One the most fundamental aspects of the human motor system is the hemispheric asymmetry seen in behavioral specialization. Hemispheric dominance can be inferred by a contralateral hand preference in grasping. Few studies have considered grasp orientation in the context of manual lateralization and none has looked at grasp orientation with natural prehension. Thirty right-handed adults performed precision grasps of a cylinder using the thumb and index fingers, and the opposition axis (OA) was defined as the line connecting these two contact points on the cylinder. Subjects made ten consecutive grasps with one hand (primary hand movements) followed by ten grasps with the other hand (trailing movements). Differences between primary and trailing grasps revealed that each hemisphere is capable of programming the orientation of the OA and that primary movements with the right hand significantly influenced OA orientation of the trailing left hand. These results extend the hemispheric dominance of the left hemisphere to the final positions of fingers during prehension.


This paper concerns the ethics of human neuromodulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We examine the challenges of modulating the brain with TMS through the research ethics lens and in clinical medicine for treating frank pathology, primarily in psychiatric diseases. We also consider contemporary issues raised in the neuroethics literature about managing unexpected findings, and relate these to TMS and to other frontier neurotechnology that is becoming openly available in the public domain. We argue that safety and informed consent are of paramount importance for TMS, but that personal values and sociocultural factors must also be considered when examining the promise of this technology and applications that ought to be highlighted for extra precautions.


Specifications TableValue of the data•The data provided allows comparison of screening test results with previous editions, as they have been weighted for traffic intensity at selected sites.•The large sample size of this survey means that results can be considered stable, and as representativeness was pursued in the sampling procedure, the data can be used for comparisons.1In this document we provide new data derived from 2015 roadside screening tests. Published results from previous editions of surveys conducted in Spain in 2008 and 2013 following the methodology set up in the framework of the European Union DRUID project (Driving Under the Influence of Drugs) 2Methodology for the three surveys has been already published. Detailed information about sample planning , driving recruitment, data collection and toxicological aspects can be found elsewhere 3Results from the 2015 survey are presented with the same format as used in the 2008 and 2013 survey publications Data is provided in


Persons with Down syndrome (DS) are at risk for a life of inactivity that can result in a multitude of medical problems including heart and vascular diseases. This review presents findings regarding the physical status of individuals with DS, as well as proper interventions found to improve the physical fitness and general health for this population. This review was written with the intent to suggest practical directions in planning and implementing quality physical intervention programs for this population.


Complete avulsion of the ureter is one of the most serious complications of ureteroscopy. It requires open or laparoscopic intervention for repair. This case report emphasizes its management and presents recommendations for prevention in current urological practice.


A large proportion of the vertebrate body is made of epithelial tissues; these provide organized barriers between organ compartments and also differentiate into glandular, secretory specializations  , Wnt, fibroblast growth factor (FGF), and Notch (Kahata et al., et al., Important areas that remain open to investigation relate to the translation of the basic knowledge on EMT on various aspects of oncology. Are the EMT and MET truly important for cancer progression and metastasis or are they, as some studies have suggested (Fischer By combining the expertise of founders of the EMT field with younger investigators, this compendium aims at leading the research front and illuminating both scientists and the wider public that are interested in fundamental problems of oncology. Studies on EMT provide exciting clues about the evolution and adaptations that human tumors undergo through their history, a history that represents the awakening of embryonic developmental scenarios taking place in adult bodies over the trajectory of unpredictable genetic and environmental insults that characterize normal human life.


Formation of urinary tract concrements is a common disease and steps should be taken in order to elucidate the underlying mechanisms and to give the patients appropriate advice and medical treatment. This present article summarizes the principles for recurrence preventive measures in patients with uric acid, infection, cystine and calcium stone disease. Categories of stone formers are identified with the aim of providing a basis for an individualised treatment with a reasonable patient's compliance. The recommendations are in line with those given by the EAU guideline group for urolithiasis.


Pregnancy induces a variety of physiologic changes in the urinary tract. When such changes become accentuated the physiologic becomes the pathologic and symptoms arise, at times of significance enough to threaten the well being of mother and/or fetus. This article intends to describe the basis for urinary physiology and its pathologic counterparts during pregnancy. Such a background may then facilitate a rational management protocol for various urologic problems in the gravid state.


We read with interest the study by Andrews et al.  and the These findings raise questions regarding our understanding of the decision-making process of LMIC clinicians in the detection and management of the acutely unwell patient. Clinicians may be utilising additional cues in a manner different to their HIC contemporaries; such as the presence of relatives as carers at the bedside or a nursing decision to place a patient in a specific location in the ward. Work done to evaluate the impact of setting-adapted practical training on the management of common emergencies in LMICs has highlighted the limited priority given to practising such skills in existing training programmes for both doctors and nurses , 5. It iGreater understanding is essential if we are to better influence the processes that contribute to acute and critical care mortality in LMIC settings. Mixed-method approaches combining qualitative techniques to capture clinicians’ perceptions of the importance of clinical assessment alongside setting-adapted electronic tools to improve the capture of granular information of the patient journey—currently being undertaken by our group in multiple LMIC settings—could enrich our understanding of the management of acutely unwell patients. Greater understanding of these clinical priorities and their importance in acute care in diverse settings would offer valuable insights to inform subsequent trial design and the end points selected for evaluation.


The construction site provides an unfriendly working conditions, exposing workers to one of the harshest environments at a workplace. In this dataset, a structured questionnaire was design directed to thirty-five (35) craftsmen selected through a purposive sampling technique on various construction sites in one of the most populous cities in sub-Saharan Africa. The set of descriptive statistics is presented with tables, stacked bar chats and pie charts. Common occupational health conditions affecting the cardiovascular, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems of craftsmen on construction sites were identified. The effects of occupational health hazards on craftsmen and on construction project performance can be determined when the data is analyzed. Moreover, contractors’ commitment to occupational health and safety (OHS) can be obtained from the analysis of the survey data. Specifications TableValue of the data•The dataset provided showed the empirical evidence of health challenges in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems including the musculoskeletal disorders experienced by craftsmen on construction sites.•The understanding of the dataset sheds light on the effect of occupational health hazards on the well-being of the craftsmen and construction project performance.•The dataset gives insight into the level of contractors’ commitment to occupational health and safety (OHS).•Construction activities and materials are crucial entities that can impact the body system when not handled in the standardized way, therefore, the dataset can guide policies on reducing occupational health hazards among craftsmen on construction sites.•The structured questionnaire can be adopted or modified for similar research in a larger context in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world. In addition, comparison can be drawn with other sectors where workers are more prone to be affected by working conditions and severe exposure to toxic materials.1The cardiovascular, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems are essential parts of the human body that could be severely affected by the un-friendly working conditions of construction sites and exposure to some chemical and toxic building materials 2This dataset is based on previous research conducted on occupational health hazards of craftsmen on construction sites


The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled "Plant richness enhances banana weevil regulation in a tropical agroecosystem by affecting a multitrophic food web " [1]. It provides information about plant species richness, weevil corm damage and the abundance of different arthropod groups, including the banana weevil and its potential natural enemies and alternative preys. Specifications TableValue of the data•The data is valuable for other researchers working on this pest or in similar scientific field because it offers them the opportunity to compare with their own datasets and/or to independently verify or extend statistical analyses.•This data is a contribution to the effort of the scientific community to quantify ecosystem services and in particular ecosystem services in agroecosystems associated with plant diversification.•The data is valuable as it comes from an original experimental design using an existing plant richness gradient to study the continuous relationship between plant richness and response variable related to pest regulation service.•This data does not focus solely on the effect of plant richness on abundance or damage of the pest, but also on potential alternative preys or predators of the pest.1Cosmopolites sordidus. In addition to the dataset, we present the outputs of statistical models that quantify the effect of total plant species richness on the abundance of each arthropod group and on corm damage. The dataset presented in this article, in 2The experimental design is described in details in 2.1In 2.2


We read the article Critical care ultrasonography in acute respiratory failure  by Vigno We thank Dr. Balthazar and coworkers for pointing out the erroneous figure legend and annotation in our recently published manuscript describing the clinical value of critical care ultrasonography in both the diagnostic work-up and management of patients admitted to the intensive care unit with acute respiratory failure . Massive


Green tea (Camellia sinensis) is a popular herbal remedy worldwide. Polyphenols in green tea have attracted much attention as potential compounds for the maintenance of human health due to their varied biological activities and low toxicities. Camellia sinensis) is a popular herbal remedy worldwide. Polyphenols in green tea have attracted much attention as potential compounds for the maintenance of human health due to their varied biological activities and low toxicities. Recently the antioxidant properties of green tea on injury protection caused by oxidative stress have been on focus  have been completely observed by the author.None.SH was the single author of the paper.


