Short- and medium-chain chlorinated paraffins in breast milk in Shanghai, China: Occurrence, characteristics, and risk assessment.

As novel contaminants, short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) and medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs) have been of great concern in the past several years. Shanghai was one of the provinces with the largest chlorinated paraffins (CPs) emission in China; nevertheless, there is currently little information on the human exposure to SCCPs and MCCPs, particularly MCCPs. In this study, 25 breast milk samples were collected in Shanghai from 2016 to 2017. The concentrations of SCCPs and MCCPs were determined using two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC × GC-orbitrap-HRMS) to investigate their characteristics and assess the associated health risks for breast-fed infants. Compared with the previous studies in other areas, the current study presented the higher CPs concentrations, with median concentrations of SCCPs and MCCPs up to 771 and 125 ng/g lipid weight (lw), respectively. The exposure profiles of the CPs were characterized by C10 and Cl6-7 as the predominant congeners of SCCPs, while C14 and Cl7-9 were identified as the dominant groups of MCCPs. CP-42 and CP-52 were identified as potential sources of CPs found in breast milk samples collected in Shanghai. The concentrations of MCCPs exhibited a positive correlation (p value < 0.05) with the dietary consumption of meat and poultry. No significant positive correlations were observed for SCCPs and MCCPs with polychlorinated dibenzodioxins/furans (PCDD/Fs) congeners. A preliminary exposure assessment showed that SCCPs in breast milk potentially posed high risks to the breast-fed infants in Shanghai.

Occurrence, distribution, and risk assessment of antibiotics in a typical aquaculture area around the Dongzhai Harbor mangrove forest on Hainan Island.

The trees of the Dongzhai Harbor mangrove forest suffer from antibiotic contamination from surrounding aquaculture areas. Despite this being one of the largest mangrove forests in China, few studies have focused on the antibiotic pollution status in these aquaculture areas. In the present study, the occurrence, distribution, and risk assessment of 37 antibiotics in surface water and sediment samples from aquaculture areas around Dongzhai Harbor mangrove forests were analyzed. The concentration of total antibiotics (∑antibiotics) ranged from 78.4 ng/L to 225.6 ng/L in surface water (except S14-A2) and from 19.5 ng/g dry weight (dw) to 229 ng/g dw in sediment. In the sediment, the concentrations of ∑antibiotics were relatively low (19.5-52.3 ng/g dw) at 75 % of the sampling sites, while they were high (95.7-229.0 ng/g dw) at a few sampling sites (S13-A1, S13D, S8D). The correlation analysis results showed that the Kd values of the 9 antibiotics were significantly positively correlated with molecular weight (MW), Kow, and LogKow. Risk assessment revealed that sulfamethoxazole (SMX) in surface water and SMX, enoxacin (ENX), ciprofloxacin (CFX), enrofloxacin (EFX), ofloxacin (OFX), and norfloxacin (NFX) in sediment had medium/high risk quotients (RQs) at 62.5 % and 25-100 %, respectively, of the sampling sites. The antibiotic mixture in surface water (0.06-3.36) and sediment (0.43-309) posed a high risk at 37.5 % and 66.7 %, respectively, of the sampling sites. SMX was selected as an indicator of antibiotic pollution in surface water to assist regulatory authorities in monitoring and managing antibiotic pollution in the aquaculture zone of Dongzhai Harbor. Overall, the results of the present study provide a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the characteristics of antibiotics in the aquaculture environment around the Dongzhai Harbor mangrove system and provide a theoretical basis for the source control of antibiotics in mangrove systems.

Summary of best evidence for self-management in postoperative osteoporotic fracture patients.

