How to Implement Respondent-Driven Sampling in Practice: Insights from Surveying 24-Hour Migrant Home Care Workers

This article draws on the experience from an ongoing research project employing respondentdriven sampling (RDS) to survey (illicit) 24-hour home care workers. We highlight issues around the preparatory work and the fielding of the survey to provide researchers with useful insights on how to implement RDS when surveying populations for which the method has not yet been used. We conclude the article with ethical considerations that occur when employing RDS

A novel vacuum ultra violet lamp for metastable rare gas experiments

We report on a new design of a vacuum ultra violet (VUV) lamp for direct optical excitation of high laying atomic states e.g. for excitation of metastable rare gas atoms. The lamp can be directly mounted to ultra high vacuum vessels (p <= 10^(-10) mbar). It is driven by a 2.45 GHz microwave source. For optimum operation it requires powers of approximately 20 W. The VUV light is transmitted through a magnesium fluoride window, which is known to have a decreasing transmittance for VUV photons with time. In our special setup, after a run-time of the VUV lamp of 550 h the detected signal continuously decreased to 25 % of its initial value. This corresponds to a lifetime increase of two orders of magnitude compared to previous setups or commercial lamps

A novel vacuum ultra violet lamp for metastable rare gas experiments

We report on a new design of a vacuum ultra violet (VUV) lamp for direct optical excitation of high laying atomic states e.g. for excitation of metastable rare gas atoms. The lamp can be directly mounted to ultra high vacuum vessels (p <= 10^(-10) mbar). It is driven by a 2.45 GHz microwave source. For optimum operation it requires powers of approximately 20 W. The VUV light is transmitted through a magnesium fluoride window, which is known to have a decreasing transmittance for VUV photons with time. In our special setup, after a run-time of the VUV lamp of 550 h the detected signal continuously decreased to 25 % of its initial value. This corresponds to a lifetime increase of two orders of magnitude compared to previous setups or commercial lamps

Centro especializado para el adulto mayor en Cieneguilla

Día a día se puede observar en las calles las necesidades y/o carencias de las personas de la tercera edad, siendo los más vulnerables en la ciudad. Distintos establecimientos como tiendas, centros de salud, centros de juego, generalmente tienen una infraestructura pensada en personas jóvenes, es por ello que es necesario, así como hay lugares especiales para niños, un lugar diseñado y pensado exclusivamente para el adulto mayor, Cumpliendo las normas y leyes necesarias para su comodidad. Antiguamente y en la actualidad aún existen los Clubes de jubilados, que son centros dnde acuden las personas de la tercera edad donde encentran talleres, juegos, actividades de su interés. En base a ello, se plantea el diseño de un Centro integral, donde se ofrece los servicios de salud, hospedaje, entretenimiento, cultura y esparcimiento. La idea principal del proyecto es que el usuario encuentre espacios funcionales y cómodos, varias opciones para desarrollar durante su día y puedan tener un tiempo útil y cómodo, además de atender problemas de salud, fisioterapia, psicológicos, etc. El terreno donde se plantea el centro está ubicado en el distrito de Cieneguilla, a pocos minutos del ingreso al distrito, muy cerca de la Municipalidad de Cieneguilla. Es un lote de 3 frentes los cuales serán aprovechados por áreas libres; ya que el distrito se caracteriza por sus amplios centros de esparcimiento, el centro especializado para el adulto mayor cumplirá con el área verde necesaria para la integración con el entorno. Contará con 5 bloques: Hospedaje, Centro de salud, Administración, Auditorio, biblioteca y zona de juegos y talleres; integrados mediante 2 patios que marcan la zona privada (hospedaje) de la zona pública o transitoria. (Salud, juegos, administración, auditorio)

Proteomic Adaptation of Streptococcus pneumoniae to the Human Antimicrobial Peptide LL-37

Secreted antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are an important part of the human innate immune system and prevent local and systemic infections by inhibiting bacterial growth in a concentration-dependent manner. In the respiratory tract, the cationic peptide LL-37 is one of the most abundant AMPs and capable of building pore complexes in usually negatively charged bacterial membranes, leading to the destruction of bacteria. However, the adaptation mechanisms of several pathogens to LL-37 are already described and are known to weaken the antimicrobial effect of the AMP, for instance, by repulsion, export or degradation of the peptide. This study examines proteome-wide changes in Streptococcus pneumoniae D39, the leading cause of bacterial pneumonia, in response to physiological concentrations of LL-37 by high-resolution mass spectrometry. Our data indicate that pneumococci may use some of the known adaptation mechanisms to reduce the effect of LL-37 on their physiology, too. Additionally, several proteins seem to be involved in resistance to AMPs which have not been related to this process before, such as the teichoic acid flippase TacF (SPD_1128). Understanding colonization- and infection-relevant adaptations of the pneumococcus to AMPs, especially LL-37, could finally uncover new drug targets to weaken the burden of this widespread pathogen