Staying current with the literature is of paramount importance to the pharmacist engaged in an evidence-based clinical practice. Given the expanding roles and responsibilities of today’s pharmacists combined with exponential growth in new medical and health sciences literature, staying current has become an extremely daunting task. Traditional journal clubs have focused upon their role as a training vehicle for teaching critical reading skills to residents. However, schools of pharmacy are now required to provide instruction in biostatistics, research design, and interpretation. We present a paradigm shift in the traditional journal club model whereby a collection of periodicals is screened and a short synopsis of the pertinent articles is provided. The associated tasks for screening and presenting of the primary literature are shared among a group of clinicians and trainees with similar practice interests resulting in a more reasonable workload for the individual. This journal club method was effective in identifying a significant majority of articles judged to be pertinent by independent groups of clinicians in the same practice arenas. Details regarding the shared core practice and knowledge base elements, journal club format, identification of journals, and evaluation of the success of the journal club technique are provided. Journal clubs are commonplace in academic medical centers and hospitals in various fields of clinical practice including pharmacy. The first record of a medical journal club was attributed to Sir William Osler at McGill University in 1875 . The purStaying current with the literature is an essential requirement for the pharmacist engaged in an evidence-based clinical practice. It has been suggested that the gap between implementation of new knowledge into clinical practice is a primary reason for the suboptimal provision of quality health care for some institutions . HoweverFive clinical faculty members with direct patient care responsibilities and three second post-graduate year (PGY2) pharmacy residents comprise the core of the journal club group. All faculty are within the same department at the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy and are based at the same university-affiliated hospital . Advanced clinical pharmacist activities are required via a contractual agreement between the College of Pharmacy and the hospital. Two faculty members have clinical responsibilities and coordinator duties for the Nutrition Support Service (NSS), another two faculty members provide critical care pharmacy services, and one faculty member shares responsibilities for both services. The NSS faculty members provide clinical services to adult patients throughout the entire hospital that require parenteral nutrition and to select complicated patients who require enteral nutrition. The critical care faculty members provide pharmacotherapy services to a Level 1 Trauma Intensive Care Unit (TICU) and its associated step-down unit. Most of the patients managed by the NSS are also trauma and surgical intensive care unit patients that frequently coincide with the population followed by the TICU faculty. The PGY2 pharmacy residents are required to complete four months of NSS experience and four months of TICU clinical pharmacy services with the remaining months dedicated to elective experiences, research, and miscellaneous activities. Thus, all clinical faculty and PGY2 trainees share a common thread of required knowledge and reading sources necessary for optimal performance of their respective duties. It would be intuitive that both NSS and TICU clinical pharmacy services could streamline their ability to stay current with the literature by sharing reading sources and communicating findings from pertinent articles with each other.The primary intent of our journal club is to stay current with new literature that may confirm, alter, or augment conventional practice in pharmacy nutrition support or pharmacy trauma intensive care. A second objective is to accomplish the task of screening and compiling pertinent studies on a consistent basis without burdening a sole person with the excessive workload. Third, this journal club methodology provides a forum for training pharmacy resident mentees via dialogic teaching of emerging innovative therapies, where perspective on the paper’s application to clinical practice and what is currently known in the field can be provided. This model exemplifies one method on how to facilitate continued growth in knowledge of current literature for trainees to potentially emulate upon completion of their training.The journal club process and organization are overseen by five clinical pharmacy faculty mentors. In addition to the faculty mentors, other active participants are also expected to screen journals, prepare materials for the journal club, and present papers at each session. These other participants include our three PGY2 critical care pharmacy residents and PGY1 pharmacy residents  enrolled in an elective NSS or TICU rotation. Students on Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) rotations for the month with the clinical faculty are also required to attend as non-presenting participants. Most journal club sessions are comprised of 12–15 attendees.Journal club meetings are scheduled twice monthly on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month at 3 P.M. and is to last no longer than 1 h. This time was found to be conducive for attendance as the NSS and TICU pharmacy services tend to complete most of their clinical activities for the day by that time as clinical service responsibilities usually begin at 6 or 7 a.m. for each service. In addition, a consistent time and day facilitates the development of a routine, whereby the session is unlikely to be inadvertently forgotten and missed. The location of journal club meetings is also kept consistent and held in a conference room at the College of Pharmacy building, which is located adjacent to the hospital. The tables and chairs are arranged in a rectangular format to facilitate interactive communication among the participants. The presenter may be located within any location in the rectangle.It has been suggested that journal clubs can encourage residents to regularly and critically read the medical literature but will not succeed if the journal club suffers from poor attendance or periodic abandonment . AttendaTwenty-nine journals are screened monthly . The jouThe scheduled presenter must screen the assigned journals and develop a packet of materials consisting of a face sheet, the table of contents for all assigned periodicals for the month, the first page of selected articles containing the abstract of the paper, and sometimes an entire article if the presenter considers the paper of pivotal importance. A truncated example of the journal club packet is provided in Reviews, guidelines, and position papers are not reviewed but may be provided on the face sheet and mentioned during the presentation to alert journal club attendees of its presence. The following month’s presenters use the current month’s face sheet to ascertain what issues of the assigned journals have already been evaluated so that a lapse in coverage in evaluating journal content can be avoided.Our journal club’s current periodicals identified for screening and presentation are listed in To evaluate the success of our journal club in identifying articles pertinent to our practice, we examined a series of publications which was intended to identify the most significant articles for pharmacy nutrition support and critical care pharmacy practice published from 2013 to 2017 ,16,17,18Eighty-seven papers significant to pharmacy nutrition support practice were identified by the author group over the four-year observation period. Seventy-five articles were from periodicals included in our journal club. An additional three articles were from a journal that was not included in the screening list of periodicals but all faculty and PGY2 residents receive as part of their membership of the journal’s sponsoring organization . SeventyStaying current with the literature is a daunting but essential task for the pharmacist who is engaged in an evidenced-based clinical practice. Presented in this review is a method for redesigning journal clubs from the traditional technique of an in-depth analysis of one or two articles to a screening tool that effectively keeps pharmacists informed of current literature. This technique reduces workload of the individual by sharing duties among multiple pharmacists and provides a forum for faculty and senior clinicians to mentor their trainees. This methodological redesign of the traditional journal club is offered to others for consideration.


Following relevant reader's comments and Editor's request, my co-authors and I would like to add some references which have been unintentionally omitted in some sections of the review. We thank the readers and the Editorial Office for pointing this out and helping us to improve the manuscript.After surgery, radiation therapy (RT) has long been an integral component of cancer care. It is usually employed to locally eradicate tumor cells as well as alter tumor stroma with either curative or palliative intent  family as collagen receptors represents a new paradigm in the regulation of collagen-cell interactions and regulation of tumor progression  and fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) which display a rapid and transient activation, DDR1 and DDR2 are unique in that they exhibit remarkably delayed and sustained receptor phosphorylation upon binding to collagen  undergo negative regulation such as receptor/ligand internalization and subsequent degradation or dephosphorylation by phosphatases . CS is recipient of PhD fellowships from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Implantable devices utilizing bioengineered tissue are increasingly showing promise as viable clinical solutions. The design of bioengineered constructs is currently directed according to the results of experiments that are used to test a wide range of different combinations and spatial arrangements of biomaterials, cells and chemical factors. There is an outstanding need to accelerate the design process and reduce financial costs, whilst minimizing the required number of animal‐based experiments. These aims could be achieved through the incorporation of mathematical modelling as a preliminary design tool. Here we focus on tissue‐engineered constructs for peripheral nerve repair, which are designed to aid nerve and blood vessel growth and repair after peripheral nerve injury. We offer insight into the role that mathematical modelling can play within tissue engineering, and motivate the use of modelling as a tool capable of improving and accelerating the design of nerve repair constructs in particular. Specific case studies are presented in order to illustrate the potential of mathematical modelling to direct construct design. Copyright © 2016 The Authors Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. These parameters have the potential to impact clinical efficacy, and currently are investigated predominantly via experimental techniques. The use of mathematical modelling could speed up and streamline the process of identifying optimal design parameters, provided that the models can be parameterized effectively. The search for a bioengineered solution to the problem of peripheral nerve regeneration, in the form of nerve repair construct (NRC) design, offers a prime opportunity to demonstrate the potential of theoretical techniques in tissue engineering.in vivo and in vitro  to Rachel Coy. Rachel Coy is also supported through the UCL CoMPLEX doctoral training programme.The authors declare no conflicts of interest.


