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The potential virulence of Listeria monocytogenes strains isolated from fresh produce processing facilities as determined by an invertebrate Galleria mellonella model
Get PDFListeria monocytogenes, a bacterium responsible for listeriosis, is an environmental and food-borne pathogen that poses a particular risk to pregnant women and the elderly. While traditionally associated with animal products, ready-to-eat salads are increasingly recognised as a source of Listeria outbreaks. However, little is known about the potential virulence of Listeria isolates from the fresh produce environment. This study assessed the virulence potential of nine L. monocytogenes strains from the fresh produce chain using the Galleria mellonella invertebrate infection model. Larvae were infected with 106 CFU of each strain via their circulatory system and compared to a reference strain L. monocytogenes (EGD-e) and Listeria ivanovii. Virulence was evaluated by measuring mortality rates, health index score of larvae, viable bacterial counts in the larvae, and the larvae’s immune. Significant differences in larval mortality were observed among strains. Strains NLmo4 and NLmo5 caused the highest mortality rates (98.8% and 96.7%, respectively at 7 days post-infection), while strain NLmo20 had a significantly lower mortality rate of 65% at the same time point (p<0.05). Six isolates that caused varied mortality rates were then selected and tested for their ability to replicate both in vitro and in vivo and their impact on larval haemocyte density. In vitro growth rates were not significantly different among L. monocytogenes strains or compared to Listeria ivanovii. However, L. monocytogenes strains persisted and replicated in larvae up to 7d days post-infection, whereas Listeria ivanovii was reduced by 5 logs CFU by day 7. The presence of these L. monocytogenes strains caused organ damage in larvae, indicated by increased melanisation and subsequent larval death. Haemocyte density showed insignificant fluctuations following infection. In conclusion, the results of this study suggest L. monocytogenes strains from fresh produce food chain have varying pathogenicity levels and can pose potential risk to human health
Enhancing Human Activity Recognition with FedPA: Focusing on Non-IID Data Challenges in Federated Learning
No full textFederated Learning (FL) revolutionizes distributed learning in Human Activity Recognition (HAR) by allowing clients to train models locally and share only model parameters, thus optimizing data usage and mitigating privacy concerns. However, the presence of Non-Independent and Identically Distributed (Non-IID) data across clients impedes FL efficiency between the server and clients, affecting HAR performance and communication efficiency. Acknowledging the significance of post-training parameters as intrinsic representations of knowledge acquired by client models, we introduce FedPA (Federated Parameters Averaging), a novel algorithm for model aggregation. This algorithm strategically assigns varying weight coefficients to clients during aggregation, accurately reflecting each client’s learning contribution and thereby enhancing the efficacy of both global and client models. We conducted empirical analyses using real-world datasets to assess FedPA’s effectiveness. The results demonstrate that FedPA not only preserves accuracy but also improves communication efficiency compared to existing FL aggregation algorithms, like FedAvg, FedMA, and FedCDA. These findings underscore FedPA’s superiority in addressing Non-IID challenges in HAR tasks and highlight its potential to improve overall model performance in FL settings
Leg ulceration in venous and arteriovenous insufficiency: assessment and management with compression therapy as part of a holistic wound‑healing strategy
Get PDFIntroductionThis international consensus document presents the outcomes of an expert panel discussion, convened in October 2023. The discussion aimed to provide best-practice recommendations on the assessment and management of venous and arteriovenous leg ulcers. To this end, the panellists explored the accurate assessment of the venous and arterial aetiologies underlying leg ulceration, as well as the optimal safe and effective management of venous or arteriovenous ulceration using compression therapy as part of a holistic care plan. This consensus document is intended to complement existing published guidance on the management of venous ulceration and use of compression therapy,[1–4] primarily by filling gaps in earlier guidelines on the assessment and management of leg ulcers with a mixed aetiology caused by combined arterial and venous insufficiency (CAVI).This consensus document has been written for a multidisciplinary readership of generalist and specialist healthcare professionals (HCPs), including physicians, podiatrists, nurses and allied health professionals, such as physical and occupational therapists. It aims for an inclusive international relevance in all healthcare settings, with consideration for variations in practice; access to resources; and the way services are designed, provided and reimbursed in the medical systems throughout the world. It is hoped that the recommendations in this consensus document will provide clinicians with the skills and confidence to accurately assess chronic venous and/or arterial insufficiency and deliver compression therapy in a timely, safe and effective manner.BackgroundChronic venous insufficiency (CVI), CAVI and resulting leg ulceration have a significant negative impact on quality of life. The global cost of CVI with and without ulceration is in the billions of dollars.