Osteoporotic fracture as a serious complication of osteoporosis which is usually treated surgically, and its recovery is closely related to one's own behavior and lifestyle, and is a long-term, complex management process that often requires the individual to self-manage many health-related factors. OBJECTIVE: To gather and synthesize the most robust evidence regarding self-management in patients with postoperative osteoporotic fractures, in order to provide scientific, evidence-based guidance for clinical healthcare professionals to assist postoperative patients in self-management efforts, and to assist patients in optimizing their self-management practices and behavioral norms. METHODS: Based on the "6 S" pyramid model of evidence resources (System, Summaries, Synopses of synthesis, Syntheses, Synopses of studies, Studies), we searched the Up To Date, BMJ Best Practice, The Cochrane Library, Australian Joanna Briggs Institute JBI Evidence-Based Medicine Center Healthcare Database, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), Guidelines International Network (GIN), National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and Scottish Intercollegiate Guide lines Network (SIGN), MedPulse, Embase, PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, SinoMed, Chinese Medical Journal Full Text Database, CNKI, Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, and VIP database, etc, The search period for clinical decision-making, systematic evaluation, clinical guidelines, evidence summaries and expert consensus on self-management of postoperative osteoporotic fracture patients, and it was from the establishment of the database to 18 February 2023. To ensure the quality of the literature, three researchers strictly screened the literature according to the literature inclusion and exclusion criteria, and two or more researchers independently evaluated the quality of the included literature, and extracted and integrated the relevant evidence. RESULTS: Thirteen documents were finally included, including 4 clinical practice guidelines, 5 expert consensus, 2 recommended practices, 1 systematic evaluation, and 1 clinical decision report. The research team summarized the evidence in 6 dimensions: multidisciplinary teamwork, management of daily living, management of treatment adherence, management of exercise, management of fall prevention and subsequent fracture, and management of emotions, and 33 pieces of evidence were extracted. CONCLUSION: The study summarized 33 best evidence of self-management in postoperative osteoporotic fracture patients, which provides a scientific and reasonable self-management program for postoperative patients, and also provides important reference and information for clinical healthcare professionals to provide more comprehensive and scientific self-management health education to patients.

Protocol guide for food foraging behavior test: Assessment of decision making in rodents.

Food foraging behavior requires higher cognitive function like investing efforts in decision making. Hoarding food for the future consumption in adverse climatic conditions or to avoid predatory threats needs precise perception and potential of decision making to overcome challenges in the time of need. The brain areas and neural circuitry responsible for such cognitive skills are poorly understood. Previously available animal models are trained prior to test, which makes it difficult to understand the true nature of animals, and hoard the food from external source into the cage. The new food foraging behavior test, recently developed and evidenced by Li et al., relies on untrained rats and test the competitive ability and hoarding from source within the test box. It can be used to study decision making potentials and underlying neural bases in laboratory settings. Multiple aspects like food quality/flavor preference, competitive nature can be assessed within the test box and the paradigm is conveniently customizable according the hypothesis. However, a detailed protocol guide, to be followed in the laboratory setting, for food foraging behavior test is not available. Therefore, it is urged to produce an elaborated guide for scientists to conduct food foraging behavior test in convenient and precise manner.

Blind Image Quality Assessment for Pathological Microscopic Image Under Screen and Immersion Scenarios.

The high-quality pathological microscopic images are essential for physicians or pathologists to make a correct diagnosis. Image quality assessment (IQA) can quantify the visual distortion degree of images and guide the imaging system to improve image quality, thus raising the quality of pathological microscopic images. Current IQA methods are not ideal for pathological microscopy images due to their specificity. In this paper, we present deep learning-based blind image quality assessment model with saliency block and patch block for pathological microscopic images. The saliency block and patch block can handle the local and global distortions, respectively. To better capture the area of interest of pathologists when viewing pathological images, the saliency block is fine-tuned by eye movement data of pathologists. The patch block can capture lots of global information strongly related to image quality via the interaction between different image patches from different positions. The performance of the developed model is validated by the home-made Pathological Microscopic Image Quality Database under Screen and Immersion Scenarios (PMIQD-SIS) and cross-validated by the five public datasets. The results of ablation experiments demonstrate the contribution of the added blocks. The dataset and the corresponding code are publicly available at: https://github.com/mikugyf/PMIQD-SIS.

