Factors associated with bed and room sharing in Chinese school-aged children

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Co-sleeping (bed or room sharing) has potential implications for children's development. Previous studies showed that co-sleeping was more prevalent in non-Western countries than in Western countries, which demonstrated that co-sleeping was marked with ethnic and socio-cultural background characteristics. The purpose of this study was to survey the prevalence of bed and room sharing and to examine related factors among school-aged children in an Asian country - China.

METHODS

A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in 10 districts of Shanghai, China from November to December 2005. A total of 4108 elementary school children, 49.2% boys and 50.8% girls with a mean age of 8.79 years, participated. Parent-administered questionnaires were used to collect information about children's sleeping arrangements and socio-demographic characteristics.

RESULTS

The prevalence of routine bed sharing, room sharing and sleeping alone in Chinese school-aged children was 21.0%, 19.1% and 47.7%, respectively. Bed and room sharing didn't show significant gender difference but gradually decreased with increasing age. Multivariate logistic regression identified those factors associated with bed and room sharing: younger age, large family, children without their own bedroom and parents' approval of a co-sleeping arrangement.

CONCLUSION

Co-sleeping arrangement was a common practice in Chinese school-aged children. Associated factors were characterized by intrinsic socio-cultural values and socio-economic status in China.

Efficient human growth hormone gene expression in the milk of non-transgenic goats

Heterogenous expression of recombinant proteins in milk of livestock at a large scale is very labour-intensive to be achieved with current transgenic animals, and usually seen as time-consuming, expensive and technically most challenging. Here we describe a convenient system for transient production of recombinant human growth hormone and its extensive use in recombinant protein production for therapeutic purposes. In this study, an adenoviral vector containing the GFP gene and hGH gene was constructed for direct infusion into the epithelium of mammary glands of goats via the teat canal during the period of natural lactation. Western-blot analysis of milk samples obtained from all of the viral-treated founders indicated that the recombinant hGH (rhGH) was secreted into the milk of the goats. The concentrations of rhGH in milk ranged from 0.6 to 2.4 mg/ml and lasted for more than 10 days during lactation. These data suggest that it is possible to produce larger amounts of recombinant human growth hormone in the milk of livestock animals by using replication-defective adenoviruses.

Efficacy, safety and tolerability of rivastigmine capsules in patients with probable vascular dementia: the VantagE study

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of rivastigmine capsules in patients diagnosed with probable vascular dementia (VaD).

METHODS

VantagE (Vascular Dementia trial studying Exelon) was a 24-week, multicentre, double-blind study. VaD patients aged 50-85 years were randomized to rivastigmine capsules (3-12 mg/day) or placebo. Efficacy assessments included global and cognitive performances, activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Adverse events were recorded. Additional exploratory analyses determined whether heterogeneity in pathologies and symptoms extended to differential treatment effects.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

NCT00099216.

RESULTS

710 patients were randomized. Rivastigmine demonstrated superiority over placebo on three measures of cognitive performance (Vascular Dementia Assessment Scale, Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale cognitive subscale, Mini-Mental State Examination; all p< or = 0.05, intent-to-treat population [ITT]), but not other outcomes. Predominant adverse events were nausea and vomiting. Exploratory analyses indicated that older patients (> or =75 years old), assumed more likely to also have Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology, demonstrated significant cognitive responses to rivastigmine and a safety profile similar to that seen in AD patients. Younger patients, assumed less likely to have concomitant AD pathology, showed no efficacy response and were associated with slight elevations of blood pressure, cerebrovascular accidents and mortality. Rivastigmine-placebo differences in patients with, versus those without, medial temporal atrophy (also suggestive of concomitant AD) showed a numerical difference similar to that seen between the older versus younger patients, but did not attain statistical significance.

CONCLUSION

Consistent with trials evaluating other cholinesterase inhibitors, rivastigmine did not provide consistent efficacy in probable VaD. The efficacy apparent on cognitive outcomes was derived from effects in older patients likely to have concomitant Alzheimer pathology. This is supportive of an existing argument that the putative cholinergic deficit in VaD reflects the presence of concomitant Alzheimer pathology.

It takes a village to prevent falls: reconceptualizing fall prevention and management for older adults

Systematic evidence reviews support the efficacy of physical activity programs and multifactorial strategies for fall prevention. However, community settings in which fall prevention programs occur often differ substantially from the research settings in which efficacy was first demonstrated. Because of these differences, alternative approaches are needed to judge the adequacy of fall prevention activities occurring as part of standard medical care or community efforts. This paper uses the World Health Organization Innovative Care for Chronic Conditions (ICCC) framework to rethink how fall prevention programs might be implemented routinely in both medical and community settings. Examples of innovative programs and policies that provide fall prevention strategies consistent with the ICCC framework are highlighted, and evidence where available is provided on the effects of these strategies on processes and outcomes of care. Finally, a "no wrong door" approach to fall prevention and management is proposed, in which older adults who are found to be at risk of falls in either a medical or community setting are linked to a standard fall risk evaluation across three domains (physical activity, medical risks, and home safety).

