Understanding reactions to results of a self-sampling HPV test among White and Black women infrequently screened for cervical cancer in North Carolina

Background: Over 4,000 women die from cervical cancer every year in the United States. Over half are due to lack of routine screening, which disproportionally affects racial/ethnic minority women. Home-based HPV self-testing may increase screening among hard to reach women. Little is known regarding women's reactions to receiving HPV self-test results on the phone, an important consideration in determining the feasibility of self-testing. This study's objective is to determine women's reactions to their HPV self-test results, and the delivery method, stratified by race/ethnicity. Methods: Under-screened, low-income North Carolina women from 10 counties were recruited. A total of 202 women (78 White; 124 Black) collected and returned their self-test sample, and completed an acceptability questionnaire. Analyses examined reactions based on HPV self-test results at baseline and follow-up, and predictors of feeling afraid of what the HPV self-tests would say about their health. Results: White women reported being more worried about getting cervical cancer compared to Black women. Women who received positive HPV self-test results self-reported being more likely to feel embarrassed, worried, depressed, and liking help understanding their results, than those HPV self-test negative. Women underestimated the need for help with interpreting their results. Women were more likely to report being afraid of what the self-test results would say about their health if they had lower educational attainment; were divorced, widowed, and separated; and self-reported history of genital warts. Conclusions: These findings can inform cervical cancer messaging and education that emphasizes underserved populations' understanding of their heightened risk and the importance of screening.Master of Public Healt

Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in Agriculture: Enforcing Policy Rules for Secure and Confidential Data Synthesis

Big Data empowers the farming community with the information needed to optimize resource usage, increase productivity, and enhance the sustainability of agricultural practices. The use of Big Data in farming requires the collection and analysis of data from various sources such as sensors, satellites, and farmer surveys. While Big Data can provide the farming community with valuable insights and improve efficiency, there is significant concern regarding the security of this data as well as the privacy of the participants. Privacy regulations, such as the EU GDPR, the EU Code of Conduct on agricultural data sharing by contractual agreement, and the proposed EU AI law, have been created to address the issue of data privacy and provide specific guidelines on when and how data can be shared between organizations. To make confidential agricultural data widely available for Big Data analysis without violating the privacy of the data subjects, we consider privacy-preserving methods of data sharing in agriculture. Deep learning-based synthetic data generation has been proposed for privacy-preserving data sharing. However, there is a lack of compliance with documented data privacy policies in such privacy-preserving efforts. In this study, we propose a novel framework for enforcing privacy policy rules in privacy-preserving data generation algorithms. We explore several available agricultural codes of conduct, extract knowledge related to the privacy constraints in data, and use the extracted knowledge to define privacy bounds in a privacy-preserving generative model. We use our framework to generate synthetic agricultural data and present experimental results that demonstrate the utility of the synthetic dataset in downstream tasks. We also show that our framework can evade potential threats and secure data based on applicable regulatory policy rules

Immunity elicitors for induced resistance against the downy mildew pathogen in pearl millet

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) is a globally important cereal whose production is severely constrained by downy mildew caused by Sclerospora graminicola (Sacc.). In this study, immunity eliciting properties of 3,5-dichloroanthranilic acid (DCA), Cell Wall Glucan (CWG), Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and Glycinebetaine (GB) was deciphered through enzymatic and protein studies based on elicitor treatment activated defense mechanisms. Glycinebetaine, LPS, CWS and DCA elicited enzyme activities and gene expression of the defense enzymes, such as β-1,3-glucanase, phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), peroxidase (POX), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), lipoxygenase (LOX) and defense protein hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins (HRGPs). However, the speed and the extent of elicitation differed. High levels of enzyme activities and gene expression in elicitor-treated P. glaucum positively correlated with the increased downy mildew resistance. A very rapid and large changes in elicitor-treated seedlings, in contrast to the delayed, smaller changes in the untreated susceptible control seedlings suggests that the rate and magnitude of defense gene expression are important for effective manifestation of defense against pathogen. As compared to other elicitors and control, GB promoted increase in enzyme activities and gene expression, implicating that GB is a promising elicitor of downy mildew resistance in P. glaucum

Prevalence of Cataract Surgery and Visual Outcomes in Indian Immigrants in Singapore: The Singapore Indian Eye Study

