Influence of age and sex on the diagnostic yield of inherited cardiac conditions in sudden arrhythmic death syndrome decedents.

Aims: Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS) refers to a sudden death, which remains unexplained despite comprehensive post-mortem examination and a toxicological screen. We aimed to investigate the impact of age and sex on the overall diagnostic yield and underlying aetiology in decedents with SADS using a combined approach of familial evaluation (FE) and molecular autopsy (MA).

Methods And Results: Consecutive referrals to a single centre for FE only, MA only or both, following a SADS death were included.

Tumour purity assessment with deep learning in colorectal cancer and impact on molecular analysis.

Tumour content plays a pivotal role in directing the bioinformatic analysis of molecular profiles such as copy number variation (CNV). In clinical application, tumour purity estimation (TPE) is achieved either through visual pathological review [conventional pathology (CP)] or the deconvolution of molecular data. While CP provides a direct measurement, it demonstrates modest reproducibility and lacks standardisation.

Association of current Schistosoma mansoni, Schistosoma japonicum, and Schistosoma mekongi infection status and intensity with periportal fibrosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Periportal fibrosis is a severe morbidity caused by both current and past exposure to intestinal schistosomes. We aimed to assess the association between current infection status and intensity of Schistosoma mansoni, Schistosoma japonicum, or Schistosoma mekongi with periportal fibrosis.

Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, Global Health, Global Index Medicus, and MEDLINE from database inception to June 18, 2024.

Reconstruction of super-resolution from high-resolution remote sensing images based on convolutional neural networks.

In this study, a novel algorithm named the Edge-enhanced Generative Adversarial Network (EGAN) is proposed to address the issues of noise corruption and edge fuzziness in the super-resolution of remote sensing images. To build upon the baseline model called Deep Blind Super-Resolution GAN (DBSR-GAN), an edge enhancement module is introduced to enhance the edge information of the images. To enlarge the receptive field of the algorithm, the Mask branch within the edge enhancement structure is further optimized.

Modeling the within-host dynamics of hypnozoite activation: An analysis of the SPf66 vaccine trial.

parasites can lie dormant in the liver as hypnozoites, activating weeks to months after sporozoite inoculation to cause relapsing malarial illness. It is not known what biological processes govern hypnozoite activation. We use longitudinal data from the most detailed cohort study ever conducted in an area where both and were endemic to fit a simple within-host mathematical model of hypnozoite activation.

Copy number variants underlie major selective sweeps in insecticide resistance genes in Anopheles arabiensis.

To keep ahead of the evolution of resistance to insecticides in mosquitoes, national malaria control programmes must make use of a range of insecticides, both old and new, while monitoring resistance mechanisms. The outdoor-biting malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis is of increasing concern for malaria transmission because it is apparently less susceptible to many indoor control interventions, yet knowledge of its mechanisms of resistance remains limited. Furthermore, comparatively little is known in general about resistance to non-pyrethroid insecticides such as pirimiphos-methyl (PM), which are crucial for effective control in the context of globally high resistance to pyrethroids.

Defining within-host SARS-CoV-2 RNA viral load kinetics during acute COVID-19 infection within different respiratory compartments and their respective associations with host infectiousness: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Understanding how RNA viral load changes (viral load kinetics) during acute infection in SARS-CoV-2 can help to identify when and which patients are most infectious. We seek to summarise existing data on the longitudinal RNA viral load kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 sampled from different parts of the respiratory tract (nose, nasopharynx, oropharynx, saliva and exhaled breath) and how this may vary with age, sex, ethnicity, immune status, disease severity, vaccination, treatment and virus variant.

Methods And Analysis: We will conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis, using studies identified through MEDLINE and EMBASE (via Ovid).

Parameter Adaptive Contrastive Hashing for multimedia retrieval.

With the emergence of massive amounts of multi-source heterogeneous data on the Internet, quickly retrieving effective information from this extensive data has become a hot research topic. Due to the efficiency and speed of hash learning methods in multimedia retrieval, they have become a mainstream method for multimedia retrieval. However, unsupervised multimedia hash learning methods still face challenges with the difficulties of tuning due to the excessive number of hyperparameters and the lack of precise guidance on semantic similarity.

Learning patterns of HIV-1 resistance to broadly neutralizing antibodies with reduced subtype bias using multi-task learning.

The ability to predict HIV-1 resistance to broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) will increase bnAb therapeutic benefits. Machine learning is a powerful approach for such prediction. One challenge is that some HIV-1 subtypes in currently available training datasets are underrepresented, which likely affects models' generalizability across subtypes.

