Multiple Global Regions Research Articles

The extent of public awareness and use of the Global Solar UV Index as a worldwide health promotion instrument to improve sun protection: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Thirty years ago, the Global Solar UV Index (UVI) has been introduced as a health promotion instrument to improve sun protection. We assessed systematically global levels of awareness and use of the UVI as a prerequisite for the preventive effectiveness of this public health tool. We conducted a comprehensive literature search across 10 databases, including PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection, as well as clinical trial registries and gray literature databases. The risk of bias of studies was evaluated using the Joanna Briggs Institute checklist for prevalence studies. In addition to narrative and descriptive analysis, we performed meta-analyses with geographical subgroup analyses to statistically summarize the results. In total, we identified 40 publications from 39 different studies across multiple global regions. However, the number of studies in the analyses varies depending on the outcome. The results, especially the awareness of the UVI, were largely dependent on the specific geographical location of the studies. While the prevalence of awareness of the UVI is high among Australian populations, there is considerable variability in levels of awareness across other global regions. At the same time, the use of the UVI is at a low level across all regions, demonstrating the need for enhanced dissemination of knowledge about the perils associated with ultraviolet radiation and the advantages of using the UVI.

SDG: A global large-scale airport perception disparity cognition modeling method based on deep learning and geographic knowledge

Global airport perception levels vary due to natural geographical factors and economic development disparities. Understanding these differences is crucial for assessing regional airport development and its correlation with geographical patterns. However, there are limited methods available to effectively comprehend these disparities. To address this issue, this paper proposes a Salience, Disturbance, and Geographic-knowledge (SDG) approach for the cognitive analysis of global large-scale airport perception differences. Salience is assessed using a two-class deep learning model to evaluate the prominence of known airports. Disturbance is evaluated using an object detection model to measure background interference in large-scale airport perception. Geographic-knowledge analysis considers the correlation between regional airports and their surrounding geographic environment. The results rank perception difficulties for 17 regions worldwide, with Tajikistan exhibiting the highest difficulty at 0.922, while the Jiangsu–Zhejiang–Shanghai region in China has the lowest at 0.102. We also performed correlation analyses to validate the effectiveness of our model. To our knowledge, this paper pioneers the cognitive analysis of target perception difficulty differences across multiple global regions.

Less Is (Often) More: Number of Children and Health Among Older Adults in 24 Countries.

Previous evidence about the impact of parenthood on health for older adults is mixed, perhaps due to variation in number of children and context. Higher numbers of children could lead to support or strain, depending on individual and country contexts. Yet, no studies currently exist that examine associations between the number of children and several health indicators among older adults across multiple global regions. We analyze cross-sectional data (1992-2017) of 166,739 adults aged 50+ across 24 countries from the Health and Retirement Study family of surveys to document associations between the number of children, treated as a categorical variable, and 5 health outcomes (self-rated health, activities of daily living limitations, instrumental activities of daily living limitations, chronic conditions, and depression). We perform multivariable analyses by estimating logistic regression models for each country and each outcome. Multiple comparisons between categories of number of children revealed at least 1 significant difference in each country, and a majority of significant differences indicated those with more children had poorer health. The risk of poorer health for parents of multiple children was observed in 15 countries, but in some countries, fewer children predict poorer health. The greatest number of differences was identified for depression and chronic conditions, and very few for functional limitations. We observe a greater probability that more children are associated with poorer health in later life, especially for chronic conditions and depression. However, a universal global or regional pattern could not be identified. These findings raise new questions about how country contexts shape fertility and health.

