Clinical, epidemiologic, histopathologic and molecular features of an unexplained dermopathy.

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Pearson, Michele L; Selby, Joseph V; Katz, Kenneth A; Cantrell, Virginia; Braden, Christopher R; Parise, Monica E; Paddock, Christopher D; Lewin-Smith, Michael R; Kalasinsky, Victor F; Goldstein, Felicia C; Hightower, Allen W; Papier, Arthur; Lewis, Brian; Motipara, Sarita; Eberhard, Mark L

2012-01-01

Morgellons is a poorly characterized constellation of symptoms, with the primary manifestations involving the skin. We conducted an investigation of this unexplained dermopathy to characterize the clinical and epidemiologic features and explore potential etiologies. A descriptive study was conducted among persons at least 13 years of age and enrolled in Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) during 2006-2008. A case was defined as the self-reported emergence of fibers or materials from the skin accompanied by skin lesions and/or disturbing skin sensations. We collected detailed epidemiologic data, performed clinical evaluations and geospatial analyses and analyzed materials collected from participants' skin. We identified 115 case-patients. The prevalence was 3.65 (95% CI = 2.98, 4.40) cases per 100,000 enrollees. There was no clustering of cases within the 13-county KPNC catchment area (p = .113). Case-patients had a median age of 52 years (range: 17-93) and were primarily female (77%) and Caucasian (77%). Multi-system complaints were common; 70% reported chronic fatigue and 54% rated their overall health as fair or poor with mean Physical Component Scores and Mental Component Scores of 36.63 (SD = 12.9) and 35.45 (SD = 12.89), respectively. Cognitive deficits were detected in 59% of case-patients and 63% had evidence of clinically significant somatic complaints; 50% had drugs detected in hair samples and 78% reported exposure to solvents. Solar elastosis was the most common histopathologic abnormality (51% of biopsies); skin lesions were most consistent with arthropod bites or chronic excoriations. No parasites or mycobacteria were detected. Most materials collected from participants' skin were composed of cellulose, likely of cotton origin. This unexplained dermopathy was rare among this population of Northern California residents, but associated with significantly reduced health-related quality of life. No common underlying medical

Clinical, epidemiologic, histopathologic and molecular features of an unexplained dermopathy.

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Michele L Pearson

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Morgellons is a poorly characterized constellation of symptoms, with the primary manifestations involving the skin. We conducted an investigation of this unexplained dermopathy to characterize the clinical and epidemiologic features and explore potential etiologies. METHODS: A descriptive study was conducted among persons at least 13 years of age and enrolled in Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC during 2006-2008. A case was defined as the self-reported emergence of fibers or materials from the skin accompanied by skin lesions and/or disturbing skin sensations. We collected detailed epidemiologic data, performed clinical evaluations and geospatial analyses and analyzed materials collected from participants' skin. RESULTS: We identified 115 case-patients. The prevalence was 3.65 (95% CI = 2.98, 4.40 cases per 100,000 enrollees. There was no clustering of cases within the 13-county KPNC catchment area (p = .113. Case-patients had a median age of 52 years (range: 17-93 and were primarily female (77% and Caucasian (77%. Multi-system complaints were common; 70% reported chronic fatigue and 54% rated their overall health as fair or poor with mean Physical Component Scores and Mental Component Scores of 36.63 (SD = 12.9 and 35.45 (SD = 12.89, respectively. Cognitive deficits were detected in 59% of case-patients and 63% had evidence of clinically significant somatic complaints; 50% had drugs detected in hair samples and 78% reported exposure to solvents. Solar elastosis was the most common histopathologic abnormality (51% of biopsies; skin lesions were most consistent with arthropod bites or chronic excoriations. No parasites or mycobacteria were detected. Most materials collected from participants' skin were composed of cellulose, likely of cotton origin. CONCLUSIONS: This unexplained dermopathy was rare among this population of Northern California residents, but associated with significantly reduced health-related

Epidemiological features of brain tumors

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Živković Nenad

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Brain tumors account for 1.4% of all cancers and 2.4% of all cancer-related deaths. The incidence of brain tumors varies and it is higher in developed countries of Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In Serbia, according to data from 2009, malignant brain tumors account for 2. 2 of all tumors, and from all cancer­related deaths, 3.2% is caused by malignant brain tumors. According to recent statistical reports, an overall incidence of brain tumors for benign and malignant tumors combined is 18.71 per 100,000 persons/year. The most common benign brain tumor in adults is meningioma, which is most present in women, and the most common malignant tumor is glioblastoma, which is most present in adult men. Due to high mortality, especially in patients diagnosed with glioblastoma and significant brain tumor morbidity, there is a constant interest in understanding its etiology in order to possibly prevent tumor occurrence in future and enable more efficient treatment strategies for this fatal brain disease. Despite the continuously growing number of epidemiological studies on possible factors of tumor incidence, the etiology remains unclear. The only established environmental risk factor of gliomas is ionizing radiation exposure. Exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields via cell phone use has gained a lot of attention as a potential risk factor of brain tumor development. However, studies have been inconsistent and inconclusive, so more definite results are still expected.

Update on Merkel Cell Carcinoma: Epidemiology, Etiopathogenesis, Clinical Features, Diagnosis, and Staging.

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Llombart, B; Requena, C; Cruz, J

2017-03-01

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare, highly aggressive tumor, and local or regional disease recurrence is common, as is metastasis. MCC usually develops in sun-exposed skin in patients of advanced age. Its incidence has risen 4-fold in recent decades as the population has aged and immunohistochemical techniques have led to more diagnoses. The pathogenesis of MCC remains unclear but UV radiation, immunosuppression, and the presence of Merkel cell polyomavirus in the tumor genome seem to play key roles. This review seeks to update our understanding of the epidemiology, etiology, pathogenesis, and clinical features of MCC. We also review histologic and immunohistochemical features required for diagnosis. MCC staging is discussed, given its great importance in establishing a prognosis for these patients. Copyright © 2016 AEDV. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Clinical and epidemiological features of extrapulmonary tuberculosis in a high incidence region.

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Carlos Pérez-Guzmán

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Objective. To describe the clinical features of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EXPTB and to evaluate epidemiological data to search for potential explanations for its high frequency in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico. Materials and methods. Clinical records of all patients with tuberculosis seen in Aguascalientes in 2008 were reviewed, and official databases were analyzed. Results. EXPTB comprised 60.5% of the 86 cases evaluated, being lymph nodes the main site affected. Patients with EXPTB were younger and more obese than subjects with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB. One third of cases in either group had diabetes, a frequency much higher than expected. Epidemiological analysis showed that PTB incidence, but not EXPTB incidence, decreases as geographical altitude increases, and had a descendent trend from 1997 to 2011. Conclusions. The lower frequency of PTB (due to its inverse relationship with altitude and its descendent trend in last years might explain the high frequency of EXPTB. Obesity appeared to protect against developing pulmonary involvement, and diabetes was more frequent than expected among PTB and EXPTB cases.

How Much Do We Know about Adult-onset Primary Tics? Prevalence, Epidemiology, and Clinical Features.

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Robakis, Daphne

2017-01-01

Tic disorders are generally considered to be of pediatric onset; however, reports of adult-onset tics exist in the literature. Tics can be categorized as either primary or secondary, with the latter being the larger group in adults. Primary or idiopathic tics that arise in adulthood make up a subset of tic disorders whose epidemiologic and clinical features have not been well delineated. Articles to be included in this review were identified by searching PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science using the terms adult- and late-onset tics, which resulted in 120 unique articles. Duplicates were removed. Citing references were identified using Google Scholar; all references were reviewed for relevance. The epidemiologic characteristics, clinical phenomenology, and optimal treatment of adult-onset tics have not been ascertained. Twenty-six patients with adult-onset, primary tics were identified from prior case reports. The frequency of psychiatric comorbidities may be lower in adults than in children, and obsessive compulsive disorder was the most common comorbidity. Adult-onset primary tics tend to wax and wane, occur predominantly in males, are often both motor and phonic in the same individual, and are characterized by a poor response to treatment. We know little about adult-onset tic disorders, particularly ones without a secondary association or cause. They are not common, and from the limited data available, appear to share some but not all features with childhood tics. Further research will be important in gaining a better understanding of the epidemiology and clinical manifestations of this disorder.

[EPIDEMIOLOGIC FEATURES OFNOROVIRUS INFECTION OUTBREAK IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH OSSETIA-ALANIA].

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Maletskaya, O V; Tibilov, A G; Prislegina, D A; Gazieva, G K; Otaraeva, N I; Volynkina, A S; Saveliev, V N; Lyamkin, G I; Zaitsev, A A; Kulichenko, A N

2016-01-01

Analysis of epidemiologic features of a norovirus outbreak in Alagir city of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and effectiveness of measures of its liquidation. Data from maps-schemes of water supply system of Alagir city and statistical documentation of Centre of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania were used in the study. Indication of norovirus in clinical material and water samples was carried out bypolymerase chain reaction method. Etiological agent of outbreak disease was established--genotype II norovirus. Realization of fecal-oral mechanisms of water transmission pathway of the causative agent of norovirus infection was detected. Conditions facilitating emergence and development of the indicated outbreak were determined--non-satisfactory sanitary-technical condition of water. supply system of the city. The studied water outbreak of norovirus infection was caused by GII.17 genotype virus, that currently gradually displaces GII.IV genotype, and was characterized by an intensive start, involvement of all population age groups into the epidemic process (with primary infection of adults), low family focality, predominance of average severity disease forms in the clinical presentation. The counter-epidemic measures carried out ensured rapid localization and liquidation of the norovirus infection outbreak.

ANALYSIS OF THE INCIDENCE OF LYMPHOMAS IN THE REPUBLIC OF KHAKASSIA FOR 2014 AND ITS EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FEATURES

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Olga Valentinovna Smirnova

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of the study was to study patterns in the incidence of lymphomas and its epidemiological characteristics in the Republic of Khakassia for 2014. The research was conducted by retrospective analysis. The following epidemiological features are revealed: NHL is more common; LGM often ill persons young and middle age, and the NHL people in the older age groups; incidence among men is higher than women’s; among refined morphological variants LGM disseminated sclerosis and nodular lymphoid predominance, among the NHL is most prevalent diffuse non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; it is noted that the NHL is more common in urban populations.

Ebola outbreak in Conakry, Guinea: epidemiological, clinical, and outcome features.

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Barry, M; Traoré, F A; Sako, F B; Kpamy, D O; Bah, E I; Poncin, M; Keita, S; Cisse, M; Touré, A

2014-12-01

The authors studied the epidemiological, clinical, and outcome features of the Ebola virus disease in patients hospitalized at the Ebola treatment center (ETC) in Conakry to identify clinical factors associated with death. A prospective study was conducted from March 25 to August 20, 2014. The diagnosis of Ebola virus infection was made on real-time PCR. Ninety patients, with a positive test result, were hospitalized. Their mean age was 34.12±14.29 years and 63% were male patients. Most worked in the informal sector (38%) and in the medical and paramedical staff (physicians 12%, nurses 6%, and laboratory technicians 1%). Most patients lived in the Conakry suburbs (74%) and in Boffa (11%). The main clinical signs were physical asthenia (80%) and fever (72%). Hemorrhagic signs were observed in 26% of patients. The comparison of clinical manifestations showed that hiccups (P=0.04), respiratory distress (P=0.04), and hemorrhagic symptoms (P=0.01) were more frequent among patients who died. Malaria (72%) and diabetes (2%) were the most frequent co-morbidities. The crude case fatality rate was 44% [95% confidence interval (33-54%)]. The average hospital stay was 7.96±5.81 days. The first Ebola outbreak in Conakry was characterized by the young age of patients, discrete hemorrhagic signs related to lethality. Its control relies on a strict use of preventive measures. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

[The epidemiological features of concomitance of diabetes mellitus and pulmonary tuberculosis].

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Mamaev, I A; Musaeva, A M; Abusuev, S A; Mamaeva, Kh I; Untilov, G V

2008-01-01

The study was undertaken to reveal the clinical and epidemiological features of development diabetes mellitus (DM) and pulmonary tuberculosis (PT) in comorbidity. The material of the study was 143 case histories and outpatient cards of patients with DM and PT who were registered in 2001-2006. A total of 11,702 cases of tuberculosis were notified in 1999-2005. The significance ofa difference between the extensive indices was assessed by Student's test preceded by the Fisher angular transformation. Thus, the specific features of development of DM and PT are: 1) type 1 DM frequently occurs in youth while type 2 DM does at mature age; 2) tuberculosis in DM patients occurs at mature and old ages; 3) there is a male preponderance among patients with type 1 DM and a female predominance among those with type 2 DM; 4) comorbidity is more common in town-dwellers; 5) severe PT was prevalent in type 1 DM; mild PT is rarely observed in type 2 DM; 6) in comorbidity, fibro-cavernous, cirrhotic tuberculosis, caseous pneumonia, and tuberculoma are encountered by several times more frequently and focal tuberculosis and tuberculous pleurisy are less frequently in patients without DM.

Definitions of engineered safety features and related features for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1986-01-01

In light water moderated, light water cooled nuclear power plants, definitions are given of engineered safety features which are designed to suppress or prevent dispersion of radioactive materials due to damage etc. of fuel at the times of power plant failures, and of related features which are designed to actuate or operate the engineered safety features. Contents are the following: scope of engineered safety features and of related features; classification of engineered safety features (direct systems and indirect systems) and of related features (auxiliaries, emergency power supply, and protective means). (Mori, K.)

The Ten Years Survey on Clinical and Epidemiologic Features of Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Sina Hospital, Hamadan, Iran

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Sh. Mazaheri

2007-07-01

Full Text Available Introduction & Objective: Since the elimination of poliomyelitis from Iran, Guillain–Barre Syndrome (GBS has been the leading cause of acute flaccid paralysis. There are a few studies concerning clinical and epidemiologic features of Guillain-Barré syndrome in our country, therefore we evaluated ten years clinical and epidemiologic features of GBS in Sina hospital, Hamadan, Iran.Materials & Methods: In a retrospective descriptive study, we reviewed 80 records of patients with GBS who were hospitalized in Sina Hospital (Hamadan, Iran during 1993-2003. Because of incomplete data we excluded 29 patients from the study. We evaluated clinical and epidemiologic features, risk factors, lab data and management protocols. Complete remission defined as complete improved patient four weeks after the GBS treatment and partial remission as the continuation of the symptom after that time. All the data extracted manually and analyzed with SPSS software.Results: From 51 patients, 36 (70.59% were men and 15 (29.41% women, with a proportion of 2.4 men to 1 woman. The age ranged from 3 to 85 years. The highest frequency was observed in patients aged 11 to 20 (35.28%. 13 patients were student, 11 were house keeper, 11 were farmer, 7 were worker. 29 patients (56.84% had risk factors like respiratory and gastrointestinal track infection, surgery and fever before the disease onset. Complete and partial remission occurred in 17 and 28 patients respectively and 5 patients did not improve. Management failure occurred in 3 (8.83%, 2 (22.23% and 5 (62.5% patients who underwent IVIG, plasmapheresis and corticosteroids respectively.Conclusion: Our data was not similar to other studies in term of male to female proportion, age distribution and management protocols, therefore geographical pattern of the disease should be concerned for better patients’ management.

Epidemiological issues related to dose reconstruction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shore, R.E.

1996-01-01

When a dose reconstruction is performed around some nuclear site, a decision has to be made as to whether an epidemiologic study should be performed there and, if so, what form the study should take. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of epidemiologic and biostatistical issues that help determine whether an epidemiologic study around a nuclear facility is worthwhile doing from a scientific standpoint. We are all aware that public health and sociopolitical concerns often assume considerable importance in these decisions, but they will not be considered here. 27 refs., 2 tabs

Demographic and clinico-epidemiological features of dengue fever in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

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Faiz Ahmed Raza

Full Text Available This cross-sectional study was carried out to explore the epidemiological and clinical features of dengue fever in Faisalabad, Pakistan during 2011 and 2012. During the study period, anti-dengue IgM positive cases were reported in the post-monsoon period during the months of August-December. Certain hotspots for the dengue infection were identified in the city that coincide with the clusters of densely populated urban regions of the city. Out of total 299 IgM positive patients (male 218 and female 81; there were 239 dengue fever (DF and 60 dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF patients. There was decrease in the median age of dengue patients from 31 years in 2011 to 21.5 years in 2012 (p<0.001. Abdominal pain was seen in 35% DHF patients followed by nausea in 28.3%, epistaxis in 25% and rash in 20% patients (p<0.05. Patients reported to be suffering from high-grade fever for an average of 8.83 days in DHF as compared to 5.82 days in DF before being hospitalized. Co-morbidities were found to be risk factor for the development of DHF in dengue patients. Clinical and laboratory features of dengue cases studied could be used for the early identification of patients at risk of severe dengue fever.

Molecular Identification and Epidemiological Features of Human Adenoviruses Associated with Acute Respiratory Infections in Hospitalized Children in Southern China, 2012-2013.

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Chen, Yi; Liu, Fanghua; Wang, Changbing; Zhao, Mingqi; Deng, Li; Zhong, Jiayu; Zhang, Yingying; Ye, Jun; Jing, Shuping; Cheng, Zetao; Guan, Yongxin; Ma, Yi; Sun, Yuanyuan; Zhu, Bing; Zhang, Qiwei

2016-01-01

Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are the major worldwide health problem associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. Human adenovirus (HAdV) is one of the most common pathogens associated with viral ARI, and thus calls for specific diagnosis and better understanding of the epidemiology and clinical characteristics. Total 4,130 children with ARI requiring hospitalization from 2012 to 2013 were retrospectively studied. Throat swab specimens were collected from each patient. Fluorescence Quantitative PCR was performed to detect adenovirus as well as other common ARI-related pathogens. The seven HAdV hypervariable regions (HVRs) of the hexon gene from fifty-seven HAdVs-positive samples collected in the seasonal peaks were sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis of HVRs was also conducted to confirm the molecular types and genetic variation. In addition, epidemiological features and co-infection with other human respiratory pathogens were investigated and analyzed. Of 4,130 hospitalized pediatric patients tested, the positive rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP), and HAdV were 13.7%, 13.2%, and 12.0%, respectively. The HAdV positive patients accounted for 7.9%, 17.2%, 17.5% and 10.7% in age groups infected with other respiratory pathogens (84/495, 17.0%). The most common co-infection pathogens with HAdV were MP (57.1%) and Human Bocavirus (HBoV) (16.7%). The majority of HAdV infected patients were totally recovered (96.9%, 480/495); However, four (0.8%) patients, who were previously healthy and at the age of 2 years or younger died of pneumonia. Seasonal peaks of HAdV infection occurred in the summer season of 2012 and 2013; the predominant HAdV type was HAdV-3 (70%), followed by HAdV-7 (28%). These epidemiological features were different from those in Northern China. The HAdV-55 was identified and reported for the first time in Guangzhou metropolitan area. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that all the HVR sequences of the hexon gene

Epidemiology of sport-related spinal cord injuries: A systematic review.

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Chan, Christie Wl; Eng, Janice J; Tator, Charles H; Krassioukov, Andrei

2016-05-01

Despite the recognition of sports as a significant contributor in the etiology of spinal cord injury (SCI), no studies have systematically explored the epidemiology of SCI caused by sports. This paper aims to give a systematic overview of the epidemiology of sport-related spinal cord injury around the world. A systematic review was conducted to identify published literature reporting the epidemiology of SCI caused by sports. The literature search was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Sportdiscus with date limits 1980 through to July 2015. Data from 54 studies covering 25 countries was extracted and collated. Important findings include identification of 6 countries in which sports accounts for over 13% of SCI (highest to lowest: Russia, Fiji, New Zealand, Iceland, France and Canada); individual sports with high risk for SCI (diving, skiing, rugby, and horseback riding); and the most common level of injury for various sports (almost entirely cervical for hockey, skiing, diving and American football, while over half of horseback riding and snowboarding injuries are thoracic or lumbosacral). This paper identifies countries and sports with higher rates of sport-related SCIs where implementation of prevention programs and reporting systems to track SCI epidemiology may be helpful, and highlights gaps in our current knowledge for further investigation. The comparison of SCI occurrence for each sport across countries, as well as examination of the specific characteristics of SCI incurred for individual sports will assist in directing efforts for prevention.

Dissociation between Features and Feature Relations in Infant Memory: Effects of Memory Load.

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Bhatt, Ramesh S.; Rovee-Collier, Carolyn

1997-01-01

Four experiments examined effects of the number of features and feature relations on learning and long-term memory in 3-month olds. Findings suggested that memory load size selectively constrained infants' long-term memory for relational information, suggesting that in infants, features and relations are psychologically distinct and that memory…

[Genetic subtype and epidemiological feature of HIV-1 circulating strains among recently infected patients in Fujian province].

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Deng, Yongyue; Zhang, Chunyang; Yan, Yansheng; Yan, Pingping; Wu, Shouli

2014-06-01

In order to evaluate the distribution of genetic subtypes and epidemiological feature of HIV-1 circulating strains in Fujian province. Blood samples and epidemiological data were collected from 104 newly infected patients who were distinguished by BED-CEIA methodology, during 2011-2012. Viral sequences(n = 81) of HIV-1 gag, env, and pol segments were amplified by nested PCR. Subtypes B and four Circulating Recombinant Forms, (CRF01_AE, CRF07_BC, CRF08_BC and CRF55_01B) were found in the samples, CRF01_AE(45.68%)and CRF07_BC(35.80%) were the two main HIV-1 strains in Fujian province. Compared with previous data, the proportion of CRF07_BC rose significantly while it gradually decreased in CRF01_AE. Heterosexual contact was still the principal transmission route in Fujian province, but the number of infection among men-who-have-sex-with- men grew rapidly. Results from this study suggested that different subtypes of HIV-1 strain existed in Fujian province. The distribution of subtypes and the mode of transmission were changing with the progress of epidemic. Dynamic monitoring of the molecular epidemiology trends of HIV-1 infection should be enhanced.

EPIDEMIOLOGY, CLINICAL AND LABORATORY FEATURES OF CRIMEAN-CONGO HEMORRHAGIC FEVER IN GEORGIA.

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Vashakidze, E; Mikadze, I

2015-10-01

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus transmitted to humans by Hyalomma ticks or by direct contact with the blood of infected humans or domestic animals. The most common clinical signs of CCHF are fever, nausea, headache, diarrhea, myalgia, petechial rash, and bleeding. CCHF is a severe disease in humans with a fatality rate up to 15-85%. This study was undertaken to determine the predictors of fatality among patients with CCHF based on epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory findings. 34 patients were enrolled in the study, aged 4 to 77; 17 - male and 17 female. 3 of them were fatal cases. All of them were from Shua Kartli: Khashuri, Gori and Kaspi districts, involved in farming/handling livestock and the history of tick bite was present in most of patients. Evaluation of the epidemiological characteristics of this cases showed that the female to male ratio was nearly similar. The disease is common in the rural areas of the region, mostly in the actively working age group and almost all patients were farmers. The results of our study show that the most cardinal clinical and laboratory features of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever are - acute beginning of disease, high fever, intoxication and hemorrhagic symptoms, thrombocytopenia, high level of aminotransferases and creatine. Predictors of fatality are: an altered mental status, in early stage of disease dramatic decreased thrombocytes count and significantly high level of aspartate aminotransferase, also longer the mean prothrombin time and INR.

Epidemiologic features of patients affected by herpes zoster: database analysis of the Ferrara University Dermatology Unit, Italy.

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Gabutti, G; Serenelli, C; Sarno, O; Marconi, S; Corazza, M; Virgili, A

2010-05-01

The recent authorization and commercialization in the USA of a "Zoster vaccine" with high antigenic titer opens interesting perspectives of prevention against herpes zoster (HZ). This disease is characterized by a vesicular rash with dermatomeric extension and by moderate to severe pain. Many patients present with post-herpetic neuralgia. In Italy, complete and recent epidemiological data are not available. We evaluated the epidemiological features of patients presenting with HZ observed at the Ferrara University Dermatology unit from 2000 to 2008. The following data were collected: gender, age, residence, date and place of consultation, localization, and therapy. The place of consultation was often (43%) not specified; in the remaining 57% of cases, patients were sent from general and ophthalmology emergency rooms. The most frequent localizations were: 32% ophthalmic; 16.5% thoracic; 16% facial. Most patients were treated with oral antiviral drugs for seven days. According to localization and severity, topical or oral antibiotics, analgesics, neurotrophic drugs were prescribed. This data, although not representative of all cases in the province of Ferrara, confirmed the epidemiological impact of Zoster, which brings a number of patients to use the hospital and specialized structures for diagnosis and cure. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Virulence profiles of bacteremic extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli: association with epidemiological and clinical features.

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Jesús Rodríguez-Baño

Full Text Available There is scarce data about the importance of phylogroups and virulence factors (VF in bloodstream infections (BSI caused by extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli (ESBLEC. A prospective multicenter Spanish cohort including 191 cases of BSI due to ESBLEC was studied. Phylogroups and 25 VF genes were investigated by PCR. ESBLEC were classified into clusters according to their virulence profiles. The association of phylogropus, VF, and clusters with epidemiological features were studied using multivariate analysis. Overall, 57.6%, 26.7%, and 15.7% of isolates belonged to A/B1, D and B2 phylogroups, respectively. By multivariate analysis (adjusted OR [95% CI], virulence cluster C2 was independently associated with urinary tract source (5.05 [0.96-25.48]; cluster C4 with sources other than urinary of biliary tract (2.89 [1.05-7.93], and cluster C5 with BSI in non-predisposed patients (2.80 [0.99-7.93]. Isolates producing CTX-M-9 group ESBLs and from phylogroup D predominated among cluster C2 and C5, while CTX-M-1 group of ESBL and phylogroup B2 predominantes among C4 isolates. These results suggest that host factors and previous antimicrobial use were more important than phylogroup or specific VF in the occurrence of BSI due to ESBLEC. However, some associations between virulence clusters and some specific epidemiological features were found.

Acinetobacter spp. as nosocomial pathogens: Epidemiology and resistance features

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Saad B. Almasaudi

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The genus Acinetobacter is a major cause of nosocomial infections; it is increasingly being associated with various epidemics and has become a widespread concern in a variety of hospitals worldwide. Multi-antibiotic resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, is now recognized to be of great clinical significance. Numerous reports relay to the spread of A. baumannii in the hospital settings which leads to enhanced nosocomial outbreaks associated with high death rates. However, many other Acinetobacter spp. also can cause nosocomial infections. This review focused on the role of Acinetobacter spp. as nosocomial pathogens in addition to their persistence, antimicrobial resistance patterns and epidemiology. Keywords: Acinetobacter, Nosocomial infections, Multi-drug resistance, Epidemiology, Characteristics

Molecular Identification and Epidemiological Features of Human Adenoviruses Associated with Acute Respiratory Infections in Hospitalized Children in Southern China, 2012-2013.

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Yi Chen

Full Text Available Acute respiratory infections (ARI are the major worldwide health problem associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. Human adenovirus (HAdV is one of the most common pathogens associated with viral ARI, and thus calls for specific diagnosis and better understanding of the epidemiology and clinical characteristics.Total 4,130 children with ARI requiring hospitalization from 2012 to 2013 were retrospectively studied. Throat swab specimens were collected from each patient. Fluorescence Quantitative PCR was performed to detect adenovirus as well as other common ARI-related pathogens. The seven HAdV hypervariable regions (HVRs of the hexon gene from fifty-seven HAdVs-positive samples collected in the seasonal peaks were sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis of HVRs was also conducted to confirm the molecular types and genetic variation. In addition, epidemiological features and co-infection with other human respiratory pathogens were investigated and analyzed.Of 4,130 hospitalized pediatric patients tested, the positive rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV, Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP, and HAdV were 13.7%, 13.2%, and 12.0%, respectively. The HAdV positive patients accounted for 7.9%, 17.2%, 17.5% and 10.7% in age groups <1, 1-3, 3-6 and 6-14 years, respectively. Eighty-four HAdV positive children were co-infected with other respiratory pathogens (84/495, 17.0%. The most common co-infection pathogens with HAdV were MP (57.1% and Human Bocavirus (HBoV (16.7%. The majority of HAdV infected patients were totally recovered (96.9%, 480/495; However, four (0.8% patients, who were previously healthy and at the age of 2 years or younger died of pneumonia. Seasonal peaks of HAdV infection occurred in the summer season of 2012 and 2013; the predominant HAdV type was HAdV-3 (70%, followed by HAdV-7 (28%. These epidemiological features were different from those in Northern China. The HAdV-55 was identified and reported for the first time in Guangzhou

Current concepts in age-related hearing loss: Epidemiology and mechanistic pathways

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Yamasoba, Tatsuya; Lin, Frank R.; Someya, Shinichi; Kashio, Akinori; Sakamoto, Takashi; Kondo, Kenji

2013-01-01

Age-related hearing loss (AHL), also known as presbycusis, is a universal feature of mammalian aging and is characterized by a decline of auditory function, such as increased hearing thresholds and poor frequency resolution. The primary pathology of AHL includes the hair cells, stria vascularis, and afferent spiral ganglion neurons as well as the central auditory pathways. A growing body of evidence in animal studies has suggested that cumulative effect of oxidative stress could induce damage to macromolecules such as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and that the resulting accumulation of mtDNA mutations/deletions and decline of mitochondrial function play an important role in inducing apoptosis of the cochlear cells, thereby the development of AHL. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated four categories of risk factors of AHL in humans: cochlear aging, environment such as noise exposure, genetic predisposition, and health co-morbidities such as cigarette smoking and atherosclerosis. Genetic investigation has identified several putative associating genes, including those related to antioxidant defense and atherosclerosis. Exposure to noise is known to induce excess generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the cochlea, and cumulative oxidative stress can be enhanced by relatively hypoxic situations resulting from the impaired homeostasis of cochlear blood supply due to atherosclerosis, which could be accelerated by genetic and co-morbidity factors. Antioxidant defense system may also be influenced by genetic backgrounds. These may explain the large variations of the onset and extent of AHL among elderly subjects. PMID:23422312

Genetic epidemiology, hematological and clinical features of hemoglobinopathies in Iran.

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Rahimi, Zohreh

2013-01-01

There is large variation in the molecular genetics and clinical features of hemoglobinopathies in Iran. Studying structural variants of hemoglobin demonstrated that the β-chain variants of hemoglobin S and D-Punjab are more prevalent in the Fars (southwestern Iran) and Kermanshah (western Iran) provinces, respectively. Also, α-chain variants of Hb Q-Iran and Hb Setif are prevalent in western Iran. The molecular basis and clinical severity of thalassemias are extremely heterogenous among Iranians due to the presence of multiethnic groups in the country. β-Thalassemia is more prevalent in northern and southern Iran. Among 52 different β-thalassemia mutations that have been identified among Iranian populations, IVSII-1 G:A is the most frequent mutation in most parts of the country. The presence of IVS I-5 G:C mutation with high frequency in southeastern Iran might reflect gene flow from neighboring countries. A wide spectrum of α-thalassemia alleles has been detected among Iranians with -α(3.7 kb) as the most prevalent α-thalassemia mutation. The prevention program of thalassemia birth in Iran has reduced the birth rate of homozygous β-thalassemia since the implementation of the program in 1997. In this review genetic epidemiology, clinical and hematological aspects of hemoglobinopathies, and the prevention programs of β-thalassemia in Iran will be discussed.

Genetic Epidemiology, Hematological and Clinical Features of Hemoglobinopathies in Iran

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Zohreh Rahimi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available There is large variation in the molecular genetics and clinical features of hemoglobinopathies in Iran. Studying structural variants of hemoglobin demonstrated that the β-chain variants of hemoglobin S and D-Punjab are more prevalent in the Fars (southwestern Iran and Kermanshah (western Iran provinces, respectively. Also, α-chain variants of Hb Q-Iran and Hb Setif are prevalent in western Iran. The molecular basis and clinical severity of thalassemias are extremely heterogenous among Iranians due to the presence of multiethnic groups in the country. β-Thalassemia is more prevalent in northern and southern Iran. Among 52 different β-thalassemia mutations that have been identified among Iranian populations, IVSII-1 G:A is the most frequent mutation in most parts of the country. The presence of IVS I-5 G:C mutation with high frequency in southeastern Iran might reflect gene flow from neighboring countries. A wide spectrum of α-thalassemia alleles has been detected among Iranians with as the most prevalent α-thalassemia mutation. The prevention program of thalassemia birth in Iran has reduced the birth rate of homozygous β-thalassemia since the implementation of the program in 1997. In this review genetic epidemiology, clinical and hematological aspects of hemoglobinopathies, and the prevention programs of β-thalassemia in Iran will be discussed.

The evolution of the causation concept and its relation with statistical methods in Epidemiology

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Luis Fernando Lisboa

2008-09-01

Full Text Available A historical review places the first registers of Epidemiology in ancient Greece, with Hippocrates, who identified environmental causes of diseases. Along the centuries, the evolution of the causation concept started to be related to changes in scientific paradigms. In London, during the 17th century, the quantitative method was introduced in Epidemiology, but it was only by the end of the 19th century that the concept of the environment and a mathematical approach to understanding Public Health issues were well established. This was a very rich period to setting new concepts and systematizations in epidemiologic methodology. The beginning of the 20th century consolidated Epidemiology as a scientific discipline and the development of computers in the post-war years brought much advance in this field. Nowadays, Epidemiology plays an important role as it integrates scientific knowledge on the health/disease process to the professional area, participating in population healthcare efforts.

Clinical and epidemiological features of chronic Trypanosoma cruzi infection in patients with HIV/AIDS in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Benchetrit, Andrés Guillermo; Fernández, Marisa; Bava, Amadeo Javier; Corti, Marcelo; Porteiro, Norma; Martínez Peralta, Liliana

2018-02-01

Trypanosoma cruzi reactivation in HIV patients is considered an opportunistic infection, usually with a fatal outcome. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiological and clinical features of T. cruzi infection in HIV patients and to compare these findings between patients with and without Chagas disease reactivation. The medical records of T. cruzi-HIV co-infected patients treated at the Muñiz Infectious Diseases Hospital from January 2005 to December 2014 were reviewed retrospectively. Epidemiological and clinical features were assessed and compared between patients with and without Chagas disease reactivation. The medical records of 80 T. cruzi-HIV co-infected patients were reviewed. The most likely route of T. cruzi infection was vector-borne (32/80 patients), followed by intravenous drug use (12/80). Nine of 80 patients had reactivation. Patients without reactivation had a significantly higher CD4 T-cell count at diagnosis of T. cruzi infection (144 cells/μl vs. 30 cells/μl, p=0.026). Chagas disease serology was negative in two of nine patients with reactivation. Serological assays for T. cruzi infection may be negative in severely immunocompromised patients. Direct parasitological techniques should be performed in the diagnosis of patients for whom there is a suspicion of T. cruzi reactivation. HIV patients with a lower CD4 count are at higher risk of reactivation. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Eco-epidemiological and pathological features of wildlife mortality events related to cyanobacterial biointoxication in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Bengis, R

2016-10-01

Full Text Available the victims of these bio-intoxication events. This publication discusses the eco-epidemiology and pathology of these clustered mortalities, as well as the management options considered and eventually used to address the problem....

Epidemiological features and financial loss due to clinically diagnosed Haemorrhagic Septicemia in bovines in Karnataka, India.

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Govindaraj, G; Krishnamoorthy, P; Nethrayini, K R; Shalini, R; Rahman, H

2017-09-01

The epidemiological features and financial losses due to Haemorrhagic Septicemia (HS) in bovines were studied in Karnataka state using the primary data collected from 133 clinically diagnosed HS affected farms. The various losses due to HS and the Benefit- Cost of the vaccination programme in cattle and water buffaloes were studied using mathematical models. The number of HS outbreaks were higher during the year 2002 and peaked during 2005 and thereafter declined due to targeted vaccination against HS. The morbidity and mortality risks were lower in large farms than medium and small farms, and lower in indigenous cattle compared to high yielding crossbred cattle and water buffaloes. The disease occurrence was more in in-milk animals causing serious economic loss to the farmers. Most outbreaks were observed during monsoon season, though the disease was prevalent throughout the year. The mean milk loss per animal was $2, $11 and $50 in indigenous cattle, water buffaloes and crossbred cattle, respectively. In the case of draught animals, the average effective draught power was unavailable for 1.2days/outbreak resulting in a loss of $5 per affected oxen. The treatment and extra labor expenses incurred per animal were $24 and $7, respectively. The average loss per animal due to mortality loss was $275, $284 and $415 in case of indigenous cattle, water buffaloes and crossbred cattle, respectively. The projected loss for the state of Karnataka were $23.89, $17.92 and $11.95 million under high, medium and low HS incidence scenarios, respectively. The Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) of the vaccination against HS has been estimated at 5.97:1, 4.48:1 and 2.98:1 under high, medium and low incidence scenarios, respectively. The results highlight the important epidemiological features and financial losses to the affected households and the state of Karnataka. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Eco-epidemiological and pathological features of wildlife mortality events related to cyanobacterial bio-intoxication in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

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Roy Bengis

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Over the past decade, several clustered, multispecies, wildlife mortality events occurred in the vicinity of two man-made earthen dams in the southern and south central regions of the Kruger National Park, South Africa. On field investigation, heavy cyanobacterial blooms were visible in these impoundments and analysis of water samples showed the dominance of Microcystis spp. (probably Microcystis aeruginosa. Macroscopic lesions seen at necropsy and histopathological lesions were compatible with a diagnosis of cyanobacterial intoxication. Laboratory toxicity tests and assays also confirmed the presence of significant levels of microcystins in water from the two dams. These outbreaks occurred during the dry autumn and early winter seasons when water levels in these dams were dropping, and a common feature was that all the affected dams were supporting a large number of hippopotamuses (Hippopotamus amphibius. It is hypothesised that hippopotamus’ urine and faeces, together with agitation of the sediments, significantly contributed to internal loading of phosphates and nitrogen – leading to eutrophication of the water in these impoundments and subsequent cyanobacterial blooms. A major cause for concern was that a number of white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum were amongst the victims of these bio-intoxication events. This publication discusses the eco-epidemiology and pathology of these clustered mortalities, as well as the management options considered and eventually used to address the problem.

Epidemiology and Clinical Features of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning in Hong Kong

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Thomas Y. K. Chan

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In the present review, the main objective was to describe the epidemiology and clinical features of ciguatera fish poisoning in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 2008, the annual incidence of ciguatera varied between 3.3 and 64.9 (median 10.2 per million people. The groupers have replaced the snappers as the most important cause of ciguatera. Pacific-ciguatoxins (CTX are most commonly present in reef fish samples implicated in ciguatera outbreaks. In affected subjects, the gastrointestinal symptoms often subside within days, whereas the neurological symptoms can persist for weeks or even months. Bradycardia and hypotension, which can be life-threatening, are common. Treatment of ciguatera is primarily supportive and symptomatic. Intravenous mannitol (1 g/kg has also been suggested. To prevent ciguatera outbreaks, the public should be educated to avoid eating large coral reef fishes, especially the CTX-rich parts. A Code of Practice on Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption for Prevention and Control of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning was introduced from 2004 to 2013. The Food Safety Ordinance with a tracing mechanism came into full effect in February 2012. The Government would be able to trace the sources of the fishes more effectively and take prompt action when dealing with ciguatera incidents.

Epidemiology and clinical features of ciguatera fish poisoning in Hong Kong.

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Chan, Thomas Y K

2014-10-20

In the present review, the main objective was to describe the epidemiology and clinical features of ciguatera fish poisoning in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 2008, the annual incidence of ciguatera varied between 3.3 and 64.9 (median 10.2) per million people. The groupers have replaced the snappers as the most important cause of ciguatera. Pacific-ciguatoxins (CTX) are most commonly present in reef fish samples implicated in ciguatera outbreaks. In affected subjects, the gastrointestinal symptoms often subside within days, whereas the neurological symptoms can persist for weeks or even months. Bradycardia and hypotension, which can be life-threatening, are common. Treatment of ciguatera is primarily supportive and symptomatic. Intravenous mannitol (1 g/kg) has also been suggested. To prevent ciguatera outbreaks, the public should be educated to avoid eating large coral reef fishes, especially the CTX-rich parts. A Code of Practice on Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption for Prevention and Control of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning was introduced from 2004 to 2013. The Food Safety Ordinance with a tracing mechanism came into full effect in February 2012. The Government would be able to trace the sources of the fishes more effectively and take prompt action when dealing with ciguatera incidents.

Epidemiology and Clinical Features of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning in Hong Kong

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, Thomas Y. K.

2014-01-01

In the present review, the main objective was to describe the epidemiology and clinical features of ciguatera fish poisoning in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 2008, the annual incidence of ciguatera varied between 3.3 and 64.9 (median 10.2) per million people. The groupers have replaced the snappers as the most important cause of ciguatera. Pacific-ciguatoxins (CTX) are most commonly present in reef fish samples implicated in ciguatera outbreaks. In affected subjects, the gastrointestinal symptoms often subside within days, whereas the neurological symptoms can persist for weeks or even months. Bradycardia and hypotension, which can be life-threatening, are common. Treatment of ciguatera is primarily supportive and symptomatic. Intravenous mannitol (1 g/kg) has also been suggested. To prevent ciguatera outbreaks, the public should be educated to avoid eating large coral reef fishes, especially the CTX-rich parts. A Code of Practice on Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption for Prevention and Control of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning was introduced from 2004 to 2013. The Food Safety Ordinance with a tracing mechanism came into full effect in February 2012. The Government would be able to trace the sources of the fishes more effectively and take prompt action when dealing with ciguatera incidents. PMID:25333356

Tuberculous spondylodiscitis: epidemiology, clinical features, treatment, and outcome.

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Trecarichi, E M; Di Meco, E; Mazzotta, V; Fantoni, M

2012-04-01

Tuberculous spondylodiscitis (TS) is a rare but serious clinical condition which may lead to severe deformity and early or late neurological complications. To discuss certain aspects of the approach to TSs, focusing upon epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment outcome. For the purpose of this review, a literature search was performed using the Pubmed database through to 19th October 2011 to identify studies published in the last 20 years, concerned in epidemiological, clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutical aspects of TS in adults. Only studies drafted in English language and reporting case series of more than 20 patients have been included. TS has been reported to accounts for 1-5% of all TB cases, and for about 50% of the cases of articulo-skeletal TB infections. Despite the actual availability of more effective diagnostic tools, early recognition of TS remains difficult and a high index of suspicion is needed due to the chronic nature of the disease and its insidious and variable clinical presentation. A prompt diagnosis is required to improve long term outcome, and a microbiological confirmation is recommended to enable appropriate choice of anti-mycobacterial agents. Surgery has an important role in alleviating pain, correcting deformities and neurological impairment, and restoring function. Further studies are required to assess the appropriate duration of anti-microbial treatment, also in regarding of a combined surgical approach.

Is the occurrence of spontaneous epistaxis related to climatic variables? A retrospective clinical, epidemiological and meteorological study.

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Mangussi-Gomes, João; Enout, Mariana Junqueira Reis; Castro, Thaiana Carneiro de; de Andrade, José Santos Cruz; Penido, Norma de Oliveira; Kosugi, Eduardo Macoto

2016-11-01

Epistaxis has a bimodal age distribution. Anterior epistaxis of mild severity is more common in children; severe epistaxis occurs more often in adults and elderly patients. The occurrence of spontaneous epistaxis was shown to be weakly-to-moderately and inversely correlated to the mean monthly temperature, relative humidity and total rainfall. To describe the clinical and epidemiological profiles of patients diagnosed with spontaneous epistaxis; to correlate its monthly occurrence with meteorological variables. A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed in a referral ENT service in São Paulo, Brazil. The study assessed the clinical and epidemiological features of 508 patients with spontaneous epistaxis treated between February 2010 and January 2011. The occurrence of epistaxis was associated with weather variables for the same study period. Spontaneous epistaxis presented two age peaks of higher incidence (11-20 and 51-70 years). Children more frequently had localized bleeding (p = 0.003), in the anterior region of the nasal cavity (p = 0.0001), of absent-mild severity (p = 0.0082). Diffuse bleeding (p = 0.005), of moderate-severe intensity (p = 0.003), was more common in adults and elderly patients. The total number of visits because of epistaxis was inversely correlated to mean temperature (R = -0.489; p = 0.011), mean relative humidity (R = -0.364; p = 0.038), and total rainfall (R = -0.512; p = 0.009) during each month of the analyzed period.

Guilt by Association: The 13 micron Dust Feature in Circumstellar Shells and Related Spectral Features

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Sloan, G. C.; Kraemer, K. E.; Goebel, J. H.; Price, S. D.

A study of spectra from the SWS on ISO of optically thin oxygen-rich dust shells shows that the strength of the 13 micron dust emission feature is correlated with the CO2 bands (13--17 microns) and dust emission features at 19.8 and 28.1 microns. SRb variables tend to show stronger 13 micron features than Mira variables, suggesting that the presence of the 13 micron and related features depends on pulsation mode and mass-loss rate. The absence of any correlation to dust emission features at 16.8 and 32 microns makes spinel an unlikely carrier. The most plausible carrier of the 13 micron feature remains crystalline alumina, and we suggest that the related dust features may be crystalline silicates. When dust forms in regions of low density, it may condense into crystalline grain structures.

CLINICAL AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE BRUCELLOSIS IN CHILDREN OF THE STAVROPOL TERRITORY

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S. M. Bezrodnova

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: to study the clinical  and  epidemiological features of brucellosis in children in the Stavropol region.Materials and  methods: Analysis of brucellosis is made and  the  share  of brucellosis in the  Stavropol Territory  from 2010 to 2014 is clarified. The paper  used  the  data  from the Territorial  Rospotrebnadzor in  the  Stavropol Territory.  Dynamic   clinical  indices were  analyzed in  17  children with brucellosis under treatment and  dispensary observation in the  State  Budget Institution of Health  of the  Stavropol Territory  «Regional Clinical  Hospital of  Infectious Diseases». Analyzed an  outbreak of brucellosis in  Essentuki in  2016. We used  the following methods: bibliographic, monographic description, epidemiological, analytical, statistical methods.Results. The proportion of the incidence of brucellosis in children in Stavropol Krai in comparison with the Russian figures were: in 2010 – 8,33%, in 2016 – 56%. A household way of infection increases, including children, who were infected in the  farms  of their  own  parents. The age  of infection was12–16 (47,06%, 8–11 (35,29% and 4–7  years (17,65%.The  main  clinical  syndromes were: arthritic, vegetative, asthenic, lymphoproliferative syndrome, liver disease, splenomegaly. Isolated forms did not occur. Predominantly, large joints with dysfunction of joints of I–II degree were affected. Late referral after the initial manifestation is typical. Late initiation of treatment. The etiotropic therapy is carried  out at least 4 weeks, in the presence of carditis – up to 16 weeks.Conclusion. The epidemiological situation of brucellosis in the Stavropol territory  has been  tense in the recent  years. The active migration of the population from the regions of the North  Caucasus Federal  District  contributes to this.  Intensive  incidence rate of brucellosis exceeds the  average Russian level by 5–8

Epidemiological and clinical features of patients with disseminated sclerosis in Perm region

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Zhelnin A.V.

2013-03-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the article is to identify the epidemiological and clinical features of disseminated sclerosis (DS in Perm region. Material and methods: Data have been analyzed in 932 patients with DS. Among them there were 607 women (65% and 325 men (35%. The age of patients with DS varied from 17 to 68 years, in average 44,5±4,5years. All the patients have experienced comprehensive clinical and neurological study, MRI study of brain and spinal cord. Calculation of prevalence and incidence has been conducted among 100,000 people. Results: The prevalence of DS in Perm region on January 1, 2011 amounted to 35.1 cases perthe population of 100,000 people, which can be attributed to our region to the zone of medium risk of DS developing. The growth of incidence of DS in Perm region has been revealed. It has been determined that in 1997 the incidence of DS averaged 3.2. Risk factors have been identified. Conclusion: The data on the prevalence and incidence of disseminated sclerosis help improve the quality of treatment and preventive care for patients with disseminated sclerosis.

[Epidemiology of work-related eye injuries].

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Zghal-Mokni, Imen; Nacef, Leila; Kaoueche, Mourad; Letaief, Imen; Bouguila, Hedi; Jeddi, Amel; Ayed, Saida

2007-07-01

Occupational injury represents 7,7 at 69,9% of the total ocular traumatisms. They can be a major source of visuel loss and blindness. The aim is to study the epidemiology of work-related ocular injuries: objects frequencies,works most exposed. We performed a prospective study that interest 78 patients having a work-related ocular traumatism during a 4 months period. They were admitted at ocular emergeney All patients underwent an ophtalmologic examination completed with orbital radiography and echography. A medical and/or chirurgical appropriate treatment was institued. Occupationnal injury frequency was 9% of the whole ocular traumatisms in the same period. The mean age was 31 years. 55% of cases were under 30 years. 91% were male. Most exposed works were industrial and mecanical sectors In 70,5% of cases work-related eye injuries were caused by projectile objects. Most common lesion was corneal superficial foreign body (58%). Open globe injury was noted in 8%. 95% of patients had no eye protection at the time of the accident. 13% were blind or unilateral partially sighted (according to the OMS classification). The authors discussed the importance and different prevention strategies to prevent the risk of blindness and socio-economical cost of occupationnal accidents. There is a need for systematic periodic sensibilization to reduce these accidents and blindness.

Distantiae transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi: a new epidemiological feature of acute Chagas disease in Brazil.

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Samanta Cristina das Chagas Xavier

2014-05-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The new epidemiological scenario of orally transmitted Chagas disease that has emerged in Brazil, and mainly in the Amazon region, needs to be addressed with a new and systematic focus. Belém, the capital of Pará state, reports the highest number of acute Chagas disease (ACD cases associated with the consumption of açaí juice. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The wild and domestic enzootic transmission cycles of Trypanosoma cruzi were evaluated in the two locations (Jurunas and Val-de Cães that report the majority of the autochthonous cases of ACD in Belém city. Moreover, we evaluated the enzootic cycle on the three islands that provide most of the açaí fruit that is consumed in these localities. We employed parasitological and serological tests throughout to evaluate infectivity competence and exposure to T. cruzi. In Val-de-Cães, no wild mammal presented positive parasitological tests, and 56% seroprevalence was observed, with low serological titers. Three of 14 triatomines were found to be infected (TcI. This unexpected epidemiological picture does not explain the high number of autochthonous ACD cases. In Jurunas, the cases of ACD could not be autochthonous because of the absence of any enzootic cycle of T. cruzi. In contrast, in the 3 island areas from which the açaí fruit originates, 66.7% of wild mammals and two dogs displayed positive hemocultures, and 15.6% of triatomines were found to be infected by T. cruzi. Genotyping by mini-exon gene and PCR-RFLP (1f8/Akw21I targeting revealed that the mammals and triatomines from the islands harbored TcI and Trypanosoma rangeli in single and mixed infections. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings show that cases of Chagas disease in the urban area of Belém may be derived from infected triatomines coming together with the açaí fruits from distant islands. We term this new epidemiological feature of Chagas disease as "Distantiae transmission".

Incidence and epidemiological features of synchronous and metachronous colorectal cancer

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Eduardo Brambilla

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: patients with sporadic colorectal cancer or cases associated with syndromes are at risk of having synchronous or metachronous cancer. Although it is an important subject, Brazilian data on the subject are scarce. Objective: to evaluate the incidence and epidemiological features in patients with synchro- nous and metachronous colorectal cancer in a reference service of proctology in the Rio Grande do Sul. Methods: cross-sectional observational study, performed between January and July 2012, analyzing all patients admitted in the service that met the inclusion criteria. A retrospective review of records was performed, noting demographic variables, comorbidi- ties and tumor-related variables. Results: 150 records were analyzed, of which 53.3% were males and mean age was 63 (± 13.01 years old. The most frequently found tumor location was the sigmoid colon and high rectum (50.67%, followed by the lower rectum (36%. Adenocarcinomas were the most prevalent histological subtype (88%, followed by epidermoid tumors (1.33%. Hereditary syndromes were identified in five patients (3.33%, with four being Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP and one hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC. Among the an- alyzed patients, four (2.67% had synchronous and one (0.67% had metachronous cancer. Conclusion: the incidence of synchronous and metachronous colorectal cancer was, respectively, 2.67% and 0.67%, results that corroborate those reported in international literature. Resumo: Introdução: pacientes com diagnóstico de câncer colorretal esporádico ou associado a sín- dromes correm risco de apresentar lesões sincrônicas ou metacrônicas. Embora seja rele- vante, há escassez de informações sobre o tema na literatura nacional. Objetivo: avaliar a incidência e o perfil epidemiológico dos pacientes com tumor colorretal sincrônico e metacrônico em um serviço de referência em proctologia do Rio Grande do Sul. Método: estudo

Epidemiological and clinical features of primary liver cancer: an analysis of 236 patients

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ZHAO Rongrong

2016-08-01

Full Text Available ObjectiveTo investigate the epidemiological and clinical features of patients with primary liver cancer (PLC. MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 236 patients with complete information who were admitted to The First Hospital of Lanzhou University and diagnosed with PLC for the first time form August 2012 to August 2014, and their epidemiological and clinical features were analyzed. The chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data between groups. ResultsAmong the 236 PLC patients, there were 198 male patients (83.9% and 38 female patients (16.1%, and the patients aged 41-60 years has the highest incidence rate (58.5%, 138/236. Nineteen patients had a family history of liver cancer, 28 had a history of heavy drinking, 34 were complicated by type 2 diabetes, and 44 were complicated by hypertension. Among these patients, 232 (98.3% developed PLC on the basis of chronic liver disease, and 4 (1.7% had no chronic liver disease. There were 207 patients (87.7% with chronic HBV infection, and most of them had HBeAg-negative infection. Fourteen patients (5.9% had chronic HCV infection, 5 (2.1% had HBV/HCV co-infection, and 6 (2.5% had chronic alcoholic hepatitis. Among the 212 patients with HBV infection, 51(241% had HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B, and 95(448% had HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B; there was significant difference in HBV DNA level between the two groups (χ２＝４０６８７，Ρ＝0001. Among all the PLC patients, 104 had an alpha-fetoprotein(AFP level of ＞400 IU/ml, 48 had an AFP level of 200-400 IU/ml, and 84 had an AFP level of ＜200 IU/ml; 154 (62.3% had a single lesion, and 72 (30.5% had multiple lesions; most (72.7% of patients with a single lesion had the single lesion in the right lobe, and the proportions of patients with multiple lesions in the right lobe and in both lobes accounted for 58.3% and 41.7%, respectively. Among the 80 PLC patients with

Event-related potentials reveal the relations between feature representations at different levels of abstraction.

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Hannah, Samuel D; Shedden, Judith M; Brooks, Lee R; Grundy, John G

2016-11-01

In this paper, we use behavioural methods and event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the relations between informational and instantiated features, as well as the relation between feature abstraction and rule type. Participants are trained to categorize two species of fictitious animals and then identify perceptually novel exemplars. Critically, two groups are given a perfectly predictive counting rule that, according to Hannah and Brooks (2009. Featuring familiarity: How a familiar feature instantiation influences categorization. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale, 63, 263-275. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1037/a0017919), should orient them to using abstract informational features when categorizing the novel transfer items. A third group is taught a feature list rule, which should orient them to using detailed instantiated features. One counting-rule group were taught their rule before any exposure to the actual stimuli, and the other immediately after training, having learned the instantiations first. The feature-list group were also taught their rule after training. The ERP results suggest that at test, the two counting-rule groups processed items differently, despite their identical rule. This not only supports the distinction that informational and instantiated features are qualitatively different feature representations, but also implies that rules can readily operate over concrete inputs, in contradiction to traditional approaches that assume that rules necessarily act on abstract inputs.

Epidemiología de campo y epidemiología social Field epidemiology and social epidemiology

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Javier Segura del Pozo

2006-03-01

changing epistemological, methodological and practice grounds, beginning with field epidemiologists teaching programmes. Field epidemiology would tend to act in an absent theoretical frame. On the other hand, social epidemiology would tend to prioritize theoretical developments (thinking and research about social determinants without correspondent action, because of the limits to change public policies. Other differences are found at intervention level (micro-macrospace, its aim (outbreak control vs. inequalities control and the way to communicate with society. They are similar in the methodological concern, the predominance of orientation based on positivism and framed through statistic methods, but in process of epistemological opening, the stress experienced between the alternative relationship to a virtual world of data bases or to the real society, their peripherical situation in relation of the political, social, institutional and professional system and the tendency to professional frustration. Finally, we ask ten questions to the field epidemiologists related with their present practice, in order to consider if they are developing social epidemiology, and propose some changes in epidemiologist teaching and practice.

Extract the Relational Information of Static Features and Motion Features for Human Activities Recognition in Videos

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Li Yao

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Both static features and motion features have shown promising performance in human activities recognition task. However, the information included in these features is insufficient for complex human activities. In this paper, we propose extracting relational information of static features and motion features for human activities recognition. The videos are represented by a classical Bag-of-Word (BoW model which is useful in many works. To get a compact and discriminative codebook with small dimension, we employ the divisive algorithm based on KL-divergence to reconstruct the codebook. After that, to further capture strong relational information, we construct a bipartite graph to model the relationship between words of different feature set. Then we use a k-way partition to create a new codebook in which similar words are getting together. With this new codebook, videos can be represented by a new BoW vector with strong relational information. Moreover, we propose a method to compute new clusters from the divisive algorithm’s projective function. We test our work on the several datasets and obtain very promising results.

Radon epidemiology: A guide to the literature

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marks, S.

1988-12-01

This document was written as a comprehensive overview of the voluminous literature on both uranium miner and residential radon epidemiology studies. This document provides the reader with a fairly complete list of radon epidemiology publications and key features of each, so that readers may further pursue only those publications of interest in the vast body of radon literature. A companion document, exploring all on-going residential radon epidemiology studies will be published by the Office of Health and Environmental Research (OHER), the Department of Energy (DOE) in the spring of 1989

Clinical mastitis in ewes; bacteriology, epidemiology and clinical features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kvitle Bjørg

2007-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Clinical mastitis is an important disease in sheep. The objective of this work was to identify causal bacteria and study certain epidemiological and clinical features of clinical mastitis in ewes kept for meat and wool production. Methods The study included 509 ewes with clinical mastitis from 353 flocks located in 14 of the 19 counties in Norway. Clinical examination and collection of udder secretions were carried out by veterinarians. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE was performed on 92 Staphylococcus aureus isolates from 64 ewes. Results and conclusion S. aureus was recovered from 65.3% of 547 clinically affected mammary glands, coagulase-negative staphylococci from 2.9%, enterobacteria, mainly Escherichia coli, from 7.3%, Streptococcus spp. from 4.6%, Mannheimia haemolytica from 1.8% and various other bacteria from 4.9%, while no bacteria were cultured from 13.2% of the samples. Forty percent of the ewes with unilateral clinical S. aureus mastitis also had a subclinical S. aureus infection in the other mammary gland. Twenty-four of 28 (86% pairs of S. aureus isolates obtained from clinically and subclinically affected mammary glands of the same ewe were indistinguishable by PFGE. The number of identical pairs was significantly greater than expected, based on the distribution of different S. aureus types within the flocks. One-third of the cases occurred during the first week after lambing, while a second peak was observed in the third week of lactation. Gangrene was present in 8.8% of the clinically affected glands; S. aureus was recovered from 72.9%, Clostridium perfringens from 6.3% and E. coli from 6.3% of the secretions from such glands. This study shows that S. aureus predominates as a cause of clinical ovine mastitis in Norway, also in very severe cases. Results also indicate that S. aureus is frequently spread between udder halves of infected ewes.

Feature-based morphometry: discovering group-related anatomical patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Toews, Matthew; Wells, William; Collins, D Louis; Arbel, Tal

2010-02-01

This paper presents feature-based morphometry (FBM), a new fully data-driven technique for discovering patterns of group-related anatomical structure in volumetric imagery. In contrast to most morphometry methods which assume one-to-one correspondence between subjects, FBM explicitly aims to identify distinctive anatomical patterns that may only be present in subsets of subjects, due to disease or anatomical variability. The image is modeled as a collage of generic, localized image features that need not be present in all subjects. Scale-space theory is applied to analyze image features at the characteristic scale of underlying anatomical structures, instead of at arbitrary scales such as global or voxel-level. A probabilistic model describes features in terms of their appearance, geometry, and relationship to subject groups, and is automatically learned from a set of subject images and group labels. Features resulting from learning correspond to group-related anatomical structures that can potentially be used as image biomarkers of disease or as a basis for computer-aided diagnosis. The relationship between features and groups is quantified by the likelihood of feature occurrence within a specific group vs. the rest of the population, and feature significance is quantified in terms of the false discovery rate. Experiments validate FBM clinically in the analysis of normal (NC) and Alzheimer's (AD) brain images using the freely available OASIS database. FBM automatically identifies known structural differences between NC and AD subjects in a fully data-driven fashion, and an equal error classification rate of 0.80 is achieved for subjects aged 60-80 years exhibiting mild AD (CDR=1). Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Relative and absolute risk in epidemiology and health physics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goldsmith, R.; Peterson, H.T. Jr.

1983-01-01

The health risk from ionizing radiation commonly is expressed in two forms: (1) the relative risk, which is the percentage increase in natural disease rate and (2) the absolute or attributable risk which represents the difference between the natural rate and the rate associated with the agent in question. Relative risk estimates for ionizing radiation generally are higher than those expressed as the absolute risk. This raises the question of which risk estimator is the most appropriate under different conditions. The absolute risk has generally been used for radiation risk assessment, although mathematical combinations such as the arithmetic or geometric mean of both the absolute and relative risks, have also been used. Combinations of the two risk estimators are not valid because the absolute and relative risk are not independent variables. Both human epidemiologic studies and animal experimental data can be found to illustrate the functional relationship between the natural cancer risk and the risk associated with radiation. This implies that the radiation risk estimate derived from one population may not be appropriate for predictions in another population, unless it is adjusted for the difference in the natural disease incidence between the two populations

WHO - IPHECA: Epidemiological aspects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Souchkevitch, G.

