Tobacco use disorder and treatment: new challenges and opportunities

Tobacco use remains a global problem, and options for consumers have increased with the development and marketing of e-cigarettes and other new nicotine and tobacco products, such as heat-not-burn tobacco and dissolvable tobacco. The increased access to these new products is juxtaposed with expanding public health and clinical intervention options, including mobile technologies and social media. The persistent high rate of tobacco-use disorders among those with psychiatric disorders has gathered increased global attention, including successful approaches to individual treatment and organizational-level interventions. Best outcomes occur when medications are integrated with behavioral therapies and community-based interventions. Addressing tobacco in mental health settings requires training and technical assistance to remove old cultural barriers that restricted interventions. There is still low-hanging fruit to be gained in educating on the proper use of nicotine replacement medications, how smoking cessation can change blood levels of specific medications and caffeine, and how to connect with quitlines and mobile technology options. Future innovations are likely to be related to pharmacogenomics and new technologies that are human-, home-, and community-facing

Foraging Behavior of Anopheles Mosquitoes in Nchelenge District, Zambia

Approximately 3.2 billion people worldwide are at risk of contracting malaria. In 2013, there were 200 million cases and close to 600,000 deaths, most of which occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and affected mainly children, denoting the disease as a major public health problem. In Nchelenge District, Zambia, there is holoendemic transmission of Plasmodium falciparum, vectored by Anopheles funestus sensu stricto and An. gambiae s.s. mosquitoes. Since 2006, the Zambian government has provided LLINs, providing approximately one net per person, and has implemented IRS campaigns in Nchelenge. Despite the use of vector control, the prevalence of malaria has not reduced, making it necessary to define and characterize the Anopheles mosquitoes involved in transmission to better develop strategies for control. Therefore, the specific aims of this study were: 1) to identify and characterize the anopheline mosquitoes and their respective roles in P. falciparum transmission both temporally and spatially, 2) to determine the extent of underestimation of Anopheles foraging behavior by standard field methods across the three southern Africa ICEMR field sites, and 3) to investigate multiple blood feeding behavior and human gender preference of human fed mosquitoes, and P. falciparum complexity of infection (COI) in infected anophelines in Nchelenge District. CDC LT and PSC trap methods were performed over three consecutive wet and dry seasons in three villages lakeside and two villages streamside, revealing An. funestus and An. gambiae as the dominant vectors. Both vectors were also highly anthropophilic. Temporally, An. funestus is the primary vector year round, whereas An. gambiae is more abundant during the wet season compared to the dry season. Spatially, during the wet season, An. funestus is the predominant vector inland and along the stream, whereas An. gambiae is the predominant vector along Lake Mweru. Additionally, the abundances of both An. funestus and An. gambiae streamside are higher than lakeside. Throughout all three collections, An. funestus had the highest transmission intensity, indicating its important role in maintaining transmission year round. When investigating the foraging behavior of malaria vectors across the three southern Africa ICEMR sites, it was found that by not including visually “unfed” mosquitoes in host blood meal PCR assays, the overall proportion of fed vectors is underestimated by up to 18.7%, and that this can have potential effects on the human blood index (HBI), human biting rate (HBR), and entomological inoculation rate (EIR). Finally, Anopheles mosquito foraging behavior in Nchelenge was further defined through multiple blood feeding behavior, human gender preference, and COI studies. Both An. funestus and An. gambiae displayed multiple blood feeding rates of 23.2% and 25.7% respectively, rates that are among the highest recorded in sub-Saharan Africa and lead to an underestimation of the EIR. There was a trend towards both vectors feeding on human males more so than females. Furthermore, the P. falciparum COI in infected mosquitoes was 6.4, suggesting a high transmission setting and supports the inoculation of multiple clones in a single mosquito bite in Nchelenge District. The studies described in this dissertation have provided a foundation for future entomological studies on mosquito vectors in Nchelenge District, Zambia, as well as vector control evaluation and development of effective intervention programs

Meldonium: drug which brought disrepute to sport

World of sports have been rocked by doping scandals every now and then and World Anti-Doping Agency(WADA) has banned several offending drugs at different times to counter this menace. Meldonium is the recent addition to the long list of drugs banned by WADA to prevent its misuse among the athletes. Meldonium is a carnitine synthesis inhibitor and has been approved by some European countries for the management of cardiac diseases like angina pectoris and congestive cardiac failure. Apart from these, it has numerous other indications like bronchial asthma, bronchitis and retinopathies. It had also been used by athletes across the world because of its presumptive role in increasing the performance

Probing the hot circumgalactic medium of external galaxies in X-ray absorption II: a luminous spiral galaxy at z≈0.225z\approx 0.225

The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is the most massive baryonic component of a spiral galaxy, shock heated to about $10^6$K for an $\rm L^{\star}$ galaxy. The CGM of the Milky Way has been well-characterized through X-ray absorption line spectroscopy. However, the paucity of bright background sources makes it challenging to probe the CGM of external galaxies. Previously, using broad OVI absorption as a signpost, we successfully detected the CGM of one galaxy in X-rays. Here we report on the detection of the OVII $K\alpha$ absorption line at the redshift of a spiral galaxy at $z\approx0.225$ using 1.2 Ms of Chandra observations. This is a robust detection, clearly showing the presence of the hot gas. The mass in the hot phase is at least an order of magnitude larger than that in the cooler phases detected in the UV. The presence of hot gas $116h^{-1}$kpc from the center of this galaxy provides credence to the existence of the extended CGM of the Milky Way. There has been a report of the detection of OVII absorption from the warm-hot intergalactic medium in this sightline using stacking analysis on an older dataset. We argue that the absorption line is from the CGM of the $z\approx0.225$ galaxy instead.Comment: To be published in MNRAS Letter

The Indebtedness of Rural Labour in India

This study examines the issue of debt distress of rural labour households (agricultural and non-agricultural labour), in all the major Indian states, using data from the 61st round, pertaining to 2004-05, of the National Sample Survey (NSS). We conduct this study at various levels and using different methodological approaches. First, using a definition of “debt distress”, set out in detail in the following section, we calculate the value of debt distress for every rural labour household (RLH) in the NSS. Then we aggregate these households to rank states, districts, and social groups according to the degree of their distress. Second, using the tools of inequality analysis, we compute the degree of inequality in the distribution of distress among indebted RLH and ask how much of this inequality can be explained by the fact households (a) live in different states and (b) belong to different social groups? Third, using the tools of regression analysis, we examine the strength of the factors impinging on whether a household is a debtor household and, if it is, the strength of the factors determining whether it obtained loans from institutional sources or from money lenders and whether it took a loan for “productive” or “non-productive” purposes