Background:  Health promoting schools (HPS) projectis currently being used in Iran but many challenges still lie ahead. Thepresent study aimed, to test feasibility of implementing a comprehensiveadvocacy program (CAP) to overcome the obstacles and problems associated withthe consummation of school health programs based on the HPS framework. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was performed throughrecruiting all schools that were enrolled in the national HPS program andlocated in Jolfa as the intervention group and all of the schools situated inthe East Azerbaijan province as control. In order to collect data, IranianMinistry of Health’s checklists and external audit guidelines for HPS wereutilized. In addition, to plan a CAP required data for coordinating fundraising activities including current rules and regulations regarding implementationof local health promotion interventions were collected. Results:  Findings of the study revealed that the implemented CAPhad improved all HPS dimensions’ mean score in the intervention group. Theobserved change in the pre- and post-test score in the intervention group wassignificant (P < 0.05). The intervention was also successful inencouraging signing of an agreement among the participated organizations to becommitted to pursue the adopted policies in facilitation of progress towardsfull implementation of the local HPS project. Conclusion: Commencingchanges in the recruited schools’ structure through coordinated multi-levelactivities is feasible and this must be considered as a priority wherecontextual determinants exist to motivate progress towards providing healthiereducational settings for school aged children in Iran. Health promoting schools (HPS) therefore are communities’ asset for countries’ sustainable development especially when limited resources are allocated for children’s wellbeing in larger societies or families.4 All these acquirements should be considered along with cost savings that communities may gain by decreasing education dropouts or preventing low educational attainments due to reasons such as illnesses or related disabilities.3A health promoting school not only improves school aged children’s health through encouraging healthy behaviors and thus prevention of diseases or high risk practices but it may also improve students’ educational performance and achievements.5 It is also recommended to be one of the effective strategies in filling health gaps among population subgroups and in a larger scale among rural/urban and developed/less developed regions.6Antecedence of required revisions in current schools’ environments even goes beyond the local and national boundaries. Therefore it was incorporated into several international health policies including health for all (HFA).8The health promoting school initiative was introduced in the Ottawa Charter (1980) and addressed as a proper strategy to promote health and empower communities through executing coordinated activities across all sectors (1995). The objectives could be achievable by encouraging communication and collaboration among community sectors and training for better team work.10 The initiative targets both health and educational activities through mobilizing resources as a framework for collaborative and outcome based efforts to reach HFA goals in schools and larger communities.A health promoting school is by definition a school in which continuous efforts are organized to improve students, schools’ staff and members of communities’ health through composing healthy environments, providing required services and dietary recommendations along with maintaining opportunities to improve physical activities and also receive of required mental health counseling.13 including Iran.12 However, there are challenges in executing the HPS project in several countries. Mobilization of human resources and facilities that are required for execution of the initiative, attracting inter-sectoral collaborations especially between private and governmental organizations and persuading students’ parents and teachers active participations are among the important ones.10 Weak or lack of collaborations among responsible organizations, absence of a baseline structure to direct performed activities in a designated route and insufficiency of funding are amongst the important existed barriers in front of the HPS implementation in Iran. Ambiguity of rules and regulations regarding assessment and monitoring of students and school personnel’s health in addition to the scarcity of the health training programs for students’ parents or school personnel have made the current situation even more complicated. All these obstacles along with shortage of human resources such as health counselors and psychologists and current sub-standard physical environments of a considerable number of schools in Iran represent importance of HPS for Iranian students, their parents, schools’ staff and whole country.14The idea was introduced and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the past decade in many countries of the worldConsidering the spectrum and nature of the challenges that need to be overcomed to have HPS in Iran, multidimensional interventions are required in local and national levels. These interventions should be planned for lower level stakeholders e.g. students, families and schools’ staff to higher level stakeholder who might be top level policy makers or managers.Comprehensive advocacy programs (CAPs) could create the required enthusiasm among all stakeholders to work collaboratively in upgrading existent schools to health promoting ones.16To reach the goal changes in policies and practices will be required. Without policy makers and high, middle and lower level managers’ commitment to overcome current barriers in front of the necessary changes that should be planned in the schools, little success must be expectable.This study was designed and carried out to examine feasibility of implementing a CAP and creating stable changes in the schools recruited within the study location  and to learn lessons for implementation of the planned advocacy program possibly in a wider area or whole country.This is a quasi-experimental study which utilized pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design. The study sought to investigate effectiveness of a CAP in promoting the recruited schools towards HPS from February 2011 to October 2013 in Jolfa, North West of Iran. All schools that were determined by the local authorities and compromised to participate in the national level HPS project (n=26) in Jolfa and those schools that had been determined to participate in the national HPS program and located in Tabriz  (n=1041) were assigned to intervention and control groups respectively.12 The instrument covers eight dimensions including Health Education (8 items which includes 4 one point questions and 4 two point questions); Health Services (11 items which include 5 two points questions and 6 one point questions); Healthy School Environment ; Nutrition Services ; Physical Education and Physical Activity ; Staff Health and Wellness ( 8 items including 5 one point questions and three 2 point questions) and Counseling, Psychological, and Social Services . In addition; Family and Community Involvement in the HPS’ programs were asked using 8 items that were 6 one point and 2 two points questions. To collect required data for planning of a CAP in the area, several dimensions like allocated funding, published national rules and regulations that support HPS program and official policy documents both in the national and local levels were scrutinized. Using audit checklists, the organized audit teams consisting of health care centers’ staff who were blind to the objective of the study carried out the primary and final assessment of the studied schools regarding the changes that were assumed to take place following the advocacy program.The study data were collected using the introduced checklists for external audit according to the guidelines recommended for assessment of HPS by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME).14A baseline assessment was carried out to recognize the current problems and challenges in successful implementation of the HPS program using the primary assessment checklists. Findings of this stage were used to plan a CAP considering the recommendations were given for conducting a CAP by Sprechmann and Pelton including two steps and in each step the instruments and work sheets introduced by Sprechmann and Pelton were used in the following order.(1) Activities prior to conduction of the comprehensive advocacy program Main purpose of this phase was to minimize risk of failure and also maximum use of all potentials to achieve success. To accomplish activities of this stage policy documents at local and national scales were checked, key responsible persons in the local organizations, decision makers and those who have capabilities and chance to lobby these policy makers and other important authorities were identified. The identified individuals were contacted consequently to publicize the idea behind the HPS program. Understanding the dominant policy climate in the organizations, all efforts were made to ensure provision of reliable information by credible individuals that included a short list of priorities required to be focused in the planned CAP.