Assessment of the correlation between clinical and radiological outcomes in patients suffering from mild to moderate cervical spine dysfunction symptoms: a prospective study.

BACKGROUND: Neck pain and cervical disc degeneration (CDD) are common findings. Valid data on correlation between clinical scores and radiological grade of CDD in patients with mild to moderate clinical disability are not available. The study has been designed to investigate the correlation between clinical and radiological outcomes in these patients. METHODS: A cohort of 150 patients who suffered from mild to moderate cervical spine dysfunction symptoms from September 2020 to May 2021 was enrolled. We evaluated functional status using Japanese Orthopaedic Association scores (JOA), the visual analog scale, and the Neck Disability Index. We assessed the CDD with magnetic resonance imaging-based grading systems. We analyzed relationships between radiological grades of CDD and clinical symptoms along with demographic data. RESULTS: One hundred thirteen patients [mean age 44.78, 78 (69%) females] were finally included. CDD occurred most at the C5-C6 level, with 56.93% of higher grade III from Miyazaki. The grades of Miyazaki (P < 0.05) and the scores of Nakashima (P < 0.05) were positively correlated with the duration of symptoms, and the severity of the CDD increased with aging (P < 0.01). Moreover, we correlated patients' JOA scores with the current scoring and grading systems, especially the grades of Miyazaki (P < 0.01) and the scores of Nakashima (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Increasing grades of CDD paralleled decreasing JOA scores in the population studied.

[Effects of different long-term fertilization patterns on net carbon sink effect and economic benefits in double cropping rice paddy ecosystem in southern China]. / 长期不同施肥模式对南方双季稻田生态系统净碳汇效应和经济收益的影响.

There is close relationship between fertilizer managements and net carbon (C) sink effect, economic benefits in rice paddy ecosystem. Based on a long-term (35-year) field experiment, we analyzed the effects of different fertilization patterns on soil C sequestration rate, C density of topsoil, annual C balance, and economic benefits in the double cropping rice paddy in southern China. There were four fertilization treatments, chemical fertilizer alone (MF), rice straw and chemical fertilizer (RF), 30% organic manure and 70% chemical fertilizer (OM), and without any fertilizer input as a control (CK). The results showed that soil C pool in the double cropping rice paddy field under different fertilization treatments changed from 216.02 to 866.74 kg·hm-2·a-1, and soil C pool under OM treatment were significantly higher than that of MF, RF and CK. The soil C sequestration rates in the double cropping rice paddy field under different fertilization treatments ranged from 51.5 to 650.7 kg·hm-2·a-1, and that of C density of topsoil was from 55.64 to 78.42 t·hm-2. The order of soil C sequestration rates and C density of topsoil was OM>RF>MF>CK. The change range of C adsorption in the double cropping rice paddy field ecosystem was from 4.42 to 9.32 t C·hm-2·a-1, with an order of OM>RF>MF>CK. Compared with the MF treatment, soil net C sink under OM and RF treatments increased by 27.6% and 13.6%, respectively. The change range of C cost material input ranged from 1.49 to 2.17 t C·hm-2·a-1, and that of annual economic benefits was from 1.30×103 to 7.83×103 yuan·hm-2·a-1 with an order of RF>OM>MF>CK. The net income of economic benefits of OM, RF and MF treatments were significantly higher than that of CK. Generally, soil C sequestration rate, C sink effect and annual economic benefits were increased by the long-term application of organic manure and rice straw returning together with chemical fertilizer, which could increase soil organic carbon storage in the double cropping rice paddy field of southern China.

Nonlinear point-process estimation of neural spiking activity based on variational Bayesian inference.