1996-01-01

In May 1991 the World Health Assembly endorsed the establishment of the International Programme on the Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident (IPHECA) under the auspices of WHO. Five pilot projects have been carried out within IPHECA in the study territories of Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine in a period from 1991 to 1994. This pilot projects dealt with the detection and treatment of leukaemia and related diseases (Haematology Project), thyroid disorders (Thyroid project), brain damage during exposure 'in-utero' (Brain Damage 'in-Utero' project) and with the development of the Chernobyl registries (Epidemiological Registry Project). A fifth pilot project on oral health was performed only in Belarus. Epidemiological investigations have been an important component of all IPHECA pilot projects. Within 'Epidemiological Registry' Project such investigations have been the principal activity. But with respect to other IPHECA projects it was carried out in addition to main objectives relating to medical monitoring, early diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases included in project protocols. To support the epidemiological investigations within IPHECA, WHO supplied 41 computers in Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine and provided training for specialists from these countries in internationally recognized centres. The training programmes and host countries were as follows: standardization of epidemiological investigations (United Kingdom), radiation epidemiology (Russia), development of software (United Kingdom), principles of epidemiological investigations (The Czech Republic), cohort investigations (Japan)

WHO - IPHECA: Epidemiological aspects

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Souchkevitch, G [World Health Organization, Geneva (Swaziland)

1996-07-01

In May 1991 the World Health Assembly endorsed the establishment of the International Programme on the Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident (IPHECA) under the auspices of WHO. Five pilot projects have been carried out within IPHECA in the study territories of Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine in a period from 1991 to 1994. This pilot projects dealt with the detection and treatment of leukaemia and related diseases (Haematology Project), thyroid disorders (Thyroid project), brain damage during exposure 'in-utero' (Brain Damage 'in-Utero' project) and with the development of the Chernobyl registries (Epidemiological Registry Project). A fifth pilot project on oral health was performed only in Belarus. Epidemiological investigations have been an important component of all IPHECA pilot projects. Within 'Epidemiological Registry' Project such investigations have been the principal activity. But with respect to other IPHECA projects it was carried out in addition to main objectives relating to medical monitoring, early diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases included in project protocols. To support the epidemiological investigations within IPHECA, WHO supplied 41 computers in Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine and provided training for specialists from these countries in internationally recognized centres. The training programmes and host countries were as follows: standardization of epidemiological investigations (United Kingdom), radiation epidemiology (Russia), development of software (United Kingdom), principles of epidemiological investigations (The Czech Republic), cohort investigations (Japan)

Spatial Relation Predicates in Topographic Feature Semantics

Science.gov (United States)

Varanka, Dalia E.; Caro, Holly K.

2013-01-01

Topographic data are designed and widely used for base maps of diverse applications, yet the power of these information sources largely relies on the interpretive skills of map readers and relational database expert users once the data are in map or geographic information system (GIS) form. Advances in geospatial semantic technology offer data model alternatives for explicating concepts and articulating complex data queries and statements. To understand and enrich the vocabulary of topographic feature properties for semantic technology, English language spatial relation predicates were analyzed in three standard topographic feature glossaries. The analytical approach drew from disciplinary concepts in geography, linguistics, and information science. Five major classes of spatial relation predicates were identified from the analysis; representations for most of these are not widely available. The classes are: part-whole (which are commonly modeled throughout semantic and linked-data networks), geometric, processes, human intention, and spatial prepositions. These are commonly found in the ‘real world’ and support the environmental science basis for digital topographical mapping. The spatial relation concepts are based on sets of relation terms presented in this chapter, though these lists are not prescriptive or exhaustive. The results of this study make explicit the concepts forming a broad set of spatial relation expressions, which in turn form the basis for expanding the range of possible queries for topographical data analysis and mapping.

Epidemiology of cancer-related venous thromboembolism

OpenAIRE

Wun, Ted; White, Richard H.

2009-01-01

Recent studies have better defined the epidemiology of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in cancer patients. The incidence is highest in patients who have metastatic disease at the time of presentation and who have fast growing, biologically aggressive cancers associated with a poor prognosis. The incidence is also high in patients with haematological cancers. Other specific risk factors that affect the incidence of VTE include undergoing invasive neurosurgery, the number of underlying chronic co-...

Epidemiology of pediatric holiday-related injuries presenting to US emergency departments.

Science.gov (United States)

D'Ippolito, Anthony; Collins, Christy L; Comstock, R Dawn

2010-05-01

The objective of this study was to calculate injury rates and describe the epidemiology of holiday-related injuries among children who were aged holiday-related injuries obtained from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System were analyzed. From 1997 through 2006, an estimated 5,710,999 holiday-related injuries sustained by children who were aged holidays were classified as sports and recreation-related. In addition, home structure-related and home furnishing-related injuries were prevalent. Injuries that were associated with fireworks were more likely to occur on the Fourth of July than any other holiday, yet fireworks accounted for only a small proportion of Fourth of July injuries. Most injuries that were sustained on holidays and required ED treatment were not holiday-specific but were associated with more general activities. Parents should be aware that holidays present a risk not only for holiday-specific injuries but also for more general, "everyday" injuries.

Epidemiology of soil-transmitted helminthiases-related mortality in Brazil.

Science.gov (United States)

Martins-Melo, Francisco R; Ramos, Alberto N; Alencar, Carlos H; Lima, Mauricélia S; Heukelbach, Jorg

2017-04-01

Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical areas, including Brazil. We performed a nationwide population-based study including all deaths in Brazil from 2000 to 2011, in which STHs (ascariasis, trichuriasis and/or hookworm infection) were mentioned on death certificates, either as underlying or as associated causes of death. Epidemiological characteristics, time trends and spatial analysis of STH-related mortality were analysed. STHs was identified on 853/12 491 280 death certificates: 827 (97·0%) deaths related to ascariasis, 25 (2·9%) to hookworm infections, and 1 (0·1%) to trichuriasis. The average annual age-adjusted mortality rate was 0·34/1 000 000 inhabitants (95% confidence interval: 0·27-0·44). Females, children Brazil, a considerable number of deaths is caused by STHs, with ascariasis responsible for the vast majority. There were marked regional differences, affecting mainly children and vulnerable populations.

The descriptive epidemiology of sports/leisure-related heat illness hospitalisations in New South Wales, Australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Finch, Caroline F; Boufous, Soufiane

2008-01-01

Sport-related heat illness has not been commonly studied from an epidemiological perspective. This study presents the descriptive epidemiology of sports/leisure-related heat illness hospitalisations in New South Wales, Australia. All in-patient separations from all acute hospitals in NSW during 2001-2004, with an International Classification of Diseases external cause of injury code indicating "exposure to excessive natural heat (X30)" or any ICD-10 diagnosis code in the range: "effects of heat and light (T67.0-T67.9)", were analysed. The sport/leisure relatedness of cases was defined by ICD-10-AM activity codes indicating involvement in sport/leisure activities. Cases of exposure to heat while engaged in sport/leisure were described by gender, year, age, principal diagnosis, type of activity/sport and length of stay. There were 109 hospital separations for exposure to heat while engaging in sport/leisure activity, with the majority occurring during the hottest months. The number of male cases significantly increased over the 4-year period and 45+ -year olds had the largest number of cases. Heat exhaustion was the leading cause of hospital separation (40% of cases). Marathon running, cricket and golf were the activities most commonly associated with heat-related hospitalisation. Ongoing development and refinement of expert position statements regarding heat illnesses need to draw on both epidemiological and physiological evidence to ensure their relevance to all levels of risk from the real world sport training and competition contexts.

Clinical epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, S W; Bonnett, B

1987-06-01

Rational clinical practice requires deductive particularization of diagnostic findings, prognoses, and therapeutic responses from groups of animals (herds) to the individual animal (herd) under consideration This process utilizes concepts, skills, and methods of epidemiology, as they relate to the study of the distribution and determinants of health and disease in populations, and casts them in a clinical perspective.We briefly outline diagnostic strategies and introduce a measure of agreement, called kappa, between clinical diagnoses. This statistic is useful not only as a measure of diagnostic accuracy, but also as a means of quantifying and understanding disagreement between diagnosticians. It is disconcerting to many, clinicians included, that given a general deficit of data on sensitivity and specificity, the level of agreement between many clinical diagnoses is only moderate at best with kappa values of 0.3 to 0.6.Sensitivity, specificity, pretest odds, and posttest probability of disease are defined and related to the interpretation of clinical findings and ancillary diagnostic test results. An understanding of these features and how they relate to ruling-in or ruling-out a diagnosis, or minimizzing diagnostic errors will greatly enhance the diagnostic accuracy of the practitioner, and reduce the frequency of clinical disagreement. The approach of running multiple tests on every patient is not only wasteful and expensive, it is unlikely to improve the ability of the clinician to establish the correct diagnosis.We conclude with a discussion of how to decide on the best therapy, a discussion which centers on, and outlines the key features of, the well designed clinical trial. Like a diagnosis, the results from a clinical trial may not always be definitive, nonetheless it is the best available method of gleaning information about treatment efficacy.

Uncertainties in ecological epidemiology: A cautionary tale featuring kit foxes and oil fields

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suter, G.W. II

1993-01-01

Ecological epidemiology, like human epidemiology, often must employ encountered rather than statistically designed data set and must make comparisons among populations that differ in terms of various poorly defined confounding variables. These properties can result in false positive or false negative results if statistics are naively applied. The case in point is a study of a population of an endangered subspecies, the San Joaquin Kit Fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica), inhabiting an oil field. The fox population abundance declined sharply following an increase in oil development until it was virtually absent from the developed portion of the field. It was decided that the possibility of toxicological effects would be investigated by analyzing historic and current hair samples. Metal concentrations were found to be statistically significantly higher for foxes from the developed area compared with those from undeveloped areas of the field. However, analysis of fur from two areas remote from oil fields and from another oil field indicated that the foxes from the developed portions of the subject oil field were not unusually metalliferous but that the foxes from the undeveloped portions were unusually low in metals. The conclusions of this study will be used to draw lessons for the design of studies in ecological epidemiology

Consistency relations for sharp inflationary non-Gaussian features

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mooij, Sander; Palma, Gonzalo A.; Panotopoulos, Grigoris [Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Blanco Encalada 2008, Santiago (Chile); Soto, Alex, E-mail: sander.mooij@ing.uchile.cl, E-mail: gpalmaquilod@ing.uchile.cl, E-mail: gpanotop@ing.uchile.cl, E-mail: gatogeno@gmail.com [Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Las Palmeras 3425, Ñuñoa, Santiago (Chile)

2016-09-01

If cosmic inflation suffered tiny time-dependent deviations from the slow-roll regime, these would induce the existence of small scale-dependent features imprinted in the primordial spectra, with their shapes and sizes revealing information about the physics that produced them. Small sharp features could be suppressed at the level of the two-point correlation function, making them undetectable in the power spectrum, but could be amplified at the level of the three-point correlation function, offering us a window of opportunity to uncover them in the non-Gaussian bispectrum. In this article, we show that sharp features may be analyzed using only data coming from the three point correlation function parametrizing primordial non-Gaussianity. More precisely, we show that if features appear in a particular non-Gaussian triangle configuration (e.g. equilateral, folded, squeezed), these must reappear in every other configuration according to a specific relation allowing us to correlate features across the non-Gaussian bispectrum. As a result, we offer a method to study scale-dependent features generated during inflation that depends only on data coming from measurements of non-Gaussianity, allowing us to omit data from the power spectrum.

Consistency relations for sharp inflationary non-Gaussian features

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mooij, Sander; Palma, Gonzalo A.; Panotopoulos, Grigoris; Soto, Alex

2016-01-01

If cosmic inflation suffered tiny time-dependent deviations from the slow-roll regime, these would induce the existence of small scale-dependent features imprinted in the primordial spectra, with their shapes and sizes revealing information about the physics that produced them. Small sharp features could be suppressed at the level of the two-point correlation function, making them undetectable in the power spectrum, but could be amplified at the level of the three-point correlation function, offering us a window of opportunity to uncover them in the non-Gaussian bispectrum. In this article, we show that sharp features may be analyzed using only data coming from the three point correlation function parametrizing primordial non-Gaussianity. More precisely, we show that if features appear in a particular non-Gaussian triangle configuration (e.g. equilateral, folded, squeezed), these must reappear in every other configuration according to a specific relation allowing us to correlate features across the non-Gaussian bispectrum. As a result, we offer a method to study scale-dependent features generated during inflation that depends only on data coming from measurements of non-Gaussianity, allowing us to omit data from the power spectrum.

Epidemiology of livestock-related injuries in a major trauma center in Kashan, Iran

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammadzadeh Mahdi

2013-02-01

Full Text Available 【Abstract】Objective: Livestock-related injuries are one of the important factors causing morbidity and mor-tality in patients admitted to hospital. Treatment of these patients is still a major problem in health care system. The aim of current study was to assess the epidemiology of livestock-related injuries in a major trauma center in Iran from 2006 to 2011. Methods: In a prospective study, patients with live-stock-related injuries who were consecutively admitted to the trauma center in Kashan, Iran between 2006 and 2011 were evaluated. The data collected included patient’s demographics, place and nature of accident, damaged organ, educational level, transport and outcome. Data were ex-pressed as mean±standard deviation. Results: A total of 129 patients were included in this study, accounting for 0.3% of all trauma admission (40 273 cases. The mean age was (55.27±14.45 years. Men were affected four times more than women. Falling down from livestock is the main mechanism of trauma in all groups. Upper and lower extremities were most frequently injured (n=72, followed by the head, neck and spine (n=33 for each. There was one death resulting from livestock-related injury in this study. Conclusion: Despite the low incidence, livestock-re-lated injuries can damage major organs of human body and therefore appropriate training program to increase the safety awareness in home and outdoor is very important. Key words: Epidemiology; Livestock; Iran; Wounds and injuries

Epidemiology applied to health physics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1983-01-01

The technical program of the mid-year meeting of the Health Physics Society, entitled Epidemiology Applied to Health physics, was developed to meet three objectives: (1) give health physicists a deeper understanding of the basics of epidemiological methods and their use in developing standards, regulations, and criteria and in risk assessment; (2) present current reports on recently completed or on-going epidemiology studies; and (3) encourage greater interaction between the health physics and epidemiology disciplines. Included are studies relating methods in epidemiology to radiation protection standards, risk assessment from exposure to bone-seekers, from occupational exposures in mines, mills and nuclear facilities, and from radioactivity in building materials

Mapping epidemiology's past to inform its future: metaknowledge analysis of epidemiologic topics in leading journals, 1974-2013.

Science.gov (United States)

Trinquart, Ludovic; Galea, Sandro

2015-07-15

An empiric perspective on what epidemiology has studied over time might inform discussions about future directions for the discipline. We aimed to identify the main areas of epidemiologic inquiry and determine how they evolved over time in 5 high-impact epidemiologic journals. We analyzed the titles and abstracts of 20,895 articles that were published between 1974 and 2013. In 5 time periods that reflected approximately equal numbers of articles, we identified the main topics by clustering terms based on co-occurrence. Infectious disease and cardiovascular disease epidemiology were the prevailing topics over the 5 periods. Cancer epidemiology was a major topic from 1974 to 2001 but disappeared thereafter. Nutritional epidemiology gained relative importance from 1974 to 2013. Environmental epidemiology appeared during 1996-2001 and continued to be important, whereas 2 clusters related to methodology and meta-analysis in genetics appeared during 2008-2013. Several areas of epidemiology, including injury or psychiatric epidemiology, did not make an appearance as major topics at any time. In an ancillary analysis of 6 high-impact general medicine journals, we found patterns of epidemiologic articles that were overall consistent with the findings in epidemiologic journals. This metaknowledge investigation allowed identification of the dominant topics in and conversely those that were absent from 5 major epidemiologic journals. We discuss implications for the field. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

[Relations between official and private veterinary services in epidemiology and the control of contagious diseases].

Science.gov (United States)

Moura, J A; Bedoya, M; Agudelo, M P

2004-04-01

Growing budget restrictions in many countries have meant that official Veterinary Services cannot assume responsibility for any new activities. The natural reaction is to turn to private veterinary services to provide the support needed to strengthen the control and surveillance of priority diseases and thereby support the development of the livestock sector and the establishment of safe international trade. In this context, official Veterinary Services must work together with private veterinarians, delegating various technical animal health activities, so that they may focus their efforts on those tasks that cannot be delegated: standardisation, control, auditing, general system co-ordination, epidemiological surveillance, etc., as well as organising veterinary policy in order to make best use of budget resources. For these relations to be efficient, a dynamic, two-way epidemiological information mechanism must be created, whereby private veterinarians periodically keep governments informed, on the basis of an agreed methodology. Moreover, the official Veterinary Services must systematically transmit information on List A and B diseases of the OIE (World organisation for animal health), and perform detailed analyses of epidemiologically significant events. The article proposes the establishment of relations between public and private veterinary services as a way in which to provide the livestock sector with the health and hygiene conditions that are necessary for effective disease control, which in turn provides greater security for international trade and increased consumer protection.

About the tasks of the state sanitary-epidemiological service in public health protection and sanitary-epidemiological well-being of population and environment in case of radiation emergency situations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perminova, G.S.; Tuchkevich, E.A.

1995-01-01

The paper has stated the role of the State Sanitary-Epidemiological Service in the controlled radiation-emergency process on large, medium and small scale. The study reviews the phase character of radiation-emergency process, some typical features of their contents and the actions of the State Sanitary-Epidemiological Service, including non-radiation hygienic aspects; the characteristic features of supervision in case of small accidents are pointed out. Several scientific and practical problems on the raised subject which regarded to be urgent in the opinion of the authors are offered for consideration. 13 refs

Extracted facial feature of racial closely related faces

Science.gov (United States)

Liewchavalit, Chalothorn; Akiba, Masakazu; Kanno, Tsuneo; Nagao, Tomoharu

2010-02-01

Human faces contain a lot of demographic information such as identity, gender, age, race and emotion. Human being can perceive these pieces of information and use it as an important clue in social interaction with other people. Race perception is considered the most delicacy and sensitive parts of face perception. There are many research concerning image-base race recognition, but most of them are focus on major race group such as Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. This paper focuses on how people classify race of the racial closely related group. As a sample of racial closely related group, we choose Japanese and Thai face to represents difference between Northern and Southern Mongoloid. Three psychological experiment was performed to study the strategies of face perception on race classification. As a result of psychological experiment, it can be suggested that race perception is an ability that can be learn. Eyes and eyebrows are the most attention point and eyes is a significant factor in race perception. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed to extract facial features of sample race group. Extracted race features of texture and shape were used to synthesize faces. As the result, it can be suggested that racial feature is rely on detailed texture rather than shape feature. This research is a indispensable important fundamental research on the race perception which are essential in the establishment of human-like race recognition system.

Prevalence and clinical features of sports-related lumbosacral stress injuries in the young.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaneko, Hideto; Murakami, Mototsune; Nishizawa, Kazuya

2017-05-01

Stress injuries (stress fractures and stress reactions) of the lumbosacral region are one of the causes of sports-related lower back pain in young individuals. These injuries can be detected by bone marrow edema lesion on MRI. However, little is known about the prevalence and clinical features of early stage lumbosacral stress injuries. This study aimed to evaluate the epidemiology of lumbosacral stress injuries. A total of 312 patients (under 18 years of age) who complained of sports-related lower back pain that had lasted for ≥7 days underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. We reviewed patients' records retrospectively. MRI showed that 33.0% of the patients had lumbar stress injuries and 1.6% had sacral stress injuries. Lumbar stress injuries were more common in males than in females and were found in 30% of 13- to 18-year-old patients. About 50% of the patients that participated in soccer or track and field were diagnosed with lumbar stress injuries. No clinical patterns in the frequencies of sacral stress injuries were detected due to the low number of patients that suffered this type of injury. Plain radiography is rarely able to detect the early stage lesions associated with lumbosacral stress injuries, but such lesions can be detected in the caudal-ventral region of the pars interarticularis on sagittal computed tomography scans. Thirty-three percent of young patients that complained of sports-related lower back pain for ≥7 days had lumbar stress injuries, while 1.6% of them had sacral stress injuries. Clinicians should be aware of the existence of these injuries. MRI is useful for diagnosing lumbosacral stress injuries.

Against Popperized epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobsen, M

1976-03-01

The recommendation of Popper's philosophy of science should be adopted by epidemiologists is disputed. Reference is made to other authors who have shown that the most constructive elements in Popper's ideas have been advocated by earlier philosophers and have been used in epidemiology without abandoning inductive reasoning. It is argued that Popper's denigration of inductive methods is particularly harmful to epidemiology. Inductive reasoning and statistical inference play a key role in the science; it is suggested that unfamiliarity with these ideas contributes to widespread misunderstanding of the function of epidemiology. Attention is drawn to a common fallacy involving correlations between three random variables. The prevalence of the fallacy may be related to confusion between deductive and inductive logic.

Epidemiology of terror-related versus non-terror-related traumatic injury in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Aharonson-Daniel, Limor; Waisman, Yehezkel; Dannon, Yehuda L; Peleg, Kobi

2003-10-01

In the past 2 years hundreds of children in Israel have been injured in terrorist attacks. There is a paucity of data on the epidemiology of terror-related trauma in the pediatric population and its effect on the health care system. The objective of this study was to review the accumulated Israeli experience with medical care to young victims of terrorism and to use the knowledge obtained to contribute to the preparedness of medical personnel for future events. Data on all patients who were younger than 18 years and were hospitalized from October 1, 2000, to December 31, 2001, for injuries sustained in a terrorist attack were obtained from the Israel National Trauma Registry. The parameters evaluated were patient age and sex, diagnosis, type, mechanism and severity of injury, interhospital transfer, stay in intensive care unit, duration of hospitalization, and need for rehabilitation. Findings were compared with the general pediatric population hospitalized for non-terror-related trauma within the same time period. During the study period, 138 children were hospitalized for a terror-related injury and 8363 for a non-terror-related injury. The study group was significantly older (mean age: 12.3 years [standard deviation: 5.1] v 6.9 years [standard deviation: 5.3]) and sustained proportionately more penetrating injuries (54% [n = 74] vs 9% [n = 725]). Differences were also noted in the proportion of internal injuries to the torso (11% in the patients with terror-related trauma vs 4% in those with non-terror-related injuries), open wounds to the head (13% vs 6%), and critical injuries (Injury Severity Score of 25+; 25% vs 3%). The study group showed greater use of intensive care unit facilities (33% vs 8% in the comparison group), longer median hospitalization time (5 days vs 2 days), and greater need for rehabilitative care (17% vs 1%). Terror-related injuries are more severe than non-terror-related injuries and increase the demand for acute care in children.

Colorectal Cancer in Iran: Molecular Epidemiology and Screening Strategies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roya Dolatkhah

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose. The increasing incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC in the past three decades in Iran has made it a major public health burden. This study aimed to report its epidemiologic features, molecular genetic aspects, survival, heredity, and screening pattern in Iran. Methods. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the relevant published articles. We used medical subject headings, including colorectal cancer, molecular genetics, KRAS and BRAF mutations, screening, survival, epidemiologic study, and Iran. Results. Age standardized incidence rate of Iranian CRCs was 11.6 and 10.5 for men and women, respectively. Overall five-year survival rate was 41%, and the proportion of CRC among the younger age group was higher than that of western countries. Depending on ethnicity, geographical region, dietary, and genetic predisposition, mutation genes were considerably diverse and distinct among CRCs across Iran. The high occurrence of CRC in records of relatives of CRC patients showed that family history of CRC was more common among young CRCs. Conclusion. Appropriate screening strategies for CRC which is amenable to early detection through screening, especially in relatives of CRCs, should be considered as the first step in CRC screening programs.

Colorectal Cancer in Iran: Molecular Epidemiology and Screening Strategies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dolatkhah, R.; Somi, M. H.; Dolatkhah, R.; Kermani, I. A.; Dastgiri, S.

2015-01-01

The increasing incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) in the past three decades in Iran has made it a major public health burden. This study aimed to report its epidemiologic features, molecular genetic aspects, survival, heredity, and screening pattern in Iran. Methods. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the relevant published articles. We used medical subject headings, including colorectal cancer, molecular genetics, KRAS and BRAF mutations, screening, survival, epidemiologic study, and Iran. Results. Age standardized incidence rate of Iranian CRCs was 11.6 and 10.5 for men and women, respectively. Overall five-year survival rate was 41%, and the proportion of CRC among the younger age group was higher than that of western countries. Depending on ethnicity, geographical region, dietary, and genetic predisposition, mutation genes were considerably diverse and distinct among CRCs across Iran. The high occurrence of CRC in records of relatives of CRC patients showed that family history of CRC was more common among young CRCs. Conclusion. Appropriate screening strategies for CRC which is amenable to early detection through screening, especially in relatives of CRCs, should be considered as the first step in CRC screening programs.

New research progress on the epidemiology of age-related macular degeneration

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Ming-Xing Wu

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Age-related macular degeneration(AMDis a kind of age-related blinding degenerative fundus lesions, totally about 30 million patients suffering from AMD all over the world, with about 500 000 people blind for it yearly. As the development of economy and the aging of the population intensified, incidence of AMD indicates a trend of rising year by year, being the third major cause of blindness in our country. At present, the pathogenesis of AMD is not fully clear, as reported it may be related to oxidative stress, inflammatory immune response, VEGF and genetic manipulation. Clinical treatments mainly include photodynamic therapy, drug therapy, radiation therapy, laser photocoagulaory operation, the pupil warm treatments, Chinese medicine and intravitreous injection VEGF antagonists such as Ranibizumab, Conbercept and so on. In this issue, we mainly expound on the progress in the epidemiological studies of AMD, especially elaborate the progress made on genetic manipulation in recent years.

[Eco-epidemiology: towards epidemiology of complexity].

Science.gov (United States)

Bizouarn, Philippe

2016-05-01

In order to solve public health problems posed by the epidemiology of risk factors centered on the individual and neglecting the causal processes linking the risk factors with the health outcomes, Mervyn Susser proposed a multilevel epidemiology called eco-epidemiology, addressing the interdependence of individuals and their connection with molecular, individual, societal, environmental levels of organization participating in the causal disease processes. The aim of this epidemiology is to integrate more than a level of organization in design, analysis and interpretation of health problems. After presenting the main criticisms of risk-factor epidemiology focused on the individual, we will try to show how eco-epidemiology and its development could help to understand the need for a broader and integrative epidemiology, in which studies designed to identify risk factors would be balanced by studies designed to answer other questions equally vital to public health. © 2016 médecine/sciences – Inserm.

Attachment insecurity and perceived importance of relational features

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ren, D.; Arriaga, X.B.; Mahan, E.R.

2017-01-01

Chronic attachment insecurity can affect the outlook people have on relationships. This research examines how attachment insecurity relates to perceived importance of various features in a romantic relationship (e.g., intimacy, independence). Consistent with predictions, the results from Studies 1–3

Nuclear accidents and epidemiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

A consultation on epidemiology related to the Chernobyl accident was held in Copenhagen in May 1987 as a basis for concerted action. This was followed by a joint IAEA/WHO workshop in Vienna, which reviewed appropriate methodologies for possible long-term effects of radiation following nuclear accidents. The reports of these two meetings are included in this volume, and cover the subjects: 1) Epidemiology related to the Chernobyl nuclear accident. 2) Appropriate methodologies for studying possible long-term effects of radiation on individuals exposed in a nuclear accident. Figs and tabs

Feature-Specific Event-Related Potential Effects to Action- and Sound-Related Verbs during Visual Word Recognition.

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Popp, Margot; Trumpp, Natalie M; Kiefer, Markus

2016-01-01

Grounded cognition theories suggest that conceptual representations essentially depend on modality-specific sensory and motor systems. Feature-specific brain activation across different feature types such as action or audition has been intensively investigated in nouns, while feature-specific conceptual category differences in verbs mainly focused on body part specific effects. The present work aimed at assessing whether feature-specific event-related potential (ERP) differences between action and sound concepts, as previously observed in nouns, can also be found within the word class of verbs. In Experiment 1, participants were visually presented with carefully matched sound and action verbs within a lexical decision task, which provides implicit access to word meaning and minimizes strategic access to semantic word features. Experiment 2 tested whether pre-activating the verb concept in a context phase, in which the verb is presented with a related context noun, modulates subsequent feature-specific action vs. sound verb processing within the lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, ERP analyses revealed a differential ERP polarity pattern for action and sound verbs at parietal and central electrodes similar to previous results in nouns. Pre-activation of the meaning of verbs in the preceding context phase in Experiment 2 resulted in a polarity-reversal of feature-specific ERP effects in the lexical decision task compared with Experiment 1. This parallels analogous earlier findings for primed action and sound related nouns. In line with grounded cognitions theories, our ERP study provides evidence for a differential processing of action and sound verbs similar to earlier observation for concrete nouns. Although the localizational value of ERPs must be viewed with caution, our results indicate that the meaning of verbs is linked to different neural circuits depending on conceptual feature relevance.

A Comparison of Exposure Metrics for Traffic-Related Air Pollutants: Application to Epidemiology Studies in Detroit, Michigan

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Vehicles are major sources of air pollutant emissions, and individuals living near large roads endure high exposures and health risks associated with traffic-related air pollutants. Air pollution epidemiology, health risk, environmental justice, and transportation planning studi...

Modelling the epidemiology of infectious diseases for decision analysis: a primer.

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Jit, Mark; Brisson, Marc

2011-05-01

The number of economic evaluations related to infectious disease topics has increased over the last 2 decades. However, many such evaluations rely on models that do not take into account unique features of infectious diseases that can affect the estimated value of interventions against them. These include their transmissibility from infected to susceptible individuals, the possibility of acquiring natural immunity following recovery from infection and the uncertainties that arise as a result of their complex natural history and epidemiology. Modellers conducting economic evaluations of infectious disease interventions need to know the main features of different types of infectious disease models, the situations in which they should be applied and the effects of model choices on the cost effectiveness of interventions.

Child abuse in Odessa region: epidemiology, clinical and psychoneurological features and consequences

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Aryayev M.

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the data of world literature in epidemiology and characteristics of the manifestations of child abuse. It was revealed that enough respondents in Odessa for both men and especially women, as a child had been ill-treated (65.6% of respondents. There is insufficient knowledge of the problem of child abuse: only 13% of respondents showed a high level of awareness about domestic violence. The most common forms of ill-treatment were emotional abuse 30.0% (95% CI 26.4–33.5 (especially for girls and physical violence — 21.3% (95% CI 17.8–24.1 (especially for boys. It was found that a significant portion of respondents considered acceptable to use as punishment of children, different variants of the physical (27.6%, 95% CI 25.2–30.7 or aggressive psycho-emotional (21.4%; 95% CI 18.5 –23.5 exposure. Only 19.7% of respondents (95% CI 17.5–22.5 consider at all unacceptable methods of punishment any of child. It was found that a significant proportion of secondary school pupils of Odessa had insufficient level of awareness about core of the problem of school bullying — 85.6% (95% CI, 83.2% — 88.7%. Among the respondents, 86.3% (95% CI 83.2–88.7 students directly or indirectly faced with this phenomenon as a victim, the aggressor, the observer, or a victim advocate. In girls, the prevailing form of abuse is verbal bullying (72.0%, 95% CI 67.2–76.8, while the boys — physical bullying (21.6%; 95% CI 8.2–31.4. Psychosomatic diseases, psychoneurological syndromes, psychoemotional and cognitive disorders are the main clinical features and consequences of psychological abuse.

Epidemiology, clinical features and risk factors for human rabies and animal bites during an outbreak of rabies in Maputo and Matola cities, Mozambique, 2014: Implications for public health interventions for rabies control.

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Salomão, Cristolde; Nacima, Amílcar; Cuamba, Lutero; Gujral, Lorna; Amiel, Olga; Baltazar, Cynthia; Cliff, Julie; Gudo, Eduardo Samo

2017-07-01

In Mozambique, the majority of rabies outbreaks are unreported and data on the epidemiological features of human rabies and animal bites are scarce. An outbreak of human rabies in adjacent Maputo and Matola cities in 2014 prompted us to investigate the epidemiology, clinical features and risk factors of human rabies and animal bites in the two cities. We reviewed cases of human rabies and animal bites from April to July 2014, and carried out a community investigation in July and August in the neighborhoods where cases of human rabies resided. This investigation included collection of clinical, demographic and epidemiological information and a case control study to investigate the risk factors associated with human rabies. Fourteen cases of human rabies were detected in Maputo (n = 10) and Matola (n = 3) cities and neighbouring Boane district (n = 1) between April and August 2014, all of whom had been admitted to hospital. All had a recent history of dog bite. Of the 14 rabid dogs, only one had been immunized. 819 cases of animal bites were registered, of which 64.6% (529/819) were from Maputo City. Dogs were responsible for 97.8% (801/819) of all animal bites, but only 27.0% (126/467) were immunized. Factors significantly associated with human rabies were: age human rabies were strongly associated with bites by stray and unvaccinated dogs and irregular implementation of post-exposure measures.

Epidemiological features of brain tumors

OpenAIRE

Živković Nenad; Mihailović Goran; Marković Marko; Berisavac Iva; Spaić Milan

2013-01-01

Brain tumors account for 1.4% of all cancers and 2.4% of all cancer-related deaths. The incidence of brain tumors varies and it is higher in developed countries of Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In Serbia, according to data from 2009, malignant brain tumors account for 2. 2 of all tumors, and from all cancer­related deaths, 3.2% is caused by malignant brain tumors. According to recent statistical reports, an overall incidence of b...

Processing of word stress related acoustic information: A multi-feature MMN study.

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Honbolygó, Ferenc; Kolozsvári, Orsolya; Csépe, Valéria

2017-08-01

In the present study, we investigated the processing of word stress related acoustic features in a word context. In a passive oddball multi-feature MMN experiment, we presented a disyllabic pseudo-word with two acoustically similar syllables as standard stimulus, and five contrasting deviants that differed from the standard in that they were either stressed on the first syllable or contained a vowel change. Stress was realized by an increase of f0, intensity, vowel duration or consonant duration. The vowel change was used to investigate if phonemic and prosodic changes elicit different MMN components. As a control condition, we presented non-speech counterparts of the speech stimuli. Results showed all but one feature (non-speech intensity deviant) eliciting the MMN component, which was larger for speech compared to non-speech stimuli. Two other components showed stimulus related effects: the N350 and the LDN (Late Discriminative Negativity). The N350 appeared to the vowel duration and consonant duration deviants, specifically to features related to the temporal characteristics of stimuli, while the LDN was present for all features, and it was larger for speech than for non-speech stimuli. We also found that the f0 and consonant duration features elicited a larger MMN than other features. These results suggest that stress as a phonological feature is processed based on long-term representations, and listeners show a specific sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental cues signaling the prosodic boundaries of words. These findings support a two-stage model in the perception of stress and phoneme related acoustical information. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Epidemiological investigations into multiple sclerosis in southern Hesse. II. The distribution of cases in relation to exogenous features.

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Lauer, K; Firnhaber, W

1984-10-01

In order to discover possible exogenous variables associated with a higher multiple sclerosis risk, the distribution of cases with definite and probable multiple sclerosis ascertained in the course of a micro-epidemiologic study in Southern Hesse was evaluated and compared with some environmental factors. The prevalence in 1980, the prevalence of cases with disease-onset within the region according to locality of onset and the rate of native Southern Hesse patients according to childhood residence all showed a similar geographical distribution, with the highest values in the south-eastern, mountainous part of the region. This district has a lower annual mean temperature, more annual snow-days and a higher annual precipitation compared to the remaining area. A statistical comparison revealed no association with industrial or agricultural activities, with a particular type of land use, with cattle, pig- or horse-breeding, or with sanitary or housing standards. On the other hand, a slight association with the soil type could be demonstrated, with higher rates on loam and clay subsoils when compared to predominantly sandy regions. Whether this finding has any significance or not remains to be clarified.

Basic concepts of epidemiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Savitz, D.A.

1984-01-01

Epidemiology can be defined simply as the science of the distribution and determinants of disease in human populations. As a descriptive tool, epidemiology can aid health care service providers, for example, in allocation of resources. In its analytic capacity, the epidemiologic approach can help identify determinants of disease through the study of human populations. Epidemiology is primarily an observational rather than experimental methodology, with corresponding strengths and limitations. Relative to other approaches for assessing disease etiology and impacts of potential health hazards, epidemiology has a rather unique role that is complementary to, but independent of, both basic biologic sciences and clinical medicine. Experimental biologic sciences such as toxicology and physiology provide critical information on biologic mechanisms of disease required for causal inference. Clinical medicine often serves as the warning system that provides etiologic clues to be pursued through systematic investigation. The advantage of the epidemiologic approach is its reliance on human field experience, that is, the real world. While laboratory experimentation is uniquely well suited to defining potential hazards, it can neither determine whether human populations have actually been affected nor quantify that effect. Building all the complexities of human behavior and external factors into a laboratory study or mathematical model is impossible. By studying the world as it exists, epidemiology examines the integrated, summarized product of the myriad factors influencing health

THE RESULTS OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF NUTRITION CHARACTER AND SPECIAL FEATURES OF 6–36 MONTHS OLD CHILDREN IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION. PART I

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A. V. Surzhik

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Nutrition of children of the second and third years of life is a topical problem nowadays. The significance of this age period for the health level formation is very high. The authors show the method and analyze the first results of the epidemiological study of nutrition character and special features of 12–36 months old children in different regions of Russian Federation. The nutrition structure of such children demands a special attention from pediatricians. The received data require the further analysis and establishment of correlations between the disturbances in nutrition structure and estimated indicators of the main nutrients, energy, minerals and vitamins intake.

Paper vs. electrons. Epidemiologic publishing in a changing world.

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Rothenberg; Frank; Fitzmaurice

2000-10-01

PURPOSE: To present the parallel histories of epidemiologic and electronic publishing and consider positive and negative factors that might affect their amalgam.METHODS: We performed a quantitative assessment of the arc of epidemiologic publication from 1966-1999, using major self-designated epidemiologic journals as a sample, and of scholarly electronic publication from 1991-1997, based on current literature review. We use an online, paperless journal as a case study, and review selected information-technology opinion in the area.RESULTS: By traditional standards, growth in epidemiologic publication has been considerable, with the addition of six new journals since 1966. In contrast, scholarly electronic publication for the period 1991-1997 grew from 27 to 2459 journals (not all exclusively online). Positive features of electronic publishing include flexibility, shortened time to publication, freedom from fixed publication date, diversity in presentation, and instant linkage to relevant material. A case study of a new online journal illustrates the substantive power of the medium. Negative factors include restriction (or unrestricted expansion) of the audience, the potential for hasty peer review, pitfalls in establishing credibility, an emphasis on style over content, technologic dependence, and additions to the information explosion. Relative cost and archiving are still debated. In assessing the pros and cons, it is important to distinguish electronic mechanisms that facilitate publication from electronic publishing, and to appreciate the difference between moving an existing journal to the electronic medium, and creating a new online journal.CONCLUSIONS: The movement from print to internet is probably inexorable, but a headlong rush may be ill-advised. Several models for dual publishing now exist, with the expectation that many, including the journals that serve epidemiology, will do so. The ultimate configuration is difficult to predict, but likely to be

Using activity-related behavioural features towards more effective automatic stress detection.

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Dimitris Giakoumis

Full Text Available This paper introduces activity-related behavioural features that can be automatically extracted from a computer system, with the aim to increase the effectiveness of automatic stress detection. The proposed features are based on processing of appropriate video and accelerometer recordings taken from the monitored subjects. For the purposes of the present study, an experiment was conducted that utilized a stress-induction protocol based on the stroop colour word test. Video, accelerometer and biosignal (Electrocardiogram and Galvanic Skin Response recordings were collected from nineteen participants. Then, an explorative study was conducted by following a methodology mainly based on spatiotemporal descriptors (Motion History Images that are extracted from video sequences. A large set of activity-related behavioural features, potentially useful for automatic stress detection, were proposed and examined. Experimental evaluation showed that several of these behavioural features significantly correlate to self-reported stress. Moreover, it was found that the use of the proposed features can significantly enhance the performance of typical automatic stress detection systems, commonly based on biosignal processing.

Profesi Epidemiologi

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Buchari Lapau

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Makalah ini pertama kali menjelaskan perlu adanya profesi kesehatan masyarakat dalam rangka pembangunan kesehatan. Lalu dijelaskan apa profesi itu dan standar keberadaan profesi, atas dasar mana dapat ditetapkan bahwa pelayanan epidemiologi merupakan salah satu profesi. Dalam rangka pembinaan profesi kesehatan masyarakat, IAKMI dan APTKMI telah membentuk Majelis Kolegium Kesehatan Masyarakat Indonesia (MKKMI yang terdiri atas 8 kolegium antara lain Kolegium Epidemiologi, yang telah menyusun Standar Profesi Epidemiologi yang terdiri atas beberapa standar. Masing-masing standar dijelaskan mulai dari kurikulum, standar pelayanan epidmiologi, profil epidemiolog kesehatan, peran epidemiolog kesehatan, fungsi epidemiolog kesehatan, standar kompetensi epidemiologi, dan standar pendidikan profesi epidemiologi.

The epidemiology of sports-related injuries in older adults: a central European epidemiologic study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kammerlander, Christian; Braito, Matthias; Kates, Stephen; Jeske, Christian; Roth, Tobias; Blauth, Michael; Dallapozza, Christian

2012-10-01

The population is rapidly aging and remaining more active over the age of 65. An increasing number of sports related injuries in individuals 65 and older are thus anticipated. The aim of this study is to analyze the epidemiology of sports injuries in the age group aged 65 and older. Data from the medical records of adults aged 65 years and older who were treated for sports-related injuries at a level one trauma center between December 1994 and February 2008 was collected and statistically analyzed. A total of 2635 patients met our inclusion criteria. There were 1647 men (62.5%) and 988 women (37.5%) with a mean age of 70.9 years. The yearly number of injuries doubled during the study period (1996-2007). The most common mechanism of injury was a simple fall from standing height (69%). Nearly 75% of all injuries occurred during alpine skiing, cycling or mountain climbing. The median Injury Severity Score was 4. Minor injuries and wounds (40%) were recorded most commonly followed by fractures (27%), sprains, ligament injuries (19%) and injuries of muscles and tendons (6%). The most frequent diagnoses were minor injuries to the head and ligament injuries around the knee joint. Injuries to the upper extremities occurred in 33.7%, injuries to the lower extremities in 29.4% and injuries to the head occurred in 20% of the patients. Women sustained substantially more fractures than men. Adults aged 65 and older are remaining active in sports, which results in higher numbers of sports related injuries in this age group. Identification of type, mechanism and distribution of the injuries can help with the recognition of risk factors for injury. This may enable us to develop appropriate preventative measures to reduce the incidence, and morbidity of such injuries.

Epidemiological studies on the relation between diet and COPD

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tabak, C.

2000-01-01

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality around the world. In the early 1990's several dietary factors were suggested to protect against COPD, based on proposed biological mechanisms and a small number of epidemiological studies.

Age-related X-ray feature of the spine in patients with achondroplasia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shevtsov, V.I.; D'yachkova, G.V.; Novikova, O.S.

1999-01-01

Age-related X-ray features of the spine in patients with achondroplasia are studied. It gives the time course of changes in the shape of vertebrae, the specific features of apophyseal ossification, provides a quantitative account of the shorter caudal lumbar vertebral arch root distance symptom. The time course of changes in the size of the lumbosacral angle was examined. The findings suggest that there are not only considerable static changes in the spine of patients with achondroplasia, but also significant age-related features of vertebral tissue growth and differentiation [ru

Epidemiological Study of Greek University Students' Mental Health

Science.gov (United States)

Kounenou, Kalliope; Koutra, Aikaterini; Katsiadrami, Aristea; Diacogiannis, Georgios

2011-01-01

In the present study, 805 Greek students participated by filling in self-report questionnaires studying depression (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale), general health status (General Health Questionnaire), general psychopathology (Symptom Checklist-90-R), and personal demographic features. Some of the more prevalent findings…

Epidemiology of Dyslipidemia in the Asia Pacific Region

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Chao-Feng Lin

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Summary: Dyslipidemia, including high levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride, and low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, is a major risk factor of atherosclerosis that leads to various cardiovascular diseases. This article compares the epidemiology of dyslipidemia among countries of the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan, based on public-accessible data from websites. Sources of lipid management guidelines of the countries are also summarized. Before comparing the data from each of the countries, the readers should pay attention to the impact of lipid testing methods, medication use, the year of data acquisition, the age range of the examinees, and the definition of dyslipidemia in each country. Apart from the mentioned factors that may affect the epidemiology data, some of the countries have unique features. For example, substantial ethnic differences existed in Indonesia and Malaysia; whereas the reports from China and Thailand exhibited significant regional variations. However, a common feature is that the levels of serum lipids change with age, and men and women may have quite different levels of serum lipids even of the same age range. Nevertheless, there is a lot of room for improvement in the awareness, treatment, and control rate of dyslipidemia. To reduce the prevalence of dyslipidemia and promote cardiovascular health, the epidemiological surveys of dyslipidemia and implementation of management guidelines according to their own national conditions are encouraged. Keywords: Asia Pacific region, dyslipidemia, epidemiology

Epidemiology: Then and Now.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuller, Lewis H

2016-03-01

Twenty-five years ago, on the 75th anniversary of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, I noted that epidemiologic research was moving away from the traditional approaches used to investigate "epidemics" and their close relationship with preventive medicine. Twenty-five years later, the role of epidemiology as an important contribution to human population research, preventive medicine, and public health is under substantial pressure because of the emphasis on "big data," phenomenology, and personalized medical therapies. Epidemiology is the study of epidemics. The primary role of epidemiology is to identify the epidemics and parameters of interest of host, agent, and environment and to generate and test hypotheses in search of causal pathways. Almost all diseases have a specific distribution in relation to time, place, and person and specific "causes" with high effect sizes. Epidemiology then uses such information to develop interventions and test (through clinical trials and natural experiments) their efficacy and effectiveness. Epidemiology is dependent on new technologies to evaluate improved measurements of host (genomics), epigenetics, identification of agents (metabolomics, proteomics), new technology to evaluate both physical and social environment, and modern methods of data collection. Epidemiology does poorly in studying anything other than epidemics and collections of numerators and denominators without specific hypotheses even with improved statistical methodologies. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Epidemiological, clinical and pathological features of canine parvovirus 2c infection in dogs from southern Brazil

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Pablo S.B. de Oliveira

Full Text Available ABSTRACT: Canine parvovirus type 2c (CPV-2c emerged in Europe in the early 2000’s and rapidly spread out worldwide. Clinical and molecular data have demonstrated its circulation in Brazilian dogs, yet detailed descriptions of cases are still lacking. This article describes the epidemiological, clinical and pathological features of 24 cases of CPV-2c-associated disease in dogs submitted to veterinary clinics and laboratory diagnosis in southern Brazil (2014-2016. Most affected dogs presented signs/lesions suggestive of parvovirus enteritis: diarrhea, vomiting, hyperemia and hemorrhage of the serous membrane of the small intestine, diffuse segmental granulation, atrophy of the villi, necrosis and fusion of crypts, squamous metaplasia and epithelial syncytia. A number of cases presented features divergent from the classical presentations, including a wide variation in the color of feces (reddish and/or yellowish, light-brownish, orange-brown and brownish, involvement of adults (4/24 and vaccinated dogs (12/24, extensive involvement of the small intestine (8/20 and the presence of pulmonary edema (7/24 and convulsions (3/24. Feces and intestinal fragments submitted to PCR for the CPV-2 VP2 gene and to virus isolation in cell culture yielded positive results in 100% and 58.3% (14/24 of the cases, respectively. Nucleotide sequencing revealed a high nucleotide identity in VP2 (99.4 to 100% and a consistent mutation at amino acid 426 (asparagine to glutamic acid, considered a signature of CPV-2c. These results confirm the involvement of CPV-2c in the described cases and demonstrate the importance of CPV-2c infection among Brazilian dogs, calling attention of veterinarians to correctly diagnose the disease, mainly considering the frequent atypical presentations.

CEDR: Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1993-08-01

The Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies have a long history of epidemiologic research programs. The main focus of these programs has been the Health and Mortality Study of the DOE work force. This epidemiologic study began in 1964 with a feasibility study of workers at the Hanford facility. Studies of other populations exposed to radiation have also been supported, including the classic epidemiologic study of radium dial painters and studies of atomic bomb survivors. From a scientific perspective, these epidemiologic research program have been productive, highly credible, and formed the bases for many radiological protection standards. Recently, there has been concern that, although research results were available, the data on which these results were based were not easily obtained by interested investigators outside DOE. Therefore, as part of an effort to integrate and broaden access to its epidemiologic information, the DOE has developed the Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource (CEDR) Program. Included in this effort is the development of a computer information system for accessing the collection of CEDR data and its related descriptive information. The epidemiologic data currently available through the CEDAR Program consist of analytic data sets, working data sets, and their associated documentation files. In general, data sets are the result of epidemiologic studies that have been conducted on various groups of workers at different DOE facilities during the past 30 years.

Chancroid epidemiology in New Orleans men.

Science.gov (United States)

DiCarlo, R P; Armentor, B S; Martin, D H

1995-08-01

Epidemiologic, clinical, and microbiologic data were collected from 299 men with nonsyphilitic genital ulcer disease. One hundred eighteen (39%) were culture-positive for Haemophilus ducreyi, 57 (19%) were culture-positive for herpes simplex virus, and 124 (41%) were culture-negative. Patients with chancroid were significantly more likely than those with genital herpes to have been frequent users of alcohol (44% vs. 23%, P = .006). They were also more likely recently to have used cocaine (25% vs. 9%, P = .013), had sex with a prostitute (17% vs. 5%, P = .035), traded drugs for sex (16% vs. 2%, P = .005), and had a sex partner who used drugs (38% vs. 13%, P = .001). Culture-negative patients were similar to chancroid patients with respect to most epidemiologic risk factors. Despite the epidemiologic similarities, the clinical features of culture-negative ulcers resembled those of culture-proven herpes ulcers more closely than they did those of culture-proven chancroid ulcers. These data establish a link between chancroid in the United States and the use of crack cocaine.

Measurement of Radiofrequency Radiation Exposure in Epidemiological Studies (invited paper)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Swerdlow, A.J.

1999-01-01

The measurement of radiofrequency (RF) exposure is important to the quality of epidemiological studies of the possible association of RF exposure with disease. The extent and type of exposure measurement in past epidemiological studies of RF, and the features of measurement that would be desirable for better studies in the future are summarised. Measurement characteristics that are discussed include quantification of radiation frequency and of intensity and timing of exposures, measurement (or good estimation) of exposures for individuals rather than only for groups, quality of measurement, and measurement of RF exposures experienced outside the study setting. Integration of exposure measurement into the design of epidemiological studies is needed for better assessments of possible RF effects. (author)

Epidemiological features of fasciolosis in working donkeys in Ethiopia.

Science.gov (United States)

Getachew, M; Innocent, G T; Trawford, A F; Reid, S W J; Love, S

2010-05-11

A cross-sectional coprological survey in the tropical regions of Ada, Akaki, Bereh and Boset, and a retrospective post-mortem investigation were conducted to study the epidemiology of fasciolosis in working donkeys in Ethiopia. Faecal samples from 803 donkeys were collected, and the number of liver flukes recovered from 112 donkeys at post-mortem between 1995 and 2004 were analysed. There was a high prevalence of fasciolosis irrespective of the age of the donkeys. The overall prevalence of the infection was 44.4% in coprologically examined donkeys, and the prevalence in the donkeys examined post-mortem was 41.9%. The infection prevalence was significantly higher in Bereh and Ada regions than in Akaki and Boset regions. Bereh with 72.6% and Boset with 21.5% showed a significantly higher and lower infection prevalence, respectively, than the rest of the regions (Pdonkeys in the infection prevalence (P>0.05) but infection intensity was significantly higher in donkeys 8 years old and above (P<0.0001). Both Fasciola hepatica and Fasciola gigantica were identified. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Time-Trend in Epidemiological and Pathological Features of Schistosoma-Associated Bladder Cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

ZAGHLOUL, M.S.; EL-BARADIE, M.; NAZMY, M.; NOUH, A.; MONEER, M.; YOUNIS, A.

2008-01-01

To investigate the different emerging trends in the features of bladder cancer along 17 years. Patients and Methods: During a 17-year period (1988- 2004), 5071 epithelial bladder cancer patients underwent radical cystectomy at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cairo University, Egypt. The time was divided into 3 time periods to detect changes of the clinico pathologic features of patients in these periods. Results: There was a significant progressive increase in the patients' age with time and decrease in squamous/ transitional ratio, with transient increase in male predominance during the 2nd time period. Moreover, there was a decrease in the well differentiated (grade 1) tumor (p<0.001) and an increase in the frequency of pelvic nodal involvement (p<0.001). Transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) patients were significantly older than those with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (p<0.001). Progressive increase of age with time was evident in TCC, SCC and adenocarcinoma patients. Male to female ratio changed significantly in TCC and SCC. Conclusion: Time trend was confirmed with relative decrease in frequency of SCC and increase of TCC with changes in their pathological details. The differences between their characteristics and that of the Western countries are decreasing.

[Field epidemiological study on news reports that related to public health emergencies].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Shun-xiang; Li, Xue-mei; Luo, Nian-ci; Mei, Shu-jiang; Jiang, Li-juan

2013-12-01

All news reports (NR) that were related to public health emergency (PHE) were collected from the Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) to explore the characteristics of epidemiology in the fields. Based on the theory of communication that including both case and text analysis, qualitative analysis on all the NR regarding PHE published in SMD from the years of 2008 to 2012, was carried out and input to database using the EpiData. Numbers of articles as indicators were compared to show the yearly change of different types of events. Various features of the NR including coverage, source of information, location of the incident, style and size of news, with or without editorials etc. were statistically analyzed by SPSS version 18.0. Among all the 998 reports related to PHE, higher proportion was found in the events of Infectious diseases (35.3%) and food safety (34.1%)respectively. Events on vaccines and drugs used for disease prevention and control (8.9%), environmental pollution caused incidents (8.0%)appeared to be less frequent. Events related to occupational disease, poisoning, bioterrorism and biochemical events were rare. Looking at the monthly distribution of reports, we noticed that the peaks occurred in 2008 and in 2009, which were caused by the Melamine-contamination events and the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Between 2010 and 2012, figures of monthly reports were smooth, including some critical events from the interests of the media. Most events took place in Guangdong province (34.3%) and other provinces (50.9%), with some were from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions (9.5%). However, international events (5.2%)were less seen. Extensive coverage accounted for 17.6% of all of reports, and 11.5% allotted the editorials or other forms of in-depth reports. Most of the source of reports on infectious diseases and food safety were from the official release, however. The main sources of occupational diseases and poisoning, vaccines and drug incidents, environmental pollution

Epidemiological studies on cutaneous leishmaniasis in Ad ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

http://www.cioms.ch/publications/layout_guide2002.p df. 4. Uzun S, Durdu M, Çulha G, Allahverdiyev AM,. Memişoğlu HR. Clinical features, epidemiology, and efficacy and safety of intralesional antimony treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis: recent experience in Turkey. J. Parasitol 2004; 90: 853-859. 5. Uzun S, Uslular C, ...

The Epidemiology of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in Asia

Science.gov (United States)

Koh, Wee Ming; Bogich, Tiffany; Siegel, Karen; Jin, Jing; Chong, Elizabeth Y.; Tan, Chong Yew; Chen, Mark IC; Horby, Peter

2016-01-01

Context: Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a widespread pediatric disease caused primarily by human enterovirus 71 (EV-A71) and Coxsackievirus A16 (CV-A16). Objective: This study reports a systematic review of the epidemiology of HFMD in Asia. Data Sources: PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar were searched up to December 2014. Study Selection: Two reviewers independently assessed studies for epidemiologic and serologic information about prevalence and incidence of HFMD against predetermined inclusion/exclusion criteria. Data Extraction: Two reviewers extracted answers for 8 specific research questions on HFMD epidemiology. The results are checked by 3 others. Results: HFMD is found to be seasonal in temperate Asia with a summer peak and in subtropical Asia with spring and fall peaks, but not in tropical Asia; evidence of a climatic role was identified for temperate Japan. Risk factors for HFMD include hygiene, age, gender and social contacts, but most studies were underpowered to adjust rigorously for confounding variables. Both community-level and school-level transmission have been implicated, but their relative importance for HFMD is inconclusive. Epidemiologic indices are poorly understood: No supporting quantitative evidence was found for the incubation period of EV-A71; the symptomatic rate of EV-A71/Coxsackievirus A16 infection was from 10% to 71% in 4 studies; while the basic reproduction number was between 1.1 and 5.5 in 3 studies. The uncertainty in these estimates inhibits their use for further analysis. Limitations: Diversity of study designs complicates attempts to identify features of HFMD epidemiology. Conclusions: Knowledge on HFMD remains insufficient to guide interventions such as the incorporation of an EV-A71 vaccine in pediatric vaccination schedules. Research is urgently needed to fill these gaps. PMID:27273688

Chemical-induced disease relation extraction with various linguistic features.

Science.gov (United States)

Gu, Jinghang; Qian, Longhua; Zhou, Guodong

2016-01-01

Understanding the relations between chemicals and diseases is crucial in various biomedical tasks such as new drug discoveries and new therapy developments. While manually mining these relations from the biomedical literature is costly and time-consuming, such a procedure is often difficult to keep up-to-date. To address these issues, the BioCreative-V community proposed a challenging task of automatic extraction of chemical-induced disease (CID) relations in order to benefit biocuration. This article describes our work on the CID relation extraction task on the BioCreative-V tasks. We built a machine learning based system that utilized simple yet effective linguistic features to extract relations with maximum entropy models. In addition to leveraging various features, the hypernym relations between entity concepts derived from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)-controlled vocabulary were also employed during both training and testing stages to obtain more accurate classification models and better extraction performance, respectively. We demoted relation extraction between entities in documents to relation extraction between entity mentions. In our system, pairs of chemical and disease mentions at both intra- and inter-sentence levels were first constructed as relation instances for training and testing, then two classification models at both levels were trained from the training examples and applied to the testing examples. Finally, we merged the classification results from mention level to document level to acquire final relations between chemicals and diseases. Our system achieved promisingF-scores of 60.4% on the development dataset and 58.3% on the test dataset using gold-standard entity annotations, respectively. Database URL:https://github.com/JHnlp/BC5CIDTask. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF COLORECTAL CANCER

OpenAIRE

B. Shafayan M. Keyhani

2003-01-01

This study was carried out to analyze certain epidemiological variations in Iranian patients with colorectal cancer. (CRC): From March 1981 up to March 1993, 103 patients were analyzed retrospectively for age, gender, marital state, job, nutritional habits, presenting symptoms and histopathological features. Most of the patients with colorectal cancer were male, age range 20-75 (mean 56), 25.4 percent were long-term smokers and bleeding was the most common symptom. The rectum was the most com...

Methodological exploratory study applied to occupational epidemiology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Carneiro, Janete C.G. Gaburo; Vasques, MOnica Heloisa B.; Fontinele, Ricardo S.; Sordi, Gian Maria A. [Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares (IPEN/CNEN-SP), Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil)]. E-mail: janetegc@ipen.br

2007-07-01

The utilization of epidemiologic methods and techniques has been object of practical experimentation and theoretical-methodological reflection in health planning and programming process. Occupational Epidemiology is the study of the causes and prevention of diseases and injuries from exposition and risks in the work environment. In this context, there is no intention to deplete such a complex theme but to deal with basic concepts of Occupational Epidemiology, presenting the main characteristics of the analysis methods used in epidemiology, as investigate the possible determinants of exposition (chemical, physical and biological agents). For this study, the social-demographic profile of the IPEN-CNEN/SP work force was used. The knowledge of this reference population composition is based on sex, age, educational level, marital status and different occupations, aiming to know the relation between the health aggravating factors and these variables. The methodology used refers to a non-experimental research based on a theoretical methodological practice. The work performed has an exploratory character, aiming a later survey of indicators in the health area in order to analyze possible correlations related to epidemiologic issues. (author)

Methodological exploratory study applied to occupational epidemiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carneiro, Janete C.G. Gaburo; Vasques, MOnica Heloisa B.; Fontinele, Ricardo S.; Sordi, Gian Maria A.

2007-01-01

The utilization of epidemiologic methods and techniques has been object of practical experimentation and theoretical-methodological reflection in health planning and programming process. Occupational Epidemiology is the study of the causes and prevention of diseases and injuries from exposition and risks in the work environment. In this context, there is no intention to deplete such a complex theme but to deal with basic concepts of Occupational Epidemiology, presenting the main characteristics of the analysis methods used in epidemiology, as investigate the possible determinants of exposition (chemical, physical and biological agents). For this study, the social-demographic profile of the IPEN-CNEN/SP work force was used. The knowledge of this reference population composition is based on sex, age, educational level, marital status and different occupations, aiming to know the relation between the health aggravating factors and these variables. The methodology used refers to a non-experimental research based on a theoretical methodological practice. The work performed has an exploratory character, aiming a later survey of indicators in the health area in order to analyze possible correlations related to epidemiologic issues. (author)

The relation between intercultural competence, personality features and students’ intellectual development

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Gridunova Marina V.

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In the light of globalisation processes accompanied by an increase in interethnic tensions, the research on personality features that contribute to a more efficient functioning in the intercultural context has become fairly topical. The aim of the conducted research was to explore the relation between intercultural competence, personality features and the level of intellectual development of students (N=121, 45% male students of a general education secondary school in Moscow. Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity was used as the basis for studying intercultural competence, while the Scale of intercultural sensitivity was used as a diagnostic instrument. Personality features were defined in accordance with the Five Factor Model and diagnosed via the shorter version of the Five Factors questionnaire. The level of mental (intellectual development was measured using the normative School test of intellectual development (STID-2. Based on research results, it has been established that personality features such as conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism are related to the indicators of intercultural competence in the examined students, whereby the intensity of the relations is by far higher in the group of students with the lower level of intellectual development. At the same time, the students whose level of intellectual development is higher are more inclined towards accepting cultural differences, while those with the lower level of intellectual development tend to absolutise them.

