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Myositis complicating benzathine penicillin-G injection in a case of rheumatic heart disease
Get PDFPublished by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).A 7-year old boy developed myositis secondary to intramuscular injection of benzathine penicillin-G in the context of secondary prophylaxis for rheumatic heart disease. Side effects of intramuscular delivery of benzathine penicillin-G are well described and include injection site pain and inflammation, but myositis, as depicted on magnetic resonance imaging in this case, has not previously been described
Human T-Lymphotropic Virus type 1 infection in an Indigenous Australian population: epidemiological insights from a hospital-based cohort study
No full textOpen Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: The Human T Lymphotropic Virus type 1 (HTLV-1) subtype C is endemic to central Australia where
each of the major sequelae of HTLV-1 infection has been documented in the socially disadvantaged Indigenous
population. Nevertheless, available epidemiological information relating to HTLV-1c infection is very limited, risk
factors for transmission are unknown and no coordinated program has been implemented to reduce transmission
among Indigenous Australians. Identifying risk factors for HTLV-1 infection is essential to direct strategies that could
control HTLV-1 transmission.
Methods: Risk factors for HTLV-1 infection were retrospectively determined for a cohort of Indigenous Australians
who were tested for HTLV-1 at Alice Springs Hospital (ASH), 1st January 2000 to 30th June 2013. Demographic
details were obtained from the ASH patient management database and the results of tests for sexually transmitted
infections (STI) were obtained from the ASH pathology database.
Results: Among 1889 Indigenous patients whose HTLV-1 serostatus was known, 635 (33.6 %) were HTLV-1 Western
blot positive. Only one of 77 (1.3 %) children tested was HTLV-1 infected. Thereafter, rates progressively increased
with age (15–29 years, 17.3 %; 30–49 years, 36.2 %; 50–64 years, 41.7 %) reaching 48.5 % among men aged 50–64
years. In a multivariable model, increasing age (OR, 1.04; 95 % CI, 1.03–1.04), male gender (OR, 1.41; 95 % CI, 1.08–1.
85), residence in the south (OR, 10.7; 95 % CI, 7.4–15.6) or west (OR, 4.4; 95 % CI, 3.1–6.3) of central Australia and
previous STI (OR, 1.42; 95 % CI, 1.04–1.95) were associated with HTLV-1 infection. Infection was acquired by three of
351 adults who were tested more than once during the study period (seroconversion rate, 0.24 (95 % CI = 0.18–2.48)
per 100 person-years).
Conclusions: This study confirms that HTLV-1 is highly endemic to central Australia. Although childhood infection was
documented, HTLV-1 infection in adults was closely associated with increasing age, male gender and STI history.
Multiple modes of transmission are therefore likely to contribute to high rates of HTLV-1 infection in the Indigenous
Australian population. Future strategies to control HTLV-1 transmission in this population require careful community
engagement, cultural understanding and Indigenous leadership
Mental Health Technologies: Designing With Consumers
No full textThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Human Factors, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://humanfactors.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Despite growing interest in the promise of e-mental and well-being interventions, little supporting literature exists to guide their design and the evaluation of their effectiveness. Both participatory design (PD) and design thinking (DT) have emerged as approaches that hold significant potential for supporting design in this space. Each approach is difficult to definitively circumscribe, and as such has been enacted as a process, a mind-set, specific practices/techniques, or a combination thereof. At its core, however, PD is a design research tradition that emphasizes egalitarian partnerships with end users. In contrast, DT is in the process of becoming a management concept tied to innovation with strong roots in business and education. From a health researcher viewpoint, while PD can be reduced to a number of replicable stages that involve particular methods, techniques, and outputs, projects often take vastly different forms and effective PD projects and practice have traditionally required technology-specific (eg, computer science) and domain-specific (eg, an application domain, such as patient support services) knowledge. In contrast, DT offers a practical off-the-shelf toolkit of approaches that at face value have more potential to have a quick impact and be successfully applied by novice practitioners (and those looking to include a more human-centered focus in their work). Via 2 case studies we explore the continuum of similarities and differences between PD and DT in order to provide an initial recommendation for what health researchers might reasonably expect from each in terms of process and outcome in the design of e-mental health interventions. We suggest that the sensibilities that DT shares with PD (ie, deep engagement and collaboration with end users and an inclusive and multidisciplinary practice) are precisely the aspects of DT that must be emphasized in any application to mental health provision and that any technology development process must prioritize empathy and understanding over innovation for the successful uptake of technology in this space