Composite tissue transplantation: a rapidly advancing field

Composite tissue allotransplantation (CTA) is emerging as a potential treatment for complex tissue defects. It is currently being performed with increasing frequency in the clinic. The feasibility of the procedure has been confirmed through 30 hand transplantation, 3 facial reconstructions, and vascularized knee, esophageal, and tracheal allografts. A major drawback for CTA is the requirement for lifelong immunosuppression. The toxicity of these agents has limited the widespread application of CTA. Methods to reduce or eliminate the requirement for immunosuppression and promote CTA acceptance would represent a significant step forward in the field. Multiple studies suggest that mixed chimerism established by bone marrow transplantation promotes tolerance resulting in allograft acceptance. This overview focuses on the history and the exponentially expanding applications of the new frontier in CTA transplantation: immunology associated with CTA; preclinical animal models of CTA; clinical experience with CTA; and advances in mixed chimerism-induced tolerance in CTA. Additionally, some important hurdles that must be overcome in using bone marrow chimerism to induce tolerance to CTA are also discussed.

Using data on resistance prevalence per sample in the surveillance of antimicrobial resistance

OBJECTIVES

In most existing antimicrobial resistance monitoring programmes, one single bacterial colony from each collected sample is susceptibility tested against a panel of antimicrobials. Detecting the proportion of colonies resistant to different antimicrobials in each sample can provide quantitative data on antimicrobial resistance (resistance prevalence per sample).

METHODS

In this study, a total of 98 faecal samples from slaughter pigs were tested for tetracycline and sulphonamide resistance in Escherichia coli using the single colony method, and these results were compared with the results obtained using the resistance prevalence per sample method.

RESULTS

The results obtained by the resistance prevalence per sample method showed a lower occurrence of resistance. Tetracycline resistance in E. coli was found in 36.7% of the samples using the single colony method, while the mean tetracycline resistance prevalence was 22.5% using the resistance prevalence per sample method. Similarly, sulphonamide resistance was 32.7% using the single colony method and 19.6% when using the resistance prevalence per sample method. Although different estimates were obtained by each method, the correlation test and the regression model demonstrated that there is a significant association between the results obtained using both methods (P value <0.01) for both antimicrobials tested.

CONCLUSIONS

To support risk assessment and analysis of the association between consumption of antimicrobials and occurrence of resistance, there is a need to move towards a more quantitative approach when dealing with antimicrobial resistance in a population, and the resistance prevalence per sample method can provide some of this additional information.

Iris recognition based on key image feature extraction

In iris recognition, feature extraction can be influenced by factors such as illumination and contrast, and thus the features extracted may be unreliable, which can cause a high rate of false results in iris pattern recognition. In order to obtain stable features, an algorithm was proposed in this paper to extract key features of a pattern from multiple images. The proposed algorithm built an iris feature template by extracting key features and performed iris identity enrolment. Simulation results showed that the selected key features have high recognition accuracy on the CASIA Iris Set, where both contrast and illumination variance exist.

Field studies on the environmental factors in controlling microcystin production in the subtropical shallow lakes of the Yangtze River

Microcystin (MC) problem made more and more care about in China, intercellular MC (Int-MC) and cellular MC (Cel-MC) were important contents to reflect the producing-MC ability by cyanobacteria and by lakes. To study the correlations between Int-MC, Cel-MC concentration and biological and environmental factors, eight cyanobacterial blooming lakes were studied in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Microcystin-RR (MC-RR) and Microcystin-LR (MC-LR) were the primary toxin variants in our data. From the linear correlations between MC and environmental factors, cellular-YR had significant correlation with most of chemical factors except total nitrogen (TN) and the ratio of total nitrogen and total phosphorus (TN/TP), most intracellular MC analogues had significant correlations with total dissolved nitrogen (TDN), ammonium (NH (4) (+) ), nitrite (NO (2) (-) ), TP, total dissolved phosphorus (TDP), Microcystis. From the canonal correspondence analysis, Int-MC concentrations were closely related with the chemical and biological factors, such as TP, total organic carbon (TOC), chlorophyll a (Chl a), Microcystis biomass, et al. While Cel-MC contents, especially Cel-RR and Cel-LR, were closely related with light environmental in the lakes such as water depth and transparence.