[5] The reported global prevalence of CVI varies from <1 to 17% in men and <1 to 40% in women, and 1–2% of the global adult population have a lower-extremity wound (leg ulcer), with the prevalence increasing to 3% for patients over 65 years old.[5] According to a 2023 meta-analysis, venous ulceration has an international pooled prevalence of 0.32% and incidence of 0.17%.[6]The above statistics may be an underestimate of the real world burden due to small sample sizes, misdiagnosis and underreporting, especially of people outside of care, patients who self-treat their wounds and those in less-developed nations.[6] In addition, prevalence and incidence studies do not always include wounds that are treated without adequate diagnosis.[6] Prevalence and incidence statistics may also be influenced by factors such as delays in detection and diagnosis, as identified by a 2022 study in primary care, where the median time after first appearance of a hard-to-heal wound was 8 days to first assessment but 41 days to diagnosis.[7] Real-world prevalence would be better understood with higher-quality population studies using consistent methods, such as database analysis and shared population data. For example, large samples of diagnosis, treatment and outcome data could be accessed through a deidentified, compliant commercial database, such as the Blue Health Intelligence research database of administrative claims.[8] A reliable outcome would require the database to be accurately compiled by skilled HCPs.StructureThis international consensus document begins by summarising the potential venous, arterial, arteriovenous and atypical aetiologies underlying leg ulceration. It then explains how these aetiologies can be assessed and diagnosed with a full holistic patient assessment. Recommendations are presented for how the results of the patient assessment should be used to indicate the safety and recommended application of compression therapy as part of a holistic treatment strategy. The document then describes the different types of compression systems with reference to the main functional characteristics of pressure, elasticity and stiffness. Guidance is offered on product selection, application technique and long-term maintenance for compression therapy. The last section surveys other aspects of the holistic management of patients receiving compression therapy in CVI or CAVI, including wound and skin care, exercise and supported self-management, as well as adjunctive therapies, revascularisation and patient and professional education.Where possible, the recommendations presented in this document are informed and supported by citations to the best available published evidence. A narrative review of the literature was conducted on the electronic databases PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar, using keywords based on the aetiologies, tools and interventions discussed. The cited literature includes level 1 (systematic reviews or meta-analyses) to level 4 (case-control or cohort studies) publications, alongside grey literature. Other recommendations that are based on the expert opinion, professional experience and clinical judgment of the consensus panel without reference to published literature have been presented under the label ‘consensus statement’. The label ‘consensus statement’ denotes expert opinion and has no bearing on significance compared with the rest of the document. The full text has been read, discussed, edited and agreed by the panel prior to publication of the document
Regularity and Compactness Properties of Integral Hankel Operators and Their Singular Vectors
Get PDFIntegral Hankel operators on vector-valued -function spaces are considered. Regularity (integrability) and compactness properties of the kernel are shown to give rise to quantifiable regularity and compactness properties of the Hankel operator, and consequently of the associated singular vectors (also called Schmidt pairs), which finds relevance in model order reduction schemes. As demonstrated, strong- Lebesgue and Sobolev spaces naturally arise in the case that U is infinite dimensional. The theory is illustrated with examples
A Hearing Intervention and Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Adults: A Secondary Analysis of the ACHIEVE Randomized Clinical Trial
