A proposed method of grading malaria chemoprevention efficacy.

The efficacy and effectiveness of antimalarial drugs are threatened by increasing levels of resistance and therefore require continuous monitoring. Chemoprevention is increasingly deployed as a malaria control measure, but there are no generally accepted methods of assessment. We propose a simple method of grading the parasitological response to chemoprevention (focusing on seasonal malaria chemoprevention) that is based on pharmacometric assessment.

Progressive Transfer Learning and Adversarial Domain Adaptation for Cross-Domain Skin Disease Classification.

Deep learning has been used to analyze and diagnose various skin diseases through medical imaging. However, recent researches show that a well-trained deep learning model may not generalize well to data from different cohorts due to domain shift. Simple data fusion techniques such as combining disease samples from different data sources are not effective to solve this problem. In this paper, we present two methods for a novel task of cross-domain skin disease recognition. Starting from a fully supervised deep convolutional neural network classifier pre-trained on ImageNet, we explore a two-step progressive transfer learning technique by fine-tuning the network on two skin disease datasets. We then propose to adopt adversarial learning as a domain adaptation technique to perform invariant attribute translation from source to target domain in order to improve the recognition performance. In order to evaluate these two methods, we analyze generalization capability of the trained model on melanoma detection, cancer detection, and cross-modality learning tasks on two skin image datasets collected from different clinical settings and cohorts with different disease distributions. The experiments prove the effectiveness of our method in solving the domain shift problem.

Simulating the dynamic effect of land use and transport policies on the health of populations.

OBJECTIVES: We identified the features of a land use-transportation system that optimizes the health and well-being of the population. METHODS: We developed a quantitative system dynamics model to represent relationships among land use, transport, economic development, and population health. Simulation experiments were conducted over a 10-year simulation period to compare the effect of different baseline conditions and land use-transport policies on the number of motor vehicle crash deaths and disability-adjusted life years lost. RESULTS: Optimal reduction in the public health burden attributable to land transport was demonstrated when transport safety risk reduction policies were combined with land use and transport polices that minimized reliance on individual motorized transport and maximized use of active transport modes. The model's results were particularly sensitive to the level of development that characterized each city at the start of the simulation period. CONCLUSIONS: Local, national, and international decision-makers are encouraged to address transport, land use, and health as an integrated whole to achieve the desired societal benefits of traffic safety, population health, and social equity.

Balancing the caloric-induced nystagmus velocity with cold air and water.

A useful alternative to the traditional water caloric is to use an air stimulus. However, the caloric test has not been standardized and a range of parameters are being used in different audiology clinics. The aim of this study was to determine cold air parameters that resulted in a similar slow-component eye velocity to that for water irrigation. Twelve normal subjects underwent caloric testing using air temperatures in the range 18-33 degrees C. The duration and air-flow rate were held constant at 60 s and 5 l/min. A water irrigation at 30 degrees C for 30 s and delivering 150 ml resulted in a mean slow-component eye velocity of 17 degrees/s. An equal response was obtained with an air temperature of 21.0 degrees C. Further work is required to find equivalent air and water responses for other combinations of parameters.