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Objectives/Goals: We describe the prevalence of individuals with household exposure to SARS-CoV-2, who subsequently report symptoms consistent with COVID-19, while having PCR results persistently negative for SARS-CoV-2 (S[+]/P[-]). We assess whether paired serology can assist in identifying the true infection status of such individuals. Methods/Study Population: In a multicenter household transmission study, index patients with SARS-CoV-2 were identified and enrolled together with their household contacts within 1 week of index’s illness onset. For 10 consecutive days, enrolled individuals provided daily symptom diaries and nasal specimens for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Contacts were categorized into 4 groups based on presence of symptoms (S[+/-]) and PCR positivity (P[+/-]). Acute and convalescent blood specimens from these individuals (30 days apart) were subjected to quantitative serologic analysis for SARS-CoV-2 anti-nucleocapsid, spike, and receptor-binding domain antibodies. The antibody change in S[+]/P[-] individuals was assessed by thresholds derived from receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of S[+]/P[+] (infected) versusS[-]/P[-] (uninfected). Results/Anticipated Results: Among 1,433 contacts, 67% had ≥1 SARS-CoV-2 PCR[+] result, while 33% remained PCR[-]. Among the latter, 55% (n = 263) reported symptoms for at least 1 day, most commonly congestion (63%), fatigue (63%), headache (62%), cough (59%), and sore throat (50%). A history of both previous infection and vaccination was present in 37% of S[+]/P[-] individuals, 38% of S[-]/P[-], and 21% of S[+]/P[+] (P<0.05). Vaccination alone was present in 37%, 41%, and 52%, respectively. ROC analyses of paired serologic testing of S[+]/P[+] (n = 354) vs. S[-]/P[-] (n = 103) individuals found anti-nucleocapsid data had the highest area under the curve (0.87). Based on the 30-day antibody change, 6.9% of S[+]/P[-] individuals demonstrated an increased convalescent antibody signal, although a similar seroresponse in 7.8% of the S[-]/P[-] group was observed. Discussion/Significance of Impact: Reporting respiratory symptoms was common among household contacts with persistent PCR[-] results. Paired serology analyses found similar seroresponses between S[+]/P[-] and S[-]/P[-] individuals. The symptomatic-but-PCR-negative phenomenon, while frequent, is unlikely attributable to true SARS-CoV-2 infections that go missed by PCR.
Objectives/Goals: Monensin is FDA approved for use in veterinary medicine. Recent studies pointed to its potent anticancer activity. Since de novo drug discovery process typically takes 10 to 15 years and requires an investment of approximately $1.3 to $3 billion, drug repositioning can bypass several steps in this process and increase the potential for success. Methods/Study Population: Cell viability assays were conducted on human MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468, and MCF10A breast cancer cell lines and mouse EO771 and 4T1 breast cancer cell lines. MDA-MB-231 cell line was used in all the studies unless specified otherwise. Time course levels of Bcl-2, Bak, p62, and LC3II were assessed via Western blotting with GAPDH as a loading control. Proteomics analysis was conducted by the IDEA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics. Time course levels of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I and II and calreticulin were evaluated using flow cytometry. At least three biological replicates have been conducted for each experiment. Results/Anticipated Results: Monensin and several of its novel analogs were potent toward human and mouse breast cancer cell lines. Furthermore, they induced apoptotic cell death as evidenced by Annexin V/PI assay, downregulation of Bcl-2, and upregulation of Bak in MDA-MB-231 cells. Proteomics analysis revealed that several molecular pathways related to MHC class I and II antigen presentation were significantly altered following treatment with these compounds. Additionally, monensin and its analogs significantly increased the expression of MHC class I and II. Our studies also showed that monensin and its analogs increase the surface calreticulin levels. Treatment of MDA-MB-231 cells with these compounds also resulted in an increase in p62 and LC3II expression, suggesting a disruption of the autophagic process. Discussion/Significance of Impact: These results suggest that monensin and its analogs not only exhibit anti-breast cancer cell activity but also modulate immune-related pathways. By disrupting autophagy and enhancing calreticulin levels, these compounds may potentiate antitumor immune responses, providing a promising avenue for drug repositioning in cancer therapy.