Predicting individual patient and hospital-level discharge using machine learning.

Background: Accurately predicting hospital discharge events could help improve patient flow and the efficiency of healthcare delivery. However, using machine learning and diverse electronic health record (EHR) data for this task remains incompletely explored.

Methods: We used EHR data from February-2017 to January-2020 from Oxfordshire, UK to predict hospital discharges in the next 24 h.

Understanding the Genetic Architecture of Vitamin Status Biomarkers in the Genome-Wide Association Study Era: Biological Insights and Clinical Significance.

Vitamins play an intrinsic role in human health and are targets for clinical intervention through dietary or pharmacological approaches. Biomarkers of vitamin status are complex traits, measurable phenotypes that arise from an interplay between dietary and other environmental factors with a genetic component that is polygenic, meaning many genes are plausibly involved. Studying these genetic influences will improve our knowledge of fundamental vitamin biochemistry, refine estimates of the effects of vitamins on human health, and may in future prove clinically actionable.

Lung development genes, adult lung function and cognitive traits.

Lower lung function is associated with lower cognitive function and an increased risk of dementia. This has not been adequately explained and may partly reflect shared developmental pathways. In UK Biobank participants of European ancestry, we tested the association between lung function measures (forced vital capacity and forced expiratory volume in 1 s to forced vital capacity ratio; = 306 476) and cognitive traits including nine cognitive function test scores ( = 32 321-428 609), all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia (6805, 2859 and 1544 cases, respectively, and ∼421 241 controls).

Identification of complex Plasmodium falciparum genetic backgrounds circulating in Africa: a multicountry genomic epidemiology analysis.

Background: The population structure of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum can reveal underlying adaptive evolutionary processes. Selective pressures to maintain complex genetic backgrounds can encourage inbreeding, producing distinct parasite clusters identifiable by population structure analyses.

Methods: We analysed population structure in 3783 P falciparum genomes from 21 countries across Africa, provided by the MalariaGEN Pf7 dataset.

Canine Distemper Virus in Sardinia, Italy: Detection and Phylogenetic Analysis in Foxes.

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is the etiological agent of a highly prevalent viral infectious disease of carnivores, which could seriously lead to a threat to the conservation of the affected species worldwide [...

Intelligent Monitoring and Visualization System for High Building Nighttime Utilization Based on Image Processing.

The rise of complex high-rise buildings has made building management increasingly challenging, especially the nighttime supervision of university laboratories. Idle occupation increases the risk of accidents and undermines campus sustainability. Effective occupancy detection is essential for optimizing campus building safety and energy efficiency.

Effects of aspirin and omega-3 fatty acids on composite and subdomain scores from the NEI-VFQ-25 questionnaire: the ASCEND-Eye randomized controlled trial.

Background: The double-blind, 2 × 2 factorial design, placebo-controlled ASCEND randomized trial compared the effects of 100 mg aspirin daily and, separately, 1 g omega-3 fatty acids (FAs) daily on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in 15,480 UK adults with diabetes. We report the effects of these randomized treatment allocations on scores derived from the National Eye Institute's Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI-VFQ-25) in a subset of participants involved in the ASCEND-Eye sub-study.

Methods: Ordinal data from the NEI-VFQ-25 were analyzed using proportional odds regression methods.

Unequal impact of COVID-19 on excess deaths, life expectancy, and premature mortality in Spanish regions (2020-2021).

Objective: We aimed to estimate regional inequalities in excess deaths and premature mortality in Spain during 2020 and 2021, before high vaccination coverage against COVID-19.

Method: With data from the National Institute of Statistics, within each region, sex, and age group, we estimated the excess deaths, the change in life expectancy at birth (e) and age 65 (e) and years of life lost as the difference between the observed and expected deaths using a time series analysis of 2015-2019 data and life expectancies based on Lee-Carter forecasting using 2010-2019 data.

Results: From January 2020 to June 2021, an estimated 89,200 (men: 48,000; women: 41,200) excess deaths occurred in Spain with a substantial regional variability (highest in Madrid: 22,000, lowest in Canary Islands: -210).

Timing of Stoma Closure in Neonates: the ToSCiN mixed-methods study.

Background: Neonates undergoing emergency abdominal surgery frequently require a stoma; closing this stoma with a second operation is an essential part of recovery. Timing of closure varies. Optimal timing is unclear and would be best resolved through a randomised controlled trial; such a trial is likely to be challenging.