10.1371/journal.pone.0075584PLoS ONE810-POLN

Adipose tissue hyaluronan production improves systemic glucose homeostasis and primes adipocytes for CL 316,243-stimulated lipolysis

Plasma hyaluronan (HA) increases systemically in type 2 diabetes (T2D) and the HA synthesis inhibitor, 4-Methylumbelliferone, has been proposed to treat the disease. However, HA is also implicated in normal physiology. Therefore, we generated a Hyaluronan Synthase 2 transgenic mouse line, driven by a tet-response element promoter to understand the role of HA in systemic metabolism. To our surprise, adipocyte-specific overproduction of HA leads to smaller adipocytes and protects mice from high-fat-high-sucrose-diet-induced obesity and glucose intolerance. Adipocytes also have more free glycerol that can be released upon beta3 adrenergic stimulation. Improvements in glucose tolerance were not linked to increased plasma HA. Instead, an HA-driven systemic substrate redistribution and adipose tissue-liver crosstalk contributes to the systemic glucose improvements. In summary, we demonstrate an unexpected improvement in glucose metabolism as a consequence of HA overproduction in adipose tissue, which argues against the use of systemic HA synthesis inhibitors to treat obesity and T2D

Cardio-metabolic risk factors and prehypertension in persons without diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease

10.1186/1471-2458-13-730BMC Public Health131

Tissue-specific signatures in the transcriptional response to Anaplasma phagocytophilum infection of Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes ricinus tick cell lines

Anaplasma phagocytophilum are transmitted by Ixodes spp. ticks and have become one of the most common and relevant tick-borne pathogens due to their impact on human and animal health. Recent results have increased our understanding of the molecular interactions between Ixodes scapularis and A. phagocytophilum through the demonstration of tissue-specific molecular pathways that ensure pathogen infection, development and transmission by ticks. However, little is known about the Ixodes ricinus genes and proteins involved in the response to A. phagocytophilum infection. The tick species I. scapularis and I. ricinus are evolutionarily closely related and therefore similar responses are expected in A. phagocytophilum-infected cells. However, differences may exist between I. scapularis ISE6 and I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 tick cells associated with tissue-specific signatures of these cell lines. To address this hypothesis, the transcriptional response to A. phagocytophilum infection was characterized by RNA sequencing and compared between I. scapularis ISE6 and I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 tick cell lines. The transcriptional response to infection of I. scapularis ISE6 cells resembled that of tick hemocytes while the response in I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 cells was more closely related to that reported previously in infected tick midguts. The inhibition of cell apoptosis by A. phagocytophilum appears to be a key adaptation mechanism to facilitate infection of both vertebrate and tick cells and was used to investigate further the tissue-specific response of tick cell lines to pathogen infection. The results supported a role for the intrinsic pathway in the inhibition of cell apoptosis by A. phagocytophilum infection of I. scapularis ISE6 cells. In contrast, the results in I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 cells were similar to those obtained in tick midguts and suggested a role for the JAK/STAT pathway in the inhibition of apoptosis in tick cells infected with A. phagocytophilum. Nevertheless, tick cell lines were derived from embryonated eggs and may contain various cell populations with different morphology and behavior that could affect transcriptional response to infection. These results suggested tissue-specific signatures in I. scapularis ISE6 and I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 tick cell line response to A. phagocytophilum infection that support their use as models for the study of tick-pathogen interactions.Peer reviewedVeterinary Pathobiolog

Cytokine and Protein Markers of Leprosy Reactions in Skin and Nerves: Baseline Results for the North Indian INFIR Cohort

Leprosy affects skin and peripheral nerves. Although we have effective antibiotics to treat the mycobacterial infection, a key part of the disease process is the accompanying inflammation. This can worsen after starting antibacterial treatment with episodes of immune mediated inflammation, so called ‘reactions’. These reactions are associated with worsening of the nerve damage. We recruited a cohort of 303 newly diagnosed leprosy patients in North India with the aim of understanding and defining the pathological processes better. We took skin and nerve biopsies from patients and examined them to define which molecules and mediators of inflammation were present. We found high levels of the cytokines Tumour Necrosis Factor alpha, Transforming Growth Factor beta and inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase in biopsies from patients with reactions. We also found high levels of bacteria and inflammation in the nerves. These experiments tell us that we need to determine which other molecules are present and to explore ways of switching off the production of these pro-inflammatory molecules