University of Queensland

About: University of Queensland is a education organization based out in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 51138 authors who have published 155721 publications receiving 5717659 citations. The organization is also known as: UQ & The University of Queensland.

Counting the dead and what they died from: an assessment of the global status of cause of death data

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: We sought to assess the current status of global data on death registration and to examine several indicators of data completeness and quality. METHODS: We summarized the availability of death registration data by year and country. Indicators of data quality were assessed for each country and included the timeliness, completeness and coverage of registration and the proportion of deaths assigned to ill-defined causes. FINDINGS: At the end of 2003 data on death registration were available from 115 countries, although they were essentially complete for only 64 countries. Coverage of death registration varies from close to 100% in the WHO European Region to less than 10% in the African Region. Only 23 countries have data that are more than 90% complete, where ill-defined causes account for less than 10% of total of causes of death, and where ICD-9 or ICD-10 codes are used. There are 28 countries where less than 70% of the data are complete or where ill-defined codes are assigned to more than 20% of deaths. Twelve high-income countries in western Europe are included among the 55 countries with intermediate-quality data. CONCLUSION: Few countries have good-quality data on mortality that can be used to adequately support policy development and implementation. There is an urgent need for countries to implement death registration systems, even if only through sample registration, or enhance their existing systems in order to rapidly improve knowledge about the most basic of health statistics: who dies from what?

Genome Scan Meta-Analysis of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder, Part II: Schizophrenia

Abstract: Schizophrenia is a common disorder with high heritability and a 10-fold increase in risk to siblings of probands. Replication has been inconsistent for reports of significant genetic linkage. To assess evidence for linkage across studies, rank-based genome scan meta-analysis (GSMA) was applied to data from 20 schizophrenia genome scans. Each marker for each scan was assigned to 1 of 120 30-cM bins, with the bins ranked by linkage scores (1 = most significant) and the ranks averaged across studies (R(avg)) and then weighted for sample size (N(sqrt)[affected casess]). A permutation test was used to compute the probability of observing, by chance, each bin's average rank (P(AvgRnk)) or of observing it for a bin with the same place (first, second, etc.) in the order of average ranks in each permutation (P(ord)). The GSMA produced significant genomewide evidence for linkage on chromosome 2q (PAvgRnk<.000417). Two aggregate criteria for linkage were also met (clusters of nominally significant P values that did not occur in 1,000 replicates of the entire data set with no linkage present): 12 consecutive bins with both P(AvgRnk) and P(ord)<.05, including regions of chromosomes 5q, 3p, 11q, 6p, 1q, 22q, 8p, 20q, and 14p, and 19 consecutive bins with P(ord)<.05, additionally including regions of chromosomes 16q, 18q, 10p, 15q, 6q, and 17q. There is greater consistency of linkage results across studies than has been previously recognized. The results suggest that some or all of these regions contain loci that increase susceptibility to schizophrenia in diverse populations.

Minimum information about a single amplified genome (MISAG) and a metagenome-assembled genome (MIMAG) of bacteria and archaea

Abstract: We present two standards developed by the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) for reporting bacterial and archaeal genome sequences. Both are extensions of the Minimum Information about Any (x) Sequence (MIxS). The standards are the Minimum Information about a Single Amplified Genome (MISAG) and the Minimum Information about a Metagenome-Assembled Genome (MIMAG), including, but not limited to, assembly quality, and estimates of genome completeness and contamination. These standards can be used in combination with other GSC checklists, including the Minimum Information about a Genome Sequence (MIGS), Minimum Information about a Metagenomic Sequence (MIMS), and Minimum Information about a Marker Gene Sequence (MIMARKS). Community-wide adoption of MISAG and MIMAG will facilitate more robust comparative genomic analyses of bacterial and archaeal diversity.

Mucin dynamics and enteric pathogens

Abstract: The extracellular secreted mucus and the cell surface glycocalyx prevent infection by the vast numbers of microorganisms that live in the healthy gut. Mucin glycoproteins are the major component of these barriers. In this Review, we describe the components of the secreted and cell surface mucosal barriers and the evidence that they form an effective barricade against potential pathogens. However, successful enteric pathogens have evolved strategies to circumvent these barriers. We discuss the interactions between enteric pathogens and mucins, and the mechanisms that these pathogens use to disrupt and avoid mucosal barriers. In addition, we describe dynamic alterations in the mucin barrier that are driven by host innate and adaptive immune responses to infection.