(2) Planning for comprehensive advocacy programActivities of this phase were conducted in the following four stages: analysis of policies, development of strategies for a CAP, making decision on most suitable strategies and program implementation. The performed activities that had been carried out in every stages of this phase were displayed in t test and independent t test were applied for comparison purposes. The test results considered to be significant if P<0.05.To examine effectiveness of the implemented advocacy program the collected pre and post intervention data were compared against the data collected in the provincial level following the implementation of baseline HPS program. Data analysis was performed using the statistical package for the analysis of social science (SPSS) version 16. Mean and standard deviation for quantitative data were estimated and inferential statistics of paired The study results revealed that 26 (25%) out of 104 schools that were located in Jolfa area covered by the provincial HPS program and only 3 (11.53%) of them were located in rural areas. Among the 4463 schools that were listed to be working in East Azerbaijan province, 1041 (23.22%) were included in the provincial HPS program of them, 146 (14%) schools were located at rural areas. In the city of Jolfa; 15(57.69%) of the schools were primary schools, 7 (26.92%) were junior high schools and 4 (15.38%) were senior high schools that decided to be included in the provincial HPS program. In East Azerbaijan province, 557 (83.81%) primary schools, 302 (29.17%) junior high schools and 176 (17%) senior high schools were covered by HPS program.The obtained data regarding the areas of “general policies” and “effective policies” and also in each of the eight mentioned dimensions of the pilot CAP project in Jolfa were summarized in Tables P<0.001)  . Additio18 Multi-level involvement of stakeholders including families, schools, policy makers and health care providers could increase chance of success to reach the program objectives16 and should be regarded as a pivotal principle in implementation of a CAP. Based on the community participatory project for development of HPS in Zhejiang province, China,17 considerable improvements in knowledge and behavior of students, staffs, and parents about healthy nutrition were observed. Huang et al also reported that integration of local resources and close cooperation among all collaborators within local communities could greatly help development of HPSs and overcoming challenges stemmed from incongruous activities.18 It seems, a participatory approach to HPS would be more than the improvement of the health and would have multidimensional outcomes beyond the schools’ environments.Findings of this pilot field test indicated feasibility of implementing an effective CAP to pursue the proposed polices with regard to execution and development of the HPS project in Jolfa, Iran. The study results were also revealed that  the agre20 Winkleby et al, based on implementation of a CAP, have reported a considerable decrease in cigarettes consumption in their study’s intervention group.19 Goodkind, reported that through a CAP, satisfaction of the Hmong refugees about assessment process of their required resources, living standards and stress level had improved.20Results of other studies were also indicative of the effectiveness of CAPs in improving and sustaining health programs.25 In spite of the importance of inter-sectoral collaboration in success of community wide programs, the required level of cohesion that is especially required in developing countries was not seen due to partially rigid and patchy definition of organizational responsibilities and priorities.26While the conducted CAP had considerable outcomes for development of HPS project in the study location, but various challenges were also encountered including lack of full cooperation of responsible organizations that interfered with expected achievements. Failure in achieving full cooperation of all stakeholders in the HPS programs were also reported in other studies.27 with potential to influence the program results. In this study, the principal encountered challenges in implementation of CAD program were as follows: instability of directors and managers in their position in the relevant organizations, resisting against the required changes in the organizations’ responsibilities, higher priority of the short term benefits compared to long term organizational achievements, lack of culture of team work and full cooperation to achieve organizational goals and objectives and deficiencies in financial resources that are needed for coordinated activities. Consistent with the findings of this study, Abdulmalik et al27 have pointed to the facing challenges in implementation of CAP such as lack of full support from the policy makers side due to a narrow level of expertise they may have and reluctance of official staff to input new activities or objectives into their organizational routines that may expand their current responsibilities beyond the existent frameworks.27Implementation of CAP may face same common route barriers and challenges in the developed and developing countriesWhile there is no explicit blueprint to reach success in advocacy programs all efforts were made to use current research evidence in planning phase of the study. An unequivocal hybrid of professional skills to fascinate partnership was applied to build local capacity for supporting the initiative. Thus; local planning skills for HPS were improved but we believe that overall capacity to sustain the required support for long term planning remained inconsistent. A part of this paucity was related to bureaucracy of decision makings in the local organizations, hierarchy of the agreements’ approval in the upper level managerial settings and divergent priorities within the participant organizations.To achieve advocacy programs’ goals proactive collaboration of all stakeholders is indispensable but financial impediments were amongst the most alleged considerations by the local level managers to intimate participation with the scheduled advocacy program. The current top-down centralized planning and budgeting mechanisms in Iran prohibits creativity in local level decision makings and prioritization of the health problems.Another limitation of this study was abstaining of a number of local stakeholders from full engagement in the designed HPS reinforcement project.Another limitation of this study was assuming of existent baseline data in provincial level suitable for comparison purposes. This is while; inherent differences actually might exist between the study location and other socio-economic milieus. We were aware of importance of selecting a socio-economically and demographically homogenous control field but due to logistical restraints it was impracticable. Despite all these impediments the study results could provide advices for better planning and implementation of HPS programs in at least socio-culturally and economically similar settings.This study used the strategy of CAP as an attempt to overcome the potential challenges and obstacles in front of implementing a local version of the HPS program in a typical national level setting. The study findings indicated that using a well-organized CAP and implementation of a sustainable HPS program could greatly improve the current programs and overcome many challenges. The employed strategies and lessons learnt in this local CAP may help other local or even national level programs in progressing towards healthier schools and thus healthier next generations. While, the identified barriers and applied strategies could be applicable in other national and even international levels, special attention must be paid to the inherent differences that might exist and interfere with the CAP implementation in culturally, socially or organizationally heterogeneous settings.Based on the study findings advocacy activities for boosting national level HPS initiatives should consider more effective routes to engage all organizations and administrative sectors in public health activities as one of their national and even international missions that need to be followed for a safer and promising planet for all. Secondly, ministries of health and relevant organizations should clarify their expectations about how other organizations can engage and collaborate in improvement of school health programs and help them to move in line with health promotion programs in a sustained manner. Next, all organizations are encouraged to have a clear and documented policy to help local and national level health promoting programs to overcome national health related challenges since; weak or lack of inter-sectoral cooperation might hamper accurate implementation of community based health promoting programs.The ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) of the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. In line with the ethical guidelines for implementation of the study, its purpose was clearly explained to the participants i.e. involved organizations and groups. The participants’ rights to withdraw from the study at any time for any reason and without any obligation in giving reasons for their refusal to continue participation in the study were also clarified. In the implementation phase of the study during negotiations and convincing study participants their views, times and preferred schedules for spending time to answer questions or give their opinions were considered respectfully. All efforts also were made to build mutual trust with the respondents and carefully concede issues like organizational benefits, sensitivity of the managerial tasks and other considerations.None of the authors has any conflict of interest.TB helped in drafting the article and data analysis, BF major role was conceptualization and design of the study, data collection and interpretation and drafting the article, ASH and HA helped greatly in conceptualization and design of the study, data analysis and interpretation and revised several drafts of the article critically for major intellectual content. All authors have read and approved the submitted and revised final version of the manuscript.This research was supported by a grant from the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. The authors would like to appreciate all local organizations’ support in execution of this study.


