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Introduction Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death in U.S. children 1-4 years (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2018). In children, swimming pools account for 33% [...], The Model Aquatic Health Code (MAHC) provides voluntary guidelines that reduce the risk of disease, injury, and drowning at aquatic facilities. Its use varies across state and local jurisdictions. We sought to develop a swimming pool safety grading system in a metropolitan area by applying the MAHC to city swimming pool inspection data. We conducted a cross-sectional study that involved routine inspections of commercial aquatic venues in Houston, Texas, during 2016. We calculated the overall percentage of items in compliance with the MAHC. Next, we graded swimming pools by assigning points based on the MAHC to corresponding swimming pool violations and assigning a letter grade: A = 95-100%; B = 85-94%; C = 75-84%; and fail (F) = There were 3,100 commercial aquatic venues in Houston that were inspected. Venues were graded for safety as: A = 40.2%; B = 0.5%; C = 0%; and F = 59.3%. Swimming pool enclosure violations were most frequent (18.0%). Most swimming pools, irrespective of the degree of pool safety violations, were located in the Southwest section of Houston. Overall, the MAHC can be applied to grade swimming pool safety in jurisdictions where it has not been adopted. The degree of safety violations can be spatially demonstrated to inform injury-prevention measures.

The RV144 clinical trial showed the partial efficacy of a vaccine regimen with an estimated vaccine efficacy (VE) of 31% for protecting low-risk Thai volunteers against acquisition of HIV-1. The impact of vaccine-induced immune responses can be investigated through sieve analysis of HIV-1 breakthrough infections (infected vaccine and placebo recipients). A V1/V2-targeted comparison of the genomes of HIV-1 breakthrough viruses identified two V2 amino acid sites that differed between the vaccine and placebo groups. Here we extended the V1/V2 analysis to the entire HIV-1 genome using an array of methods based on individual sites, k-mers and genes/proteins. We identified 56 amino acid sites or "signatures" and 119 k-mers that differed between the vaccine and placebo groups. Of those, 19 sites and 38 k-mers were located in the regions comprising the RV144 vaccine (Env-gp120, Gag, and Pro). The nine signature sites in Env-gp120 were significantly enriched for known antibody-associated sites (p = 0.0021). In particular, site 317 in the third variable loop (V3) overlapped with a hotspot of antibody recognition, and sites 369 and 424 were linked to CD4 binding site neutralization. The identified signature sites significantly covaried with other sites across the genome (mean = 32.1) more than did non-signature sites (mean = 0.9) (p < 0.0001), suggesting functional and/or structural relevance of the signature sites. Since signature sites were not preferentially restricted to the vaccine immunogens and because most of the associations were insignificant following correction for multiple testing, we predict that few of the genetic differences are strongly linked to the RV144 vaccine-induced immune pressure. In addition to presenting results of the first complete-genome analysis of the breakthrough infections in the RV144 trial, this work describes a set of statistical methods and tools applicable to analysis of breakthrough infection genomes in general vaccine efficacy trials for diverse pathogens.

Degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) is the leading cause of spinal cord dysfunction in adults, representing substantial morbidity and significant financial and resource burdens. Typically, patients with progressive DCM will eventually receive surgical treatment. Nonetheless, despite advancements in pharmacotherapeutics, evidence for pharmacological therapy remains limited. Health professionals from various fields would find interest in pharmacological agents that could benefit patients with mild DCM or enhance surgical outcomes. This review aims to consolidate all clinical and experimental evidence on the pharmacological treatment of DCM. We conducted a comprehensive narrative review that presents all pharmacological agents that have been investigated for DCM treatment in both humans and animal models. Riluzole exhibits effectiveness solely in rat models, but not in treating mild DCM in humans. Cerebrolysin emerges as a potential neuroprotective agent for myelopathy in animals but had contradictory results in clinical trials. Limaprost alfadex demonstrates motor function improvement in animal models and exhibits promising outcomes in a small clinical trial. Glucocorticoids not only fail to provide clinical benefits but may also lead to adverse events. Cilostazol, anti-Fas ligand antibody, and Jingshu Keli display promise in animal studies, while erythropoietin, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and limaprost alfadex exhibit potential in both animal and human research. Existing evidence mainly rests on weak clinical data and animal experimentation. Current pharmacological efforts target ion channels, stem cell differentiation, inflammatory, vascular, and apoptotic pathways. The inherent nature and pathogenesis of DCM offer substantial prospects for developing neurodegenerative or neuroprotective therapies capable of altering disease progression, potentially delaying surgical intervention, and optimizing outcomes for those undergoing surgical decompression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome mining of Streptomyces exfoliatus DSMZ 41693 has allowed us to identify four different lipase-encoding sequences, and one of them (SeLipC) has been successfully cloned and extracellularly expressed using Rhodococcus sp. T104 as a host. SeLipC was purified by one-step hydrophobic interaction chromatography. The enzyme is a monomeric protein of 27.6 kDa, which belongs to subfamily I.7 of lipolytic enzymes according to its phylogenetic analysis and biochemical characterization. The purified enzyme shows the highest activity at 60 °C and an optimum pH of 8.5, whereas thermal stability is significantly improved when protein concentration is increased, as confirmed by thermal deactivation kinetics, circular dichroism, and differential scanning calorimetry. Enzyme hydrolytic activity using p-nitrophenyl palmitate (pNPP) as substrate can be modulated by different water-miscible organic cosolvents, detergents, and metal ions. Likewise, kinetic parameters for pNPP are: KM = 49.6 µM, kcat = 57 s−1, and kcat/KM = 1.15 × 106 s−1·M−1. SeLipC is also able to hydrolyze olive oil and degrade several polyester-type polymers such as poly(butylene succinate) (PBS), poly(butylene succinate)-co-(butylene adipate) (PBSA), and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL). Moreover, SeLipC can catalyze the synthesis of different sugar fatty acid esters by transesterification using vinyl laurate as an acyl donor, demonstrating its interest in different biotechnological applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wikis are a supporting tool for pupils' learning and collaboration. Tasks such as cooperative authoring, joined workbooks creation, document review, group assignments, reflection notes and others have been tried out using wikis as a facilitating tool [1]. However, few studies have reported how students actually perceive some well-claimed benefits. This study investigated the perception of learning activities facilitated by wikis, and the effectiveness of several roles wikis might play in constructive and collaborative learning. This study tried to answer the following questions. How do students perceive a wiki as a learning tool? How does a wiki support constructive learning skills? How does a wiki support student's collaborative learning skills? How does collaboration in wiki facilitate students' content learning and project work? The study was conducted using a survey method to examine the perception of wiki usage and collaborative and constructive learning. In the reported study, a questionnaire was used to gather data from 92 graduate students. The results suggest that using wikis were perceived to enhance collaborative knowledge building among students, but it did not contribute much to learning the subject matter although students were more involved in the learning process than with conventional teaching methods. In other words, it indicates that students may not obtain better return of investment on the time spent in using wiki as a learning tool. While wiki did contribute to enrich the learning experience, further study is needed to investigate how to link the learning process with learning outcomes using this type of collaboration tools. (Contains 8 tables and 1 figure.)