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Background: Host vulnerabilities associated with acute malnutrition could facilitate the ability of specific enteric pathogens to cause diarrhoea and associated mortality. Using data from the Global Enteric Multicenter Study, we assessed whether acute malnutrition modifies the association between common enteric pathogens and moderate-to-severe diarrhoea, and whether associations between enteric pathogens and death were modified by acute malnutrition., Methods: Children with moderate-to-severe diarrhoea and age-matched and community-matched controls were included in this post-hoc analysis if their mid-upper arm circumference had been measured and if they were older than 6 months of age. Acute malnutrition was defined as mid-upper arm circumference below 12·5 cm, capturing both severe acute malnutrition (<11·5 cm) and moderate acute malnutrition (≥11·5 cm and <12·5 cm). We tested whether acute malnutrition modified associations between enteric pathogens and moderate-to-severe diarrhoea in conditional logistic regression models. Among children with moderate-to-severe diarrhoea, Cox proportional hazards regression evaluated the modifying effect of acute malnutrition on the relationship between pathogens and 60-day fatality rate., Findings: The age, site, and co-infection adjusted odds ratios (aORs) for moderate-to-severe diarrhoea associated with typical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli among children aged 6-11 months was 2·08 (95% CI 1·14-3·79) in children with acute malnutrition, and 0·97 (0·77-1·23) in children with better nutritional status, compared with healthy controls. Enterotoxigenic E coli producing heat-stable toxin among children aged 12-23 months also had a stronger association with moderate-to-severe diarrhoea in children with acute malnutrition (aOR 7·60 [2·63-21·95]) than among similarly aged children with better nutritional status (aOR 2·39 [1·76-3·25]). Results for Shigella spp, norovirus, and sapovirus suggested they had a stronger association with moderate-to-severe diarrhoea than other pathogens among children with better nutritional status, although Shigella spp remained associated with moderate-to-severe diarrhoea in both nutritional groups. 92 (64%) of 144 children with moderate-to-severe diarrhoea who died had acute malnutrition. Pathogen-specific 60-day fatality rates for all pathogens were higher among children with acute malnutrition, but no individual pathogen had a significantly larger increase in its relative association with mortality., Interpretation: Acute malnutrition might strengthen associations between specific pathogens and moderate-to-severe diarrhoea. However, the strong link between acute malnutrition and mortality during moderate-to-severe diarrhoea in children is not limited to specific infections, and affects a broad spectrum of enteric pathogens. Interventions addressing acute malnutrition could be an effective way to lower the mortality of both childhood malnutrition and diarrhoea., Funding: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation., (Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Dengue virus (DENV) that caused an outbreak in Dhaka, Bangladesh during 2018 was analysed phylogenetically. DENV samples were classified into type 2-Cosmopolitan genotype (54%) and type 3-genotype I (46%), indicating co-circulation of two DENV types and resurgence of type 3 associated with genotype replacement., (© 2019 The Author(s).)

Household members of cholera patients are at a 100 times higher risk of cholera than the general population. Despite this risk, there are only a handful of studies that have investigated the handwashing practices among hospitalized diarrhea patients and their accompanying household members. To investigate handwashing practices in a hospital setting among this high-risk population, 444 hours of structured observation was conducted in a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, among 148 cholera patients and their household members. Handwashing with soap practices were observed at the following key events: after toileting, after cleaning the anus of a child, after removing child feces, during food preparation, before eating, and before feeding. Spot-checks were also conducted to observe the presence of soap at bathroom areas. Overall, 4% (4/103) of key events involved handwashing with soap among cholera patients and household members during the structured observation period. This was 3% (1/37) among cholera patients and 5% (3/66) for household members. For toileting events, observed handwashing with soap was 7% (3/46) overall, 7% (1/14) for cholera patients, and 6% (2/32) for household members. For food-related events, overall observed handwashing with soap was 2% (2/93 overall), and 0% (0/34) and 3% (2/59) for cholera patients and household members, respectively. Soap was observed at only 7% (4/55) of handwashing stations used by patients and household members during spot-checks. Observed handwashing with soap at key times among patients and accompanying household members was very low. These findings highlight the urgent need for interventions to target this high-risk population., (© The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.)