The technique of transtympanic electrocochleography was initially developed as an objective hearing threshold test by Eggermont. Gibson et al.  claimed  Electrocochleography (EcochG) is a method of directly recording electrical activity of the cochlea and the acoustic nerve in response to acoustic stimulation. The three components measurable are the cochlear microphonic (CM), the action potential (AP), and the summating potential (SP). In contrast to the earliest studies, new computer averaging techniques have enabled routine testing of these components in humans.This review will briefly summarize the useful components of the EcochG used in the diagnosis of Meniere's disease. The effects of electrode placement on the size of the AP and SP and the merits of tone burst stimuli will be discussed. New international criteria for the symptomatic diagnosis of Meniere's disease make no allowance for any diagnostic test for a disorder which always begins in the cochlea, even though objective testing can confirm or exclude it.The CM, originally called the cochlear potential, was recorded in cats by Wever and Bray . It is tThe response from the acoustic nerve is the AP and was first demonstrated in the cochlear nerve and brainstem of cats by Saul and Davis . BecauseA 100 ms click stimulus stimulates the whole basilar membrane. Frequency selective masking experiments suggest that the major contribution from a click is from the basal turn of the cochlea  there is a need for alternative diagnostic certainty, particularly for investigational studies, and to unequivocally distinguish Meniere's disease from other causes of recurrent vertigo attacks.The term clinically certain Meniere's disease can be defined as a diagnosis based on the 1995 AAO-HNS symptomatic criteria  could confirm a diagnosis of superior canal dehiscence syndrome other diagnostic applications for VEMPs have been sought, including for Meniere's disease with numerous publications employing cVEMPS and ocular VEMPs (oVEMPs) to diagnose hydrops in the vestibule. These have produced conflicting interpretations as to the diagnostic sensitivity. In 18 patients with a clinically certain diagnosis in one ear, Johnson et al.  measuredConfirmation of visible inner ear hydrops on MRI scanning with intratympanic gadolinium (Nakashima et al., Hornibrook et al.  comparedThe initial promise of a click response SP/AP ratio as a sensitive test for endolymphatic hydrops has not been realized (Hornibrook et al., ET electrodes are significantly inferior for measuring tone burst responses. Until the signal-to-noise ratio problem of ET electrodes is solved, TT recordings are of greater magnitude and accuracy.An analysis of 128 Meniere's disease studies (Thorpe et al., cochlear hydrops to confirm a diagnosis of Meniere's disease. There is agreement that a response of not < −3 mV is diagnostic for endolymphatic hydrops (Dauman and Aran, Of all investigative tests transtympanic tone burst EcochG remains the simplest, and most sensitive test to diagnose As was once for electrocardiography there is an urgent need for universal agreement on equipment specifications (Hohmann et al., The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Delivering in health facility under the supervision of skilled birth attendant is an important way of mitigating impacts of delivery complications. Empirical evidence suggests that decision-making autonomy is aligned with holistic wellbeing especially in the aspect of maternal and child health. The objective of this paper was to examine the relationship between women's health decision-making autonomy and place of delivery in Ghana. We extracted data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. Descriptive and logistic regression techniques were applied. The results indicated that women with health decision-making autonomy have higher tendency of health facility delivery as compared to those who are not autonomous . However, those who have final say on household large purchases  and those having final say on visits  were less probable to deliver in health facility than those without such decision-making autonomy. Consistent with existing evidence, wealthier, urban, and highly educated women had higher inclination of health facility delivery. This study has stressed the need for interventions aimed at enhancing health facility delivery to target women without health decision-making autonomy and women with low education and wealth status, as this can play essential role in enhancing health facility delivery.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 536,000 women die yearly owing to pregnancy and delivery related complications. At the same time, over the past two decades, maternal mortality ratio has declined by 45 percent whilst prevalence of maternal death declined from 532,000 to 289,000 as of 2015  and this persisted even after controlling for the sociodemographic variables  as displayed in Women in all age categories were less probable to deliver in health facilities as compared to those aged 15–19 years . The modAgain urban residents were noted to have higher odds of health facility delivery as compared to their rural counterparts . Women who had subscribed to the NHIS were more likely to deliver in health facilities compared with unsubscribed counterparts . With the Western region as a reference, women from Upper East stood out as having five times likelihood of health facility delivery  as displayed in Previous studies have demonstrated that some women in Ghana are less empowered and have limited decision-making rights. This study was carried out to examine the relationship between women's health decision-making power on their place of delivery.It was revealed that women with autonomous health decision-making power were more likely to utilise health facility for delivery as compared to those without. This presupposes that autonomy of women in relation to health is important to enhancing health facility delivery which guarantees skilled birth attendance. To a greater extent maternal health and child health are inherent in the level of empowerment and autonomy exercised by women because autonomous women would make right choices and access quality healthcare at all times particularly during delivery.This observation is consistent with some prior studies which also noted that when women are autonomous and have much influence on decisions that affect their wellbeing, their access to and utilisation of healthcare improves –9. As woDelivery in health facilities increased with higher wealth quintile whereas home deliveries characterised poor women. This finding highlights the influence of cost on utilisation of healthcare in the country and this might pose threat to the health status and maternal wellbeing of poor women. This is particularly critical because cost can also deter them from accessing quality healthcare for themselves and their children even after delivery and this might constitute severe threat to their health status and their children. Similar findings were noted in a study conducted in Nepal where it was realised that home delivery was dominant among poorer than wealthier women  whilst aIn line with wealth status and utilisation of health facilities, health insurance is a cost cutting intervention that enables people to have easy access to healthcare. The finding that insured women had high propensity of delivering in health facilities indicates that indeed subscription to the insurance scheme immensely influences decision on place of delivery. This observation conforms to a study conducted in the Ga-East Municipality of Ghana which noted higher rate of health facility delivery among NHIS subscribers .It was observed that respondents aged 15–19 years were more probable to deliver in health facilities as compared to those aged 45–49 in Ghana. Maternal age has been linked to parity and various aspects of life , realisiIt was noted that higher educational attainment was highly related to health facility delivery which affirms the plethora of studies –8 that hThe study has indicated that health facility delivery is more probable among urban residents as compared to those in rural settings. This might be owing to the relatively less availability of health facilities in rural settings as compared to urban areas in the country. If a woman in rural area has to ply several miles before accessing the nearest health facility, such a person might not have the urge to consistently access health facility as compared to those in urban areas where health facilities relatively abound. At the same time, urban areas have relatively better road networks, which enhances their easy to access health facilities for deliveries. Analysis of trend and pattern of institutional delivery in Bangladesh from 1993 to 2007 in relation to residency and education also revealed low utilisation of health facility among women in rural settings . On the Women in the Upper East region were noted to have the highest likelihood of health facility delivery in the country. The high presence of CHPS in the region may be contributing substantially to the observed pattern. The relevance of CHPS in improving maternal and child health in Ghana has been highlighted previously , 36, sugSince the study dwelt on preexisting data, it could not explore the motivation for the use of place of delivery among women. Again, the cross-sectional nature of the survey does not permit identifying cause and effect. Amidst all these, the results present a true reflection of the relationship between health empowerment and place of delivery and thereby provide insights into public health interventions worth instituting to promote health facility delivery in Ghana.The study has indicated that Ghanaian women with healthcare decision-making autonomy are more likely to deliver in health facilities and this persisted even after controlling for sociodemographic factors. It is also evident that higher wealth status is aligned with health facility delivery. The study therefore recommends that government and nongovernmental organisations concerned with maternal and reproductive health should target women who do not independently decide on their own healthcare with mass media campaigns advocating health facility delivery. Additionally, incentive packages required to inspire health facility delivery must be geared towards women with low education and wealth status, as this can play essential role in enhancing health facility delivery.