A Comparison of Measures of Endothelial Function in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease and Age and Gender Matched Controls
No full textCopyright © 2016 Richard B. Allan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This study compared flow-mediated dilatation (FMD), peripheral artery tonometry (PAT), and serum nitric oxide (NO) measures of endothelial function in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) against age/gender matched controls. 25 patients (mean age: 72.4 years, M : F 18 : 7) with established PAD and an age/gender matched group of 25 healthy controls (mean age: 72.4 years, M : F 18 : 7) were studied. Endothelial function was measured using the % FMD, reactive hyperemia index (RHI) using PAT and serum NO (μmol). Difference for each method between PAD and control patients and correlation between the methods were investigated. FMD and RHI were lower in patients with PAD (median FMD for PAD = 2.16% versus control = 3.77%, and median RHI in PAD = 1.64 versus control = 1.92, ). NO levels were not significantly different between the groups (PAD median = 7.70 μmol, control median = 13.05 μmol, ). These results were obtained in elderly patients and cannot be extrapolated to younger individuals. FMD and PAT both demonstrated a lower hyperaemic response in patients with PAD; however, FMD results in PAD patients were unequivocally reduced whereas half the PAD patients had RHI values above the established threshold for endothelial dysfunction. This suggests that FMD is a more appropriate method for the measurement of NO-mediated endothelial function
Microbes as Engines of Ecosystem Function: When Does Community Structure Enhance Predictions of Ecosystem Processes?
No full textThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Microorganisms are vital in mediating the earth's biogeochemical cycles; yet, despite our rapidly increasing ability to explore complex environmental microbial communities, the relationship between microbial community structure and ecosystem processes remains poorly understood. Here, we address a fundamental and unanswered question in microbial ecology: 'When do we need to understand microbial community structure to accurately predict function?' We present a statistical analysis investigating the value of environmental data and microbial community structure independently and in combination for explaining rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling processes within 82 global datasets. Environmental variables were the strongest predictors of process rates but left 44% of variation unexplained on average, suggesting the potential for microbial data to increase model accuracy. Although only 29% of our datasets were significantly improved by adding information on microbial community structure, we observed improvement in models of processes mediated by narrow phylogenetic guilds via functional gene data, and conversely, improvement in models of facultative microbial processes via community diversity metrics. Our results also suggest that microbial diversity can strengthen predictions of respiration rates beyond microbial biomass parameters, as 53% of models were improved by incorporating both sets of predictors compared to 35% by microbial biomass alone. Our analysis represents the first comprehensive analysis of research examining links between microbial community structure and ecosystem function. Taken together, our results indicate that a greater understanding of microbial communities informed by ecological principles may enhance our ability to predict ecosystem process rates relative to assessments based on environmental variables and microbial physiology
Review of Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel by Ulka Anjaria
No full textReview of Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel by Ulka Anjari
Review of The Land: Poems from Australia and India edited by Jaydeep Sarangi and Rob Harle
No full textReview of The Land: Poems from Australia and India edited by Jaydeep Sarangi and Rob Harl
Review of Vernacular Worlds, Cosmopolitan Imagination edited by Stephanos Stephanides and Stavros Karayanni.
No full textReview of Vernacular Worlds, Cosmopolitan Imagination edited by Stephanos Stephanides and Stavros Karayanni
Wake-Up call
No full text'I taught English in Seoul, Korea, in the early '90s. Strange things sometimes happened.
Review of Breaking the Days by Jill Jones and Hoard by Tracy Ryan.
No full textReview of two titles: Breaking the Days by Jill Jones; Hoard by Tracy Rya