Get PDFImportance Health-related quality of life is a critical health outcome and a clinically important patient-reported outcome in clinical trials. Hearing loss is associated with poorer health-related quality-of-life in older adults.Objective To investigate the 3-year outcomes of hearing intervention vs health education control on health-related quality of life.Design, Setting, and Participants This secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial included participants treated for hearing loss at multiple US centers between 2018 and 2019 with 3-year follow-up completed in 2022. Eligible participants were aged 70 to 84 years, had untreated hearing loss, and were without substantial cognitive impairment. Participants were randomized (1:1) to hearing intervention or health education control and followed every 6 months.Intervention Hearing intervention (provision of hearing aids and related technologies, counseling, education) or health education control (individual sessions covering topics relevant to chronic disease, disability prevention).Main Outcomes and Measures Three-year change in the RAND-36 physical and mental health component scores over 3 years. The 8 individual domains of health-related quality-of-life were additionally assessed. Outcomes measured at baseline and at 6-month, 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year follow-ups. Intervention effect sizes estimated using a 2-level linear mixed effects model under the intention-to-treat principle.Results A total of 977 participants were analyzed (mean [SD] age, 76.8 [4.0] years; 523 female [53.5%]; 112 Black [11.5%], 858 White [87.8%]; 521 had a Bachelor’s degree or higher [53.4%]), with 490 in the hearing intervention and 487 in the control group. Over 3 years, hearing intervention (vs health education control) had no significant association with physical (intervention, −0.49 [95% CI, −3.05 to 2.08]; control, −0.92 [95% CI, −3.39 to 1.55]; difference, 0.43 [95% CI, −0.64 to 1.51]) or mental (intervention, 0.38 [95% CI, −1.58 to 2.34]; control, −0.09 [95% CI, −1.99 to 1.81]; difference, 0.47 [95% CI, −0.41 to 1.35]) health-related quality of life.Conclusions and Relevance In this secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial, hearing intervention had no association with physical and mental health-related quality-of-life over 3 years among older adults with hearing loss. Additional intervention strategies may be needed to modify health-related quality among older adults with hearing loss
Anti-Gender Tactics in Europe. The RESIST Project Research Findings
Get PDFThis is the second report from the Work Package 1 (WP1) of the RESIST Project. This abbreviated version of the full report presents the mapping anti-gender discourses in media and parliamentary debates across five case studies: the European Parliament, UK, Poland, Switzerland and Hungary.Data was collected from parliamentary records, media outlets and by tracking key controversies predominantly in the period of 2017-2022.Abstract (English)This Report is focused on mapping anti-gender discourses in media and parliamentary debates across five case studies: the European Parliament, UK, Poland, Switzerland and Hungary. Overall, the research found an animated anti-gender political landscape characterised by ideological agitation and political opportunism, pronounced fixations and a fluid focus on often interchangeable targets and issues. There are clear continuities in the targeting of equality, and gender and sexual diversity, however these intersect with, and are transformed by an emerging repertoire of discourses and practices. Findings demonstrate that to understand anti-gender mobilisations, we need to pay attention to the transnational circulation, unconventional political alliances, strategies of controversy-generation, and competition for media attention – all of which promote anti-gender politics.Series information (English)Deliverables of the RESIST Project (EU Project ID: 101060749). Output ID: “D1.3: Public-oriented tool exposing anti-gender tactics"
Epigenetic scores derived in saliva are associated with gestational age at birth
Get PDFBackgroundEpigenetic scores (EpiScores), reflecting DNA methylation (DNAm)-based surrogates for complex traits, have been developed for multiple circulating proteins. EpiScores for pro-inflammatory proteins, such as C-reactive protein (DNAm CRP), are associated with brain health and cognition in adults and with inflammatory comorbidities of preterm birth in neonates. Social disadvantage can become embedded in child development through inflammation, and deprivation is overrepresented in preterm infants. We tested the hypotheses that preterm birth and socioeconomic status (SES) are associated with alterations in a set of EpiScores enriched for inflammation-associated proteins.ResultsIn total, 104 protein EpiScores were derived from saliva samples of 332 neonates born at gestational age (GA) 22.14 to 42.14 weeks. Saliva sampling was