Mcneilrutledge3666
Given the rate of individuals affected, severity of mitochondrial diseases, and lack of treatment options available, it's important to address how to overcome ethical challenges and policy barriers.Background Universal Health Coverage has become a political priority for many African countries yet there are clear challenges in achieving this goal. Though social health insurance is considered a mechanism for providing financial protection, less well documented in the literature is evidence from countries in Africa who are at various stages of adopting this financing strategy as a way to improve health insurance coverage for their populations. Objectives The study investigates whether social health insurance schemes are effectively and efficiently covering all groups. The objective is to provide evidence of how these schemes have been implemented and whether the fundamental goals are met. The selected countries are Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. The study draws lessons from the literature about how policy tools can be used to reduce financial barriers whilst ensuring a broad geographic coverage in Africa. Methods The study relies primarily on a review of literature, both documented and grey mlso, highly fragmented risk pools impede efforts to widen the insurance pools and promote cross-subsidies.The study aimed to determine the prevalence of continuity of illicit drug use and its associated factors among Malay opioid users receiving methadone treatment in Kelantan, Malaysia. This cross-sectional study involved a total of 150 respondents. Sociodemographic characteristic of participants, level of religiosity, and quality of life were collected using the self-administered questionnaires. The prevalence of continuity illicit drug use was 38.7% (n = 58) by self-report and 40.7% (n = 61) by positive urine test result for drugs. Positive hepatitis C status and high quality of life in the psychological health domain were associated with low continuity of illicit drug use by self-reported data and urine drug test results. In conclusion, the continuity of illicit drug use among methadone program users is still high, especially among those on methadone therapy for less than 2 years.
There are an increasing number of studies indicating the important roles served by long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the development of different types of cancer. LINC00460 is a novel identified lncRNA that was found to be upregulated in colorectal cancer. However, the biological roles of LINC00460 in colorectal cancer have yet to be fully elucidated. This study was aimed to investigate the functions and molecular mechanisms of LINC00460 on colorectal cancer metastasis.
Expression of LINC00460 and
in colorectal cancer tissues and cell lines were quantified by real time PCR or western blotting assay. Cell migration and invasion assays were performed to determine the effect of LINC00460 on tumor metastasis in vitro. The binding interaction between microRNA-149-5p and LINC00460 was revealed by luciferase reporter assay.
In the present study, lncRNA LINC00460 was shown to be upregulated in colorectal cancer tissues, and overexpression of LINC00460 significantly promoted metastasis of colorectal cancer in vitro. Furthermore, miR-149-5p interacted with LINC00460, and they negatively regulated expression of each other. Transfection of miR-149-5p mimics partially counteracted the tumor metastasis-promoting effects induced by LINC00460 overexpression. Finally, overexpression of LINC00460 upregulated the expression levels of
, a target gene of miR-149-5p, which has also been identified as an oncogenic driver in colorectal cancer.
Taken together, the present study demonstrated that LINC00460 promoted metastasis of CRC by sponging miR-149-5p and thereby affecting
expression levels.
Taken together, the present study demonstrated that LINC00460 promoted metastasis of CRC by sponging miR-149-5p and thereby affecting biglycan expression levels.Touch is an important element of human social interaction linked to various dimensions of well-being, but we know little of how it is distributed among older adults. This study considers whether greeting/affectionate touch is a function of characteristics such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Data come from Wave 1 (2005-2006) of the NSHAP study from the United States. Results reveal that women experienced more frequent touch relative to men, net of several features of the interpersonal environment. Mediation analyses revealed that gender differences in associations with touch were partially explained by women's greater participation in formal and informal social activity. No patterns were detected related to race, education, or wealth. SB590885 This study situates greeting/affectionate touch as a form of corporeal non-verbal interaction that offers a unique lens into patterns of social connection. We close by considering what this form of interaction means in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.Health-promotion behaviors among urban Black women are the forefront of US health policy regarding health disparities. This cross-sectional study explored factors such as health literacy, self-efficacy, and readiness for change with health-promotion behaviors of urban Black women. Although these variables are relevant, urban Black women have identified that spirituality and history of domestic violence were also relevant. The sample consists of 152 participants from outpatient clinics, community events, and grocery stores in one Northeastern US city. The anonymous online survey contained the following Instruments Newest Vital Sign, New General Self-efficacy Scale, Health Risk Instrument, Daily Spiritual Assessment Scale, FAST Survey, and Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II. Univariate statistics and bivariate/simultaneous linear regression identified significant relationships between health-promotion behaviors and the following eeadiness for change, self-efficacy, and spirituality. Participants who engaged in health-promotion behaviors were ready to change, but these behaviors were negatively associated with spirituality, self-efficacy, and a history of domestic violence.