Objectives/Goals: Transmission-blocking vaccines hold promise for malaria elimination by reducing community transmission. But a major challenge that limits the development of efficacious vaccines is the vast parasite’s genetic diversity. This work aims to assess the genetic diversity of the Pfs25 vaccine candidate in complex infections across African countries. Methods/Study Population: We employed next-generation amplicon deep sequencing to identify nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 194 Plasmodium falciparum samples from four endemic African countries: Senegal, Tanzania, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The individuals aged between 1 and 74 years, but most of them ranged from 1 to 19 years, and all presented symptomatic P. falciparum infection. The genome amplicon sequencing was analyzed using Geneious software and P. falciparum 3D7 as a reference. The SPNs were called with a minimum coverage of 500bp, and for this work, we used a very sensitive threshold of 1% variant frequency to determine the frequency of SNPs. The identified SNPs were threaded to the crystal structure of the Pfs25 protein, which allowed us to predict the impact of the novel SNP in the protein or antibody binding. Results/Anticipated Results: We identified 26 SNPs including 24 novel variants, and assessed their population prevalence and variant frequency in complex infections. Notably, five variants were detected in multiple samples (L63V, V143I, S39G, L63P, and E59G), while the remaining 21 were rare variants found in individual samples. Analysis of country-specific prevalence showed varying proportions of mutant alleles, with Ghana exhibiting the highest prevalence (44.6%), followed by Tanzania (12%), Senegal (11.8%), and Burkina Faso (2.7%). Moreover, we categorized SNPs based on their frequency, identifying dominant variants (>25%), and rare variants (Discussion/Significance of Impact: We identified additional SNPs in the Pfs25 gene beyond those previously reported. However, the majority of these newly discovered display low variant frequency and population prevalence. Further research exploring the functional implications of these variations will be important to elucidate their role in malaria transmission.
We consider pricing of a specialised critical illness and life insurance contract for breast cancer (BC) risk. We compare (a) an industry-based Markov model with (b) a recently developed semi-Markov model, which accounts for unobserved BC cases and progression through clinical stages of BC, and (c) an alternative Markov model derived from (b). All models are calibrated using population data in England and data from the medical literature. We show that the semi-Markov model aligns best with empirical evidence. We then consider net premiums of specialized life insurance products under various scenarios of cancer diagnosis and treatment. The results show strong dependence on the time spent with diagnosed or undiagnosed pre-metastatic BC. This proves to be significant for refining cancer survival estimates and accurately estimating related age dependence by cancer stage. In contrast, the industry-based model, by overlooking this critical factor, is more sensitive to the model assumptions, underscoring its limitations in cancer estimates.
We investigate the sums $(1/\sqrt {H}) \sum _{X < n \leq X+H} \chi (n)$, where $\chi $ is a fixed non-principal Dirichlet character modulo a prime q, and $0 \leq X \leq q-1$ is uniformly random. Davenport and Erdős, and more recently Lamzouri, proved central limit theorems for these sums provided $H \rightarrow \infty $ and $(\log H)/\log q \rightarrow 0$ as $q \rightarrow \infty $, and Lamzouri conjectured these should hold subject to the much weaker upper bound $H=o(q/\log q)$. We prove this is false for some $\chi $, even when $H = q/\log ^{A}q$ for any fixed $A> 0$. However, we show it is true for ‘almost all’ characters on the range $q^{1-o(1)} \leq H = o(q)$.
Using Pólya’s Fourier expansion, these results may be reformulated as statements about the distribution of certain Fourier series with number theoretic coefficients. Tools used in the proofs include the existence of characters with large partial sums on short initial segments, and moment estimates for trigonometric polynomials with random multiplicative coefficients.
To investigate the concordance between Australian government guidelines for classifying the healthiness of foods across various public settings.
Design:
Commonly available products in Australian food service settings across eight food categories were classified according to each of the seventeen Australian state and territory food classification guidelines applying to public schools, workplaces and healthcare settings. Product nutrition information was retrieved from online sources. The level of concordance between each pair of guidelines was determined by the proportion of products rated at the same level of healthiness.
Setting:
Australia.
Participants:
No human participants.
Results:
Approximately half (56 %) of the 967 food and drink products assessed were classified as the same level of healthiness across all fifteen ‘traffic light’-based systems. Within each setting type (e.g. schools), pairwise concordance in product classifications between guidelines ranged from 74 % to 100 %. ‘Vegetables’ (100 %) and ‘sweet snacks and desserts’ (78 %) had the highest concordance across guidelines, while ‘cold ready-to-eat foods’ (0 %) and ‘savoury snacks’ (23 %) had the lowest concordance. In addition to differences in classification criteria, discrepancies between guidelines arose from different approaches to grouping of products. The largest proportion of discrepancies (58 %) were attributed to whether products were classified as ‘Red’ (least healthy) or ‘Amber’ (moderately healthy).
Conclusions:
The results indicate only moderate concordance between all guidelines. National coordination to create evidence-based consistency between guidelines would help provide clarity for food businesses, which are often national, on how to better support community health through product development and reformulation.
Peripheral inflammatory markers, including serum interleukin 6 (IL-6), are associated with depression, but less is known about how these markers associate with depression at different stages of the life course.
Methods
We examined the associations between serum IL-6 levels at baseline and subsequent depression symptom trajectories in two longitudinal cohorts: ALSPAC (age 10–28 years; N = 4,835) and UK Biobank (39–86 years; N = 39,613) using multilevel growth curve modeling. Models were adjusted for sex, BMI, and socioeconomic factors. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Short Moods and Feelings Questionnaire in ALSPAC (max time points = 11) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 in UK Biobank (max time points = 8).