Objective.Understanding neural encoding and decoding processes are crucial to the development of brain-machine interfaces (BMI). Higher decoding speed of neural signals is required for the large-scale neural data and the extremely low detection delay of closed-loop feedback experiment.Approach.To achieve higher neural decoding speed, we proposed a novel adaptive higher-order nonlinear point-process filter based on the variational Bayesian inference (VBI) framework, called the HON-VBI. This algorithm avoids the complex Monte Carlo random sampling in the traditional method. Using the VBI method, it can quickly implement inferences of state posterior distribution and the tuning parameters.Main results.Our result demonstrates the effectiveness and advantages of the HON-VBI by application for decoding the multichannel neural spike trains of the simulation data and real data. Compared with traditional methods, the HON-VBI greatly reduces the decoding time of large-scale neural spike trains. Through capturing the nonlinear evolution of system state and accurate estimating of time-varying tuning parameters, the decoding accuracy is improved.Significance.Our work can be applied to rapidly decode large-scale multichannel neural spike trains in BMIs.

Pharmacodynamic Target Assessment and PK/PD Cutoff Determination for Gamithromycin Against Streptococcus suis in Piglets.

Gamithromycin is a long-acting azalide antibiotic that has been developed recently for the treatment of swine respiratory diseases. In this study, the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) targets, PK/PD cutoff, and optimum dosing regimen of gamithromycin were evaluated in piglets against Streptococcus suis in China, including a subset with capsular serotype 2. Short post-antibiotic effects (PAEs) (0.5-2.6 h) and PA-SMEs (2.4-7.7 h) were observed for gamithromycin against S. suis. The serum matrix dramatically facilitated the intracellular uptake of gamithromycin by S. suis strains, thus contributing to the potentiation effect of serum on their susceptibilities, with a Mueller-Hinton broth (MHB)/serum minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ratio of 28.86 for S. suis. Dose-response relationship demonstrated the area under the concentration (AUC)/MIC ratio to be the predictive PK/PD index closely linked to activity (R 2 > 0.93). For S. suis infections, the net stasis, 1-log10, and 2-log10 kill effects were achieved at serum AUC24h/MIC targets of 17.9, 49.1, and 166 h, respectively. At the current clinical dose of 6.0 mg/kg, gamithromycin PK/PD cutoff value was determined to be 8 mg/L. A PK/PD-based dose assessment demonstrated that the optimum dose regimen of gamithromycin to achieve effective treatments for the observed wild-type MIC distribution of S. suis in China with a probability of target attainment (PTA) ≥ 90% was 2.53 mg/kg in this study. These results will aid in the development of clinical dose-optimization studies and the establishment of clinical breakpoints for gamithromycin in the treatment of swine respiratory infections due to S. suis.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

BACKGROUND: The number of HIV-positive pregnant women accounted for about 10% of China's total over the past few years in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan province in China. Although cost-effectiveness of the PMTCT of HIV have been evaluated in other previous studies, no specific study has been conducted in Liangshan prefecture, nor has the expenses paid individually by HIV-positive pregnant women been included. The purpose of this study was to evaluate both the short-term and long-term cost-effectiveness of PMTCT of HIV in Liangshan Prefecture from the social perspective. METHODS: From December 2018 to January 2019, individual expenses and the other costs were collected: individual expenses of 133 recruited HIV-positive pregnant women registered in the National Information System of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, Syphilis, and HBV, and the other costs from local maternal and child healthcare hospitals, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and general hospitals. The costs, the number of pediatric infections averted from being HIV infected were analyzed. And, Life years gained by pediatric infections averted were calculated by using a life table. Besides, Direct benefit was calculated through a Markov mode. Furthermore, One-way sensitivity analysis was conducted for key variables affecting the benefit-cost ratio. RESULTS: The estimated number of pediatric infections averted was 164.The total cost was USD 114.1 million, including direct medical costs, direct non-medical costs, and indirect costs, which were USD 54.2 million, USD 53.4 million, and USD 6.5 million, respectively. 630.6 person-years discounted to 2017 were gained at a 3% annual rate, and cost per life year gained was USD 1809.50. Direct benefits were USD 198.4 million, indirect benefits USD 82.5 million, and the benefit-cost ratio was 1.5. The sensitivity analysis showed that if PMTCT costs hypothetically ranged from USD 85.6 million to USD 142.6 million, benefit-cost ratio would vary from 1.0 to 2.3. CONCLUSIONS: PMTCT of HIV in Liangshan Prefecture was very cost-effective. It was a great economic burden of PMTCT on HIV-positive pregnant women and their families to take individual expenses. Therefore, it could be suggested that individual expenses should be covered as much as possible by different types of financing.

