Reviews

Judith Jeffcoate, Multimedia in Practice ‐Technology and Applications, BCS Practitioner Series, Prentice‐Hall International, 1995. ISBN: 0–13–123324–6. £24.95

Electronic vapor product use and suicidal behavior in adolescents

Objective: To determine whether an association exists between electronic vapor product use (EVP) and suicidal behavior in middle and high school students Methods: Multilevel logistic regression analysis for suicidal behaviors using data from the 2017 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Results: Middle school EVP users were significantly more likely to report suicidal behavior than non-users. No statistically significant association was found in high school students. Discussion: While further study is necessary to clarify the relationship between EVP use and suicidal behavior, these findings highlight the need for suicide prevention and smoking cessation efforts

Virtual consultations for patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea:systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of virtual care strategies for the management of patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea/Hypopnoea Syndrome. Research question: What is the effectiveness of virtual consultations compared to in-person consultations for the management of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure therapy in adult patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea/Hypopnoea Syndrome? Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis (PROSPERO; CRD42022297532) based on six electronic databases plus manually selected journals was conducted in January 2022. Two researchers independently selected, quality appraised, and extracted data. The co-primary outcomes were patient-reported sleepiness, assessed by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and reported cost-effectiveness. Findings: 12 studies (n=1823 adults) were included in the review. Seven studies (n=1089) were included in the meta-analysis which showed no difference in the magnitude of improvement in patient-reported sleepiness scores between virtual and in-person consultations (MD [95%CI], -0.39 [-1.38 to 0.60]; p=0.4), though Epworth Sleepiness Scale scores improved in both groups. Virtual care strategies modestly increased Continuous Positive Airway Pressure therapy adherence and were found to be less costly than in-person care strategies in the three Spanish trials that reported cost-effectiveness. Conclusion: The findings of this review suggest that virtual care delivered by telephone or video consultations is as effective as in-person consultations for improving subjective sleepiness in patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea/Hypopnoea Syndrome treated with Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. This clinical management strategy may also improve Continuous Positive Airway Pressure adherence without increasing the costs, supporting its potential as a follow-up management strategy, where patients prefer this approach

Me2B Alliance Validation Testing Report: Consumer Perception of Legal Policies in Digital Technology

Our relationship with technology involves legal agreements that we either review or enter into when using a technology, namely privacy policies and terms of service or terms of use (“TOS/TOU”). We initiated this research to understand if providing a formal rating of the legal policies (privacy policies and TOS/TOUs) would be valuable to consumers (or Me-s). From our early qualitative discussions, we noticed that people were unclear on whether these policies were legally binding contracts or not. Thus, a secondary objective emerged to quantitatively explore whether people knew who these policies protected (if anyone), and if the policies were perceived to be contracts with the provider of the digital technology (or “B”). The purpose of a privacy policy is notification and disclosure, not protection. Privacy policies are not designed to protect anyone, they’re designed to inform. The TOS/TOU, on the other hand, is an agreement relating to the use of the technology or service and is typically designed to protect the business. Do Me-s understand this? We conducted ethnographic interviews with six participants living in the United States, during a two-week period from February to March 2021. We followed these interviews with a focus group session of five participants in July 2021 and an online survey of 566 individuals in August 2021. In these studies, we asked participants and survey respondents who they think the privacy policy and TOS/TOU protect and whether they perceived these policies to be enforceable contracts. We hope that the findings in this research can help illuminate and eventually eliminate the pervasive asymmetry in Me2B relationships and be a concrete resource to lawyers supporting Me-s in legal cases relating to digital agreements

Identification of molecular markers of delayed graft function based on the regulation of biological ageing

