Category: Nevin Manimala

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2021 Apr 16;15(4):e0008813. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008813. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The control of arboviruses carried by Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse) can be performed with tools that monitor and reduce the circulation of these vectors. Therefore, the efficiency of four types of traps in capturing A. aegypti and A. albopictus eggs and adults, with the biological product Vectobac WG, was evaluated in the field. For this, 20 traps were installed in two locations, which were in the South (Londrina, Paraná) and North (Manaus, Amazonas) Regions of Brazil, from March to April 2017 and January to February 2018, respectively. The UELtrap-E (standard trap) and UELtrap-EA traps captured A. aegypti and A. albopictus eggs: 1703/1866 eggs in Londrina, and 10268/2149 eggs in Manaus, respectively, and presented high ovitraps positivity index (OPI) values (averages: 100%/100% in Londrina, and 100%/96% in Manaus, respectively); and high egg density index (EDI) values (averages: 68/75 in Londrina, and 411/89 in Manaus, respectively), so they had statistically superior efficiency to that of the CRtrap-E and CRtrap-EA traps in both regions, that captured less eggs and adults: 96/69 eggs in Londrina, and 1091/510 eggs in Manaus, respectively. Also presented lower OPI values (averages: 28%/4% in Londrina, and 88%/60% in Manaus, respectively); and lower EDI values (averages: 10.5/9 in Londrina, and 47/30 in Manaus, respectively). The capture ratios of Aedes adults in the UELtrap-EA and CRtrap-EA traps in Londrina and Manaus were 53.3%/29.5% and 0%/9.8%, respectively. UELtrap-EA can be adopted as efficient tool for Aedes monitoring due to their high sensitivity, low cost and ease of use.

PMID:33861744 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pntd.0008813

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 16;16(4):e0248821. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248821. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 is the novel coronavirus responsible for the ongoing global outbreak of acute respiratory disease and viral pneumonia. In order to tackle the devastating condition of the virus, countries need to attack the virus with aggressive and targeted tactics. Thus, to strengthen the COVID-19 mitigation measures and to give rapid response, there is an urgent need to understand the public’s knowledge and attitude about of the pandemic at this critical moment.

OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude of communities about COVID-19 and associated factors among Gondar City residents.

METHODS: A community based cross-sectional study was done among 623 respondents in Gondar city from April 20-27/2020. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire adapted from different literatures. The data were entered using Epi data version 3.1 and then exported into STATA version 14 for analysis. Bi-variable and multivariable binary logistic regression were performed. Adjusted odds ratio with 95% CI was used to declare statistically significant variables on the basis of p value less than 0.05 in the multivariable binary logistic regression model.

RESULTS: The overall knowledge and attitude of the community towards COVID19 was 51.85% [95% CI (47.91%-55.78%)] and 53.13% [95% CI (49.20, 57.06%)], respectively. In this study, being married [AOR = 0.60 at 95% CI: (0.42, 0.86)], educational level; primary [AOR = 3.14 at 95% CI: (1.78,5.54)], secondary [AOR = 2.81 at 95% CI: (1.70,4.63)], college and above [AOR = 4.49 at 95% CI: 7.92, 13.98)], and family size [AOR = 1.80, at 95% CI: (1.05, 3.08)] were emerged as statistically significant factors impacting the knowledge of the community about COVID-19. Besides, educational level; primary [AOR = 1.76 at 95% CI: (1.03, 3.01)], secondary [AOR = 1.69 at 95% CI: (1.07, 2.68)], and college & above [AOR = 2.38 at 95% CI: (1.50, 3.79)], and family size; four to six members [AOR = 1.84 at 95% CI (1.27, 2.67)], above seven members [AOR = 1.79 at 95% CI (1.08, 2.96)] were factors identified as significantly attribute for positive attitude of the communities towards COVID-19.

CONCLUSION: More than half of the respondents had better knowledge and attitude regarding COVID-19. Higher educational level and larger family size were significant factors predominantly affecting the knowledge and attitude of the communities towards COVID-19.

PMID:33861758 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0248821

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 16;16(4):e0249811. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249811. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

In Appalachia, La Crosse virus (LACV) is a leading pediatric arbovirus and public health concern for children under 16 years. LACV is transmitted via the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito. Thus, it is imperative to understand the dynamics of the local vector population in order to assess risk and transmission. Using entomological data collected from Knox County, Tennessee in 2013, we formulate an environmentally-driven system of ordinary differential equations to model mosquito population dynamics over a single season. Further, we include infected compartments to represent LACV transmission within the mosquito population. Findings suggest that the model, with dependence on degree days and accumulated precipitation, can closely describe field data. This model confirms the need to include these environmental variables when planning control strategies.

