfamiliar male and mother vs. unfamiliar female) were measured. We found that enhanced P3a and P3b and attenuated N2b were elicited by parental faces; however, the N170 component failed to discriminate parental faces from unfamiliar faces. An experienced attachment relationship with the father was positively correlated to the P3a response associated with the father's face, whereas no correlation was found in the case of mothers. Further exploration in dipole source localization showed that, within the time window of the P300, distinctive brain regions were involved in the processing of parental faces; the father's face was located in the medial frontal gyrus, which might be involved in self effect, and the anterior cingulate gyrus was activated in response to the mother's face. This research is the first to demonstrate that neural mechanisms involved with parents can be modulated differentially by the qualities of the attachments to the parents. In addition, parental faces share a highly similar temporal pattern, but the origins of these neural responses are distinct, which could merit further investigation

The value of serum prealbumin in the diagnosis and therapeutic response of tuberculosis: a retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine serum prealbumin (PA) levels in patients with tuberculosis and lung cancer, and to evaluate the correlations of serum PA levels with clinicopathological characteristics. METHOD: Total 760 patients were included in the study: 320 patients with tuberculosis, 320 patients with lung cancer, and 120 healthy subjects. Serum PA was detected using a biochemical analyzer to determine the value of serum PA in the diagnosis and therapeutic response of tuberculosis. RESULTS: Compared to lung cancer and healthy individuals, TB patients were more frequent in suffering from low serum PA (75.0% vs.30.9% vs.6.7%,P<0.01), and the serum PA levels of TB patients were significantly reduced (137.5 ± 42.4 mg/L vs. 183.5 ± 49.1 mg/L vs. 240.0 ± 43.9 mg/L, P<0.01). Among various clinical characteristics, type (with pleuritis), age (≥ 60), ESR (>20 mm/h) and smoking status (≥ 20 pack × years) were associated with low serum PA levels of TB patients, while ECOG performance status (≥ 2) was associated with low serum PA levels of lung cancer patients. The change of serum PA levels was in accordance with the therapeutic effects of anti-TB drugs, which might present a valuable and objective indicator for monitoring the therapeutic effects of TB drugs on TB patients. CONCLUSION: Low serum prealbumin levels are very common in TB patients and can be served as a potential indicator for differential diagnosis of lung cancer and monitoring the therapeutic effects of TB drugs

The correlations between the maternal attachment scores and the P3a amplitudes evoked by the mother’s face.

<p>Any significant correlations were found in the case of the mother (total score: <i>r</i> = .11, <i>p</i> = .302, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0068795#pone-0068795-g005" target="_blank">Figure 5a</a>; trust dimension: <i>r</i> = .10, <i>p</i> = .311, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0068795#pone-0068795-g005" target="_blank">Figure 5b</a>; communication dimension: <i>r</i> = .003, <i>p</i> = .495, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0068795#pone-0068795-g005" target="_blank">Figure 5c</a>; alienation dimension: <i>r</i> = .04, <i>p</i> = .423, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0068795#pone-0068795-g005" target="_blank">Figure 5d)</a>.</p

Dipole source localization images of parental faces versus unfamiliar faces for P300 latency.

<p>The main different brain regions in response to the father’s and mother’s faces were the right medial frontal gyrus (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0068795#pone-0068795-g006" target="_blank">Figure 6a)</a> and the left anterior cingulate gyrus (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0068795#pone-0068795-g006" target="_blank">Figure 6b)</a>; blue spots signify the different regions. Activation of the both of the parental faces was also located in the regions of the cerebellar tonsil (red spot) and the precuneus (green spot).</p

Grand average ERPs evoked by different face types.

<p>The light gray shaded areas indicate (a) a 250-550 ms time window for the P3a component at the frontal electrode, (b) a 250-650 ms time window for the P3b component at the parietal electrode, (c) and (d) a 130-180 ms time window for the N170 detection and a 200-300 ms time window for the N2b at the bilateral occipito-temporal areas.</p

Recording procedure and an example of the facial stimuli.