Public health importance of lassa fever epidemiology, clinical ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The public health importance of Lassa fever can not be over emphasized if one considers the high infectivity and mortality rates associated with the disease. This study dealt extensively on the epidemiology, clinical features and current management of Lassa fever through literature review. The aim of this study is to sensitise ...

Cholera Epidemiology in Nigeria: an overview | Adagbada | Pan ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium, Vibrio cholera. Choleragenic V. cholera O1 and O139 are the only causative agents of the disease. The two most distinguishing epidemiologic features of the disease are its tendency to appear in explosive ...

[The epidemiological study of work-related musculoskeletal disorders and related factors among automobile assembly workers].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhong-Xu; Qin, Ru-Li; Li, Yu-Zhen; Zhang, Xue-Yan; Jia, Ning; Zhang, Qiu-Ling; Li, Gang; Zhao, Jie; Li, Huan-Huan; Jiang, Hai-Qiang

2011-08-01

To investigate the work-related musculoskeletal disorders among automobile assembly workers, to discusses the related risk factors and their relationship. The selected 1508 automobile assembly workers from a north car manufacturing company were regarded as the study object. The hazard zone jobs checklist, Nordic musculoskeletal symptom questionnaire (NMQ) and pain questionnaire were used to perform the epidemiological cross-sectional and retrospective survey and study for the General status, awkward ergonomics factors and related influencing factors, and musculoskeletal disorders of workers. The predominant body sites of occurring WMSDs among automobile assembly workers were mainly low back, wrist, neck and shoulders, the predominant workshop section of occurring WMSDs were mostly concentrated in engine compartment, interior ornament, door cover, chassis and debugging section. The predominant body site of WMSDs among engine compartment and chassis section workers was low back, interior ornament workers were low back and wrist, door cover workers was wrist, chassis workers was low back, debugging workers were neck and low back. Neck musculoskeletal disorders had the trend with the increase of a body height; Smoking may increase the occurrence of musculoskeletal disorders. The WMSDs appears to be a serious ergonomic proble assem among automobile assembly workers, predominant occurring site of WMSDs is with different workshop section, its characteristics is quite obvious, probably related to its existing awkward work position or activities. The worker height and smoking habits may be important factors which affect musculoskeletal disorders happen.

Beliefs about unmet interpersonal needs mediate the relation between conflictual family relations and borderline personality features in young adult females.

Science.gov (United States)

Kalpakci, Allison; Venta, Amanda; Sharp, Carla

2014-01-01

Central to most theories of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the notion that the family environment interacts with genetically-based vulnerabilities to influence the development of BPD, with particular attention given to risk conferred by conflictual familial relations. However, the extent to which family conflict may relate to the development of BPD via related interpersonal beliefs is currently unknown. This study sought to test the hypothesis that the concurrent relation between conflictual family relations and borderline features in female college students is explained by beliefs associated with real or perceived unmet interpersonal needs (captured by Joiner's [2005] Interpersonal Psychological Theory, specifically thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness). The sample included 267 female undergraduates ages 18-25 years (M = 20.86; SD = 1.80). Level of borderline personality features, unmet interpersonal needs, and family conflict were assessed. Bivariate analyses revealed significant relations between both thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness, conflictual family relations, and borderline features. Multivariate analyses revealed that thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness both mediated the relation between family conflict and borderline personality features, thus supporting a multiple mediation model. This cross-sectional study is a preliminary step towards confirming the broad theoretical hypothesis that conflictual family relations relate to beliefs about thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness, which, in turn, relate to borderline personality pathology. Limitations and areas of future research are discussed.

Features of Diphtheria in Children

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O.K. Koloskova

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The lecture describes the etiology, epidemiology, classification and clinical features of diphtheria in children, taking into account various sites, covers the issues of diagnosis. Treatment for diphtheria in children is carried as per the order of Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine № 354 dated July 9, 2004 in accordance with the form and severity of the disease.

The European concerted action on air pollution epidemiology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ackermann-Liebrich, U. [Basel Univ. (Switzerland). Inst. for Social and Preventive Medicine

1995-12-31

The European Concerted Action on Air Pollution Epidemiology was started in 1990 with the aim of bringing together European researchers in the field and improving research through collaboration and by preparing documents which would help to this end and by organizing workshops. A further aim was to stimulate cooperative research. Air pollution epidemiology investigates human effects of community air pollution by epidemiological methods. Epidemiology in general investigates the distribution and determinants of health-related states and events in populations. Diseases in which air pollution may play a significant role are mainly diseases of the respiratory system, for example chronic non-specific lung disease and lung cancer. Most diseases caused by air pollution can also be caused by other factors. Air pollution epidemiology is therefore specific in the expo variable (community air pollution) rather than in the type of health effects being studied. Air pollution epidemiology is beset with some specially challenging difficulties: ubiquitous exposure and as a consequence limited heterogeneity in exposure, low relative risks, few or specific health end points, and strong confounding. Further on the exposure-effect relationship is complicated by assumptions inherent to different study designs which relate to the exposure duration necessary to produce a certain health effect. In reports and workshops the concerted action tries to propose strategies to deal with these problems. (author)

The European concerted action on air pollution epidemiology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ackermann-Liebrich, U [Basel Univ. (Switzerland). Inst. for Social and Preventive Medicine

1996-12-31

The European Concerted Action on Air Pollution Epidemiology was started in 1990 with the aim of bringing together European researchers in the field and improving research through collaboration and by preparing documents which would help to this end and by organizing workshops. A further aim was to stimulate cooperative research. Air pollution epidemiology investigates human effects of community air pollution by epidemiological methods. Epidemiology in general investigates the distribution and determinants of health-related states and events in populations. Diseases in which air pollution may play a significant role are mainly diseases of the respiratory system, for example chronic non-specific lung disease and lung cancer. Most diseases caused by air pollution can also be caused by other factors. Air pollution epidemiology is therefore specific in the expo variable (community air pollution) rather than in the type of health effects being studied. Air pollution epidemiology is beset with some specially challenging difficulties: ubiquitous exposure and as a consequence limited heterogeneity in exposure, low relative risks, few or specific health end points, and strong confounding. Further on the exposure-effect relationship is complicated by assumptions inherent to different study designs which relate to the exposure duration necessary to produce a certain health effect. In reports and workshops the concerted action tries to propose strategies to deal with these problems. (author)

Evaluation of epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory features and mortality of 144 HIV/AIDS cases in Turkey.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozdemir, Burcu; Yetkin, Meltem A; Bastug, Aliye; But, Ayşe; Aslaner, Halide; Akinci, Esragul; Bodur, Hurrem

2018-03-22

Background The number of HIV/AIDS cases in Turkey is increasing rapidly, as is the number of cases worldwide. The aim of this study is to evaluate the characteristics of the clinical and laboratory findings and epidemiological features of HIV/AIDS patients to obtain useful data on the epidemic type and transmission routes associated with Turkey and to identify risk factors for mortality. Methods The patient records of 144 HIV-infected patients who were admitted to our clinic between 2000 and 2015 were analyzed retrospectively. Results Most of the cases (55%) were diagnosed due to the detection of anti-HIV-positive individuals without clinical symptoms. The mean CD4 + lymphocyte count on first admission was 108 cells/μL for those admitted before 2009 and 265 cells/μL for those admitted after 2009 (p = 0.003). When the pre- and post-2009 groups were compared for the status of the disease, 55.6 and 44.4% of patients were in the AIDS stage, respectively (p = 0.04). The most noted opportunistic infection was mycobacterial, and throughout the follow-up, 31.2% of the cases were fatal. Conclusions Early diagnosis of HIV infection can have a direct impact on prognosis and survival. Therefore, screening laboratory investigations should be extended, particularly in high-risk groups.

An animated depiction of major depression epidemiology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patten Scott B

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Epidemiologic estimates are now available for a variety of parameters related to major depression epidemiology (incidence, prevalence, etc.. These estimates are potentially useful for policy and planning purposes, but it is first necessary that they be synthesized into a coherent picture of the epidemiology of the condition. Several attempts to do so have been made using mathematical modeling procedures. However, this information is not easy to communicate to users of epidemiological data (clinicians, administrators, policy makers. Methods In this study, up-to-date data on major depression epidemiology were integrated using a discrete event simulation model. The mathematical model was animated in Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML to create a visual, rather than mathematical, depiction of the epidemiology. Results Consistent with existing literature, the model highlights potential advantages of population health strategies that emphasize access to effective long-term treatment. The paper contains a web-link to the animation. Conclusion Visual animation of epidemiological results may be an effective knowledge translation tool. In clinical practice, such animations could potentially assist with patient education and enhanced long-term compliance.

An animated depiction of major depression epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Patten, Scott B

2007-06-08

Epidemiologic estimates are now available for a variety of parameters related to major depression epidemiology (incidence, prevalence, etc.). These estimates are potentially useful for policy and planning purposes, but it is first necessary that they be synthesized into a coherent picture of the epidemiology of the condition. Several attempts to do so have been made using mathematical modeling procedures. However, this information is not easy to communicate to users of epidemiological data (clinicians, administrators, policy makers). In this study, up-to-date data on major depression epidemiology were integrated using a discrete event simulation model. The mathematical model was animated in Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) to create a visual, rather than mathematical, depiction of the epidemiology. Consistent with existing literature, the model highlights potential advantages of population health strategies that emphasize access to effective long-term treatment. The paper contains a web-link to the animation. Visual animation of epidemiological results may be an effective knowledge translation tool. In clinical practice, such animations could potentially assist with patient education and enhanced long-term compliance.

Osteoporotic fractures of proximal femur: clinical and epidemiological features in a population of the city of São Paulo

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Ana Claudia Ramalho

Full Text Available CONTEXT: It is believed that about 25% of menopausal women in the USA will exhibit some kind of fracture as a consequence of osteoporosis. Fractures of the proximal femur are associated with a greater number of deaths and disabilities and higher medical expenses than all the other osteoporotic fractures together. OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical and epidemiological features of patients with proximal femur fracture in hospitals in São Paulo. DESIGN: Transversal and retrospective study. LOCAL: Hospital São Paulo and Hospital Servidor Público Estadual "Francisco Morato Oliveira". PARTICIPANTS: Patients aged sixty-five years or more hospitalized because of proximal femur fracture, from March to November 1996 (N = 73. This group was compared to patients of the same age without fracture of the proximal femur. INTERVENTION: Evaluation of weight, height, body mass index; lifestyle habits (physical activity at home, ingestion of dairy calcium, drinking of coffee, smoking habit, gynecological history (ages at menarche and menopause, number of pregnancies and lactations, previous morbidity, use of medications, history of previous fractures, family history of osteoporosis. MEASUREMENT: The comparison of the different data regarding lifestyle habits between the two groups was made using the chi-squared test. Other data were analyzed using the Mann -- Whitney test. P £ 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: We noted a predominance of proximal femur fracture among females in relation to males (a female/male ratio of 3.3:1 with a progressive increase in the frequency of proximal femur fracture with age in both sexes. The group with proximal femur fracture, in comparison with the control group, showed a lower body mass index, less physical activity, and a greater number of pregnancies and lactations. Other data were not different. CONCLUSION: In accordance with the literature, we found a predomination of proximal femur fracture in women in relation to men

eCOMPAGT – efficient Combination and Management of Phenotypes and Genotypes for Genetic Epidemiology

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Specht Günther

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background High-throughput genotyping and phenotyping projects of large epidemiological study populations require sophisticated laboratory information management systems. Most epidemiological studies include subject-related personal information, which needs to be handled with care by following data privacy protection guidelines. In addition, genotyping core facilities handling cooperative projects require a straightforward solution to monitor the status and financial resources of the different projects. Description We developed a database system for an efficient combination and management of phenotypes and genotypes (eCOMPAGT deriving from genetic epidemiological studies. eCOMPAGT securely stores and manages genotype and phenotype data and enables different user modes with different rights. Special attention was drawn on the import of data deriving from TaqMan and SNPlex genotyping assays. However, the database solution is adjustable to other genotyping systems by programming additional interfaces. Further important features are the scalability of the database and an export interface to statistical software. Conclusion eCOMPAGT can store, administer and connect phenotype data with all kinds of genotype data and is available as a downloadable version at http://dbis-informatik.uibk.ac.at/ecompagt.

Epidemiology of Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma and Its Association with Epstein Barr Virus in Northern China

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huang, Xin; Nolte, Ilja; Gao, Zifen; Vos, Hans; Hepkema, Bouke; Poppema, Sibrand; van den Berg, Anke; Diepstra, Arjan

2011-01-01

Background: The incidence of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) and its association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) varies significantly with age, sex, ethnicity and geographic location. This is the first report on epidemiological features of cHL patients from Northern regions of China. These features

Popular Nutrition-Related Mobile Apps: A Feature Assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Franco, Rodrigo Zenun; Fallaize, Rosalind; Lovegrove, Julie A; Hwang, Faustina

2016-08-01

A key challenge in human nutrition is the assessment of usual food intake. This is of particular interest given recent proposals of eHealth personalized interventions. The adoption of mobile phones has created an opportunity for assessing and improving nutrient intake as they can be used for digitalizing dietary assessments and providing feedback. In the last few years, hundreds of nutrition-related mobile apps have been launched and installed by millions of users. This study aims to analyze the main features of the most popular nutrition apps and to compare their strategies and technologies for dietary assessment and user feedback. Apps were selected from the two largest online stores of the most popular mobile operating systems-the Google Play Store for Android and the iTunes App Store for iOS-based on popularity as measured by the number of installs and reviews. The keywords used in the search were as follows: calorie(s), diet, diet tracker, dietician, dietitian, eating, fit, fitness, food, food diary, food tracker, health, lose weight, nutrition, nutritionist, weight, weight loss, weight management, weight watcher, and ww calculator. The inclusion criteria were as follows: English language, minimum number of installs (1 million for Google Play Store) or reviews (7500 for iTunes App Store), relation to nutrition (ie, diet monitoring or recommendation), and independence from any device (eg, wearable) or subscription. A total of 13 apps were classified as popular for inclusion in the analysis. Nine apps offered prospective recording of food intake using a food diary feature. Food selection was available via text search or barcode scanner technologies. Portion size selection was only textual (ie, without images or icons). All nine of these apps were also capable of collecting physical activity (PA) information using self-report, the global positioning system (GPS), or wearable integrations. Their outputs focused predominantly on energy balance between dietary

Clinical and epidemiological features of patients with chronic hepatitis C co-infected with HIV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Braga Eduardo Lorens

Full Text Available Co-infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV is increasingly common and affects the clinical course of chronic hepatitis C. Highly active antiretroviral therapy has improved the life expectancy of HIV infected patients, but, by extending survival, it permits the development of HCV cirrhosis. This study tried to evaluate clinical and epidemiological features of patients with chronic hepatitis C co-infected with HIV. We evaluated 134 HCV-infected patients: i group A - 65 co-infected HCV/HIV patients, ii group B - 69 mono-infected HCV patients. The impact of HIV infection on HCV liver disease was analyzed using Child's score, ultrasound findings and liver histology. Patients were subjected to HCV genotyping and anti-HBs dosage. Patients mean age was 42.4 years (±9.1 and 97 (72.4% were males. Injected drug use and homo/bisexual practice were more frequently encountered in the co-infected group: 68.3% and 78.0%, respectively. Antibodies against hepatitis B virus (anti-HBs were found in only 38.1% of the patients (66.7% group A x 33.3% group B. Ten out of 14 individuals (71.4% who had liver disease (Child B or C and 25 out of 34 (73.5% who showed ultrasound evidence of chronic liver disease were in the co-infection group. HCV genotype-2/3 was more frequently encountered in co-infected patients (36.9% group A vs. 21.8% group B. Conclusions: a HIV infection seems to adversely affect the clinical course of chronic hepatitis C, b injected drug use, bi/homosexual practice and genotype-2/3 were more frequently encountered in co-infected patients, c immunization against HBV should be encouraged in these patients.

CLINICAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FEATURES AND OUTCOME OF GENERALIZED FORMS OF MENINGOCOCCAL INFECTION IN CHILDREN

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G. P. Martynova

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The objective of the research was to study clinical and epidemiological features and outcomes of generalized forms of meningococcal infection in children from Krasnoyarsk and Krasnoyarsk Territory during the period from 2012 to 2016. Materials and methods. A retrospective analysis of 57 medical records of hospital patients with generalized forms of meningococcal infection was carried out in the infectious and resuscitative departments of the Krasnoyarsk Clinical Hospital No. 1 from 2012 to 2016, including 12 protocols of pathologoanatomical studies of the deceased patients and 45 medical cards of ambulatory patients – convalescents of the disease from 2012 to 2016. Results. The epidemic situation for meningococcal infection in Krasnoyarsk Territory from 2012 to 2016 is characterized by signs of inter-epidemic period. Children of the first 3 years of life are in the group of high risk for the development of GFMI, which accounts for 74% of the total number of cases of children aged 14. There are signs of meningococcal infection «aging» – in the age structure the number of children in the first year of life decreased, while the proportion of children aged 4–7 and 7–14 increased compared to previous decades. There is a tendency to a decrease in the proportion of the combined forms with an increase in the frequency of «pure» meningococcemia. In recent years there has been an «atypical» course of generalized forms of the disease, when classical hemorrhagic necrotic rashes appear only on the 3rd – 4th day of the disease. In convalescents who underwent a combined form of MI and «pure» meningitis severe residual effects leading patients to disability are possible to develop. Conclusion. The use of polyvalent conjugated vaccines in potential risk groups will allow us to reduce the morbidity and mortality from generalized forms of meningococcal infection, including younger children.

A novel relational regularization feature selection method for joint regression and classification in AD diagnosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Xiaofeng; Suk, Heung-Il; Wang, Li; Lee, Seong-Whan; Shen, Dinggang

2017-05-01

In this paper, we focus on joint regression and classification for Alzheimer's disease diagnosis and propose a new feature selection method by embedding the relational information inherent in the observations into a sparse multi-task learning framework. Specifically, the relational information includes three kinds of relationships (such as feature-feature relation, response-response relation, and sample-sample relation), for preserving three kinds of the similarity, such as for the features, the response variables, and the samples, respectively. To conduct feature selection, we first formulate the objective function by imposing these three relational characteristics along with an ℓ 2,1 -norm regularization term, and further propose a computationally efficient algorithm to optimize the proposed objective function. With the dimension-reduced data, we train two support vector regression models to predict the clinical scores of ADAS-Cog and MMSE, respectively, and also a support vector classification model to determine the clinical label. We conducted extensive experiments on the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Our experimental results showed the efficacy of the proposed method in enhancing the performances of both clinical scores prediction and disease status identification, compared to the state-of-the-art methods. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Data Base Management System for Clinical and Epidemiologic Studies In Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Design and Maintenance

Science.gov (United States)

Kosmides, Victoria S.; Hochberg, Marc C.

1984-01-01

This report describes the development, design specifications, features and implementation of a data base management system (DBMS) for clinical and epidemiologic studies in SLE. The DBMS is multidimensional with arrays formulated across patients, studies and variables. The major impact of this DBMS has been to increase the efficiency of managing and analyzing vast amounts of clinical and laboratory data and, as a result, to allow for continued growth in research productivity in areas related to SLE.

Causal Relations and Feature Similarity in Children's Inductive Reasoning

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Brett K.; Thompson, Susan P.

2007-01-01

Four experiments examined the development of property induction on the basis of causal relations. In the first 2 studies, 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were presented with triads in which a target instance was equally similar to 2 inductive bases but shared a causal antecedent feature with 1 of them. All 3 age groups used causal relations…

Hippocampal sleep features: relations to human memory function

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Michele eFerrara

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The recent spread of intracranial EEG recordings techniques for presurgical evaluation of drug-resistant epileptic patients is providing new information on the activity of different brain structures during both wakefulness and sleep. The interest has been mainly focused on the medial temporal lobe, and in particular the hippocampal formation, whose peculiar local sleep features have been recently described, providing support to the idea that sleep is not a spatially global phenomenon. The study of the hippocampal sleep electrophysiology is particularly interesting because of its central role in the declarative memory formation. Recent data indicate that sleep contributes to memory formation. Therefore, it is relevant to understand whether specific pattern of activity taking place during sleep are related to memory consolidation processes. Fascinating similarities between different states of consciousness (wakefulness, REM sleep, NREM sleep in some electrophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive processes have been reported. For instance, large-scale synchrony in gamma activity is important for waking memory and perception processes, and its changes during sleep may be the neurophysiological substrate of sleep-related deficits of declarative memory. Hippocampal activity seems to specifically support memory consolidation during sleep, through specific coordinated neurophysiological events (slow waves, spindles, ripples that would facilitate the integration of new information into the pre-existing cortical networks. A few studies indeed provided direct evidence that rhinal ripples as well as slow hippocampal oscillations are correlated with memory consolidation in humans. More detailed electrophysiological investigations assessing the specific relations between different types of memory consolidation and hippocampal EEG features are in order. These studies will add an important piece of knowledge to the elucidation of the ultimate sleep

Hippocampal Sleep Features: Relations to Human Memory Function

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrara, Michele; Moroni, Fabio; De Gennaro, Luigi; Nobili, Lino

2012-01-01

The recent spread of intracranial electroencephalographic (EEG) recording techniques for presurgical evaluation of drug-resistant epileptic patients is providing new information on the activity of different brain structures during both wakefulness and sleep. The interest has been mainly focused on the medial temporal lobe, and in particular the hippocampal formation, whose peculiar local sleep features have been recently described, providing support to the idea that sleep is not a spatially global phenomenon. The study of the hippocampal sleep electrophysiology is particularly interesting because of its central role in the declarative memory formation. Recent data indicate that sleep contributes to memory formation. Therefore, it is relevant to understand whether specific patterns of activity taking place during sleep are related to memory consolidation processes. Fascinating similarities between different states of consciousness (wakefulness, REM sleep, non-REM sleep) in some electrophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive processes have been reported. For instance, large-scale synchrony in gamma activity is important for waking memory and perception processes, and its changes during sleep may be the neurophysiological substrate of sleep-related deficits of declarative memory. Hippocampal activity seems to specifically support memory consolidation during sleep, through specific coordinated neurophysiological events (slow waves, spindles, ripples) that would facilitate the integration of new information into the pre-existing cortical networks. A few studies indeed provided direct evidence that rhinal ripples as well as slow hippocampal oscillations are correlated with memory consolidation in humans. More detailed electrophysiological investigations assessing the specific relations between different types of memory consolidation and hippocampal EEG features are in order. These studies will add an important piece of knowledge to the elucidation of the ultimate

The science of epidemiology and the methods needed for public health assessments: a review of epidemiology textbooks.

Science.gov (United States)

Gouda, Hebe N; Powles, John W

2014-02-10

Epidemiology is often described as 'the science of public health'. Here we aim to assess the extent that epidemiological methods, as covered in contemporary standard textbooks, provide tools that can assess the relative magnitude of public health problems and can be used to help rank and assess public health priorities. Narrative literature review. Thirty textbooks were grouped into three categories; pure, extended or applied epidemiology, were reviewed with attention to the ways the discipline is characterised and the nature of the analytical methods described. Pure texts tend to present a strict hierarchy of methods with those metrics deemed to best serve aetiological inquiry at the top. Extended and applied texts employ broader definitions of epidemiology but in most cases, the metrics described are also those used in aetiological inquiry and may not be optimal for capturing the consequences and social importance of injuries and disease onsets. The primary scientific purpose of epidemiology, even amongst 'applied' textbooks, is aetiological inquiry. Authors do not readily extend to methods suitable for assessing public health problems and priorities.

Modeling the hepatitis A epidemiological transition in Brazil and Mexico.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Effelterre, Thierry; Guignard, Adrienne; Marano, Cinzia; Rojas, Rosalba; Jacobsen, Kathryn H

2017-08-03

Many low- to middle-income countries have completed or are in the process of transitioning from high or intermediate to low endemicity for hepatitis A virus (HAV). Because the risk of severe hepatitis A disease increases with age at infection, decreased incidence that leaves older children and adults susceptible to HAV infection may actually increase the population-level burden of disease from HAV. Mathematical models can be helpful for projecting future epidemiological profiles for HAV. An age-specific deterministic, dynamic compartmental transmission model with stratification by setting (rural versus urban) was calibrated with country-specific data on demography, urbanization, and seroprevalence of anti-HAV antibodies. HAV transmission was modeled as a function of setting-specific access to safe water. The model was then used to project various HAV-related epidemiological outcomes in Brazil and in Mexico from 1950 to 2050. The projected epidemiological outcomes were qualitatively similar in the 2 countries. The age at the midpoint of population immunity (AMPI) increased considerably and the mean age of symptomatic HAV cases shifted from childhood to early adulthood. The projected overall incidence rate of HAV infections decreased by about two thirds as safe water access improved. However, the incidence rate of symptomatic HAV infections remained roughly the same over the projection period. The incidence rates of HAV infections (all and symptomatic alone) were projected to become similar in rural and urban settings in the next decades. This model featuring population age structure, urbanization and access to safe water as key contributors to the epidemiological transition for HAV was previously validated with data from Thailand and fits equally well with data from Latin American countries. Assuming no introduction of a vaccination program over the projection period, both Brazil and Mexico were projected to experience a continued decrease in HAV incidence rates

History, Epidemiology, and Clinical Manifestations of Zika: A Systematic Review.

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Paixão, Enny S; Barreto, Florisneide; Teixeira, Maria da Glória; Costa, Maria da Conceição N; Rodrigues, Laura C

2016-04-01

To describe salient epidemiological characteristics of Zika virus outbreaks across the world and to examine the clinical presentations, complications, and atypical manifestations related to their occurrence in recent history. We conducted a systematic review of the literature by searching through MEDLINE, Embase, and Global Health Library, as well as the epidemiological bulletins and alerts from the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control over the period 1954 to 2016. The search yielded 547 records. We retained 333 for further analysis, to which we added 11 epidemiological bulletins from various sources. Of these, we systematically reviewed 52 articles and reports, revealing some epidemiological features and patterns of spread of the Zika virus worldwide, as well as pathological outcomes suspected to be linked to Zika outbreaks. Neurologic disorders among zika patients were similar in Brazil and French Polynesia but a causal link is not established. Incidence of zika infection in pregnant women is not known. In Brazil, during the zika outbreak the incidence of microcephaly increased more than 20 times. Among 35 infants with microcephaly, born from women suspected to have Zika infection during pregnancy in northeast Brazil, 74% of the mothers reported rash during the first and second trimester. On February 1, 2016, The World Health Organization declared the ongoing Zika crisis an emergency and that, although not yet scientifically proven, the link between the virus and growing numbers of microcephaly cases was "strongly suspected." However, the causal relationship between zika and microcephaly is not universally accepted. Public Health Implications. The current situation with regard to Zika is not encouraging, because there is no vaccine, no treatment, and no good serological test, and vector control remains a challenge.

Genesis of Preeclampsia: An Epidemiological Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Salvador-Moysén, Jaime; Martínez-López, Yolanda; Ramírez-Aranda, José M.; Aguilar-Durán, Marisela; Terrones-González, Alberto

2012-01-01

There are analyzed some of the main aspects related to the causality of preeclampsia, privileging two types of models: the clinic model and the epidemiologic model, first one represented by the hypothesis of the reduced placental perfusion and the second one considering the epidemiologic findings related to the high levels of psychosocial stress and its association with preeclampsia. It is reasoned out the relevance of raising the causality of the disease from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating the valuable information generated from both types, clinical and epidemiologic, and finally a tentative explanatory model of preeclampsia is proposed, the subclinical and sociocultural aspects that predispose and trigger the disease are emphasized making aspects to stand out: the importance of reduced placental perfusion as an indicator of individual risk, and the high levels of physiological stress, as a result of the unfavorable conditions of the psychosocial surroundings (indicator of population risk) of the pregnant women. PMID:22462008

Visceral Leishmaniasis in Iran: Review of the Epidemiological and Clinical Features

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Mehdi Mohebali

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Visceral leishmaniasis (VL is a life-threatening vector-borne parasitic dis­ease is distributed in some parts of the new world and old world. The disease is endemic in different parts of Iran. This review article has been focused on major topics of epidemio­logical aspects and clinical features of VL in Iran for the period of 2002 through 2012. For the detection of VL in humans as well as animal reservoir hosts, anti-Leishmania antibodies were detected using direct agglutination test (DAT as a validated serological test. Parasitological examinations were performed on suspected VL patients as well as canines and rodents. Different molecular methods were used for identification of species and genotype/ or strain of Leishmania spp. isolated from infected humans, animal reser­voir hosts and vectors. Altogether, 1698 out of 36081 (4.7% human serum samples collected from 5 distinct geographical zones showed anti-Leishmania antibodies at ti­ters≥1:3200 using DAT. The majority of VL cases in the endemic areas were found among children up to 12 years old. Almost 75% of DAT-positive cases (≥1:3200 in en­demic areas showed clinical signs and symptoms. Predominant signs and symptoms in 217 hospitalized patients with DAT positive (≥1:3200 results included paleness (99.5%, fever (96.9%, splenomegaly (91.5%, hepatomegaly (53.6% and lymphadenopathy (21.1%. Integrated VL surveillance system in primary care using DAT, could decrease mortality and morbidity of the disease in the VL endemic areas of the northwestern Iran. Out of 7204 serum samples collected from domestic dogs in various geographical loca­tions of Iran, 879 (12.2% were DAT sero-positive at titers≥1:320. L. infantum as the prin­cipal causative agent of the disease was isolated from infected humans, domestic and wild canines and rodents. The principal animal reservoir hosts of the infection are domestic and wild canines. Ph. kandelakii, Ph. perfiliewi transcaucasicus, Ph. tobbi in

Participatory epidemiology: the contribution of participatory research to epidemiology

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Mario Bach

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Epidemiology has contributed in many ways to identifying various risk factors for disease and to promoting population health. However, there is a continuing debate about the ability of epidemiology not only to describe, but also to provide results which can be better translated into public health practice. It has been proposed that participatory research approaches be applied to epidemiology as a way to bridge this gap between description and action. A systematic account of what constitutes participatory epidemiology practice has, however, been lacking. Methods A scoping review was carried out focused on the question of what constitutes participatory approaches to epidemiology for the purpose of demonstrating their potential for advancing epidemiologic research. Relevant databases were searched, including both the published and non-published (grey literature. The 102 identified sources were analyzed in terms of comparing common epidemiologic approaches to participatory counterparts regarding central aspects of the research process. Exemplary studies applying participatory approaches were examined more closely. Results A highly diverse, interdisciplinary body of literature was synthesized, resulting in a framework comprised of seven aspects of the research process: research goal, research question, population, context, data synthesis, research management, and dissemination of findings. The framework specifies how participatory approaches not only differ from, but also how they can enhance common approaches in epidemiology. Finally, recommendations for the further development of participatory approaches are given. These include: enhancing data collection, data analysis, and data validation; advancing capacity building for research at the local level; and developing data synthesis. Conclusion The proposed framework provides a basis for systematically developing the emergent science of participatory epidemiology.

Some Syntactic Features of Relative Constructions in the Greek New Testament

OpenAIRE

Herman C du Toit

2016-01-01

In the Greek New Testament, relative sentences that are introduced by relative pronouns alone, apart from the adverbial uses, are the most frequent subordinate sentence type. The research reported on in this paper aimed to investigate and describe a number of syntactic features of relative constructions in the Greek New Testament, taking account, among others, of some typological parameters that have been developed in the general linguistics literature for these constructions.The results indi...

The daily gluten intake in relatives of patients with coeliac disease compared with that of the general Dutch population

NARCIS (Netherlands)

vanOverbeek, FM; UilDieterman, IGA; Mol, IW; KohlerBrands, L; Heymans, HSA; Mulder, CJJ

1997-01-01

Background: It has been suggested that the amount of gluten intake in populations offers an explanation for differences in the epidemiology of coeliac disease. Investigations into first-degree relatives of coeliac disease patients have often shown that relatives exhibit intermediate features of

Persisting problems related to race and ethnicity in public health and epidemiology research

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Jean-Claude Moubarac

2013-02-01

Full Text Available A recent and comprehensive review of the use of race and ethnicity in research that address health disparities in epidemiology and public health is provided. First it is described the theoretical basis upon which race and ethnicity differ drawing from previous work in anthropology, social science and public health. Second, it is presented a review of 280 articles published in high impacts factor journals in regards to public health and epidemiology from 2009-2011. An analytical grid enabled the examination of conceptual, theoretical and methodological questions related to the use of both concepts. The majority of articles reviewed were grounded in a theoretical framework and provided interpretations from various models. However, key problems identified include a a failure from researchers to differentiate between the concepts of race and ethnicity; b an inappropriate use of racial categories to ascribe ethnicity; c a lack of transparency in the methods used to assess both concepts; and d failure to address limits associated with the construction of racial or ethnic taxonomies and their use. In conclusion, future studies examining health disparities should clearly establish the distinction between race and ethnicity, develop theoretically driven research and address specific questions about the relationships between race, ethnicity and health. One argue that one way to think about ethnicity, race and health is to dichotomize research into two sets of questions about the relationship between human diversity and health.

Czech mass methanol outbreak 2012: epidemiology, challenges and clinical features.

Science.gov (United States)

Zakharov, Sergey; Pelclova, Daniela; Urban, Pavel; Navratil, Tomas; Diblik, Pavel; Kuthan, Pavel; Hubacek, Jaroslav A; Miovsky, Michal; Klempir, Jiri; Vaneckova, Manuela; Seidl, Zdenek; Pilin, Alexander; Fenclova, Zdenka; Petrik, Vit; Kotikova, Katerina; Nurieva, Olga; Ridzon, Petr; Rulisek, Jan; Komarc, Martin; Hovda, Knut Erik

2014-12-01

Methanol poisonings occur frequently globally, but reports of larger outbreaks where complete clinical and laboratory data are reported remain scarce. The objective of the present study was to report the data from the mass methanol poisoning in the Czech Republic in 2012 addressing the general epidemiology, treatment, and outcomes, and to present a protocol for the use of fomepizole ensuring that the antidote was provided to the most severely poisoned patients in the critical phase. A combined prospective and retrospective case series study of 121 patients with confirmed methanol poisoning. From a total of 121 intoxicated subjects, 20 died outside the hospital and 101 were hospitalized. Among them, 60 survived without, and 20 with visual/CNS sequelae, whereas 21 patients died. The total and hospital mortality rates were 34% and 21%, respectively. Multivariate regression analysis found pH 0.05). Severity of metabolic acidosis, state of consciousness, and serum ethanol on admission were the only significant parameters associated with mortality. The type of dialysis or antidote did not appear to affect mortality. Recommendations that were issued for hospital triage of fomepizole administration allowed conservation of valuable antidote in this massive poisoning outbreak for those patients most in need.

Epidemiology of work-related injuries among insured construction workers in Iran.

Science.gov (United States)

Hatami, Seyed Esmaeil; Ravandi, Mohammad Reza Ghotbi; Hatami, Seyedeh Tayebeh; Khanjani, Narges

2017-11-01

Work-related injuries are among the most important health problems in developing countries, such as Iran. The purpose of this study was to determine the epidemiology of work-related injuries among construction workers who had been insured by the Iranian Social Security Organization (ISSO). This is a cross-sectional study. The population included all construction workers who had a work- related accident during 2012 in Iran, which were recorded in the ISSO database after inspection. The effects of independent variables on injuries were estimated by logistic regression. SPSS software version 18 was used for analyzing the data. Overall, 5352 work-related injuries were investigated. The incidence rate of fatal and nonfatal injuries was 0.07 in 1000 and 11.18 in 1000 workers, respectively. More than half of these accidents were due to careless activities. A younger age at the time of the accident (OR=0.98, CI: 0.97-0.99, p=0.001), being married (OR=1.37, CI: 1.04-1.79, p=0.02), place of accident (OR=1.86, CI: 1.18-2.92, p=0.007), lack of information (OR=5.28, CI: 1.57-17.75, p=0.007), disrespect of safety regulations (OR=3.11, CI: 1.87-5.17, p=0.001), non-use of protective equipment (OR=2.98, CI: 1.62-5.50, p=0.001), and defective equipment (OR=2.22, CI: 1.18-4.20, p=0.01) had a significant effect on the incidence of work-related injury. The pattern of work-related injury in Iran was almost similar in regard to age, gender, cause and type of the accident, with other parts of the world.

Epidemiology, neurobiology and pharmacological interventions related to suicide deaths and suicide attempts in bipolar disorder

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schaffer, Ayal; Isometsä, Erkki T; Tondo, Leonardo

2015-01-01

associations with suicide attempts and deaths in bipolar disorder, but few replication studies. Data on treatment with lithium or anticonvulsants are strongly suggestive for prevention of suicide attempts and deaths, but additional data are required before relative anti-suicide effects can be confirmed......, and the most common methods, are important building blocks to greater awareness and improved interventions for suicide prevention in bipolar disorder. Replication of genetic findings and stronger prospective data on treatment options are required before more decisive conclusions can be made regarding......OBJECTIVES: Bipolar disorder is associated with elevated risk of suicide attempts and deaths. Key aims of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders Task Force on Suicide included examining the extant literature on epidemiology, neurobiology and pharmacotherapy related to suicide attempts...

Some Syntactic Features of Relative Constructions in the Greek New Testament

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Herman C du Toit

2016-07-01

Full Text Available In the Greek New Testament, relative sentences that are introduced by relative pronouns alone, apart from the adverbial uses, are the most frequent subordinate sentence type. The research reported on in this paper aimed to investigate and describe a number of syntactic features of relative constructions in the Greek New Testament, taking account, among others, of some typological parameters that have been developed in the general linguistics literature for these constructions.The results indicate that relative constructions in the Greek New Testament have a variety of features, all of which have counterparts in some modern (or other ancient languages, despite the differences. The relative sentence in the Greek New Testament is mostly postnominal, and the relative pronoun-type is used in those cases for encoding the role of the coreferential element in the relative sentence. Phrases expressing a variety of syntactic functions in a sentence (e.g. subject, direct object, etc. are accessible to relativisation, that is, they can be represented by relative pronouns. Nominal elements serve mostly as antecedents of relative sentences, although sentences appear in that function as well.A variety of syntactic types of relative sentences can be distinguished, including the prenominal participial, postnominal finite/participial, circumnominal, free relative, adverbial, prejoined, postjoined, sentential and conjoined types. These can be linked in a systematic way to the four functions of relative sentences in the New Testament, i.e. identifying, appositive, adverbial and continuative.Relative sentences also play a role in communicative strategies. Prejoined relative sentences, for example, are most suitable for exposition and theme-building, especially in the correlative diptych construction.

[Rocky Mountain spotted fever in children: clinical and epidemiological features].

Science.gov (United States)

Martínez-Medina, Miguel Angel; Alvarez-Hernández, Gerardo; Padilla-Zamudioa, José Guillermo; Rojas-Guerra, Maria Guadalupe

2007-01-01

To report the clinical features of the Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) in children of southern Sonora, Mexico. Nine cases were studied at the Sonora State Children's Hospital. One case was defined by clinical features and positive serological tests (indirect immunofluorescence assay or reaction to Proteus OX 19). Demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients were registered. The study subjects were children from two to twelve years ofage. All patients have had contact with tick-infested dogs and had fever, as well as petechial rash. Laboratory findings included high levels of hepatic aminotransferase, hyponatremia and thrombocytopenia. Therapy with chloramphenicol and doxyciclyne was administered after the first seven days of the onset of illness. The mortality rate was 22%. This study supports the presence of RMSF in the state of Sonora, Mexico, which should be considered as a public health hazard, requiring immediate actions for prevention and control.

Impact of load-related neural processes on feature binding in visuospatial working memory.

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Nicole A Kochan

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The capacity of visual working memory (WM is substantially limited and only a fraction of what we see is maintained as a temporary trace. The process of binding visual features has been proposed as an adaptive means of minimising information demands on WM. However the neural mechanisms underlying this process, and its modulation by task and load effects, are not well understood. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the neural correlates of feature binding and its modulation by WM load during the sequential phases of encoding, maintenance and retrieval. METHODS AND FINDINGS: 18 young healthy participants performed a visuospatial WM task with independent factors of load and feature conjunction (object identity and position in an event-related functional MRI study. During stimulus encoding, load-invariant conjunction-related activity was observed in left prefrontal cortex and left hippocampus. During maintenance, greater activity for task demands of feature conjunction versus single features, and for increased load was observed in left-sided regions of the superior occipital cortex, precuneus and superior frontal cortex. Where these effects were expressed in overlapping cortical regions, their combined effect was additive. During retrieval, however, an interaction of load and feature conjunction was observed. This modulation of feature conjunction activity under increased load was expressed through greater deactivation in medial structures identified as part of the default mode network. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The relationship between memory load and feature binding qualitatively differed through each phase of the WM task. Of particular interest was the interaction of these factors observed within regions of the default mode network during retrieval which we interpret as suggesting that at low loads, binding processes may be 'automatic' but at higher loads it becomes a resource-intensive process leading to disengagement of activity in this

Global Epidemiology of HIV Infection and Related Syndemics Affecting Transgender People

Science.gov (United States)

Scheim, Ayden; Xavier, Jessica; Reisner, Sari; Baral, Stefan

2016-01-01

Introduction: Transgender populations have been underrepresented in HIV epidemiologic studies and consequently in HIV prevention, care, and treatment programs. Since 2012, there has been a dramatic increase in research focused on transgender people. Studies highlight the burden of HIV and risk determinants, including intersecting stigmas, as drivers of syndemics among transgender populations. This review synthesizes the most recent global epidemiology of HIV infection and describes current gaps in research and interventions to inform prioritization of HIV research for transgender populations. Methods: A systematic review was conducted of the medical literature published between January 1, 2012 and November 30, 2015. The data focused on HIV prevalence, determinants of risk, and syndemics among transgender populations. Results: Estimates varied dramatically by location and subpopulation. Transfeminine individuals have some of the highest concentrated HIV epidemics in the world with laboratory-confirmed prevalence up to 40%. Data were sparse among trans masculine individuals; however, they suggest potential increased risk for trans masculine men who have sex with men (MSM). No prevalence data were available for transgender people across Sub-Saharan Africa or Eastern Europe/Central Asia. Emerging data consistently support the association of syndemic conditions with HIV risk in transgender populations. Discussion: Addressing syndemic conditions and gender-specific challenges is critical to ensure engagement and retention in HIV prevention by transgender populations. Future research should prioritize: filling knowledge gaps in HIV epidemiology; elucidating how stigma shapes syndemic factors to produce HIV and other deleterious effects on transgender health; and understanding how to effectively implement HIV interventions for transgender people. PMID:27429185

A Relation Extraction Framework for Biomedical Text Using Hybrid Feature Set

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Abdul Wahab Muzaffar

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The information extraction from unstructured text segments is a complex task. Although manual information extraction often produces the best results, it is harder to manage biomedical data extraction manually because of the exponential increase in data size. Thus, there is a need for automatic tools and techniques for information extraction in biomedical text mining. Relation extraction is a significant area under biomedical information extraction that has gained much importance in the last two decades. A lot of work has been done on biomedical relation extraction focusing on rule-based and machine learning techniques. In the last decade, the focus has changed to hybrid approaches showing better results. This research presents a hybrid feature set for classification of relations between biomedical entities. The main contribution of this research is done in the semantic feature set where verb phrases are ranked using Unified Medical Language System (UMLS and a ranking algorithm. Support Vector Machine and Naïve Bayes, the two effective machine learning techniques, are used to classify these relations. Our approach has been validated on the standard biomedical text corpus obtained from MEDLINE 2001. Conclusively, it can be articulated that our framework outperforms all state-of-the-art approaches used for relation extraction on the same corpus.

Issues in epidemiological studies of radiofrequency workers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hocking, B.

1985-01-01

The paper reviews some of the issues in a proposed epidemiological study of radiofrequency workers. First a few other epidemiological studies are discussed to illustrate some of the common problems such as inadequate definition of effects and/or exposure. Then technical problems in determining dosage and responses as well as study design are reviewed, and finally the administrative aspects of ethics, industrial relations and costs are considered

Epidemiology of Postherpetic Neuralgia in Korea

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Myong-Joo; Kim, Yeon-Dong; Cheong, Yong-Kwan; Park, Seon-Jeong; Choi, Seung-Won; Hong, Hyon-Joo

2016-01-01

Abstract Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a disease entity defined as persistent pain after the acute pain of herpes zoster gradually resolves. It is associated with impaired daily activities, resulting in reduced quality of life. General epidemiological data on PHN is necessary for the effective management. However, data on the epidemiology of PHN in Korea is lacking. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiological features of PHN in the general population. We used population-based medical data for 51,448,491 subscribers to the Health Insurance Service in the year of 2013 to analyze of PHN epidemiology in Korea, such as the incidence, regional distribution, seasonal variation, and healthcare resource utilization. Total number of patients and medical cost on PHN were analyzed from 2009 to 2013. Findings indicate that the incidence of PHN in Korea was 2.5 per 1000 person-years, which was strongly correlated with age and sex. There were no differences in seasonal variation or regional distribution. The medical cost increased steadily over the study period. When admitted to general hospitals, patients with PHN were mainly managed in the dermatology and anesthesiology departments. The incidence and prevalence rates of PHN in Koreans appear to be considerably higher compared to those in western populations, while the sex and age predisposition was similar. Considering that the pain associated with PHN can have a marked impact on a patient's quality of life resulting in a medicosocial economic burden, anesthesiology physicians have an important role in primary care in Korea. Future research on the cost-effectiveness of the management of PHN is needed. PMID:27057902

Epidemiological and molecular characteristics of Chlamydia psittaci from 8 human cases of psittacosis and 4 related birds in Argentina.

Science.gov (United States)

Cadario, María E; Frutos, María C; Arias, Maite B; Origlia, Javier A; Zelaya, Vanina; Madariaga, María J; Lara, Claudia S; Ré, Viviana; Cuffini, Cecilia G

In Argentina, the epidemiological and molecular characteristics of Chlamydia psittaci infections are still not sufficiently known. A total of 846 respiratory and 10 ocular samples from patients with suspected human psittacosis were tested for C. psittaci from January 2010 to March 2015. Four samples of birds related to these patients were also studied. Forty-eight samples were positive for C. psittaci by a nested PCR. The molecular characterization of twelve C. psittaci PCR-positive samples received in the National Reference Laboratory INEI-ANLIS "Dr. Carlos G. Malbrán", Buenos Aires, Argentina was performed. Eight positive samples from humans and four from birds were genotyped by ompA gene sequencing. C. psittaci genotype A was found in all human samples and in the related birds. This report contributes to our increasing knowledge of the epidemiological and molecular characteristics of C. psittaci to conduct effective surveillance of its zoonotic infections. Copyright © 2017 Asociación Argentina de Microbiología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Finding Combination of Features from Promoter Regions for Ovarian Cancer-related Gene Group Classification

KAUST Repository

Olayan, Rawan S.

2012-01-01

In classification problems, it is always important to use the suitable combination of features that will be employed by classifiers. Generating the right combination of features usually results in good classifiers. In the situation when the problem is not well understood, data items are usually described by many features in the hope that some of these may be the relevant or most relevant ones. In this study, we focus on one such problem related to genes implicated in ovarian cancer (OC). We try to recognize two important OC-related gene groups: oncogenes, which support the development and progression of OC, and oncosuppressors, which oppose such tendencies. For this, we use the properties of promoters of these genes. We identified potential “regulatory features” that characterize OC-related oncogenes and oncosuppressors promoters. In our study, we used 211 oncogenes and 39 oncosuppressors. For these, we identified 538 characteristic sequence motifs from their promoters. Promoters are annotated by these motifs and derived feature vectors used to develop classification models. We made a comparison of a number of classification models in their ability to distinguish oncogenes from oncosuppressors. Based on 10-fold cross-validation, the resultant model was able to separate the two classes with sensitivity of 96% and specificity of 100% with the complete set of features. Moreover, we developed another recognition model where we attempted to distinguish oncogenes and oncosuppressors as one group from other OC-related genes. That model achieved accuracy of 82%. We believe that the results of this study will help in discovering other OC-related oncogenes and oncosuppressors not identified as yet.

Finding Combination of Features from Promoter Regions for Ovarian Cancer-related Gene Group Classification

KAUST Repository

Olayan, Rawan S.

2012-12-01

In classification problems, it is always important to use the suitable combination of features that will be employed by classifiers. Generating the right combination of features usually results in good classifiers. In the situation when the problem is not well understood, data items are usually described by many features in the hope that some of these may be the relevant or most relevant ones. In this study, we focus on one such problem related to genes implicated in ovarian cancer (OC). We try to recognize two important OC-related gene groups: oncogenes, which support the development and progression of OC, and oncosuppressors, which oppose such tendencies. For this, we use the properties of promoters of these genes. We identified potential “regulatory features” that characterize OC-related oncogenes and oncosuppressors promoters. In our study, we used 211 oncogenes and 39 oncosuppressors. For these, we identified 538 characteristic sequence motifs from their promoters. Promoters are annotated by these motifs and derived feature vectors used to develop classification models. We made a comparison of a number of classification models in their ability to distinguish oncogenes from oncosuppressors. Based on 10-fold cross-validation, the resultant model was able to separate the two classes with sensitivity of 96% and specificity of 100% with the complete set of features. Moreover, we developed another recognition model where we attempted to distinguish oncogenes and oncosuppressors as one group from other OC-related genes. That model achieved accuracy of 82%. We believe that the results of this study will help in discovering other OC-related oncogenes and oncosuppressors not identified as yet.

Acinetobacter baumannii in critically ill patients: Molecular epidemiology, clinical features and predictors of mortality.

Science.gov (United States)

Garnacho-Montero, José; Gutiérrez-Pizarraya, Antonio; Díaz-Martín, Ana; Cisneros-Herreros, José Miguel; Cano, María Eugenia; Gato, Eva; Ruiz de Alegría, Carlos; Fernández-Cuenca, Felipe; Vila, Jordi; Martínez-Martínez, Luis; Tomás-Carmona, M Del Mar; Pascual, Álvaro; Bou, Germán; Pachón-Diaz, Jerónimo; Rodríguez-Baño, Jesús

2016-11-01

The main aim of this study was to assess changes in the epidemiology and clinical presentation of Acinetobacter baumannii over a 10-year period, as well as risk factors of mortality in infected patients. Prospective, multicentre, hospital-based cohort studies including critically ill patients with A. baumannii isolated from any clinical sample were included. These were divided into a first period ("2000 study") (one month), and a second period ("2010 study") (two months). Molecular typing was performed by REP-PCR, PFGE and MSLT. The primary endpoint was 30-day mortality. In 2000 and 2010, 103 and 108 patients were included, and the incidence of A. baumannii colonization/infection in the ICU decreased in 2010 (1.23 vs. 4.35 cases/1000 patient-days; pbaumannii infection, the multivariate analysis identified appropriate antimicrobial therapy and ST79 clonal group as protective factors for mortality. At 10 years of the first analysis, some variations have been observed in the epidemiology of A. baumannii in the ICU, with no changes in mortality. Epidemic ST79 clone seems to be associated with a better prognosis and adequate treatment is crucial in terms of survival. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier España, S.L.U. and Sociedad Española de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica. All rights reserved.

Five-year epidemiology of liquefied petroleum gas-related burns.

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Ronghua; Wu, Pan; Ho, Jon Kee; Wang, Xingang; Han, Chunmao

2018-02-01

The incidence of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)-related burns has increased over recent years, and it has become a serious public health issue in developing countries such as India and Turkey. This paper aims to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of LPG-related burns to provide assistance and suggestions for planning prevention strategies. A 5-year retrospective study was conducted in patients with LPG-related burns admitted to the Department of Burns & Wound Care Center, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, College of Medicine, between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2015. Information obtained for each patient included age, gender, education status, occupation, medical insurance, average hospital cost, length of hospital stay, monthly distribution of incidence, place of burns, mechanism of burns, extent of burns, site of burns, accompanying injuries, and treatment outcomes. For the first 4 years (2011-2014), the yearly incidence of LPG-related burns was at approximately 10% of all burns; however, in the fifth year (2015) alone, there was a surge to 26.94%. A total of 1337 burn patients were admitted during this period. Of these, 195 patients were admitted because of 169 LPG-related accidents; there were 11 accidents involving more than one victim. LPG-related burns occurred most frequently in patients aged 21-60 years (73.85%). The majority of injuries occurred from May to August (56.41%), and the most common place was home (83.08%, 162 patients). Gas leak (81.03%) was the main cause of LPG-related burns, followed by inappropriate operation (7.69%) and cooking negligence (2.05%). The mean burn area was 31.32±25.40% of TBSA. The most common sites of burns were the upper extremities (37.47%), followed by the head/face and neck (24.80%) and lower extremities (19.95%). The most common accompanying injuries included inhalation injury (23.59%), shock (8.71%), and external injury (7.18%). The average hospital stay was 22.90±19.47days (range

Translational Epidemiology in Psychiatry

Science.gov (United States)

Weissman, Myrna M.; Brown, Alan S.; Talati, Ardesheer

2012-01-01

Translational research generally refers to the application of knowledge generated by advances in basic sciences research translated into new approaches for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of disease. This direction is called bench-to-bedside. Psychiatry has similarly emphasized the basic sciences as the starting point of translational research. This article introduces the term translational epidemiology for psychiatry research as a bidirectional concept in which the knowledge generated from the bedside or the population can also be translated to the benches of laboratory science. Epidemiologic studies are primarily observational but can generate representative samples, novel designs, and hypotheses that can be translated into more tractable experimental approaches in the clinical and basic sciences. This bedside-to-bench concept has not been explicated in psychiatry, although there are an increasing number of examples in the research literature. This article describes selected epidemiologic designs, providing examples and opportunities for translational research from community surveys and prospective, birth cohort, and family-based designs. Rapid developments in informatics, emphases on large sample collection for genetic and biomarker studies, and interest in personalized medicine—which requires information on relative and absolute risk factors—make this topic timely. The approach described has implications for providing fresh metaphors to communicate complex issues in interdisciplinary collaborations and for training in epidemiology and other sciences in psychiatry. PMID:21646577

Epidemiology of DSM-5 bipolar I disorder: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions - III.

Science.gov (United States)

Blanco, Carlos; Compton, Wilson M; Saha, Tulshi D; Goldstein, Benjamin I; Ruan, W June; Huang, Boji; Grant, Bridget F

2017-01-01

The objective of this study was to present 12-month and lifetime prevalence, correlates, comorbidity, treatment and disability of DSM-5 bipolar I disorder. Nationally representative U.S. adult sample (N = 36,309), the 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions - III. Prevalences of 12-month and lifetime DSM-5 bipolar I disorder were 1.5% and 2.1% and did not differ between men (1.6% and 2.2%) and women (1.5% and 2.0%). Prevalences of bipolar I disorder were greater among Native Americans, and lower among Blacks, Hispanics and Asians/Pacific Islanders than whites. Rates were also lower among younger than older individuals, those previously married than currently married and with lower education and income relative to higher education and income. Bipolar I disorder was more strongly related to borderline and schizotypal personality disorders (adjusted odds ratios (AORS) = 2.2-4.7)), than to anxiety disorders (AORs = 1.3-2.9), and substance use disorders (AORs = 1.3-2.1) overall and among men and women. Quality of life was lower among individuals with bipolar I disorder relative to those without the disorder. Treatment rates among individuals with bipolar I disorder were low in the total sample (46%, SE = 2.63), among men (36.7%, SE = 3.82) and among women (55.8%, SE = 3.32). Bipolar I disorder continues to be common disabling and highly comorbid disorder among men and women, contributing substantially to low quality of life and burden of disease in our society. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Prevalence and correlates of binge eating disorder related features in the community.

Science.gov (United States)

Mustelin, Linda; Bulik, Cynthia M; Kaprio, Jaakko; Keski-Rahkonen, Anna

2017-02-01

Binge eating disorder (BED) is associated with high levels of obesity and psychological suffering, but little is known about 1) the distribution of features of BED in the general population and 2) their consequences for weight development and psychological distress in young adulthood. We investigated the prevalence of features of BED and their association with body mass index (BMI) and psychological distress among men (n = 2423) and women (n = 2825) from the longitudinal community-based FinnTwin16 cohort (born 1975-1979). Seven eating-related cognitions and behaviors similar to the defining features of BED were extracted from the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 and were assessed at a mean age of 24. BMI and psychological distress, measured with the General Health Questionnaire, were assessed at ages 24 and 34. We assessed prevalence of the features and their association with BMI and psychological distress cross-sectionally and prospectively. More than half of our participants reported at least one feature of BED; clustering of several features in one individual was less common, particularly among men. The most frequently reported feature was 'stuffing oneself with food', whereas the least common was 'eating or drinking in secrecy'. All individual features of BED and their clustering particularly were associated with higher BMI and more psychological distress cross-sectionally. Prospectively, the clustering of features of BED predicted increase in psychological distress but not additional weight gain when baseline BMI was accounted for. In summary, although some features of BED were common, the clustering of several features in one individual was not. The features were cumulatively associated with BMI and psychological distress and predicted further increase in psychological distress over ten years of follow-up. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Feature article: adoption of an official ISEA glossary

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zartarian, Valerie; Bahadori, Tina; McKone, Thomas

2004-09-15

The International Society for Exposure Analysis (ISEA) and its Nomenclature Committee have been involved since the mid-1990s in an intermittent but ongoing effort to develop an official ISEA glossary. Several related activities have stimulated greater interest and discussion nationally and internationally on a common exposure language. Among these activities are a 1997 Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology feature article on exposure and dose definitions and a 1999-initiated project of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) (WHO/ILO/UNEP) to confront terminology issues hindering harmonization in the area of exposure assessment. Recently the ISEA members voted in support of adopting the IPCS glossary as the official ISEA glossary, and the ISEA Executive Board agreed to accept this recommendation. In this feature article we (1) describe the process through which the ISEA adopted the IPCS glossary as the official ISEA glossary, (2) present the joint IPC S/ISEA glossary of terms and their definitions, and (3) discuss plans for how the glossary can be used by ISEA and updated over time by ISEA and IPCS. The glossary is intended to be a living document that reflects the latest usage and maintains international harmonization of exposure terminology that can be practically applied to improve communication in exposure and related fields.

Music preferences based on audio features, and its relation to personality

OpenAIRE

Dunn, Greg

2009-01-01

Recent studies have summarized reported music preferences by genre into four broadly defined categories, which relate to various personality characteristics. Other research has indicated that genre classification is ambiguous and inconsistent. This ambiguity suggests that research relating personality to music preferences based on genre could benefit from a more objective definition of music. This problem is addressed by investigating how music preferences linked to objective audio features r...

Parenting, relational aggression, and borderline personality features: associations over time in a Russian longitudinal sample.

Science.gov (United States)

Nelson, David A; Coyne, Sarah M; Swanson, Savannah M; Hart, Craig H; Olsen, Joseph A

2014-08-01

Crick, Murray-Close, and Woods (2005) encouraged the study of relational aggression as a developmental precursor to borderline personality features in children and adolescents. A longitudinal study is needed to more fully explore this association, to contrast potential associations with physical aggression, and to assess generalizability across various cultural contexts. In addition, parenting is of particular interest in the prediction of aggression or borderline personality disorder. Early aggression and parenting experiences may differ in their long-term prediction of aggression or borderline features, which may have important implications for early intervention. The currrent study incorporated a longitudinal sample of preschool children (84 boys, 84 girls) living in intact, two-parent biological households in Voronezh, Russia. Teachers provided ratings of children's relational and physical aggression in preschool. Mothers and fathers also self-reported their engagement in authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and psychological controlling forms of parenting with their preschooler. A decade later, 70.8% of the original child participants consented to a follow-up study in which they completed self-reports of relational and physical aggression and borderline personality features. The multivariate results of this study showed that preschool relational aggression in girls predicted adolescent relational aggression. Preschool aversive parenting (i.e., authoritarian, permissive, and psychologically controlling forms) significantly predicted aggression and borderline features in adolescent females. For adolescent males, preschool authoritative parenting served as a protective factor against aggression and borderline features, whereas authoritarian parenting was a risk factor for later aggression.

Influences of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features on characteristics of music-induced movement.

Science.gov (United States)

Burger, Birgitta; Thompson, Marc R; Luck, Geoff; Saarikallio, Suvi; Toiviainen, Petri

2013-01-01

Music makes us move. Several factors can affect the characteristics of such movements, including individual factors or musical features. For this study, we investigated the effect of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features as well as tempo on movement characteristics. Sixty participants were presented with 30 musical stimuli representing different styles of popular music, and instructed to move along with the music. Optical motion capture was used to record participants' movements. Subsequently, eight movement features and four rhythm- and timbre-related musical features were computationally extracted from the data, while the tempo was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent correlational analysis revealed that, for instance, clear pulses seemed to be embodied with the whole body, i.e., by using various movement types of different body parts, whereas spectral flux and percussiveness were found to be more distinctly related to certain body parts, such as head and hand movement. A series of ANOVAs with the stimuli being divided into three groups of five stimuli each based on the tempo revealed no significant differences between the groups, suggesting that the tempo of our stimuli set failed to have an effect on the movement features. In general, the results can be linked to the framework of embodied music cognition, as they show that body movements are used to reflect, imitate, and predict musical characteristics.

Influences of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features on characteristics of music-induced movement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Birgitta eBurger

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Music makes us move. Several factors can affect the characteristics of such movements, including individual factors or musical features. For this study, we investigated the effect of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features as well as tempo on movement characteristics. Sixty participants were presented with 30 musical stimuli representing different styles of popular music, and instructed to move along with the music. Optical motion capture was used to record participants’ movements. Subsequently, eight movement features and four rhythm- and timbre-related musical features were computationally extracted from the data, while the tempo was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent correlational analysis revealed that, for instance, clear pulses seemed to be embodied with the whole body, i.e., by using various movement types of different body parts, whereas spectral flux and percussiveness were found to be more distinctly related to certain body parts, such as head and hand movement. A series of ANOVAs with the stimuli being divided into three groups of five stimuli each based on the tempo revealed no significant differences between the groups, suggesting that the tempo of our stimuli set failed to have an effect on the movement features. In general, the results can be linked to the framework of embodied music cognition, as they show that body movements are used to reflect, imitate, and predict musical characteristics.