Despite expanding interest in cancer survivorship, little is known about urban Asian breast cancer survivors whose experience may differ from those in suburban and rural locations. This study explores survivors' challenges to maximize outcomes and identify common and unique themes among urban Asian survivors. Information was obtained from the survivors and outreach workers from their community.
Descriptive qualitative methods including semistructured interview guides were used to plan, conduct, and analyze both individual interviews of Asian women (
= 6) and a focus group (
= 7) composed of community outreach workers.
The interview and focus group findings, endorsed themes of communication/language, trust, and privacy, with generational differences. Poor health literacy in both survivors and providers was identified.
Nurses are in a unique position to use the themes identified to both assist survivors expand their health literacy and lobby for resources for providers to promote culturally congruent care.
Nurses are in a unique position to use the themes identified to both assist survivors expand their health literacy and lobby for resources for providers to promote culturally congruent care.Older adults (aged 55+) comprise a rapidly growing population both in number and racial-ethnic diversity. In recent years, substance misuse prevalence among older adults has increased and is expected to continue rising, highlighting the need to understand risk and protective factors in this population. Using nationally representative data, this study examines the association of racial-ethnic identity and racial-ethnic discrimination with alcohol and illicit drug use among Black and Latinx older adults, and whether racial-ethnic identity moderates the relationship between discrimination and substance misuse. Findings show that among Latinx older adults discrimination is associated with increased substance misuse, and higher ethnic identity is associated with decreased illicit drug use. Higher racial-ethnic identity buffers the effects of discrimination on illicit drug use for Latinx, but not for Black respondents. link2 Findings of this study highlight the complex associations between racial-ethnic identity, discrimination, and substance misuse, varying across racial-ethnic group, age, context, and other factors.In this study, we assess the dosimetric qualities and usability of planning for 1.5 T MR-Linac based intensity modulated radiotherapy (MRL-IMRT) for various clinical sites in comparison with IMRT plans using a conventional linac. In total of 30 patients with disease sites in the brain, esophagus, lung, rectum and vertebra were re-planned retrospectively for simulated MRL-IMRT using the Elekta Unity dedicated treatment planning system (TPS) Monaco (v5.40.01). Currently, the step-and-shoot (ss) is the only delivery technique for IMRT available on Unity. All patients were treated on an Elekta Versa HDTM with IMRT using the dynamic multileaf collimator (dMLC) technique, and the plans were designed using Monaco v5.11. For comparison, the same dMLC-IMRT plan was recalculated with the same machine and TPS but only changing the technique to step-and-shoot. The dosimetric qualities of the MRL-IMRT plans, to be evaluated by the Dose Volume Histograms (DVH) metrics, Homogeneity Index and Conformality Index, were compared with the clinical plans. The planning usability was measured by the optimization time and the number of Monitor Units (MUs). Comparing MRL-IMRT with conventional linac based plans, all created plans were clinically equivalent to current clinical practice. However, MRL-IMRT plans had higher dose to skin and larger low dose region of normal tissues. link3 Furthermore, MRL-IMRT plans had significantly reduced optimization time by comparing conventional linac based plans. The number of MUs of MRL-IMRT was increased by 23% compared with ss-IMRT, and no difference from dMLC-IMRT. In conclusion, clinically acceptable plans can be achieved with 1.5 T MR-Linac system for multiple tumor sites. Given the differences in machine characteristics, some minor differences in plan quality were found between MR-Linac plans and current clinical practice and this should be considered in clinical practice.Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a largely prevalent neurodevelopmental condition with a big social and economical impact affecting the entire life of families. There is an intense search for biomarkers that can be assessed as early as possible in order to initiate treatment and preparation of the family to deal with the challenges imposed by the condition. Brain imaging biomarkers have special interest. Specifically, functional connectivity data extracted from resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) should allow to detect brain connectivity alterations. Machine learning pipelines encompass the estimation of the functional connectivity matrix from brain parcellations, feature extraction, and building classification models for ASD prediction. The works reported in the literature are very heterogeneous from the computational and methodological point of view. In this paper, we carry out a comprehensive computational exploration of the impact of the choices involved while building these machine learning pipelines.