PMID:33861763 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0249811

PLoS Comput Biol. 2021 Apr 16;17(4):e1008580. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008580. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

An important question in neuroscience is whether or not we can interpret spontaneous variations in the pattern of correlation between brain areas, which we refer to as functional connectivity or FC, as an index of dynamic neuronal communication in fMRI. That is, can we measure time-varying FC reliably? And, if so, can FC reflect information transfer between brain regions at relatively fast-time scales? Answering these questions in practice requires dealing with the statistical challenge of having high-dimensional data and a comparatively lower number of time points or volumes. A common strategy is to use PCA to reduce the dimensionality of the data, and then apply some model, such as the hidden Markov model (HMM) or a mixture model of Gaussian distributions, to find a set of distinct FC patterns or states. The distinct spatial properties of these FC states together with the time-resolved switching between them offer a flexible description of time-varying FC. In this work, I show that in this context PCA can suffer from systematic biases and loss of sensitivity for the purposes of finding time-varying FC. To get around these issues, I propose a novel variety of the HMM, named HMM-PCA, where the states are themselves PCA decompositions. Since PCA is based on the data covariance, the state-specific PCA decompositions reflect distinct patterns of FC. I show, theoretically and empirically, that fusing dimensionality reduction and time-varying FC estimation in one single step can avoid these problems and outperform alternative approaches, facilitating the quantification of transient communication in the brain.

PMID:33861733 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008580

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2021 Apr 16;15(4):e0009298. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0009298. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Snakebite envenoming is a medical emergency which is common in many tropical lower- and middle-income countries. Traditional healers are frequently consulted as primary care-givers for snakebite victims in distress. Traditional healers therefore present a valuable source of information about how snakebite is perceived and handled at the community level, an understanding of which is critical to improve and extend snakebite-related healthcare.

METHOD: The study was approached from the interpretive paradigm with phenomenology as a methodology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 traditional healers who treat snakebite patients in two rural settings in Ghana. From the Ashanti and Upper West regions respectively, 11 and 8 healers were purposively sampled. Interview data was coded, collated and analysed thematically using ATLAS.ti 8 software. Demographic statistics were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26.

FINDINGS: Snakebite was reportedly a frequent occurrence, perceived as dangerous and often deadly by healers. Healers felt optimistic in establishing a diagnosis of snakebite using a multitude of methods, ranging from herbal applications to spiritual consultations. They were equally confident about their therapies; encompassing the administration of plant and animal-based concoctions and manipulations of bite wounds. Traditional healers were consulted for both physical and spiritual manifestations of snakebite or after insufficient pain control and lack of antivenom at hospitals; referrals by healers to hospitals were primarily done to receive antivenom and care for wound complications. Most healers welcomed opportunities to engage more productively with hospitals and clinical staff.

CONCLUSIONS: The fact that traditional healers did sometimes refer victims to hospitals indicates that improvement of antivenom stocks, pain management and wound care can potentially improve health seeking at hospitals. Our results emphasize the need to explore future avenues for communication and collaboration with traditional healers to improve health seeking behaviour and the delivery of much-needed healthcare to snakebite victims.

PMID:33861735 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pntd.0009298

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 16;16(4):e0246118. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246118. eCollection 2021.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is amongst the most important factors complicating solid organ transplantation. In a large prospective randomized clinical trial, valganciclovir prophylaxis reduced the occurrence of CMV infection and disease compared with preemptive therapy in CMV-positive renal allograft recipients (VIPP study; NCT00372229). Here, we present a subanalysis of the VIPP study, investigating single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in immune-response-related genes and their association with active CMV infection, CMV disease, graft loss or death, rejection, infections, and leukopenia.

METHODS: Based on literature research ten SNPs were analyzed for TLR4, three for IFN-γ, six for IL10, nine for IL37, and two for TNF-α. An asymptotic independence test (Cochran-Armitage trend test) was used to examine associations between SNPs and the occurrence of CMV infection or other negative outcomes. Statistical significance was defined as p<0.05 and Bonferroni correction for multiple testing was performed.

RESULTS: SNPs were analyzed on 116 blood samples. No associations were found between the analyzed SNPs and the occurrence of CMV infection, rejection and leukopenia in all patients. For IL37 rs2723186, an association with CMV disease (p = 0.0499), for IL10 rs1800872, with graft loss or death (p = 0.0207) and for IL10 rs3024496, with infections (p = 0.0258) was observed in all patients, however did not hold true after correction for multiple testing.

CONCLUSION: The study did not reveal significant associations between the analyzed SNPs and the occurrence of negative outcomes in CMV-positive renal transplant recipients after correction for multiple testing. The results of this association analysis may be of use in guiding future research efforts.