Familial Aggregation of Age-Related Hearing Loss in an Epidemiological Study of Older Adults

Science.gov (United States)

Raynor, Laura A.; Pankow, James S.; Miller, Michael B.; Huang, Guan-Hua; Dalton, Dayna; Klein, Ronald; Klein, Barbara E. K.; Cruickshanks, Karen J.

2010-01-01

Purpose To estimate the genetic contributions to presbycusis Method Presbycusis was assessed by audiometric measurements at three waves of the population-based Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study (EHLS). Measurements from the most recent hearing examination were used, at which time subjects were between 48 and 100 years of age. Heritability of presbycusis was estimated using maximum likelihood methods in 973 biological relative pairs from 376 families. Familial aggregation was also evaluated by tetrachoric correlations, odds ratios, and lambda statistics in 594 sibling pairs from 373 sibships. Subjects 3,510 participants from the EHLS study Results The prevalence of presbycusis conformed to previous research, increasing with age and male sex. Heritability estimates for presbycusis adjusted for age, sex, education level, and exposure to work noise exceeded 50%, and siblings of an affected relative were at 30% higher risk. When stratified by sex, estimates of familial aggregation were higher in women than men. Conclusions There is evidence that genetic factors contribute to age-related hearing loss in this population-based sample. The familial aggregation is stronger in women than in men. PMID:19474454

Epidemiology of type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Green, Anders

1999-01-01

Recent estimates suggest that more than 100,000 inhabitants in the Middle East suffer from type 1 diabetes and that about 6000 subjects in the region develop the disease each year. This paper illustrates how epidemiological principles and methods may assist in a rational assessment of the public...... health impact of type 1 diabetes in the Middle East. Making a series of assumptions, it is estimated that the future prevalence of type 1 diabetes in the region will increase slightly, but that the increase may be more pronounced if the disease incidence is increasing and the prognosis improved....... It is recommended that more valid information is established on the basic epidemiological features of type 1 diabetes in the Middle East, as this will provide the basis of more rational planning of the current and future diabetes healthcare in the region....

External and internal facial features modulate processing of vertical but not horizontal spatial relations.

Science.gov (United States)

Meinhardt, Günter; Kurbel, David; Meinhardt-Injac, Bozana; Persike, Malte

2018-03-22

Some years ago an asymmetry was reported for the inversion effect for horizontal (H) and vertical (V) relational face manipulations (Goffaux & Rossion, 2007). Subsequent research examined whether a specific disruption of long-range relations underlies the H/V inversion asymmetry (Sekunova & Barton, 2008). Here, we tested how detection of changes in interocular distance (H) and eye height (V) depends on cardinal internal features and external feature surround. Results replicated the H/V inversion asymmetry. Moreover, we found very different face cue dependencies for both change types. Performance and inversion effects did not depend on the presence of other face cues for detecting H changes. In contrast, accuracy for detecting V changes strongly depended on internal and external features, showing cumulative improvement when more cues were added. Inversion effects were generally large, and larger with external feature surround. The cue independence in detecting H relational changes indicates specialized local processing tightly tuned to the eyes region, while the strong cue dependency in detecting V relational changes indicates a global mechanism of cue integration across different face regions. These findings suggest that the H/V asymmetry of the inversion effect rests on an H/V anisotropy of face cue dependency, since only the global V mechanism suffers from disruption of cue integration as the major effect of face inversion. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

[EBOLA HEMORRHAGIC FEVER; ETIOLOGY, EPIDEMIOLOGY, PATHOGENESIS, AND CLINICAL SYMPTOMS].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhdanov, K W; Zakharenko, S M; Kovalenko, A N; Semenov, A V; Fusin, A Ya

2015-01-01

The data on the prevalence of disease caused by Ebola virus, biological features of its pathogen, character of the epidemiological process, pathogenesis and clinical symptoms are presented. The disease is characterized by suppression of protective immunological mechanisms and systemic inflammatory reaction accounting for the lesions of vascular endothelium, hemostatic and immune systems. It eventually leads to polyorgan insufficiency and severe shock. Lethality amounts to 50%.

An age-related deficit in spatial-feature reference memory in homing pigeons (Columba livia).

Science.gov (United States)

Coppola, Vincent J; Flaim, Mary E; Carney, Samantha N; Bingman, Verner P

2015-03-01

Age-related memory decline in mammals has been well documented. By contrast, very little is known about memory decline in birds as they age. In the current study we trained younger and older homing pigeons on a reference memory task in which a goal location could be encoded by spatial and feature cues. Consistent with a previous working memory study, the results revealed impaired acquisition of combined spatial-feature reference memory in older compared to younger pigeons. Following memory acquisition, we used cue-conflict probe trials to provide an initial assessment of possible age-related differences in cue preference. Both younger and older pigeons displayed a similarly modest preference for feature over spatial cues. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multiple song features are related to paternal effort in common nightingales.

Science.gov (United States)

Bartsch, Conny; Weiss, Michael; Kipper, Silke

2015-06-18

Sexual ornamentation may be related to the degree of paternal care and the 'good-parent' model predicts that male secondary characters honestly advertise paternal investment. In most birds, males are involved in bringing up the young and successful reproduction highly depends on male contribution during breeding. In passerines, male song is indicative of male attributes and for few species it has been shown that song features also signal paternal investment to females. Males of nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos are famous for their elaborate singing but so far there is only little knowledge on the role of male song in intersexual communication, and it is unknown whether male song predicts male parenting abilities. Using RFID technology to record male feeding visits to the nest, we found that nightingale males substantially contribute to chick feeding. Also, we analyzed male nocturnal song with focus on song features that have been shown to signal male quality before. We found that several song features, namely measures of song complexity and song sequencing, were correlated with male feeding rates. Moreover, the combination of these song features had strong predictive power for male contribution to nestling feeding. Since male nightingales are involved in chick rearing, paternal investment might be a crucial variable for female mate choice in this species. Females may assess future paternal care on the basis of song features identified in our study and thus these features may have evolved to signal direct benefits to females. Additionally we underline the importance of multiple acoustic cues for female mating decisions especially in species with complex song such as the nightingale.

Which features are important for effectiveness of sport- and health-related apps?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Joan Dallinga; Marije Baart de la Faille-Deutekom; Mark Janssen; Steven Vos

2017-01-01

In this presentation we presented the results of expert meetings. The aim was to identify which features in sport- and health-related apps contribute to effectiveness of apps. A nominal group technique was used.

Features Related to Faunal Activity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kooistra, M.J.; Pulleman, M.M.

2010-01-01

Soil fauna plays an important role in transporting and altering various soil components, in particular the decomposition of organic matter and the development of soil structure. Fauna-induced features are found in all types of soils and can be so abundant that they determine the nature and intensity

American Contact Dermatitis Society Contact Allergy Management Program: An Epidemiologic Tool to Determine Relative Prevalence of Contact Allergens.

Science.gov (United States)

Scheman, Andrew; Severson, David

2016-01-01

Data on the prevalence of contact allergy in North America are currently reported by groups of academic contact allergy specialists at select academic centers. Sampling of data from numerous centers across North America, including practices performing more limited patch testing, would provide a broader perspective of contact allergen prevalence in North America. The American Contact Dermatitis Society Contact Allergy Management Program is an ideal tool for collection of epidemiologic data regarding contact allergy prevalence in North America. The aim of the study was to identify the relative prevalence of contact allergy to common contact allergens in North America. Mapping of Contact Allergy Management Program (CAMP) data was performed to allow analysis of how frequently searches were performed for various contact allergens. The number of searches performed for specific allergens provides a measure of the relative prevalence of contact allergy to these allergens. The top 35 allergens for the period from November 18, 2012 to November 18, 2013 are reported. Although these data are useful, specific recommendations for minor alterations to CAMP are discussed, which will allow future CAMP data to be stratified and more powerful. With minor modifications, CAMP can provide a quantum leap in the reporting of contact allergy epidemiologic data in North America.

Opening the Learning Process: The Potential Role of Feature Film in Teaching Employment Relations

Science.gov (United States)

Lafferty, George

2016-01-01

This paper explores the potential of feature film to encourage more inclusive, participatory and open learning in the area of employment relations. Evaluations of student responses in a single postgraduate course over a five-year period revealed how feature film could encourage participatory learning processes in which students reexamined their…

The epidemiology of assault-related hospital in-patient admissions and ED attendances.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

O'Farrell, A

2013-03-01

The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiology and impact of serious assault warranting in-patient care over six years and its impact on ED attendances in a large teaching hospital in Dublin over 2 years. There were 16,079 emergency assault-related inpatient hospital discharges reducing from 60.1 per 100,000 population in 2005 to 50.6 per 100,000 population in 2010. The median length of stay was 1 day (1-466) representing 49,870 bed days. The majority were young males (13,921, 86.6%; median age 26 years). Overall crime figures showed a similar reduction. However, knife crimes did not reduce over this period. Data on ED attendances confirmed the age and gender profile and also showed an increase at weekends. Alcohol misuse was recorded in 2,292\\/16079 (14%) of in-patient cases and 242\\/2484 (10%) in ED attendances. An inter-sectoral preventative approach specifically targeting knife crime is required to reduce this burden on health services.

Clinico-epidemiological study of congenital ichthyosis in a tertiary care center of Eastern India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arghyaprasun Ghosh

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Congenital ichthyoses comprises various specific genetic diseases and can range from mild to very severe presentation. Furthermore, these may be associated with various syndromes. There is scanty data regarding the demographic profile and clinical features of patients with congenital ichthyosis in India. Aims and Objectives: The aim is to evaluate the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of various types of congenital ichthyoses. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted for 1 year from April 2013 to March 2014. Patients were evaluated for epidemiological profile and clinical features. Results: During the study of 1 year, 106 patients of congenital ichthyoses were identified. The most common of the various ichthyoses was ichthyosis vulgaris, followed by lamellar ichthyosis, X-linked recessive ichthyosis. One case of Netherton syndrome and one of ichthyosis hystrix were also identified. Conclusion: Various types of congenital ichthyoses present with different clinical features which range from mild to severe. These present with significant psychological stress to both patients and their families. Furthermore, all these diseases have significant implications of transmission to their offspring.

Poikiloderma of Civatte: a clinical and epidemiological study.

Science.gov (United States)

Katoulis, A C; Stavrianeas, N G; Georgala, S; Bozi, E; Kalogeromitros, D; Koumantaki, E; Katsambas, A D

2005-07-01

Although a common dermatosis, idiopathic poikiloderma of the face and neck has not been studied in depth for decades. To reassess the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of poikiloderma of Civatte (PC). Fifty consecutive patients with PC. Evaluation included history taking and physical examination. Epidemiological and clinical parameters were recorded and analysed. The literature from 1923 until today, was reviewed thoroughly. The frequency of PC among dermatologic patients was estimated to be 1.4%. There were 34 females (68%) and 16 males in the present study. The mean age at diagnosis was 47.8 years for females and 61.7 years for males. The majority (88%) had skin phototype II or III. Among females, 26 were at their peri-menopausal stage, including three cases of iatrogenic menopause. Four patients reported that other blood-related family members also had PC. The v and the sides of the neck and the upper chest were most often affected in a symmetric distribution. The face (preauricular and parotid region) was involved in 19 patients (38%). The erythemato-telangiectatic clinical type predominated (58%), followed by the mixed (22%) and the pigmented type (20%). Almost half of the patients (46%) were symptomatic (itching, burning and 'flushing'). The mean duration from onset to diagnosis was 6.2 years according to the patients' report. The course was usually slowly progressive (82%) and irreversible. PC shows characteristic features, supporting the theory that it represents a distinct entity. It is rather common in Greece. Although menopausal women predominated in our cohort, men were not uncommonly affected and were diagnosed at an older age. Based on the predominating clinical feature, PC can be classified into three clinical forms. Symmetry and sparing of the anatomically shaded areas of the neck are highly characteristic for PC. Face involvement was not as common and as severe as it had been considered in the past. Recognition of clinical type is

Current issues in ALS epidemiology: Variation of ALS occurrence between populations and physical activity as a risk factor.

Science.gov (United States)

Luna, J; Logroscino, G; Couratier, P; Marin, B

2017-05-01

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare neurodegenerative disease with a fatal outcome. This review aims to report key epidemiological features of ALS in relation to the hypothesis of variation between populations, to summarize environmental hypothesis and to highlight current issues that deserve much considerations. Epidemiological ALS studies have shown a variation of incidence, mortality and prevalence between geographical areas and different populations. These data could support the notion that genetic factors, especially populations' ancestries, along with environmental and lifestyle factors, play a significant role in the occurrence of the disease. To date, there is no strong evidence to confirm an association between a particular environmental factor and ALS. Physical activity (PA) has been extensively evaluated. Recent studies support with the best evidence level that PA in general population is not a risk factor for ALS. However, further research is needed to clarify the association of PA in some occupations and some athletic activities. Epidemiological research based on multicenter international collaboration is essential to provide new data on ALS especially in some regions of the world that are to date poorly represented in the ALS literature. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Feature-based attention is functionally distinct from relation-based attention: The double dissociation between color-based capture and color-relation-based capture of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Du, Feng; Jiao, Jun

2016-04-01

The present study used a spatial blink task and a cuing task to examine the boundary between feature-based capture and relation-based capture. Feature-based capture occurs when distractors match the target feature such as target color. The occurrence of relation-based capture is contingent upon the feature relation between target and distractor (e.g., color relation). The results show that color distractors that match the target-nontarget color relation do not consistently capture attention when they appear outside of the attentional window, but distractors appearing outside the attentional window that match the target color consistently capture attention. In contrast, color distractors that best match the target-nontarget color relation but not the target color, are more likely to capture attention when they appear within the attentional window. Consistently, color cues that match the target-nontarget color relation produce a cuing effect when they appear within the attentional window, while target-color matched cues do not. Such a double dissociation between color-based capture and color-relation-based capture indicates functionally distinct mechanisms for these 2 types of attentional selection. This also indicates that the spatial blink task and the uninformative cuing task are measuring distinctive aspects of involuntary attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Detection of Healthcare-Related Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli Transmission Events Using Combined Genetic and Phenotypic Epidemiology.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anne F Voor In 't Holt

Full Text Available Since the year 2000 there has been a sharp increase in the prevalence of healthcare-related infections caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL-producing Escherichia coli. However, the high community prevalence of ESBL-producing E. coli isolates means that many E. coli typing techniques may not be suitable for detecting E. coli transmission events. Therefore, we investigated if High-throughput MultiLocus Sequence Typing (HiMLST and/or Raman spectroscopy were suitable techniques for detecting recent E. coli transmission events.This study was conducted from January until December 2010 at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Isolates were typed using HiMLST and Raman spectroscopy. A genetic cluster was defined as two or more patients carrying identical isolates. We used predefined definitions for epidemiological relatedness to assess healthcare-related transmission.We included 194 patients; strains of 112 patients were typed using HiMLST and strains of 194 patients were typed using Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy identified 16 clusters while HiMLST identified 10 clusters. However, no healthcare-related transmission events were detected. When combining data from both typing techniques, we identified eight clusters (n = 34 patients, as well as 78 patients with a non-cluster isolate. However, we could not detect any healthcare-related transmission in these 8 clusters.Although clusters were genetically detected using HiMLST and Raman spectroscopy, no definite epidemiological relationships could be demonstrated which makes the possibility of healthcare-related transmission events highly unlikely. Our results suggest that typing of ESBL-producing E. coli using HiMLST and/or Raman spectroscopy is not helpful in detecting E. coli healthcare-related transmission events.

Active epidemiological surveillance in the program of poliomyelitis eradication in Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jevremović Ivana

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The main strategy of the worldwide Program of Poliomyelitis Eradication is based on immunization with oral poliovirus vaccine and active epidemiological surveillance aimed to demonstrate the absence of wild poliovirus circulation. The specification of the surveillance in the program, reporting and investigation of certain syndrome – the acute flaccid paralysis - as a specific feature of surveillance of poliomyelitis, is a new experience both for clinicians and epidemiologists. Along with the achieved results, problems in conducting the active epidemiological surveillance in Serbia, applied measures, and suggestions for improving its quality were presented. This experience might help in implementing the active surveillance for some other diseases that could be prevented by vaccine immunization.

Fuzzy Relational Compression Applied on Feature Vectors for Infant Cry Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Reyes-Galaviz, Orion Fausto; Reyes-García, Carlos Alberto

Data compression is always advisable when it comes to handling and processing information quickly and efficiently. There are two main problems that need to be solved when it comes to handling data; store information in smaller spaces and processes it in the shortest possible time. When it comes to infant cry analysis (ICA), there is always the need to construct large sound repositories from crying babies. Samples that have to be analyzed and be used to train and test pattern recognition algorithms; making this a time consuming task when working with uncompressed feature vectors. In this work, we show a simple, but efficient, method that uses Fuzzy Relational Product (FRP) to compresses the information inside a feature vector, building with this a compressed matrix that will help us recognize two kinds of pathologies in infants; Asphyxia and Deafness. We describe the sound analysis, which consists on the extraction of Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients that generate vectors which will later be compressed by using FRP. There is also a description of the infant cry database used in this work, along with the training and testing of a Time Delay Neural Network with the compressed features, which shows a performance of 96.44% with our proposed feature vector compression.

ARTHROPLASTY FEATURES IN OVERWEIGHT PATIENTS (REVIEW

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. I. Yousef

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The paper represents a review of modern foreign literature dedicated to joint replacement in patients with increased body mass index. The authors  examine the epidemiology,  pathogenesis features  of osteoarthritis (arthrosis in obesity. The majority  of experts  consider  the increased  body mass index an aggravating factor in the surgical treatment of large joints arthrosis.  There is also the opposite point of view, confirmed by many orthopedic surgeons.The analysis of publications in foreign scientific literature regarding the risk of intraand postoperative complications after arthroplasty in obese patients yields controversial results. The authors  regret  availability of only a few studies  on such an interesting and important topic  carried  out  in Russia. The  need for a detailed  study  of the  issues related  to treatment of patients with obesity is prompted by our time.

Spatial evolutionary epidemiology of spreading epidemics.

Science.gov (United States)

Lion, S; Gandon, S

2016-10-26

Most spatial models of host-parasite interactions either neglect the possibility of pathogen evolution or consider that this process is slow enough for epidemiological dynamics to reach an equilibrium on a fast timescale. Here, we propose a novel approach to jointly model the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of spatially structured host and pathogen populations. Starting from a multi-strain epidemiological model, we use a combination of spatial moment equations and quantitative genetics to analyse the dynamics of mean transmission and virulence in the population. A key insight of our approach is that, even in the absence of long-term evolutionary consequences, spatial structure can affect the short-term evolution of pathogens because of the build-up of spatial differentiation in mean virulence. We show that spatial differentiation is driven by a balance between epidemiological and genetic effects, and this quantity is related to the effect of kin competition discussed in previous studies of parasite evolution in spatially structured host populations. Our analysis can be used to understand and predict the transient evolutionary dynamics of pathogens and the emergence of spatial patterns of phenotypic variation. © 2016 The Author(s).

Bacterial CRISPR Regions: General Features and their Potential for Epidemiological Molecular Typing Studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Karimi, Zahra; Ahmadi, Ali; Najafi, Ali; Ranjbar, Reza

2018-01-01

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) loci as novel and applicable regions in prokaryotic genomes have gained great attraction in the post genomics era. These unique regions are diverse in number and sequence composition in different pathogenic bacteria and thereby can be a suitable candidate for molecular epidemiology and genotyping studies. Results:Furthermore, the arrayed structure of CRISPR loci (several unique repeats spaced with the variable sequence) and associated cas genes act as an active prokaryotic immune system against viral replication and conjugative elements. This property can be used as a tool for RNA editing in bioengineering studies. The aim of this review was to survey some details about the history, nature, and potential applications of CRISPR arrays in both genetic engineering and bacterial genotyping studies.

Genetic Epidemiology, Hematological and Clinical Features of Hemoglobinopathies in Iran

OpenAIRE

Rahimi, Zohreh

2013-01-01

There is large variation in the molecular genetics and clinical features of hemoglobinopathies in Iran. Studying structural variants of hemoglobin demonstrated that the ?-chain variants of hemoglobin S and D-Punjab are more prevalent in the Fars (southwestern Iran) and Kermanshah (western Iran) provinces, respectively. Also, ? -chain variants of Hb Q-Iran and Hb Setif are prevalent in western Iran. The molecular basis and clinical severity of thalassemias are extremely heterogenous among Iran...

Evaluation of epidemiological studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Breckow, J.

1995-01-01

The publication is intended for readers with a professional background in radiation protection who are not experts in the field of epidemiology. The potentials and the limits of epidemiology are shown and concepts and terminology of radioepidemilogic studies as well as epidemiology in general are explained, in order to provide the necessary basis for understanding or performing evaluations of epidemiologic studies. (orig./VHE) [de

Review and evaluation of innovative technologies for measuring diet in nutritional epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Illner, A-K; Freisling, H; Boeing, H; Huybrechts, I; Crispim, S P; Slimani, N

2012-08-01

The use of innovative technologies is deemed to improve dietary assessment in various research settings. However, their relative merits in nutritional epidemiological studies, which require accurate quantitative estimates of the usual intake at individual level, still need to be evaluated. To report on the inventory of available innovative technologies for dietary assessment and to critically evaluate their strengths and weaknesses as compared with the conventional methodologies (i.e. Food Frequency Questionnaires, food records, 24-hour dietary recalls) used in epidemiological studies. A list of currently available technologies was identified from English-language journals, using PubMed and Web of Science. The search criteria were principally based on the date of publication (between 1995 and 2011) and pre-defined search keywords. Six main groups of innovative technologies were identified ('Personal Digital Assistant-', 'Mobile-phone-', 'Interactive computer-', 'Web-', 'Camera- and tape-recorder-' and 'Scan- and sensor-based' technologies). Compared with the conventional food records, Personal Digital Assistant and mobile phone devices seem to improve the recording through the possibility for 'real-time' recording at eating events, but their validity to estimate individual dietary intakes was low to moderate. In 24-hour dietary recalls, there is still limited knowledge regarding the accuracy of fully automated approaches; and methodological problems, such as the inaccuracy in self-reported portion sizes might be more critical than in interview-based applications. In contrast, measurement errors in innovative web-based and in conventional paper-based Food Frequency Questionnaires are most likely similar, suggesting that the underlying methodology is unchanged by the technology. Most of the new technologies in dietary assessment were seen to have overlapping methodological features with the conventional methods predominantly used for nutritional epidemiology. Their

Clinical features of IgG4-related rhinosinusitis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hanaoka, Machiko; Kammisawa, Terumi; Koizumi, Satomi; Kuruma, Sawako; Chiba, Kazuro; Kikuyama, Masataka; Shirakura, Satoshi; Sugimoto, Taro; Hishima, Tsunekazu

2017-09-01

IgG4-related disease is a systemic disease that affects various organs of the body. Aim of this study is to elucidate the clinical characteristics of IgG4-related rhinosinusitis. Clinical features, laboratory findings, radiological and endoscopic findings, associated disease, treatment and prognosis were retrospectively examined in 10 patients with IgG4-related rhinosinusitis. The age was 59.1±11.3 years old and male-to-female ratio was 1:1. The chief nasal complaints were hyposmia (n=4), nasal obstruction (n=3), and nothing (n=3). Serum IgG4 levels were elevated in all patients and the value was 740.4±472.4mg/dl. Other IgG4-related diseases were associated in all 10 patients, including IgG4-related sialadenitis (n=6), IgG4-related dacryoadenitis (n=5), and autoimmune pancreatitis (n=5). Imaging findings on CT/MRI were obstruction of the way of elimination (n=10), thickening of the sinus mucous membrane (n=10), and fluid in the sinus (n=6). All of the cases had bilateral findings. Nasal endoscopic findings were chiefly deviated nasal septum (n=5), polyps (n=4), edema of the mucous membrane (n=3). Histologically, abundant infiltration of IgG4 positive plasma cell and lymphocyte and an elevated IgG4+/IgG+ cell ration was detected in all 8 patients and 5 patients, respectively. Endoscopic sinus surgery was performed in 8 patients. Eight patients were treated with steroid therapy for other associated IgG4-related diseases. Symptoms improved in all 6 patients after an initial treatment (endoscopic surgery (n=5) and steroids (n=1)), but one patient suffered relapse. IgG4-related rhinosinusitis is a distinct entity of IgG4-related disease, and is associated in patients with multiple IgG4-related diseases. Copyright © 2017 Medical University of Bialystok. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Candida infections : detection and epidemiology

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Borst, A. (Annemarie)

2002-01-01

Despite the fact that the yeast Candida is the number 4 cause of bloodstream infections in the United States and ranks number 8 in Europe, adequate detection methods are lacking. Furthermore, relatively little is known about the epidemiology of Candida. Our aim was to improve the detection and

The epidemiology and clinical features of melioidosis in Far North Queensland: Implications for patient management.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James D Stewart

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The epidemiology, clinical presentation and management of melioidosis vary around the world. It is essential to define the disease's local features to optimise its management.Between 1998 and 2016 there were 197 cases of culture confirmed melioidosis in Far North Queensland; 154 (78% presented in the December-April wet season. 145 (74% patients were bacteraemic, 58 (29% were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and 27 (14% died; nine (33% of these deaths occurred within 48 hours of presentation. Pneumonia was the most frequent clinical finding, present in 101 (61% of the 166 with available imaging. A recognised risk factor for melioidosis (diabetes, hazardous alcohol use, chronic renal disease, chronic lung disease, immunosuppression or malignancy was present in 148 (91% of 162 patients with complete comorbidity data. Despite representing only 9% of the region's population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island (ATSI people comprised 59% of the cases. ATSI patients were younger than non-ATSI patients (median (interquartile range: 46 (38-56 years versus 59 (43-69 years (p<0.001 and had a higher case-fatality rate (22/117 (19% versus 5/80 (6.3% (p = 0.01. In the 155 patients surviving the initial intensive intravenous phase of treatment, eleven (7.1% had disease recurrence, despite the fact that nine (82% of these patients had received prolonged intravenous therapy. Recurrence was usually due to inadequate source control or poor adherence to oral eradication therapy. The case fatality rate declined from 12/44 (27% in the first five years of the study to 7/76 (9% in the last five (p = 0.009, reflecting national improvements in sepsis management.Melioidosis in Far North Queensland is a seasonal, opportunistic infection of patients with specific comorbidities. The ATSI population bear the greatest burden of disease. Although the case-fatality rate is declining, deaths frequently occur early after hospitalisation, reinforcing the importance of prompt

Low dose epidemiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tirmarche, M.; Hubert, P.

1992-01-01

Actually, epidemiological studies have to establish if the assessment of cancer risk can be verified at low chronic radiation doses. The population surveillance must be very long, the side effects and cancers of such radiation appearing much later. In France, this epidemiological study on nuclear workers have been decided recently. Before describing the experiment and french projects in epidemiology of nuclear workers, the authors present the main english and american studies

The household contact study design for genetic epidemiological studies of infectious diseases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catherine eStein

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Most genetic epidemiological study designs fall into one of two categories: family-based and population-based (case-control. However, recent advances in statistical genetics call for study designs that combine these two approaches. We describe the household contact study design as we have applied it in our several years of study of the epidemiology of tuberculosis. Though we highlight its applicability for genetic epidemiological studies of infectious diseases, there are many facets of this design that are appealing for modern genetic studies, including the simultaneous enrollment of related and unrelated individuals, closely and distantly related individuals, collection of extensive epidemiologic and phenotypic data, and evaluation of effects of shared environment and gene by environment interaction. These study design characteristics are particularly appealing for current sequencing studies.

Should the history of epidemiology be taught in epidemiology training programs?

Science.gov (United States)

Laskaris, Zoey; Morabia, Alfredo

2015-01-01

Currently, there is no evidence concerning the presence of historical content in the epidemiology curricula of the United States and abroad. Similarly, it is not known how epidemiologists view this topic in the context of master's or doctoral level course work. We attempted to fill these knowledge gaps with data from 2 online surveys-Survey I administered to persons in charge of all epidemiology training programs in North America and Survey II to epidemiologists practicing around the world. A substantial minority (39%) of graduate programs in epidemiology in the United States teach a course on the history of the field. In both surveys, the most common reasons selected for teaching such a course were "To build a sense of identity as an epidemiologist" and "As a tool for achieving a deeper understanding into specific methods and concepts." The majority of respondents, from 63 countries, agreed that the history of epidemiology should be included in curricula for graduate students in epidemiology.

Pediatric pulmonary hypertension in the Netherlands: Epidemiology and characterization during the period 1991 to 2005.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

R.L.E. van Loon (Rosa Laura); M.T.R. Roofthooft (Marcus); H.L. Hillege (Hans); A.D.J. ten Harkel (Arend); L. van Osch-Gevers (Lennie); T. Delhaas (Tammo); L. Kapusta (Livia); J.L.M. Strengers (Jan); L. Rammeloo (Lukas); S.A. Clur (Sally-Ann); B.J.M. Mulder (Barbara); R.M.F. Berger (Rolf)

2011-01-01

textabstractBACKGROUND-: Incidence and prevalence rates for pediatric pulmonary hypertension (PH) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) are unknown. This study describes the nationwide epidemiological features of pediatric PH in the Netherlands during a 15-year period and the clinical course of

Pediatric pulmonary hypertension in the Netherlands: epidemiology and characterization during the period 1991 to 2005

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Loon, R.L. van; Roofthooft, M.T.; Hillege, H.L.; Harkel, A.D. Ten; Osch-Gevers, M. van; Delhaas, T.; Kapusta, L.; Strengers, J.L.; Rammeloo, L.; Clur, S.A.; Mulder, B.J.; Berger, R.M.

2011-01-01

Background- Incidence and prevalence rates for pediatric pulmonary hypertension (PH) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) are unknown. This study describes the nationwide epidemiological features of pediatric PH in the Netherlands during a 15-year period and the clinical course of pediatric

Clinical and epidemiological features of human rabies cases in the Philippines: a review from 1987 to 2006.

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Dimaano, Efren M; Scholand, Stephen J; Alera, Maria Theresa P; Belandres, Domingo B

2011-07-01

Rabies viral infection causes a fatal encephalomyelitis. In humans, classic features include hydrophobia, aerophobia, hypersalivation, agitation, and neurological symptoms. In the Philippines, canine rabies contributes to a significant burden of human disease. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 1839 patients admitted to San Lazaro Hospital, Manila, Philippines between 1987 and 2006, with a clinical diagnosis of rabies. We used the World Health Organization case definition for clinical rabies, which is defined by the presence of hydrophobia. Male patients outnumbered females by 2.2 to 1 and twice the number of adults were affected compared with children. Most patients were indigent. Dog bites occurred more than cat bites (97.1% vs. 2.9%) and most cases were caused by a single bite (86.2%), compared to multiple bites (8.7%). Bites to the face, head, and neck led to shorter incubation times, yet the incubation period varied, with most cases (42.7%) occurring in the bracket of 91-365 days post-exposure. Clinical symptoms included hydrophobia in all cases, as per our case definition, and aerophobia in 95.5%; only 9.4% had fever, 9.2% exhibited restlessness, and 6.7% exhibited hypersalivation. Localized neurological symptoms included pain (4.1%), numbness (2.6%), and itching (2.3%). None of the patients received appropriate post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). This study examines the largest cohort of rabies patients reported to-date. Better understanding of clinical disease manifestations may help in salvage efforts to save patients with rabies. Knowledge of epidemiological factors will improve preventative efforts to reduce suffering from rabies. Copyright © 2011 International Society for Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Imported malaria and HIV infection in Madrid. Clinical and epidemiological features].

Science.gov (United States)

Ramírez-Olivencia, G; Herrero, M D; Subirats, M; de Juanes, J R; Peña, J M; Puente, S

2012-01-01

Few data are available in Spain data on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients coinfected with malaria. This study has aimed to determine the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of imported malaria in patients coinfected with HIV. A case-series retrospective study was performed using the patient's medical records. The study population consisted on patients diagnosed with malaria attended in our center from january 1, 2002 to december 31, 2007. A total of 484 episodes of malaria, 398 of which were included in this study, were identified. Co-infection with HIV was described in 32 cases. All of them occurred in individuals presumably with some degree of semi-immunity. In the coinfected group, there were 13 cases (40.6%) asymptomatic, whereas this event occurred in 99 cases of patients not coinfected (37.2%) (P=0.707). The greater presence of anemia in co-infected patients (62.5% vs 32.3% in non-coinfected [P=0.001]) stands out. In present study, the clinical presentation forms were similar, regardless of the presence or absence of HIV infection. Although the study population does not reflect all possible scenarios of malaria and HIV coinfection, our results indicate the reality of patients attended in the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.

Epidemiology of sports-related injuries in children and youth presenting to Canadian emergency departments from 2007-2010.

Science.gov (United States)

Fridman, Liraz; Fraser-Thomas, Jessica L; McFaull, Steven R; Macpherson, Alison K

2013-12-23

Although injuries related to sports and recreation represent a significant burden to children and youth, few studies have examined the descriptive epidemiology of sports-related injury since 2005, and some sports such as ringette have not been evaluated to date. The primary purpose of this study was to provide the descriptive epidemiology of sports-related injuries treated in emergency departments for children and youth aged 5 - 19. A retrospective data analysis was performed using data from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program [CHIRPP] from fiscal years (April - March) 2007/08 to 2009/10. CHIRPP is a computerized information system designed by the Public Health Agency of Canada that collects information about injuries to people evaluated in emergency departments across 11 pediatric hospitals and 5 general hospitals in Canada. Thirteen sports or activities were analyzed (baseball, basketball, cycling, football, ice hockey, lacrosse, ringette, rugby, skiing, sledding, snowboarding, soccer, and volleyball). Descriptive statistics, including frequency by sport, age and sex, as well as the percent of concussions within each sport were calculated. Out of a total of 56, 691 reported sports and recreational injuries, soccer accounted for the largest proportion of injuries with 11,941 reported cases over the 3 year time period. Of these, approximately 30% were fractures. The 10 - 14 year age group reported the greatest proportion of injuries in 10 out of the 13 sports analyzed. In addition, males reported a greater number of overall injuries than females in 11 out of the 13 sports analyzed. The largest percentage of concussions was reported in ringette; these injuries accounted for 17.1% of overall injuries within this sport. Injury prevention programs in Canada should focus on improving evidence-based programs to reduce the burden of injuries in all sports.

Epidemiology of diabetic foot disease and diabetes-related lower-extremity amputation in Australia: a systematic review protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

van Netten, Jaap J; Baba, Mendel; Lazzarini, Peter A

2017-05-18

Diabetic foot disease is associated with major morbidity, mortality, costs, and reduction of a person's quality of life. Investigating the epidemiology of diabetic foot disease is the backbone of diabetic foot research and clinical practice, yet the full burden of diabetic foot disease in Australia is unknown. This study aims to describe the protocol for a systematic review of the epidemiology of diabetic foot disease and diabetes-related lower-extremity amputation in Australia. The systematic review will be performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines. PubMed and EMBASE will be searched for publications in any language and without restrictions to date. Two independent investigators will screen publications for eligibility, with publications reporting Australian population-based incidence or prevalence of diabetic foot disease or diabetes-related lower-extremity amputation to be included. Additionally, a forward literature search will be performed in Google Scholar, and a grey literature search will be performed to identify government publications. Quality assessment will be performed using customised checklists. The summary statistic used for each study will be an incidence or prevalence proportion of diabetic foot disease or diabetes-related lower-extremity amputation. The standard error for each proportion will be calculated. A meta-analysis will be performed when three or more publications of adequate quality, reporting on similar outcomes and in similar populations, are identified. The results of this systematic review can be used to adequately inform stakeholders in the field of diabetic foot disease on the extent of the problem in incidence and prevalence of diabetic foot disease in Australia, and to help guide appropriate use of resources to reduce the burden of this disease. PROSPERO CRD42016050740.

An overview of remote sensing and geodesy for epidemiology and public health application.

Science.gov (United States)

Hay, S I

2000-01-01

The techniques of remote sensing (RS) and geodesy have the potential to revolutionize the discipline of epidemiology and its application in human health. As a new departure from conventional epidemiological methods, these techniques require some detailed explanation. This review provides the theoretical background to RS including (i) its physical basis, (ii) an explanation of the orbital characteristics and specifications of common satellite sensor systems, (iii) details of image acquisition and procedures adopted to overcome inherent sources of data degradation, and (iv) a background to geophysical data preparation. This information allows RS applications in epidemiology to be readily interpreted. Some of the techniques used in geodesy, to locate features precisely on Earth so that they can be registered to satellite sensor-derived images, are also included. While the basic principles relevant to public health are presented here, inevitably many of the details must be left to specialist texts.

Assessing environmental features related to mental health: a reliability study of visual streetscape images.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Yu-Tzu; Nash, Paul; Barnes, Linda E; Minett, Thais; Matthews, Fiona E; Jones, Andy; Brayne, Carol

2014-10-22

An association between depressive symptoms and features of built environment has been reported in the literature. A remaining research challenge is the development of methods to efficiently capture pertinent environmental features in relevant study settings. Visual streetscape images have been used to replace traditional physical audits and directly observe the built environment of communities. The aim of this work is to examine the inter-method reliability of the two audit methods for assessing community environments with a specific focus on physical features related to mental health. Forty-eight postcodes in urban and rural areas of Cambridgeshire, England were randomly selected from an alphabetical list of streets hosted on a UK property website. The assessment was conducted in July and August 2012 by both physical and visual image audits based on the items in Residential Environment Assessment Tool (REAT), an observational instrument targeting the micro-scale environmental features related to mental health in UK postcodes. The assessor used the images of Google Street View and virtually "walked through" the streets to conduct the property and street level assessments. Gwet's AC1 coefficients and Bland-Altman plots were used to compare the concordance of two audits. The results of conducting the REAT by visual image audits generally correspond to direct observations. More variations were found in property level items regarding physical incivilities, with broad limits of agreement which importantly lead to most of the variation in the overall REAT score. Postcodes in urban areas had lower consistency between the two methods than rural areas. Google Street View has the potential to assess environmental features related to mental health with fair reliability and provide a less resource intense method of assessing community environments than physical audits.

Toward a clarification of the taxonomy of "bias" in epidemiology textbooks.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartz, Sharon; Campbell, Ulka B; Gatto, Nicolle M; Gordon, Kirsha

2015-03-01

Epidemiology textbooks typically divide biases into 3 general categories-confounding, selection bias, and information bias. Despite the ubiquity of this categorization, authors often use these terms to mean different things. This hinders communication among epidemiologists and confuses students who are just learning about the field. To understand the sources of this problem, we reviewed current general epidemiology textbooks to examine how the authors defined and categorized biases. We found that much of the confusion arises from different definitions of "validity" and from a mixing of 3 overlapping organizational features in defining and differentiating among confounding, selection bias, and information bias: consequence, the result of the problem; cause, the processes that give rise to the problem; and cure, how these biases can be addressed once they occur. By contrast, a consistent taxonomy would provide (1) a clear and consistent definition of what unites confounding, selection bias, and information bias and (2) a clear articulation and consistent application of the feature that distinguishes these categories. Based on a distillation of these textbook discussions, we provide an example of a taxonomy that we think meets these criteria.

Classifying Pediatric Central Nervous System Tumors through near Optimal Feature Selection and Mutual Information: A Single Center Cohort

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Faranoush

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Background: Labeling, gathering mutual information, clustering and classificationof central nervous system tumors may assist in predicting not only distinct diagnosesbased on tumor-specific features but also prognosis. This study evaluates the epidemi-ological features of central nervous system tumors in children who referred to Mahak’sPediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center in Tehran, Iran.Methods: This cohort (convenience sample study comprised 198 children (≤15years old with central nervous system tumors who referred to Mahak's PediatricCancer Treatment and Research Center from 2007 to 2010. In addition to the descriptiveanalyses on epidemiological features and mutual information, we used the LeastSquares Support Vector Machines method in MATLAB software to propose apreliminary predictive model of pediatric central nervous system tumor feature-labelanalysis. Results:Of patients, there were 63.1% males and 36.9% females. Patients' mean±SDage was 6.11±3.65 years. Tumor location was as follows: supra-tentorial (30.3%, infra-tentorial (67.7% and 2% (spinal. The most frequent tumors registered were: high-gradeglioma (supra-tentorial in 36 (59.99% patients and medulloblastoma (infra-tentorialin 65 (48.51% patients. The most prevalent clinical findings included vomiting,headache and impaired vision. Gender, age, ethnicity, tumor stage and the presence ofmetastasis were the features predictive of supra-tentorial tumor histology.Conclusion: Our data agreed with previous reports on the epidemiology of centralnervous system tumors. Our feature-label analysis has shown how presenting features maypartially predict diagnosis. Timely diagnosis and management of central nervous systemtumors can lead to decreased disease burden and improved survival. This may be furtherfacilitated through development of partitioning, risk prediction and prognostic models.

[Clinical and epidemiological features of visceral leishmaniasis in the Republic of Crimea].

Science.gov (United States)

Baranets, M S; Ermak, T N; Ponirovsky, E N

The paper analyzes official statistical data, as well as visceral leishmaniasis (VL) cases who have visited the Clinical Center, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, and the results of parasitological studies of the materials submitted to the Reference Center for Monitoring of Leishmaniasis, E.I. Martsinovsky Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-Borne Diseases. Account is taken of the observations made by the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, and of the literature data available in Russian and foreign (Ukraine) scientific journals and monographs. During the period of 1932 to 2015, a total of 14 VL cases acquired in the Crimea were notified, of which there were 4 cases of VL concurrent with HIV infection. The majority of infections occurred in the eastern part of the peninsula. Given that many areas of Crimea have the status of recreation and annually receive millions of vacationists, it is necessary to conduct a more in-depth study of all aspects of this infection.

Pediatric pulmonary hypertension in the Netherlands: epidemiology and characterization during the period 1991 to 2005

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Loon, Rosa Laura E.; Roofthooft, Marcus T. R.; Hillege, Hans L.; ten Harkel, Arend D. J.; van Osch-Gevers, Magdalena; Delhaas, Tammo; Kapusta, Livia; Strengers, Jan L. M.; Rammeloo, Lukas; Clur, Sally-Ann B.; Mulder, Barbara J. M.; Berger, Rolf M. F.

2011-01-01

Incidence and prevalence rates for pediatric pulmonary hypertension (PH) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) are unknown. This study describes the nationwide epidemiological features of pediatric PH in the Netherlands during a 15-year period and the clinical course of pediatric PAH. Two

Andean cutaneous leishmaniasis (Andean-CL, uta) in Peru and Ecuador: the causative Leishmania parasites and clinico-epidemiological features.

Science.gov (United States)

Hashiguchi, Yoshihisa; Gomez, Eduardo A L; Cáceres, Abraham G; Velez, Lenin N; Villegas, Nancy V; Hashiguchi, Kazue; Mimori, Tatsuyuki; Uezato, Hiroshi; Kato, Hirotomo

2018-01-01

This study provides comprehensive information on the past and current status of the Andean cutaneous leishmaniasis (Andean-CL, uta) in Peru and Ecuador, mainly focusing on the causative Leishmania parasites and clinico-epidemiological features. Available information and data including our unpublished works were analyzed thoroughly. Endemic regions of the Andean-CL (uta) in Peru run from the north Piura/Cajamarca to the south Ayacucho at a wide range of the Pacific watersheds of the Andes through several departments, while in Ecuador those exist at limited and spotted areas in the country's mid-southwestern two provinces, Azuay and Chimborazo. The principal species of the genus Leishmania are completely different at subgenus level, L. (Viannia) peruviana in Peru, and L. (Leishmania) mexicana and L. (L.) major-like (infrequent occurrence) in Ecuador. The Peruvian uta is now prevalent in different age and sex groups, being not clearly defined as found in the past. The precise reasons are not known and should be elucidated further, though probable factors, such as emergence of other Leishmania parasites, non-immune peoples' migration into the areas, etc., were discussed briefly in the text. The Andean-CL cases in Ecuador are more rural than before, probably because of a rapid development of the Leishmania-positive communities and towns, and the change of life-styles of the inhabitants, including newly constructed houses and roads in the endemic areas. Such information is helpful for future management of the disease, not only for Leishmania-endemic areas in the Andes but also for other endemic areas. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Epidemiology of IBD

Science.gov (United States)

... IBD? Projects and Partners Data and Statistics Resources Epidemiology of the IBD Recommend on Facebook Tweet Share ... 5:1424-9. 2 Loftus EV, Jr. Clinical epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease: Incidence, prevalence, and environmental ...

The New Epidemiology--A Challenge to Health Administration. Issues in Epidemiology for Administration.

Science.gov (United States)

Crichton, Anne, Ed.; Neuhauser, Duncan, Ed.

The role of epidemiology in health administration is considered in 11 articles, and three course descriptions and a bibliography are provided. Titles and authors include the following: "The Need for Creative Managerial Epidemiology" (Gary L. Filerman); "The Growing Role of Epidemiology in Health Administration" (Maureen M.…

Cluster Headache: Epidemiology, Pathophysiology, Clinical Features, and Diagnosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Diana Yi-Ting; Yuan Ong, Jonathan Jia; Goadsby, Peter James

2018-04-01

Cluster headache is a primary headache disorder affecting up to 0.1% of the population. Patients suffer from cluster headache attacks lasting from 15 to 180 min up to 8 times a day. The attacks are characterized by the severe unilateral pain mainly in the first division of the trigeminal nerve, with associated prominent unilateral cranial autonomic symptoms and a sense of agitation and restlessness during the attacks. The male-to-female ratio is approximately 2.5:1. Experimental, clinical, and neuroimaging studies have advanced our understanding of the pathogenesis of cluster headache. The pathophysiology involves activation of the trigeminovascular complex and the trigeminal-autonomic reflex and accounts for the unilateral severe headache, the prominent ipsilateral cranial autonomic symptoms. In addition, the circadian and circannual rhythmicity unique to this condition is postulated to involve the hypothalamus and suprachiasmatic nucleus. Although the clinical features are distinct, it may be misdiagnosed, with patients often presenting to the otolaryngologist or dentist with symptoms. The prognosis of cluster headache remains difficult to predict. Patients with episodic cluster headache can shift to chronic cluster headache and vice versa. Longitudinally, cluster headache tends to remit with age with less frequent bouts and more prolonged periods of remission in between bouts.

Epidemiology in wonderland: Big Data and precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Saracci, Rodolfo

2018-03-01

Big Data and precision medicine, two major contemporary challenges for epidemiology, are critically examined from two different angles. In Part 1 Big Data collected for research purposes (Big research Data) and Big Data used for research although collected for other primary purposes (Big secondary Data) are discussed in the light of the fundamental common requirement of data validity, prevailing over "bigness". Precision medicine is treated developing the key point that high relative risks are as a rule required to make a variable or combination of variables suitable for prediction of disease occurrence, outcome or response to treatment; the commercial proliferation of allegedly predictive tests of unknown or poor validity is commented. Part 2 proposes a "wise epidemiology" approach to: (a) choosing in a context imprinted by Big Data and precision medicine-epidemiological research projects actually relevant to population health, (b) training epidemiologists, (c) investigating the impact on clinical practices and doctor-patient relation of the influx of Big Data and computerized medicine and (d) clarifying whether today "health" may be redefined-as some maintain in purely technological terms.

Clinical features and therapeutic management of patients admitted to Italian acute hospital psychiatric units: the PERSEO (psychiatric emergency study and epidemiology survey

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Russo Federico

2007-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The PERSEO study (psychiatric emergency study and epidemiology is a naturalistic, observational clinical survey in Italian acute hospital psychiatric units, called SPDCs (Servizio Psichiatrico Diagnosi e Cura; in English, the psychiatric service for diagnosis and management. The aims of this paper are: (i to describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients, including sociodemographic features, risk factors, life habits and psychiatric diagnoses; and (ii to assess the clinical management, subjective wellbeing and attitudes toward medications. Methods A total of 62 SPDCs distributed throughout Italy participated in the study and 2521 patients were enrolled over the 5-month study period. Results Almost half of patients (46% showed an aggressive behaviour at admission to ward, but they engaged more commonly in verbal aggression (38%, than in aggression toward other people (20%. A total of 78% of patients had a psychiatric diagnosis at admission, most frequently schizophrenia (36%, followed by depression (16% and personality disorders (14%, and no relevant changes in the diagnoses pattern were observed during hospital stay. Benzodiazepines were the most commonly prescribed drugs, regardless of diagnosis, at all time points. Overall, up to 83% of patients were treated with neuroleptic drugs and up to 27% received more than one neuroleptic either during hospital stay or at discharge. Atypical and conventional antipsychotics were equally prescribed for schizophrenia (59 vs 65% during stay and 59 vs 60% at discharge, while atypical drugs were preferred in schizoaffective psychoses (72 vs 49% during stay and 70 vs 46% at discharge and depression (41 vs 32% during stay and 44 vs 25% at discharge. Atypical neuroleptics were slightly preferred to conventional ones at hospital discharge (52 vs 44%. Polypharmacy was in general widely used. Patient attitudes toward medications were on average positive and self

Epidemiological studies on postpartum thyroid dysfunction and thyroid cancer in Southeastern Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

J.L.P. Kuijpens (Hans)

1998-01-01

textabstractThe studies described in this thesis concentrate OIl epidemiological and pathogenetic aspects of postpartum thyroid dysfunction (PPTD) and related topics, and on epidemiological and treatment aspects of thyroid cancer. The studies were petfonned in the southeastern part of the

Accounts of bullying on Twitter in relation to dentofacial features and orthodontic treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, A; Antoun, J S; Morgaine, K C; Farella, M

2017-04-01

Social media offers an accessible resource for gaining valuable insights into the social culture of bullying. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively analyse Twitter posts for common themes relating to dentofacial features, braces and bullying. Twitter's database was searched from 2010 to 2014 using keywords relevant to bullying, teeth and orthodontics. Two investigators assessed the Twitter posts, and selected those that conveyed the experiences or opinions of bullying victims. The posts were qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis. Of the 548 posts screened, 321 were included in the final sample. Four primary categories relating to 'dental-related bullying' were identified: (i) morphological features, (ii) psychological and psychosocial impact, (iii) coping mechanisms and (iv) the role of family. Bullied individuals reported a diverse range of psychological impacts and coping mechanisms. Secondary categories were also identified. Family members, for example, were found to play both a contributory and mediatory role in bullying. In summary, social media can provide new and valuable information about the causal factors and social issues associated with oral health-related bullying. Importantly, some coping mechanisms may mitigate the negative effects of bullying. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Epidemiology and quantitation of environmental risk in humans from radiation and other agents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Castellani, Amleto

1985-01-01

The identification and quantitation of environmental risk in humans is one of the main problems to be solved in order to improve the protection of individuals and of human populations against physical and chemical pollutants. Epidemiology plays a central role in the evaluation of health risk directly in human populations. In this volume are collected 33 lectures presented at the AS! course on ''Epidemiology and quantitation of environmental risk in humans from radiation and other agents: potential and limitations'', sponsored by NATO and Italian Association of Radiobiology and organized by ENEA. The course has been devoted to a number of aspects of environmental risk analysis and evaluation based on epidemiological investigation. Basic epidemiological concepts and methods have been reviewed. Fundamentals of dosimetry and microdosimetry were presented in relation to the contribution of epidemiology in defining the dose effect relationships for radiation carcinogenesis and its relation with age, sex and ethnicity. The mechanisms of carcinogenesis as a multi-stage process were illustrated. One of the main topics was 'cancer epidemiology' and its correlation with: - occupational and non-occupational exposure to radiation - diagnostic and therapeutic irradiation - cancer proneness - hereditary and familiar diseases - abnormal response to carcinogens - environmental pollution in air and water - exposure to radon in mines and in building material - atomic bomb explosion - chemotherapy - dioxin and related compounds

Clinical features and changes in epidemiology of infective endocarditis on pacemaker devices over a 27-year period (1987-2013).

Science.gov (United States)

Carrasco, Francisco; Anguita, Manuel; Ruiz, Martín; Castillo, Juan Carlos; Delgado, Mónica; Mesa, Dolores; Romo, Elias; Pan, Manuel; Suárez de Lezo, Jose

2016-06-01

Use of cardiac pacing devices has grown in recent years. Our aim was to evaluate changes in epidemiology and clinical features of infective endocarditis (IE) involving pacemaker devices in a large series of IE over the last 27 years (1987-2013). From 1987 to December 2013, 413 consecutive IE cases were diagnosed in our hospital. During this period, 7424 pacemaker devices were implanted (6917 pacemakers, 239 implantable cardiac defibrillators, 158 resynchronization devices, and 110 resynchronization/defibrillator devices). All consecutive cases of IE on pacemaker devices were included and analysed. Infective endocarditis on pacemaker devices represented 6.1% of all endocarditis cases (25 patients), affecting 3.6/1000 of all implanted pacemakers. Its proportion increased from 1.25% of all endocarditis in 1987-1993 to 4.08% in 1994-2000, 7.69% in 2001-2007 and 9.32% in 2008-2013 (P pacemaker implants in the period of 1987-1993 to 2.5/1000 in 1994-2000, 3.3/1000 in 2001-2007 and 4.5/1000 implanted devices in 2008-2013 (P pacemaker devices has shown an increasing incidence during the past decades, representing almost 10% of all IE in the last 6 years. This is a severe disease, with a high rate of severe complications and requiring removal of device in most cases. In spite of therapy, early mortality is high. Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2015. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Epidemiologic research program: Selected bibliography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1993-05-01

This bibliography is a current listing of scientific reports from epidemiologic and related activities sponsored by the Department of Energy. The Office of Epidemiology and Health Surveillance now is the departmental focal point for these activities and any others relating to the study of human health effects. The Office's mission is evolving to encompass the new role of the Department in environmental restoration, weapons dismantlement and nuclear material storage, and development of new energy technologies. Publications in these areas will be included in future editions of the bibliography. The present edition brings the listing up to date, and should facilitate access to specific reports. The program has been divided into several general areas of activity: the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which supports studies of survivors of the atomic weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; mortality and morbidity studies of DOE workers; studies on internally deposited alpha emitters; medical/histologic studies; studies on the genetic aspects of radiation damage; community health surveillance studies; and the development of computational techniques and of databases to make the results as widely useful as possible

Epidemiology and treatment of relative anemia in children with sickle cell disease in sub-Saharan Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Bello-Manga, Halima; DeBaun, Michael R; Kassim, Adetola A

2016-11-01

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the most common inherited hemoglobinopathy in the world, with the majority of cases in sub-Saharan Africa. Concomitant nutritional deficiencies, infections or exposure to environmental toxins exacerbate chronic anemia in children with SCD. The resulting relative anemia is associated with increased risk of strokes, poor cognitive function and impaired growth. It may also attenuate optimal response to hydroxyurea therapy, the only effective and practical treatment option for SCD in sub-Saharan Africa. This review will focus on the epidemiology, clinical sequelae, and treatment of relative anemia in children with SCD living in low and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Areas covered: The causes and treatment of relative anemia in children with SCD in sub-Saharan Africa. The MEDLINE database was searched using medical subject headings (MeSH) and keywords for articles regarding relative anemia in children with SCD in sub-Saharan Africa. Expert commentary: Anemia due to nutritional deficiencies and infectious diseases such as helminthiasis and malaria are prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Their co-existence in children with SCD increases morbidity and mortality. Therefore, preventing, diagnosing and treating the underlying cause of this relative anemia will improve SCD-related outcomes in children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Epidemiologic studies of cancer in populations near nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shleien, B.; Ruttenber, A.J.; Sage, M.

1991-01-01

The authors reviewed over 40 epidemiologic studies around nuclear power stations, fuel reprocessing plants, and weapons production facilities and testing sites in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Canada. They examined these studies for their potential to support a cause and effect relationship between cancer risk and radiation exposure. The extent to which an epidemiologic study supports a causal relation between radiation exposure and increased cancer risk can be evaluated using a set of criteria that have become known as Hill's postulates. In their review, epidemiologic studies yielded results that were biologically plausible and were supported by experimental data, but in almost all of the studies the methodologies were not adequate for evaluating causality. In the majority of cases, the methodologies did not permit examination of dose-response associations, making it impossible to support or refute causal relations. They suggest that investigators consider these issues when designing studies and employ dose reconstruction methodology to estimate radiation doses for specific individuals and population groups.86 references

Radiation epidemiology: concept, methodology and statistical resources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vasques, Monica H. Braga; Carneiro, Janete C. Gaburo; Sordi, Gian M.A.

2008-01-01

As radiation exposure is the main point of interest in radiation epidemiology, epidemiologists try to relate the risk of diseases (mainly the risk of cancer) to the different levels and patterns of humankind exposure to radiation. Statistics as a branch of mathematics is able to prove associations and infer causality. As many researches are object of methodological limits, mainly those related to both the insufficient size of the sample and descriptive analysis as well as the choice of methods and variables, this paper aims at describing firstly the main kinds of epidemiological studies. Secondly, it relates distributions and summary measures (central tendency measures, measures of dispersion and normal distributions) and hypothesis tests as well necessary for each study. It also discusses the most appropriate statistical resource to the epidemiological evaluation. Finally, the main aim of this study is both to elaborate a systematic review of the researches that have been already done in Brazil since 2000, focusing on the effects caused by the occupational exposures to ionizing radiation in order to establish positive associations between them and to analyze the risk related to the workers health. This paper has as its basis the Reports in Public Health (Public Health Books-CSP) from which several studies about the exposure effects to ionizing radiation and referred kinds of cancer (e.g.: leukemia, skin cancer, thyroid gland cancer and bone cancer) have been taken as object of analysis. The relevance of this study lies in the most applied methods of risk to establish positive associations in ionizing radiation, in the relation between workers' workplace and his health. (author)

Post-stroke cognitive impairment: epidemiology, mechanisms and management

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Jia-Hao

2014-01-01

Post-stroke cognitive impairment occurs frequently in the patients with stroke. The prevalence of post-stroke cognitive impairment ranges from 20% to 80%, which varies for the difference between the countries, the races, and the diagnostic criteria. The risk of post-stroke cognitive impairment is related to both the demographic factors like age, education and occupation and vascular factors. The underlying mechanisms of post-stroke cognitive impairment are not known in detail. However, the neuroanatomical lesions caused by the stroke on strategic areas such as the hippocampus and the white matter lesions (WMLs), the cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) due to the small cerebrovascular diseases and the mixed AD with stroke, alone or in combination, contribute to the pathogenesis of post-stroke cognitive impairment. The treatment of post-stroke cognitive impairment may benefit not only from the anti-dementia drugs, but also the manage measures on cerebrovascular diseases. In this review, we will describe the epidemiological features and the mechanisms of post-stroke cognitive impairment, and discuss the promising management strategies for these patients. PMID:25333055

Epidemiology of whooping cough & typing of Bordetella pertussis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hegerle, Nicolas; Guiso, Nicole

2013-11-01

Bordetella pertussis is a Gram-negative human-restricted bacterium that evolved from the broad-range mammalian pathogen, Bordetella bronchiseptica. It causes whooping cough or pertussis in humans, which is the most prevalent vaccine-preventable disease worldwide. The introduction of the pertussis whole-cell vaccination for young children, followed by the introduction of the pertussis acellular vaccination (along with booster vaccination) for older age groups, has affected the bacterial population and epidemiology of the disease. B. pertussis is relatively monomorphic worldwide, but nevertheless, different countries are facing different epidemiological evolutions of the disease. Although it is tempting to link vaccine-driven phenotypic and genotypic evolution of the bacterium to epidemiology, many other factors should be considered and surveillance needs to continue, in addition to studies investigating the impact of current clinical isolates on vaccine efficacy.

Ethics Guidelines in Environmental Epidemiology: Their Development and Challenges We Face.

Science.gov (United States)

Kramer, Shira; Soskolne, Colin L

2017-06-01

This review integrates historical developments and key events in bringing ethics into epidemiology in general and into environmental epidemiology in particular. The goal is to provide context for and discern among the various approaches and motivations that drive the need for ethical conduct in support of the public interest. The need for ethics guidelines in epidemiology is different from developments in other biomedical-related fields by virtue of its focus on populations rather than on individuals. The need for ethics guidelines in environmental epidemiology as a subspecialty of epidemiology stems from the larger scale of its mission than that of epidemiology per se. Ethics guidelines in the field of environmental epidemiology have been established. They articulate not only the profession's core values and mission, but more specifically, they address the environmental epidemiologist's obligations to the participants in research, to colleagues, and to employers. They are the product of consensus, scholarship, and diligent stewardship over several decades. The next challenge is ensuring their value and impact. The forces that support professional and institutional success, and the power of special interests, are the major threats to achieving the goals of ethical conduct and research for the public good. In environmental epidemiology, these threats have global implications.

Mortality related to tuberculosis-HIV/AIDS co-infection in Brazil, 2000-2011: epidemiological patterns and time trends

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mauricélia da Silveira Lima

Full Text Available Abstract: Co-infection of tuberculosis (TB-HIV/AIDS is a persistent public health problem in Brazil. This study describes epidemiological patterns and time trends of mortality related to TB-HIV/AIDS co-infection. Based on mortality data from 2000-2011 (almost 12.5 million deaths, 19,815 deaths related to co-infection were analyzed. The average age-adjusted mortality rate was 0.97 deaths/100,000 inhabitants. The highest mortality rates were found among males, those in economically productive age groups, black race/color and residents of the South region. There was a significant reduction in the mortality coefficient at the national level (annual average percent change: -1.7%; 95%CI: -2.4; -1.0, with different patterns among regions: increases in the North, Northeast and Central regions, a reduction in the Southeast and a stabilization in the South. The strategic integration of TB-HIV/AIDS control programmes is fundamental to reduce the burden of mortality related to co-infection in Brazil.

