Classification of Public Health Centres in Accra through a Web-Based Portal Integrated with Geographical Information System (GIS).

A health system is described as a logically organized collection of resources, agents, and institutions that offer healthcare to a specific population based on the finance, regulation, and delivery of health services. Many health centres have been established in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, due to the importance of good health. People in other developed nations can seek adequate healthcare, since information about relevant health centres is readily available. However, there is a paucity of information about the services provided by existing health institutions in Ghana, particularly in Accra. The majority of patients commute to either Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital or Greater Accra Regional Hospital, putting a considerable medical strain on these facilities. In this study, we use a Geographic Information System (GIS) to establish a database for all of Accra's health centres and categorize them according to the services they provide. This research tackled the previously mentioned problem by proposing and developing a web-based map called Geohealth for the classification of public health centres in Accra using GIS to assist users in accessing information and locating health centres. We utilized a mixed-method approach consisting of quantitative as well as Build Computer Science Research Methods. Results of our study show that the majority of the participants and stakeholders in our research are eager to embrace Geohealth. Furthermore, in comparison with existing techniques such as Google Maps, our proposed approach, Geohealth, takes less time to obtain information and locate public health centres in Accra, Ghana.

SARPPIC: Exploiting COVID-19 Contact Tracing Recommendation through Social Awareness.

Globally, the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is resulting in high fatality rates. Consequently, the prevention of further transmission is very vital. Until vaccines are widely available, the only available infection prevention methods include the following: contact tracing, case isolation and quarantine, social (physical) distancing, and hygiene measures (washing of hands with soap and water and using alcohol-based hand sanitizers). Contact tracing, which is key in preventing the spread of COVID-19, refers to the process of finding unreported people who maybe infected by using a verified case to trace back possible infections of contacts. Consequently, the wide and fast spread of COVID-19 requires computational approaches which utilize innovative algorithms that build a memory of proximity contacts of cases that are positive. In this paper, a recommender algorithm called socially aware recommendation of people probably infected with COVID-19 (SARPPIC) is proposed. SARPPIC initially utilizes betweenness centrality in a social network to measure the number of target contact points (nodes/users) who have come into contact with an infected contact point (COVID-19 patient). Then, using contact durations and contact frequencies, tie strengths of the same contact points above are also computed. Finally, the above algorithmic computations are hybridized through profile integration to generate results for effective contact tracing recommendations of possible COVID-19-infected patients who will require testing in a healthcare facility. Benchmarking experimental results in the paper demonstrate that, using two interconnected relevant real-world datasets, SARPPIC outperforms other relevant methods in terms of suitable evaluation metrics such as precision, recall, and F-measure.

Characteristics of youth with reported family history of psychosis spectrum symptoms in the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort.

Little is known about the impact of family history of psychosis on youth from community samples. To fill this gap, we compared youth with a first-degree relative with psychosis spectrum symptoms (i.e. family history of psychosis spectrum symptoms, FHPS) to youth without FHPS in a cross-sectional analysis of the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC). The PNC is a racially diverse community sample of 9498 youth ages 8-21 years old, of whom 8928 completed the Family Interview for Genetic Studies to determine FHPS status. Polygenic risk score for schizophrenia (PRSS) was available for a subsample of 4433 European Americans. FHPS youth (n = 489) constituted 5.5% of the analytic sample. After adjusting for environmental risk factors (sociodemographic variables and traumatic stressful events), FHPS youth had lower functioning on the Children's Global Assessment Scale and elevated psychosis spectrum, mood, externalizing, and fear symptoms compared to non-FHPS youth (all p < .001). In the European-American subsample, FHPS status was associated with poorer functioning and greater symptom burden in all four psychopathology domains (all p < .001), even after covarying for PRSS. Thus, ascertaining FHPS is important because it is uniquely associated with symptoms and functional impairment in community youth beyond PRS-S and the environmental risk factors we investigated. Future research identifying environmental causes of FHPS-associated impairment could inform the development of interventions for the broad array of symptoms observed in FHPS youth.

Synaptotagmin-1 promotes the formation of axonal filopodia and branches along the developing axons of forebrain neurons.

Synaptotagmin-1 (syt1) is a Ca(2+)-binding protein that functions in regulation of synaptic vesicle exocytosis at the synapse. Syt1 is expressed in many types of neurons well before synaptogenesis begins both in vivo and in vitro. To determine if expression of syt1 has a functional role in neuronal development before synapse formation, we examined the effects of syt1 overexpression and knockdown on the growth and branching of the axons of cultured primary embryonic day 8 chicken forebrain neurons. In vivo these neurons express syt1, and most have not yet extended axons. We present evidence that syt1 plays a role in regulating axon branching, while not regulating overall axon length. To study the effects of overexpression of syt1, we used adenovirus-mediated infection to introduce a syt1-YFP construct, or control GFP construct, into neurons. Syt1 levels were reduced using RNA interference. Overexpression of syt1 increased the formation of axonal filopodia and branches. Conversely, knockdown of syt1 decreased the number of axonal filopodia and branches. Time-lapse analysis of filopodial dynamics in syt1-overexpressing cells demonstrated that elevation of syt1 levels increased both the frequency of filopodial initiation and their lifespan. Taken together these data indicate that syt1 regulates the formation of axonal filopodia and branches before engaging in its conventional functions at the synapse.

Rest tremor in advanced essential tremor: a post-mortem study of nine cases.

BACKGROUND: Rest tremor may occur in as many as 30% of essential tremor (ET) patients. It is not clear whether this tremor is a sentinel marker for brainstem Lewy body pathology. Here we report the clinical and post-mortem findings of nine ET cases with upper-extremity rest tremor in the absence of other parkinsonian features. METHODS: All brains had a complete neuropathological assessment. Tissue sections from the brainstem and basal ganglia were immunostained with α-synuclein antibody. RESULTS: All cases had longstanding ET (median duration=42 years) with moderate to severe arm tremor. Rest tremor involved both arms in seven (77.8%) cases and one arm in two cases. The rest tremor score was correlated with the total action tremor score (r=0.69, p=0.04). The number of torpedoes was elevated, and Purkinje cells, reduced. Post-mortem changes in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), caudate, putamen and globus pallidum were minimal, and neither Lewy bodies nor Lewy neurites were evident. CONCLUSIONS: In nine ET brains with upper-extremity rest tremor, neither Lewy body-containing neurons nor Lewy neurites were found on α-synuclein immunostained sections, and other pathological changes in the basal ganglia were minimal. These data support the notion that isolated rest tremor in longstanding ET is not the expression of underlying Lewy body pathology in the SNc.