Results
Higher baseline IL-6 was associated with worse depression symptom trajectories in both cohorts (largest effect size: 0.046 [ALSPAC, age 16 years]). These associations were stronger in the younger ALSPAC cohort, where additionally higher IL-6 levels at age 9 years was associated with worse depression symptoms trajectories in females compared to males. Weaker sex differences were observed in the older cohort, UK Biobank. However, statistically significant associations (pFDR <0.05) were of smaller effect sizes, typical of large cohort studies.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that systemic inflammation may influence the severity and course of depressive symptoms across the life course, which is apparent regardless of age and differences in measures and number of time points between these large, population-based cohorts.
The simplest of the continuity theorems considered states that a Baire-measurable function between metric spaces has only a meagre set of discontinuity points. Results on Baire continuity (again, this theme goes back to Banach’s book) are given, for instance the Baire homomorphism theorem states that a Baire homomorphism between normed groups X, Y with X topologically complete is continuous. Another generalization is presented as Banach’s continuous-homomorphism theorem. The coincidence theorems we present derive from Sandro Levi’s 1983 result on the comparison of topologies, to the effect that if one refines the other, they must coincide on a subspace.
This starred (omittable) chapter is devoted to non-separable versions of results already proved in the more tractable separable context. As the star indicates, the results here are aimed more at the specialist topologist than at the general mathematical reader, our usual intended audience.
As well as BGT, the other main influence on this book is Oxtoby’s Measure and Category: A Survey of the Analogies between Topological and Measures Spaces (Springer, 1971). For Oxtoby, (Lebesgue) measure is primary, (Baire) category is secondary. Our view, as our title shows, reverses this. The book may thus be regarded as an extended demonstration of the power and wide applicability of the Baire category theorem. Chapter 2 – where we use ‘meagre’ and ‘non-meagre’ for ‘of first (Baire) category’ and ‘of second category’ – proves and discusses several versions of Baire’s (category) theorem: on the line, the intersection of any sequence of dense open sets is dense. We also discuss Baire measurability, and the Baire property. We likewise give a full treatment of the Banach category theorem – a union of any family of meagre open sets is meagre – also used extensively in the book. We discuss countability conditions, and games of Banach–Mazur type. The chapter ends with a discussion of p-spaces (plumed spaces).
This chapter may be viewed as a brief treatment of such parts of descriptive set theory as are needed in the main body of the text. The Borel hierarchy and analytic sets (Chapter 1) are developed further. The theorems of Souslin (analytic plus co-analytic imply Borel), Nikodym (preservation of the Baire property under the Souslin operation) and Marczewski (preservation of measurability under the Souslin operation) are stated (proved in more generality in Chapter 12). The Cantor Intersection Theorem is extended from closed (or compact) sets to analytic sets (Analytic Cantor Theorem). The Borel hierarchy is extended to the projective hierarchy: starting with the analytic sets $\sum^1_1$, their complements $\prod^1_1$ and the intersection of these, $\Delta^1_1$ (the Borel sets), one proceeds inductively: $\sum^1_{n+1}$ contains projections of $\prod^1_n$; their complements give $\prod^1_{n+1}$; intersections of these give $\Delta^1_{n+1}$, etc. The special importance of $\Delta^1_2$ is discussed.
The importance of infinite combinatorics is indicated by the book’s subtitle. Category (and indeed measure) methods are particularly useful for establishing generic behaviour: showing that a particular property predominates, without needing to (or indeed, being able to) show any specific example. Results of this type proved here include the Generic Dichotomy Principle, Generic Completeness Principle, Kestelman–Borwein–Ditor Shift-Compactness Theorem (used many times and abbreviated to KBD) and Kemperman’s Displacement Theorem.
The KBD theorem is about embedding subsequences of shifts of a suitably regular set into some target set. Developing work of Kingman (1963, 1964), we extend this here to embedding into all members of a family of sets. Useful here is the idea of shift-compactness. We also begin to pass effortlessly between the category and measure cases by working bitopologically, using the Euclidean topology for the category case and the density topology (Chapter 7) for the measure case.
Group-norms are vector-space norms but with the scalars restricted to units (invertibles), ±1. The Birkhoff–Kakutani theorem (a first-countable Hausdorff topological group has a right-invariant metric) we view as a normability theorem rather than a metrization theorem, a relative of Kolmogorov’s normability theorem for topological vector spaces (the condition for whose normability is that the origin have a convex bounded neighbourhood). The groups here need not be abelian, so one has left-sided and right-sided versions. Proved here is the Analytic Baire Theorem: if a normed group contains an (either-sided) non-meagre analytic set, it is Baire, separable and (modulo a meagre set) itself analytic. Other results here include the ‘Analytic Shift Theorem’ and the ‘Squared Pettis Theorem’, category relatives of the Steinhaus Difference Theorem.