Mosquitoes: The Long-term Effects of Malaria Eradication in India

We examine the effects of malaria on educational attainment and income by exploiting geographic variation in malaria prevalence in India prior to a nationwide eradication program in the 1950s. We find that the program led to modest increases in income for prime age men. This finding is robust to using very localized sources of geographic variation and to instrumenting for pre-eradication prevalence with climate factors. We do not observe improvements in income for women, suggesting that observed effects are likely driven by increased labor market productivity. We find no evidence of increased educational attainment for men, and mixed evidence for women.

Early-Life Malaria Exposure and Adult Outcomes: Evidence from Malaria Eradication in India

We examine the effects of exposure to malaria in early childhood on educational attainment and economic status in adulthood by exploiting geographic variation in malaria prevalence in India prior to a nationwide eradication program in the 1950s. We find that the program led to modest increases in household per capita consumption for prime age men, and the effects for men are larger than those for women in most specifications. We find no evidence of increased educational attainment for men, and mixed evidence for women.Economic

Evaluation of pre-analytical factors affecting plasma DNA analysis.

Pre-analytical factors can significantly affect circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) analysis. However, there are few robust methods to rapidly assess sample quality and the impact of pre-analytical processing. To address this gap and to evaluate effects of DNA extraction methods and blood collection tubes on cfDNA yield and fragment size, we developed a multiplexed droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) assay with 5 short and 4 long amplicons targeting single copy genomic loci. Using this assay, we compared 7 cfDNA extraction kits and found cfDNA yield and fragment size vary significantly. We also compared 3 blood collection protocols using plasma samples from 23 healthy volunteers (EDTA tubes processed within 1 hour and Cell-free DNA Blood Collection Tubes processed within 24 and 72 hours) and found no significant differences in cfDNA yield, fragment size and background noise between these protocols. In 219 clinical samples, cfDNA fragments were shorter in plasma samples processed immediately after venipuncture compared to archived samples, suggesting contribution of background DNA by lysed peripheral blood cells. In summary, we have described a multiplexed ddPCR assay to assess quality of cfDNA samples prior to downstream molecular analyses and we have evaluated potential sources of pre-analytical variation in cfDNA studies

Cryptographically Secure Information Flow Control on Key-Value Stores

We present Clio, an information flow control (IFC) system that transparently incorporates cryptography to enforce confidentiality and integrity policies on untrusted storage. Clio insulates developers from explicitly manipulating keys and cryptographic primitives by leveraging the policy language of the IFC system to automatically use the appropriate keys and correct cryptographic operations. We prove that Clio is secure with a novel proof technique that is based on a proof style from cryptography together with standard programming languages results. We present a prototype Clio implementation and a case study that demonstrates Clio's practicality.Comment: Full version of conference paper appearing in CCS 201

Association between age, deprivation and specific comorbid conditions and the receipt of major surgery in patients with non-small cell lung cancer in England: A population-based study.

INTRODUCTION: We investigated socioeconomic disparities and the role of the main prognostic factors in receiving major surgical treatment in patients with lung cancer in England. METHODS: Our study comprised 31 351 patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in England in 2012. Data from the national population-based cancer registry were linked to Hospital Episode Statistics and National Lung Cancer Audit data to obtain information on stage, performance status and comorbidities, and to identify patients receiving major surgical treatment. To describe the association between prognostic factors and surgery, we performed two different analyses: one using multivariable logistic regression and one estimating cause-specific hazards for death and surgery. In both analyses, we used multiple imputation to deal with missing data. RESULTS: We showed strong evidence that the comorbidities 'congestive heart failure', 'cerebrovascular disease' and 'chronic obstructive pulmonary disease' reduced the receipt of surgery in early stage patients. We also observed gender differences and substantial age differences in the receipt of surgery. Despite accounting for sex, age at diagnosis, comorbidities, stage at diagnosis, performance status and indication of having had a PET-CT scan, the socioeconomic differences persisted in both analyses: more deprived people had lower odds and lower rates of receiving surgery in early stage lung cancer. DISCUSSION: Comorbidities play an important role in whether patients undergo surgery, but do not completely explain the socioeconomic difference observed in early stage patients. Future work investigating access to and distance from specialist hospitals, as well as patient perceptions and patient choice in receiving surgery, could help disentangle these persistent socioeconomic inequalities

Multiscale, multimodal analysis of tumor heterogeneity in IDH1 mutant vs wild-type diffuse gliomas.

Glioma is recognized to be a highly heterogeneous CNS malignancy, whose diverse cellular composition and cellular interactions have not been well characterized. To gain new clinical- and biological-insights into the genetically-bifurcated IDH1 mutant (mt) vs wildtype (wt) forms of glioma, we integrated data from protein, genomic and MR imaging from 20 treatment-naïve glioma cases and 16 recurrent GBM cases. Multiplexed immunofluorescence (MxIF) was used to generate single cell data for 43 protein markers representing all cancer hallmarks, Genomic sequencing (exome and RNA (normal and tumor) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) quantitative features (protocols were T1-post, FLAIR and ADC) from whole tumor, peritumoral edema and enhancing core vs equivalent normal region were also collected from patients. Based on MxIF analysis, 85,767 cells (glioma cases) and 56,304 cells (GBM cases) were used to generate cell-level data for 24 biomarkers. K-means clustering was used to generate 7 distinct groups of cells with divergent biomarker profiles and deconvolution was used to assign RNA data into three classes. Spatial and molecular heterogeneity metrics were generated for the cell data. All features were compared between IDH mt and IDHwt patients and were finally combined to provide a holistic/integrated comparison. Protein expression by hallmark was generally lower in the IDHmt vs wt patients. Molecular and spatial heterogeneity scores for angiogenesis and cell invasion also differed between IDHmt and wt gliomas irrespective of prior treatment and tumor grade; these differences also persisted in the MR imaging features of peritumoral edema and contrast enhancement volumes. A coherent picture of enhanced angiogenesis in IDHwt tumors was derived from multiple platforms (genomic, proteomic and imaging) and scales from individual proteins to cell clusters and heterogeneity, as well as bulk tumor RNA and imaging features. Longer overall survival for IDH1mt glioma patients may reflect mutation-driven alterations in cellular, molecular, and spatial heterogeneity which manifest in discernable radiological manifestations

Effects of physical activity on functional health of older adults: a systematic review

Reviews on the relationships between functional health and physical activity of general older adults have been well documented in literature. However, specific age range of older adults, in particular, older adults of 75 years or above, is currently under-examined. A systematic review was conducted to investigate the effects of physical activity on functional health older adults aged 75 years or above. The reviewed articles cover a variety range of functional health outcomes, including balance, muscle conditioning, joint range of motion, quadriceps strength, reaction time, gait speed, health-related quality of life, back and knee pain, muscle mass, and walking ability. In general, interventions of the reviewed articles had favourable effects on function health of older adults. While physical activity has been identified as an important determinant of functional health, the ways to engage in and accumulate sufficient daily physical activity warrant investigation. It is also important to explore interventions which enhance daily, self-driven physical activity of elderly, as normally supervised physical activity bears higher costs