The energy cost of repairing photoinactivated photosystem II: an experimental determination in cotton leaf discs.

Photosystem II (PSII), which splits water molecules at minimal excess photochemical potential, is inevitably photoinactivated during photosynthesis, resulting in compromised photosynthetic efficiency unless it is repaired. The energy cost of PSII repair is currently uncertain, despite attempts to calculate it. We experimentally determined the energy cost of repairing each photoinactivated PSII in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) leaves, which are capable of repairing PSII in darkness. As an upper limit, 24 000 adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules (including any guanosine triphosphate synthesized at the expense of ATP) were required to repair one entire PSII complex. Further, over a 7-h illumination period at 526-1953 µmol photons m-2 s-1 , the ATP requirement for PSII repair was on average up to 4.6% of the ATP required for the gross carbon assimilation. Each of these two measures of ATP requirement for PSII repair is two- to three-fold greater than the respective reported calculated value. Possible additional energy sinks in the PSII repair cycle are discussed.

Unresected small lymph node assessment predicts prognosis for patients with pT3N0M0 thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: The role of unresected small lymph nodes (LNs) which may contain metastases for thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (TESCC) has not been addressed. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of unresected small LNs assessment using computed tomography (CT) in prognostic estimates of pT3N0M0 TESCC patients. METHODS: Between January 2009 and December 2017, 294 patients who underwent esophagectomy with R0 resection at Sichuan Cancer Hospital were retrospectively examined, and the last follow-up time was July 2018. Patients were classified into CT-suspect and CT-negative groups according to the shortest diameter and the shape (axial ratio) of the unresected small LNs on preoperative CT. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to compare survival differences in prognostic factors. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify prognostic factors for survival and recurrence. RESULTS: Eighty-four patients (28.6%) were classified as CT-suspect group according to the diagnostic criteria; survival analysis suggested that CT-suspect group of patients had a relatively poorer prognosis (P<0.05). Cox regression analysis indicated that unresected small LNs status, tumor grade, and postoperative adjuvant therapy were independent prognostic factors for patients with pT3N0M0 TESCC (P<0.05). Further analysis shown the rates of total recurrence (TR) and locoregional recurrence (LR) in the CT-suspect group were significantly higher than that in the CT-negative group (TR, P<0.001; LR, P<0.001). Among the LRs, the rate of supraclavicular lymph node recurrence in the CT-suspect group was significantly higher than that in the CT-negative group (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Unresected small lymph node assessment is critically important and predict prognosis for pT3N0M0 TESCC patients.