Background: MERS-CoV is a newly emerged human coronavirus reported closely related with HKU4 and HKU5 Bat coronaviruses. Bat and MERS corona-viruses are structurally related. Therefore, it is of interest to estimate the degree of conserved antigenic sites among them. It is of importance to elucidate the shared antigenic-sites and extent of conservation between them to understand the evolutionary dynamics of MERS-CoV., Results: Multiple sequence alignment of the spike (S), membrane (M), enveloped (E) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins was employed to identify the sequence conservation among MERS and Bat (HKU4, HKU5) coronaviruses. We used various in silico tools to predict the conserved antigenic sites. We found that MERS-CoV shared 30 % of its S protein antigenic sites with HKU4 and 70 % with HKU5 bat-CoV. Whereas 100 % of its E, M and N protein's antigenic sites are found to be conserved with those in HKU4 and HKU5., Conclusion: This sharing suggests that in case of pathogenicity MERS-CoV is more closely related to HKU5 bat-CoV than HKU4 bat-CoV. The conserved epitopes indicates their evolutionary relationship and ancestry of pathogenicity.

Background: Thousands of groundwater tube wells serving millions of Bangladeshis are arsenic contaminated. This study investigates the effect of these wells on the education attainment and school attendance of youths who rely on those wells for drinking water., Methods: The analysis combines data from the 2006 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2006 MICS) and the National Hydrochemical Survey (NHS) of Bangladeshi tube wells' contamination conducted between 1998 and 2000. The study uses multiple regression analysis to estimate the differences in education attainment and school attendance among the following: (i) youths who live where tube wells are safe, (ii) youths who live where tube wells are unsafe but who report drinking from an arsenic-free source, and (iii) youths who live where tube wells are unsafe but who do not report drinking from an arsenic-free source., Results: Controlling for other determinants of education attainment and school attendance, young Bangladeshi males who live where tube wells are unsafe (by Bangladeshis standards) but who report drinking from arsenic-free sources are found to have the same education attainment (among 19- to 21-year-olds) and school attendance (among 6- to 10-year-olds), on average, as corresponding young Bangladeshi males who live where wells are safe. But young Bangladeshi males who live where tube wells are unsafe and who do not report drinking from an arsenic-free source attain, on average, a half-year less education (among 19- to 21-year-olds) and attend school, on average, five to seven fewer days a year (among 6- to 10-year-olds) than do other Bagladeshi males of those ages. The estimated effects for females are of the same sign but much smaller in magnitude., Conclusion: Bangladeshi public health measures to shift drinking from unsafe to safe wells not only advance good health but also increase males' education attainment.

Background: Coronaviruses are the diverse group of RNA virus. From 1960, six strains of human coronaviruses have emerged that includes SARS-CoV and the recent infection by deadly MERS-CoV which is now going to cause another outbreak. Prevention of these viruses is urgent and a universal vaccine for all strain could be a promising solution in this circumstance. In this study we aimed to design an epitope based vaccine against all strain of human coronavirus., Results: Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) approach was employed among spike (S), membrane (M), enveloped (E) and nucleocapsid (N) protein and replicase polyprotein 1ab to identify which one is highly conserve in all coronaviruses strains. Next, we use various in silico tools to predict consensus immunogenic and conserved peptide. We found that conserved region is present only in the RNA directed RNA polymerase protein. In this protein we identified one epitope WDYPKCDRA is highly immunogenic and 100% conserved among all available human coronavirus strains., Conclusions: Here we suggest in vivo study of our identified novel peptide antigen in RNA directed RNA polymerase protein for universal vaccine--which may be the way to prevent all human coronavirus disease.

In this paper, a phase-based direct average strain estimation method is developed. A mathematical model is presented to calculate axial strain directly from the phase of the zero-lag cross-correlation function between the windowed precompression and stretched post-compression analytic signals. Unlike phase-based conventional strain estimators, for which strain is computed from the displacement field, strain in this paper is computed in one step using the secant algorithm by exploiting the direct phase-strain relationship. To maintain strain continuity, instead of using the instantaneous phase of the interrogative window alone, an average phase function is defined using the phases of the neighboring windows with the assumption that the strain is essentially similar in a close physical proximity to the interrogative window. This method accounts for the effect of lateral shift but without requiring a prior estimate of the applied strain. Moreover, the strain can be computed both in the compression and relaxation phases of the applied pressure. The performance of the proposed strain estimator is analyzed in terms of the quality metrics elastographic signal-to-noise ratio (SNRe), elastographic contrast-to-noise ratio (CNRe), and mean structural similarity (MSSIM), using a finite element modeling simulation phantom. The results reveal that the proposed method performs satisfactorily in terms of all the three indices for up to 2.5% applied strain. Comparative results using simulation and experimental phantom data, and in vivo breast data of benign and malignant masses also demonstrate that the strain image quality of our method is better than the other reported techniques.