PMID:33861738 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0246118

Expert Rev Vaccines. 2021 Apr 16. doi: 10.1080/14760584.2021.1919091. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To study the neutralizing capacity of Sabin strain-inactivated poliovirus vaccine (sIPV) immune serum against different strains of poliovirus.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A neutralization assay against ten individual virus strains was performed on serum collected from 250 infant participants, who randomly received three doses of investigational sIPV with high, medium, and low antigen content, conventional inactivated poliovirus vaccine (cIPV), and control sIPV, at 0, 1, and 2 months. This study was conducted between July 20, 2019, and January 10, 2020, and the study location was Pizhou city, Jiangsu province, China.

RESULTS: Immune serum interacted with the 10 poliovirus strains in a dose-dependent manner. The seroconversion rates against all the tested poliovirus strains induced by the medium dose investigational sIPV, control cIPV, and control sIPV ranged from 91.3% to 100% (GMT 47.8-1303.2), 85.7% to 100% (GMT 95.2-514.0), and 82.6% to 100% (GMT 50.3-1481.2), respectively.

CONCLUSION: The investigational sIPV can induce good immunogenicity against the Sabin and Salk poliovirus strains, as well as the recently circulating poliovirus strains.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: : The trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (CT.gov identifier: NCT04618783).

PMID:33861679 | DOI:10.1080/14760584.2021.1919091

IEEE Trans Image Process. 2021 Apr 16;PP. doi: 10.1109/TIP.2021.3072499. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

We provide a complete pipeline for the detection of patterns of interest in an image. In our approach, the patterns are assumed to be adequately modeled by a known template, and are located at unknown positions and orientations that we aim at retrieving. We propose a continuous-domain additive image model, where the analyzed image is the sum of the patterns to localize and a background with self-similar isotropic power-spectrum. We are then able to compute the optimal filter fulfilling the SNR criterion based on one single template and background pair: it strongly responds to the template while being optimally decoupled from the background model. In addition, we constrain our filter to be steerable, which allows for a fast template detection together with orientation estimation. In practice, the implementation requires to discretize a continuous-domain formulation on polar grids, which is performed using quadratic radial B-splines. We demonstrate the practical usefulness of our method on a variety of template approximation and pattern detection experiments. We show that the detection performance drastically improves when we exploit the statistics of the background via its power-spectrum decay, which we refer to as spectral-shaping. The proposed scheme outperforms state-of-the-art steerable methods by up to 50performance.

PMID:33861703 | DOI:10.1109/TIP.2021.3072499

Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 15;11(1):8328. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-87536-w.

ABSTRACT

Under nonequilibrium conditions, quantum optical systems reveal unusual properties that might be distinct from those in condensed matter. The fundamental reason is that photonic eigenstates can have arbitrary occupation numbers, whereas in electronic systems these are limited by the Pauli principle. Here, we address the steady-state transport of pseudothermal photons between two waveguides connected through a cavity with Bose-Hubbard interaction between photons. One of the waveguides is subjected to a broadband incoherent pumping. We predict a continuous transition between the regimes of Lorentzian and Gaussian chaotic light emitted by the cavity. The rich variety of nonequilibrium transport regimes is revealed by the zero-frequency noise. There are three limiting cases, in which the noise-current relation is characterized by a power-law, [Formula: see text]. The Lorentzian light corresponds to Breit-Wigner-like transmission and [Formula: see text]. The Gaussian regime corresponds to many-body transport with the shot noise ([Formula: see text]) at large currents; at low currents, however, we find an unconventional exponent [Formula: see text] indicating a nontrivial interplay between multi-photon transitions and incoherent pumping. The nonperturbative solution for photon dephasing is obtained in the framework of the Keldysh field theory and Caldeira-Leggett effective action. These findings might be relevant for experiments on photon blockade in superconducting qubits, thermal states transfer, and photon statistics probing.

PMID:33859246 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-87536-w

Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 15;11(1):8226. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-87337-1.

ABSTRACT

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a highly prevalent degenerative disease and a leading cause of vision loss worldwide. Evidence for an inflammatory component in the development of AMD exists, yet the exact mechanisms remain unclear. Bisretinoid N-retinylidene-N-retinylethanolamine (A2E) in retinal pigmental epithelial (RPE) cells, and in extracellular deposits constitutes a hallmark of AMD, but its role in the pathology of AMD is elusive. Here, we tested the hypothesis that A2E is responsible for the heightened inflammatory activity in AMD. To this end, we measured ex vivo mRNA expression of the cytokines TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-10 in whole blood samples after stimulation with A2E in a clinical sample of 27 patients with neovascular AMD and 24 patients with geographic atrophy secondary to AMD. Patients’ spouses (n = 30) were included as non-affected controls. After stimulation with A2E, no statistical differences were found in the median expression level of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-10 between the control group, and the neovascular AMD and the geographic atrophy group. Our findings do not support evidence for the hypothesis, that A2E per se contributes to heightened inflammatory activity in AMD.

PMID:33859228 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-87337-1