Incidence of symptomatic toxoplasma eye disease: aetiology and public health implications.

Ocular disease is the commonest disabling consequence of toxoplasma infection. Incidence and lifetime risk of ocular symptoms were determined by ascertaining affected patients in a population-based, active reporting study involving ophthalmologists serving a population of 7.4 million. Eighty-seven symptomatic episodes were attributed to toxoplasma infection. Bilateral visual acuity of 6/12 or less was found in seven episodes (8%) and was likely to have been transient in most cases. Black people born in West Africa had a 100-fold higher incidence of symptoms than white people born in Britain. Only two patients reported symptoms before 10 years of age. The estimated lifetime risk of symptoms in British born individuals (52% of all episodes) was 18/100000 (95% confidence interval: 10.8-25.2). The low risk and mild symptoms in an unscreened British population indicate limited potential benefits of prenatal or postnatal screening. The late age at presentation suggests a mixed aetiology of postnatally acquired and congenital infection for which primary prevention may be appropriate, particularly among West Africans

Adherence of pseudomonas aeruginosa and staphylococcus aureus to hydrocurve II soft contact lenses

There are over 13 million people in the U.S. who wear soft contact lenses (SCL) for refractive correction. Patients who wear SCL are at increased risk for bacterial keratitis. Most bacterial infections of the cornea in these patients are caused by Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus. One of the reasons that these organisms may infect the cornea is their ability to adhere to SCL. Therefore, we investigated bacterial adherence of Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus to soft contact lenses using the agar sandwich technique. Unused hydrocurve II lenses were soaked in a saline solution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Staphylococcus aureus. The lenses were then put on nutrient agar and covered with a thin layer of liquid nutrient agar. After incubation, the number of colony forming units (cfu) on the SCL were counted and used to determine the percent of bacterial adherence. Both organisms adhered to the soft lenses with no significant difference between their mean percent adherence

Rearticulating the Concept of Experience, Rethinking the Demands of Deconstruction

A principle aim of this paper is to convince friends and critics of deconstruction that they have overlooked two crucial aspects of Derrida's work, namely, his rearticulation of the concept of experience and his account of the experience of undecidability as an ordeal. This is important because sensitivity to Derrida's emphasis on the ordeal of undecidability and his rearticulation of the concept of experience-a rearticulation that is already under way in his early engagement with Husserl and continued in later work-necessitates a rethinking of what the `experience of undecidability' entails. Rather than signaling a withdrawal from politics or a normatively impotent ethics of `mere openness to the other,' Derrida's account of the experience of undecidability not only points to a fundamental aspect of our basic ethical experience but also leads to a number of ethico-political demands, which I summarize as the demand to maintain an ethos of interruption

Association Between a Directly Translated Cognitive Measure of Negative Bias and Self-reported Psychiatric Symptoms

BACKGROUND: Negative interpretation biases are thought to be core symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders. However, prior work using cognitive tasks to measure such biases is largely restricted to case-control group studies, which cannot be used for inference about individuals without considerable additional validation. Moreover, very few measures are fully translational (i.e., can be used across animals and humans in treatment-development pipelines). This investigation aimed to produce the first measure of negative cognitive biases that is both translational and sensitive to individual differences, and then to determine which specific self-reported psychiatric symptoms are related to bias. METHODS: A total of 1060 (n = 990 complete) participants performed a cognitive task of negative bias along with psychiatric symptom questionnaires. We tested the hypothesis that individual levels of mood and anxiety disorder symptomatology would covary positively with negative bias on the cognitive task using a combination of computational modeling of behavior, confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. RESULTS: Participants with higher depression symptoms (β = −.16, p = .017) who were older (β = −.11, p = .001) and had lower IQ (β = .14, p < .001) showed greater negative bias. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling suggested that no other psychiatric symptom (or transdiagnostic latent factor) covaried with task performance over and above the effect of depression, while exploratory factor analysis suggested combining depression/anxiety symptoms in a single latent factor. Generating groups using symptom cutoffs or latent mixture modeling recapitulated our prior case-control findings. CONCLUSIONS: This measure, which uniquely spans both the clinical group-to-individual and preclinical animal-to-human generalizability gaps, can be used to measure individual differences in depression vulnerability for translational treatment-development pipelines

Flexural vibrations of conical shells with free edges

Resonant frequencies and mode shapes of truncated conical shells with free edges in transverse vibratio

Expanding the role of participatory mapping to assess ecosystem service provision in local coastal environments

There has been increasing international effort to better understand the diversity and quality of marine natural capital, ecosystem services and their associated societal benefits. However, there is an evidence gap as to how these benefits are identified at the local scale, where benefits are provided and to whom, trade-offs in development decisions, and understanding how benefits support well-being. Often the benefits of conservation are poorly understood at the local scale, are not effectively integrated into policy and are rarely included meaningfully in public discourse. This paper addresses this disjuncture and responds to the demand for improving dialogue with local communities and stakeholders. Participatory GIS mapping is used as a direct means of co-producing knowledge with stakeholder and community interests. This paper drives a shift from development of participatory approaches to adaptive applications in real-world case studies of local, national and international policy relevance. The results from four sites along the UK North Sea coast are presented. This paper showcases a robust stakeholder-driven approach that can be used to inform marine planning, conservation management and coastal development. Although the demonstration sites are UK-focused, the methodology presented is of global significance and can be applied across spatial and temporal scales

Pengaruh Perceived Service Quality Terhadap Unibrand Performance Melalui Satisfaction Pada Universitas Swasta

This study refers to an earlier study that has been done by Sultan &amp; Wong (2014). The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of Perceived Service Quality on the UniBrand Performance through Satisfaction in Private Universities. The design of this research is hypothesis testing using primary data obtained by distributing questionnaires directly to the 200 respondents who were active students of Private Universities in Jakarta. The analytical method used is Structure Equation Model (SEM). The result of this research conclude that there is a significant and positive relation between Perceived Service Quality and Satisfaction. There is a significant and positive relation between Satisfaction and UniBrand Performance. There is a significant and positive relation between Perceived Service Quality and UniBrand Performance

Transcriptomic Profiling in Childhood H1N1/09 Influenza Reveals Reduced Expression of Protein Synthesis Genes

We compared the blood RNA transcriptome of children hospitalized with influenza A H1N1/09, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or bacterial infection, and healthy controls. Compared to controls, H1N1/09 patients showed increased expression of inflammatory pathway genes and reduced expression of adaptive immune pathway genes. This was validated on an independent cohort. The most significant function distinguishing H1N1/09 patients from controls was protein synthesis, with reduced gene expression. Reduced expression of protein synthesis genes also characterized the H1N1/09 expression profile compared to children with RSV and bacterial infection, suggesting that this is a key component of the pathophysiological response in children hospitalized with H1N1/09 infection