between 36.57 and 47.14 weeks. Forty-three (41%) EpiScores were associated with low GA at birth (standardised estimates |0.14 to 0.88|, Bonferroni-adjusted p-value < 8.3 × 10−3). These included EpiScores for chemokines, growth factors, proteins involved in neurogenesis and vascular development, cell membrane proteins and receptors, and other immune proteins. Three EpiScores were associated with SES, or the interaction between birth GA and SES: afamin, intercellular adhesion molecule 5, and hepatocyte growth factor-like protein (standardised estimates |0.06 to 0.13|, Bonferroni-adjusted p-value < 8.3 × 10−3). In a preterm subgroup (n = 217, median [range] GA 29.29 weeks [22.14 to 33.0 weeks]), SES–EpiScore associations did not remain statistically significant after adjustment for sepsis, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, necrotising enterocolitis, and histological chorioamnionitis.ConclusionsLow birth GA is substantially associated with a set of EpiScores. The set was enriched for inflammatory proteins, providing new insights into immune dysregulation in preterm infants. SES had fewer associations with EpiScores; these tended to have small effect sizes and were not statistically significant after adjusting for inflammatory comorbidities. This suggests that inflammation is unlikely to be the primary axis through which SES becomes embedded in the development of preterm infants in the neonatal period
Infant attachment does not depend on neonatal amygdala and hippocampal structure and connectivity
Get PDFInfant attachment is an antecedent of later socioemotional abilities, which can be adversely affected by preterm birth. The structural integrity of amygdalae and hippocampi may subserve attachment in infancy. We aimed to investigate associations between neonatal amygdalae and hippocampi structure and their whole-brain connections and attachment behaviours at nine months of age in a sample of infants enriched for preterm birth. In 133 neonates (median gestational age 32 weeks, range 22.14–42.14), we calculated measures of amygdala and hippocampal structure (volume, fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, neurite dispersion index, orientation dispersion index) and structural connectivity, and coded attachment behaviours (distress, fretfulness, attentiveness to caregiver) from responses to the Still-Face Paradigm at nine months. After multiple comparisons correction, there were no significant associations between neonatal amygdala or hippocampal structure and structural connectivity and attachment behaviours: standardised β values − 0.23 to 0.18, adjusted p-values > 0.40. Findings indicate that the neural basis of infant attachment in term and preterm infants is not contingent on the structure or connectivity of the amygdalae and hippocampi in the neonatal period, which implies that it is more widely distributed in early life and or that network specialisation takes place in the months after hospital discharge
Start thinking in graphs: using graphs to address critical attack paths in a Microsoft cloud tenant
Get PDFThe challenge of securing IT environments has reached a new complexity level as a growing number of organisations adopt cloud solutions. This trend increases the possibility of overseen attack paths in an organisation’s IT infrastructure. This paper proposes a methodology for assessing the security of a Microsoft cloud tenant based on the relationships between different cloud entities through the use of graphs. This paper argues for using graph theory as an effective method to understand and uncover complex entity attack paths. To achieve this, we implemented a graph analytics platform using data from a Microsoft cloud test tenant. Methods based on graph theory proved to measurably reduce possible attack paths. Our research can support defenders who want to better understand the interrelationships of Microsoft cloud entities as well as identify and remediate possible attack paths
Rehearsing empathy: exploring the role of poetry in supporting learning
Get PDFEmpathy is an important aspect of therapeutic relationships in health and social care settings. Health educators can foster empathy development in learners through creative writing activities. Drawing on the humanities, specifically poetry, this paper offers strategies for educators to support empathy development in learners, with a focus on service user poetry and associated creative writing activities. We discuss how poetry can enable alternative perspectives about care to emerge thereby challenging previously held assumptions about mental and physical states. Using poetry can enable a rehearsal of empathy by bringing experiences to the learner in a safe and facilitated environment. Through creative writing activities, we believe that students can learn to better understand and empathise with others, as well as explore their own feelings and experiences related to caregiving, to support self-care
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