Epidemiological and spatial analysis of scorpion stings in two regions of Morocco: Marrakesh-Tensift-Al Haouz and Souss-Massa-Draa

OpenAIRE

Moulay Abdelmonaim El Hidan; Oulaid Touloun; Rhizlane El Oufir; Ali Boumezzough

2016-01-01

Objective: To describe and compare the epidemiological features of scorpionism during six years (2005–2010) in two regions of Morocco: Marrakesh-Tensift-Al Haouz and Souss-MassaDraa. Methods: Clinical and epidemiological data were obtained from medical records of the Moroccan Poison Control Center during 2005–2010. The data comprised demographics, sting characteristics and clinical severity classes. Digital maps were produced for envenomation and death incidence with the distri...

Methodologic frontiers in environmental epidemiology.

OpenAIRE

Rothman, K J

1993-01-01

Environmental epidemiology comprises the epidemiologic study of those environmental factors that are outside the immediate control of the individual. Exposures of interest to environmental epidemiologists include air pollution, water pollution, occupational exposure to physical and chemical agents, as well as psychosocial elements of environmental concern. The main methodologic problem in environmental epidemiology is exposure assessment, a problem that extends through all of epidemiologic re...

Human Papillomavirus-related Carcinoma with Adenoid Cystic-like Features of the Sinonasal Tract

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andreasen, Simon; Bishop, J; Hansen, T V O

2017-01-01

with adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), a rare and aggressive carcinoma originating in the minor salivary glands. Termed HPV-related carcinoma with ACC-like features, only 9 cases have been reported. To clarify the occurrence of these tumours we screened a large material for presence of HPV-related ACC....... For the distinction between ACC and HPV-related ACC-like carcinoma, p16, MYB immunohistochemistry, or investigation of MYB, MYBL1, and NFIB gene status are valuable. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved....

Epidemiology of Isolated Acromioclavicular Joint Dislocation

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Claudio Chillemi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Acromioclavicular (AC joint dislocation is a common shoulder problem. However, information about the basic epidemiological features of this condition is scarce. The aim of this study is to analyze the epidemiology of isolated AC dislocation in an urban population. Materials and Methods. A retrospective database search was performed to identify all patients with an AC dislocation over a 5-year period. Gender, age, affected side and traumatic mechanism were taken into account. X-rays were reviewed by two of the authors and dislocations were classified according to the Rockwood’s criteria. Results. A total of 108 patients, with a mean age of 37.5 years were diagnosed with AC dislocation. 105 (97.2% had an isolated AC dislocation, and 3 (2.8% were associated with a clavicle fracture. The estimated incidence was 1.8 per 10000 inhabitants per year and the male-female ratio was 8.5 : 1. 50.5% of all dislocations occurred in individuals between the ages of 20 and 39 years. The most common traumatic mechanism was sport injury and the most common type of dislocation was Rockwood type III. Conclusions. Age between 20 and 39 years and male sex represent significant demographic risk factors for AC dislocation.

Chloroquine induced pruritus--questionnaire based epidemiological study.

Science.gov (United States)

George, Adekunle O

2004-01-01

Chloroquine (CQ) is a very useful drug with a broad spectrum of uses (as anti malarial, anti amoebiasis and for connective tissue diseases). A major side effect preventing or limiting its utilization in blacks is chloroquine induced pruritus (CP). A descriptive cross sectional questionnaire based epidemiological study of medical and nursing students, medical doctors and other workers with historic CP in a Nigerian tertiary (teaching) hospital was carried out to determine factors and features related to the development of CP. From the study the intensity of CP was not reduced by taking less CQ. About 92% of the subjects had close relations who suffered from CP. 84.5% of responders itched for 1-3 days. The longest duration for CP was 7 days. The sites of itching in descending order were generalized (49.2%) hands (46%), legs and feet (46%), perineum/genitalia (28.5%). Relieving factor/drug was identified in 66.6% of responders. Itching with oral CQ occurred in 100%. Intramuscular injection of CQ caused 49% of itching. 19% had pre-chloroquine itch. 28.5% had CP with other antimalarials notably Amodiaquine (23.8%). 50.7% took other antimalarials when down with malaria. There is a need for the identification of a cheap and readily available antidote for CP to enable CQ remain useful/relevant in Nigeria and in the West African sub-region.

Selection in reported epidemiological risks: an empirical assessment.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fotini K Kavvoura

2007-03-01

Full Text Available Epidemiological studies may be subject to selective reporting, but empirical evidence thereof is limited. We empirically evaluated the extent of selection of significant results and large effect sizes in a large sample of recent articles.We evaluated 389 articles of epidemiological studies that reported, in their respective abstracts, at least one relative risk for a continuous risk factor in contrasts based on median, tertile, quartile, or quintile categorizations. We examined the proportion and correlates of reporting statistically significant and nonsignificant results in the abstract and whether the magnitude of the relative risks presented (coined to be consistently > or =1.00 differs depending on the type of contrast used for the risk factor. In 342 articles (87.9%, > or =1 statistically significant relative risk was reported in the abstract, while only 169 articles (43.4% reported > or =1 statistically nonsignificant relative risk in the abstract. Reporting of statistically significant results was more common with structured abstracts, and was less common in US-based studies and in cancer outcomes. Among 50 randomly selected articles in which the full text was examined, a median of nine (interquartile range 5-16 statistically significant and six (interquartile range 3-16 statistically nonsignificant relative risks were presented (p = 0.25. Paradoxically, the smallest presented relative risks were based on the contrasts of extreme quintiles; on average, the relative risk magnitude was 1.41-, 1.42-, and 1.36-fold larger in contrasts of extreme quartiles, extreme tertiles, and above-versus-below median values, respectively (p < 0.001.Published epidemiological investigations almost universally highlight significant associations between risk factors and outcomes. For continuous risk factors, investigators selectively present contrasts between more extreme groups, when relative risks are inherently lower.

Exploring the Moderating Role of Problematic Substance Use in the Relations Between Borderline and Antisocial Personality Features and Intimate Partner Violence.

Science.gov (United States)

Armenti, Nicholas A; Snead, Alexandra L; Babcock, Julia C

2018-02-01

Borderline and antisocial personality features relate to multiple externalizing behaviors, including intimate partner violence (IPV). However, not all individuals with borderline and antisocial traits perpetrate IPV. The strength of the personality-IPV link may be related to problematic substance use. We examined borderline and antisocial personality features, problematic substance use, and IPV in a community sample of couples. Positive relations between both borderline and antisocial features and IPV were stronger in conditions of high problematic alcohol use relative to low problematic alcohol use. Alcohol misuse may be an important factor to consider for IPV reduction in men with these personality features.

Epidemiological causality.

Science.gov (United States)

Morabia, Alfredo

2005-01-01

Epidemiological methods, which combine population thinking and group comparisons, can primarily identify causes of disease in populations. There is therefore a tension between our intuitive notion of a cause, which we want to be deterministic and invariant at the individual level, and the epidemiological notion of causes, which are invariant only at the population level. Epidemiologists have given heretofore a pragmatic solution to this tension. Causal inference in epidemiology consists in checking the logical coherence of a causality statement and determining whether what has been found grossly contradicts what we think we already know: how strong is the association? Is there a dose-response relationship? Does the cause precede the effect? Is the effect biologically plausible? Etc. This approach to causal inference can be traced back to the English philosophers David Hume and John Stuart Mill. On the other hand, the mode of establishing causality, devised by Jakob Henle and Robert Koch, which has been fruitful in bacteriology, requires that in every instance the effect invariably follows the cause (e.g., inoculation of Koch bacillus and tuberculosis). This is incompatible with epidemiological causality which has to deal with probabilistic effects (e.g., smoking and lung cancer), and is therefore invariant only for the population.

Epidemiological study of recent death risk of Nagasaki A-bomb survivors exposed at close range

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishii, Keiichiro; Mine, Mariko; Okumura, Yutaka.

1992-01-01

To elucidate the hormetic effect on health of human exposed with very low-dose ionizing radiation, we preliminary investigate the epidemiological study of Nagasaki A-bomb survivors. The major results are as follows; (1) Nagasaki A-bomb survivors exposed with 2-18 cGy are investigated, and the epidemiological data-base of Nagasaki A-bomb survivors are updated by these new data. (2) An applicability of the expanded new data-base to epidemiological analysis is investigated. Based on this investigation, the theme of epidemiological study to elucidate the hormetic effect on human health are discussed. (3) Effects of A-bomb dose on risk of total death cause, cancer death and non-cancer death are analysed by epidemiological method. The relative frequency of non-cancer death cause on male survivors exposed with 50-99 cGy is decreased relative to unexposed controls. (author)

Ergonomics and epidemiology in evidence based health prevention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Olaf Chresten

2009-01-01

According to the definitions, ergonomics is a natural part of the health and safety activity but it has its own research methods and causal models. Public health, occupational and clinical medicines are closely related to epidemiology and differ from ergonomics by using a disease model with a wide...... success of health effects from the clinical trials could not be obtained. It is argued that the ergonomics design, Integration and Implementation can be strengthened by adapting the epidemiological methods and causal models. The ergonomics can then contribute to a common development of public health...

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF COLORECTAL CANCER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Shafayan M. Keyhani

2003-07-01

Full Text Available This study was carried out to analyze certain epidemiological variations in Iranian patients with colorectal cancer. (CRC: From March 1981 up to March 1993, 103 patients were analyzed retrospectively for age, gender, marital state, job, nutritional habits, presenting symptoms and histopathological features. Most of the patients with colorectal cancer were male, age range 20-75 (mean 56, 25.4 percent were long-term smokers and bleeding was the most common symptom. The rectum was the most common site and moderately differentiated carcinoma was considered as the main common histopathological variety. In conclusion, increasing incidence of colorectal cancer in younger Iranian population, below 30 and late admission and diagnosis were the main findings in the present study necessitating screening programs with annual fecal occult blood tests in high risk families.

Epidemiological studies of employees of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fraser, P.; Beral, V.; Booth, M.; Inskip, H.; Carpenter, L.

1987-01-01

The Epidemiological Monitoring Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is carrying out several epidemiological studies of employees of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in which mortality is being investigated in relation to radiation exposure. This paper summarises the results obtained so far and describes briefly studies currently in progress. (author)

Epidemiology and the Tobacco Epidemic: How Research on Tobacco and Health Shaped Epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Samet, Jonathan M

2016-03-01

In this article, I provide a perspective on the tobacco epidemic and epidemiology, describing the impact of the tobacco-caused disease epidemic on the field of epidemiology. Although there is an enormous body of epidemiologic evidence on the associations of smoking with health, little systematic attention has been given to how decades of research have affected epidemiology and its practice. I address the many advances that resulted from epidemiologic research on smoking and health, such as demonstration of the utility of observational designs and important parameters (the odds ratio and the population attributable risk), guidelines for causal inference, and systematic review approaches. I also cover unintended and adverse consequences for the field, including the strategy of doubt creation and the recruitment of epidemiologists by the tobacco industry to serve its mission. The paradigm of evidence-based action for addressing noncommunicable diseases began with the need to address the epidemic of tobacco-caused disease, an imperative for action documented by epidemiologic research. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Gambling disorder in financial markets: Clinical and treatment-related features.

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Young-Chul; Choi, Sam-Wook; Ha, Juwon; Choi, Jung-Seok; Kim, Dai-Jin

2015-12-01

To date, few studies have examined the clinical manifestation of disordered gamblers in financial markets. This study examined the differences in the clinical and treatment-related features of gambling disorder between financial markets and horse races. Subjects who met the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling (PG) and who sought treatment were assessed by retrospective chart review. One hundred forty-four subjects were included in this sample, which consisted of the following groups: financial markets (n = 45; 28.6%) and horse races (n = 99; 71.4%). Multiple similar manifestations were found between the groups, including severity of PG, age of PG onset, amounts of gambling debts, drinking days per week, depressive mood, duration of seeking treatment after the onset of PG, and treatment follow-up duration. However, disordered gamblers who invested in the financial market were significantly more likely to be educated (p = 0.003), live with their spouses (p = 0.007), have full-time jobs (p = 0.006), and they were more likely to participate in the first type of gambling than the horse races group (pfinancial markets group received the anti-craving medication less often than the horse races group (p = 0.04). These findings suggest that disordered gamblers in financial markets show different socio-demographic, clinical and treatment-related features compared with the horse race gamblers, despite a similar severity of gambling disorder. Understanding these differential manifestations may provide insight into prevention and treatment development for specific types of gambling.

Epidemiologic characteristics of anophthalmia and bilateral microphthalmia among 2.5 million births in California, 1989-1997.

Science.gov (United States)

Shaw, Gary M; Carmichael, Suzan L; Yang, Wei; Harris, John A; Finnell, Richard H; Lammer, Edward J

2005-08-15

There is a paucity of epidemiologic information about the eye malformations anophthalmia and microphthalmia. Using data from a large population-based registry, we explored prevalences and maternal/infant characteristics associated with anophthalmia and bilateral microphthalmia. Data were derived from the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program, a population-based active surveillance system for collecting information on infants and fetuses with congenital malformations using multiple source ascertainment. Approximately 2.5 million births (liveborn and stillborn) occurred during the ascertainment period, 1989-1997. Information on maternal and infant/fetal characteristics was obtained from California birth certificate and fetal death files. The prevalence per 10,000 livebirths and stillbirths for anophthalmia was 0.18 and for bilateral microphthalmia was 0.22. These estimates reflect prevalences among births without chromosomal anomalies. Relative risks of anophthalmia were modestly higher among women aged 40 or more (relative risk = 2.0, 95% confidence interval 0.5-8.6). Risks were substantially lower for those mothers with >12 years of education, even after adjusting for other study factors, relative risk = 0.6 (0.2-1.7). The risk of anophthalmia was approximately twofold among multiple births compared to singletons. Similar to results for anophthalmia, decreased risks for bilateral microphthalmia were observed for maternal education of 12 years or more and increased risks observed for multiple births. These data show descriptive epidemiologic features of anophthalmia and bilateral microphthalmia. Copyright 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The evolution of the epidemiological landscape of head and neck cancer in Italy: Is there evidence for an increase in the incidence of potentially HPV-related carcinomas?

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Paolo Boscolo-Rizzo

Full Text Available The current study aimed to investigate the incidence and survival patterns of HNSCCs arising from different anatomic sites, potentially related (the oropharynx or unrelated (the oral cavity, the larynx/hypopharynx to HPV, to provide clues on possible growing impact of HPV in the epidemiology of HNSCC in Italy. Epidemiological data were retrieved from ten long-term Cancer Registries covering a population of 7.8 million inhabitants. Trends were described by means of the estimated annual percent change (APC stratified by age and gender, and compared between HPV-related and HPV-unrelated anatomical sites. The data regarding 28,295 HNSCCs diagnosed in Italy between 1988 and 2012 were analyzed. In males, the incidence rate (IR of cancers arising from sites unrelated to HPV infection significantly decreased in all age groups (APC:-3.31 for larynx/hypopharynx; APC:-1.77 for oral cavity, whereas stable IR were observed for cancers arising from sites related to HPV infection. In females, IR for cancers from HPV-related sites increased significantly over the observed period; the largest increment was noted in those over 60 (APC:2.92% who also showed a significantly lower number of HNSCCs from the larynx/hypopharynx (APC:- 0.84 and a significantly higher number of oral cavity tumors (APC = 2.15. The five-year relative survival remained largely unchanged in the patients with laryngeal/hypopharyngeal SCC and, conversely, significantly improved in the patients with SCC at HPV-related sites. The trends observed suggest a potential increasing impact of HPV infection on the epidemiology of HNSCC in Italy, but to a lesser extent and with a different pattern from that observed in other Western countries.

Epidemiology of systemic mastocytosis in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cohen, Sarah; Hoffmann, Stine Skovbo; Vestergaard, Hanne

2014-01-01

Mastocytosis is a heterogeneous group of diseases characterized by abnormal proliferation of mast cells. Systemic mastocytosis (SM), in which abnormal mast cells are present in tissues beyond the skin, is divided into seven subcategories with varying degrees of severity and prognosis. Very little......%), followed by SM with subtype unknown (n = 61; 11%), SM with associated clonal haematological non-mast cell lineage disease (n = 24; 4%), aggressive SM (n = 8; 2%), and mast cell leukaemia (n = 5; 1%). The incidence rate for SM (all subtypes including urticaria pigmentosa) was 0_89 per 100 000 per year...... to be overall relatively rare with notable variation by subtype for patient characteristics, survival and epidemiological measures. Keywords: aggressive systemic mastocytosis, indolent systemic mastocytosis, urticaria pigmentosa, epidemiology, Denmark....

Epidemiological studies of radiation workers in nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iwai, Satoshi; Semba, Tsuyoshi; Ishida, Kenji; Takagi, Syunji; Igari, Takafumi

2017-01-01

Regarding workers at nuclear facilities, this paper described INWORKS epidemiological research published in 2015, cooperative cohort epidemiological research of IARC 15 countries 10 years before that (15-country study), and the flow of radiation epidemiological research in the period from 15-country study to INWORKS. INWORKS is a retrospective cohort study to investigate the correlation between mortality due to solid cancer, blood cancer, and cardiovascular diseases in workers in three countries of France / the U.K. / the U.S. and low dose exposure through long-term photon external exposure. It obtained the data showing the statistical significance of increased cancer death rate. However, from the subjects of the analysis, no significant evaluation was made on neutron exposure and internal exposure. Statistically significant cancer mortality was confirmed in 15-country study at low dose, low dose rate, and prolonged exposure, but significant cancer mortality rate could not be confirmed excluding Canadian data, which had problems in dose evaluation. In the epidemiological studies of cancer mortality rates of radiation workers in nuclear power industries performed in France / the U.K. / the U.S. in the period ranging from 15-country study to INWORKS, significant difference was not recognized between cancer death rate and excessive relative risk (ERR) compared with LSS epidemiological research studies that handled acute exposure. Several tasks are still remaining. (A.O.)

[Epidemiology of addictive disorders and behaviors in Japan].

Science.gov (United States)

Osaki, Yoneatsu; Kinjo, Aya

2015-09-01

Nationwide surveys to clarify the characteristics and trends of the addictive disorders and behaviors including alcohol dependence, nicotine dependence, internet addiction and pathological gambling among Japanese adults were carried out in 2003, 2008, and 2013. At the part of the surveys on addictive behaviors in disaster stricken area by the Great East Japan Earthquake, the nationwide survey on benzodiazepine dependence was conducted in 2013. Epidemiological features of prevalent addictive disorders and behaviors were described. We observed large number of estimated patients with addictive disorders or behaviors in Japan, and the considerable proportion of them was not connect to appropriate medical services.

Comparative sport injury epidemiological study on a Spanish sample of 25 different sports

OpenAIRE

Pujals, Constanza; Rubio, Víctor J.; Márquez, María Oliva; Sánchez, Ivan; Ruiz Barquín, Roberto

2016-01-01

Reconocimiento-Compartir igual Sport injury is a widely extended morbidity condition. However, epidemiological studies are far from giving a convergent outlook. Moreover, there is a lack of studies comparing relative risks of different groups of sports. The present paper is aimed to carry out a descriptive epidemiological study of sport injuries of athletes from 25 sport modalities in order to identify risk factors as well as to compare epidemiological characteristics according to the ...

THE IMPORTANCE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY IN OPTOMETRY ABSTRACT

African Journals Online (AJOL)

LIVINGSTON

and determinants of health-related states or events in specified ... populations. 2. to identify etiological factors (risk factors) in ... refraction and dispensing, the detection/diagnosis and management of disease in the eye, and rehabilitation of ... Optometry, epidemiology, blindness, refractive error, frequency, distribution.

[Epidemiology of work-related accidents in the Lazio Region of Italy].

Science.gov (United States)

Marchetti, Aurora; Mantovani, Jessica; Di Lallo, D; Di Napoli, A; Guasticchi, Gabriella

2011-01-01

Prevention of work-related accidents requires an in-depth epidemiological assessment of the issue. In Italy the most used databases are from the national insurance (INAIL) and research (ISPESL) institutes. However, these data are only available several years after the time of accident. To describe the characteristics of accidents and evaluate factors potentially associated with hospitalization using the Information System of Hospital Emergency Departments (SIES). We analyzed 51.705 Emergency Department (ED) work-related accident admissions in the Lazio Region of Italy in 2008 among workers aged 16-65 years. Information on socio-demographics, diagnosis, triage codes, and outcome of ED admissions were gathered. We performed a logistic regression model to estimate association between these factors and risk of hospitalization after ED admission. The subjects' mean age was 39.1 (SD 11.0); 71.5% woere men, 12.7% were foreigners, 5.9% arrived by ambulance, 4.5% with triage red/yellow tags, 2.7% were hospitalized. Diagnosis was trauma in 85.1%, orthopaedic lesions in 8.3%. We found a higher risk of hospitalization in subjects with: one year of age increase (OR=1.02; 95% CIs: 1.01-1.03), males (OR=1.68; 95% CIs: 1.44-1.97), foreigners coming from countries with high emigration rates (OR=1.55; 95% CIs: 1.31-1.82), ED triage red/yellow tags (OR=84.47; 95% CIs: 47.06-151.60). It was confirmed that data fr-om an emergency health care information system can be a useful complement to information gathered by national insurance and research institutes, thus resolving the limit posed by the delay in availability for analysis of these data after the occurrence of accidents. We also identified some factors potentially associated with more serious accidents, which constitute a basis for planning and implementing specific public health preventive interventions.

Epidemiology of cancer in young persons in West Cumbria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Snee, M.P.

1987-01-01

A brief report is given of a lecture by Professor Gardner of the MRC in which some of the epidemiological evidence of cancer in young persons in the vicinity of the Sellafield site was reviewed. The studies that the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit at Southampton were currently undertaking in relation to Recommendations 1,2 and 3 of the Black Committee 1984 Report were also outlined. Some of the questions put to Professor Gardner after his lecture are briefly discussed. (UK)

The epidemiology of firework-related injuries in the United States: 2000-2010.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Justin Xavier; McGwin, Gerald; Griffin, Russell L

2014-11-01

The purpose of this study is to examine the epidemiology of firework-related injuries among an emergency department (ED) nationally representative population of the United States for the years 2000-2010, including whether the type of firework causing the injury is differential by patient demographics and whether the severity of injury is associated with the firework type. The data analysed in this study was collected from the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC's) National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). A total of 2812 injuries represented an estimated 97,562 firework-related injuries treated in emergency departments within the United States from 2000 to 2010. The incidence generally decreased over time. With respect to age, the rate was higher for children, with the highest rates being observed for 10-19 year olds (7.28 per 100,000 persons) and 0-9 year olds (5.45 per 100,000 persons). The injury rate was nearly three times higher for males compared to the female counterparts (4.48 vs. 1.57 per 100,000 persons). Females were less likely than males to severely injure themselves with all types of fireworks besides sparklers/novelty devices (OR 1.08, CI 0.26-4.38). The results from this suggest that firework-related injuries have decreased by nearly 30% over the 11-year period between 2000 and 2010. Moreover, there has been a decreasing trend in the type of firework causing injury for every firework type excluding the unspecified firework type. However, adolescents of 10-19 years old had the highest rate of injury for fireworks over the 11-year period. In addition odds of injury are differential by firework type. Understanding the specific types of fireworks may lead to better preventative methods and regulations. Moreover, preventative methods should be taken to reduce the rate of firework-related injuries among U.S. youths [1], and possibly more regulations and enforcement of laws geared towards prohibiting novice use of fireworks. Published

Epidemiology of low back pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Skovron, M L

1992-10-01

At present, although there have been many epidemiological studies of risk factors for low back pain, there are few risk factors established in prospective studies; and our understanding of them remains relatively crude. Individuals in jobs requiring manual materials handling, particularly repeated heavy lifting and lifting while twisting, are at increased risk of back pain leading to work absence. In addition, exposure to whole-body vibration and job requirements for static postures are associated with back pain. Individual trunk strength has not been consistently demonstrated as associated with back pain; although there is some suggestion that when work requirements for heavy lifting exceed individual capacities, back pain is more likely to occur. The pattern of peak age at onset in the 20's is consistent with back pain development early in working life. Among other individual characteristics, only cigarette smoking has consistently been associated with back pain; and the biological mechanism for this finding is not understood. Evidence with respect to spinal flexibility, aerobic capacity, educational attainment and other variables is suggestive but not consistent. There is some evidence that the individual's relation to work, expressed as job satisfaction or supervisor rating, is also related to work absence due to back pain. While it is possible to describe, however crudely, the characteristics placing people at risk for back pain leading to work absence and/or medical attention, the problem of predicting chronicity and thus identifying patients for more intensive clinical intervention remains unresolved. At this time, only age of the patient and certain clinical features of the back pain such as the presence of sciatic symptoms, duration of the current episode, and history of prior episodes are consistently demonstrated predictors. In chronic patients, there is suggestive evidence that spinal flexibility, trunk strength, and certain psychological

Health Communication in Social Media: Message Features Predicting User Engagement on Diabetes-Related Facebook Pages.

Science.gov (United States)

Rus, Holly M; Cameron, Linda D

2016-10-01

Social media provides unprecedented opportunities for enhancing health communication and health care, including self-management of chronic conditions such as diabetes. Creating messages that engage users is critical for enhancing message impact and dissemination. This study analyzed health communications within ten diabetes-related Facebook pages to identify message features predictive of user engagement. The Common-Sense Model of Illness Self-Regulation and established health communication techniques guided content analyses of 500 Facebook posts. Each post was coded for message features predicted to engage users and numbers of likes, shares, and comments during the week following posting. Multi-level, negative binomial regressions revealed that specific features predicted different forms of engagement. Imagery emerged as a strong predictor; messages with images had higher rates of liking and sharing relative to messages without images. Diabetes consequence information and positive identity predicted higher sharing while negative affect, social support, and crowdsourcing predicted higher commenting. Negative affect, crowdsourcing, and use of external links predicted lower sharing while positive identity predicted lower commenting. The presence of imagery weakened or reversed the positive relationships of several message features with engagement. Diabetes control information and negative affect predicted more likes in text-only messages, but fewer likes when these messages included illustrative imagery. Similar patterns of imagery's attenuating effects emerged for the positive relationships of consequence information, control information, and positive identity with shares and for positive relationships of negative affect and social support with comments. These findings hold promise for guiding communication design in health-related social media.

The Epidemiology of Antisocial Behavioral Syndromes in Adulthood: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III

Science.gov (United States)

Goldstein, Risë B.; Chou, S. Patricia; Saha, Tulshi D.; Smith, Sharon M.; Jung, Jeesun; Zhang, Haitao; Pickering, Roger P.; Ruan, W. June; Huang, Boji; Grant, Bridget F.

2015-01-01

Objective To present current, nationally representative U.S. findings on prevalence, correlates, psychiatric comorbidity, disability and treatment of DSM-5 antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and syndromal adult antisocial behavior without conduct disorder before age 15 (AABS). Method Face-to-face interviews with respondents (n=36,309) in the 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions–III. DSM-5 alcohol, nicotine, specific drug use disorders, and selected mood, anxiety, trauma-related, eating, and personality disorders were assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule–5. Results Prevalences of ASPD and AABS were 4.3% and 20.3%, highest among male, white, Native American, younger, and unmarried respondents, those with high school or less education, lower incomes, and Western residence. Both antisocial syndromes were significantly associated with 12-month and lifetime substance use, dysthymia/persistent depressive, bipolar I, posttraumatic stress and borderline and schizotypal personality disorders (ORs=1.2-7.0). ASPD was additionally associated with 12-month agoraphobia and lifetime generalized anxiety disorder; AABS, with 12-month and lifetime major depressive and 12-month generalized anxiety disorders. Both were associated with significant disability (pantisocial respondents were untreated. Conclusions One in 4 U.S. adults exhibits syndromal antisocial behavior, with similar sociodemographic and psychiatric correlates and disability regardless of whether onset occurred before age 15, illustrating the clinical and public health significance of both ASPD and AABS. In addition to laying groundwork for estimates of social and economic costs, and further etiologic and nosologic research, these findings highlight the urgency of effectively preventing and treating antisocial syndromes, including investigation of whether treatment for comorbidity hastens symptomatic remission and improves

International Lymphoma Epidemiology Consortium

Science.gov (United States)

The InterLymph Consortium, or formally the International Consortium of Investigators Working on Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Epidemiologic Studies, is an open scientific forum for epidemiologic research in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

First evidence of a prospective relation between avoidance of internal states and borderline personality disorder features in adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharp, Carla; Kalpakci, Allison; Mellick, William; Venta, Amanda; Temple, Jeff R

2015-03-01

At least two leading developmental models of borderline personality disorder (BPD) emphasize the role of accurate reflection and understanding of internal states as significant to the development of BPD features (Fonagy, Int J Psycho-Anal 72:639-656, 1991; Linehan, Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder, 1993). The current study used the construct of experiential avoidance (EA) to operationalize avoidance of internal states and sought to examine (1) the concurrent relations between EA and borderline features in a large and diverse community sample; and (2) the prospective relation between EA and borderline features over a 1-year follow-up, controlling for baseline levels of borderline features. N = 881 adolescents recruited from public schools in a large metropolitan area participated in baseline assessments and N = 730 completed follow-up assessments. Two main findings were reported. First, EA was associated with borderline features, depressive, and anxiety symptoms at the bivariate level, but when all variables were considered together, depression and anxiety no longer remained significantly associated with borderline features, suggesting that the relations among these symptom clusters may be accounted for by EA as a cross-cutting underlying psychological process. Second, EA predicted levels of borderline symptoms at 1-year follow-up, controlling for baseline levels of borderline symptoms, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Results are interpreted against the background of developmental theories of borderline personality disorder.

Childhood vitiligo: Clinical epidemiological profile

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asmae Lahlou

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Objective: To study the clinical and the epidemiologic profiles of childhood vitiligo. Patients and Methods: We prospectively analyzed the clinical data of children with vitiligo presented to the dermatology derpartement at University Hospital – Fès for 5 years from May 2011 to May 2016. This study included 31 patients. All patients were assessed for the natural history, clinical characteristics, family history, and associated abnormalities of vitiligo. Results: Of the 31 children with vitiligo 9 (29,03% were boys and 21 (67.74% were girls. The mean age of onset of the vitiligo was 10 years. The mean duration of the disease was 38,9 weeks. The most common type of vitiligo was vitiligo vulgaris (49.5% followed by focal vitiligo (39%, acrofacial vitiligo (32%, and segmental vitiligo (16% The most frequent site of onset was the extremities followed by the head and the neck, then the trunk and the genitalia. Of the 31 children with vitiligo, 39% had a family history and 4 % had an antecedent of autoimmune diesease like le diabète, une thyroïdite, l’anémie et le psoriasis, retrouvé. Conclusion: Our children have a strong family history of vitiligo and they are developing the disease at a slightly older age compared with those of other studies; however, other epidemiologic features appear to be similar to those reported in the previously published studies.

A Clinico- Epidemiological Study Of Filarial Related Orthopaedic Manifestations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patond K.R

1992-01-01

Full Text Available An epidemiological study was undertaken to study the incidence and distribution of orthopaedic manifestations of filariasis in an endemic area. A total of 207 cases were clinically examined and investigated. Patients were divided into three groups , viz., Group A: Orthopaedic manifestations with no history of filariasis . Group B: Orthopaedic manifestations with history of filariasis such as microfilaraemia or filarial fevers etc., Group C: Orthopaedic manifestations with chronic manifestations such as elephantiasis, hydrocele etc. To confirm filarial etiology, all the cases were examined for the presence of filarial antibody by indirect ELISA using wuchereda bancrofti microfilarial excretory- secretary antigen (wd Mf ESAg . A total of 61 of 102 patients of Group A, 14 of 21 patients of group B, and 73 of 84 patients of Group C were positive for filarial antibody. This study showed the prevalence of filarial antibody in about 71.4% of various orthopaedic manifestations.

Modelers' perception of mathematical modeling in epidemiology: a web-based survey.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gilles Hejblum

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Mathematical modeling in epidemiology (MME is being used increasingly. However, there are many uncertainties in terms of definitions, uses and quality features of MME. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To delineate the current status of these models, a 10-item questionnaire on MME was devised. Proposed via an anonymous internet-based survey, the questionnaire was completed by 189 scientists who had published in the domain of MME. A small minority (18% of respondents claimed to have in mind a concise definition of MME. Some techniques were identified by the researchers as characterizing MME (e.g. Markov models, while others-at the same level of sophistication in terms of mathematics-were not (e.g. Cox regression. The researchers' opinions were also contrasted about the potential applications of MME, perceived as highly relevant for providing insight into complex mechanisms and less relevant for identifying causal factors. The quality criteria were those of good science and were not related to the size and the nature of the public health problems addressed. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study shows that perceptions on the nature, uses and quality criteria of MME are contrasted, even among the very community of published authors in this domain. Nevertheless, MME is an emerging discipline in epidemiology and this study underlines that it is associated with specific areas of application and methods. The development of this discipline is likely to deserve a framework providing recommendations and guidance at various steps of the studies, from design to report.

Analysis of radiological features relative to pathology in pelvic chondrosarcoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou Jianjun; Ding Jianguo; Wang Jianhua; Zeng Mengsu; Yan Fuhua; Zhou Kangrong; Ji Yuan

2008-01-01

Objective: To Explore the imaging features relative to pathology of pelvic chondrosarcoma and to evaluate the clinical value. Methods: All 12 cases patients with primary pelvic chondrosarcoma confirmed by pathological examination underwent radiography, spiral CT plain scanning, MR SE-T 1 WI, FSE-T 2 WI and SE-T 1 WI enhancement scanning before operation. The imaging data was reviewed and analyzed retrospectively to compare with surgical and pathological results. Results: Eleven conventional chondrosarcoma and one dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma were located in different parts of pelvis. The diameters of the tumors ranged from 4.7 to 17.0 cm with one case less than 5.0 cm, 6 cases being 5.0-10.0 cm and 5 cases more than 10.0 cm. The CT value of 5 eases was identical or inferior to muscle with mild to moderate 'ring-and-arc' mineralization and soft mass. MR imaging depict the high water content of these lesions as very high signal intensity was detected on T 2 WI. Six cases showed typical 'ting- and-arc' fibrous tissue which enhanced persistently. Aggressive features of deep endosteal scalloping and soft-tissue extension was also found in these cases. Conclusions: Radiographic findings can suggest the diagnosis of pelvic chondrosarcoma when there is typical 'ring-and-arc' fibrous tissue, mineralization, aggressive features of deep endosteal scalloping and large soft-tissue extension. MR imaging reflect directly this pathologic structure, superior to that of CT and radiography. CT is optimal to detect the matrix mineralization, particularly when it is subtle or when the lesion is located in anatomically complex pelvic areas. (authors)

Transforming Epidemiology for 21st Century Medicine and Public Health

Science.gov (United States)

Khoury, Muin J.; Lam, Tram Kim; Ioannidis, John P.A.; Hartge, Patricia; Spitz, Margaret R.; Buring, Julie E.; Chanock, Stephen J.; Croyle, Robert T.; Goddard, Katrina A.; Ginsburg, Geoffrey S.; Herceg, Zdenko; Hiatt, Robert A.; Hoover, Robert N.; Hunter, David J.; Kramer, Barnet S.; Lauer, Michael S.; Meyerhardt, Jeffrey A.; Olopade, Olufunmilayo I.; Palmer, Julie R.; Sellers, Thomas A.; Seminara, Daniela; Ransohoff, David F.; Rebbeck, Timothy R.; Tourassi, Georgia; Winn, Deborah M.; Zauber, Ann; Schully, Sheri D.

2013-01-01

In 2012, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) engaged the scientific community to provide a vision for cancer epidemiology in the 21st century. Eight overarching thematic recommendations, with proposed corresponding actions for consideration by funding agencies, professional societies, and the research community emerged from the collective intellectual discourse. The themes are (i) extending the reach of epidemiology beyond discovery and etiologic research to include multilevel analysis, intervention evaluation, implementation, and outcomes research; (ii) transforming the practice of epidemiology by moving towards more access and sharing of protocols, data, metadata, and specimens to foster collaboration, to ensure reproducibility and replication, and accelerate translation; (iii) expanding cohort studies to collect exposure, clinical and other information across the life course and examining multiple health-related endpoints; (iv) developing and validating reliable methods and technologies to quantify exposures and outcomes on a massive scale, and to assess concomitantly the role of multiple factors in complex diseases; (v) integrating “big data” science into the practice of epidemiology; (vi) expanding knowledge integration to drive research, policy and practice; (vii) transforming training of 21st century epidemiologists to address interdisciplinary and translational research; and (viii) optimizing the use of resources and infrastructure for epidemiologic studies. These recommendations can transform cancer epidemiology and the field of epidemiology in general, by enhancing transparency, interdisciplinary collaboration, and strategic applications of new technologies. They should lay a strong scientific foundation for accelerated translation of scientific discoveries into individual and population health benefits. PMID:23462917

The epidemiology of bacterial vaginosis in relation to sexual behaviour

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Temmerman Marleen

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Bacterial vaginosis (BV has been most consistently linked to sexual behaviour, and the epidemiological profile of BV mirrors that of established sexually transmitted infections (STIs. It remains a matter of debate however whether BV pathogenesis does actually involve sexual transmission of pathogenic micro-organisms from men to women. We therefore made a critical appraisal of the literature on BV in relation to sexual behaviour. Discussion G. vaginalis carriage and BV occurs rarely with children, but has been observed among adolescent, even sexually non-experienced girls, contradicting that sexual transmission is a necessary prerequisite to disease acquisition. G. vaginalis carriage is enhanced by penetrative sexual contact but also by non-penetrative digito-genital contact and oral sex, again indicating that sex per se, but not necessarily coital transmission is involved. Several observations also point at female-to-male rather than at male-to-female transmission of G. vaginalis, presumably explaining the high concordance rates of G. vaginalis carriage among couples. Male antibiotic treatment has not been found to protect against BV, condom use is slightly protective, whereas male circumcision might protect against BV. BV is also common among women-who-have-sex-with-women and this relates at least in part to non-coital sexual behaviours. Though male-to-female transmission cannot be ruled out, overall there is little evidence that BV acts as an STD. Rather, we suggest BV may be considered a sexually enhanced disease (SED, with frequency of intercourse being a critical factor. This may relate to two distinct pathogenetic mechanisms: (1 in case of unprotected intercourse alkalinisation of the vaginal niche enhances a shift from lactobacilli-dominated microflora to a BV-like type of microflora and (2 in case of unprotected and protected intercourse mechanical transfer of perineal enteric bacteria is enhanced by coitus. A similar

An Application of Epidemiological Modeling to Information Diffusion

Science.gov (United States)

McCormack, Robert; Salter, William

Messages often spread within a population through unofficial - particularly web-based - media. Such ideas have been termed "memes." To impede the flow of terrorist messages and to promote counter messages within a population, intelligence analysts must understand how messages spread. We used statistical language processing technologies to operationalize "memes" as latent topics in electronic text and applied epidemiological techniques to describe and analyze patterns of message propagation. We developed our methods and applied them to English-language newspapers and blogs in the Arab world. We found that a relatively simple epidemiological model can reproduce some dynamics of observed empirical relationships.

Development and application of Human Genome Epidemiology

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Jingwen

2017-12-01

Epidemiology is a science that studies distribution of diseases and health in population and its influencing factors, it also studies how to prevent and cure disease and promote health strategies and measures. Epidemiology has developed rapidly in recent years and it is an intercross subject with various other disciplines to form a series of branch disciplines such as Genetic epidemiology, molecular epidemiology, drug epidemiology and tumor epidemiology. With the implementation and completion of Human Genome Project (HGP), Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE) has emerged at this historic moment. In this review, the development of Human Genome Epidemiology, research content, the construction and structure of relevant network, research standards, as well as the existing results and problems are briefly outlined.

Sexual dimorphism in medulloblastoma features.

Science.gov (United States)

Zannoni, Gian Franco; Ciucci, Alessandra; Marucci, Gianluca; Travaglia, Daniele; Stigliano, Egidio; Foschini, Maria Pia; Scambia, Giovanni; Gallo, Daniela

2016-03-01

Male sex is a risk factor for medulloblastoma (MB), and is also a negative predictor for clinical outcome. The aim of this study was to assess sex differences in tumour biological features and hormone receptor profiles in a cohort of MB patients. Sixty-four MBs and five normal cerebella were included in the study. Cell proliferation (Ki67), apoptosis (cleaved caspase-3) and microvessel density (CD31) were evaluated in tumours by immunohistochemistry. Tissues were analysed for oestrogen receptor (ER)α, ERβ1, ERβ2, ERβ5 and androgen receptor (AR) expression. The results demonstrated sex-specific features in MBs, with tumours from females showing a higher apoptosis/proliferation ratio and less tumour vascularization than tumours from males. MBs were negative for ERα and AR, but expressed ERβ isoforms at similar levels between the sexes. Altogether, these findings indicate that signalling mechanisms that control cell turnover and angiogenesis operate more efficiently in females than in males. The lack of sex differences in the hormone receptor profiles suggests that circulating oestrogens could be the major determinants of the sexual dimorphism observed in MB features. Here, we provide molecular support for epidemiological data showing sex differences in MB incidence and outcome, completely defining the hormone receptor profile of the tumours. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Epidemiological, Clinical, and Histopathological Features of Breast Cancer in Haiti

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Vincent DeGennaro Jr

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Little is known about the epidemiology of breast cancer in developing countries, and Haiti has perhaps the least data of any country in the Western Hemisphere. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of all patients enrolled in an ongoing breast cancer treatment program in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2017. Data were drawn from each patient's electronic medical record, paper chart, and biopsy results. Results: The records of 525 women with breast cancer were reviewed for this study. The median age at presentation was 49 years (n = 507. The risk factors observed were as follows: postmenopausal, 50.8% (n = 354; nulliparity, 15.7% (n = 338; hormonal contraception use, 35.0% (n = 309; never breastfed, 20.6% (n = 316; family history of any cancer, 22.0% (n = 295; overweight, 51.5% (n = 332; and smoking, 5.0% (n = 338. Of all those staged, 83.9% (n = 447 of the patients presented with stage III/IV disease and more than half delayed care for > 12 months after first noticing a breast mass. For the subset of tumors for which estrogen receptor (ER; n = 245 and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2; n = 179 status was available, the prevalence of ER-positive tumors was 51.8%, of HER2-positive tumors was 19.6%, and of triple-negative tumors was 38.5%. The 12-month mortality rate (n = 425 was 18.4% overall and 27.5% for those who presented with stage IV disease. Median survival was not reached. Conclusion: Breast cancer in Haiti presents at an early age and advanced stage. Triple-negative, ER-negative, and high-grade tumors are common. Delays in seeking care and incomplete treatment likely contribute to the high mortality rate; however, as in black women in the United States, the distribution of tumor types may contribute to disparate outcomes.

Epidemiology, Treatment Efficacy, and Anxiety Aspects of Music Students Affected by Playing-Related Pain: A Retrospective Evaluation with Follow-up.

Science.gov (United States)

Ioannou, Christos I; Hafer, Julia; Lee, André; Altenmüller, Eckart

2018-03-01

Playing-related pain (PRP) is a common problem among music students. We retrospectively assessed epidemiological factors that contributed to the manifestation of PRP and evaluated the efficacy of treatment methods used by affected music students. The long-term course of PRP symptoms was also examined, along with current (today) levels of trait anxieties. Demographic and epidemiological data of 186 music students who visited the musicians' outpatient clinic over a 5-year period were retrieved. Of these students, 122 had been diagnosed with PRP and were invited to participate (response rate 61.5%) in a follow-up online survey to: a) estimate the long-term course of their PRP symptoms, b) assess the efficacy of treatment methods they used, and c) assess their current trait anxiety (general and performance-related) using two standardized psychodiagnostic questionnaires. Two-thirds of music students who sought medical care were affected by PRP, with most being affected during their first year of studies, and with 69% having acute rather than chronic pain. The sudden increase in practice time was the main triggering factor for PRP (but not for non-PRP-related problems). Concerning the course of PRP, almost all students recovered or improved significantly. Students reported that "active" treatment methods (e.g., physical activities) were more effective than "passive" methods (e.g., oral medications). Psychodiagnostic questionnaires indicated that about 40% of PRP-affected students currently had increased levels of trait anxieties (music and non-music related), possibly warranting further medical assistance. PRP in music students occurs mainly at the beginning of their studies and has a good prognosis, although recovery may be lengthy. It is necessary to provide students with early information about PRP and about the multidimensional treatment framework that allows for individualized care of PRP in affected music students.

Epidemiology: Past, Present, and Future Impacts on Understanding Disease Dynamics and Improving Plant Disease Management-A Summary of Focus Issue Articles.

Science.gov (United States)

Ojiambo, P S; Yuen, J; van den Bosch, F; Madden, L V

2017-10-01

Epidemiology has made significant contributions to plant pathology by elucidating the general principles underlying the development of disease epidemics. This has resulted in a greatly improved theoretical and empirical understanding of the dynamics of disease epidemics in time and space, predictions of disease outbreaks or the need for disease control in real-time basis, and tactical and strategic solutions to disease problems. Availability of high-resolution experimental data at multiple temporal and spatial scales has now provided a platform to test and validate theories on the spread of diseases at a wide range of spatial scales ranging from the local to the landscape level. Relatively new approaches in plant disease epidemiology, ranging from network to information theory, coupled with the availability of large-scale datasets and the rapid development of computer technology, are leading to revolutionary thinking about epidemics that can result in considerable improvement of strategic and tactical decision making in the control and management of plant diseases. Methods that were previously restricted to topics such as population biology or evolution are now being employed in epidemiology to enable a better understanding of the forces that drive the development of plant disease epidemics in space and time. This Focus Issue of Phytopathology features research articles that address broad themes in epidemiology including social and political consequences of disease epidemics, decision theory and support, pathogen dispersal and disease spread, disease assessment and pathogen biology and disease resistance. It is important to emphasize that these articles are just a sample of the types of research projects that are relevant to epidemiology. Below, we provide a succinct summary of the articles that are published in this Focus Issue .

Panel 1: Epidemiology and Diagnosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Homøe, Preben; Kværner, Kari; Casey, Janet R; Damoiseaux, Roger A M J; van Dongen, Thijs M A; Gunasekera, Hasantha; Jensen, Ramon G; Kvestad, Ellen; Morris, Peter S; Weinreich, Heather M

2017-04-01

Objective To create a literature review between 2011 and June 1, 2015, on advances in otitis media (OM) epidemiology and diagnosis (including relevant audiology studies). Data Sources Electronic search engines (PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library) with a predefined search strategy. Review Methods Articles with appropriate epidemiologic methodology for OM, including acute mastoiditis and eustachian tube dysfunction. Items included OM worldwide and in high-risk populations, OM-related hearing loss, news in OM diagnostics, prenatal risk factors and comorbidities, postnatal risk factors, genetics, microbiological epidemiology, guidelines, and quality of life. Conclusions Diagnostic evidence and genetic studies are increasing; guidelines are introduced worldwide; and there is evidence of benefit of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. New risk factors and comordities are identified in the study period, and quality of life is affected in children and their families. Implications for Practice Chronic suppurative OM occurs worldwide and contributes to lifelong hearing loss. Uniform definitions are still lacking and should be provided. An association between HIV and chronic suppurative OM has been found. Tympanometry is recommended for diagnosis, with or without pneumatic otoscopy. Video otoscopy, algorithms, and validated questionnaires may assist clinicians. Childhood obesity is associated with OM. Heritability accounts for 20% to 50% of OM diagnoses. OM-prone children seem to produce weaker immunologic responses to pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Clinicians tend to individualize treatment without adhering to guidelines.

Maladaptive Personality and Neuropsychological Features of Highly Relationally Aggressive Adolescent Girls

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Michael Savage

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The maladaptive personality and neuropsychological features of highly relationally aggressive females were examined in a group of 30 grade 6, 7, and 8 girls and group-matched controls. Employing a multistage cluster sampling procedure a group of highly, yet almost exclusively, relationally aggressive females were identified and matched on a number of variables to a group of nonaggressive females. Parents of the students in both groups completed the Coolidge Personality and Neuropsychological Inventory, a 200-item DSM-IV-TR aligned, parent-as-respondent, standardized measure of children’s psychological functioning. It was found that high levels of relational aggression, in the absence of physical and verbal aggression, were associated with symptoms of DSM-IV-TR Axis I oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. The highly relationally aggressive group also exhibited a wide variety of personality traits associated with DSM-IV-TR Axis II paranoid, borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, schizotypal, and passive aggressive personality disorders that were not exhibited by the matched controls. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Changes in computed tomography features following preoperative chemotherapy for nephroblastoma: relation to histopathological classification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Olsen, Oeystein E.; Jeanes, Annmarie C.; Roebuck, Derek J.; Owens, Catherine M.; Sebire, Neil J.; Risdon, Rupert A.; Michalski, Anthony J.

2004-01-01

The objective of this study is to assess computed tomography (CT) changes, both volume estimates and subjective features, following preoperative chemotherapy for nephroblastoma (Wilms' tumour) in patients treated on the United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group Wilms' Tumour Study-3 (UKW-3) protocol and to compare CT changes and histopathological classification. Twenty-one nephroblastomas in 15 patients treated on UKW-3 were included. All patients were examined by CT before and after preoperative chemotherapy treatment. CT images were reviewed (estimated volume change and subjectively assessed features). CT changes were compared to histopathological classification. Of the 21 tumours, all five high-risk tumours decreased in volume following chemotherapy (median -79%; range -37 to -91%). The sole low-risk tumour decreased in volume by 98%. Ten intermediate-risk tumours decreased in volume (median -72%; range -6 to -98%) and five intermediate-risk tumours increased (median +110%; range +11 to +164%). None of the five high-risk tumours, compared to 15/16 intermediate or low-risk tumours, became less dense and/or more homogeneous, or virtually disappeared, following chemotherapy. Volume change following chemotherapy did not relate to histopathological risk group. Changes in subjectively assessed qualitative CT features were more strongly related to histopathological risk group. (orig.)

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of myasthenia in the Krasnoyarsk region

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E. D. Gasymly

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Aim. To study the epidemiological features of myasthenia gravis in the Krasnoyarsk region.Materials and methods. 314 cases of myasthenia gravis, registered by the Krasnoyarsk regional health information analytical center, 87 of these patients were under constant monitoring.Results. Mean age of the patients was 45.4 (SD 4.5 years. The number of women in the observed group – 66 (75.86 %, which was 3 times more than men – 21 (24.14 %. The prevalence was 10.98 per 100.000 population, the primary incidence – 0.01 by 1000.Conclusion. Clinical features of the disease in the region were established, the register of patients with myasthenia was formed. From September 2016 a department of the neuromuscular pathology on the basis of advice Regional Hospital was formed.

IDGenerator: unique identifier generator for epidemiologic or clinical studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthias Olden

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Creating study identifiers and assigning them to study participants is an important feature in epidemiologic studies, ensuring the consistency and privacy of the study data. The numbering system for identifiers needs to be random within certain number constraints, to carry extensions coding for organizational information, or to contain multiple layers of numbers per participant to diversify data access. Available software can generate globally-unique identifiers, but identifier-creating tools meeting the special needs of epidemiological studies are lacking. We have thus set out to develop a software program to generate IDs for epidemiological or clinical studies. Results Our software IDGenerator creates unique identifiers that not only carry a random identifier for a study participant, but also support the creation of structured IDs, where organizational information is coded into the ID directly. This may include study center (for multicenter-studies, study track (for studies with diversified study programs, or study visit (baseline, follow-up, regularly repeated visits. Our software can be used to add a check digit to the ID to minimize data entry errors. It facilitates the generation of IDs in batches and the creation of layered IDs (personal data ID, study data ID, temporary ID, external data ID to ensure a high standard of data privacy. The software is supported by a user-friendly graphic interface that enables the generation of IDs in both standard text and barcode 128B format. Conclusion Our software IDGenerator can create identifiers meeting the specific needs for epidemiologic or clinical studies to facilitate study organization and data privacy. IDGenerator is freeware under the GNU General Public License version 3; a Windows port and the source code can be downloaded at the Open Science Framework website: https://osf.io/urs2g/ .

Integrating the landscape epidemiology and genetics of RNA viruses: rabies in domestic dogs as a model.

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Brunker, K; Hampson, K; Horton, D L; Biek, R

2012-12-01

Landscape epidemiology and landscape genetics combine advances in molecular techniques, spatial analyses and epidemiological models to generate a more real-world understanding of infectious disease dynamics and provide powerful new tools for the study of RNA viruses. Using dog rabies as a model we have identified how key questions regarding viral spread and persistence can be addressed using a combination of these techniques. In contrast to wildlife rabies, investigations into the landscape epidemiology of domestic dog rabies requires more detailed assessment of the role of humans in disease spread, including the incorporation of anthropogenic landscape features, human movements and socio-cultural factors into spatial models. In particular, identifying and quantifying the influence of anthropogenic features on pathogen spread and measuring the permeability of dispersal barriers are important considerations for planning control strategies, and may differ according to cultural, social and geographical variation across countries or continents. Challenges for dog rabies research include the development of metapopulation models and transmission networks using genetic information to uncover potential source/sink dynamics and identify the main routes of viral dissemination. Information generated from a landscape genetics approach will facilitate spatially strategic control programmes that accommodate for heterogeneities in the landscape and therefore utilise resources in the most cost-effective way. This can include the efficient placement of vaccine barriers, surveillance points and adaptive management for large-scale control programmes.

The epidemiology of bacterial meningitis in Kosovo.

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Namani, Sadie A; Koci, Remzie A; Qehaja-Buçaj, Emine; Ajazaj-Berisha, Lindita; Mehmeti, Murat

2014-07-14

The purpose of this study was to present the epidemiologic features of bacterial meningitis in the developing country of Kosovo. Data were collected from active surveillance of bacterial meningitis cases treated at the University Clinical Center of Kosovo in the years 2000 (first post-war year) and 2010. Meningitis cases in 2000 compared with 2010 showed a 35.5% decline in incidence (from 4.8 to 3.1 cases per 100,000 population) and a decrease in the case fatality rate from 10% to 5%. In children, there was a lower mortality rate (5% versus 2%) and a lower incidence of neurological complications (13% versus 16%) as compared to adults (32% versus 10% and 16% versus 35%, respectively). Neisseria meningitidis was the most common pathogen of bacterial meningitis in both study periods. Bacterial meningitis was most prevalent in the pediatric population, and showed an increase in the median age, from three years in 2000 to seven years in 2010. A steady number of bacterial meningitis cases in adults throughout last decade (around 20 cases per year) was recorded. During the last decade, gradual changes have been observed in the epidemiology of bacterial meningitis that are unrelated to the introduction of new vaccines, but are partly due to the improvement of living conditions.

The changing epidemiology and clinical features of infective endocarditis: A retrospective study of 196 episodes in a teaching hospital in China.

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Zhu, Wan; Zhang, Qian; Zhang, Jingping

2017-05-08

Infective endocarditis is an uncommon but life-threatening infectious disease. To our knowledge, current investigations of the characteristics of infective endocarditis in our region are scarce. In this study, we aimed to investigate the changes in the epidemiology and clinical features of infective endocarditis. A retrospective analysis of clinical data was performed using 196 infective endocarditis cases diagnosed between June 2004 and December 2012 at The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University. A comparative analysis of clinical risk factors was also included. The mean age of the patient cohort was 43.5 (29.0-55.8) years old. Of the 196 cases studied, 128 cases (65.3%) were left native valve infective endocarditis, 13 cases (6.6%) were left prosthetic valve infective endocarditis, and 47 cases (24%) were right valve infective endocarditis. In addition to natural valve endocarditis, many patients also exhibited various types of cardiopathy: 72 cases (36.7%) had congenital cardiovascular malformations, 37 cases (18.9%) had idiopathic mitral valve prolapse and 31 cases (15.8%) had no significant cardiac disease. The primary clinical manifestations that were observed included 168 cases with fever (85.7%), 131 cases with anemia (66.8%), 114 cases with hematuria (58.2%) and 58 cases with splenomegaly (29.6%). Positive blood cultures were detected in 96 cases (49%); the most commonly detected organism was Streptococcus viridans (41 cases; 42.7%), followed by 18 cases (18.8%) of Staphylococcus aureus and 10 cases (10.4%) of Enterococcus. With respect to risk factors, infection with Staphylococcus aureus or gram-negative bacilli (OR = 18.81, 95%CI = 2.39-148.2), congestive heart failure (OR = 8.854, 95%CI = 1.34-54.7), diabetes (OR = 7.224, 95%CI = 1.17-44.7) and age ≥ 60 years (OR = 6.861, 95%CI = 0.94-50.1) were major prognostic risk factors. Infective endocarditis is more common than previously believed, but there are regional

The Epidemiology of Antisocial Behavioral Syndromes in Adulthood: Results From the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III.

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Goldstein, Risë B; Chou, S Patricia; Saha, Tulshi D; Smith, Sharon M; Jung, Jeesun; Zhang, Haitao; Pickering, Roger P; Ruan, W June; Huang, Boji; Grant, Bridget F

2017-01-01

To present current, nationally representative US findings on prevalence, correlates, psychiatric comorbidity, disability, and treatment of DSM-5 antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and adulthood antisocial behavioral syndrome without conduct disorder before 15 years of age (AABS). Face-to-face interviews were conducted with respondents (N = 36,309) in the 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III. DSM-5 alcohol, nicotine, and specific drug use disorders and selected mood, anxiety, trauma-related, eating, and personality disorders were assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-5. Prevalences of ASPD and AABS were 4.3% and 20.3%, respectively, and were highest among male, white, Native American, younger, and unmarried respondents, those with high school or less education, lower incomes, and Western residence. Both antisocial syndromes were significantly associated with 12-month and lifetime substance use, dysthymia/persistent depressive, bipolar I, posttraumatic stress, and borderline and schizotypal personality disorders (odds ratios [ORs] = 1.2-7.0). ASPD was additionally associated with 12-month agoraphobia and lifetime generalized anxiety disorder (ORs = 1.3-1.6); AABS, with 12-month and lifetime major depressive and 12-month generalized anxiety disorders (ORs = 1.2-1.3). Both were associated with significant disability (P antisocial survey respondents were untreated. One in 4 US adults exhibits syndromal antisocial behavior, with similar sociodemographic and psychiatric correlates and disability regardless of whether onset occurred before 15 years of age, illustrating the clinical and public health significance of both ASPD and AABS. In addition to laying groundwork for estimates of social and economic costs, and further etiologic and nosologic research, these findings highlight the urgency of effectively preventing and treating antisocial syndromes, including investigation of

Anxiety: its role in the history of psychiatric epidemiology.

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Murphy, J M; Leighton, A H

2009-07-01

The role played by anxiety in the history of psychiatric epidemiology has not been well recognized. Such lack of understanding retarded the incremental growth of psychiatric research in general populations. It seems useful to look back on this history while deliberations are being carried out about how anxiety will be presented in DSM-V. Drawing on the literature and our own research, we examined work that was carried out during and after the Second World War by a Research Branch of the United States War Department, by the Stirling County Study, and by the Midtown Manhattan Study. The differential influences of Meyerian psychobiology and Freudian psychoanalysis are noted. The instruments developed in the early epidemiologic endeavors used questions about nervousness, palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, upset stomach, etc. These symptoms are important features of what the clinical literature called 'manifest', 'free-floating' or 'chronic anxiety'. A useful descriptive name is 'autonomic anxiety'. Although not focusing on specific circumstances as in Panic and Phobic disorders, a non-specific form of autonomic anxiety is a common, disabling and usually chronic disorder that received empirical verification in studies of several community populations. It is suggested that two types of general anxiety may need to be recognized, one dominated by excessive worry and feelings of stress, as in the current DSM-IV definition of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and another emphasizing frequent unexplainable autonomic fearfulness, as in the early epidemiologic studies.

Epidemiological studies on Brassica vegetables and cancer risk

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verhoeven, D.T.H.; Goldbohm, R.A.; Poppel, G. van; Verhagen, H.; Brandt, P.A. van den

1996-01-01

This paper gives an overview of the epidemiological data concerning the cancer-preventive effect of brassica vegetables, including cabbage, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower. The protective effect of brassicas against cancer may be due to their relatively high content of

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of Reiter's syndrome in Jordanian patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Al-Mrayat, Z.; Abdallat, S.; Marabha, T.

2004-01-01

Objective: To study the epidemiological and clinical features of Reiter's syndrome in patients who visited the rheumatology clinic in King Hussein Medical Centre (KHMC), Jordan. Methods: A prospective study, including 43 patients with the diagnosis of Reiter's syndrome was done. Patients were assessed by taking complete history, physical examination and appropriate investigations including urinalysis and culture, stool examination and culture, synovial fluid analysis, complement fixation test for Chlamydia trachomatis, complete blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, rheumatoid factor, antinuclear antibodies. HLA-B27 and radiological study. Results: All patients in this study were white men, with mean age of 26.3 years. HLA-B27 was positive in 37 patients (86%). Most cases were post venereal (32 patients, 74%) while the rest were dysenteric. The clinical manifestations were arthritis in all patients (100%), urethritis in 21 patients (48%), ocular involvement in 20 patients (46%), diarrhea in 12 patients (28%), painless oral ulcers in 11 patients (26%), skin lesions in 5 patients (12%) and constitutional symptoms in 7 patients (16%). Arthritis was mostly oligoarticular (25 patients, 58%) with asymmetrical pattern in 34 patients (78%). Large joints of lower extremity were most involved (29 patients, 68%). Rheumatoid factor and antinuclear antibodies were negative in all patients. Relapses occurred in 7 patients (16%) after a mean period of 6.2 months. Conclusion: It is concluded that the epidemiological and clinical features of Reiter's syndrome in Jordan are not different from those in the literature. (author)

Statistical significance of epidemiological data. Seminar: Evaluation of epidemiological studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weber, K.H.

