Tag: nevin manimala

Epidemiol Prev. 2025 Jul-Aug;49(4):291-298. doi: 10.19191/EP25.4.A848.068.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: to review pneumococcal vaccination recommendations in at-risk adults and people aged 65 years or over across the Italian Regions.

DESIGN: mapping review of available online resources, both at regional and local health unit level, on pneumococcal vaccination programmes by age and risk group.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: the review included institutional websites of regional and local health authorities, freely accessible to the public via generic search engines, containing information on pneumococcal vaccination in frail people.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: the following information was collected and classified: • populations targeted by the immunization programme; • type of recommended vaccine (conjugate and/or polysaccharide); • adopted vaccination schedule; • mode of patient contact; • involved health professional; • availability of vaccination registry; • availability of vaccination coverage data; • presence of online awareness campaigns.

RESULTS: a total of 24 institutional websites, representative of all Italian Regions, were included in the review. More than 90% of the recommendations collected were published between 2023 and 2024. In 75% of the analyzed documents, the Regions offer pneumococcal vaccination to the cohort aged 65 years; in 46% of the documents, the offer is extended to all persons aged 65 years and over. In 96% of the resources, the vaccination programme includes at-risk adults, and 75% of these give details of the diseases for which vaccination is recommended. In seven resources, it is reported that Regions recommend a single dose of the 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, in the others the use of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) followed by the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) is indicated, with different schedules. In at-risk adults, 83% of the documents recommend the sequential schedule with PCV followed by PPSV23, with time schedules defined in 63% of cases. The mode of patient contact is reported in 7 web resources, 4 of which include sending an invitation letter at 65 years of age. Vaccination center health professionals (16/24) and general practitioners (15/24) are the healthcare providers most involved in promoting and administering vaccination. In 71% of the resources, the regional health authorities were reported to have promoted targeted communication campaigns. Data on PCV coverage by age were available for 6 Regions, but not by risk group.

CONCLUSIONS: the findings of this study highlight significant heterogeneity in the offer of pneumococcal vaccination to at-risk adults and people aged 65 years and older among Italian Regions. Greater efforts are needed to standardize and harmonize vaccination policies and to coordinate vaccination communication. The integration of immunization registries with high-risk patient clinical data will allow the systematic identification of vaccine candidates and facilitate the monitoring of vaccination coverage.

PMID:41399888 | DOI:10.19191/EP25.4.A848.068

Epidemiol Prev. 2025 Jul-Aug;49(4):279-290. doi: 10.19191/EP25.4.A873.073.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: gambling is a widespread phenomenon among adolescents, with increasing prevalence among preadolescents.

OBJECTIVES: to describe the prevalence of gambling and problematic gambling in a sample of secondary school students of Piedmont Region (Northern Italy) and Lazio Region (Central Italy) which participated in the “GAPUnplugged” experimental study.

METHODS: data were collected through an anonymous questionnaire created ad hoc and administered between November 2022 and January 2023. Prevalence of gambling in the past 12 months and 30 days and of problematic and at-risk behaviour measured through the SOGS-RA scale were estimated.

RESULTS: 1,874 students aged 12 to 14 participated in the study. Prevalence of gambling was 55.7% in the last 12 months and 36.4% in the last 30 days. Sixteen percent of students engaged in regular gambling (3 or more times in the last 30 days), 7.2% had at risk gambling behaviour, and 3.4% had problematic gambling behaviour. Prevalence was higher among males and among students of schools of the city of Rome.

CONCLUSIONS: gambling among preadolescents is a widespread phenomenon, with a proportion of students at risk or exhibiting problematic behaviours similar to other addictive risk behaviours. It is needed to create and implement specific preventive interventions to limit early exposure to gambling in adolescence and preadolescence.

PMID:41399887 | DOI:10.19191/EP25.4.A873.073

Epidemiol Prev. 2025 Jul-Aug;49(4):267-271. doi: 10.19191/EP25.4.078.

ABSTRACT

Problematic smartphone and social media use among adolescents has rapidly become a social emergency with significant mental health implications. Recent studies show an increase in psychiatric symptoms and suicidal behaviors related to patterns of addictive use rather than total exposure time. This phenomenon, amplified by neurocognitive reward mechanisms and the possibility of continuous access, compromises attention, sleep, and interpersonal skills. Prevention strategies are structured on three levels: technical and legal control (use restrictions and school bans), educational and family empowerment (digital education and family use plans), and health prevention through screening and counseling. The article concludes with the hope for a change in strategy: not only limiting use, but also fostering a conscious and critical relationship with technology through coordinated, evidence-based policies.

PMID:41399885 | DOI:10.19191/EP25.4.078

Epidemiol Prev. 2025 Jul-Aug;49(4):258-266. doi: 10.19191/EP25.4.081.

