157 research outputs found
Postharvest handling practices and the development of histamine in giant Trevally (Aranxignobilis) fish: the case of Fiji
This study aimed at assessing the common post-harvest handling practices of artisanal fishers in Fiji and its impact in the development of histamine in fish. The study involved in-depth interviews of postharvest handling practices, and its relationships in the development of histamine in Giant Trevally (Aranxignobilis) fish that were further exposed to three different temperatures; 00C, combination of 00C and 280C, and 280C. Results revealed that spear-gun fishers do not ice fish and rarely gut fish during their fishing trips, however only iced by either middlemen or vendors when fish are at the landing sites and are stored in old freezers. Fish are usually displayed un-gutted without ice on well drained tiled stalls and are recycled for display every two hours. Any unsold fish are returned into the old freezer for sale the next day. Histamine determination revealed that after 35 hours postharvest including further storage at 00C, and at combination temperatures of 50C and 280C (recycled every two hours) had histamine levels below the Food Drug Administration (FDA) permitted levels (50ppm). However fish stored at 280C showed histamine concentrations increased to 192.20 ppm at 15 hours post-harvest. The study demonstrates the importance of time and temperature control at postharvest handling of fish in tropical countries
Two Phase 3 Trials of Dupilumab versus Placebo in Atopic Dermatitis.
BACKGROUND
Dupilumab, a human monoclonal antibody against interleukin-4 receptor alpha, inhibits
signaling of interleukin-4 and interleukin-13, type 2 cytokines that may be important
drivers of atopic or allergic diseases such as atopic dermatitis.
METHODS
In two randomized, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trials of identical design (SOLO 1
and SOLO 2), we enrolled adults with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis whose
disease was inadequately controlled by topical treatment. Patients were randomly
assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to receive, for 16 weeks, subcutaneous dupilumab (300 mg)
or placebo weekly or the same dose of dupilumab every other week alternating
with placebo. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who had both
a score of 0 or 1 (clear or almost clear) on the Investigator’s Global Assessment
and a reduction of 2 points or more in that score from baseline at week 16.
RESULTS
We enrolled 671 patients in SOLO 1 and 708 in SOLO 2. In SOLO 1, the primary
outcome occurred in 85 patients (38%) who received dupilumab every other week and
in 83 (37%) who received dupilumab weekly, as compared with 23 (10%) who received
placebo (P<0.001 for both comparisons with placebo). The results were similar in
SOLO 2, with the primary outcome occurring in 84 patients (36%) who received dupilumab
every other week and in 87 (36%) who received dupilumab weekly, as compared
with 20 (8%) who received placebo (P<0.001 for both comparisons). In addition,
in the two trials, an improvement from baseline to week 16 of at least 75% on the
Eczema Area and Severity Index was reported in significantly more patients who received
each regimen of dupilumab than in patients who received placebo (P<0.001 for
all comparisons). Dupilumab was also associated with improvement in other clinical
end points, including reduction in pruritus and symptoms of anxiety or depression
and improvement in quality of life. Injection-site reactions and conjunctivitis were
more frequent in the dupilumab groups than in the placebo groups.
CONCLUSIONS
In two phase 3 trials of identical design involving patients with atopic dermatitis,
dupilumab improved the signs and symptoms of atopic dermatitis, including
pruritus, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and quality of life, as compared
with placebo. Trials of longer duration are needed to assess the long-term effectiveness
and safety of dupilumab. (Funded by Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals;
SOLO 1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02277743; SOLO 2 ClinicalTrials
.gov number, NCT02277769.