Non-Invasive Time-Lapsed Monitoring and Quantification of Engineered Bone-Like Tissue

The formation of bone-like tissue from human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) cultured in osteogenic medium on silk fibroin scaffolds was monitored and quantified over 44days in culture using non-invasive time-lapsed micro-computed tomography (μCT). Each construct was imaged nine times insitu. From μCT imaging, detailed morphometrical data on bone volume density, surface-to-volume ratio, trabecular thickness, trabecular spacing, and the structure model index and tissue mineral density were obtained. μCT irradiation did not impact the osteogenic performance of hMSCs based on DNA content, alkaline phosphatase activity, and calcium deposition when compared to non-exposed control samples. Bone-like tissue formation initiated at day 10 of the culture with the deposition of small mineralized clusters. Tissue mineral density increased linearly over time. The surface-to-volume ratio of the bone-like tissues converged asymptotically to 26mm−1. Although in vitro formation of bone-like tissue started from clusters, the overall bone volume was not predictable from the time, number, and size of initially formed bone-like clusters. Based on microstructural analysis, the morphometry of the tissue-engineered constructs was found to be in the range of human trabecular bone. In future studies, non-invasive, time-lapsed monitoring may enable researchers to culture tissues in vitro, right until the development of a desired morphology is accomplished. Our data demonstrate the feasibility of qualitatively and quantitatively detailing the spatial and temporal mineralization of bone-like tissue formation in tissue engineerin

Towards Interoperability in E-health Systems: a three-dimensional approach based on standards and semantics

Proceedings of: HEALTHINF 2009 (International Conference on Helath Informatics), Porto (Portugal), January 14-17, 2009, is part of BIOSTEC (Intemational Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies)The interoperability problem in eHealth can only be addressed by mean of combining standards and technology. However, these alone do not suffice. An appropiate framework that articulates such combination is required. In this paper, we adopt a three-dimensional (information, conference and inference) approach for such framework, based on OWL as formal language for terminological and ontological health resources, SNOMED CT as lexical backbone for all such resources, and the standard CEN 13606 for representing EHRs. Based on tha framewok, we propose a novel form for creating and supporting networks of clinical terminologies. Additionally, we propose a number of software modules to semantically process and exploit EHRs, including NLP-based search and inference, wich can support medical applications in heterogeneous and distributed eHealth systems.This work has been funded as part of the Spanish nationally funded projects ISSE (FIT-350300-2007-75) and CISEP (FIT-350301-2007-18). We also acknowledge IST-2005-027595 EU project NeO

Flattening the curve in 52 days: characterisation of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Principality of Liechtenstein - an observational study.

BACKGROUND The principality of Liechtenstein had its first COVID-19 case at the beginning of March 2020. After exponential growth, the pandemic&rsquo;s first wave was contained, with the last case being diagnosed 52 days after the initial occurrence. AIM To characterise the COVID-19 pandemic in Liechtenstein. METHODS All patients diagnosed in Liechtenstein were followed up until recovery and again 6&ndash;8 weeks after symptom onset. They were contacted every 2 days to record their clinical status until the resolution of their symptoms. The diagnosis of COVID-19 was based on clinical symptoms and molecular testing. Household and close workplace contacts were included in the follow-up, which also comprised antibody testing. In addition, public health measures installed during the pandemic in Liechtenstein are summarised. RESULTS During the first wave, 5% of the population obtained a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction test. A total of 95 patients (median age 39 years) were diagnosed with COVID-19 (82 who resided in Liechtenstein), resulting in an incidence in Liechtenstein of 0.211%. One patient, aged 94, died (mortality rate 1%). Only 62% of patients could retrospectively identify a potential source of infection. Testing the patients&rsquo; household and close workplace contacts (n = 170) with antibody tests revealed that 25% of those tested were additional COVID-19 cases, a quarter of whom were asymptomatic. Those households which adhered to strict isolation measures had a significantly lower rate of affected household members than those who didn&rsquo;t follow such measures. The national public health measures never restricted free movement of residents. Masks were only mandatory in healthcare settings. The use of home working for the general workforce was promoted. Gatherings were prohibited. Schools, universities, certain public spaces (like sports facilities and playgrounds), childcare facilities, nonessential shops, restaurants and bars were closed. Social distancing, hygienic measures, solidarity and supporting individuals who were at risk were the main pillars of the public health campaigns. CONCLUSION The close collaboration of all relevant stakeholders allowed for the complete workup of all COVID-19 patients nationwide. A multitude of factors (e.g., young age of the patients, low-threshold access to testing, close monitoring of cases, high alertness and adherence to public health measures by the population) led to the early containment of the first wave of the pandemic, with a very low rate of serious outcomes. Antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2 revealed a substantial proportion of undiagnosed COVID-19 cases among close contacts of the patients