Molecular signatures of long-term hepatocellular carcinoma risk in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Prediction of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk is an urgent unmet need in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In cohorts of 409 patients with NAFLD from multiple global regions, we defined and validated hepatic transcriptome and serum secretome signatures predictive of long-term HCC risk in patients with NAFLD. A 133-gene signature, prognostic liver signature (PLS)-NAFLD, predicted incident HCC over up to 15 years of longitudinal observation. High-risk PLS-NAFLD was associated with IDO1+ dendritic cells and dysfunctional CD8+ T cells in fibrotic portal tracts along with impaired metabolic regulators. PLS-NAFLD was validated in independent cohorts of patients with NAFLD who were HCC naïve (HCC incidence rates at 15 years were 22.7 and 0% in high- and low-risk patients, respectively) or HCC experienced (de novo HCC recurrence rates at 5 years were 71.8 and 42.9% in high- and low-risk patients, respectively). PLS-NAFLD was bioinformatically translated into a four-protein secretome signature, PLSec-NAFLD, which was validated in an independent cohort of HCC-naïve patients with NAFLD and cirrhosis (HCC incidence rates at 15 years were 37.6 and 0% in high- and low-risk patients, respectively). Combination of PLSec-NAFLD with our previously defined etiology-agnostic PLSec-AFP yielded improved HCC risk stratification. PLS-NAFLD was modified by bariatric surgery, lipophilic statin, and IDO1 inhibitor, suggesting that the signature can be used for drug discovery and as a surrogate end point in HCC chemoprevention clinical trials. Collectively, PLS/PLSec-NAFLD may enable NAFLD-specific HCC risk prediction and facilitate clinical translation of NAFLD-directed HCC chemoprevention.

Statistical Global Investigation of Pre-Earthquake Anomalous Geomagnetic Diurnal Variation Using Superposed Epoch Analysis

Recent studies reported that the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field exhibited anomalous characteristics several months before earthquakes (EQs). However, the statistical significance of such anomalies detected using the diurnal variation range ratio (DVRR) method still requires verification as only a limited number of EQs occurring in certain seismoactive zones were included. In this study, the DVRR method was employed in conjunction with the superposed epoch analysis (SEA) to perform a large-scale study. A total of 157 EQs that occurred between 2000 and 2019 were investigated using vast geomagnetic field data collected from 92 ground-based magnetometer stations spread across multiple global regions. The case study conducted on the May 13, 2011, M6.1 Honshu (Japan) EQ showed that the diurnal variation of the vertical geomagnetic component disappeared around a week before the EQ. The case study also demonstrated the effectiveness of the DVRR method in minimizing solar disturbance influences, further proving that the observed anomalies were not caused by the Sun. The subsequent SEA revealed statistically significant increases in anomaly counts before the occurrence of EQs for all three geomagnetic components. The number of anomalies gradually increased approaching the day of EQs with temporal lags between the components. Furthermore, a control group analysis confirmed the findings by demonstrating that the increases were not coincidental and several explanations have been suggested, focusing primarily on the emergence and generation mechanisms of the anomalies. Results from this study showed that the anomalies were significant and were potentially precursors to the succeeding EQs.

Climate impacts associated with reduced diet diversity in children across nineteen countries

It is widely anticipated that climate change will negatively affect both food security and diet diversity. Diet diversity is especially critical for children as it correlates with macro and micronutrient intake important for child development. Despite these anticipated links, little empirical evidence has demonstrated a relationship between diet diversity and climate change, especially across large datasets spanning multiple global regions and with more recent climate data. Here we use survey data from 19 countries and more than 107 000 children, coupled with 30 years of precipitation and temperature data, to explore the relationship of climate to child diet diversity while controlling for other agroecological, geographic, and socioeconomic factors. We find that higher long-term temperatures are associated with decreases in overall child diet diversity, while higher rainfall in the previous year, compared to the long-term average rainfall, is associated with greater diet diversity. Examining six regions (Asia, Central America, North Africa, South America, Southeast Africa, and West Africa) individually, we find that five have significant reductions in diet diversity associated with higher temperatures while three have significant increases in diet diversity associated with higher precipitation. In West Africa, increasing rainfall appears to counterbalance the effect of rising temperature impacts on diet diversity. In some regions, the statistical effect of climate on diet diversity is comparable to, or greater than, other common development efforts including those focused on education, improved water and toilets, and poverty reduction. These results suggest that warming temperatures and increasing rainfall variability could have profound short- and long-term impacts on child diet diversity, potentially undermining widespread development interventions aimed at improving food security.

Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) of the anorectum: evaluation of clinicopathological associations and the utility of a novel RNA in-situ hybridisation stain.

