OBJECTIVES To identify factors associated with sexual debut and early age at first sex (AFS) among young men and women (12-25 years) in a population with a high prevalence and incidence of HIV in rural South Africa. METHODS Longitudinal data from four rounds (2003-7) of a prospective population-based HIV and sexual behaviour survey in rural KwaZulu-Natal were used to investigate the distribut...

Platelets can bind and phagocytose infectious microorganisms and so enable their transport for a prolonged time. To investigate the subcellular events of these interactions, platelets were incubated either with Staphylococcus aureus or with HIV and analyzed by electron microscopy (EM) and immuno-EM. HIV and bacteria internalization occurred exclusively within platelets showing morphological evi...

Sphingomyelin synthase (SMS) catalyzes the conversion of phosphatidylcholine and ceramide to sphingomyelin and diacylglycerol. We previously showed that SMS1 deficiency leads to a reduction in expression of the K(+) channel KCNQ1 in the inner ear (Lu MH, Takemoto M, Watanabe K, Luo H, Nishimura M, Yano M, Tomimoto H, Okazaki T, Oike Y, and Song WJ. J Physiol 590: 4029-4044, 2012), causing heari...

BACKGROUND Substantial health care resources are used on aggressive end-of-life care, despite an increasing recognition that palliative care improves quality of life and reduces health care costs. We examined the incidence of palliative care encounters in in-patients with incurable head and neck cancer and associations with in-hospital mortality, length of hospitalization, and costs. METHODS ...

BACKGROUND There is a general perception that train drivers and conductors may be at increased risk of developing noise-induced hearing loss. AIMS To study job-related hearing loss among train drivers and train conductors. METHODS Audiograms from train drivers and train conductors were obtained from the medical records of the occupational health service of the major Norwegian railway compan...

• UPA's contribution to urban sustainability is gaining research attention post-2015. A clear regional bias visible with current focusing on the Global North. While North reported positive environmental outcomes, in South emphasizes social sustainability. Issues of land, labour and livelihoods are largely discussed context South. Urban planning policy must recognize UPA as a nature-based soluti...

Climate change and global warming lead to changes in the sea level shoreline, which pose a huge threat island regions. Therefore, it is important effectively detect shoreline changes. Taiwan typical island, located at junction of East China Sea South Pacific Northwest, deeply affected by In this research, was selected as study area. an efficient detection method proposed based on semantic segme...

Our previous studies showed that the Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans RbsB protein interacts with cognate and heterologous autoinducer 2 (AI-2) signals and suggested that the rbsDABCK operon encodes a transporter that may internalize AI-2 (D. James et al., Infect. Immun. 74:4021-4029, 2006.). However, A. actinomycetemcomitans also possesses genes related to the lsr operon of Salmonella ent...

Vitamin B12 deficiency is an important and possibly under recognised cause of neurological morbidity in infants. The causes of infantile vitamin B12 deficiency are heterogeneous, ranging from dietary deficiency in a breast feeding mother to specific inborn errors of metabolism. In this brief review we discuss the clinical presentations of vitamin B12 deficiency, provide a practical approach to ...

Address all correspondence and request for reprints to: Lorimer Moseley, Department of Physiotherapy Royal Brisbane Hospital Herston QLD 4029 Australia [email protected] Abstract: Chronic unremittent low back pain (LBP) is characterised by cognitive barriers to treatment. Combining a motor control training approach with individualised education about pain physiology is effective in th...