1993-01-01

In stochastic damages, the numbers of events, e.g. the persons who are affected by or have died of cancer, and thus the relative frequencies (incidence or mortality) are binomially distributed random variables. Their statistical fluctuations can be characterized by confidence intervals. For epidemiologic questions, especially for the analysis of stochastic damages in the low dose range, the following issues are interesting: - Is a sample (a group of persons) with a definite observed damage frequency part of the whole population? - Is an observed frequency difference between two groups of persons random or statistically significant? - Is an observed increase or decrease of the frequencies with increasing dose random or statistically significant and how large is the regression coefficient (= risk coefficient) in this case? These problems can be solved by sttistical tests. So-called distribution-free tests and tests which are not bound to the supposition of normal distribution are of particular interest, such as: - χ 2 -independence test (test in contingency tables); - Fisher-Yates-test; - trend test according to Cochran; - rank correlation test given by Spearman. These tests are explained in terms of selected epidemiologic data, e.g. of leukaemia clusters, of the cancer mortality of the Japanese A-bomb survivors especially in the low dose range as well as on the sample of the cancer mortality in the high background area in Yangjiang (China). (orig.) [de

The contribution of epidemiology

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brandt, P. van den; Voorrips, L.; Hertz-Picciotto, I.; Shuker, D.; Boeing, H.; Speijers, G.; Guittard, C.; Kleiner, J.; Knowles, M.; Wolk, A.; Goldbohm, A.

2002-01-01

Epidemiologic studies directly contribute data on risk (or benefit) in humans as the investigated species, and in the full food intake range normally encountered by humans. This paper starts with introducing the epidemiologic approach, followed by a discussion of perceived differences between

Epidemiology of Uterine Myomas: A Review

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Radmila Sparic

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Myomas are the most common benign tumors of the genital organs in women of childbearing age, causing significant morbidity and impairing their quality of life. In our investigation, we have reviewed the epidemiological data related to the development of myomas in order to homogenize the current data. Therefore, a MEDLINE and PubMed search, for the years 1990-2013, was conducted using a combination of keywords, such as "myoma," "leiomyoma," "fibroids," "myomectomy," "lifestyle," "cigarette," "alcohol," "vitamins," "diet," and "hysterectomy". Randomized controlled studies were selected based upon the authors’ estimation. Peer-reviewed articles examining myomas were sorted by their relevance and included in this research. Additional articles were also identified from the references of the retrieved papers and included according to authors’ estimation. Many epidemiologic factors are linked to the development of myomas; however, many are not yet fully understood. These factors include age, race, heritage, reproductive factors, sex hormones, obesity, lifestyle (diet, caffeine and alcohol consumption, smoking, physical activity and stress, environmental and other influences, such as hypertension and infection. Some of the epidemiological data is conflicting. Thus, more research is needed to understand all the risk factors that contribute to myoma formation and how they exactly influence their onset and growth.

Suicide by burning: epidemiological and clinical profiles.

Science.gov (United States)

Theodorou, Panagiotis; Phan, Vu T Q; Weinand, Christian; Maegele, Marc; Maurer, Christoph A; Perbix, Walter; Leitsch, Sebastian; Lefering, Rolf; Spilker, Gerald

2011-04-01

Self-immolation constitutes a rare form of suicide in developed countries, though it accounts for unique injury characteristics in the burn intensive care unit. The aim of this study was to present the epidemiological and clinical features of patients burned during a suicidal attempt seen in a North Rhine-Westphalia burn intensive care unit (BICU). To address this aim, we undertook a 21-year retrospective study involving patients with thermal injuries admitted to the largest burn unit in Germany. A total of 125 suicide-related burn victims were identified in the study period (9.4%). Comparing the self-immolation group with the rest burn patient cohort, suicide victims were more likely to be single and to act under the influence of alcohol. The suicidal group had a larger extent of burns, higher incidence of inhalation injury, required more surgical procedures, catecholamines, blood transfusions, and a longer BICU stay. Their clinical course was complicated by prolonged intubation period, higher rate of multiple drug-resistant bacteria acquisition and sepsis, leading to a higher mortality rate. Although the proportion of self-immolation victims among all burned patients is not high, the markedly higher severity of their burns and their poorer quality of outcomes makes them an important clinical subgroup for further study.

Epidemiology and Radiation Protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

Epidemiology aims at providing direct evidence of the long term health effects in humans due to potentially dangerous exposures to various nuisance agents, including ionising radiation. Inappropriate interpretation and use of the results of epidemiological studies may result in inaccurate assessments of the risks associated with radiation exposure. This report presents the proceedings of a Workshop organised by the NEA to create an opportunity for epidemiologists and radiation protection specialists to exchange their experiences and views on the problems of methodology in epidemiological research and on the application of its results to the assessment of radiation risks

Convergence of the epidemiology and pathology of COPD

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestbo, Jørgen; Hogg, J C

2006-01-01

The epidemiology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been dominated by one hypothesis stating that cigarette smoking and chronic bronchitis were the key to pathogenesis and another that asthma, chronic bronchitis, and even emphysema are related to different expressions of a primary...

16 CFR 1000.26 - Directorate for Epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 16 Commercial Practices 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Directorate for Epidemiology. 1000.26... AND FUNCTIONS § 1000.26 Directorate for Epidemiology. The Directorate for Epidemiology, managed by the Associate Executive Director for Epidemiology, is responsible for the collection and analysis of data on...

[Scientific, practical and educational aspects of clinical epidemiology].

Science.gov (United States)

Briko, N I

2012-01-01

This article defines clinical epidemiology and describes its goal and objectives. The author claims that clinical epidemiology is a section of epidemiology which underlies the development of evidence-based standards for diagnostics, treatment and prevention and helps to select the appropriate algorithm for each clinical case. The study provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine. Epidemiological research is shown to be methodological basis of clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine with randomized controlled trials being the "gold standard" for obtaining reliable data. The key stages in the history of clinical epidemiology are discussed and further development of clinical epidemiology and the integration of courses on clinical epidemiology in education is outlined for progress in medical research and health care practice.

Population Neuroscience: Dementia Epidemiology Serving Precision Medicine and Population Health.

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Ganguli, Mary; Albanese, Emiliano; Seshadri, Sudha; Bennett, David A; Lyketsos, Constantine; Kukull, Walter A; Skoog, Ingmar; Hendrie, Hugh C

2018-01-01

Over recent decades, epidemiology has made significant contributions to our understanding of dementia, translating scientific discoveries into population health. Here, we propose reframing dementia epidemiology as "population neuroscience," blending techniques and models from contemporary neuroscience with those of epidemiology and biostatistics. On the basis of emerging evidence and newer paradigms and methods, population neuroscience will minimize the bias typical of traditional clinical research, identify the relatively homogenous subgroups that comprise the general population, and investigate broader and denser phenotypes of dementia and cognitive impairment. Long-term follow-up of sufficiently large study cohorts will allow the identification of cohort effects and critical windows of exposure. Molecular epidemiology and omics will allow us to unravel the key distinctions within and among subgroups and better understand individuals' risk profiles. Interventional epidemiology will allow us to identify the different subgroups that respond to different treatment/prevention strategies. These strategies will inform precision medicine. In addition, insights into interactions between disease biology, personal and environmental factors, and social determinants of health will allow us to measure and track disease in communities and improve population health. By placing neuroscience within a real-world context, population neuroscience can fulfill its potential to serve both precision medicine and population health.

Surveying alignment-free features for Ortholog detection in related yeast proteomes by using supervised big data classifiers.

Science.gov (United States)

Galpert, Deborah; Fernández, Alberto; Herrera, Francisco; Antunes, Agostinho; Molina-Ruiz, Reinaldo; Agüero-Chapin, Guillermin

2018-05-03

The development of new ortholog detection algorithms and the improvement of existing ones are of major importance in functional genomics. We have previously introduced a successful supervised pairwise ortholog classification approach implemented in a big data platform that considered several pairwise protein features and the low ortholog pair ratios found between two annotated proteomes (Galpert, D et al., BioMed Research International, 2015). The supervised models were built and tested using a Saccharomycete yeast benchmark dataset proposed by Salichos and Rokas (2011). Despite several pairwise protein features being combined in a supervised big data approach; they all, to some extent were alignment-based features and the proposed algorithms were evaluated on a unique test set. Here, we aim to evaluate the impact of alignment-free features on the performance of supervised models implemented in the Spark big data platform for pairwise ortholog detection in several related yeast proteomes. The Spark Random Forest and Decision Trees with oversampling and undersampling techniques, and built with only alignment-based similarity measures or combined with several alignment-free pairwise protein features showed the highest classification performance for ortholog detection in three yeast proteome pairs. Although such supervised approaches outperformed traditional methods, there were no significant differences between the exclusive use of alignment-based similarity measures and their combination with alignment-free features, even within the twilight zone of the studied proteomes. Just when alignment-based and alignment-free features were combined in Spark Decision Trees with imbalance management, a higher success rate (98.71%) within the twilight zone could be achieved for a yeast proteome pair that underwent a whole genome duplication. The feature selection study showed that alignment-based features were top-ranked for the best classifiers while the runners-up were

History and philosophy of modern epidemiology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Hanne

2012-01-01

Epidemiological studies of chronic diseases began around the mid-20th century. Contrary to the infectious disease epidemiology which had prevailed at the beginning of the 20th century and which had focused on single agents causing individual diseases, the chronic disease epidemiology which emerge...

Influence of the relative rotational speed on component features in micro rotary swaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ishkina Svetlana

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Micro rotary swaging is a cold forming process for production of micro components with determined geometry and surface. It is also possible to change the microstructure of wires and hence the material properties. Swaging dies revolve around the work piece with an overlaid radial oscillation. Newly developed tools (Flat Surface Dies, FSD feature plain surfaces and do not represent the geometry of the formed part as in conventional swaging. Using these tools allows for producing wires with triangle geometry (cross section as well as a circular shape. To test the influence of FSD on material properties by micro swaging a new method is investigated: the variation of the relative speed between the specimen and dies in infeed rotary swaging. During this specific process copper (C11000 and steel (304 Alloy wires with diameter d0 = 1 mm are formed. It is noticed that the mechanical characteristics such as ductility and strength differ from the characteristics after conventional swaging. Moreover this approach enables new possibilities to influence the geometry and the surface quality of wires. The impact of the relative speed on the processed wire features is described in this paper.

Epidemiology, hunger and development

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Paulo H. Battaglin Machado

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Understanding the relationship between epidemiology and food security implies in disclosing famine causes, the way it is distributed in the society and to which extent it affects the populations. Building up from that perspective, this paper attempts to understand the famine logic throughout the various transitions accomplished in the past decades: epidemiologic, demographic, risk, nutritional and development. The reflexes of the demographic transition that took place in Brazil in the XXth century are related to the population nutritional status standard changes, that is, they shifted from malnutrition high prevalence to a significant increase in obesity. However, the paradox of this situation is due to the fact that most risk factors that bring about diseases of the modern world come from the “excess”, while millions die around the globe because of “deprivation”. The food production alone does not ensure its equitable distribution among the various groups of the society. The access alone does not lead to quality. The choices are made individually, but life style options imply in a set of correlations that go from economy to culture. It means that this field has a collective basis and encompasses environment and development.

Cost-benefit evaluation of containment related engineered safety features of Indian pressurized heavy water reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bajaj, S.S.; Bhawal, R.N.; Rustagi, R.S.

1984-01-01

The typical containment system for a commercial nuclear reactor uses several engineered safety features to achieve its objective of limiting the release of radioactive fission products to the environment in the event of postulated accident conditions. The design of containment systems and associated features for Indian Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) has undergone progressive improvement in successive projects. In particular, the current design adopted for the Narora Atomic Power Project (NAPP) has seen several notable improvements. The paper reports on a cost-benefit study in respect of three containment related engineered safety features and subsystems of NAPP, viz. (i) secondary containment envelope, (ii) primary containment filtration and pump-back system, and (iii) secondary containment filtration, recirculation and purge system. The effect of each of these systems in reducing the environmental releases of radioactivity following a design basis accident is presented. The corresponding reduction in population exposure and the associated monetary value of this reduction in exposure are also given. The costs of the features and subsystem under consideration are then compared with the monetary value of the exposures saved, as well as other non-quantified benefits, to arrive at conclusions regarding the usefulness of each subsystem. This study clearly establishes for the secondary containment envelope the benefit in terms of reduction in public exposure giving a quantitative justification for the costs involved. In the case of the other two subsystems, which involve relatively low costs, while all benefits have not been quantified, their desirability is justified on qualitative considerations. It is concluded that the engineered safety features adopted in the current containment system design of Indian PHWRs contribute to reducing radiation exposures during accident conditions in accordance with the ALARA ('as low as reasonably achievable') principle

[FEATURES OF THE ORGANIZATION OF SANITARY-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE DURING THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION AND HOSTING OF THE XXII OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES AND XI PARALYMPIC WINTER GAMES IN THE RESORT CITY OF SOCHI IN 2014].

Science.gov (United States)

Onishchenko, G G; Popova, A Iu; Kuzkin, B P; Guskova, A S; Ivanov, G E; Pakskina, N D; Klindukhov, V P; Nikolaevich, P N; Grechanaia, T V; Balaeva, M I; Biriukov, V A; Bozhko, I I; Tesheva, S Ch; Daragan, Iu G; Parkhomenko, V V; Rafeenko, G K; Kulichenko, A N; Manin, E A; Maletskaia, O V; Vasilenko, N F; Efremenko, D V; Orobeĭ, V G; Eldinova, V E; Pilikova, O M; Malaĭ, V I; Iunicheva, Iu V

2015-01-01

In the paper there are presented the basic principles of the organization of activities for the assurance ofthe sanitary- epidemiological welfare in the period ofpreparation and hosting of the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in the Resort City of Sochi. There are considered features of the organization ofepidemiological surveillance in the pre-Olympic period, the period of the games and the state of the morbidity rate in the region after the Olympics. There are presented data on certain directions of the work of organs and institutions of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare on the disease control of the event.

Epidemiology of organising pneumonia in Iceland

Science.gov (United States)

Gudmundsson, G; Sveinsson, O; Isaksson, H J; Jonsson, S; Frodadottir, H; Aspelund, T

2006-01-01

Background Cryptogenic organising pneumonia (COP) has also been called idiopathic bronchiolitis obliterans organising pneumonia. In secondary organising pneumonia (SOP) the causes can be identified or it occurs in a characteristic clinical context. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence and epidemiological features of COP and SOP nationwide in Iceland over an extended period. Methods A retrospective study of organising pneumonia (OP) in Iceland over 20 years was conducted and the epidemiology and survival were studied. All pathological reports of patients diagnosed with or suspected of having COP or SOP in the period 1984–2003 were identified and the pathology samples were re‐evaluated using strict diagnostic criteria. Results After re‐evaluation, 104 patients fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for OP (58 COP and 46 SOP). The mean annual incidence of OP was 1.97/100 000 population (1.10/100 000 for COP and 0.87/100 000 for SOP). The mean age at diagnosis was 67 years with a wide age range. The most common causes of death were lung diseases other than OP, and only one patient died from OP. Patients with OP had a lower rate of survival than the general population, but there was no statistical difference between COP and SOP. Conclusions The incidence of OP is higher than previously reported, suggesting that OP needs to be considered as a diagnosis more often than has been done in the past. PMID:16809413

Los Alamos National Laboratory: A guide to records series supporting epidemiologic studies conducted for the Department of Energy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-01-01

The purpose of this guide is to describe each series of records that pertains to the epidemiologic studies conducted by the Epidemiology Section of the Occupational Medicine Group (ESH-2) at the Department of Energy`s (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The records described in this guide relate to occupational studies performed by the Epidemiology Section, including those pertaining to workers at LANL, Mound Plant, Oak Ridge Reservation, Pantex Plant, Rocky Flats Plant, and Savannah River Site. Also included are descriptions of other health-related records generated or collected by the Epidemiology Section and a small set of records collected by the Industrial Hygiene and Safety Group. This guide is not designed to describe the universe of records generated by LANL which may be used for epidemiologic studies of the LANL work force. History Associates Incorporated (HAI) prepared this guide as part of its work as the support services contractor for DOE`s Epidemiologic Records Inventory Project. This introduction briefly describes the Epidemiologic Records Inventory Project, HAI`s role in the project, the history of LANL the history and functions of LANL`s Health Division and Epidemiology Section, and the various epidemiologic studies performed by the Epidemiology Section. It provides information on the methodology that HAI used to inventory and describe records housed in the offices of the LANL Epidemiology Section in Technical Area 59 and at the LANL Records Center. Other topics include the methodology used to produce the guide, the arrangement of the detailed record series descriptions, and information concerning access to records repositories.

Landscape genetics highlights the role of bank vole metapopulation dynamics in the epidemiology of Puumala hantavirus.

Science.gov (United States)

Guivier, E; Galan, M; Chaval, Y; Xuéreb, A; Ribas Salvador, A; Poulle, M-L; Voutilainen, L; Henttonen, H; Charbonnel, N; Cosson, J F

2011-09-01

Rodent host dynamics and dispersal are thought to be critical for hantavirus epidemiology as they determine pathogen persistence and transmission within and between host populations. We used landscape genetics to investigate how the population dynamics of the bank vole Myodes glareolus, the host of Puumala hantavirus (PUUV), vary with forest fragmentation and influence PUUV epidemiology. We sampled vole populations within the Ardennes, a French PUUV endemic area. We inferred demographic features such as population size, isolation and migration with regard to landscape configuration. We next analysed the influence of M. glareolus population dynamics on PUUV spatial distribution. Our results revealed that the global metapopulation dynamics of bank voles were strongly shaped by landscape features, including suitable patch size and connectivity. Large effective size in forest might therefore contribute to the higher observed levels of PUUV prevalence. By contrast, populations from hedge networks highly suffered from genetic drift and appeared strongly isolated from all other populations. This might result in high probabilities of local extinction for both M. glareolus and PUUV. Besides, we detected signatures of asymmetric bank vole migration from forests to hedges. These movements were likely to sustain PUUV in fragmented landscapes. In conclusion, our study provided arguments in favour of source-sink dynamics shaping PUUV persistence and spread in heterogeneous, Western European temperate landscapes. It illustrated the potential contribution of landscape genetics to the understanding of the epidemiological processes occurring at this local scale. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Epidemiologic features and intervention effect of fall injury among rural school-aged children in southwest China: a short-term cohort study.

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Xiuquan; Wang, Tao; Nie, Chan; Wang, Haiyan; Luo, Lirong; Qi, Yonghong; Jiang, Zhixia

2018-05-24

Falls are the top one type in all unintentional injuries. In this study, we aim to explore the epidemiological characteristics of falls and assess the intervention effect. Our research had interviewed 2854 rural children in southwest China. Then, we used School-Family-Individual (SFI) comprehensive education model to conduct an intervention among 1506 children and follow up them for one year. The changes in injury knowledge and incidence rate before and after intervention were compared. We found the fall injury was 37.32% (178/477) and ranked top one in the total injuries. After intervention, the children's fall-injuries-related knowledge was significantly increased by 15.29 percent (P < 0.001). While falls incidence significantly decreased after- intervention (6.24% vs. 3.93%; P < 0.001). From the results we concluded that the falls rate was high and was the prior reason of all injuries. SFI intervention model can effectively reduce the incidence of the fall injury.

Distinct features of trampoline-related orthopedic injuries in children aged under 6 years.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Eun Seok; Hong, Jin Heon; Sim, Jae Ang

2018-02-01

Concern has been growing about trampoline-related injuries among young children. Several published policy statements have repeatedly recommended that children younger than 6 years should not use trampolines. However, few studies have investigated the injuries caused by trampoline-related accidents among young children. This study aimed to identify the distinct features of trampoline-related orthopedic injuries in children younger than 6 years. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of pediatric patients aged between 0 and 16 years who visited our regional emergency center due to trampoline-related orthopedic injuries between 2012 and 2015. Patients were divided into two groups: a preschool group (younger than 6 years) and a school group (older than 6 years). We compared the features of the injuries in the two groups. Among 208 patients, 108 (52%) were male and 100 (48%) were female. The mean age was 5.4 years. The preschool group accounted for 66%. There were no seasonal variations. Fractures were sustained in 96 patients (46%). The anatomical locations of injuries differed significantly between the two age groups. Proximal tibia fractures were more frequent in the preschool group than the school group (34% and 6%, respectively). Distal tibia fractures were more prevalent in the school group than the preschool group (44% vs. 13%, respectively). Surgical treatment was needed more frequently in the school group (p = 0.035, hazard ratio 2.52, 95% confidence interval: 1.03-6.17). Most of the injuries (82%) occurred at trampoline parks. The anatomical locations of trampoline-related orthopedic injuries differed significantly between age groups. Fractures were more common around the knee in younger children and the ankle in older children. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Field study on the epidemiology and pathogenicity of different isolates of bovine Ostertagia spp.

Science.gov (United States)

Al Saqur, I; Armour, J; Bairden, K; Dunn, A M; Jennings, F W; Murray, M

1982-11-01

The epidemiological features of three different isolates of bovine Ostertagia spp under similar initial levels of larval challenge were compared in the field. Two of the isolates, consisting mainly of Ostertagia ostertagi, and a low proportion of Skrjabinagia lyrata conformed in epidemiological behaviour with those investigated by previous workers, though the worm burdens which established did not give rise to the expected clinical signs. The third isolate behaved in a different way, yielding very high faecal egg counts which were followed by high pasture larval counts, heavy worm burdens and severe clinical disease. This isolate, while consisting mainly of O ostertagi and a few S lyrata, also contained a proportion of O leptospicularis, and it is suggested that this species may influence the dynamics of the host-parasite relationship in bovine ostertagiasis.

[Bibliometric analysis of scientific articles on epidemiological study of burns in China].

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, W F; Shen, Z A; Zhao, D X; Li, D W; Shang, Y R

2017-04-20

Objective: To analyze the current status of epidemiological study of burns in China, and to explore the related strategies. Methods: Retrospective or cross-sectional scientific articles in Chinese or English on epidemiological study of burns in China published from January 2005 to December 2015 were systemically retrieved from 4 databases. The databases include PubMed, Embase, China Biology Medicine disc, and Chinese Journals Full - text Database . From the results retrieved, data with regard to publication year, journal distribution, number of institutions participated in the study, affiliation of the first author and its location, and admission time span and age of patients in all the scientific articles were collected. Furthermore, the definition of age range and the grouping method of age of pediatric patients in English articles on epidemiological study of pediatric burns of China were recorded. Data were processed with descriptive statistical analysis. Results: A total of 256 scientific articles conforming to the study criteria were retrieved, among which 214 (83.59%) articles were in Chinese, and 42 (16.41%) articles were in English; 242 (94.53%) articles were retrospective studies, and 14 (5.47%) articles were cross-sectional studies. During the 11 years, the number of the relevant articles was fluctuant on the whole. The scientific articles were published in 130 journals, with 42 English articles in source journals for SCIENCE CITATION INDEX EXPANDED - JOURNAL LIST, accounting for 16.41%, and 116 Chinese articles in Source Journal for Chinese Scientific and Technical Papers, accounting for 45.31%. Totally 215 (83.98%) articles were single-center studies, and 29 (11.33%) articles were multicenter studies which were conducted by three or more centers. The number of affiliations of the first author of articles was 161 in total. The top 10 institutions regarding the article publishing number published 58 articles, accounting for 22.66%. Scientific articles on

Epidemiological studies in incidence, prevalence, mortality, and comorbidity of the rheumatic diseases

Science.gov (United States)

Gabriel, Sherine E; Michaud, Kaleb

2009-01-01

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease in human populations. Over the past decade there has been considerable progress in our understanding of the fundamental descriptive epidemiology (levels of disease frequency: incidence and prevalence, comorbidity, mortality, trends over time, geographic distributions, and clinical characteristics) of the rheumatic diseases. This progress is reviewed for the following major rheumatic diseases: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, osteoarthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, giant cell arteritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, gout, Sjögren's syndrome, and ankylosing spondylitis. These findings demonstrate the dynamic nature of the incidence and prevalence of these conditions – a reflection of the impact of genetic and environmental factors. The past decade has also brought new insights regarding the comorbidity associated with rheumatic diseases. Strong evidence now shows that persons with RA are at a high risk for developing several comorbid disorders, that these conditions may have atypical features and thus may be difficult to diagnose, and that persons with RA experience poorer outcomes after comorbidity compared with the general population. Taken together, these findings underscore the complexity of the rheumatic diseases and highlight the key role of epidemiological research in understanding these intriguing conditions. PMID:19519924

Using Relational Histogram Features and Action Labelled Data to Learn Preconditions for Means-End Actions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fichtl, Severin; Kraft, Dirk; Krüger, Norbert

2015-01-01

The outcome of many complex manipulation ac- tions is contingent on the spatial relationships among pairs of objects, e.g. if an object is “inside” or “on top” of another. Recognising these spatial relationships requires a vision system which can extract appropriate features from the vision input...... that capture and represent the spatial relationships in an easily accessible way. We are interested in learning to predict the success of “means end” actions that manipulate two objects at once, from exploratory actions, and the observed sensorimo- tor contingencies. In this paper, we use relational histogram...... features and illustrate their effect on learning to predict a variety of “means end” actions’ outcomes. The results show that our vision features can make the learning problem significantly easier, leading to increased learning rates and higher maximum performance. This work is in particular important...

Quantitative prediction of drug side effects based on drug-related features.

Science.gov (United States)

Niu, Yanqing; Zhang, Wen

2017-09-01

Unexpected side effects of drugs are great concern in the drug development, and the identification of side effects is an important task. Recently, machine learning methods are proposed to predict the presence or absence of interested side effects for drugs, but it is difficult to make the accurate prediction for all of them. In this paper, we transform side effect profiles of drugs as their quantitative scores, by summing up their side effects with weights. The quantitative scores may measure the dangers of drugs, and thus help to compare the risk of different drugs. Here, we attempt to predict quantitative scores of drugs, namely the quantitative prediction. Specifically, we explore a variety of drug-related features and evaluate their discriminative powers for the quantitative prediction. Then, we consider several feature combination strategies (direct combination, average scoring ensemble combination) to integrate three informative features: chemical substructures, targets, and treatment indications. Finally, the average scoring ensemble model which produces the better performances is used as the final quantitative prediction model. Since weights for side effects are empirical values, we randomly generate different weights in the simulation experiments. The experimental results show that the quantitative method is robust to different weights, and produces satisfying results. Although other state-of-the-art methods cannot make the quantitative prediction directly, the prediction results can be transformed as the quantitative scores. By indirect comparison, the proposed method produces much better results than benchmark methods in the quantitative prediction. In conclusion, the proposed method is promising for the quantitative prediction of side effects, which may work cooperatively with existing state-of-the-art methods to reveal dangers of drugs.

Occurrence of 3 Bordetella species during an outbreak of cough illness in Ohio: epidemiology, clinical features, laboratory findings and antimicrobial susceptibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Spicer, Kevin B; Salamon, Doug; Cummins, Carol; Leber, Amy; Rodgers, Loren E; Marcon, Mario J

2014-07-01

An increase in laboratory diagnosis of pertussis was noted in central Ohio during 2010. Diagnosis was made using a polymerase chain reaction assay targeting the multicopy insertion sequence IS481, which is found in both Bordetella pertussis (Bp) and Bordetella holmesii (Bh). An increase in specimens testing positive for Bordetella parapertussis (Bpp) using insertion sequence IS1001 was also noted. Nasopharyngeal swab specimens submitted April 1, 2010, to March 31, 2011, were tested using a multiplex polymerase chain reaction assay for Bp/Bh (IS481) and Bpp followed by singleplex assays for Bp and Bh. A subgroup of specimens was also cultured for Bordetella species, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed on recovered organisms. Demographic and clinical features were compared for patients with Bp, Bh and Bpp. Of 520 IS481-positive specimens, 214 (41.1%) were positive for Bp, 79 (15.2%) were positive for Bh and 5 (1.0%) were positive for both Bp and Bh; 222 (42.7%) were negative for both targets. An additional 220 specimens were positive for Bpp. Among a sample of 155 IS481-positive specimens, 40, 15 and 0 were culture positive for Bp, Bh and Bpp, respectively. Among a sample of 55 BparaIS1001-positive (Bpp) specimens, 22, 0 and 0 were culture positive for Bpp, Bp and Bh, respectively. All Bordetella species were susceptible to macrolide antibiotics. Patients with Bh were older than patients with Bp, who were older than those positive for Bpp (mean ages: 12.0, 8.0 and 4.2 years, respectively; P Bpp and 100 negative for Bordetella species), but did not differ statistically among the groups (χ = 5.1, P = 0.17). All 3 Bordetella species, Bp, Bh and Bpp, were detected during on outbreak of pertussis-like cough illness. There were noted differences in age and seasonality, but clinical features at the time of presentation did not allow clear differentiation of these infections. All Bordetella species recovered from culture and tested were susceptible in

Direct progeny detection techniques and random epidemiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mayya, Y.S.; Mishra, Rosaline; Sapra, B.K.

2015-01-01

Over the past 40 years, there has been considerable progress in the measurements methods and their application to the estimates of risks due to radon among general populations. The previous decade saw major development in this regard. It was the direct estimate of indoor radon risk from epidemiological studies in Europe and North America. These were important findings that demonstrated the presence of lung cancer risks at residential radon levels supplementing the generally used risks estimates at high exposures obtained from uranium miner's data. The residential radon epidemiological studies largely used radon concentration as a measure of exposure. The exposure to decay products, which are primarily the dose givers, are assumed to be proportional to the measured gas concentrations. Also, the presence of thoron was neglected in these studies. Although several corrections have appeared to these assessments, the question of variability of actual decay product exposures has largely remained unaddressed. In order to circumvent this limitation, passive techniques were developed to estimate the decay product concentrations directly using deposition monitors. These are based on detecting the alpha particles from decay products deposited on an absorber mounted LR-115 detectors. Known as Direct radon, and Thoron Progeny sensors (DRPS/DTPS), these have been further refined to separate fine fraction from the coarse fraction by wire-mesh capping techniques. Large number environmental calibration exercises and field data generation has been carried out on the progeny concentrations in Indian and some European environments. The development of progeny sensors offers a new tool for future epidemiology. Since in the Indian context, there exist no radon related epidemiological estimates of risk, it is time one conducts large scale studies to seek possible correlations between DRPS/DTPS data and lung cancer risks. While epidemiological studies in High background radiation areas

Setting Research Priorities for HIV/AIDS-related research in a post-graduate training programme: lessons learnt from the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme scientific workshop

Science.gov (United States)

Poggensee, Gabriele; Waziri, Ndadilnasiya Endie; Bashorun, Adebobola; Nguku, Patrick Mboya; Fawole, Olufunmilayo Ibitola; Sabitu, Kabir

2014-01-01

In Nigeria the current prevalence of HIV is 4.1% with over 3.5 million infected and estimated 1.5 million in need of anti-retroviral treatment. Epidemiological and implementation studies are necessary for monitoring and evaluation of interventions. To define research areas which can be addressed by participants of the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Training Programme (NFELTP) a workshop was held in April 2013 in Abuja, Nigeria. Priority research areas were identified using criteria lists for ranking of the relevance of research questions. Based on a research matrix, NFELTP residents developed the aims and objectives, study design for HIV-related research proposals. This workshop was the first workshop held by the NFELTP to establish an inventory of research questions which can be addressed by the residents within their training period. This inventory will help to increase HIV/AIDS-related activities of NFELTP which are in accordance with research needs in Nigeria and PEPFAR objectives. PMID:25426209

Systematic reviews of epidemiology in diabetes: finding the evidence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Waugh Norman

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Methodological research to support searching for those doing systematic reviews of epidemiological studies is a relatively neglected area. Our aim was to determine how many databases it is necessary to search to ensure a comprehensive coverage of the literature in diabetes epidemiology, with the aim of examining the efficiency of searching in support of systematic reviews of the epidemiology of diabetes Methods Three approaches were used. First, we defined a set of English language diabetes journals and examined their coverage in bibliographic databases. Second, we searched extensively for diabetes epidemiology articles (in all languages to determine which are the most useful databases; and third, we analysed the scattering of these articles to determine the core journals in the area. Results The overlap between MEDLINE and Embase for diabetes journals was 59%. A search for diabetes epidemiology articles across both MEDLINE and Embase, showed that MEDLINE alone retrieved about 94% of the total articles. Searching for diabetes epidemiology studies beyond MEDLINE and Embase retrieved no additional English language journal articles. The only diabetes epidemiology studies found by searching beyond MEDLINE and Embase were found in LILACS, and were Spanish or Portuguese language studies from Latin America; no additional English language studies were found. Only 30% of the meeting abstracts were converted to full publication after three years. One third of journal articles were published in just six journals, with Diabetes Care contributing 14.3% of the articles, followed by Diabetic Medicine (5.0%; Diabetes Research & Clinical Practice (4.1%; Diabetologia (4.0%; Diabetes & Metabolism (2.4% and Diabetes (2.0%. Conclusions Our results show that when searching for articles on diabetes epidemiology, MEDLINE and Embase would suffice for English language papers, with LILACS giving some additional non-English articles from Latin America

Epidemiological data and radiation risk estimates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cardis, E.

2002-01-01

The results of several major epidemiology studies on populations with particular exposure to ionizing radiation should become available during the first years of the 21. century. These studies are expected to provide answers to a number of questions concerning public health and radiation protection. Most of the populations concerned were accidentally exposed to radiation in ex-USSR or elsewhere or in a nuclear industrial context. The results will complete and test information on risk coming from studies among survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, particularly studies on the effects of low dose exposure and prolonged low-dose exposure, of different types of radiation, and environmental and host-related factors which could modify the risk of radiation-induced effects. These studies are thus important to assess the currently accepted scientific evidence on radiation protection for workers and the general population. In addition, supplementary information on radiation protection could be provided by formal comparisons and analyses combining data from populations with different types of exposure. Finally, in order to provide pertinent information for public health and radiation protection, future epidemiology studies should be targeted and designed to answer specific questions, concerning, for example, the risk for specific populations (children, patients, people with genetic predisposition). An integrated approach, combining epidemiology and studies on the mechanisms of radiation induction should provide particularly pertinent information. (author)

Clinical and epidemiological aspects of feline leishmaniasis in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luiz da Silveira Neto

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Tegumentary and visceral leishmaniasis are severe and unfortunately common parasitic diseases in Brazil. Among domestic animals, dogs are considered the main urban reservoir of the protozoan parasites, however, there is evidence that infected cats can also contribute towards the disease pool. The number of cats diagnosed with leishmaniasis has greatly increased in the last few years, highlighting the importance of thorough investigations on the role of the cat in the epidemiological cycle of the disease and in public health related issues. The main clinical manifestations of leishmaniasis suffered by cats, even when infected with Leishmania chagasi, a viscerotropic species, are skin abnormalities, which can be confounded with multiple other diseases. Indirect ELISA should be used as a screening test in epidemiological investigations for being a sensitive technique, followed by more specific laboratory tests. The standardization and validation of rapid, economical and reproducible diagnostic methods, to be employed in epidemiological surveillance, are still required

Desafíos a la epidemiología (pasos para una epidemiología "Miltoniana" Challenges to epidemiology (steps to a "Miltonian" epidemiology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Samaja

2003-06-01

Full Text Available Se sostiene que uno de los grandes desafíos que enfrenta la Epidemiología contemporánea está situado en el campo teórico, y consiste esencialmente en la exigencia de revisar la conceptualización del objeto de la epidemiología dominante que reduce la salud de las poblaciones al comportamiento de los riesgos concebidos con abstracción de los vínculos particulares que los sujetos guardan con sus corporeidades geográficas y medioambientales. El artículo pretende reintroducir la perspectiva dialéctica que deja de lado la visión sustancialista de la realidad de las poblaciones de un lado y del medio ambiente, del otro lado, para proponer una visión estructural, funcional e histórica de ambos conceptos, desarrollando, en este sentido el espíritu de la obra del Gran Geógrafo Brasileiro.This paper argues that one of the major challenges that contemporary Epidemiology has to face is at the level of theory. In essence, it is necessary to revise the abstract conceptualization of the dominant Epidemiology object, which has reduced the health of the population to behavioral risks, without taking into account the link that people have to their geographical and environmental corporities. This article then seeks to reinsert the dialectical perspective that leaves aside the substantialist view of population reality, on one side, and that of the environment, on the other, in order to propose a structural, functional and historical perspective of both concepts, developing, in this way, the spirit of the Great Brazilian Geographer's work.

Epidemiological, Clinicopathological and Virological Features of Merkel Cell Carcinomas in Medical Center of University of Pécs, Hungary (2007-2012).

Science.gov (United States)

Horváth, Katalin Barbara; Pankovics, Péter; Kálmán, Endre; Kádár, Zsolt; Battyáni, Zita; Lengyel, Zsuzsanna; Reuter, Gábor

2016-01-01

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare, highly aggressive skin tumour. In 2008, a Merkel cell polyomavirus (MC) was identified in MCCs as a potential etiological factor of MCC. The aims of this retrospective study were to investigate the epidemiological, clinicopathological and virological features of MCCs. Between 2007 and 2012, 11 patients had been diagnosed with MCC by histological methods in University of Pécs, Hungary. In eight MCC cases MC was tested by PCR (in primary skin lesions, lymph nodes/cutan metastases, MCC neighboring carcinomas). Clinicopathological characteristics (age, histological pattern, lymphovascular invasion, co-morbidities) of MC-positive and MC-negative cases were compared. MC was detected in three (37.5%) out of eight patients' primary tumour or metastasis. The average age was 73.8 (64.3 in MC-positive group). Except the youngest, 55 year-old patient (the primary tumour appeared on his leg), all tumours were found at the head and neck region. Immunosuppression (steroid therapy, chronic lymphoid leukaemia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and/or old age were characteristic for all cases. Histological pattern was different in MC-positive and in MC-negative groups: MCCs with MC showed more homogeneous histological pattern, lack of lymphovascular invasion and were associated with better prognosis (mortality rate: 33% versus 80%). MCC associated with oncogenic virus is a newly recognized clinical entity. However, MC could not be detected in all histologically proven MCCs. The well-defined selection of patients/disease groups and better characterization of differences between MC-positive and negative cases is an important step towards the recognition of the etiology and pathogenesis of all MCCs.

Smoking, epidemiology and e-cigarettes

OpenAIRE

Raschke RA

2013-01-01

No abstract available. Article truncated at 150 words. “The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror - not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.” - David Byrne In our fellows’ conference we recently reviewed the evolution of the science of clinical epidemiology as it relates to the association of smoking and lung cancer and the concurrent history of tobacco marketing in the United States. This story begins in 1950, when Richard Doll and A...

Epidemiology and pathogesis of human immunodifiency virus(HIV ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Epidemiology and pathogesis of human immunodifiency virus(HIV) related heart disease: A review. MU Sani, BN Okeahialam. Abstract. No Abstract. Nigerian Journal of Medicine Vol. 14(3) 2005: 255-260. Full Text: EMAIL FULL TEXT EMAIL FULL TEXT · DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT · AJOL African ...

Relation of borderline personality features to preincarceration HIV risk behaviors of jail inmates: Evidence for gender differences?

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Leah M; Stuewig, Jeffrey B; Tangney, June P

2016-01-01

The present study explored the relationship between borderline personality disorder (BPD) features and preincarceration HIV risk behaviors in a sample of 499 (70% male) jail inmates, as well as gender differences in these associations. Elevated levels of BPD symptomatology were present among male and female participants, though there was considerable variance observed in participants' BPD symptoms and HIV risk behaviors. In the full sample, BPD features were positively associated with a variety of HIV risk behaviors, including injection drug use and frequency of unprotected sex with high risk partners and under high risk circumstances. Gender moderated only 2 relationships between BPD features and HIV risk behaviors, with a stronger association between BPD features and number of sexual partners, and BPD features and frequency of unprotected sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs for women, relative to men. Taken together, these findings suggest that programs targeting HIV risk within correctional populations may benefit from considering the role of BPD features, particularly emotion regulation difficulties and impulsivity, in influencing HIV risk behaviors among both women and men. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Geographic variations in epidemiology of two autoimmune bullous diseases: pemphigus and bullous pemphigoid.

Science.gov (United States)

Alpsoy, Erkan; Akman-Karakas, Ayse; Uzun, Soner

2015-05-01

Autoimmune bullous diseases are rare, organ-specific, a group of blistering disease of skin and mucous membranes. Recent studies suggest that the frequency of the autoimmune bullous diseases has been increasing. Pemphigus vulgaris and bullous pemphigoid are the most frequently reported autoimmune bullous diseases. High incidence of autoimmune bullous diseases in some ethnic groups such as pemphigus in Ashkenazi Jewish, or in some regions such as pemphigus foliaceus in Brazil has been shown to be related to genetic and environmental factors, respectively. Pemphigus has been reported more frequently in the female gender. Although it is most frequently diagnosed between the ages 50 and 60 in European countries, in the remaining countries in the world, it is seen between the ages of 30 and 50. Bullous pemphigoid is generally seen above 70 years of age. Although overall incidence is slightly higher in females, after the age of 80 years it is more frequent in males. Both pemphigus vulgaris and bullous pemphigoid has a chronic course with recurrences. Mortality risk of the patients with bullous pemphigoid was found at least 2 times higher and the mortality risk of the patients with pemphigus was found approximately 3 times higher than that of the general population. In this review, the results obtained from the epidemiological studies were analyzed according to geographic regions, and especially epidemiologic features of two prevalent autoimmune bullous diseases, pemphigus and bullous pemphigoid have been discussed.

Advancing the Contribution of Occupational Epidemiology to Risk Assessment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vlaanderen, J.J.

2011-01-01

The identification and quantification of risk factors that are characterized by low exposure levels, moderately increased risks, and unspecific exposure-disease relations is a major challenge facing risk assessment today. Occupational epidemiological studies can play a role in addressing this

Periodontal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease: emerging epidemiologic and biologic evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Agossa, K; Dendooven, A; Dubuquoy, L; Gower-Rousseau, C; Delcourt-Debruyne, E; Capron, M

2017-06-01

Inflammatory bowel disease and periodontitis are both described as a disproportionate mucosal inflammatory response to a microbial environment in susceptible patients. Moreover, these two conditions share major environmental and lifestyle-related risk factors. Despite this intriguing pathogenic parallel, large-scale studies and basic research have only recently considered periodontal outcomes as relevant data. There are mounting and consistent arguments, from recent epidemiologic studies and animal models, that these two conditions might be related. This article is a comprehensive and critical up-to-date review of the current evidence and future prospects in understanding the biologic and epidemiologic relationships between periodontal status and inflammatory bowel disease. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

MOLECULAR EPIDEMIOLOGY FEATURES OF HBV/HDV CO-INFECTION IN KYRGYZSTAN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. V. Semenov

2016-01-01

Full Text Available One of the most serious health problems in the world are hepatotropic viruses that cause chronic liver disease. Hepatitis B virus is distributed globally; around 5% of the carriers are also infected with hepatitis delta virus. Co-infection or superinfection of hepatitis viruses B and D significantly associated with a much more severe liver disease, compared with infection only hepatitis B virus. However, examination of hepatitis virus B carriers for the presence of hepatitis D virus in most regions of the world is not mandatory. It should be noted that the complete genotype mapping of viruses hepatitis B and D isolated on the territory of the CIS and the countries of the former Soviet Union, there is not yet, despite the constantly ongoing works devoted genotyping hepatotropic virus in the territory of the Russian Federation and neighboring countries. Due to the fact that one of the prospective ways of spreading viruses is the “labor migration” the inhabitants of Central Asia in other countries, including the Russian Federation, there is a need to pay attention to the situation of viral hepatitis in the region. The aim of our study was to estimate the prevalence of genetic variants and characteristics of molecular epidemiology of chronic viral hepatitis co-infection B + D in Kyrgyzstan. The study involved 30 plasma samples from patients with chronic viral hepatitis B and D from different regions of Kyrgyzstan. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of the isolates showed that among patients examined HBV identified only D genotype. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of the isolates indicated that among the examined patients with chronic viral hepatitis B revealed only genotype D. It is shown prevalence of HBV subtype D1 (73.34% compared to the HBV subtype D2 (3.33% and D3 (23.33%. Revealed HDV genotype I with highly variable region of the gene encoding the delta antigen. The high similarity of some isolates with strains specific to neighboring

Etiological features of borderline personality related characteristics in a birth cohort of 12-year-old children.

Science.gov (United States)

Belsky, Daniel W; Caspi, Avshalom; Arseneault, Louise; Bleidorn, Wiebke; Fonagy, Peter; Goodman, Marianne; Houts, Renate; Moffitt, Terrie E

2012-02-01

It has been reported that borderline personality related characteristics can be observed in children, and that these characteristics are associated with increased risk for the development of borderline personality disorder. It is not clear whether borderline personality related characteristics in children share etiological features with adult borderline personality disorder. We investigated the etiology of borderline personality related characteristics in a longitudinal cohort study of 1,116 pairs of same-sex twins followed from birth through age 12 years. Borderline personality related characteristics measured at age 12 years were highly heritable, were more common in children who had exhibited poor cognitive function, impulsivity, and more behavioral and emotional problems at age 5 years, and co-occurred with symptoms of conduct disorder, depression, anxiety, and psychosis. Exposure to harsh treatment in the family environment through age 10 years predicted borderline personality related characteristics at age 12 years. This association showed evidence of environmental mediation and was stronger among children with a family history of psychiatric illness, consistent with diathesis-stress models of borderline etiology. Results indicate that borderline personality related characteristics in children share etiological features with borderline personality disorder in adults and suggest that inherited and environmental risk factors make independent and interactive contributions to borderline etiology.

Epidemiology, public health, and health surveillance around point sources of pollution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stebbings, J.H. Jr.

1981-01-01

In industrial society a large number of point sources of pollution exist, such as chemical plants, smelters, and nuclear power plants. Public concern has forced the practising epidemiologist to undertake health surveillance of the usually small populations living around point sources. Although not justifiable as research, such epidemiologic surveillance activities are becoming a routine part of public health practice, and this trend will continue. This introduction reviews concepts of epidemiologic surveillance, and institutional problems relating to the quality of such applied research

Factors involved in the paradox of reverse epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Martín-Ponce, Esther; Santolaria, Francisco; Alemán-Valls, María-Remedios; González-Reimers, Emilio; Martínez-Riera, Antonio; Rodríguez-Gaspar, Melchor; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Eva

2010-08-01

The hypothesis of reverse epidemiology holds that some cardiovascular risk factors, such as obesity, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension, in the elderly or in some chronic diseases are not harmful but permit better survival. However, this phenomenon is controversial and the underlying reasons are poorly understood. To search for factors simultaneously linked to reverse epidemiology and to short or long term survival. We included 400 patients, older than 60 years, hospitalized in a general internal medicine unit; 61 died in hospital and 338 were followed up by telephone. Obesity, higher blood pressure and serum cholesterol, besides being related to lower mortality both in hospital and after discharge, were associated with better nutrition and functional capacity, less intense acute phase reaction and organ dysfunction, and lower incidence of high-mortality diseases such as dementia, pneumonia, sepsis or cancer. These associations may explain why obesity and other reverse epidemiology data are inversely related to mortality. Weight loss was related to mortality independently of BMI. Patients with BMI under 30 kg/m(2) who died in hospital showed more weight loss than those who survived; the lower the BMI, the greater the weight loss. In contrast, patients with BMI over 30 kg/m(2) who died in hospital gained more weight than those who survived; the higher the BMI, the greater the weight gain. In patients over 60 years of age admitted to an internal medicine ward, obesity did not show independent survival value, being displaced by other nutritional parameters, functional capacity, acute phase reaction, organ dysfunction and diseases with poor prognosis. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. All rights reserved.

Featureous: infrastructure for feature-centric analysis of object-oriented software

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olszak, Andrzej; Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard

2010-01-01

The decentralized nature of collaborations between objects in object-oriented software makes it difficult to understand how user-observable program features are implemented and how their implementations relate to each other. It is worthwhile to improve this situation, since feature-centric program...... understanding and modification are essential during software evolution and maintenance. In this paper, we present an infrastructure built on top of the NetBeans IDE called Featureous that allows for rapid construction of tools for feature-centric analysis of object-oriented software. Our infrastructure...... encompasses a lightweight feature location mechanism, a number of analytical views and an API allowing for addition of third-party extensions. To form a common conceptual framework for future feature-centric extensions, we propose to structure feature centric analysis along three dimensions: perspective...

Current practice of epidemiology in Africa: highlights of the 3rd conference of the African epidemiological association and 1st conference of the Cameroon society of epidemiology, Yaoundé, Cameroon, 2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Nkwescheu, Armand Seraphin; Fokam, Joseph; Tchendjou, Patrice; Nji, Akindeh; Ngouakam, Hermann; Andre, Bita Fouda; Joelle, Sobngwi; Uzochukwu, Benjamin; Akinroye, Kingsley; Mbacham, Wilfred; Colizzi, Vittorio; Leke, Rose; Victora, Cesar

2015-01-01

As the study of disease occurrence and health indicators in human populations, Epidemiology is a dynamic field that evolves with time and geographical context. In order to update African health workers on current epidemiological practices and to draw awareness of early career epidemiologists on concepts and opportunities in the field, the 3(rd) African Epidemiology Association and the 1st Cameroon Society of Epidemiology Conference was organized in June 2-6, 2014 at the Yaoundé Mont Febe Hotel, in Cameroon. Under the theme«Practice of Epidemiology in Africa: Stakes, Challenges and Perspectives», the conference attracted close to five hundred guest and participants from all continents. The two main programs were the pre-conference course for capacity building of African Early Career epidemiologists, and the conference itself, providing a forum for scientific exchanges on recent epidemiological concepts, encouraging the use of epidemiological methods in studying large disease burden and neglected tropical diseases; and highlighting existing opportunities.

Global epidemiology of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism.

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Peter N; Albrecht, Diana; Scholz, Anna; Gutierrez-Buey, Gala; Lazarus, John H; Dayan, Colin M; Okosieme, Onyebuchi E

2018-05-01

Thyroid hormones are essential for growth, neuronal development, reproduction and regulation of energy metabolism. Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism are common conditions with potentially devastating health consequences that affect all populations worldwide. Iodine nutrition is a key determinant of thyroid disease risk; however, other factors, such as ageing, smoking status, genetic susceptibility, ethnicity, endocrine disruptors and the advent of novel therapeutics, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, also influence thyroid disease epidemiology. In the developed world, the prevalence of undiagnosed thyroid disease is likely falling owing to widespread thyroid function testing and relatively low thresholds for treatment initiation. However, continued vigilance against iodine deficiency remains essential in developed countries, particularly in Europe. In this report, we review the global incidence and prevalence of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, highlighting geographical differences and the effect of environmental factors, such as iodine supplementation, on these data. We also highlight the pressing need for detailed epidemiological surveys of thyroid dysfunction and iodine status in developing countries.

Distant supervision for neural relation extraction integrated with word attention and property features.

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Jianfeng; Ouyang, Dantong; Hua, Wen; Ye, Yuxin; Li, Ximing

2018-04-01

Distant supervision for neural relation extraction is an efficient approach to extracting massive relations with reference to plain texts. However, the existing neural methods fail to capture the critical words in sentence encoding and meanwhile lack useful sentence information for some positive training instances. To address the above issues, we propose a novel neural relation extraction model. First, we develop a word-level attention mechanism to distinguish the importance of each individual word in a sentence, increasing the attention weights for those critical words. Second, we investigate the semantic information from word embeddings of target entities, which can be developed as a supplementary feature for the extractor. Experimental results show that our model outperforms previous state-of-the-art baselines. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Epidemiology of drinking, alcohol use disorders, and related problems in US ethnic minority groups.

Science.gov (United States)

Caetano, Raul; Vaeth, Patrice A C; Chartier, Karen G; Mills, Britain A

2014-01-01

This chapter reviews selected epidemiologic studies on drinking and associated problems among US ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities and the White majority group exhibit important differences in alcohol use and related problems, including alcohol use disorders. Studies show a higher rate of binge drinking, drinking above guidelines, alcohol abuse, and dependence for major ethnic and racial groups, notably, Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives. Other problems with a higher prevalence in certain minority groups are, for example, cancer (Blacks), cirrhosis (Hispanics), fetal alcohol syndrome (Blacks and American Indians/Alaskan Natives), drinking and driving (Hispanics, American Indians/Alaskan Natives). There are also considerable differences in rates of drinking and problems within certain ethnic groups such as Hispanics, Asian Americans, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives. For instance, among Hispanics, Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans drink more and have higher rates of disorders such as alcohol abuse and dependence than Cuban Americans. Disparities also affect the trajectory of heavy drinking and the course of alcohol dependence among minorities. Theoretic accounts of these disparities generally attribute them to the historic experience of discrimination and to minority socioeconomic disadvantages at individual and environmental levels. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Anatomical Features of the Interscapular Area Where Wet Cupping Therapy Is Done and Its Possible Relation to Acupuncture Meridians.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghods, Roshanak; Sayfouri, Nasrin; Ayati, Mohammad Hossein

2016-12-01

Although wet cupping has been a treatment for centuries, its mechanism of action is not well understood. Because the anatomical features of the wet-cupping area might play a role in its mechanism, we focus on the features of the interscapular area in which a common type of wet-cupping therapy (WCT), called Hijamat-e-Aam in Iranian medicine, is usually applied and discuss the possible relation of those features to the acupuncture meridians. We gathered and analyzed data from reliable textbooks on modern medicine with a focus on the anatomical features of the interscapular area, topics related to WTC in Iranian medicine, and acupuncture sources obtained by searching PubMed, Google-Scholar, and Science Direct. The interscapular area used for WCT was found to have special features: brown adipose tissue, immediate proximity to sympathetic ganglia, passage of the thoracic duct, two important acupuncture meridians, and proximity to the main vessel divisions carrying blood from the heart and the brain. These features indicate that the interscapular application of WCT not only discharges waste materials through a shifting of blood to the site after application of a traction force but also invigorates the body's metabolism, increases immunity, and regulates blood biochemistry, which are desired therapeutic effects of WCT. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Anatomical Features of the Interscapular Area Where Wet Cupping Therapy Is Done and Its Possible Relation to Acupuncture Meridians

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roshanak Ghods

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Although wet cupping has been a treatment for centuries, its mechanism of action is not well understood. Because the anatomical features of the wet-cupping area might play a role in its mechanism, we focus on the features of the interscapular area in which a common type of wet-cupping therapy (WCT, called Hijamat-e-Aam in Iranian medicine, is usually applied and discuss the possible relation of those features to the acupuncture meridians. We gathered and analyzed data from reliable textbooks on modern medicine with a focus on the anatomical features of the interscapular area, topics related to WTC in Iranian medicine, and acupuncture sources obtained by searching PubMed, Google-Scholar, and Science Direct. The interscapular area used for WCT was found to have special features: brown adipose tissue, immediate proximity to sympathetic ganglia, passage of the thoracic duct, two important acupuncture meridians, and proximity to the main vessel divisions carrying blood from the heart and the brain. These features indicate that the interscapular application of WCT not only discharges waste materials through a shifting of blood to the site after application of a traction force but also invigorates the body’s metabolism, increases immunity, and regulates blood biochemistry, which are desired therapeutic effects of WCT.

Cardiovascular disease prediction: do pulmonary disease-related chest CT features have added value?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jairam, Pushpa M.; Jong, Pim A. de; Mali, Willem P.T.M.; Isgum, Ivana; Graaf, Yolanda van der

2015-01-01

Certain pulmonary diseases are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Therefore we investigated the incremental predictive value of pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural features over cardiovascular imaging findings. A total of 10,410 patients underwent diagnostic chest CT for non-cardiovascular indications. Using a case-cohort approach, we visually graded CTs from the cases and from an approximately 10 % random sample of the baseline cohort (n = 1,203) for cardiovascular, pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural findings. The incremental value of pulmonary disease-related CT findings above cardiovascular imaging findings in cardiovascular event risk prediction was quantified by comparing discrimination and reclassification. During a mean follow-up of 3.7 years (max. 7.0 years), 1,148 CVD events (cases) were identified. Addition of pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural features to a cardiovascular imaging findings-based prediction model led to marginal improvement of discrimination (increase in c-index from 0.72 (95 % CI 0.71-0.74) to 0.74 (95 % CI 0.72-0.75)) and reclassification measures (net reclassification index 6.5 % (p < 0.01)). Pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural features have limited predictive value in the identification of subjects at high risk of CVD events beyond cardiovascular findings on diagnostic chest CT scans. (orig.)

Cardiovascular disease prediction: do pulmonary disease-related chest CT features have added value?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jairam, Pushpa M. [University Medical Center Utrecht, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht (Netherlands); University Medical Center Utrecht, Department of Radiology, Utrecht (Netherlands); Jong, Pim A. de; Mali, Willem P.T.M. [University Medical Center Utrecht, Department of Radiology, Utrecht (Netherlands); Isgum, Ivana [University Medical Center Utrecht, Image Sciences Institute, Utrecht (Netherlands); Graaf, Yolanda van der [University Medical Center Utrecht, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht (Netherlands); Collaboration: PROVIDI study-group

2015-06-01

Certain pulmonary diseases are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Therefore we investigated the incremental predictive value of pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural features over cardiovascular imaging findings. A total of 10,410 patients underwent diagnostic chest CT for non-cardiovascular indications. Using a case-cohort approach, we visually graded CTs from the cases and from an approximately 10 % random sample of the baseline cohort (n = 1,203) for cardiovascular, pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural findings. The incremental value of pulmonary disease-related CT findings above cardiovascular imaging findings in cardiovascular event risk prediction was quantified by comparing discrimination and reclassification. During a mean follow-up of 3.7 years (max. 7.0 years), 1,148 CVD events (cases) were identified. Addition of pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural features to a cardiovascular imaging findings-based prediction model led to marginal improvement of discrimination (increase in c-index from 0.72 (95 % CI 0.71-0.74) to 0.74 (95 % CI 0.72-0.75)) and reclassification measures (net reclassification index 6.5 % (p < 0.01)). Pulmonary, mediastinal and pleural features have limited predictive value in the identification of subjects at high risk of CVD events beyond cardiovascular findings on diagnostic chest CT scans. (orig.)

JCE Feature Columns

Science.gov (United States)

Holmes, Jon L.

1999-05-01

The Features area of JCE Online is now readily accessible through a single click from our home page. In the Features area each column is linked to its own home page. These column home pages also have links to them from the online Journal Table of Contents pages or from any article published as part of that feature column. Using these links you can easily find abstracts of additional articles that are related by topic. Of course, JCE Online+ subscribers are then just one click away from the entire article. Finding related articles is easy because each feature column "site" contains links to the online abstracts of all the articles that have appeared in the column. In addition, you can find the mission statement for the column and the email link to the column editor that I mentioned above. At the discretion of its editor, a feature column site may contain additional resources. As an example, the Chemical Information Instructor column edited by Arleen Somerville will have a periodically updated bibliography of resources for teaching and using chemical information. Due to the increase in the number of these resources available on the WWW, it only makes sense to publish this information online so that you can get to these resources with a simple click of the mouse. We expect that there will soon be additional information and resources at several other feature column sites. Following in the footsteps of the Chemical Information Instructor, up-to-date bibliographies and links to related online resources can be made available. We hope to extend the online component of our feature columns with moderated online discussion forums. If you have a suggestion for an online resource you would like to see included, let the feature editor or JCE Online (jceonline@chem.wisc.edu) know about it. JCE Internet Features JCE Internet also has several feature columns: Chemical Education Resource Shelf, Conceptual Questions and Challenge Problems, Equipment Buyers Guide, Hal's Picks, Mathcad

Biopsychosocial impact of the voice in relation to the psychological features in female student teachers.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meulenbroek, L.F.P.; Thomas, G.; Kooijman, P.G.C.; Jong, F.I.C.R.S. de

2010-01-01

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to assess biopsychosocial impact of the voice in relation to the psychological features in female student teachers. METHODS: This research was a cross-sectional study in 755 student teachers using general questionnaires, the Voice Handicap Inventory (VHI), Type D

Phage typing or CRISPR typing for epidemiological surveillance of Salmonella Typhimurium?

Science.gov (United States)

Mohammed, Manal

2017-11-07

Salmonella Typhimurium is the most dominant Salmonella serovar around the world. It is associated with foodborne gastroenteritis outbreaks but has recently been associated with invasive illness and deaths. Characterization of S. Typhimurium is therefore very crucial for epidemiological surveillance. Phage typing has been used for decades for subtyping of S. Typhimurium to determine the epidemiological relation among isolates. Recent studies however have suggested that high throughput clustered regular interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) typing has the potential to replace phage typing. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of high-throughput CRISPR typing over conventional phage typing in epidemiological surveillance and outbreak investigation of S. Typhimurium. In silico analysis of whole genome sequences (WGS) of well-documented phage types of S. Typhimurium reveals the presence of different CRISPR type among strains belong to the same phage type. Furthermore, different phage types of S. Typhimurium share identical CRISPR type. Interestingly, identical spacers were detected among outbreak and non-outbreak associated DT8 strains of S. Typhimurium. Therefore, CRISPR typing is not useful for the epidemiological surveillance and outbreak investigation of S. Typhimurium and phage typing, until it is replaced by WGS, is still the gold standard method for epidemiological surveillance of S. Typhimurium.

Epidemiological Aspects and Differential Diagnosis of the Cutaneous Round Cell Tumors in Dogs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roxana CORA

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Round cell neoplasms (RCNs are frequent cutaneous lesions in dogs, with high percentages among skin tumors. In this category are included histiocytoma, mast cell tumor, plasmacytoma, lymphoma and transmissible venereal tumor. The aim of the study was to perform an epidemiological study with reference to the cutaneous round cell tumors in a period of 10 years in the Department of Pathology (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Additionally, in the recorded cases with round cell tumors (mast cell tumor, histiocytoma and lymphoma we described the main histological and cytological features. The epidemiological data were collected from the records of Pathology Department between 2005-2014. The investigation included dogs diagnosed with cutaneous round cell neoplasms, following necropsy analysis or assessment of biopsies or cytological samples. All collected specimens were analyzed by histopathological and/or cytological techniques. The staining used for histological investigation were Hematoxylin-eosin, Masson’s trichrome and Toluidine blue, whereas Diff Quik and Wright methods were utilized in cytological specimens. The distribution of the cutaneous round cell tumors in relation to age, breed and sex was also assessed. The most frequent round cell tumor type was the mast cell tumor (19.54% followed by histiocytoma (11.33% and lymphoma (1.98%. The round cell tumors recorded were equally distributed in both males and females. Concerning the distribution of cutaneous RCNs by age (average age, histiocytoma occurred in 5 years old subjects, mast cell tumor in 11.9 years old subjects, and lymphoma in 6 years old subjects. Mast cell tumor was more frequent in stray dogs and Boxer breed, while histiocytoma occurred more commonly in stray dogs. Histological and cytological analysis was mandatory to perform the differential diagnosis between RCNs. Microscopic details concerning cytoplasm and nucleus of tumoral cells, together with the

Epidemiology of testicular cancer: an overview.