The endocannabinoid (eCB) system (ECS) plays a prominent role in regulating brain reward function and modulating emotional homeostasis  has been implicated as a critical component of long-lasting neural maladaptation underlying addictive behaviors  receptors were downregulated by chronic ethanol administration  and its application to other drugs of dependence or other prenatal stresses remain to be determined. Moreover, the extent of the excitatory pathway linked to the widely-studied inhibitory GABAergic pathway on the VTA DA neurons should be investigated. The CB1 receptors examined by Hausknecht et al.  were at These considerations notwithstanding, the observations of Hausknecht et al.  advance The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


ARPANSA) collect reported incidents for inclusion in the Australian Radiation Incident Register (ARIR), a database of radiation incident reports that occur within Australia. While the information on previous radiation incidents is available, there is little information on the lessons that can be learned from those past incidents to help prevent the same errors reoccurring. The aims of the study were to investigate what radiation incident registers are publicly available in Australia and to utilise the information contained within the ARIR and any other state or territory radiation protection authority registers to make recommendations for radiographers and radiation therapists to prevent future adverse events.The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency  of the adverse events. A vast majority of the incidents were a failure to comply with time‐out protocols .There are several radiation adverse event registers publicly available to utilise in Australia. All departments need to adopt and strictly adhere to time‐out protocols. This in conjunction with the other recommendations in this article has the potential to dramatically reduce radiation adverse events. When adverse events occur in the medical radiation science (MRS) profession, the incident is investigated and the incident along with the findings of the investigation is reported to the relevant state or territory government radiation protection authority. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) collect reported incidents for inclusion in the Australian Radiation Incident Register (ARIR), a database of radiation incident reports that occur within Australia.(p12) For the ARIR to be an effective tool to reduce radiation incidents, the information from past experiences contained within the annual summary reports must be utilised as a learning tool to change systems and behaviours.The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency compile radiation incident reports to produce annual summary reports of the ARIR. The World Alliance for Patient Safety states: ‘The primary purpose of patient safety reporting systems is to learn from experience. It is important to note that reporting in itself does not improve safety. It is the response to reports that leads to change’.Any diagnostic procedure other than as prescribed by the medical practitioner.Any diagnostic procedure resulting in an observable acute radiation effect.Any therapeutic treatment delivered to either the wrong patient or the wrong tissue or using the wrong radiopharmaceutical.(p37)When during administration of a therapeutic dose of radiation from a radiation apparatus or a sealed radioactive source, the dose delivered differs from the total prescribed treatment dose by more than 10%.Schedule 13 of the National Directory of Radiation Protection specifies the incidents that must be reported to ARPANSA for inclusion in the ARIR. Radiographers and radiation therapists have to report incidents in the following circumstances:(¶4) The annual summary reports are the only documents to be released by ARPANSA from the information contained within the ARIR. Summary reports from 2012 onwards contain additional information on the causes of the incidents but are not detailed enough to draw recommendations for improvements in safety. ARPANSA plan to include more detailed information in future annual summary reports on post‐incident follow‐up and lessons learnt.One of the objectives of the ARIR when it was established was ‘through appropriate publications, to provide feedback and guidance to users of radiation on preventing or limiting the consequences of radiation accidents’.¶ The annuTo investigate if any radiation protection authority incident registers within Australia are available to the public.Utilise the information contained within the ARIR and any state or territory radiation protection authority registers to make recommendations for radiographers and radiation therapists to prevent future adverse events.The aims of the study were:keywords: ‘Radiation’, ‘Radiation incidents’, ‘Radiation accident’) to locate what radiation incident registers within Australia were available to the public. Authorities responsible for radiation in each state and territory were contacted via e‐mail to confirm if radiation incidents data were publicly available.As this study involved publicly available anonymised data, ethics approval was not required. A search was conducted from January 2015 until March 2015 of all state and territory health department's, environment authority's and radiation authority's websites (All diagnostic radiography (DR) and radiation therapy (RT) adverse events available from the state and territory registers along with those in the ARIR that occurred between 2003 and 2014 were compiled into a spreadsheet for analysis. Incidents were excluded if the researchers concluded there was inadequate information to determine a cause or were deemed to be no fault of the MRS personnel involved , South Australia (SA), Tasmania (TAS), Victoria (VIC) and Western Australia (WA). These incident registers are contained within annual reports of the relevant state government authority Table . IncidenA total of 356 adverse events were derived from the incident registers between 2003 and 2013 that the researchers determined a cause could be concluded . There were 35 incidents  determined to be duplicated in both a state authority register and the ARIR, so these were considered to count as one incident for the purposes of this study. This left 321 incidents  being subject to further scrutiny.DR represented 76% of the 321 adverse events. A vast majority of the incidents were a failure to comply with time‐out protocols (77%) and half of those were due to non‐compliance where the time‐out protocol was not carried out. The categorisation of the total number of incidents included in the study is detailed in Table It is not surprising that DR errors outnumber those of RT by approximately 3:1. Radiation therapists often work in pairs checking each other's work and the procedure times are longer resulting in fewer procedures performed. RT also has more quality assurance checks due to the higher risks associated with greater radiation doses.(p2) and the correct patient, correct site and correct procedure protocol is a way of meeting the mandatory requirements of that standard.The use of the ‘correct patient, correct site and correct procedure’ protocol for operating theatres was mandated by Australian health ministers in 2004.Underreporting of incidents has been well documented in medicineThis study identified several other publicly available radiation registers apart from the ARIR. Causes of incidents are easier to determine the more information that is made available; the NSW register generally contained more information than the ARIR, while the WA and VIC registers contained far more detailed information on each incident that makes those registers an invaluable learning resource. The Radiology Events Register (RaER) is a voluntary radiology incidents database that contains case studies that are also useful learning resources.Several trends were identified in the analysis of the incidents to draw recommendations from. Almost 39% of the adverse events were due to non‐compliance in which the description of the incident clearly stated the time‐out protocol was not performed. All facilities must develop, practice, perfect and monitor the use of time‐out protocols appropriate to the organisation. The implementation of this one recommendation addresses numerous error classifications in this study, such as the use of closed questions, and has the potential to drastically reduce the rate of adverse events that occur in DR and RT.Booking procedures also had several reoccurring causes identified. There were numerous incidents in DR of two requests being submitted for the same examination and being completed twice. Incidents in both DR and RT of examinations being cancelled and performed anyway. Examinations in DR were also rescheduled and performed on both occasions. All practices need to examine their clerical procedures to look for deficiencies of this kind. Many patient scheduling software packages incorporate warnings for duplicated examinations within preceding time frames to assist with this. Another reoccurring cause of incidents in DR was the use of faxed request forms and the examination being performed again with the original form. Strict policies and procedures for the use of faxed request forms need to be implemented to reduce these types of errors occurring.There were several RT incidents that involved the use of proposed instead of actual prescriptions or fields for treatment. These errors can be prevented by having clearly defined protocols where the radiation oncologist signs off all information/scans to be used for the patient treatment at predefined stages throughout the simulation and planning process, and any preliminary data not utilised should be deleted or filed in non‐clinical folders so it cannot be confused with the actual treatment plan.A number of incidents occurred in DR where the incorrect patient identification label was affixed to the request form. A considerable portion of identification errors are due to the use of stickers and this is unlikely to be eliminated with the use of electronic requesting,The sub‐category of Failure to Comply with Time‐Out Protocols: Procedure: Human Error had numerous causes but some reoccurring causes were identified. The reoccurring causes along with the recommendations to prevent them are detailed in Table Although the aims of the research have been achieved, there are limitations to this study. The authors acknowledge they are not experts in the field of occupational or nuclear safety and the recommendations are those from people working in and understanding the processes of the profession. Many more incidents from the ARIR could have been analysed if anonymised data were sought from ARPANSA instead of the brief descriptions in the annual summary reports; however, the authors set out to use publicly available data throughout Australia to determine if MRS professionals could utilise the data to make useful suggestions to prevent future adverse events.As MRS professionals, we have an obligation to minimise and prevent adverse events when interacting with our patients. One way to achieve this is to learn from previous errors that have occurred and there are several radiation adverse event registers publicly available in Australia that can be utilised for that purpose. The knowledge obtained from these registers can help prevent future adverse events occurring.An overwhelming percentage of adverse events in radiography and radiation therapy occur due to the failure to comply with time‐out protocols. All departments need to adopt and strictly adhere to the protocols mandated by organisations Australia wide. This in conjunction with the other recommendations in this article that has the potential to dramatically reduce radiation adverse events and improve safety for staff, patients and members of the public alike.The authors declare no conflict of interest.


To the Editor: We read with interest the article by Furuya-Kanamori et al. on the proportion of influenza virus infections that are asymptomatic or subclinical . It is not considered good practice to present pooled estimates in instances of massive heterogeneity (In another systematic review of the asymptomatic fraction of influenza virus infections (


The main aim of collecting the data was to assess the climate smartness, profitability and returns of soil protection and rehabilitation measures. The data were collected from 88 households. The households were selected using simple random sampling technique from a primary sampling frame of 180 farm households provided by the ministry of agriculture through the counties agricultural officers. The surveys were administered by trained research assistants using a structured questionnaire that was designed in Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro). Later, the data was exported to STATA version 14.1 for cleaning and management purposes. The data are hosted in an open source dataverse to allow other researchers generate new insights from the data ( Specifications TableValue of the data•The data allows researchers to compute cost benefit indicators of climate-smart soil practices in Western Kenya in order to understand the perceived benefits and cost from a private and social point of view.•The data can help researchers to understand what explains farmers' decision to implement climate-smart soil (CSS) practices while allowing comparisons with soil management practices from other countries in sub-Sahara Africa.•This data can provide a significant contribution to the literature on economic assessment of climate-smart agricultural (CSA) technologies on the costs that accrue to the stakeholders in both the short- and long-term.•The data can be used to identify barriers to adoption and implementation of different soil practices at the micro level and macro level.1This article presents data collected by CIAT with an aim of assessing the climate smartness, profitability and returns of soil protection and rehabilitation measures. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire by means of Computer Aided Personal Interview (CAPI) technique to make the collection process effective and to minimize errors such as outliers and missing values. It is estimated that researchers spend about 80% of their time cleaning and organizing data Data were collected with the help of six local enumerators—two from each of the three counties—who were fluent in both English and the local language. These enumerators trained intensively for five days in English language to ensure a thorough understanding of the research questions and to control loss of information during translation. They were also trained on using CSPro entry android application and how to record geographical positioning coordinates using a GPS. To maintain consistency during the interviews, each enumerator had a hard copy version of the questionnaire to serve as a reference point throughout the survey period and to act as a backup in case of power failure, although data were to be entered directly into the laptops if hard copy questionnaires were used. Each enumerator was given CSPro data entry application on their laptops to facilitate data entry.Immediately after the training, a reconnaissance was done to test enumerators’ ability in collecting reliable data and time taken to interview one farmer for logistical planning. This served as an important exercise for enumerators to familiarize well with the questionnaire and also for the engaged CIAT staff to have prior knowledge of the field challenges. Enumerators were instructed to interview the household head because they are more conversant with farming activities. In the absence of the household head, however, the enumerators were requested to interview any other household member above 18 years old as long as the member had more than 10 years of farming experience. We defined household head as a person who was the main decision maker as far as farming was concerned and participated in most of the agricultural activities of the household. CSPro was linked to a CIAT staff drop box account that aided data backup and daily checking of the quality of the data. A CIAT research associate in Nairobi office was tasked to check for consistencies in the data using predesigned Stata do files.2This data was collected from three counties of western Kenya, namely Bungoma, Kakamega, and Siaya . Siaya cStep two involved identification and listing of the already existing (and new) CSS practices that are applicable in the different farm typologies through focus group discussion. Step three involved evaluation of the listed practices using ten indicators in the CSA goals of productivity, resilience, low emission and development. The main goal of step three was to generate a short list comprising three high-interest CSS practices for each farm typology . Step fo