Recent studies from multiple global regions have reported a resurgence of lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) proctitis, which is caused by Chlamydia trachomatis (CT). LGV proctitis is histologically indistinguishable from other forms of sexually transmitted proctitis and is difficult to differentiate from inflammatory bowel disease. While immunohistochemical stains are available for syphilis, there is no commonly available stain for the tissue identification of CT. From 200 positive CT nucleic acid tests (NAT) from anorectal swabs, we identified 12 patients with biopsies collected from the distal colorectum or anus within 90days of the positive NAT. We collected basic demographic information and tabulated clinical and histological findings. We examined the performance of a novel RNA in-situ hybridisation (ISH) stain targeting CT 23s rRNA on these 12 cases and 10 controls from the anorectum. All 12 patients were male; nine were HIV+, two had concurrent gonococcal infection, one had concurrent syphilis and one had cytomegalovirus co-infection. The majority of biopsies (11 of 12) showed mild or moderate acute inflammation, had a prominent lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate (eight of 11) and lacked marked crypt distortion (10 of 10). The RNA ISH stain was positive in 10 of 12 cases (sensitivity 83%). One case showed equivocal staining. No controls showed definitive positive staining (specificity 100%). One had equivocal staining. Our series showed that anorectal LGV had similar histological findings to those of prior STI proctitis series predominantly comprised of syphilis. The novel RNA ISH stain was sensitive and specific and may show utility in differentiating types of STI proctitis.

Varieties of Gender Regimes

AbstractWhat are the varieties of gender regimes? The focus is the theory of varieties of gender regimes—domestic and public regimes; and, within the public, both neoliberal and social democratic varieties—and pathways to alternative forms. Is this model sufficient to encompass the turn to less progressive forms and multiple global regions or are further varieties needed? At stake here is the distinction between modern and premodern, public and domestic, the meaning of conservative, the concept of the family, and the theorization of violence. The article offers engagement with critics and further development of the theory.

Structural Alterations in Large-scale Brain Networks and Their Relationship with Sleep Disturbances in the Adolescent Population

Although sleep disturbances are highly prevalent in adolescents, neuroimaging evidence on the effects of sleep disturbances on their developing brains remains limited. Therefore, we explored gray matter volumes (GMVs) at the whole-brain level and investigated their relationship to sleep disturbances in a sample of Korean adolescents in the general population. We recruited participants from one middle school and high school. All participants and their legal guardians gave informed consent before participating in our study. We used component 5 of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to measure sleep disturbances and conducted a voxel-based morphometry-DARTEL procedure to measure GMVs. We performed partial correlation analyses to examine whether the GMVs were associated with sleep disturbances. A total of 56 adolescents participated in this study. Our results revealed that GMVs in multiple global regions were negatively correlated with sleep disturbances. Moreover, most of these identified regions belong to large-scale brain networks categorized by functional neuroimaging studies. We found an association between regional GMVs in multiple global regions involved in large-scale networks and the severity of sleep disturbances in the adolescent population. Based on this evidence and previous neuroimaging evidence, we suggest that structural alterations in the networks may be linked to sleep disturbances.

IAssistMe - Adaptable Assistant for Persons with Eye Disabilities

Visually challenged people may experience certain difficulties in their daily interaction with technology. That is essentially because the main way to exchange and process information is by written text, images or videos. Since the basic purpose of innovation is to improve people’s lifestyle, in this paper we propose a system that can make technology accessible to a broader group. Our prototype is presented as a mobile application based on vocal interaction, which can help people facing visual disorders consult their personal agenda, create an event, invite other friends to attend it, check the weather in certain areas and many other day-to-day tasks. Regarding the implementation, the project consists of a mobile application that interacts with a cloud based system, which makes it reliable and low in latency due to the resource availability in multiple global regions, provided by the newly emerging platform used in building the infrastructure. The novelty of the system lays in the highly flexible serverless architecture [1] that is open to extension and closed to modification through the set of autonomous cloud processing methods that sustain the base of the functionality. This distributed processing approach guarantees that the user always receives a response from his personal assistant, either by using artificial intelligence context generated phrases, by real-time cloud function processing or by fallback to the training answers.