Science.gov (United States)

Garner, Michael J; Turner, Michelle C; Ghadirian, Parviz; Krewski, Daniel

2005-09-01

Testicular cancer is a rare disease, accounting for 1.1% of all malignant neoplasms in Canadian males. Despite the low overall incidence of testicular cancer, it is the most common malignancy among young men. The incidence rate of testicular cancer has been increasing since the middle of the 20th century in many western countries. However, the etiology of testicular cancer is not well understood. A search of the peer-reviewed literature was conducted to identify important articles for review and inclusion in this overview of the epidemiology of testicular cancer. Most of the established risk factors are related to early life events, including cryptorchidism, carcinoma in situ and in utero exposure to estrogens. Occupational, lifestyle, socioeconomic and other risk factors have demonstrated mixed associations with testicular cancer. Although there are few established risk factors for testicular cancer, some appear to be related to hormonal balance at various life stages. Lifestyle and occupational exposures occurring later in life may play a role in promoting the disease, although they are not likely involved in cancer initiation. In addition to summarizing the current epidemiologic evidence on risk factors for testicular cancer, we suggest future research directions that may elucidate the etiology of testicular cancer.

TUBERCULOSIS IN TROPICAL AFRICA. AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY.

Science.gov (United States)

ROELSGAARD, E; IVERSEN, E; BLOCHER, C

1964-01-01

Up to the end of the nineteenth century the tubercle bacillus apparently had little opportunity of disseminating among the rather isolated tribes of tropical Africa. With the creation of large centres of trade and industry in the wake of European colonization, tuberculosis seems to have spread rapidly over the continent and is today found everywhere.In a number of tuberculosis prevalence surveys conducted by WHO during 1955-60, randomly selected population groups were tuberculin tested, X-rayed and had sputa examined by direct microscopy. The three methods of examination were applied independently of one another.Data collected during the surveys have been analysed with a view to discovering common epidemiological features of tuberculosis in tropical Africa, assessing the reliability of the diagnostic methods employed and discussing their usefulness in future tuberculosis control programmes.

Gastric cancer: epidemiology, prevention, classification, and treatment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sitarz R

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Robert Sitarz,1–3 Małgorzata Skierucha,1,2 Jerzy Mielko,1 G Johan A Offerhaus,3 Ryszard Maciejewski,2 Wojciech P Polkowski1 1Department of Surgical Oncology, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland; 2Department of Human Anatomy, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland; 3Department of Pathology, University Medical Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands Abstract: Gastric cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the world, the epidemiology of which has changed within last decades. A trend of steady decline in gastric cancer incidence rates is the effect of the increased standards of hygiene, conscious nutrition, and Helicobacter pylori eradication, which together constitute primary prevention. Avoidance of gastric cancer remains a priority. However, patients with higher risk should be screened for early detection and chemoprevention. Surgical resection enhanced by standardized lymphadenectomy remains the gold standard in gastric cancer therapy. This review briefly summarizes the most important aspects of gastric cancers, which include epidemiology, risk factors, classification, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. The paper is mostly addressed to physicians who are interested in updating the state of art concerning gastric carcinoma from easily accessible and credible source. Keywords: gastric cancer, epidemiology, classification, risk factors, treatment

Clinical Epidemiology Of Stroke

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nagaraja D

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Stroke is a huge public health problem because of its high morbidity and disability. The epidemiology of stroke is of relevance to construct practical paradigms to tackle this major health issue in the community. Recent data have shown that about 72-86% of strokes are ischemic, 9-18% are due to hemorrhage (intracerebral of subarachnoid and the rest are undefined. The risk factors for stroke are multiple and combined. At present, stroke is no more considered as unavoidable and untreatable. It is an emergency and specialized units and teams improve outcome and lower costs. Death related to stroke is declining in many countries and in both sexes. This decrease in multifactorial. The detection and more effective treatment of hypertension may play an important factor, as well as the improved medical care and improvement in diagnostic procedures. While stroke incidence appears stable and stroke mortality is slowly declining, the absolute magnitude of stroke is likely to grow over the next 30 years. as the population ages, the absolute number of stroke victims and demands on healthcare and other support systems is likely to increase substantially in the future. Keeping this in perspective, this chapter shall focus on the epidemiology of stroke in the world and in Indian, in particular.

Cancer Epidemiology Data Repository (CEDR)

Science.gov (United States)

In an effort to broaden access and facilitate efficient data sharing, the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) has created the Cancer Epidemiology Data Repository (CEDR), a centralized, controlled-access database, where Investigators can deposit individual-level de-identified observational cancer datasets.

Doses for post-Chernobyl epidemiological studies: are they reliable?

Science.gov (United States)

Drozdovitch, Vladimir; Chumak, Vadim; Kesminiene, Ausrele; Ostroumova, Evgenia; Bouville, André

2016-09-01

On 26 April 2016, thirty years will have elapsed since the occurrence of the Chernobyl accident, which has so far been the most severe in the history of the nuclear reactor industry. Numerous epidemiological studies were conducted to evaluate the possible health consequences of the accident. Since the credibility of the association between the radiation exposure and health outcome is highly dependent on the adequacy of the dosimetric quantities used in these studies, this paper makes an effort to overview the methods used to estimate individual doses and the associated uncertainties in the main analytical epidemiological studies (i.e. cohort or case-control) related to the Chernobyl accident. Based on the thorough analysis and comparison with other radiation studies, the authors conclude that individual doses for the Chernobyl analytical epidemiological studies have been calculated with a relatively high degree of reliability and well-characterized uncertainties, and that they compare favorably with many other non-Chernobyl studies. The major strengths of the Chernobyl studies are: (1) they are grounded on a large number of measurements, either performed on humans or made in the environment; and (2) extensive effort has been invested to evaluate the uncertainties associated with the dose estimates. Nevertheless, gaps in the methodology are identified and suggestions for the possible improvement of the current dose estimates are made.

A cross-sectional epidemiological study of domestic animals related to human leptospirosis cases in Nicaragua.

Science.gov (United States)

Flores, Byron J; Pérez-Sánchez, Tania; Fuertes, Héctor; Sheleby-Elías, Jessica; Múzquiz, José Luis; Jirón, William; Duttmann, Christianne; Halaihel, Nabil

2017-06-01

Leptospirosis is one of the most extended zoonosis worldwide and humans become infected most commonly through contact with the urine of carrier animals, either directly or via contaminated water or soil. The aim in this study was to analyse the epidemiological behaviour of Leptospira spp., from domestic animals around the sites of human leptospirosis cases in Nicaragua, from 2007 through 2013. We report the results of a cross-sectional epidemiological study with a non-probability sampling of blood (n=3050) and urine (n=299) from Domestic Animals (DA) around the sites of human leptospirosis cases in Nicaragua. We analysed data obtained through Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT), in-vitro culture, real time PCR and sequencing of lfb1 locus. Frequencies of 30.31% (95% CI: 28.66-31.95) and 15.38% (95% CI: 11.12-19.64) were obtained from serological test and from in-vitro culture, respectively. Although similar frequencies from serology test (P≥0.05) were found in DA species, in-vitro culture frequencies were significantly higher from bovine, equine and sheep (P<0.05) in comparison with swine and canine species. Ten serogroups of pathogenic Leptospira spp. were encountered, with the highest presence of Icterohaemorrhagiae serogroup 34.65% (95% CI: 29.35-39.94). We identified 7 samples homologous to L. interrogans species Pyrogenes serovar and 3 samples as L. noguchii Louisiana or Panama serovars by analysis of lfb1 sequences. We were able to establish a temporal and spatial correlation from DA and cumulative incidence of human cases. Therefore an effective epidemiological surveillance should be implemented with a specific control program toward DA in order to reduce human leptospirosis incidence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Suicide, guns, and buyback programs: An epidemiologic analysis of firearm-related deaths in Connecticut.

Science.gov (United States)

Baumann, Laura; Clinton, Heather; Berntsson, Rob; Williams, Susan S; Rovella, James C; Shapiro, David; Thaker, Shefali; Borrup, Kevin; Lapidus, Garry; Campbell, Brendan T

2017-12-01

Gun buyback programs aim to remove unwanted firearms from the community with the goal of preventing firearm injury and death. Buyback programs are held in many communities, but evidence demonstrating their effectiveness is lacking. The purpose of this study is to compare firearms collected at buyback events to crime guns and firearms used in homicides and suicides. Detailed firearm and case data were obtained from the Hartford Police Department and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner from January through December of 2015. Information was reviewed for guns collected at buyback events, crime guns confiscated by police, and for weapons associated with firearm fatalities. Detailed firearm data included type, manufacturer, model, and caliber (small, ≤ 0.32 caliber; medium, 0.357 caliber to 9 mm; large, ≥ 0.40 caliber). χ analyses were used for comparisons between groups. In 2015, 224 crime guns were seized by the Hartford Police, 169 guns were collected at four community buyback events, and there were 187 firearm-related deaths statewide (105 suicides, 81 homicides, 1 legal intervention). Comparisons between buyback, crime, and fatality-related firearms are shown in the table below. Medium caliber handguns account for the majority of crime guns and fatalities, and buyback programs collected smaller caliber handguns. The demographics of individuals who turn in guns at buyback events and commit suicide are similar: age (buyback, 63 ± 11; suicide, 52 ± 18; homicide, 34 ± 12 years), sex (buyback, 81%; suicide, 91%; homicide, 84% men), and race (buyback, 80%; suicide, 97%; homicide, 47% white). Handguns account for the majority of crime guns and firearm-related fatalities in Connecticut. Buyback programs are both an opportunity to remove unwanted handguns from the community and to remove firearms from the homes of individuals at increased risk of suicide. Epidemiologic/therapeutic study, level IV.

Cross-sensory mapping of feature values in the size-brightness correspondence can be more relative than absolute

OpenAIRE

Walker, Laura; Walker, Peter

2016-01-01

A role for conceptual representations in cross-sensory correspondences has been linked to the relative (context-sensitive) mapping of feature values, whereas a role for sensory-perceptual representations has been linked to their absolute (context-insensitive) mapping. Demonstrating the relative nature of the automatic mapping underlying a cross-sensory correspondence therefore offers one way of confirming its conceptual basis. After identifying several prerequisites for relative and absolute ...

Ophthalmic epidemiology in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Delcourt, Cécile; Korobelnik, Jean-François; Buitendijk, Gabriëlle H S

2016-01-01

The European Eye Epidemiology (E3) consortium is a recently formed consortium of 29 groups from 12 European countries. It already comprises 21 population-based studies and 20 other studies (case-control, cases only, randomized trials), providing ophthalmological data on approximately 170,000 Euro......The European Eye Epidemiology (E3) consortium is a recently formed consortium of 29 groups from 12 European countries. It already comprises 21 population-based studies and 20 other studies (case-control, cases only, randomized trials), providing ophthalmological data on approximately 170......,000 European participants. The aim of the consortium is to promote and sustain collaboration and sharing of data and knowledge in the field of ophthalmic epidemiology in Europe, with particular focus on the harmonization of methods for future research, estimation and projection of frequency and impact...

EPIDEMIOLOGI UNTUK 'QUALITY ASSESSMENT' PELAYANAN KESEHATAN GIGI MULUT

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Zaura Anggraeni Matram

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The need for quality assessment and assurance in health and oral health becomes an issue of major concern in Indonesia, particularly in relation to the significant decrease of available resources due to the persistence economical crisis. Financial and socioeconomical impacts have led to the need for low cost - high quality accessible oral care. Dentists are ultimately responsibel for the quality of care performed in Public Helath Center (Puskesmas especially for School and Community Dental Programmes often performed by various type of health manpower such as dental nurses and cadres (volunteers. In this paper, emphasis has been placed on two epidemiological models to assess the quality of outcomes of service as well as management control for quality assessment in School Dental Programme. Respectively epidemiological moderls were developed for assessing the effectiveness of oral health education and simple oral prophylaxis carried out the School Dental Programme (known as UKGS. With these epidemiological approaches, it is hope dentists will gain increase appreciation for qualitative assessment quality of care instead of just quantitavely meeting the target that many health administrations use it to indicate success.

How to make epidemiological training infectious.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steve E Bellan

Full Text Available Modern infectious disease epidemiology builds on two independently developed fields: classical epidemiology and dynamical epidemiology. Over the past decade, integration of the two fields has increased in research practice, but training options within the fields remain distinct with few opportunities for integration in the classroom. The annual Clinic on the Meaningful Modeling of Epidemiological Data (MMED at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences has begun to address this gap. MMED offers participants exposure to a broad range of concepts and techniques from both epidemiological traditions. During MMED 2010 we developed a pedagogical approach that bridges the traditional distinction between classical and dynamical epidemiology and can be used at multiple educational levels, from high school to graduate level courses. The approach is hands-on, consisting of a real-time simulation of a stochastic outbreak in course participants, including realistic data reporting, followed by a variety of mathematical and statistical analyses, stemming from both epidemiological traditions. During the exercise, dynamical epidemiologists developed empirical skills such as study design and learned concepts of bias while classical epidemiologists were trained in systems thinking and began to understand epidemics as dynamic nonlinear processes. We believe this type of integrated educational tool will prove extremely valuable in the training of future infectious disease epidemiologists. We also believe that such interdisciplinary training will be critical for local capacity building in analytical epidemiology as Africa continues to produce new cohorts of well-trained mathematicians, statisticians, and scientists. And because the lessons draw on skills and concepts from many fields in biology--from pathogen biology, evolutionary dynamics of host--pathogen interactions, and the ecology of infectious disease to bioinformatics, computational biology, and

The development of a preliminary ultrasonographic scoring system for features of hand osteoarthritis.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Keen, H I

2008-05-01

Painful osteoarthritis (OA) of the hand is common and a validated ultrasound (US) scoring system would be valuable for epidemiological and therapeutic outcome studies. US is increasingly used to assess peripheral joints, though most of the US focus in rheumatic diseases has been on rheumatoid arthritis. We aimed to develop a preliminary US hand OA scoring system, initially focusing on relevant pathological features with potentially high reliability.

The evolving epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Shanahan, Fergus

2009-07-01

Epidemiologic studies in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) include assessments of disease burden and evolving patterns of disease presentation. Although it is hoped that sound epidemiologic studies provide aetiological clues, traditional risk factor-based epidemiology has provided limited insights into either Crohn\\'s disease or ulcerative colitis etiopathogenesis. In this update, we will summarize how the changing epidemiology of IBD associated with modernization can be reconciled with current concepts of disease mechanisms and will discuss studies of clinically significant comorbidity in IBD.

[Epidemiology of osteoporosis].

Science.gov (United States)

Grazio, Simeon

2006-01-01

Osteoporosis represents a major and increasing public health problem with the aging of population. Major clinical consequences and economic burden of the disease are fractures. Many risk factors are associated with the fractures including low bone mass, hormonal disorders, personal and family history of fractures, low body weight, use of certain drugs (e.g. glucocorticoids), cigarette smoking, elevated intake of alchohol, low physical activity, insufficient level of vitamin D and low intake of calcium. This epidemiological review describes frequency, importance of risk factors and impact of osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures. Objective measures of bone mineral density along with clinical assessment of risk factors can help identify patients who will benefit from prevention and intervention efforts and eventually reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with osteoporosis-related fractures.

Epidemiology of Osteoporosis and Osteoporotic Fractures in South Korea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Young-Kyun Lee

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Several epidemiologic studies suggested that osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures are not uncommon in South Korea. However, these previous cohort studies had limitations that may have influenced their results and the generalizability of the study conclusions, including small sample sizes, inclusion of only women, enrollment of participants from specific areas, and nonrandom selection of participants. Recently, epidemiologic studies using a nationwide claim register have been performed to overcome these limitations through collaboration between the Korean Society of Bone and Mineral Research and Health Insurance Review Assessments. Our review of the Korean Nationwide-database Osteoporosis Study could be helpful to obtain accurate incidence and prevalence estimations of osteoporosis and osteoporosis-related fractures in Korea.

Design of the CHina Epidemiology Research in Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (CHERISH) study.

Science.gov (United States)

Shiue, Ivy; Zhang, Jing Fen; Arima, Hisatomi; Wang, Ji Guang; Liu, Guo Rong; Li, Yue Chun; Wang, Min; Cheng, Guo Juan; Anderson, Craig S

2010-12-01

Limited epidemiological data exist on subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) in China. Effective prevention requires knowledge of the rates and risk factors for SAH the most lethal type of stroke that most often affects younger adults. We report the methods and the initial experience of a new study to address this deficiency. To determine the incidence, risk factors, management and outcomes of SAH. The CHina Epidemiology Research In Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (CHERISH) is a prospective, population-based, case-control study in a defined region (study population 1.7 million) of the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia, China. Cases of spontaneous SAH are identified using standard definitions through prospective surveillance of all major acute care hospitals with neurology/neurosurgery facilities, small hospitals/clinics, and the single city crematorium over a 2-year period. Verbal autopsy procedures are used to ascertain the probable causes of deaths outside of hospital. For each case, two nonrelative controls without SAH are matched by age (5-year strata), gender, and district of residence. Data are collected on socio-demography, lifestyle factors, and medical history, and blood is taken for the extraction and storage of DNA. Details of the clinical features, presentation, and management of SAH are obtained from cases, and survivors provide details on health care utilisation, physical function, health-related quality of life, and complications, at 6-months. The primary outcomes are overall, age- and gender-specific incidence, relative (odds ratios) and population-attributable risks for defined exposures, and 28-day and 6-month case fatality ratios and other outcomes. Preliminary experience confirms the completeness of the surveillance methods, with no clear missed out-of-hospital cases of SAH with sudden death, and of high participation and reliable data collection procedures. CHERISH is well placed to provide reliable estimates of the burden of SAH in China. © 2010 The Authors

Epidemiological methods: a brief review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Winkelstein, W. Jr.

1983-01-01

Epidemiology, the study of disease distributions in populations and the factors which influence these distributions, is an observational science, i.e., its data base consists of measurements made on free living individuals characterized by presence or absence of disease states and putative risk factors. Epidemiological studies are usually classified as descriptive or analytical. Descriptive studies are primarily used for planning and evaluating health programs or to generate etiological hypotheses. Analytical studies are primarily used for testing etiological hypotheses. Analytical studies are designed either as cohort investigations in which populations with and without a putative risk factor are followed through time to ascertain their differential incidence of disease, or case-control investigations in which the history of exposure to a putative risk factor is compared among persons with a disease and appropriate controls free of disease. Both descriptive and analytical epidemiological studies have been applied to health physics problems. Examples of such problems and the epidemiological methods used to explore them will be presented

Current management and prognostic features for gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST

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Lamba Gurpreet

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Stromal or mesenchymal neoplasms affecting the gastrointestinal (GI tract have undergone a remarkable evolution in how they are perceived, classified, approached, diagnosed and managed over the last 30 years. Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST account for approximately 1% to 3% of all malignant GI tumors. The clinical features can vary depending on the anatomic location, size and aggressiveness of the tumor. Metastatic GIST represents a successful example of molecular targeted therapy. In this comprehensive review, we discuss the epidemiology, clinical features and diagnostic modalities for GIST. We also describe treatment options for early stage, locally advanced and metastatic GIST. Indications for neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy along with duration of therapy are also explained. A brief discussion of latest biomarkers and updates from recent meetings is also provided.

Coding of visual object features and feature conjunctions in the human brain.

Science.gov (United States)

Martinovic, Jasna; Gruber, Thomas; Müller, Matthias M

2008-01-01

Object recognition is achieved through neural mechanisms reliant on the activity of distributed coordinated neural assemblies. In the initial steps of this process, an object's features are thought to be coded very rapidly in distinct neural assemblies. These features play different functional roles in the recognition process--while colour facilitates recognition, additional contours and edges delay it. Here, we selectively varied the amount and role of object features in an entry-level categorization paradigm and related them to the electrical activity of the human brain. We found that early synchronizations (approx. 100 ms) increased quantitatively when more image features had to be coded, without reflecting their qualitative contribution to the recognition process. Later activity (approx. 200-400 ms) was modulated by the representational role of object features. These findings demonstrate that although early synchronizations may be sufficient for relatively crude discrimination of objects in visual scenes, they cannot support entry-level categorization. This was subserved by later processes of object model selection, which utilized the representational value of object features such as colour or edges to select the appropriate model and achieve identification.

The big data potential of epidemiological studies for criminology and forensics.

Science.gov (United States)

DeLisi, Matt

2018-07-01

Big data, the analysis of original datasets with large samples ranging from ∼30,000 to one million participants to mine unexplored data, has been under-utilized in criminology. However, there have been recent calls for greater synthesis between epidemiology and criminology and a small number of scholars have utilized epidemiological studies that were designed to measure alcohol and substance use to harvest behavioral and psychiatric measures that relate to the study of crime. These studies have been helpful in producing knowledge about the most serious, violent, and chronic offenders, but applications to more pathological forensic populations is lagging. Unfortunately, big data relating to crime and justice are restricted and limited to criminal justice purposes and not easily available to the research community. Thus, the study of criminal and forensic populations is limited in terms of data volume, velocity, and variety. Additional forays into epidemiology, increased use of available online judicial and correctional data, and unknown new frontiers are needed to bring criminology up to speed in the big data arena. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.

Merging economics and epidemiology to improve the prediction and management of infectious disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Perrings, Charles; Castillo-Chavez, Carlos; Chowell, Gerardo; Daszak, Peter; Fenichel, Eli P; Finnoff, David; Horan, Richard D; Kilpatrick, A Marm; Kinzig, Ann P; Kuminoff, Nicolai V; Levin, Simon; Morin, Benjamin; Smith, Katherine F; Springborn, Michael

2014-12-01

Mathematical epidemiology, one of the oldest and richest areas in mathematical biology, has significantly enhanced our understanding of how pathogens emerge, evolve, and spread. Classical epidemiological models, the standard for predicting and managing the spread of infectious disease, assume that contacts between susceptible and infectious individuals depend on their relative frequency in the population. The behavioral factors that underpin contact rates are not generally addressed. There is, however, an emerging a class of models that addresses the feedbacks between infectious disease dynamics and the behavioral decisions driving host contact. Referred to as "economic epidemiology" or "epidemiological economics," the approach explores the determinants of decisions about the number and type of contacts made by individuals, using insights and methods from economics. We show how the approach has the potential both to improve predictions of the course of infectious disease, and to support development of novel approaches to infectious disease management.

The Variety of Ecstasy/MDMA Users: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Li-Tzy; Parrott, Andy C.; Ringwalt, Christopher L.; Yang, Chongming; Blazer, Dan G.

2011-01-01

This study investigates the potential heterogeneity of ecstasy or MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine) users. Data came from the 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Latent class analysis (LCA) and multinomial logistic regression procedures were used to identify subtypes of ecstasy users. Approximately 1.6% (n=562) of adult participants (N=43,093) reported lifetime ecstasy use. LCA identified three subtypes of ecstasy users. Class 1 exhibited pervasive use of most drug classes (ecstasy–polydrug users, 37%). Class 2 reported a high rate of use of marijuana and cocaine and a moderate use of amphetamines (ecstasy–marijuana–stimulant users, 29%). Class 3 was characterized by a high rate of use of marijuana and a low use of primarily prescription-type drugs (ecstasy– marijuana users, 34%). Subtypes were distinguished by family income, history of substance abuse treatment, and familial substance abuse. Class 1 exhibited the highest prevalence of disorders related to the use of marijuana (77%), tobacco (66%), amphetamines (36%), opioids (35%), sedatives (31%), and tranquilizers (30%). The recent resurgence in ecstasy use among adults underscores the need to monitor trends in its use. PMID:19874166

Relations between Automatically Extracted Motion Features and the Quality of Mother-Infant Interactions at 4 and 13 Months.

Science.gov (United States)

Egmose, Ida; Varni, Giovanna; Cordes, Katharina; Smith-Nielsen, Johanne; Væver, Mette S; Køppe, Simo; Cohen, David; Chetouani, Mohamed

2017-01-01

Bodily movements are an essential component of social interactions. However, the role of movement in early mother-infant interaction has received little attention in the research literature. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between automatically extracted motion features and interaction quality in mother-infant interactions at 4 and 13 months. The sample consisted of 19 mother-infant dyads at 4 months and 33 mother-infant dyads at 13 months. The coding system Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) was used for rating the quality of the interactions. Kinetic energy of upper-body, arms and head motion was calculated and used as segmentation in order to extract coarse- and fine-grained motion features. Spearman correlations were conducted between the composites derived from the CIB and the coarse- and fine-grained motion features. At both 4 and 13 months, longer durations of maternal arm motion and infant upper-body motion were associated with more aversive interactions, i.e., more parent-led interactions and more infant negativity. Further, at 4 months, the amount of motion silence was related to more adaptive interactions, i.e., more sensitive and child-led interactions. Analyses of the fine-grained motion features showed that if the mother coordinates her head movements with her infant's head movements, the interaction is rated as more adaptive in terms of less infant negativity and less dyadic negative states. We found more and stronger correlations between the motion features and the interaction qualities at 4 compared to 13 months. These results highlight that motion features are related to the quality of mother-infant interactions. Factors such as infant age and interaction set-up are likely to modify the meaning and importance of different motion features.

Epidemiology and Health-Related Quality of Life in Hypoparathyroidism in Norway.

Science.gov (United States)

Astor, Marianne C; Løvås, Kristian; Debowska, Aleksandra; Eriksen, Erik F; Evang, Johan A; Fossum, Christian; Fougner, Kristian J; Holte, Synnøve E; Lima, Kari; Moe, Ragnar B; Myhre, Anne Grethe; Kemp, E Helen; Nedrebø, Bjørn G; Svartberg, Johan; Husebye, Eystein S

2016-08-01

The epidemiology of hypoparathyroidism (HP) is largely unknown. We aimed to determine prevalence, etiologies, health related quality of life (HRQOL) and treatment pattern of HP. Patients with HP and 22q11 deletion syndrome (DiGeorge syndrome) were identified in electronic hospital registries. All identified patients were invited to participate in a survey. Among patients who responded, HRQOL was determined by Short Form 36 and Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale. Autoantibodies were measured and candidate genes (CaSR, AIRE, GATA3, and 22q11-deletion) were sequenced for classification of etiology. We identified 522 patients (511 alive) and estimated overall prevalence at 102 per million divided among postsurgical HP (64 per million), nonsurgical HP (30 per million), and pseudo-HP (8 per million). Nonsurgical HP comprised autosomal dominant hypocalcemia (21%), autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 (17%), DiGeorge/22q11 deletion syndrome (15%), idiopathic HP (44%), and others (4%). Among the 283 respondents (median age, 53 years [range, 9-89], 75% females), seven formerly classified as idiopathic were reclassified after genetic and immunological analyses, whereas 26 (37% of nonsurgical HP) remained idiopathic. Most were treated with vitamin D (94%) and calcium (70%), and 10 received PTH. HP patients scored significantly worse than the normative population on Short Form 36 and Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale; patients with postsurgical scored worse than those with nonsurgical HP and pseudo-HP, especially on physical health. We found higher prevalence of nonsurgical HP in Norway than reported elsewhere. Genetic testing and autoimmunity screening of idiopathic HP identified a specific cause in 21%. Further research is necessary to unravel the causes of idiopathic HP and to improve the reduced HRQOL reported by HP patients.

Listeriosis in Mexico: Clinical and epidemiological importance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gloria Castañeda-Ruelas

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Listeriosis is caused by Listeria monocytogenes, an important food-borne disease due to its clinical forms, high mortality rate, and the economic impact in both clinical and food production industries. In Mexico, the lack of epidemiological surveillance systems leads to the need of accurate data on the incidence of listeriosis and its association with food-borne disease. In this paper, we present data about the presence of this bacterium in food, reports related to clinical cases of listeriosis, and information of diseases in which L. monocytogenes may be involved. However, in most of these cases the etiology was not established. Given this, there´s a need to inform and warn the appropriate entities, to define strategies for the mandatory search of L. monocytogenes through the whole food production chain and clinical suspects, for the epidemiological importance and control of listeriosis in Mexico.

Epidemiology and 'developing countries': writing pesticides, poverty and political engagement in Latin America.

Science.gov (United States)

Brisbois, Ben W

2014-08-01

The growth of the field of global health has prompted renewed interest in discursive aspects of North-South biomedical encounters, but analysis of the role of disciplinary identities and writing conventions remains scarce. In this article, I examine ways of framing pesticide problems in 88 peer-reviewed epidemiology papers produced by Northerners and their collaborators studying pesticide-related health impacts in Latin America. I identify prominent geographic frames in which truncated and selective histories of Latin America are used to justify research projects in specific research sites, which nevertheless function rhetorically as generic 'developing country' settings. These frames legitimize health sector interventions as solutions to pesticide-related health problems, largely avoiding more politically charged possibilities. In contrast, some epidemiologists appear to be actively pushing the bounds of epidemiology's traditional journal article genre by engaging with considerations of political power, especially that of the international pesticide industry. I therefore employ a finer-grained analysis to a subsample of 20 papers to explore how the writing conventions of epidemiology interact with portrayals of poverty and pesticides in Latin America. Through analysis of a minor scientific controversy, authorial presence in epidemiology articles, and variance of framing strategies across genres, I show how the tension between 'objectivity' and 'advocacy' observed in Northern epidemiology and public health is expressed in North-South interaction. I end by discussing implications for postcolonial and socially engaged approaches to science and technology studies, as well as their relevance to the actual practice of global health research. In particular, the complicated interaction of the conflicted traditions of Northern epidemiology with Latin American settings on paper hints at a far more complex interaction in the form of public health programming involving

Protecting Privacy of Shared Epidemiologic Data without Compromising Analysis Potential

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Cologne

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. Ensuring privacy of research subjects when epidemiologic data are shared with outside collaborators involves masking (modifying the data, but overmasking can compromise utility (analysis potential. Methods of statistical disclosure control for protecting privacy may be impractical for individual researchers involved in small-scale collaborations. Methods. We investigated a simple approach based on measures of disclosure risk and analytical utility that are straightforward for epidemiologic researchers to derive. The method is illustrated using data from the Japanese Atomic-bomb Survivor population. Results. Masking by modest rounding did not adequately enhance security but rounding to remove several digits of relative accuracy effectively reduced the risk of identification without substantially reducing utility. Grouping or adding random noise led to noticeable bias. Conclusions. When sharing epidemiologic data, it is recommended that masking be performed using rounding. Specific treatment should be determined separately in individual situations after consideration of the disclosure risks and analysis needs.

Protecting Privacy of Shared Epidemiologic Data without Compromising Analysis Potential

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cologne, J.; Nakashima, E.; Funamoto, S.; Grant, E.J.; Chen, Y.; Hiroaki Katayama, H.

2012-01-01

Objective. Ensuring privacy of research subjects when epidemiologic data are shared with outside collaborators involves masking (modifying) the data, but over masking can compromise utility (analysis potential). Methods of statistical disclosure control for protecting privacy may be impractical for individual researchers involved in small-scale collaborations. Methods. We investigated a simple approach based on measures of disclosure risk and analytical utility that are straightforward for epidemiologic researchers to derive. The method is illustrated using data from the Japanese Atomic-bomb Survivor population. Results. Masking by modest rounding did not adequately enhance security but rounding to remove several digits of relative accuracy effectively reduced the risk of identification without substantially reducing utility. Grouping or adding random noise led to noticeable bias. Conclusions. When sharing epidemiologic data, it is recommended that masking be performed using rounding. Specific treatment should be determined separately in individual situations after consideration of the disclosure risks and analysis needs

[Bad habits and dysgnathia: epidemiological study].

Science.gov (United States)

Cordasco, G; Lo Giudice, G; Dolci, E; Romeo, U; Lafronte, G

1989-01-01

The authors refer about an epidemiological survey in 651 children in the school-age. The aim of study is to investigate about the frequency of the bad habits and the pathogenetic relations between these and the development of the dento-maxillo-facial deformities. They point out an incidence of these bad habits in the 35,48% with a predominance of mouth breathers (45,45%). After they discuss the necessity of an early detection of anomalous neuromuscular attitudes.

Molecular Epidemiology of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Horses, Cats, and Dogs Over a 5-Year Period in France

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marisa Haenni

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA has been reported as a worldwide pathogen in humans and animals including companion animals, i.e., cats, dogs, and horses. France lacked a comprehensive nationwide study describing the molecular features of MRSA circulating among companion animals over a large period of time. Here is reported the characterization of 130 non-duplicate clinical MRSA isolates collected from those three animal species from 2010 to 2015 through the French national Resapath network. Characterization of isolates was performed using phenotypic (antimicrobial susceptibility tests and molecular (DNA arrays, spa-typing methods. A horse-specific epidemiology was observed in France with the large dissemination of a unique clone, the CC398 clone harboring a Staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mec (SCCmec type IV and spa-type t011. It was even the unique clone collected in 2015 whereas the clone CC8 USA500 (SCCmec type IV, classically described in horses, was present until 2014. Contrarily, cats and dogs were mainly infected by human-related MRSA isolates, i.e., clones usually reported in human infections, thus mirroring the human epidemiology in hospitals in France. Isolates belonging to the CC398 clone (SCCmec type IV or V were also identified in 21.4% of dogs’ and 26.5% of cats’ MRSA isolates. In order to differentiate human-related from CC398 MRSA, tetracycline-resistance [or tet(M detection] could be useful since this resistance is scarce in human-related strains but constant in CC398 MRSA isolates. In all, our data give a nationwide epidemiological picture of MRSA in companion animals over a 5-year period in France, adding further epidemiological information on the contribution of those animal species to a major public health issue. Considering the wide dissemination of CC398 MRSA isolates and the fact that 11/64 (17.2% of them presented the Immune Evasion Cluster which enhances CC398 capacities to colonize humans, a

An immuno-epidemiological model with threshold delay: a study of the effects of multiple exposures to a pathogen.

Science.gov (United States)

Qesmi, Redouane; Heffernan, Jane M; Wu, Jianhong

2015-01-01

An immuno-epidemiological model of pathogen transmission is developed. This model incorporates two main features: (i) the epidemiological model includes within-host pathogen dynamics for an infectious disease, (ii) the susceptible individuals to the infection experience a series of exposures via the pathogen before becoming infectious. It is shown that this model leads naturally to a system of differential delay equations of the threshold type and that these equations can be transformed, in a biologically natural way, to differential equations with state-dependent delay. An interesting dynamical behavior of the model is the bistability phenomena, when the basic reproductive ratio R0 is less than unity, which raises many new challenges to effective infection control.

Internal versus external features in triggering the brain waveforms for conjunction and feature faces in recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Nie, Aiqing; Jiang, Jingguo; Fu, Qiao

2014-08-20

Previous research has found that conjunction faces (whose internal features, e.g. eyes, nose, and mouth, and external features, e.g. hairstyle and ears, are from separate studied faces) and feature faces (partial features of these are studied) can produce higher false alarms than both old and new faces (i.e. those that are exactly the same as the studied faces and those that have not been previously presented) in recognition. The event-related potentials (ERPs) that relate to conjunction and feature faces at recognition, however, have not been described as yet; in addition, the contributions of different facial features toward ERPs have not been differentiated. To address these issues, the present study compared the ERPs elicited by old faces, conjunction faces (the internal and the external features were from two studied faces), old internal feature faces (whose internal features were studied), and old external feature faces (whose external features were studied) with those of new faces separately. The results showed that old faces not only elicited an early familiarity-related FN400, but a more anterior distributed late old/new effect that reflected recollection. Conjunction faces evoked similar late brain waveforms as old internal feature faces, but not to old external feature faces. These results suggest that, at recognition, old faces hold higher familiarity than compound faces in the profiles of ERPs and internal facial features are more crucial than external ones in triggering the brain waveforms that are characterized as reflecting the result of familiarity.

Biases and attitudes in reacting to epidemiological and other risk assessments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Davies, J.M.; Lee, T.R.

1987-01-01

This paper is divided into two parts. The first deals with theoretical aspects of risk assessment by scientists and by the public and the second with specific applications in relation to epidemiological reports

Catheter-related infections in a northwestern São Paulo reference unit for burned patients care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cláudio Penido Campos Júnior

Full Text Available Despite improvements in care and rehabilitation of burned patients, infections still remain the main complication and death cause. Catheter-related infections are among the four most common infections and are associated with skin damage and insertion site colonization. There are few studies evaluating this kind of infection worldwide in this special group of patients. Padre Albino Hospital Burn Care Unit (PAHBCU is the only reference center in the Northwestern São Paulo for treatment of burned patients. This paper presents the results of a retrospective study aiming at describing the epidemiological and clinical features of catheter-related infections at PAHBCU.

Prostate cancer in Brazil and Latin America: epidemiology and screening

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rafael Rocha Tourinho-Barbosa

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Introduction: Prostate cancer is one of the tumors with higher incidence and mortality among men in the World. Epidemiological data are influenced by life expectancy of population, available diagnostic methods, correct collection of data and quality of health services. Screening of the disease is not standardized around the World. Up till now there is no consensus about the risks versus benefits of early detection. There are still missing data about this pathology in Latin America. Objective: to revise current epidemiologic situation and early diagnosis policies of prostate cancer in Brazil and Latin America. Materials and Methods: Medline, Cochrane Library and SciELO databases were reviewed on the subject of epidemiology and screening of prostate cancer. Screening research was performed in websites on national public health organizations and Latin America. Screening recommendations were obtained from those governmental organizations and from Latin American urological societies and compared to the most prominent regulatory agencies and societies of specialists and generalists from around the World. Results: Brazil and Latin America have a special position in relation to incidence and mortality of prostate cancer. In Brazil, it occupies the first position regarding incidence of cancer in men and the second cause of mortality. Central America has the highest rate of mortality of the continent with lower incidence/mortality ratios. Screening recommendations are very distinct, mainly among regulatory organs and urological societies. Conclusion: prostate cancer epidemiology is an important health public topic. Data collection related to incidence and mortality is still precarious, especially in less developed countries. It is necessary to follow-up long term screening studies results in order to conclude its benefits.

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder: Updated Review of the Core Features, the RBD-Neurodegenerative Disease Association, Evolving Concepts, Controversies, and Future Directions

Science.gov (United States)

Boeve, Bradley F.

2010-01-01

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia manifested by vivid, often frightening dreams associated with simple or complex motor behavior during REM sleep. Patients appear to “act out their dreams,” in which the exhibited behaviors mirror the content of the dreams, and the dream content often involves a chasing or attacking theme. The polysomnographic features of RBD include increased electromyographic tone +/- dream enactment behavior during REM sleep. Management with counseling and pharmacologic measures is usually straight-forward and effective. In this review, the terminology, clinical and polysomnographic features, demographic and epidemiologic features, diagnostic criteria, differential diagnosis, and management strategies are discussed. Recent data on the suspected pathophysiologic mechanisms of RBD are also reviewed. The literature and our institutional experience on RBD are next discussed, with an emphasis on the RBD-neurodegenerative disease association and particularly the RBD-synucleinopathy association. Several issues relating to evolving concepts, controversies, and future directions are then reviewed, with an emphasis on idiopathic RBD representing an early feature of a neurodegenerative disease and particularly an evolving synucleinopathy. Planning for future therapies that impact patients with idiopathic RBD is reviewed in detail. PMID:20146689

Spatial analysis of geologic and hydrologic features relating to sinkhole occurrence in Jefferson County, West Virginia

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Doctor, Daniel H.; Doctor, Katarina Z.

2012-01-01

In this study the influence of geologic features related to sinkhole susceptibility was analyzed and the results were mapped for the region of Jefferson County, West Virginia. A model of sinkhole density was constructed using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) that estimated the relations among discrete geologic or hydrologic features and sinkhole density at each sinkhole location. Nine conditioning factors on sinkhole occurrence were considered as independent variables: distance to faults, fold axes, fracture traces oriented along bedrock strike, fracture traces oriented across bedrock strike, ponds, streams, springs, quarries, and interpolated depth to groundwater. GWR model parameter estimates for each variable were evaluated for significance, and the results were mapped. The results provide visual insight into the influence of these variables on localized sinkhole density, and can be used to provide an objective means of weighting conditioning factors in models of sinkhole susceptibility or hazard risk.

Epidemiology of acute flaccid paralysis in Kermanshah province, 2004-2009

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Keyghobad Ghadiri

2011-09-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to determine epidemiologic features of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP during 2004-2009 in Kermanshah province. This cross-sectional descriptive study was done based on data records from Kermanshah health care center. In total 89 patients, 0-14 years old were enrolled study, which 36 of them were male and 53 were female. 50.6% of subjects were diagnosed as Guillain-barre, 6.7% transverse synovitis and 5.6% as arthritis. No any cases of poliomyelitis were diagnosed. The prevalence of reported of AFP during 2004-2009 in Kermanshah province was more than expected rate of 1 per 100000 according to WHO.

Epidemiology of falls in older age.

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Peel, Nancye May

2011-03-01

Worldwide, falls among older people are a public health concern because of their frequency and adverse consequences in terms of morbidity, mortality, and quality of life, as well as their impact on health system services and costs. This epidemiological review outlines the public health burden of falls and fall-related injuries and the impact of population aging. The magnitude of the problem is described in terms of the classification of falls and measurement of outcomes, including fall incidence rates across settings, sociodemographic determinants, international trends, and costs of falls and fall-related injuries. Finally, public health approaches to minimize falls risk and consequent demand on health care resources are suggested.

The Changing Epidemiology of Pediatric Endocarditis.

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Elder, Robert W; Baltimore, Robert S

2015-09-01

The epidemiology of infective endocarditis (IE) appears to be related to changes in the management of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) and the virtual disappearance of rheumatic heart disease. To better understand these changes, we divide the history into: I. The pre-surgical era, II. The early years of CHD surgical intervention, correlated with introduction of antibiotics, III. The modern era of cardiac interventions. Microbiologic changes include an early predominance of viridans streptococci and an overtaking by staphylococci. Additionally, there have been advances in imaging that allow earlier detection of IE and a reduction in IE-related mortality. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Genetic Association of Major Depression With Atypical Features and Obesity-Related Immunometabolic Dysregulations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Milaneschi, Yuri; Lamers, Femke; Peyrot, Wouter J

2017-01-01

Importance: The association between major depressive disorder (MDD) and obesity may stem from shared immunometabolic mechanisms particularly evident in MDD with atypical features, characterized by increased appetite and/or weight (A/W) during an active episode. Objective: To determine whether...... subgroups of patients with MDD stratified according to the A/W criterion had a different degree of genetic overlap with obesity-related traits (body mass index [BMI] and levels of C-reactive protein [CRP] and leptin). Design, Setting, and Patients: This multicenter study assembled genome-wide genotypic...... between atypical depressive symptoms and obesity-related traits may arise from shared pathophysiologic mechanisms in patients with MDD. Development of treatments effectively targeting immunometabolic dysregulations may benefit patients with depression and obesity, both syndromes with important disability....

Radiation carcinogenesis: Epidemiology and biological significance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boice, J.D.; Fraumeni, J.F.

1984-01-01

Epidemiologic studies of populations exposed to radiation have led to the identification of a preventable cause of cancer, but in the long run perhaps the most important contribution of radiation studies will be to provide insights into the basic processes of human carcinogenesis. In this volume, key investigators of major epidemiologic projects summarize their observations to date, including information to help assess the effects of low-level exposures. Experimentalists and theorists emphasize the relevance of laboratory and epidemiologic data in elucidating carcinogenic risks and mechanisms in man. This volume was prepared with several objectives in mind: (a) organize and synthesize knowledge on radiation carcinogenesis through epidemiologic and experimental approaches; (b) illustrate and explore ways of utilizing this information to gain insights into the fundamental mechanisms of cancer development; (c) stimulate the formation of hypotheses suited to experimental or epidemiologic testing, theoretical modeling, and multidisciplinary approaches; and (d) identify recent advances that clarify dose-response relationships and the influence of low-dose exposures, provide leads to carcinogenic mechanisms and host-environmental interactions, and suggest strategies for future research and preventive action

Is Google Trends a reliable tool for digital epidemiology? Insights from different clinical settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Cervellin, Gianfranco; Comelli, Ivan; Lippi, Giuseppe

2017-09-01

Internet-derived information has been recently recognized as a valuable tool for epidemiological investigation. Google Trends, a Google Inc. portal, generates data on geographical and temporal patterns according to specified keywords. The aim of this study was to compare the reliability of Google Trends in different clinical settings, for both common diseases with lower media coverage, and for less common diseases attracting major media coverage. We carried out a search in Google Trends using the keywords "renal colic", "epistaxis", and "mushroom poisoning", selected on the basis of available and reliable epidemiological data. Besides this search, we carried out a second search for three clinical conditions (i.e., "meningitis", "Legionella Pneumophila pneumonia", and "Ebola fever"), which recently received major focus by the Italian media. In our analysis, no correlation was found between data captured from Google Trends and epidemiology of renal colics, epistaxis and mushroom poisoning. Only when searching for the term "mushroom" alone the Google Trends search generated a seasonal pattern which almost overlaps with the epidemiological profile, but this was probably mostly due to searches for harvesting and cooking rather than to for poisoning. The Google Trends data also failed to reflect the geographical and temporary patterns of disease for meningitis, Legionella Pneumophila pneumonia and Ebola fever. The results of our study confirm that Google Trends has modest reliability for defining the epidemiology of relatively common diseases with minor media coverage, or relatively rare diseases with higher audience. Overall, Google Trends seems to be more influenced by the media clamor than by true epidemiological burden. Copyright © 2017 Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fundus Autofluorescence Features of Optic Disc Pit Related ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

chorioretinopathy, retina telangiectasia and diffuse and macula retina dystrophies.[1,3‑8] These features give useful clinical and prognostic information, making FAF a desired day‑to‑day clinical tool. Fundus autoflorescence signals can be detected using 3 different systems, the Delori's fundus. Fundus Autofluorescence ...

Ontology patterns for complex topographic feature yypes

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Varanka, Dalia E.

2011-01-01

Complex feature types are defined as integrated relations between basic features for a shared meaning or concept. The shared semantic concept is difficult to define in commonly used geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing technologies. The role of spatial relations between complex feature parts was recognized in early GIS literature, but had limited representation in the feature or coverage data models of GIS. Spatial relations are more explicitly specified in semantic technology. In this paper, semantics for topographic feature ontology design patterns (ODP) are developed as data models for the representation of complex features. In the context of topographic processes, component assemblages are supported by resource systems and are found on local landscapes. The topographic ontology is organized across six thematic modules that can account for basic feature types, resource systems, and landscape types. Types of complex feature attributes include location, generative processes and physical description. Node/edge networks model standard spatial relations and relations specific to topographic science to represent complex features. To demonstrate these concepts, data from The National Map of the U. S. Geological Survey was converted and assembled into ODP.

DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY AND THE ANALYSIS OF IRRETRIEVABLE LOSSES OF PUBLIC HEALTH BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TRANSITION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Юрий Аркадьевич Григорьев

2017-09-01

Full Text Available From the general positions of population dynamics, the demographic policy is considered, its regional features in the East of Russia are designated. It is necessary to consolidate the positive traditions of the moral and legal norms of the society and the harmonious personality development. It takes their long-term translation for the improvement of the person himself, his family-marriage relations to support the forms of demographic behavior aimed at the expanded population reproduction. The solution of the numerous tasks of the demographic policy presupposes further scientific (theoretical and applied studies of the features of the socio-demographic and medico-demographic development of the Russian regions. Particular attention should be paid to the analysis of the main characteristics of the epidemiological transition, where mortality, as well as birth rate, is one of the main characteristics of the population reproduction. This will make it possible to define more precisely the prediction of the value of irretrievable losses with endogenous and exogenous determination, to estimate on this basis the reserves of increasing life expectancy through the measures of demographic policy.

A computerized system to measure interproximal alveolar bone levels in epidemiologic, radiographic investigations. I

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wouters, F.R.; Jon-And, C.; Frithiof, L.; Soeder, P.Oe.; Lavstedt, S.

1988-01-01

The aims of the study were to adapt a computerized system to epidemiologic conditions, for rapid full-mouth measurements of alveolar bone levels from X5-magnified periapical radiographs and to analyze the variations in measurement due to different system components. Full-mouth measurements of interproximal alveolar bone height in percentage of root and tooth lengths were completed within av average time of 15 min. per set of radiographs. An analysis of variance showed that the examiner variation in measurement of a linear scale distance was 0.02 mm. The measurement accuracy was different for different distances. Each distance (d) measured with this system should therefore be calibrated with the equation Y = -0.007 - 0.014 (log 3d - 1.50) where Y is the estimate of measurement accuracy. The present computerized system enabled rapid recordings and demonstrated good measurement precision and accuracy. These are valuable features in epidemiologic investigations

The selection and use of control groups in epidemiologic studies of radiation and cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Howe, G.R.; Friedenreich, C.M.; Howe, P.D.

1990-09-01

Current risk estimates for radiation-induced cancer are based on epidemiologic studies of humans exposed to high doses of radiation. A critical feature of such studies is the selection of an appropriate control group. This report presents a detailed examination of the principles underlying the selection and use of control groups in such epidemiologic studies. It is concluded that the cohort study is the preferred design, because of the rarity of exposure to high levels of radiation in the general population and because the cohort design is less susceptible to bias. This report also assesses potential bias in current risk estimates for radiation-induced cancer due to inappropriate choice and use of control groups. Detailed summaries are presented for those epidemiologic studies on which the BEIR IV risk estimates are based. It is concluded that confounding is by far the major potential concern. Bias is probably negligible in risk estimates for breast cancer. For lung cancer, risk estimates may be underestimated by about 30 percent for males and 10 percent for females due to confounding of smoking and radiation exposure. For leukemia and cancers of the thyroid and bone, the absence of established non-radiation risk factors with a high prevalence in the population under study suggests that there is unlikely to be any substantial confounding radiation risk estimates. Finally, lifetime excess mortality risks have been estimated for several of the cancers of interest following exposure to radiation based on Canadian age-, sex- and cause-specific mortality rates. It is concluded that errors in measurement exposure, uncertainty in extrapolating the results of high dose studies to low doses and low dose rates, and sampling variation in the epidemiologic studies contribute far more to uncertainty in current risk estimates than do any biases in the epidemiologic studies introduced by inappropriate selection and use of control groups. (161 refs., 19 tabs.)

Epidemiological Features and Trends of Brown Spot of Pear Disease Based on the Diversity of Pathogen Populations and Climate Change Effects.

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Moragrega, Concepció; Puig, Mireia; Ruz, Lídia; Montesinos, Emilio; Llorente, Isidre

2018-02-01

Brown spot of pear, caused by the fungus Stemphylium vesicarium, is an emerging disease of economic importance in several pear-growing areas in Europe. In recent years, new control strategies combining sanitation practices and fungicide applications according to developed forecasting models have been introduced to manage the disease. However, the pathogenic and saprophytic behavior of this pathogen makes it difficult to manage the disease. In addition, climate change can also result in variations in the severity and geographical distribution of the disease. In this study, ecological and epidemiological aspects of brown spot of pear disease related to inoculum characterization and climate change impact were elucidated. The pathogenic variation in S. vesicarium populations from pear orchards and its relationship to inoculum sources (air samples, leaf debris, and infected host and nonhost tissues) was determined using multivariate analysis. In total, six variables related to infection and disease development on cultivar Conference pear detached leaves of 110 S. vesicarium isolates were analyzed. A high proportion of isolates (42%) were nonpathogenic to pear; 85% of these nonpathogenic isolates were recovered from air samples. Most isolates recovered from lesions (93%) and pseudothecia (83%) were pathogenic to pear. A group of pathogenic isolates rapidly infected cultivar Conference pear leaves resulted in disease increase that followed a monomolecular model, whereas some S. vesicarium isolates required a period of time after inoculation to initiate infection and resulted in disease increase that followed a logistic model. The latter group was mainly composed of isolates recovered from pseudothecia on leaf debris, whereas the former group was mainly composed of isolates recovered from lesions on pear fruit and leaves. The relationship between the source of inoculum and pathogenic/aggressiveness profile was confirmed by principal component analysis. The effect of

Epidemiological Studies to Support the Development of Next Generation Influenza Vaccines.

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Petrie, Joshua G; Gordon, Aubree

2018-03-26

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently published a strategic plan for the development of a universal influenza vaccine. This plan focuses on improving understanding of influenza infection, the development of influenza immunity, and rational design of new vaccines. Epidemiological studies such as prospective, longitudinal cohort studies are essential to the completion of these objectives. In this review, we discuss the contributions of epidemiological studies to our current knowledge of vaccines and correlates of immunity, and how they can contribute to the development and evaluation of the next generation of influenza vaccines. These studies have been critical in monitoring the effectiveness of current influenza vaccines, identifying issues such as low vaccine effectiveness, reduced effectiveness among those who receive repeated vaccination, and issues related to egg adaptation during the manufacturing process. Epidemiological studies have also identified population-level correlates of protection that can inform the design and development of next generation influenza vaccines. Going forward, there is an enduring need for epidemiological studies to continue advancing knowledge of correlates of protection and the development of immunity, to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of next generation influenza vaccines, and to inform recommendations for their use.

The Epidemiology of Transfusion-related Acute Lung Injury Varies According to the Applied Definition of Lung Injury Onset Time.

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Vande Vusse, Lisa K; Caldwell, Ellen; Tran, Edward; Hogl, Laurie; Dinwiddie, Steven; López, José A; Maier, Ronald V; Watkins, Timothy R

2015-09-01

Research that applies an unreliable definition for transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) may draw false conclusions about its risk factors and biology. The effectiveness of preventive strategies may decrease as a consequence. However, the reliability of the consensus TRALI definition is unknown. To prospectively study the effect of applying two plausible definitions of acute respiratory distress syndrome onset time on TRALI epidemiology. We studied 316 adults admitted to the intensive care unit and transfused red blood cells within 24 hours of blunt trauma. We identified patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, and defined acute respiratory distress syndrome onset time two ways: (1) the time at which the first radiographic or oxygenation criterion was met, and (2) the time both criteria were met. We categorized two corresponding groups of TRALI cases transfused in the 6 hours before acute respiratory distress syndrome onset. We used Cohen's kappa to measure agreement between the TRALI cases and implicated blood components identified by the two acute respiratory distress syndrome onset time definitions. In a nested case-control study, we examined potential risk factors for each group of TRALI cases, including demographics, injury severity, and characteristics of blood components transfused in the 6 hours before acute respiratory distress syndrome onset. Forty-two of 113 patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome were TRALI cases per the first acute respiratory distress syndrome onset time definition and 63 per the second definition. There was slight agreement between the two groups of TRALI cases (κ = 0.16; 95% confidence interval, -0.01 to 0.33) and between the implicated blood components (κ = 0.15, 95% confidence interval, 0.11-0.20). Age, Injury Severity Score, high plasma-volume components, and transfused plasma volume were risk factors for TRALI when applying the second acute respiratory distress syndrome onset time definition

Imaging features of microvascular invasion in hepatocellular carcinoma developed after direct-acting antiviral therapy in HCV-related cirrhosis

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Renzulli, Matteo; Brocchi, Stefano; Golfieri, Rita [Sant' Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Prevention, Bologna (Italy); Buonfiglioli, Federica; Conti, Fabio; Verucchi, Gabriella; Andreone, Pietro [University of Bologna, Research Centre for the Study of Hepatitis, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences DIMEC, Bologna (Italy); Serio, Ilaria [Sant' Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Department of Digestive Diseases, Bologna (Italy); Foschi, Francesco Giuseppe [Ospedale di Faenza, Division of Internal Medicine, Faenza (Italy); Caraceni, Paolo; Mazzella, Giuseppe [University of Bologna, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), Bologna (Italy); Brillanti, Stefano [University of Bologna, Research Centre for the Study of Hepatitis, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences DIMEC, Bologna (Italy); U.O. di Gastroenterologia, Bologna (Italy)

2018-02-15

To evaluate imaging features of microvascular invasion (MVI) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) developed after direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy in HCV-related cirrhosis. Retrospective cohort study on 344 consecutive patients with HCV-related cirrhosis treated with DAA and followed for 48-74 weeks. Using established imaging criteria for MVI, HCC features were analysed and compared with those in nodules not occurring after DAA. After DAA, HCC developed in 29 patients (single nodule, 18 and multinodular, 11). Median interval between therapy end and HCC diagnosis was 82 days (0-318). Forty-one HCC nodules were detected (14 de novo, 27 recurrent): maximum diameter was 10-20 mm in 27, 20-50 mm in 13, and > 50 mm in 1. Imaging features of MVI were present in 29/41 nodules (70.7%, CI: 54-84), even in 17/29 nodules with 10-20 mm diameter (58.6%, CI: 39-76). MVI was present in only 17/51 HCC nodules that occurred before DAA treatment (33.3%, CI: 22-47) (p= 0.0007). MVI did not correlate with history of previous HCC. HCC occurs rapidly after DAA therapy, and aggressive features of MVI characterise most neoplastic nodules. Close imaging evaluations are needed after DAA in cirrhotic patients. (orig.)

Scale-dependent approaches to modeling spatial epidemiology of chronic wasting disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Conner, Mary M.; Gross, John E.; Cross, Paul C.; Ebinger, Michael R.; Gillies, Robert; Samuel, Michael D.; Miller, Michael W.

2007-01-01

This e-book is the product of a second workshop that was funded and promoted by the United States Geological Survey to enhance cooperation between states for the management of chronic wasting disease (CWD). The first workshop addressed issues surrounding the statistical design and collection of surveillance data for CWD. The second workshop, from which this document arose, followed logically from the first workshop and focused on appropriate methods for analysis, interpretation, and use of CWD surveillance and related epidemiology data. Consequently, the emphasis of this e-book is on modeling approaches to describe and gain insight of the spatial epidemiology of CWD. We designed this e-book for wildlife managers and biologists who are responsible for the surveillance of CWD in their state or agency. We chose spatial methods that are popular or common in the spatial epidemiology literature and evaluated them for their relevance to modeling CWD. Our opinion of the usefulness and relevance of each method was based on the type of field data commonly collected as part of CWD surveillance programs and what we know about CWD biology, ecology, and epidemiology. Specifically, we expected the field data to consist primarily of the infection status of a harvested or culled sample along with its date of collection (not date of infection), location, and demographic status. We evaluated methods in light of the fact that CWD does not appear to spread rapidly through wild populations, relative to more highly contagious viruses, and can be spread directly from animal to animal or indirectly through environmental contamination.

Bourdieu does environmental justice? Probing the linkages between population health and air pollution epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Buzzelli, Michael

2007-03-01

The environmental justice literature faces a number of conceptual and methodological shortcomings. The purpose of this paper is to probe ways in which these shortcomings can be remedied via recent developments in related literatures: population health and air pollution epidemiology. More sophisticated treatment of social structure, particularly if based on Pierre Bourdieu's relational approach to forms of capital, can be combined with the methodological rigour and established biological pathways of air pollution epidemiology. The aim is to reformulate environmental justice research in order to make further meaningful contributions to the wider movement concerned with issues of social justice and equity in health research.

Mitochondrial DNA and Cancer Epidemiology Workshop

Science.gov (United States)

A workshop to review the state-of-the science in the mitochondrial DNA field and its use in cancer epidemiology, and to develop a concept for a research initiative on mitochondrial DNA and cancer epidemiology.

Preliminary results on epidemiology of Coconut Lethal Yellowing in Ghana

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bonnot François

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Epidemiological studies are of major importance in understanding the determinants of plant diseases in order to control the risks of their spreading. A research programme on the epidemiology of coconut lethal yellowing, or Cape Saint Paul Wilt Disease (CSPWD, in Ghana was launched in March 2007. The objective was to characterize the distribution and spread of the disease in space and time at various scales, and their relation with the environment. This article presents the general strategy used to evaluate the incidence of CSPWD along with the environmental, ecological and agronomical variables at regional level. A survey was undertaken on 1,166 plots of Coconut Sector Development Project (CSDP planted with Malayan Yellow Dwarf (MYD × Vanuatu Tall (VTT hybrids in Western Region and Central Region. Preliminary results on the distribution of CSPWD and outside variables at regional scale, along with their relations, are given.

Radiation epidemiology: Past and present

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boice, J.D. Jr.

1997-01-01

Major advancements in radiation epidemiology have occurred during the last several years in studies of atomic bomb survivors, patients given medical radiation, and radiation workers, including underground miners. Risks associated with the Chernobyl accident, indoor radon and childhood exposure to I-131 have yet to be elucidated. Situations in the former Soviet Union around Chelyabinsk, a nuclear installation in the southern Urals, and in the Altai, which received radioactive fallout from weapons testing at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, have the potential to provide information on the effects of chronic radiation exposure. Since Roentgen's discovery of x-rays just 100 years ago, a tremendous amount of knowledge has been accumulated about human health effects following irradiation. The 1994 UNSCEAR report contains the latest compilation and synthesis of radiation epidemiology. This overview will cover epidemiology from a radiation perspective. The different types of study methodologies will be described, followed by a kaleidoscope coverage of past and present studies; ending with some remaining questions in radiation epidemiology. This should set the stage for future chapters, and stimulate thinking about implications of the new data on radiation cancer risks

An 'electronic' extramural course in epidemiology and medical statistics.

Science.gov (United States)

Ostbye, T

1989-03-01

This article describes an extramural university course in epidemiology and medical statistics taught using a computer conferencing system, microcomputers and data communications. Computer conferencing was shown to be a powerful, yet quite easily mastered, vehicle for distance education. It allows health personnel unable to attend regular classes due to geographical or time constraints, to take part in an interactive learning environment at low cost. This overcomes part of the intellectual and social isolation associated with traditional correspondence courses. Teaching of epidemiology and medical statistics is well suited to computer conferencing, even if the asynchronicity of the medium makes discussion of the most complex statistical concepts a little cumbersome. Computer conferencing may also prove to be a useful tool for teaching other medical and health related subjects.