The cellular origins of cancer have long been debated. Work indicating the existence of a rare stem cell for acute leukemia was followed by a number of reports of relatively rare stem cells for a number of cancers. Other work has challenged the concept of cancer stem cells being a rare repopulating cell for cancer or providing a promising target for chemotherapy or immunotherapy. A balanced view here may be that there may be a continuum of “stemness” with early cancers having rare stem cells while with progression , i.e. most solid tumors, most of the cancer cells are in fact stem cells. In this latter case there would be no advantage to defining these cells. Thus far therapeutic application of cancer stem cell directed therapy has been disappointing. There is also longstanding and abundant information on the role of microenvironment in carcinogenesis. This bring up the issues of whether cancer cell mutations or micro environmental influences are predominant in carcinogenesis.The area of aging and stem cells interfaces with carcinogenesis as the latter progressively increases with age. The increasing clonal nature of blood stem cells with aging is pertinent here. Many studies have suggested interesting changes in hematopoietic stem cell numbers and function but have not taken into account the issues of the stem cell continuum and baseline stem cell hematopoiesis. Major issue are whether aging effects can be reversed or manipulated and what role the systemic effects of aging have on neoplastic hematopoietic diseases.The definition of cancer stem cells;The characterization as to total phenotype of putative cancer stem cells;The model systems available for study;The regulation of putative cancer stem cells:-the therapeutic implication of cancer stem cells;The changes in hematopoiesis and hematopoietic stem cells with aging;The nature of clonal hematopoiesis with aging;The study of different stem cell models with aging;The capacity to modulate aging effects of hematopoiesis;The implications for hematologic malignancies with regard to aging hematopoietic stem cells;The therapeutic implications of aging hematopoietic stem cell populationsThe section on Cancer stem cells and Aging provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and results from areas pertaining to cancer stem cells and carcinogenesis in general and the impact of aging on stem cell number and function and neoplastic potential. We will emphasizeWe look forward to receiving your high-quality submissions to our journal and also welcome your feedback and opinions on the new structure and other future changes.


During the last decade, OMICs techniques have conquered the field of oral microbiology. This has resulted in an exponential growth of publications on microbiome related to different stages of caries process, as well as on primary and recurrent root canal infections. But have these technological advances brought us any groundbreaking insights that would help a clinician in choosing the right treatment or prevention strategies? In this presentation the current knowledge on microbiome related to Cariology and Endodontology fields will be critically assessed. Then the potential pitfalls and shortcomings of the studies using OMICs approaches will be discussed and future directions will be highlighted.


Nutrients Editorial Office has recently been made aware that the figures in the title paper [The le paper  are takele paper  (rat) isle paper  (mouse),le paper  (rat) isle paper , and Figle paper  is identle paper . Given tle paper  will be Nutrients is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and strives to uphold the highest ethical standards; misuse of images is not acceptable and we are committed to taking appropriate action when such cases are reported. We apologize to readers of Nutrients and wish to thank the reader who first reported this case.


The freight rail systems have an essential role to play in transporting the commodities between the delivery and collection points at different locations such as farms, factories and mills. The fright transport system uses a daily schedule of train runs to meet the needs of both the harvesters and the mills  [1]). Producing an efficient daily schedule to optimise the rail operations requires integration of the main elements of harvesting, transporting and milling in the value chain of the Australian agriculture industry. The data utilised in this research involve four main tables: sidings, harvesters, sectional rail network and trains. The utilised data were collected from Australian sugar mills as a real application. Operations Research techniques such as metaheuristic and constraint programming are used to produce the optimised solutions in an analytical way. The results in this research can be used to compare the performance of the proposed mathematical methods in optimising complex systems such as rail systems in many prospective studies.•The data of the produced schedules of the train runs can be used for many different types of the freight systems such as the sugarcane or coal rail systems 1Based on the feedback from our industry partners, the data utilised in this research are created in four main tables: Sidings , Trains 2A case study was examined to validate the constraint programming models and metaheuristic techniques. Constraint programming (CP) is one of solution techniques to find a near optimal scheduler for the sugarcane rail systems. The proposed mathematical model considers the siding and train capacity constraints, daily allotment constraints of each harvester, train passing constraints where each train cannot occupy more than one rail section at a time or two trains can occupy one section at a time. Constraint programming that deals with problems defined within the finite set of possible values of each variable is the main technology used for solving mathematical formulation problems through the search trees. Metaheuristic techniques such as Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search are integrated with CP to improve the CP’s solutions


This article comments on:Regente M, Pinedo M, San Clemente H, Balliau T, Jamet E, de la Canal L. 2017. Plant extracellular vesicles are incorporated by a fungal pathogen and inhibit its growth. 68, 5485–5495Journal of Experimental Botany . Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are secreted by organisms from all forms of life. In the mammalian field they are intensively studied due to their importance in disease and potential for therapeutic use. However, there has been little research in plants and thus the paper by) is a valuable addition to a small but hopefully growing body of data. The authors conducted proteomic analysis on purified sunflower EVs and demonstrated that they are enriched in defence-related proteins. They found that fungal spores treated with fresh EV preparations are damaged and show reduced growth.In addition to being a means to unconventionally secrete proteins to the apoplast, extracellular vesicles (EVs) are presumably being secreted by plant cells for communication with neighbouring plant cells and for interaction with microbes and other organisms. Indeed, it is conceivable that the latter might be more important as it could be argued that plasmodesmata can take care of the bulk of protein and RNA exchange between neighbouring plant cells. On the other hand biology loves complexity and redundancy.There are several potential pathways for the production of EVs and different classes of EVs are recognized, such as microvesicles and exosomes  proteins enter the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) co-translationally then pass through the Golgi body and are packaged into transport vesicles that fuse with the plasma membrane. For unconventional secretion several routes have been proposed. Classically, unconventional secretion describes how proteins without signal peptides, which are presumably therefore synthesized in the cytoplasm (black stars), are secreted into the extracellular milieu (the apoplast in the case of plants). This may be via invagination into multivesicular bodies  (2) or direct budding from the plasma membrane (3) followed by degradation of the vesicle membrane in the apoplast (4). The vesicles that emerge via these routes have an alternative fate, however, which is to stay as extracellular vesicles (EVs) and be taken up by another cell. It is possible that some of them fuse directly with the target cell’s plasma membrane (5) but the evidence favours endocytosis of the majority. The endocytosis may be preceded by recognition of the vesicle components by receptors on the target cell  or by recognition of proteins, carbohydrates or lipids on the target cell by components of the vesicle membrane . Once endocytosed the vesicle contents could be released by degradation of the vesicular membranes (8) or through retrograde trafficking to the late endosome (orange arrows), which is largely equivalent to the MVB, and fusion of the vesicular membrane with the bounding membrane (9).The picture is complicated by unconventionally secreted proteins that do have signal peptides (red stars). It is not difficult to understand how they could end up within the bounding membrane of the exosome positive organelle (EXPO), which is probably a form of autophagosome and may thus form from a cup-shaped ER extension that engulfs cytoplasm and potentially organelles. It is also possible that there are transient connections between the ER and MVBs (10) by which means the protein could enter the MVB without passing through the Golgi apparatus. These proteins would then be released into the apoplast or could perhaps associate with the exterior of EVs and make their way inside the target cells then to be released by vesicle degradation, or possibly by trafficking all the way to the target cell ER and hijacking the unfolded protein response pathway to exit from the ER (11). It is more difficult to envisage whether there could also be routes by which these proteins end up inside EVs (question marks).In The treatment of fungal spores by in planta or in a culture system) of EVs carrying highly effective biocides or RNAs that are specifically taken up by economically important pathogens or pests. Host-induced gene silencing is a method shown to provide crop protection . Bacterial pathogens have specific structures such as the type 3 secretion system to deliver their effectors but no such structures have been identified for eukaryotic pathogens. Botrytis cinerea has been shown to produce RNAs that are destined for host cells (Cuscuta to host cells but plasmodesmata are formed between Cuscuta and their hosts. Thus mRNAs may move symplastically, though of course this does not rule out an exchange of EVs between Cuscuta and its host.A further exciting area of study will be characterization of RNA populations in pathogen- and plant-derived EVs. The delivery of small RNAs to control gene expression within the host or mRNAs to ensure the production by the host of specific proteins helpful to the establishment of infection are both possible through EVs as they can protect the vulnerable RNAs from the apoplastic environment. The proteomics of plant EVs has only been published by The analysis of EVs involved in plant–pathogen interactions is only just beginning but their potential for increasing our understanding of the exchanges determining disease outcomes and the potential for the development of new strategies to combat disease in economically important crops will ensure the rapid expansion of this field.