ABSTRACT

Juvenile prisons represent a jumble of dilemmas and choices for those concerned about the health and future of young detained people. While often presented as an opportunity for “rescue” and even social redemption, juvenile justice facilities offer a variety of approaches, ranging from the more advanced ones that allow effective interactions with the “outside” (family, school, and the world of work) to the more closed ones where the lack of support and activities exposes the most serious aspects of any incarceration: violence, isolation, and various forms of addiction. Italy’s main and largest juvenile prison, named after Cesare Beccaria (an Italian philosopher universally renowned for laying the conceptual foundations against the death penalty and torture), has been experiencing a period of great difficulty for years, characterized by widespread violence, inadequate care for the needs of young people in prison, staff frustration, and social criminalization of inmates, accompanied by the stigmatization of those who work there. The author analyses the risks for young people detained in such places and invites to reflect about what general conclusions can be drawn about juvenile prisons in today’s Italian society.

PMID:41399884 | DOI:10.19191/EP25.4.081

Sci Rep. 2025 Dec 15;15(1):43843. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-29026-x.

ABSTRACT

Iran, located in arid and semi-arid regions, has faced significant weather and climate extremes in recent years. This study aims to investigate the climate-related hazards associated with precipitation and temperature in Iran during the Hindcast period (1991-2019) and the Forecast period (2023-2028) using the Near-term Climate Prediction (NTCP) project. We investigate compounding climate-related hazards to assess the severity and importance of weather and climate extremes. To accomplish this, we integrated ten climate extreme indices, namely heavy precipitation (R10mm), the Simple Precipitation Intensity Index (SDII), heat wave frequency (HWF), heat wave duration (HWD), cold wave frequency (CWF), and cold wave duration (CWD), along with the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI-12), which further encapsulates drought frequency (DF), drought duration (DD), drought severity (DS), and drought intensity (DI). The CMIP6-DCPP models effectively simulate climate extremes and their seasonal cycle across Iran, with minor discrepancies in arid and mountainous regions due to data limitations. The result demonstrates a significant anticipated rise in drought frequency and heat wave events throughout the country within the near-term forecast period. Future projections indicate a shift in precipitation patterns, with increased heavy precipitation in the Zagros Mountains and southwest regions alongside more frequent but less intense droughts nationwide. Heat wave frequency and duration are projected to increase, particularly in southern Zagros and eastern and western Iran, with high-altitude areas experiencing accelerated warming. The results project a shift in climate risk distribution over the next decade, with low to moderate-risk areas decreasing by approximately 15.7% and high-risk areas increasing by roughly 10%, encompassing over 36% of Iran’s total area by 2028. Integrated risk maps reveal high to very high compound climate hazard levels across large parts of Iran, necessitating urgent adaptation planning, especially in western, southern Zagros, and eastern regions. Sensitivity analysis confirms that identified multi-hazard hotspots in Iran are spatially robust and statistically significant, reflecting the dominant influence of key climatic extremes.

PMID:41398423 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-29026-x

Sci Rep. 2025 Dec 15;15(1):43767. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-27583-9.

ABSTRACT

This study models oxygen-transfer efficiency (OTE) in circular solid-jet aerators using a laboratory dataset of 320 observations collected under controlled conditions. Experiments varied jet count (1-8), opening area (49.24-124.03 mm²), jet length (170-470 mm), and discharge (1.05-3.04 l s⁻¹); dissolved oxygen was measured, and OTE was computed and standardized to 20 °C. Five regressors-Linear Regression (LR), M5P, Random Tree (RT), Reduced Error Pruning (REP) Tree, and Random Forest (RF)-were trained with a 70/30 train-test split and evaluated using CC, RMSE, MAE, NSE, and SI. Residual histograms with kernel-density overlays and an uncertainty summary (U95, bounds) indicated compact, slightly negative-centered errors for the tree-based models and broader, heavy-tailed errors for LR; a Taylor diagram and a Spearman heatmap supported these patterns. Among all models, RF achieved the highest test performance and the lowest errors, with results statistically superior to alternatives by paired t-tests on residuals (α = 0.05); the Spearman heatmap also showed the strongest concordance between RF predictions and observations, while a leave-one-input-out sensitivity analysis identified discharge (Q) as the dominant driver. Taken together, the results identify RF as the most accurate and generalizable predictor across the tested operating envelope, providing a practical basis for the design and optimization of aeration systems in water and wastewater treatment.