Temporal network epidemiology

CERN Document Server

Holme, Petter

2017-01-01

This book covers recent developments in epidemic process models and related data on temporally varying networks. It is widely recognized that contact networks are indispensable for describing, understanding, and intervening to stop the spread of infectious diseases in human and animal populations; “network epidemiology” is an umbrella term to describe this research field. More recently, contact networks have been recognized as being highly dynamic. This observation, also supported by an increasing amount of new data, has led to research on temporal networks, a rapidly growing area. Changes in network structure are often informed by epidemic (or other) dynamics, in which case they are referred to as adaptive networks. This volume gathers contributions by prominent authors working in temporal and adaptive network epidemiology, a field essential to understanding infectious diseases in real society.

Epidemiology of Dermatophytoses in Crete, Greece.

Science.gov (United States)

Maraki, Sofia; Mavromanolaki, Viktoria Eirini

2016-01-01

Dermatophytoses are among the most frequently diagnosed skin infections worldwide. However, the distribution of pathogenic species and the predominating anatomical sites of infection vary with geographical location and change over time. The aim of this study was to determine the epidemiological and aetiological factors of dermatophytoses in Crete, Greece over the last 5-year period (2011-2015) and their incidence in relation to the gender and the age of the patients. We compared our findings with those previously reported from the same area and from other parts of the world. A total of 2,910 clinical specimens (skin scrapings, nail clippings, and hair specimens) obtained from 2,751 patients with signs of dermatomycoses were examined using direct microscopy and culture. Overall, 294 specimens (10.1%) were proved mycologically positive for dermatophytes. The age of the patients ranged from 2 to 86 years (mean age, 37 years). Tinea corporis was the predominant clinical type of infection, followed by tinea unguium, tinea pedis, tinea capitis, tinea faciei, tinea cruris and tinea manuum. Among dermatophytes, eight species were isolated: Microsporum canis (35.8%), Trichophyton rubrum (35.1%), Trichophyton mentagrophytes (23.3%), Epidermophyton floccosum (2.5%), Microsporum gypseum (1.8%), Trichophyton violaceum (0.7%), Trichophyton verrucosum (0.4%), and Trichophyton tonsurans (0.4%). In our area, the most common dermatophyte was M. canis followed by T. rubrum. Increased migration, mass tourism, and climate changes will contribute to further changes in the epidemiology of dermatophytoses in our area. Continuing studies are necessary for determining the new epidemiological trends and to implement the appropriate control measures.

Epidemiology of Multiresistant Acinetobacter Infections in Bulgaria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Savov, E.; Borisova, M.; Michailova, G.

2007-01-01

Evolution of bacteria towards resistance to antimicrobial drugs, including these with multidrug resistance, is very important issue for hospital epidemiology in all over the world. There are many papers about an increasing number of Acinetobacter baumannii blood stream and other type of infections in patients at military medical facilities in the Iraq / Kuwait region and in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom /OEF /. It has now become also a one of the major cause of hospital acquired infections in Bulgaria which due to its remarkable propensity to rapidly acquire resistance determinants to a wide range of antimicrobial drugs. According to the data obtained in Bulgaria, it can be concluded that the majority of the A.baumannii isolates was strikingly resistant, including the 3rd generation of cephalosporins, quinolones and also carbapenems, in the last years. Different methods / phenotypical and molecular methods, including PCR/ for a multidrug A.baumannii investigation and its clonality determination are needed, especially when the strains are not epidemiological related.(author)

Molecular Epidemiology of Heart Failure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Gustav Smith, MD, PhD

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Heart failure (HF is the end-stage of all heart disease and arguably constitutes the greatest unmet therapeutic need in cardiovascular medicine today. Classic epidemiological studies have established clinical risk factors for HF, but the cause remains poorly understood in many cases. Biochemical analyses of small case-control series and animal models have described a plethora of molecular characteristics of HF, but a single unifying pathogenic theory is lacking. Heart failure appears to result not only from cardiac overload or injury but also from a complex interplay among genetic, neurohormonal, metabolic, inflammatory, and other biochemical factors acting on the heart. Recent development of robust, high-throughput tools in molecular biology provides opportunity for deep molecular characterization of population-representative cohorts and HF cases (molecular epidemiology, including genome sequencing, profiling of myocardial gene expression and chromatin modifications, plasma composition of proteins and metabolites, and microbiomes. The integration of such detailed information holds promise for improving understanding of HF pathophysiology in humans, identification of therapeutic targets, and definition of disease subgroups beyond the current classification based on ejection fraction which may benefit from improved individual tailoring of therapy. Challenges include: 1 the need for large cohorts with deep, uniform phenotyping; 2 access to the relevant tissues, ideally with repeated sampling to capture dynamic processes; and 3 analytical issues related to integration and analysis of complex datasets. International research consortia have formed to address these challenges and combine datasets, and cohorts with up to 1 million participants are being collected. This paper describes the molecular epidemiology of HF and provides an overview of methods and tissue types and examples of published and ongoing efforts to systematically evaluate molecular

[Food industry funding and epidemiologic research in public health nutrition].

Science.gov (United States)

Navarrete-Muñoz, Eva María; Tardón, Adonina; Romaguera, Dora; Martínez-González, Miguel Ángel; Vioque, Jesús

The interests of the food industry to fund nutrition and health research are not limited to promoting scientific advances. Recently, several systematic reviews conducted about the effect of sugar-sweetened beverages and health outcomes have shown some biased conclusions in studies that acknowledge industry sponsorship. In this context, the Nutrition Working Group of the Spanish Epidemiology Society presented a scientific session entitled Food industry and epidemiologic research at its annual meeting. In a round table, four experts in nutrition research presented their points of view about whether the food industry should fund nutrition-related research and the related potential conflicts of interest of the food industry. All the experts agreed not only on defending independence in nutritional epidemiology regarding the design, interpretation and conclusion of their studies but also on the crucial need for guaranteed scientific rigor, scientific quality of the results and measures to protect studies against potential biases related to the conflicts of interest of funding by the food industry. Drs Pérez-Farinós and Romaguera believe that the most effective way to prevent conflicts of interest would be not to allow the food industry to fund nutrition research; Drs Marcos and Martínez-González suggested the need to establish mechanisms and strategies to prevent the potential influences of the food industry in selecting researchers or institutional sponsorship and in the analysis and results of the studies, to ensure maximum independence for researchers, as well as their professional ethics. Copyright © 2017 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Maritim epidemiologi på Supercourse

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Olaf

2015-01-01

Maritim epidemiologi er nu kommet med i samlingen af undervisningsmidler på ”Supercourse”. Der er oprettet en særlig mappe med Maritime Epidemiology og alle der har gode bidrag inden for området opfordres hermed til at publicere her. Supercourse er en samling af foredrag beregnet til at være en r...

Event-related potential correlates of suspicious thoughts in individuals with schizotypal personality features.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xue-bing; Huang, Jia; Cheung, Eric F C; Gong, Qi-yong; Chan, Raymond C K

2011-01-01

Suspiciousness is a common feature of schizophrenia. However, suspicious thoughts are also commonly experienced by the general population. This study aimed to examine the underlying neural mechanism of suspicious thoughts in individuals with and without schizotypal personality disorder (SPD)-proneness, using an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded when the "feeling of being seen through" was evoked in the participants. The findings showed a prominent positive deflection of the difference wave within the time window 250-400 ms after stimuli presentation in both SPD-prone and non-SPD-prone groups. Furthermore, the P3 amplitude was significantly reduced in the SPD-prone group compared to the non-SPD-prone group. The current density analysis also indicated hypoactivity in both frontal and temporal regions in the SPD-prone group, suggesting that the frontotemporal cortical network may play a role in the onset of suspicious thoughts. The P3 of difference wave was inversely correlated with the cognitive-perception factor and the suspiciousness/paranoid ideation trait, which provided preliminary electrophysiological evidence for the association of suspiciousness with SPD features.

DSM-5 Tobacco Use Disorder and Sleep Disturbance: Findings from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III).

Science.gov (United States)

Hayley, Amie C; Stough, Con; Downey, Luke A

2017-12-06

The DSM-5 Tobacco use disorder diagnosis incorporates tobacco misuse, addictive behaviors and withdrawal symptomology. Tobacco use is bidirectionally associated with sleep pathology; however, no epidemiological studies have yet evaluated the associations between DSM-5 Tobacco use disorder and self-reported sleep disturbance. The current study aimed to evaluate health, medical and sleep-related factors among individuals within this diagnostic stratum. A total of N = 36,177 adults who participated in the 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC-III) were included for analyses. The adjusted odd ratios (AOR) for individual classifications of DSM-5 Tobacco use disorder among those with subjective sleep disturbances were used as the primary outcome measure and relevant demographic, clinical and medical factors were considered in all univariate and multivariable analyses. Current and lifetime DSM-5 tobacco use disorder diagnoses were associated with poorer health and medical outcomes and higher rates of subjective sleep disturbances (all p DSM-5 tobacco use disorder and subjective sleep disturbances were maintained in multivariable analyses following adjustment for a range of health, lifestyle, and psychiatric factors (adjusted OR 1.11, 95%CI 1.00-1.23 and adjusted OR = 1.24, 95%CI 1.15-1.34, respectively); however, these relationships were fully explained by diagnoses of DSM-5 alcohol use disorder. Data from this large, representative survey indicate that the association between DSM-5 Tobacco use disorder and sleep disturbance is explained by underlying diagnoses of DSM-5 alcohol use disorder. Multifaceted substance abuse treatment protocols may improve treatment outcomes for affected patient groups.

Snippets from the past: the evolution of Wade Hampton Frost's epidemiology as viewed from the American Journal of Hygiene/Epidemiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Morabia, Alfredo

2013-10-01

Wade Hampton Frost, who was a Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University from 1919 to 1938, spurred the development of epidemiologic methods. His 6 publications in the American Journal of Hygiene, which later became the American Journal of Epidemiology, comprise a 1928 Cutter lecture on a theory of epidemics, a survey-based study of tonsillectomy and immunity to Corynebacterium diphtheriae (1931), 2 papers from a longitudinal study of the incidence of minor respiratory diseases (1933 and 1935), an attack rate ratio analysis of the decline of diphtheria in Baltimore (1936), and a 1936 lecture on the age, time, and cohort analysis of tuberculosis mortality. These 6 American Journal of Hygiene /American Journal of Epidemiology papers attest that Frost's personal evolution mirrored that of the emerging "early" epidemiology: The scope of epidemiology extended beyond the study of epidemics of acute infectious diseases, and rigorous comparative study designs and their associated quantitative methods came to light.

The Training of Epidemiologists and Diversity in Epidemiology: Findings from the 2006 Congress of Epidemiology Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Carter-Pokras, Olivia D.; Spirtas, Robert; Bethune, Lisa; Mays, Vickie; Freeman, Vincent L.; Cozier, Yvette C.

2013-01-01

Purpose In the past decade, we have witnessed increasing numbers of individuals entering the field of epidemiology. With the increase also has come a diversity of training and paths by which individuals entered the field. The purpose of this survey was characterization of the epidemiology workforce, its job diversity, and continuing education needs. Methods The Minority Affairs and Membership committees of the American College of Epidemiology (ACE) prepared and administered a workforce survey to identify racial/ethnic diversity, demographic background, workplace type, credentials, income, subspecialties, and continuing education needs of epidemiologists. The survey was self-administered to attendees of the Second North American Congress of Epidemiology in June 2006. Results A sample of 397 respondents of the 1348 registered for the Congress was captured (29.5% response). Epidemiologists who participated were from 36 states and 18 countries; 54.6% were trained at the doctoral level; 19.1% earned $120,001 or more a year. A wide range of epidemiology subspecialties and continuing education needs were identified. Conclusions This preliminary snapshot of epidemiologists indicates a wide range of training mechanisms, workplace sites, and subspecialties. Results indicate a need for examination of the core graduate training needs of epidemiologist as well as responding to desired professional development needs through the provision of continuing educations efforts. PMID:19344867

Complex Topographic Feature Ontology Patterns

Science.gov (United States)

Varanka, Dalia E.; Jerris, Thomas J.

2015-01-01

Semantic ontologies are examined as effective data models for the representation of complex topographic feature types. Complex feature types are viewed as integrated relations between basic features for a basic purpose. In the context of topographic science, such component assemblages are supported by resource systems and found on the local landscape. Ontologies are organized within six thematic modules of a domain ontology called Topography that includes within its sphere basic feature types, resource systems, and landscape types. Context is constructed not only as a spatial and temporal setting, but a setting also based on environmental processes. Types of spatial relations that exist between components include location, generative processes, and description. An example is offered in a complex feature type ‘mine.’ The identification and extraction of complex feature types are an area for future research.

Profile of an epidemiological study of urinary schistosomiasis in two ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Aim: This study was conducted in an attempt to establish the prevalence of urinary schistosomiasis in relation to epidemiological factors among children in Buruku and Katsina-Ala local government areas, Benue, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Urine filtration technique using polycarbonate membrane filters was employed ...

Differences in the clinical-epidemiological profile between new cases of tuberculosis and retreatment cases after default

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aylana de Souza Belchior

Full Text Available Abstract OBJECTIVE To identify the socioeconomic and clinical-epidemiological factors related to tuberculosis in new cases and retreatment cases. METHOD Comparative study with 126 patients, of which 42 were retreatment cases after default attended in a reference center, and 84 were new cases completing the first treatment and treated in Basic Health Units. The collection of primary data was through interview, and of secondary data by records of the Notifiable Diseases Information System. Comparative analysis between the two groups. RESULTS The new cases differ from retreatment cases regarding educational level. The clinical-epidemiological profile shows a significant difference in relation to performance of the tuberculin skin test, and the HIV test result (positive in favor of new cases. In relation to performance of sputum culture and the result (positive of the first sputum smear of the first and second samples, in favor of retreatment cases. CONCLUSION The two groups are significantly different in clinical and epidemiological characteristics that show the access to exams.

Epidemiology of sporotrichosis in Venezuela.

Science.gov (United States)

Mata-Essayag, Sofia; Delgado, Alejandro; Colella, Maria T; Landaeta-Nezer, Maria E; Rosello, Arantza; Perez de Salazar, Celina; Olaizola, Carolina; Hartung, Claudia; Magaldi, Sylvia; Velasquez, Etna

2013-08-01

Sporotrichosis is one of the most common subcutaneous mycoses in Venezuela. It is a granulomatous chronic infection with cutaneous or subcutaneous tissue lesions. Regional lymphatic involvement may be present; extracutaneous disease is rare. The causal fungus Sporothrix schenckii has been isolated from soil, vegetation, and animals on numerous occasions and in many localities throughout the world. The aim of this study is to describe clinical and epidemiological features of cases of sporotrichosis observed in Venezuela and review of the literature. We included the demographic data, clinical features, diagnostic methods, treatment, and follow-up of patients with sporotrichosis from 1963 to 2009, diagnosed at the Department of Medical Mycology. One-hundred and thirty-three sporotrichosis cases were diagnosed. Most patients were under the age of 30 years (66.15%). In 61.6% of them, the mode of transmission was not identified. The predominant clinical form in this population was lymphocutaneous (63.15%). Direct microscopic diagnosis was performed in 123 cases, and 57.9% yielded positive results for asteroid body. Sporotrichosis is an endemic subcutaneous mycosis in Venezuela. There are no reports to this date of disseminated forms of the disease, even amongst patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Direct microscopic examination of wet mount slides with saline solution or distilled water in the search for asteroid bodies is paramount. Saturated sodium and potassium iodine solutions continue to be extremely efficacious and affordable to most of our patients, therefore our treatment of choice. © 2013 The International Society of Dermatology.

Australasian disasters of national significance: an epidemiological analysis, 1900-2012.

Science.gov (United States)

Bradt, David A; Bartley, Bruce; Hibble, Belinda A; Varshney, Kavita

2015-04-01

A regional epidemiological analysis of Australasian disasters in the 20th century to present was undertaken to examine trends in disaster epidemiology; to characterise the impacts on civil society through disaster policy, practice and legislation; and to consider future potential limitations in national disaster resilience. A surveillance definition of disaster was developed conforming to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) criteria (≥10 deaths, ≥100 affected, or declaration of state emergency or appeal for international assistance). The authors then applied economic and legislative inclusion criteria to identify additional disasters of national significance. The surveillance definition yielded 165 disasters in the period, from which 65 emerged as disasters of national significance. There were 38 natural disasters, 22 technological disasters, three offshore terrorist attacks and two domestic mass shootings. Geographic analysis revealed that states with major population centres experienced the vast majority of disasters of national significance. Timeline analysis revealed an increasing incidence of disasters since the 1980s, which peaked in the period 2005-2009. Recent seasonal bushfires and floods have incurred the highest death toll and economic losses in Australasian history. Reactive hazard-specific legislation emerged after all terrorist acts and after most disasters of national significance. Timeline analysis reveals an increasing incidence in natural disasters over the past 15 years, with the most lethal and costly disasters occurring in the past 3 years. Vulnerability to disaster in Australasia appears to be increasing. Reactive legislation is a recurrent feature of Australasian disaster response that suggests legislative shortsightedness and a need for comprehensive all-hazards model legislation in the future. © 2015 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine.

Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy

Science.gov (United States)

Swanson, Jeffrey W.; McGinty, E. Elizabeth; Fazel, Seena; Mays, Vickie M.

2015-01-01

Purpose This article describes epidemiologic evidence concerning risk of gun violence and suicide linked to psychiatric disorders, in contrast to media-fueled public perceptions of the dangerousness of mentally ill individuals, and evaluates effectiveness of policies and laws designed to prevent firearms injury and mortality associated with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Methods Research concerning public attitudes toward persons with mental illness is reviewed and juxtaposed with evidence from benchmark epidemiologic and clinical studies of violence and mental illness and of the accuracy of psychiatrists' risk assessments. Selected policies and laws designed to reduce gun violence in relation to mental illness are critically evaluated; evidence-based policy recommendations are presented. Results Media accounts of mass shootings by disturbed individuals galvanize public attention and reinforce popular belief that mental illness often results in violence. Epidemiologic studies show that the large majority of people with serious mental illnesses are never violent. However, mental illness is strongly associated with increased risk of suicide, which accounts for over half of US firearms–related fatalities. Conclusions Policymaking at the interface of gun violence prevention and mental illness should be based on epidemiologic data concerning risk to improve the effectiveness, feasibility, and fairness of policy initiatives. PMID:24861430

Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Swanson, Jeffrey W; McGinty, E Elizabeth; Fazel, Seena; Mays, Vickie M

2015-05-01

This article describes epidemiologic evidence concerning risk of gun violence and suicide linked to psychiatric disorders, in contrast to media-fueled public perceptions of the dangerousness of mentally ill individuals, and evaluates effectiveness of policies and laws designed to prevent firearms injury and mortality associated with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Research concerning public attitudes toward persons with mental illness is reviewed and juxtaposed with evidence from benchmark epidemiologic and clinical studies of violence and mental illness and of the accuracy of psychiatrists' risk assessments. Selected policies and laws designed to reduce gun violence in relation to mental illness are critically evaluated; evidence-based policy recommendations are presented. Media accounts of mass shootings by disturbed individuals galvanize public attention and reinforce popular belief that mental illness often results in violence. Epidemiologic studies show that the large majority of people with serious mental illnesses are never violent. However, mental illness is strongly associated with increased risk of suicide, which accounts for over half of US firearms-related fatalities. Policymaking at the interface of gun violence prevention and mental illness should be based on epidemiologic data concerning risk to improve the effectiveness, feasibility, and fairness of policy initiatives. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Epidemiological studies of thyroid cancer in the CIS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Beebe, G W [National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland (United States)

1996-07-01

Despite the great international interest in Chernobyl and the need for quantitative risk information on the carcinogenic effectiveness of the radio iodines, there has been relatively little epidemiological research on thyroid cancer following the Chernobyl accident. The reasons for this are many, diverse, and difficult to eliminate, although some progress is being made. Among them are the natural priority of public health concerns, a weak infrastructure for conducting studies in chronic disease epidemiology, and the difficulty of assigning thyroid dose estimates to individuals for study. In spite of the difficulties a number of significant studies have been begun or are planned, and several valuable reports have appeared. From the descriptive studies it is now known that the latent period for thyroid cancer in children exposed to radio iodines is not 5 to 10, but probably three years, that the magnitude of the increase in thyroid cancer among children is beyond anything previously experienced or expected, and that there is a strong correlation between thyroid cancer and environmental radiocesium contamination levels in the Gomel region of Belarus, and between thyroid cancer and average regional levels of I{sup 131} dose to the thyroid in Ukraine. However, even today, there is very little hard scientific information on the relation of thyroid cancer in children and their exposure to the radio iodines in the fallout from the Chernobyl accident. This is information that only well-designed scientific epidemiological studies, based on firm dose estimates, could be expected to provide. With that purpose in mind, the US has planned with Belarus and Ukraine long-term cohort studies of many thousands of subjects with thyroid activity measurements.

Epidemiological studies of thyroid cancer in the CIS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beebe, G.W.

1996-01-01

Despite the great international interest in Chernobyl and the need for quantitative risk information on the carcinogenic effectiveness of the radio iodines, there has been relatively little epidemiological research on thyroid cancer following the Chernobyl accident. The reasons for this are many, diverse, and difficult to eliminate, although some progress is being made. Among them are the natural priority of public health concerns, a weak infrastructure for conducting studies in chronic disease epidemiology, and the difficulty of assigning thyroid dose estimates to individuals for study. In spite of the difficulties a number of significant studies have been begun or are planned, and several valuable reports have appeared. From the descriptive studies it is now known that the latent period for thyroid cancer in children exposed to radio iodines is not 5 to 10, but probably three years, that the magnitude of the increase in thyroid cancer among children is beyond anything previously experienced or expected, and that there is a strong correlation between thyroid cancer and environmental radiocesium contamination levels in the Gomel region of Belarus, and between thyroid cancer and average regional levels of I 131 dose to the thyroid in Ukraine. However, even today, there is very little hard scientific information on the relation of thyroid cancer in children and their exposure to the radio iodines in the fallout from the Chernobyl accident. This is information that only well-designed scientific epidemiological studies, based on firm dose estimates, could be expected to provide. With that purpose in mind, the US has planned with Belarus and Ukraine long-term cohort studies of many thousands of subjects with thyroid activity measurements

Clinical, biochemical and ultrasonographic features of infertile women with polycystic ovarian syndrome

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haq, F.; Rizvi, J.

2007-01-01

To evaluate and compare the clinical, biochemical and ultrasonic features of infertile women with PCOS from the two infertility centers of Karachi, The Aga Khan University Hospital and Concept Fertility Centre. Patients attending the Infertility Clinics of Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi and Concept Fertility Centre, Karachi, were evaluated for their clinical features. Complete biochemical evaluation was performed by day 2 FSH, LH, serum prolactin, serum testosterone and fasting serum insulin determination. These results were recorded on the data collection form. Ultrasonic evaluation was performed with transvaginal ultrasound to check the morphological appearance of ovaries. A total of 508 patients were evaluated for epidemiological features of PCOS. Frequency of PCOS in the infertility clinic was 17.6% with high rate of obesity (68.5%) and hyperinsulinemia (59%). The highest rate of abnormal clinical, biochemical features were seen above BMI of 30. High rates of obesity, hyperinsulinemia and impaired glycemic control were seen in this series. It was demonstrated that high BMI had an association and correlation with abnormal clinical and biochemical features. Obese women with PCOS need more attention for their appropriate management. (author)

The linear trend of headache prevalence and some headache features in school children.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozge, Aynur; Buğdayci, Resul; Saşmaz, Tayyar; Kaleağasi, Hakan; Kurt, Oner; Karakelle, Ali; Siva, Aksel

2007-04-01

The objectives of this study were to determine the age and sex dependent linear trend of recurrent headache prevalence in schoolchildren in Mersin. A stratified sample composed of 5562 children; detailed characteristics were previously published. In this study the prevalence distribution of headache by age and sex showed a peak in the female population at the age of 11 (27.2%) with a plateau in the following years. The great stratified random sample results suggested that, in addition to socio-demographic features, detailed linear trend analysis showed headache features of children with headache have some specific characteristics dependent on age, gender and headache type. This study results can constitute a basis for the future epidemiological based studies.

Comorbidity of social anxiety disorder and antisocial personality disorder in the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC).

Science.gov (United States)

Galbraith, Todd; Heimberg, Richard G; Wang, Shuai; Schneier, Franklin R; Blanco, Carlos

2014-01-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) are not often thought of as being comorbid. However, recent research suggests the existence of a SAD subtype with characteristics atypical of SAD but common to ASPD. Thus, we explored two competing hypotheses: (1) SAD and ASPD represent opposite ends of a single dimension, or (2) SAD and ASPD exist on two separate dimensions that may be positively correlated. Data were obtained from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. SAD-ASPD was related to greater impairment and psychiatric comorbidity than either disorder alone. The SAD-ASPD group was also more likely to seek treatment for their SAD symptoms and to drink before/during antisocial acts than the SAD only group. The presence of SAD for individuals with ASPD (and vice versa) does not appear to provide any "protective benefits." SAD and ASPD appear to be two separate but correlated disorders. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comorbidity of Social Anxiety Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder in the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC)

Science.gov (United States)

Galbraith, Todd; Heimberg, Richard G.; Wang, Shuai; Schneier, Franklin R.; Blanco, Carlos

2013-01-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) are not often thought of as being comorbid. However, recent research suggests the existence of a SAD subtype with characteristics atypical of SAD but common to ASPD. Thus, we explored two competing hypotheses: 1) SAD and ASPD represent opposite ends of a single dimension, or 2) SAD and ASPD exist on two separate dimensions that may be positively correlated. Data were obtained from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. SAD-ASPD was related to greater impairment and psychiatric comorbidity than either disorder alone. The SAD-ASPD group was also more likely to seek treatment for their SAD symptoms and to drink before/during antisocial acts than the SAD only group. The presence of SAD for individuals with ASPD (and vice versa) does not appear to provide any “protective benefits.” SAD and ASPD appear to be two separate but correlated disorders. PMID:24384071

The Global Epidemiologic Transition: Noncommunicable Diseases and Emerging Health Risk of Allergic Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Atiim, George A.; Elliott, Susan J.

2016-01-01

Globally, there has been a shift in the causes of illness and death from infectious diseases to noncommunicable diseases. This changing pattern has been attributed to the effects of an (ongoing) epidemiologic transition. Although researchers have applied epidemiologic transition theory to questions of global health, there have been relatively few…

Advances in radiation epidemiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boice, J.

1997-01-01

The 1994 UNSCEAR report provides an informative review of radiation epidemiology. During the past 2 years there have been several major advances in our understanding of radiation effects based on new studies of atomic bomb survivors in Japan, of patients given diagnostic and therapeutic radiation (including iodine-131), of workers occupationally exposed, and of general populations exposed to residential radon. Laboratory approaches are also being incorporated into epidemiological investigations to learn more about the biological mechanism by which radiation causes cancer in man. (author)

Sex differences in antisocial personality disorder: results from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Alegria, Analucia A; Blanco, Carlos; Petry, Nancy M; Skodol, Andrew E; Liu, Shang-Min; Grant, Bridget; Hasin, Deborah

2013-07-01

Despite the 3:1 prevalence ratio of men versus women with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), research on sex differences on correlates of ASPD in the general population is scarce. The purpose of this study was to examine sex differences in childhood and adult adverse events, lifetime psychiatric comorbidity, and clinical correlates of DSM-IV ASPD. The sample included 819 men and 407 women with DSM-IV ASPD diagnosis. Data were derived from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) (N = 43,093). Compared to men, women with ASPD reported more frequent childhood emotional neglect (AOR = 2.25; 95% CI: 1.52-3.34) and sexual abuse (AOR = 4.20; 95% CI: 2.78-6.35), any parent-related adverse event during childhood (e.g., parental substance use disorder) (AOR = 2.47; 95% CI: 1.60-3.82), and adverse events during adulthood (AOR = 4.20; 95% CI: 2.78-6.35). Although women with ASPD present less violent antisocial behaviors and higher rates of aggressiveness and irritability (OR = 0.46; 95% CI: 0.31-0.67), they have higher rates of victimization, greater impairment, and lower social support. Our findings suggest increased mental health needs in women with ASPD, meriting development of different treatment programs for women and men.

[Sarcoptic mange of dogs: biology of the organism, epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical aspect, diagnosis and treatment].

Science.gov (United States)

Kraiss, A; Kraft, W; Gothe, R

1987-01-01

A review is presented on the biology of the causative agent, epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical features, diagnosis and therapy of canine Sarcoptes scabiei infestation. This survey includes also clinical data of the period 1978-1986 in the Small Animal Hospital, Munich Veterinary Faculty. Several skin scrapings are usually necessary for diagnosis. For therapy application of acaricides once a week, altogether at least three times is sufficient. Simultaneously a decontamination of the dog's surroundings should be carried out.

Selected aspects related to epidemiology, pathogenesis, immunity, and control of African swine fever

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Woźniakowski Grzegorz

2016-06-01

Full Text Available African swine fever (ASF is currently one of the most severe viral infections of domestic pigs, wild boars, and other hosts belonging to Suidae family. ASF is also considered as the most complex and devastating infectious and haemorrhagic disease of swine due to its severe socio-economic impact and transboundary character. ASF it is a notifiable disease and due to the lack of specific treatment and vaccine, the disease can be only limited by the administrative measures comprising wild boar hunting and stamping out of affected pigs. ASF occurred for the first time in Kenya in 1921 while in Europe (Portugal the virus was detected at the end of the 1950s. In spite of successful eradication of this threat in a number of affected regions, the virus remains endemic in both feral and domestic pigs in Africa and Sardinia. The ‘new era’ of ASF started in 2007 after its re-introduction to Georgia. Following its intensive expansion, the virus spread to other Caucasian countries, including the territory of the Russian Federation. In 2014 the virus reached Ukraine, Belarus, and, consequently, European Union countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. The occurrence of ASF in wild boars and pigs had a severe impact on both epidemiology and economy because of the national and international transport and trade consequences. Up to date, starting from the February 2014, eighty ASF cases in wild boar and three outbreaks in domestic pigs have been diagnosed. Taking into account the diverse rate of spread in Poland, this review aims to present and discuss the current state of knowledge on ASF including its epidemiology, pathology, transmission, and perspectives of control.

Complex epidemiological approach to human mutagenesis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Czeizel, A.

1980-01-01

The main characteristics of the epidemiological approach are summarised and the criteria discussed for the adoption of this approach for the detection of human mutagenesis. Mutation monitoring systems are described and results of epidemiological studies of higher risk populations are presented. (C.F.)

Retrospective study of epidemiological, clinicopathological and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Retrospective study of epidemiological, clinicopathological and biological profils of 62 colorectal cancers cases in Jijel provence (Algeria) ... Our results were often compatible with the available literature and may provide reliable and relevant data on this disease. Key words: Colorectal cancer; Epidemiology; Therapy; ...

The Occurrence and Toxicity of Disinfection Byproducts in European Drinking Waters in Relation with the HIWATE Epidemiology Study

Science.gov (United States)

Jeong, Clara H.; Wagner, Elizabeth D.; Siebert, Vincent R.; Anduri, Sridevi; Richardson, Susan D.; Daiber, Eric J.; McKague, A. Bruce; Kogevinas, Manolis; Villanueva, Cristina M.; Goslan, Emma H.; Luo, Wentai; Isabelle, Lorne M.; Pankow, James F.; Grazuleviciene, Regina; Cordier, Sylvaine; Edwards, Susan C.; Righi, Elena; Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark J.; Plewa, Michael J.

2012-01-01

The HIWATE (Health Impacts of long-term exposure to disinfection byproducts in drinking WATEr) project was a systematic analysis that combined the epidemiology on adverse pregnancy outcomes and other health effects with long term exposure to low levels of drinking water disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in the European Union. The present study focused on the relationship of the occurrence and concentration of DBPs with in vitro mammalian cell toxicity. Eleven drinking water samples were collected from 5 European countries. Each sampling location corresponded with an epidemiological study for the HIWATE program. Over 90 DBPs were identified; the range in the number of DBPs and their levels reflected the diverse collection sites, different disinfection processes, and the different characteristics of the source waters. For each sampling site, chronic mammalian cell cytotoxicity correlated highly with the numbers of DBPs identified and the levels of DBP chemical classes. Although there was a clear difference in the genotoxic responses among the drinking waters, these data did not correlate as well with the chemical analyses. Thus, the agents responsible for the genomic DNA damage observed in the HIWATE samples may be due to unresolved associations of combinations of identified DBPs, unknown emerging DBPs that were not identified, or other toxic water contaminants. This study represents the first to integrate quantitative in vitro toxicological data with analytical chemistry and human epidemiologic outcomes for drinking water DBPs. PMID:22958121

Epidemiological investigation of ocular injuries related to military training and operations in Chinese army

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jian-he XIAO

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Objective To investigate the epidemiological characters of ocular injuries related to military training and operations in Chinese army.Methods The data of servicemen with ocular injuries,hospitalized in 11 military evacuation hospitals from 2005-01-01 to 2009-12-31,were entered into a registration table.The data included the time and place when the injury happened,type and cause of injury,examination records,treatment,rehabilitation level,etc.All data were input into the database for statistical analysis.Results Of all the cases of ocular injuries,189(45.5% were related to military training and operations.The mean age of the 189 cases was 23.4±5.4 years,all of them were men,and soldiers accounted for 91.0% and officers accounted for 9.0%.The incidence declined in 2006 compared with that in 2005,and then rose gradually thereafter year by year.Eight patients(4.2% were complicated with bodily injuries,and 4.2% of patients had the history of eye surgery or eye disease before the ocular injury.Of the 189 cases,in 172(91.0% one eye was injured while in 17(9.0% both eyes were injured.After injury,in 35.0% of patients sight restoration to grade 1,in 20.6% to grade 2,in 13.6% to grade 3,in 25.7% to grade 4,and in 4.4% to grade 5.In 87.3% of patients injuries were due to mechanical forces and in 12.7% ocular injuries were not mechanical.Most patients with eye injury occurring in military training and operations were sent to evacuation hospital and treated timely,and good results were obtained.Conclusions Military training and operations related ocular injury is a prevalent ocular injury occurring in Chinese armed forces,and should be paid more attention in prevention.One important measure is to improve the prevention awareness of Chinese servicemen,and a detailed prevention measures should be further studied.

Salmonella epidemiology: A whirlwind of change.

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Besser, John M

2018-05-01

The field of infectious disease epidemiology for Salmonella and other enteric pathogens is undergoing some of the most profound changes since the time of Kauffman and White. Rapid advances in "big data" technologies such as genomics and metagenomics are making it possible to monitor and control salmonellosis in new and exciting ways. Epidemiological methods are becoming increasingly robust through the routine use of standardized hypothesis-generating questionnaires, iterative open-ended interviewing, informational trace-backs and new modeling techniques for describing the attribution of disease to food sources. In addition, Salmonella epidemiology is facing important challenges and new opportunities due to the rapid adoption of culture independent diagnostic test panels by clinical laboratories. Where is this unprecedented wave of change taking us? This chapter will examine emerging trends in Salmonella epidemiology, and take a peek into the not-so-distant future. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Rationale for promoting physical activity among cancer survivors: literature review and epidemiologic examination.

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Loprinzi, Paul D; Lee, Hyo

2014-03-01

To review the extant literature on the link between physical activity and health outcomes among cancer survivors; identify evidence-based strategies to promote physical activity among this population; and conduct an epidemiologic study based on gaps from the literature review, examining the association between physical activity and various biologic markers. The authors used PubMed and Google Scholar up to July 2013, as well as data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the empirical study. Studies were examined through a systematic review process. In the epidemiologic study, 227 adult cancer survivors wore an accelerometer for four days or longer, with biologic markers (e.g., cholesterol) assessed from a blood sample. The review study demonstrated that cancer survivors are relatively inactive, but physical activity may help to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence and cancer-related mortality, increase cancer treatment rates, reduce pain and other side effects associated with cancer treatment, and improve physical and mental health. The epidemiologic study showed that physical activity was associated with several understudied biomarkers (e.g., neutrophils, white blood cells) that are linked with cancer recurrence, cancer-related mortality, and other chronic diseases. Nurses are encouraged to promote physical activity in cancer survivors.

Epidemiological Distribution and Subtype Analysis of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder Syndromes and Symptoms Based on TCM Theories

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Mingqi Qiao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available We performed an epidemiological investigation of subjects with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD to identify the clinical distribution of the major syndromes and symptoms. The pathogenesis of PMDD mainly involves the dysfunction of liver conveyance and dispersion. Excessive liver conveyance and dispersion are associated with liver-qi invasion syndrome, while insufficient liver conveyance and dispersion are expressed as liver-qi depression syndrome. Additionally, a nonconditional logistic regression was performed to analyze the symptomatic features of liver-qi invasion and liver-qi depression. As a result of this analysis, two subtypes of PMDD are proposed, namely, excessive liver conveyance and dispersion (liver-qi invasion syndrome and insufficient liver conveyance and dispersion (liver-qi depression syndrome. Our findings provide an epidemiological foundation for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of PMDD based on the identification of different types.

[Occupational epidemiology: some methodological considerations].

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Alvear-Galindo, María Guadalupe; del Pilar Paz-Román, María

2006-01-01

During the last decade, occupational epidemiology has gained a great importance, not only because of the increase of pollutants and their noxiousness, but also because it has gone from the descriptive to the analytic level. The purpose of this work is to present what has been reported on epidemiological studies, different ways of characterizing and measuring occupational exposure, by emphasizing slants of exposure and selection measurement. In the reviewed studies, an interest in improving the exposure evaluation has been shown. The mainly reported measurement slants are the ways of measuring and classifying the exposure. The main designs were transversal with the use of matrixes to improve the evaluation of exposure. Conditions of hygiene and security were considered in order to control the quality of the information. This information was analyzed with different criteria. Some of the elements that hinder the research on occupational epidemiology are a mixed exposure, small populations, lack of exposure data, low levels of exposure and long periods of illness latency. Some breakthroughs in the strategies of epidemiological analysis and some other areas of knowledge have made possible a better understanding of work and health conditions of workers.

Clinical significance and epidemiologic analyses of Mycobacterium avium and Mycobacterium intracellulare lung disease from post-marketing surveillance.

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Suzuki, Katsuhiro; Kurashima, Atsuyuki; Tatsuno, Kinji; Kadota, Jun-Ichi

2018-01-01

In Japan, nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease is mostly attributable to Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), i.e., M. avium or M. intracellulare. However, clinical features of the disease caused by these two pathogens have not been studied sufficiently yet. A post-marketing survey of clarithromycin was performed at 130 facilities across Japan. The data on patients with M. avium infection and patients with M. intracellulare infection were selected from this survey for comparison of background variables and clinical features of the two pathogens. Among the patients analyzed (n = 368), 67.4% had M. avium infection and 32.6% had M. intracellulare infection. Stratified analysis revealed no significant differences between the ratio of the two pathogens based on gender, disease type, complication, past medical history, or smoking history. However, the percentage of patients with M. intracellulare infection was significantly higher among those with underlying lung disease than among those without lung disease (p = 0.0217). The percentage of patients with M. intracellulare infection rose significantly with age (p = 0.0296). This age-related change was more significant in women (p = 0.0018). When district-wise analysis was performed for Japan, the percentage of M. intracellulare infection was higher in the Chugoku/Shikoku and Kyushu districts whereas the percentage of M. avium infection was higher in the other districts. This survey revealed some differences in the clinical and epidemiologic features of M. avium and M. intracellulare infection. The significant predominance of M. avium infection among relatively young women is suggestive of an increase in the M. avium/M. intracellulare infection ratio among women in the future. Copyright © 2017 The Japanese Respiratory Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Descriptive and analytic epidemiology. Bridges to cancer control

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Mettlin, C.

1988-01-01

Epidemiology serves as a bridge between basic science and cancer control. The two major orientations of epidemiology are descriptive and analytic. The former is useful in assessing the scope and dimensions of the cancer problem and the latter is used to assess environmental and lifestyle sources of cancer risk. A recent development in descriptive epidemiology is the use of functional measures of disease such as lost life expectancy. In analytical epidemiology, there is new or renewed interest in several lifestyle factors including diet and exercise as well as environmental factors such as involuntary tobacco exposure and radon in dwellings. Review of the evidence should consider the strengths and weaknesses of different research procedures. Each method is inconclusive by itself but, the different research designs of epidemiology collectively may represent a hierarchy of proof. Although the roles of many factors remain to be defined, the aggregate epidemiologic data continue to demonstrate the special importance of personal behavior and lifestyle in affecting cancer risk

Epidemiology in Germany-general development and personal experience.

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Wichmann, Heinz-Erich

2017-08-01

Did you ever hear about epidemiology in Germany? Starting from an epidemiological desert the discipline has grown remarkably, especially during the last 10-15 years: research institutes have been established, research funding has improved, multiple curriculae in Epidemiology and Public Health are offered. This increase has been quite steep, and now the epidemiological infrastructure is much better. Several medium-sized and even big population cohorts are ongoing, and the number and quality of publications from German epidemiologists has reached a respectable level. My own career in epidemiology started in the field of environmental health. After German reunification I concentrated for many years on environmental problems in East Germany and observed the health benefits after improvement of the situation. Later, I concentrated on population-based cohorts in newborns (GINI/LISA) and adults (KORA, German National Cohort), and on biobanking. This Essay describes the development in Germany after worldwar 2, illustrated by examples of research results and build-up of epidemiological infractructures worth mentioning.

La epidemiología ocupacional como herramienta básica para la salud de los trabajadores Occupational epidemiology as a basic tool for workers' health

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Caristina Robaina Aguirre

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Se realizó un pequeño bosquejo del desarrollo de la Epidemiología como ciencia y su importancia en salud pública en general. Se transita por las definiciones de vieja y nueva epidemiología, de enfermedades crónicas, transmisibles y no transmisibles, del concepto de epidemiología social, etc. para posteriormente hablar de la importancia de la Epidemiología Ocupacional en la Salud PúblicaA review of the development of Epidemiology as a science, and its significance in public health in general, was made. The old and new definitions of epidemiology, of chronic, transmissible and non-transmissible diseases, of social epidemiology concept, etc., are analysed to further deal with the importance of Occupational Epidemiology in Public Health.

Generalized Confidence Intervals and Fiducial Intervals for Some Epidemiological Measures

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Ionut Bebu

2016-06-01

Full Text Available For binary outcome data from epidemiological studies, this article investigates the interval estimation of several measures of interest in the absence or presence of categorical covariates. When covariates are present, the logistic regression model as well as the log-binomial model are investigated. The measures considered include the common odds ratio (OR from several studies, the number needed to treat (NNT, and the prevalence ratio. For each parameter, confidence intervals are constructed using the concepts of generalized pivotal quantities and fiducial quantities. Numerical results show that the confidence intervals so obtained exhibit satisfactory performance in terms of maintaining the coverage probabilities even when the sample sizes are not large. An appealing feature of the proposed solutions is that they are not based on maximization of the likelihood, and hence are free from convergence issues associated with the numerical calculation of the maximum likelihood estimators, especially in the context of the log-binomial model. The results are illustrated with a number of examples. The overall conclusion is that the proposed methodologies based on generalized pivotal quantities and fiducial quantities provide an accurate and unified approach for the interval estimation of the various epidemiological measures in the context of binary outcome data with or without covariates.

Epidemiology and Clinical Features of Adult Patients with Psoriasis in Malaysia: 10-Year Review from the Malaysian Psoriasis Registry (2007–2016

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Azura Mohd Affandi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease affecting 2-3% of the general population. Aim. To evaluate the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of patients with psoriasis who seek treatment in outpatient dermatology clinics throughout hospitals in Malaysia. Materials and Methods. Data were obtained from the Malaysian Psoriasis Registry (MPR. All patients (aged 18 and above who were notified to the registry from July 2017 to December 2017 were included in this study. Results. Among 15,794 patients, Malays were the most common (50.4%, followed by Chinese (21.4%, Indian (17.6%, and others (10.6%. The mean age onset of psoriasis for our study population was 35.14 ± 16.16 years. Male to female ratio was 1.3 : 1. 23.1% of patients had positive family history of psoriasis. The most common clinical presentation was chronic plaque psoriasis (85.1%, followed by guttate psoriasis (2.9%, erythrodermic psoriasis (1.7%, and pustular psoriasis (1.0%. Majority of our patients (76.6% had a mild disease with BSA < 10%. 57.1% of patients had nail involvement, while arthropathy was seen in 13.7% of patients. Common triggers of the disease include stress (48.3%, sunlight (24.9%, and infection (9.1%. Comorbidities observed include obesity (24.3%, hypertension (25.6%, hyperlipidemia (18%, diabetes mellitus (17.2%, ischaemic heart disease (5.4%, and cerebrovascular disease (1.6%. The mean DLQI (Dermatology Life Quality Index was 8.5 ± 6.6. One-third (33.1% of the patients had a DLQI score of more than 10, while 14.2% of patients reported no effect at all. Conclusion. Our study on the epidemiological data of adult patients with psoriasis in Malaysia showed a similar clinical profile and outcome when compared to international published studies on the epidemiology of psoriasis.

A review of the global epidemiology of scrub typhus.

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Xu, Guang; Walker, David H; Jupiter, Daniel; Melby, Peter C; Arcari, Christine M

2017-11-01

Scrub typhus is a serious public health problem in the Asia-Pacific area. It threatens one billion people globally, and causes illness in one million people each year. Caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, scrub typhus can result in severe multiorgan failure with a case fatality rate up to 70% without appropriate treatment. The antigenic heterogeneity of O. tsutsugamushi precludes generic immunity and allows reinfection. As a neglected disease, there is still a large gap in our knowledge of the disease, as evidenced by the sporadic epidemiologic data and other related public health information regarding scrub typhus in its endemic areas. Our objective is to provide a systematic analysis of current epidemiology, prevention and control of scrub typhus in its long-standing endemic areas and recently recognized foci of infection.

Epidemiological inference on induction of aplastic anemia following radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kitabatake, Takashi; Saito, Akira; Sakai, Kunio; Inakoshi, Hideki; Watanabe, Tsuyoshi

1977-01-01

Some epidemiological inferences on possibility of induction of aplastic anemia following radiotherapy are tried. In Japan after 1969, there are detected and reported 11 cases of radiation-related aplastic anemia after radiotherapy diagnosed by hematologists. Of 11 cases, 2 are males and 9 are females, ranging 28 to 66 years of age. All these patients were irradiated for malignant diseases. The population at risk after 1969 was estimated to be 674, 660 man-years, based on the additional survey on number and survival rate of patients irradiated. The expected value of aplastic anemia calculated from this population at risk is 10.2, against 11 cases observed above-described. There is no statistically significant difference. Namely, there is no epidemiological evidence that aplastic anemia is induced by local-body irradiation such as radiotherapy. (auth.)

Children's exposure to diagnostic medical radiation and cancer risk: epidemiologic and dosimetric considerations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Linet, Martha S.; Rajaraman, Preetha; Kim, Kwang pyo

2009-01-01

While the etiology of most childhood cancers is largely unknown, epidemiologic studies have consistently found an association between exposure to medical radiation during pregnancy and risk of childhood cancer in offspring. The relation between early life diagnostic radiation exposure and occurrence of pediatric cancer risks is less clear. This review summarizes current and historical estimated doses for common diagnostic radiologic procedures as well as the epidemiologic literature on the role of maternal prenatal, children's postnatal and parental preconception diagnostic radiologic procedures on subsequent risk of childhood malignancies. Risk estimates are presented according to factors such as the year of birth of the child, trimester and medical indication for the procedure, and the number of films taken. The paper also discusses limitations of the methods employed in epidemiologic studies to assess pediatric cancer risks, the effects on clinical practice of the results reported from the epidemiologic studies, and clinical and public health policy implications of the findings. Gaps in understanding and additional research needs are identified. Important research priorities include nationwide surveys to estimate fetal and childhood radiation doses from common diagnostic procedures, and epidemiologic studies to quantify pediatric and lifetime cancer risks from prenatal and early childhood exposures to diagnostic radiography, CT, and fluoroscopically guided procedures. (orig.)

Cavitary pulmonary tuberculosis HIV-related

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Busi Rizzi, Elisa; Schinina, Vincenzo; Palmieri, Fabrizio; Girardi, Enrico; Bibbolino, Corrado

2004-01-01

Introduction: It was usually assumed that pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in HIV-seropositive patients represents reactivation TB, despite the radiographic appearance frequently consistent rather with a recent disease. Hence, these radiographic features were considered 'atypical'. We have hypothesised that the so called 'atypical' radiographic features could be due to a greater proportion of primary TB among these patients, representing the typical appearance of primary radiological pattern. Material and methods: We reviewed chest imaging of 219 HIV+ patients with microbiological proven pulmonary tuberculosis, who were assessed for the presence, number, distribution of cavitations and for associated pulmonary parenchymal abnormalities, adenopathies and pleural effusion, and were classified as a primary or post-primary pattern. Results: The patients with post-primary pattern were 50%, and the rate of cavitation was 63%, not wandering off the general population. Cavities still occurred with similar proportion in groups with CD4 200 cells/mm 3 . Conclusion: We suggest that HIV-related pulmonary tuberculosis is typical in its radiological appearances, consistent with those of the general population, and this could be confirmed by the most recent molecular epidemiological techniques that allow to definitely classify the tuberculosis episodes as either primary or post-primary disease

Epidemiology of malt fever in Kermanshah province in 2011

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Yazdan Hamzavi

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Background: Brucellosis is a zoonotic, chronic and infectious disease in many developing countries, including Iran. This study investigated some of the epidemiological features of the disease in Kermanshah province in 2011. Methods: In this descriptive study, all of the patients with brucellosis reported to the health center of the province during the year 2011 were studied. The demographic and some epidemiologic parameters of the disease were recorded in the questionnaires. All collected data were analyzed using SPSS (version19 software. Results: Totally, 777 cases of brucellosis were reported to the health center of the province in 2011. The lowest incidence of brucellosis in the province was 40.8/100000 .The highest and lowest incidence rates were seen in Dalahoo (215.2/100 000 and Javanrood (12.6/100 000 districts, respectively. 47.4% of the patients were female and about half of the patients were under 30 years old. Raw milk was the most common cause of the disease consumed by 81.9% of the cases. Also, 87.6% of the patients were living in rural areas and the peak of disease was seen in the spring and summer months. Conclusion: Despite the significant reduction, it seems that the incidence of disease in some rural areas of the districts such as Dalahoo and Sarpol-e-Zahab are very high.

[Ethics and epidemiology].

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Barata, Rita Barradas

2005-01-01

Human actions take place at the confluence of circumstances that require us to discern the proper way to act. Ethics falls within the terrain of practical knowledge, of knowledge about what is contingent. It belongs to the domain of moral judgments or value judgments. The counterpart of disenchantment with our contemporary world lies in an effort to re-establish an interest in ethics. There are basically three orders of relations between public health and human rights: the quest for balance between the collective good and individual rights; methods and techniques for identifying human rights violations and assessing their negative impact; and the tie between protecting individual rights and promoting health. The relationship between ethics and epidemiology goes beyond the ethical aspects involving research on human beings to encompass political commitments, practices within health services, and the production of knowledge.

BIOLOGY OF COLLETOTRICHUM SPP. AND EPIDEMIOLOGY OF THE ANTHRACNOSE IN TROPICAL FRUIT TREES

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CHRISTIANA DE FÁTIMA BRUCE DA SILVA

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The anthracnose is important disease in the pre an d postharvest phases. Several species of Colle- totrichum ( C. gloeosporioides, C. acutatum, C. musae e C. magn a are responsible for inciting this disease. The pathogen infects many fruit trees in tropical and t emperate regions, causing considerable damage and l oss in all phases of cultures. Characteristic symptoms are dar k necrotic lesions depressed, subcircular or angula r shaped, and there may be coalescing. Infections have a spec ial feature: the phenomenon of quiescence. This pro cess has important implications, particularly in post-harves t, because the damage from infections reflect only this phase. The intensity of the disease have been striking at temperatures from 24 to 28 °C and in the presence o f high relative humidity. The understanding of some aspect s of the biology of the pathogen (the process of qu ies- cence and the epidemiology of the disease is cruci al, since much has not yet been fully clarified, es pecially when the aim is to achieve sustainable management.

Feasibility of future epidemiological studies on possible health effects of mobile phone base stations.

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Neubauer, Georg; Feychting, Maria; Hamnerius, Yngve; Kheifets, Leeka; Kuster, Niels; Ruiz, Ignacio; Schüz, Joachim; Uberbacher, Richard; Wiart, Joe; Röösli, Martin

2007-04-01

The increasing deployment of mobile communication base stations led to an increasing demand for epidemiological studies on possible health effects of radio frequency emissions. The methodological challenges of such studies have been critically evaluated by a panel of scientists in the fields of radiofrequency engineering/dosimetry and epidemiology. Strengths and weaknesses of previous studies have been identified. Dosimetric concepts and crucial aspects in exposure assessment were evaluated in terms of epidemiological studies on different types of outcomes. We conclude that in principle base station epidemiological studies are feasible. However, the exposure contributions from all relevant radio frequency sources have to be taken into account. The applied exposure assessment method should be piloted and validated. Short to medium term effects on physiology or health related quality of life are best investigated by cohort studies. For long term effects, groups with a potential for high exposure need to first be identified; for immediate effect, human laboratory studies are the preferred approach. (c) 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Cancer Epidemiology Cohorts

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Cohort studies are fundamental for epidemiological research by helping researchers better understand the etiology of cancer and provide insights into the key determinants of this disease and its outcomes.

Clinical and microbiological features of melioidosis in northern Vietnam.

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Phuong, Doan Mai; Trung, Trinh Thanh; Breitbach, Katrin; Tuan, Nguyen Quang; Nübel, Ulrich; Flunker, Gisela; Khang, Dinh Duy; Quang, Nguyen Xuan; Steinmetz, Ivo

2008-12-01

Sporadic cases of melioidosis have been reported from Vietnam for decades, but clinical and epidemiological data for the indigenous population are still scarce. In this study, we reviewed clinical and demographic data of patients with culture-proven melioidosis diagnosed at a single large referral hospital in Hanoi between November 1997 and December 2005. We found that the clinical manifestations of melioidosis (with fatal septicaemia as the most common presentation), a high rate of underlying diseases, and a peak of cases admitted during the wet season, were similar to studies from other endemic areas. The geographical origin of patients with melioidosis showed that melioidosis existed in at least 18 northern provinces. The characterization of clinical Burkholderia pseudomallei strains by multilocus sequence typing identified 17 different sequence types (STs), 11 of which have (as yet) not been found outside Vietnam. Several of these STs presumably were generated through recent evolutionary events in this rapidly diversifying bacterial species, and thus, restricted geographic distribution may be a consequence of limited time passed since emergence. To our knowledge, this is the first report on a series of cases describing clinical and epidemiological features of melioidosis and corresponding B. pseudomallei strains from northern Vietnam.

Emergency response in a global health crisis: epidemiology, ethics, and Ebola application.

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Salerno, Jennifer; Hlaing, WayWay M; Weiser, Thomas; Striley, Catherine; Schwartz, Lisa; Angulo, Frederick J; Neslund, Verla S

2016-04-01

The link between ethics and epidemiology can go unnoticed in contemporary gatherings of professional epidemiologists or trainees at conferences and workshops, as well as in teaching. Our goal is to provide readers with information about the activities of the College and to provide a broad perspective on a recent major issue in epidemiology. The Ethics Committee of the American College of Epidemiology (ACE) presented a plenary session at the 2015 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA, on the complexities of ethics and epidemiology in the context of the 2014-2015 Ebola virus disease outbreak and response in West Africa. This article presents a summary and further discussion of that plenary session. Three main topic areas were presented: clinical trials and ethics in public health emergencies, public health practice, and collaborative work. A number of key ethical concepts were highlighted and discussed in relation to Ebola and the ACE Ethics Guidelines. The Ebola virus disease outbreak is an example of a public health humanitarian crisis from which we hope to better understand the role of professional epidemiologists in public health practice and research and recognize ethical challenges epidemiologists faced. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Epidemiological reflections of the contribution of anthropology to public health policy and practice.

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Porter, John D H

2006-01-01

Academic disciplines like anthropology and epidemiology provide a niche for researchers to speak the same language, and to interrogate the assumptions that they use to investigate problems. How anthropological and epidemiological methods communicate and relate to each other affects the way public health policy is created but the philosophical underpinnings of each discipline makes this difficult. Anthropology is reflective, subjective and investigates complexity and the individual; epidemiology, in contrast, is objective and studies populations. Within epidemiological methods there is the utilitarian concept of potentially sacrificing the interests of the individual for the benefits of maximizing population welfare, whereas in anthropology the individual is always included. Other strengths of anthropology in the creation of public health policy include: its attention to complexity, questioning the familiar; helping with language and translation; reconfiguring boundaries to create novel frameworks; and being reflective. Public health requires research that is multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary. To do this, there is a need for each discipline to respect the 'dignity of difference' between disciplines in order to help create appropriate and effective public health policy.

Nuclear and related techniques in control and epidemiology of haemoparasitic infections

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duzgun, A.

2004-01-01

Full text: Haemoparasitic diseases of animals have tremendous economic importance in the world. The main tick-borne infections affecting cattle and sheep in Turkey are babesiosis and theileriosis. Babesiosis caused by Babesia bovis and B.ovis has a considerable negative impact on animal industry. Also, theileriosis is one of the limiting factors in cattle production. The importance of haemoprotozoan diseases has been emphasized for many years in Turkey. But, no serious attempt has been made to solve this problem. First, it has been considered that it is important to determine the distribution of babesiosis and theileriosis using sero-diagnostic tests. Since the 1980's, special attention has been given to develop of serologic tests for the diagnosis of haemoparasitic diseases. Mainly ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay), IFAT (indirect fluorescent antibody test) and RIA (radio immunoassay) test have been used in the serological studies. Sero-epidemiological investigations have shown that both babesiosis and theileriosis are prevalent in most regions of Turkey. Greatest progress has been made with vaccines for the control of Haemoprotozoan infections. The use of living parasites to immunize the ruminants against the spread of babesiosis and theileriosis has been employed for a log time in livestock management with varying success. Although attenuated vaccines have been effective, they have several problems associated with them, among the most important is the cotransmission of the other enzootic agents and a short shelf life. Therefore, there are studies targeted at developing other preventive techniques. Irradiate Babesia spp-infected erythrocytes have been used to prevent parasitaemia. It was observed that irradiated organism are non-transmissible by the tick vector and do not revert to virulence after 12 months in a carrier animal. Culture-derived vaccine against theileriosis has been used widely and successfully is safe in all breeds of cattle and provides

Nuclear and related techniques in control and epidemiology of haemoparasitic infections

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duzgun, A.

2004-01-01

Haemoparasitic diseases of animals have tremendous economic importance in the world. The main tick-borne infections affecting cattle and sheep in Turkey are babesiosis and theileriosis. Babesiosis caused by Babesia bovis and B.ovis has a considerable negative impact on animal industry. Also, theileriosis is one of the limiting factors in cattle production. The importance of haemoprotozoan diseases has been emphasized for many years in Turkey. But, no serious attempt has been made to solve this problem. First, it has been considered that it is important to determine the distribution of babesiosis and theileriosis using sero-diagnostic tests. Since the 1980's, special attention has been given to develop of serologic tests for the diagnosis of haemoparasitic diseases. Mainly ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay), IFAT (indirect fluorescent antibody test) and RIA (radio immunoassay) test have been used in the serological studies. Sero-epidemiological investigations have shown that both babesiosis and theileriosis are prevalent in most regions of Turkey. Greatest progress has been made with vaccines for the control of Haemoprotozoan infections. The use of living parasites to immunize the ruminants against the spread of babesiosis and theileriosis has been employed for a log time in livestock management with varying success. Although attenuated vaccines have been effective, they have several problems associated with them, among the most important is the cotransmission of the other enzootic agents and a short shelf life. Therefore, there are studies targeted at developing other preventive techniques. Irradiate Babesia spp-infected erythrocytes have been used to prevent parasitaemia. It was observed that irradiated organism are non-transmissible by the tick vector and do not revert to virulence after 12 months in a carrier animal. Culture-derived vaccine against theileriosis has been used widely and successfully is safe in all breeds of cattle and provides at least

Taxonomic and epidemiological aspects of the bovine viral diarrhoea virus 2 species through the observation of the secondary structures in the 5' genomic untranslated region

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Massimo Giangaspero

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Bovine viral diarrhoea virus 2 (BVDV-2 strains demonstrated in cattle, sheep and adventitious contaminants of biological products were evaluated by the palindromic nucleotide substitutions (PNS method at the three variable loci (V1, V2 and V3 in the 5’ untranslated region (UTR, to determine their taxonomic status. Variation in conserved genomic sequences was used as a parameter for the epidemiological evaluation of the species in relation to geographic distribution, animal host and virulence. Four genotypes were identified within the species. Taxonomic segregation corresponded to geographic distribution of genotype variants. Genotype 2a was distributed worldwide and was also the only genotype that was circulating in sheep and cattle. Genotypes 2b, 2c and 2d were restricted to South America. Genotypes 2a and 2d were related to the contamination of biological products. Genetic variation could be related to the spread of BVDV-2 species variants in different geographic areas. Chronologically, the species emerged in North America in 1978 and spread to the United Kingdom and Japan, continental Europe, South America and New Zealand. Correlation between clinical features related with isolation of BVDV-2 strains and genetic variation indicated that subgenotype 1, variant 4 of genotype 2a, was related to a haemorrhagic syndrome. These observations suggest that the evaluation of genomic secondary structures, by identifying markers for expression of virus biological activities and species evolutionary history, may be a useful tool for the epidemiological evaluation of BVDV-2 species and possibly of other species of the genus Pestivirus.

About the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program

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Epidemiology is the scientific study of the causes and distribution of disease in populations. NCI-funded epidemiology research is conducted through research at institutions in the United States and internationally.

The globalization of epidemiology: introductory remarks.