This study focused on a comparative analysis of exposure to pollution in Ota and Ewekoro Township where we have concentration of industries that emits pollutant to the air. This was with a view to proffer solution to the negative effects of industrial activities on residents within industrial location. The study involved empirical observation and interview of residents. About 652 questionnaires were administered randomly on the residents. Analysis involved descriptive statistical tools including chi-square techniques. The results suggest that air pollution was most frequently reported in Ewekoro and Ota and this can help in the prediction of stringent factor in which industrial activities could pose to society. Value of the data•The given data will show author in the field of environmental management and urban renewal the trend of pollution as it relate to industrial activities.•The data obtained can be used as inference to understand clearly the percentage distribution of respondents by socio-economic and physical characteristics•The data can be used to examine the relationship between the different levels of disposition to various environmental hazards.1In an attempt at appreciating the respondents perception on pollution generated from the industries, residents were asked to indicate their perceived causes in the study settings. More so analysis shows that 89% of the respondents reported industrial causes as the major sources of pollution within their neighborhood while 7% of the study sample indicated other causes as presented in 2Quantitative data collection method was used for this study. This strategy includes the use of questionnaire, direct interviews, personal observation and the use of photographs


The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled "Child and adult exposure and health risk evaluation following the use of metal- and metalloid-containing costume cosmetics sold in the United States"  Specifications TableValue of the data•Provides an exposure assessment on realistic exposure scenarios and for multiple age use categories•Risk assessment based on multiple routes of exposure, including dermal uptake and hand to mouth which have previously not been published•Intra-lab comparison using two similar methodologies to evaluate how the sensitivity of the method impacts the ability to calculate an assessed risk•Data from creams, sticks and lip products can be compared against other existing data for similar cosmetic products to estimate cumulative exposures•Serves as a benchmark for other researchers to evaluate the exposure potential and risk for similar cosmetic products with chemicals not tested in our assessment, including organic chemicals1The dataset of this article provides the concentration of the metals and metalloids in the various products from the three different methods used to measure concentration S3, alon2Each cosmetic sample was pre-screened for metal content with the use of an X-ray fluorescence analyzer. If there was any metal detected in a cosmetic then it was purchased in order to do further analysis. Each cosmetic sample purchased was analyzed a second time with the X-ray fluorescence analyzer in a controlled environment and the data is shown in


To improve quality and personalization of oncology health care, decision aid tools are needed to advise physicians and patients. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the clinical relevance of a survival prediction model as a first step to multi institutional rapid learning and compare this to a clinical trial dataset.Data extraction and mining tools were used to collect uncurated input parameters from Illawarra Cancer Care Centre's  oncology information system. Prognosis categories previously established from the Maastricht Radiation Oncology (training cohort) dataset, were applied to the clinical cohort and the radiotherapy only arm of the RTOG-9111 .Data mining identified 125 laryngeal carcinoma patients, ending up with 52 patients in the clinical cohort who were eligible to be evaluated by the model to predict 2-year survival and 177 for the trial cohort. The model was able to classify patients and predict survival in the clinical cohort, but for the trial cohort it failed to do so.The technical infrastructure and model is able to support the prognosis prediction of laryngeal carcinoma patients in a clinical cohort. The model does not perform well for the highly selective patient population in the trial cohort. Laryngeal carcinoma has a recorded incidence of 606 2009) with 255 reported mortalities 2010) in Australia  to create well defined semantically interoperable data stores and secure messaging systems to facilitate multi institutional rapid learning.In both the previous study  and in tIn clinical practice TNM staging is used to estimate the prognosis for larynx patients and there is some evidence of additional single variable prognosis predictors , 28. To We were able to use a data mining system to automate the collection of model parameters in a totally different clinical cohort in a different country and healthcare system and predict 2-year survival for their patient population using uncurated clinical data. The study shows that routine clinical data contains valuable information that could be harvested to improve and personalize patient care and even more so if recorded in a detailed, structured manner. The results demonstrate that further investigations into the difference between clinical trial cohorts and clinical cohorts is necessary with the potential for rapid learning systems to provide evidence for patients who do not fit clinical trial criteria.


A burgeoning question in understanding literacy development is whether engaging in musical training directly transfers benefits to reading-related skills. Although, there is considerable data examining transfer effects of musical training on literacy skills, results from these studies have been largely inconclusive (Anvari et al., Initial results from Gordon et al.'s  meta-anaGordon and colleagues propose that the way forward is to focus on what is transferred from music to language and how it is being transferred. With this goal in mind, they plausibly argue that rather than a direct transfer between music and literacy, improved reading fluency is the gradual result of enhanced auditory discrimination leading to improved rhyming skills that in turn facilitates phonological awareness (see also Besson et al., In conclusion, continued examination of positive transfer effects from musical training to literacy skills furthers our understanding of the complex connections between music and language, and their shared neurocognitive features. By outlining longitudinal studies that would address study design factors and further the examination of the neural mechanisms underlying musical training driven learning and plasticity, Gordon and colleagues provide us with a compelling example of and future direction toward such research.The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


DMD gene and results in progressive wasting of skeletal and cardiac muscle due to an absence of functional dystrophin. Cardiomyopathy is prominent in DMD patients, and contributes significantly to mortality. This is particularly true following respiratory interventions that reduce death rate and increase ambulation and consequently cardiac load. Cardiomyopathy shows an increasing prevalence with age and disease progression, and over 95% of patients exhibit dilated cardiomyopathy by the time they reach adulthood. Development of the myopathy is complex, and elevations in intracellular calcium, functional muscle ischemia, and mitochondrial dysfunction characterise the pathophysiology. Current therapies are limited to treating symptoms of the disease and there is therefore an urgent need to treat the underlying genetic defect. Several novel therapies are outlined here, and the unprecedented success of phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMOs) in preclinical and clinical studies is overviewed.Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is caused by defects in the  DMD gene that lead to premature termination of translation and a complete loss of dystrophin protein in muscle cells. Dystrophin is a key regulator of mechanical stability within cells, providing a vital link between the sarcomeric cytoskeleton and the extracellular matrix via a complex of transmembrane proteins (dystrophin associated protein complex) ..mdx miceDuchenne muscular dystrophy is underpinned by a complex pathophysiology involving numerous signalling cascades. The extent to which the cellular disease mechanisms differ between skeletal and cardiac muscle remains unknown, but changes in calcium handling and mitochondrial dynamics are critical in establishing the phenotype. Corticosteroids have been successfully used to ameliorate the skeletal muscle phenotype for a limited time, and death from respiratory failure is declining due to the advent of better supportive strategies such as mechanical ventilators and management of respiratory tract infections with antibiotics and cough assistance. The therapeutic focus has therefore shifted towards developing treatment for dystrophic cardiomyopathy. Patients with better motor and pulmonary function are living longer, and engaging in activities that exert a greater cardiac load. Whilst pharmacological interventions such as ACE inhibitors and beta blockers can stabilise cardiac function to some extent, morbidity and mortality from heart failure in DMD patients remains high and there is an urgent need to develop treatments that prevent both motor, pulmonary and cardiac decline. Promising results from the eteplirsen study are at the current forefront of this field, and it is anticipated that minor modifications to the existing chemistry that improve uptake of the compound into the heart may greatly delay death from cardiorespiratory failure in DMD boys with the relevant mutation.


There are more than 200,000 end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients who are potential transplant candidates and more than 100,000 previously transplanted renal recipients with functioning allografts in the United States . Fifty-seven percent of these patients are male and forty percent are greater than 50 years of age . Diabetes is the most common cause of kidney failure. It is evident that many patients are at high risk for development of urologic problems and thus it is estimated that the average urologist will care for up to ten of these patients yearly. Thus a review of the genitourinary (GU) evaluation and management of these patients is timely.