Introduction: Delayed graft function is a prevalent clinical problem in renal transplantation for which there is no objective system to predict occurrence in advance. It can result in a significant increase in the necessity for hospitalisation post-transplant and is a significant risk factor for other post-transplant complications. Methodology: The importance of microRNAs (miRNAs), a specific subclass of small RNA, have been clearly demonstrated to influence many pathways in health and disease. To investigate the influence of miRNAs on renal allograft performance post-transplant, the expression of a panel of miRNAs in pre-transplant renal biopsies was measured using qPCR. Expression was then related to clinical parameters and outcomes in two independent renal transplant cohorts. Results: Here we demonstrate, in two independent cohorts of pre-implantation human renal allograft biopsies, that a novel pre-transplant renal performance scoring system (GRPSS), can determine the occurrence of DGF with a high sensitivity (>90%) and specificity (>60%) for donor allografts pre-transplant, using just three senescence associated microRNAs combined with donor age and type of organ donation. Conclusion: These results demonstrate a relationship between pre-transplant microRNA expression levels, cellular biological ageing pathways and clinical outcomes for renal transplantation. They provide for a simple, rapid quantitative molecular pre-transplant assay to determine post-transplant allograft function and scope for future intervention. Furthermore, these results demonstrate the involvement of senescence pathways in ischaemic injury during the organ transplantation process and an indication of accelerated bio-ageing as a consequence of both warm and cold ischaemia

The influence of riparian invasion by the terrestrial shrub Lonicera maackii on aquatic macroinvertebrates in temperate forest headwater streams

The ecology of headwater streams is tightly linked to the riparian zone through organic matter subsidies which are highly susceptible to alteration due to biological invasion. Lonicera maackii is a non-native shrub that is a highly successful invader of headwater stream riparian zones in the American Midwest. We assessed effects on benthic macroinvertebrates across a gradient of invasion intensity from references sites with minimal invasion to a site that had a very heavy invasion. Benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled throughout the year and compositional differences were assessed using Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling ordination, and by comparing the prevalence of sensitive (Ephemeroptera, Plectoptera, and Trichoptera: EPT) and tolerant (Chironomidae) macroinvertebrate taxa. We found strong evidence of variation among macroinvertebrate communities across the invasion gradient (ANOSIM R = 0.215, P = 0.004) and particularly strong separation between one of our reference sites with minimal invasion and the site with the heaviest invasion. Analysis of EPT taxa indicated a significant overall effect and pairwise comparisons indicated that the site with the heaviest invasion had the lowest percentage of sensitive taxa (P \u3c 0.05). Our analysis of chironomids did not yield a statistically discernable effect, although the pattern of the data suggest higher dominance in the site with the heaviest invasion. These stream-scale results bolster prior laboratory and field experiments and provide evidence that terrestrial invasion of L. maackiiimpacts the benthic community present in headwater streams. These results provide impetus to re-focus stream management recommendations to include practices that control invasive plants in riparian forests

Factors associated with Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence among dogs in the United States

Background Dogs in the United States are hosts to a diverse range of ticks and tick-borne pathogens, including A. phagocytophilum, an important emerging canine and human pathogen. Previously, a Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC)-sponsored workshop proposed factors purported to be associated with the infection risk for tick-transmitted pathogens in dogs in the United States, including climate conditions, socioeconomic characteristics, local topography, and vector distribution. Methods Approximately four million test results from routine veterinary diagnostic tests from 2011–2013, which were collected on a county level across the contiguous United States, are statistically analyzed with the proposed factors via logistic regression and generalized estimating equations. Spatial prevalence maps of baseline Anaplasma spp. prevalence are constructed from Kriging and head-banging smoothing methods. Results All of the examined factors, with the exception of surface water coverage, were significantly associated with Anaplasma spp. prevalence. Overall, Anaplasma spp. prevalence increases with increasing precipitation and forestation coverage and decreases with increasing temperature, population density, relative humidity, and elevation. Interestingly, socioeconomic status and deer/vehicle collisions were positively and negatively correlated with canine Anaplasma seroprevalence, respectively. A spatial map of the canine Anaplasma hazard is an auxiliary product of the analysis. Anaplasma spp. prevalence is highest in New England and the Upper Midwest. Conclusions The results from the two posited statistical models (one that contains an endemic areas assumption and one that does not) are in general agreement, with the major difference being that the endemic areas model estimates a larger prevalence in Western Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. As A. phagocytophilum is zoonotic, the results of this analysis could also help predict areas of high risk for human exposure to this pathogen