PMID:41398418 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-27583-9

Sci Rep. 2025 Dec 15. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-32422-y. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (OMIM 613,113, NF1) is a neurocutaneous disorder caused by pathogenic genetic alteration in NF1 gene, which exhibits nearly full penetrance and affects multiple systems. Previously two association studies of optic pathway glioma and NF1 protein domains, derived from 215 and 381 patients, respectively, obtained contradicting results, reflecting different datasets can lead to different conclusions and there is a need for a larger dataset to reach a solid conclusion. There is another association study based on 832 patients considering protein domains, clinical features, and types of variants. But it only investigated the GTPase-activating protein domain and non-truncating variants. In this study, an extended association analysis involving eight protein domains, two types of variants, namely truncating and non-truncating variants, and 32 clinical features, was performed based on a combined dataset of 1663 NF1 patients consisting of 738 cases recruited in Hong Kong and 925 reported cases from 25 studies. In summary, this study has identified 121 statistically significant associations between clinical features, types of variants, and protein domains, with 120 of them being novel findings. These new insights about the genotype-phenotype association promote better clinical management.

PMID:41398366 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-32422-y

Sci Rep. 2025 Dec 16. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-31435-x. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the colon, associated with gut microbiota dysbiosis. While global studies have explored this link, region-specific microbial profiles remain underreported. This pilot study aimed to characterize and compare, for the first time, the gut microbiota of Lebanese UC patients and healthy controls using 16 S rRNA gene sequencing (V3-V4 region). Fecal samples from 11 UC patients and 11 healthy individuals were analyzed. Alpha and beta diversity metrics were computed, and gut microbial composition was assessed across taxonomic levels. Statistical comparisons used Mann-Whitney and Fisher’s exact tests. UC patients showed significantly reduced microbial diversity based on Faith’s Phylogenetic Diversity and Shannon index (p < 0.05), though evenness was unaffected. Beta diversity also revealed significant group-level dissimilarities (p < 0.05). At the phylum level, Bacteroidota was elevated in UC, while Bacillota and Actinomycetota were reduced. Genera such as Ruminococcus, Bacteroides, and Coprococcus were depleted in UC. Faecalibacterium, commonly reduced in UC, showed no significant difference. This first analysis of gut microbiota in Lebanese UC patients reveals a distinct microbial signature that partially diverges from global trends, supporting the need for region-specific microbiome studies and personalized microbiota-targeted therapies.

PMID:41398357 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-31435-x

Sci Rep. 2025 Dec 15. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-29387-3. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Individual recognition is fundamental to the social behaviour of many animals. In the context of territorial behaviour, animals in high-density populations encounter conspecific rivals and potential mates more frequently, which should enhance the individuality of territorial signals to facilitate recognition among conspecifics. We investigated vocal individuality in male territorial calls of two populations of little owls (Athene noctua) with different densities. Further, to explore the potential influence of local population distribution on individuality, we also examined isolated males without neighbours and clumped males with neighbours. Our findings indicate higher individuality at higher densities across both scenarios, measured using two individuality metrics: Beecher’s information statistic and Discrimination score. Clumped males exhibited significantly lower acoustic niche overlaps (i.e. higher vocal individuality) compared to isolated males. However, only a non-significant trend for lower acoustic niche overlaps (i.e. higher vocal individuality) was found for males from high density compared to low density populations. This suggests that the immediate social environment might be more influential than larger-scale population density patterns. This study suggests that vocal individuality in a territorial species is influenced by conspecific density, similar to findings in group-living and colonial species.

PMID:41398350 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-29387-3

Sci Rep. 2025 Dec 15. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-31836-y. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Childhood obesity is a major public health problem, affecting one in 5 youths. We aimed to characterize biomarkers for pediatric obesity among circulating proteins using Mendelian randomization (MR). We utilized genome-wide significant cis-protein quantitative trait loci (pQTL) from three large adult proteomic GWAS (N total>58,000) and a small childhood proteomic GWAS (N=2,147) as genetic instruments for circulating protein levels. Using two-sample Mendelian randomization, we estimated causal effects of the circulating proteins on childhood body mass index (BMI) in a European GWAS of 39,620 children. MR Wald ratios were calculated to estimate the causal effect of each protein on childhood BMI. Sensitivity analyses testing the MR assumptions included colocalization and phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS). Replication was conducted using independent GWAS datasets, complemented by reverse MR and tissue enrichment analyses. Among 535 tested proteins, three colocalized and demonstrated decreasing effects on BMI per standard deviation increase in their level: endoglin (ENG; MR beta: -0.07, 95% CI [-0.10, -0.04], P=4.4×10⁻⁵), fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4; MR beta: -0.33, 95% CI [-0.50, -0.16], P=1.3×10⁻⁴), and cell adhesion molecule 1 (CADMI1; MR beta: -0.26, 95% CI [-0.37, -0.15], P=5.45×10⁻⁵). All three proteins showed evidence of colocalization (posterior probability >75%) and were identified using adult proteomic GWAS, given a limited statistical power using the pediatric proteomic GWAS data. Reverse causation was identified for FABP4, suggesting a compensatory mechanism. In conclusion, we identified three circulating proteins as potential blood biomarkers or drug targets for pediatric obesity, warranting further functional validation to elucidate biological mechanisms and assess therapeutic potential.

PMID:41398348 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-31836-y