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The transmission rate is a central parameter in mathematical models of infectious disease. Its pivotal role in outbreak dynamics makes estimating the current transmission rate and uncovering its dependence on relevant covariates a core challenge in epidemiological research as well as public health policy evaluation. Here, we develop a method for flexibly inferring a time-varying transmission rate parameter, modeled as a function of covariates and a smooth Gaussian process (GP). The transmission rate model is further embedded in a hierarchy to allow information borrowing across parallel streams of regional incidence data. Crucially, the method makes use of optional vaccination data as a first step toward modeling of endemic infectious diseases. Computational techniques borrowed from the Bayesian spatial analysis literature enable fast and reliable posterior computation. Simulation studies reveal that the method recovers true covariate effects at nominal coverage levels. We analyze data from the COVID-19 pandemic and validate forecast intervals on held-out data. User-friendly software is provided to enable practitioners to easily deploy the method in public health research.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/biom.13901 | DOI Listing |
Nature
September 2025
Department of Translational Genomics, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a highly aggressive type of lung cancer, characterized by rapid proliferation, early metastatic spread, frequent early relapse and a high mortality rate. Recent evidence has suggested that innervation has an important role in the development and progression of several types of cancer. Cancer-to-neuron synapses have been reported in gliomas, but whether peripheral tumours can form such structures is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Hum Genet
September 2025
Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60611, USA; Department of Pediatrics and Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. Electronic address: erid
Fetal brain anomalies identified by prenatal ultrasound and/or magnetic resonance imaging represent a considerable healthcare burden with ∼1-2/1,000 live births. To identify the underlying etiology, trio prenatal exome sequencing or genome sequencing (ES/GS) has emerged as a comprehensive diagnostic paradigm with a reported diagnostic rate up to ∼32%. Here, we report five unrelated families with six affected individuals that presented neuroanatomical, craniofacial, and skeletal anomalies, all harboring rare, bi-allelic deleterious variants in SNAPIN, which encodes SNARE-associated protein.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Hazard Mater
September 2025
State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510120, China.
Following the global COVID-19 pandemic, greater attention has been paid to public health safety, especially in hospital environments. In waiting areas with interconnected spaces, complex airflow, unclear bioaerosol dispersion, and the limitations of traditional control methods pose major challenges. This study combined real-world experiments and numerical simulations to investigate the airborne transmission characteristics of pathogen-laden aerosols in a hospital waiting corridor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFN Engl J Med
September 2025
Rwanda Biomedical Center, Kigali.
Background: On September 27, 2024, Rwanda reported an outbreak of Marburg virus disease (MVD), after a cluster of cases of viral hemorrhagic fever was detected at two urban hospitals.
Methods: We report key aspects of the epidemiology, clinical manifestations, and treatment of MVD during this outbreak, as well as the overall response to the outbreak. We performed a retrospective epidemiologic and clinical analysis of data compiled across all pillars of the outbreak response and a case-series analysis to characterize clinical features, disease progression, and outcomes among patients who received supportive care and investigational therapeutic agents.
JMIR Hum Factors
September 2025
Department of Community Health Systems, University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing, San Francisco, CA, United States.
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic forced the world to quarantine to slow the rate of transmission, causing communities to transition into virtual spaces. Asian American and Pacific Islander communities faced the additional challenge of discrimination that stemmed from racist and xenophobic rhetoric in the media. Limited data exist on technology use among Asian American and Pacific Islander adults during the height of the COVID-19 shelter-in-place period and its effect on their physical and mental health.
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