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The method was found to be linear in the range of 0.5-5 μg/spot with correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.995 and 0.997 for strychnine and brucine, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied for the determination of strychnine and brucine in Ayurvedic formulations and blood samples. The method does not require any sophisticated instrument and handling skills and can be adopted for rapid analysis of strychnine and brucine in forensic toxicological laboratories. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.BACKGROUND Studies among individuals ages ≥65 years have found a moderately higher relative vaccine effectiveness (RVE) for the high-dose (HD) influenza vaccine compared to standard-dose (SD) products for most seasons. Studies during the A(H3N2)-dominated 2017-18 season showed slightly higher RVE for the cell-cultured vaccine compared to SD egg-based vaccines. We investigated the RVE of influenza vaccines among Medicare beneficiaries ages ≥65 years during the 2018-19 season. METHODS Retrospective cohort study using inverse probability of treatment weighting and Poisson regression to evaluate RVE in preventing influenza hospital encounters. RESULTS Among 12,777,214 beneficiaries, the egg-based adjuvanted (RVE 7.7%, 95% CI 3.9 to 11.4%) and high-dose (RVE 4.9%, 95% CI 1.7 to 8.1%) vaccines were marginally more effective than the egg-based quadrivalent vaccines. The cell-cultured quadrivalent vaccines were not significantly more effective than the egg-based quadrivalent vaccines (RVE 2.5%, 95% CI -2.4 to 7.3%). CONCLUSIONS We did not find major effectiveness differences between licensed vaccines used among the elderly during the 2018-19 season. Consistent with prior research, we found that the egg-based adjuvanted and high-dose vaccines were slightly more effective than the egg-based quadrivalent vaccines. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2020. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.BACKGROUND Lay diagnosis is a widely used diagnostic approach for home management of common illnesses in Nigeria. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of caregivers and healthcare professionals on lay diagnosis of childhood malaria and pneumonia. Aligned to this, the study sought to explore the feasibility of training caregivers in the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) guidelines for improved recognition and treatment of these diseases. METHODS A qualitative study using individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews was conducted in Benin City, Nigeria. Participants included 13 caregivers with children under 5 years and 17 healthcare professionals (HPs). An inductive approach to thematic analysis was used to generate themes and analyses. RESULTS Caregivers relied on lay diagnosis but recognised its limitations. The perceived severity of malaria and pneumonia significantly influenced caregivers' preference for reliance on lay diagnosis practices, health-seeking behaviour and willingness to undertake training in IMCI guidelines for home management of diseases. Safety and potential unintended misuse of medications were recognised by caregivers and HPs as the main challenges. CONCLUSIONS The high level of acceptance among caregivers to receive IMCI training could help improve effective management of childhood malaria and pneumonia at the community level through early recognition and prompt treatment. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.It is generally accepted that land plants evolved from streptophyte algae. However, there are also many chlorophytes (a sister group of streptophyte algae and land plants) that moved to terrestrial habitats and even resemble mosses. see more Why have no land plants evolved from chlorophytes? If we want to better understand what enabled streptophyte algae to conquer the land, we need to study the chlorophytes as well. In this review, I will introduce the freshwater filamentous chlorophyte alga Draparnaldia sp. (Chaetophorales, Chlorophyceae) as a model for comparative analyses between these two lineages. I will also focus on current knowledge about chlorophyte versus streptophyte evolution of morphological complexity and their respective morphological/behavioural adaptations to semi-terrestrial habitats, and show why Draparnaldia, as a new model system is needed. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.The malignant traits involved in tumor relapse, metastasis and the expansion of cancer stem-like cells are acquired via the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process in the tumor microenvironment. In addition, the tumor microenvironment strongly supports the survival and growth of malignant tumor cells and further contributes to the reduced efficacy of anticancer therapy. Ionizing radiation can influence the tumor microenvironment, because it alters the biological functions of endothelial cells composing tumor vascular systems. However, to date, studies on the pivotal role of these endothelial cells in mediating the malignancy of cancer cells in the irradiated tumor microenvironment are rare. We previously evaluated the effects of irradiated endothelial cells on the malignant traits of human liver cancer cells and reported that endothelial cells irradiated with 2 Gy reinforce the malignant properties of these cancer cells. In this study, we investigated the signaling mechanisms underlying these events. We revealed that the increased expression level of IL-4 in endothelial cells irradiated with 2 Gy eventually led to enhanced migration and invasion of cancer cells and further expansion of cancer stem-like cells. In addition, this increased level of IL-4 activated the ERK and AKT signaling pathways to reinforce these events in cancer cells. Taken together, our data indicate that ionizing radiation may indirectly modulate malignancy by affecting endothelial cells in the tumor microenvironment. Importantly, these indirect effects on malignancy are thought to offer valuable clues or targets for overcoming the tumor recurrence after radiotherapy. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Japanese Radiation Research Society and Japanese Society for Radiation Oncology.