<p>In each trial, the participants were asked to respond as soon as their parents’ faces were presented and to ignore male/female strangers’ faces. All of the participants were asked to finish two single oddball tasks, and the task order was balanced across the participants. The parents whose photographs are presented here have given written informed consent, as outlined in the PLOS consent form, permitting us to publish, reuse and reprint their photographs.</p

The correlations between the paternal attachment scores and P3a amplitudes evoked by a father’s face.

<p>The figure shows that the P3a amplitude was positively correlated to the total attachment score (<i>r</i> = .71, <i>p</i> < .001, Figure 4a), the trust dimension (<i>r</i> = .68, <i>p</i> < .001, Figure 4b) and the communication dimension (<i>r</i> = .60, <i>p</i> < .001, Figure 4c) and negatively correlated with the alienation dimension (<i>r</i> = -.50, <i>p</i> < .005, Figure 4d).</p

Predictive Factors for Bone Cement Displacement following Percutaneous Vertebral Augmentation in K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s Disease

Objective: To investigate the independent influencing factors of bone cement displacement following percutaneous vertebral augmentation (PVA) in patients with stage I and stage II K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s disease. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 824 patients with stage &#8544; and stage &#8545; K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s disease treated with percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) or percutaneous vertebroplasty (PKP) from January 2016 to June 2022. Patients were divided into the postoperative bone cement displacement group (n = 150) and the bone cement non-displacement group (n = 674) according to the radiographic inspection results. The following data were collected: age, gender, body mass index (BMI), underlying disease, bone mineral density (BMD), involved vertebral segment, K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s disease staging, anterior height, local Cobb angle, the integrity of anterior vertebral cortex, the integrity of endplate in surgical vertebrae, surgical method, surgical approach, the volume of cement, distribution of cement, the viscosity of cement, cement leakage, and postoperative anti-osteoporosis treatment. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the independent influencing factors of bone cement displacement. The discrimination ability was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC). Results: The results of logistic regression analysis revealed that thoracolumbar junction (odds ratio (OR) = 3.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.12&ndash;4.50, p = 0.011), K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s disease staging (OR = 2.23, 95% CI 1.81&ndash;3.41, p &lt; 0.001), anterior cortex defect (OR = 5.34, 95% CI 3.53&ndash;7.21, p &lt; 0.001), vertebral endplates defect (OR = 0.54, 95% CI 0.35&ndash;0.71, p &lt; 0.001), cement distribution (OR = 2.86, 95% CI 2.03&ndash;3.52, p = 0.002), cement leakage (OR = 4.59, 95% CI 3.85&ndash;5.72, p &lt; 0.001), restoration of local Cobb angle (OR = 3.17, 95% CI 2.40&ndash;5.73, p = 0.024), and postoperative anti-osteoporosis treatment (OR = 0.48, 95% CI 0.18&ndash;0.72, p = 0.025) were independently associated with the bone cement displacement. The results of the ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC was 0.816 (95% CI 0.747&ndash;0.885), the sensitivity was 0.717, and the specificity was 0.793. Conclusion: Thoracolumbar fracture, stage &#8545; K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s disease, anterior cortex defect, uneven cement distribution, cement leakage, and high restoration of the local Cobb angle were risk factors for cement displacement after PVA in K&uuml;mmell&rsquo;s disease, while vertebral endplates defect and postoperative anti-osteoporosis treatment are protective factors

Clinical Characteristics of the Study Population.

<p>AST≥40 IU/L or ALT≥40 IU/L were defined as Transaminase elevation;Serum PA levels≤170 mg/L were defined as PA decreased.</p>*<p><i>P<</i>0.05, compared to both TB and healthy individuals groups.</p>***<p><i>P<</i>0.001, compared to both lung cancer patients and health individuals groups.</p>**<p><i>P<</i>0.01, compared to both lung cancer patients and health individuals groups.</p