The Assessment of Sleep Quality in Patients Following Valve Repair and Valve Replacement for Infective Endocarditis: A Retrospective Study at a Single Center.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to measure sleep quality among patients who underwent infective endocarditis (IE) surgery and identify the risk factors involved in sleep disorders. MATERIAL AND METHODS In this study, we used actigraphy, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Epworth Sleep Scale (ESS) to determine the clinical characteristics of sleep disorders in 116 patients with IE who were in rehabilitation after surgery. RESULTS Our results showed that 46 (39.7%) patients had sleep efficiency over 85%, while 70 (60.3%) patients had sleep efficiency below 85%. The correlation analysis showed that sleep efficiency was related to the duration of the disease, with a longer duration leading to lower sleep efficiency (P=0.031). The sleep efficiency of patients with IE following surgery was also affected by alcohol consumption; however, surprisingly, patients with "heavy" alcohol consumption had higher sleep efficiency (P=0.030). We found a significant correlation between sleep efficiency and postoperative interleukin-6 (IL) levels, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, and preoperative erythrocyte sedimentation rate (P<0.05). No significant correlation was found between brain natriuretic peptide levels and sleep efficiency, PSQI score, or ESS score. Postoperative hemoglobin (Hb) level was associated with sleep efficiency (R=0.194, P=0.036), but there was no statistically significant correlation between the PSQI and ESS scores. Postoperative alanine transaminase (ALT) showed a significant negative correlation with sleep efficiency (R=-0.27, P=0.003). CONCLUSIONS We found a high prevalence of sleep disorders in patients with IE along with an increase in inflammatory factors, including postoperative IL-6, CRP, ALT, and Hb levels.

Neuropeptide S Attenuates the Alarm Pheromone-Evoked Defensive and Risk Assessment Behaviors Through Activation of Cognate Receptor-Expressing Neurons in the Posterior Medial Amygdala.

Neuropeptide S (NPS) acts by activating its cognate receptor (NPSR). High level expression of NPSR in the posterior medial amygdala suggests that NPS-NPSR system should be involved in regulation of social behaviors induced by social pheromones. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of central administration of NPS or with NPSR antagonist on the alarm pheromone (AP)-evoked defensive and risk assessment behaviors in mice. Furthermore, H129-H8, a novel high-brightness anterograde multiple trans-synaptic virus, c-Fos and NPSR immunostaining were employed to reveal the involved neurocircuits and targets of NPS action. The mice exposed to AP displayed an enhancement in defensive and risk assessment behaviors. NPS (0.1-1 nmol) intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injection significantly attenuated the AP-evoked defensive and risk assessment behaviors. NPSR antagonist [D-Val5]NPS at the dose of 40 nmol completely blocked the effect of 0.5 nmol of NPS which showed the best effective among dose range. The H129-H8-labeled neurons were observed in the bilateral posterodorsal medial amygdala (MePD) and posteroventral medial amygdala (MePV) 72 h after the virus injection into the unilateral olfactory bulb (OB), suggesting that the MePD and MePV receive olfactory information inputs from the OB. The percentage of H129-H8-labeled neurons that also express NPSR were 90.27 ± 3.56% and 91.67 ± 2.46% in the MePD and MePV, respectively. NPS (0.5 nmol, i.c.v.) remarkably increased the number of Fos immunoreactive (-ir) neurons in the MePD and MePV, and the majority of NPS-induced Fos-ir neurons also expressed NPSR. The behavior characteristic of NPS or with [D-Val5]NPS can be better replicated in MePD/MePV local injection within lower dose. The present findings demonstrated that NPS, via selective activation of the neurons bearing NPSR in the posterior medial amygdala, attenuates the AP-evoked defensive and risk assessment behaviors in mice.

Assessment of Left Ventricular Global Myocardial Work in Patients With Different Degrees of Coronary Artery Stenosis by Pressure-Strain Loops Analysis.

Global myocardial work (MW) analysis by pressure-strain loops (PSL) allows the non-invasive assessment of left ventricular (LV) function. We aimed to investigate the relationship between LV global MW and the degree of coronary artery stenosis in suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) patients with normal LV ejection fraction and regional wall motion. A total of 164 suspected CAD patients were divided into four groups according to coronary artery angiography. The results showed that global work efficiency (GWE) as the most significant predictor in all MW parameters had the optimal cut-off value of 94.5% for detecting moderate stenosis, and the sensitivity and specificity was 89.7% and 85.8%, respectively. A cut-off value of 94.0% for GWE was the most significant predictor of severe stenosis, and the sensitivity and specificity was 81.4% and 76.1%, respectively. In conclusion, LV global MW is a sensitive tool in detecting the degree of coronary artery stenosis and a potential valuable method to provide early diagnosis for CAD patients.