Dengue fever (DF) and dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) are now endemic in Bangladesh with outbreaks being reported quite frequently. This cross sectional study was done clinically suspected dengue patients were selected from different hospitals of Dhaka city, Bangladesh, from January 2008 to December 2008. The clinical features, risk factors and laboratory findings associated with dengue infection were investigated among 201 clinically suspected patients. Antibodies were detected in 137(68.2%) cases. Of these, 80(58.4%) were primary and 57(41.6%) as secondary dengue cases according to presence of dengue-specific IgM and/or IgG antibodies. Among primary cases, 70(87.5%) were DF and 10(12.5%) were DHF cases, in contrast to secondary cases, where 10(18.1%) were DF and 47(81.9%) were DHF cases. Majority (57.9%) of patients presented with Grade I and 42.1% had Grade II disease. Patients between 16-30 years were the most vulnerable age group (81.3% DF and 71.9% DHF patients). Males out-numbered females with 72.5% male vs. 27.5% female patients having DF and 68.4% male vs. 31.6% female patients having DHF. The monsoon period was the peak season for dengue infection. Headache and arthralgia were the most frequent symptoms in both DF and DHF, but vomiting was more common in DHF. The Tourniquet test was significantly positive among DHF than DF cases (p = 0.001). Platelet count was the only laboratory parameter that showed significantly higher values among DHF than DF cases (p = 0.001).

Unlabelled: Photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) is a promising technology for indoor air purification due to low operating cost, potentially long service life, and low maintenance. Ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UVLED) is a new concept in the field of PCO, which has several advantages over conventional UV light sources. Limited research has been conducted using UVLED PCO for air treatment. This study demonstrated the potential application of UVLED for the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs; toluene and xylene) from indoor air under different operating conditions including flow rate (25-117 cubic feet per minute [cfm]), types of catalysts (Degussa P25, sol-gel TiO2, nitrogen-doped TiO2, clay TiO2, and Bi2O3), LED intensity, and humidity in a continuous reactor. About 7-32% VOC removal occurred depending on the experimental conditions. The results show that UVLED can activate different types of photocatalysts effectively., Implications: This study demonstrates the effectiveness of UVLED in photocatalytic oxidation applied for indoor air cleaning. Several TiO2 catalysts (Degussa P25, sol-gel TiO2, nitrogen-doped TiO2, clay TiO2, and Bi2O3) were used in the reactor to characterize the removal performance of indoor air pollutants, for example, VOCs. This is one of the very few studies that have, to date, examined toluene and xylene removal from indoor air using these catalysts with UVLED in a continuous reactor. The intent is to develop an energy-efficient continuous reaction system to remove VOCs from indoor air. The performance of the system was characterized with respect to air flow rate, humidity, types of catalysts, and light intensity.

At concentrations above the critical micelle concentration, surfactants can significantly enhance the solubilization of residual nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPL) and, for this reason, are the focus of research on surfactant-enhanced aquifer remediation (SEAR). As a consequence of their amphiphilic nature, surfactants may also partition to various extents between the organic and aqueous phases, thereby affecting SEAR performance. We report here on the observation and analysis of the effect of surfactant partitioning on the dissolution kinetics of residual perchloroethylene (PCE) by aqueous solutions (1000 mg/L) of the non-ionic surfactant Triton X-100 in a model porous medium. For this fluid system, batch equilibration experiments showed that the surfactant partitions strongly into the NAPL (NAPL-water partition coefficient equal to 12.5). Dynamic interfacial tension (IFT) measurements were employed to study surfactant diffusion and interfacial adsorption. The dynamic IFT measurements were consistent with partitioning of the surfactant between the two liquid phases. PCE dissolution experiments, conducted in a transparent glass micromodel using an aqueous surfactant solution, were contrasted to experiments using clean water. Surfactant partitioning was observed to delay significantly the onset of micellar solubilization of PCE, an observation reproduced by a numerical model. This effect is attributed to the reduction of surfactant concentration in the immediate vicinity of the NAPL-water interface, which accompanies transport of the surfactant into the NAPL. Accordingly, it is suggested that both the rate and the extent of diffusion of the surfactant into the NAPL affect the onset of and the driving force for micellar solubilization. While many surfactants do not readily partition in NAPL, this possibility must be considered when selecting non-ionic surfactants for the enhanced solubilization of residual chlorinated solvents in porous media.