Medium and long-term adherence to postabortion contraception among women having experienced unsafe abortion in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Postabortion contraceptive service is considered an effective means in addressing the problem of unsafe abortion; in spite this fact this component remains one of the weakest parts of postabortion care. In this context, the paper aims to describe the impact of a postabortion contraceptive service intervention among women admitted with complications from unsafe abortions and to explore the women's long-term contraceptive adherence.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>392 women having experienced unsafe abortion were identified by an empathetic approach and offered postabortion contraceptive service, which included counselling on HIV and condom use. Questionnaire interviews about contraceptive use were conducted at the time of inclusion and 12 months after the abortion. Additionally, in-depth interviews were performed 6–12 months after the abortion.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eighty-nine percent of the women accepted postabortion contraception. Follow-up information was obtained 12 months after the abortion among 59 percent of the women. Among these, 79 percent of the married women and 84 percent of the single women stated they were using contraception at 12 months. Condom use among the single women increased significantly during the 12 months follow up.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Postabortion contraceptive services appear to be well accepted by women who are admitted with complications after an unsafe abortion and should thus be recognized as an important means in addressing the problem of unsafe abortion. In addition, counselling about HIV and condom use should be considered an essential aspect of postabortion care.</p
Prominent Human Health Impacts from Several Marine Microbes: History, Ecology, and Public Health Implications
This paper overviews several examples of important public health impacts by marine microbes and directs readers to the extensive literature germane to these maladies. These examples include three types of dinoflagellates (Gambierdiscus spp., Karenia brevis, and Alexandrium fundyense), BMAA-producing cyanobacteria, and infectious microbes. The dinoflagellates are responsible for ciguatera fish poisoning, neurotoxic shellfish poisoning, and paralytic shellfish poisoning, respectively, that have plagued coastal populations over time. Research interest on the potential for marine cyanobacteria to contribute BMAA into human food supplies has been derived by BMAA's discovery in cycad seeds and subsequent implication as the putative cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/parkinsonism dementia complex among the Chamorro people of Guam. Recent UPLC/MS analyses indicate that recent reports that BMAA is prolifically distributed among marine cyanobacteria at high concentrations may be due to analyte misidentification in the analytical protocols being applied for BMAA. Common infectious microbes (including enterovirus, norovirus, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus, Cryptosporidium, and Giardia) cause gastrointestinal and skin-related illness. These microbes can be introduced from external human and animal sources, or they can be indigenous to the marine environment
Low Complexity Regularization of Linear Inverse Problems
Inverse problems and regularization theory is a central theme in contemporary
signal processing, where the goal is to reconstruct an unknown signal from
partial indirect, and possibly noisy, measurements of it. A now standard method
for recovering the unknown signal is to solve a convex optimization problem
that enforces some prior knowledge about its structure. This has proved
efficient in many problems routinely encountered in imaging sciences,
statistics and machine learning. This chapter delivers a review of recent
advances in the field where the regularization prior promotes solutions
conforming to some notion of simplicity/low-complexity. These priors encompass
as popular examples sparsity and group sparsity (to capture the compressibility
of natural signals and images), total variation and analysis sparsity (to
promote piecewise regularity), and low-rank (as natural extension of sparsity
to matrix-valued data). Our aim is to provide a unified treatment of all these
regularizations under a single umbrella, namely the theory of partial
smoothness. This framework is very general and accommodates all low-complexity
regularizers just mentioned, as well as many others. Partial smoothness turns
out to be the canonical way to encode low-dimensional models that can be linear
spaces or more general smooth manifolds. This review is intended to serve as a
one stop shop toward the understanding of the theoretical properties of the
so-regularized solutions. It covers a large spectrum including: (i) recovery
guarantees and stability to noise, both in terms of -stability and
model (manifold) identification; (ii) sensitivity analysis to perturbations of
the parameters involved (in particular the observations), with applications to
unbiased risk estimation ; (iii) convergence properties of the forward-backward
proximal splitting scheme, that is particularly well suited to solve the
corresponding large-scale regularized optimization problem
When Two Become One: The Limits of Causality Analysis of Brain Dynamics
Biological systems often consist of multiple interacting subsystems, the brain being a prominent example. To understand the functions of such systems it is important to analyze if and how the subsystems interact and to describe the effect of these interactions. In this work we investigate the extent to which the cause-and-effect framework is applicable to such interacting subsystems. We base our work on a standard notion of causal effects and define a new concept called natural causal effect. This new concept takes into account that when studying interactions in biological systems, one is often not interested in the effect of perturbations that alter the dynamics. The interest is instead in how the causal connections participate in the generation of the observed natural dynamics. We identify the constraints on the structure of the causal connections that determine the existence of natural causal effects. In particular, we show that the influence of the causal connections on the natural dynamics of the system often cannot be analyzed in terms of the causal effect of one subsystem on another. Only when the causing subsystem is autonomous with respect to the rest can this interpretation be made. We note that subsystems in the brain are often bidirectionally connected, which means that interactions rarely should be quantified in terms of cause-and-effect. We furthermore introduce a framework for how natural causal effects can be characterized when they exist. Our work also has important consequences for the interpretation of other approaches commonly applied to study causality in the brain. Specifically, we discuss how the notion of natural causal effects can be combined with Granger causality and Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM). Our results are generic and the concept of natural causal effects is relevant in all areas where the effects of interactions between subsystems are of interest
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