Assessment of the Sensitivity and Specificity of the Established Real-time Quaking-induced Conversion (RT-QuIC) Technique in Chinese CJD Surveillance.

Real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) assay is a newly established PrP Sc-detecting method. The development of RT-QuIC improves the diagnosis of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), showing good sensitivity and specificity in many countries when the method was used in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples. However, in China, the sensitivity and specificity of RT-QuIC has yet to be determined due to the lack of definitive diagnosis samples. Recently, 30 definitive sCJD and 30 non-CJD diagnoses were evaluated by RT-QuIC assay. In the 30 sCJD CSF samples, 29 showed positive results. By contrast, all the non-CJD samples were negative. The sensitivity and specificity of our RT-QuIC assay were 96.67% and 100%, respectively, and are comparable to other published data. Results can provide a fundamental basis for the usage of RT-QuIC assay in CJD surveillance in China.

In Vivo Pharmacodynamic Target Assessment of Antofloxacin against Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus in a Neutropenic Murine Pneumonia Model.

We determined in vivo efficacy and target PK/PD exposures of antofloxacin against Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus in the murine pneumonia model. The mean plasma free drug area under the concentration-time curve/MIC (fAUC/MIC) targets associated with stasis and 1-log10 and 2-log10 kill effects were 8.93, 19.2, and 48.1, respectively, for S. pneumoniae, whereas they were 30.5, 55.4, and 115.8, respectively, for S. aureus The fAUC/MIC targets in murine lung epithelial lining fluids (ELF) for the same endpoints were nearly 2-fold higher than those in plasma.

COVID-19 seeding time and doubling time model: an early epidemic risk assessment tool.

BACKGROUND: As COVID-19 makes its way around the globe, each nation must decide when and how to respond. Yet many knowledge gaps persist, and many countries lack the capacity to develop complex models to assess risk and response. This paper aimed to meet this need by developing a model that uses case reporting data as input and provides a four-tiered risk assessment output. METHODS: We used publicly available, country/territory level case reporting data to determine median seeding number, mean seeding time (ST), and several measures of mean doubling time (DT) for COVID-19. We then structured our model as a coordinate plane with ST on the x-axis, DT on the y-axis, and mean ST and mean DT dividing the plane into four quadrants, each assigned a risk level. Sensitivity analysis was performed and countries/territories early in their outbreaks were assessed for risk. RESULTS: Our main finding was that among 45 countries/territories evaluated, 87% were at high risk for their outbreaks entering a rapid growth phase epidemic. We furthermore found that the model was sensitive to changes in DT, and that these changes were consistent with what is officially known of cases reported and control strategies implemented in those countries. CONCLUSIONS: Our main finding is that the ST/DT Model can be used to produce meaningful assessments of the risk of escalation in country/territory-level COVID-19 epidemics using only case reporting data. Our model can help support timely, decisive action at the national level as leaders and other decision makers face of the serious public health threat that is COVID-19.

Assessment of Sexual Behavior of Male Mice.

Sexual behavior is highly species-specific. Although rodents have slightly different sexual behaviors, mice and rats have a similar sexual behavioral pattern. The purpose of this article is to describe the hormone-induced estrus ovariectomized female model and the experimental procedure for the assessment of sexual behavior of male mice. The most important sexual behavioral elements are demonstrated in the video and illustrations. The critical steps, advantages, and limitations of the sexual behavior test are explained as well. Finally, the behavior parameters are presented, and mounting, intromission, and ejaculation processes in mating are distinguished. Behavioral parameters are assessed in terms of the occurred duration and counts during the test period.