Challenges to scenario-guided adaptive action on food security under climate change

This paper examines the development and use of scenarios as an approach to guide action in multi-level, multi-actor adaptation contexts such as food security under climate change. Three challenges are highlighted: (1) ensuring the appropriate scope for action; (2) moving beyond intervention-based decision guidance; and (3) developing long-term shared capacity for strategic planning. To overcome these challenges we have applied explorative scenarios and normative back-casting with stakeholders from different sectors at the regional level in East Africa. We then applied lessons about appropriate scope, enabling adaptation pathways, and developing strategic planning capacity to scenarios processes in multiple global regions. Scenarios were created to have a broad enough scope to be relevant to diverse actors, and then adapted by different actor groups to ensure their salience in specific decision contexts. The initial strategy for using the scenarios by bringing a range of actors together to explore new collaborative proposals had limitations as well as strengths versus the application of scenarios for specific actor groups and existing decision pathways. Scenarios development and use transitioned from an intervention-based process to an embedded process characterized by continuous engagement. Feasibility and long-term sustainability could be ensured by having decision makers own the process and focusing on developing strategic planning capacity within their home organizations.

Baseline characteristics of subjects enrolled in the Evaluation of Cinacalcet HCl Therapy to Lower Cardiovascular Events (EVOLVE) trial

Secondary hyperparathyroidism (sHPT) and other abnormalities associated with chronic kidney disease-mineral bone disorder can contribute to dystrophic (including vascular) calcification. Dietary modification and variety of medications can be used to attenuate the severity of sHPT. However, it is unknown whether any of these approaches can reduce the high risks of death and cardiovascular disease in patients with end-stage renal disease. The Evaluation of Cinacalcet HCl Therapy to Lower Cardiovascular Events (EVOLVE) trial was designed to test the hypothesis that treatment with the calcimimetic agent cinacalcet compared with placebo (on a background of conventional therapy including phosphate binders +/- vitamin D sterols) reduces time to death or non-fatal cardiovascular events (specifically myocardial infarction, unstable angina, heart failure and peripheral arterial disease events) among patients on hemodialysis with sHPT. This report describes baseline characteristics of enrolled subjects with a focus on regional variation. There were 3883 subjects randomized from 22 countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, three Latin American nations, Russia and 15 European nations. The burden of overt cardiovascular disease at baseline was high (e.g. myocardial infarction 12.4%, heart failure 23.3%). The median plasma parathyroid hormone concentration at baseline was 692 pg/mL (10%, 90% range, 363-1694 pg/mL). At baseline, 87.2% of subjects were prescribed phosphate binders and 57.5% were prescribed activated vitamin D derivatives. Demographic data, comorbid conditions and baseline laboratory data varied significantly across regions. EVOLVE enrolled 3883 subjects on hemodialysis with moderate to severe sHPT. Inclusion of subjects from multiple global regions with varying degrees of disease severity will enhance the external validity of the trial results.

Potential for high-latitude marine invasions along western North America

Aim High-latitude regions host many fewer non-native species than temperate ones. The low invasion loads of these colder regions may change with increases in human-mediated propagule supply. We test the hypothesis that colonization by non-native species that have already invaded temperate shorelines would be precluded by environmental conditions if they were introduced to Alaska and other high-latitude regions by shipping or other vectors. Location Pacific coast of North America as well as coastal oceans world-wide. Methods Using 16 habitat descriptors in ecological niche models, we characterized the conditions throughout the native and introduced distributions of four marine species (Amphibalanus improvisus, Carcinus maenas, Littorina saxatilis and Styela clava) that have invaded multiple global regions to test the extent to which suitable conditions for these species exist in Alaska and other high-latitude regions under current and predicted future climate scenarios. Results Models projected environmental match for all four species in many areas beyond their present range limits, suggesting that Alaska and other high-latitude shorelines are currently vulnerable to invasion by non-native species that occur in lower latitudes. Main conclusions Given current and possibly increasing human-mediated species transfers and suitable environmental conditions that exist now and with projected warming, policy and management efforts are urgently needed to minimize invasion opportunities at high latitudes.