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Background Malaria diagnosis by Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) is challenged by the newly emerging histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) gene deletion in the Plasmodium falciparum species. The alternative lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)-dependent RDTs suffer from low sensitivity, and improvement in the sensitivity of LDH RDTs is the cornerstone for detecting the (HRP2) gene deletion species. This study aimed to evaluate a novel, improved Mologic Malaria Pf LDH-dependent RDT for the diagnosis of P. falciparum malaria in partnership with the Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics (FIND), Switzerland. Methods This is a descriptive cross-sectional study evaluating the clinical performance of the improved Mologic LDH- RDT in two rural sites in Khartoum state, Sudan. Five hundred patients presenting with symptoms suggestive of malaria in the two primary care health centres were enrolled after signing informed consent. Finger-prick blood was collected for examination with microscopy, the index Mologic LDH RDT, the comparator RDT, and preparation of DBS for PCR, the reference method. Results The mean age of the study subjects was 31 years, ranging from 5 to 80 years. Out of 500 patients, 210 (42%) were positive by PCR, 200 (40%) by expert microscopy, 193 (38.6%) by index Mologic LDH RDT, and 199 (39.8%) by comparator RDT. The sensitivities of microscopy, index RDT, and comparator RDT were 95.24% (95% CI, 91.4–97.6), 91.9% (95% CI, 87.3–95.2), and 93.81% (95% CI, 89.6–96.6), respectively. All tests were nearly 100% specific for the detection of P. falciparum parasites. The concordance test showed almost perfect agreement with the reference test ( κ  = 0.929). Six samples were P. falciparum HRP2 Ag negative and were detected by Mologic LDH RDT. A limitation of this study is that there is no confirmation of HRP2 gene deletion by PCR. Conclusion The novel Mologic LDH RDT showed performance concordant with standard expert microscopy and the comparator HRP2-based RDT. The sensitivity of the Mologic LDH RDT makes it suitable for the clinical management of P. falciparum HRP2 negative malaria.

Olfactory dysfunction has emerged as an important clinical issue, particularly following the global rise in post-viral anosmia. Recent research suggests an association between altered calcium homeostasis and poor olfactory signaling, but there is no validated method for assessing calcium levels in nasal secretions. Herein, a novel paper-based electrochemical sensor for the direct determination of free calcium ions in nasal secretions, providing potential diagnostic biomarker in olfactory dysfunction. The sensor integrates multi-walled carbon nanotubes, carbon dots synthesized from guava fruit, and the calcium-selective ionophore ETH 1001 to improve conductivity and selectivity. It exhibits a Nernstian response with a slope of 29.14 ± 0.3 mV/decade over a linear range from 10 −7 to 10 −1  M, and a detection limit of 7.5 × 10 −8  M. The sensor has good consistency, with less than 1 mV fluctuation in potential over 180 days, and strong selectivity against interfering nasal electrolytes. Applied to nasal samples from 166 participants, the sensor demonstrated significantly elevated calcium levels in patients with anosmia compared to healthy controls (7.30 ± 0.004 × 10⁻ 2  M vs. 1.84 ± 0.01 × 10⁻ 2  M, p  < 0.05). Compared to existing technologies, the proposed sensor achieves superior sensitivity, broader linearity, and greater pH tolerance.

Background There is a lack of local studies on vitamin D deficiency in children with cancer. This study aims to estimate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in the pediatric oncology population at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City (KAMC) in Jeddah, addressing knowledge gaps for improved clinical practice and future research. Methods This retrospective observational study was conducted from 2016 to 2021 at the pediatric oncology clinic in National Guard Hospital, Jeddah. The study focused on children aged 14 or younger at cancer diagnosis, data encompassed patient demographics, cancer details, and treatment information, including serum measurements of vitamin D (25(OH)D, calcium, phosphate, alkaline phosphatase). Vitamin D levels were categorized as deficient (<25 ng/ml), insufficient (25-49 ng/ml), sufficient (≥50- 125 ng/ml), or hypervitaminosis (>125 ng/ml), based on our center reference range and the validation of the assay. Results In this retrospective study of 155 pediatric oncology patients, the majority aged 0 to 10 years (78%), findings reveal a male preponderance (54.2%) and a more prevalent in patients with hematological malignancies (85%). Chemotherapy was administered to 98%, with 7% underwent radiotherapy, and 89% received steroids. Analysis of serum 25-OH vitamin D levels indicated an overall deficiency and insufficiency at diagnosis (63%) and post-therapy (43%). Age and gender had a significant influence on vitamin D levels at diagnosis, with older children and females exhibiting lower concentrations. However, these differences diminished by the end of therapy. Notably, hematological malignancy patients often presented insufficient vitamin D levels, while solid tumor patients frequently had sufficient levels. Clinical outcomes showed a high survival rate (90.7%), limited bone density assessments (18.1%), and a 14.2% prevalence of hypervitaminosis. Conclusion In summary, our study reveals that over two-thirds of pediatric oncology patients experience vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency at the time of diagnosis, particularly notable in females and older children. Notably, those with solid tumors exhibit higher baseline 25-OH vitamin D concentrations compared to counterparts with hematological malignancies. The findings underscore the importance of educating both patients and caregivers on supplementation and sun exposure to mitigate the prevalence of deficient and insufficient vitamin D levels in pediatric oncology cases.

High performance large scale graph analytics is essential to timely analyze relationships in big data sets. Conventional processor architectures suffer from inefficient resource usage and bad scaling on graph workloads. To enable efficient and scalable graph analysis, Intel developed the Programmable Integrated Unified Memory Architecture (PIUMA). PIUMA consists of many multi-threaded cores, fine-grained memory and network accesses, a globally shared address space and powerful offload engines. This paper presents the PIUMA architecture, and provides initial performance estimations, projecting that a PIUMA node will outperform a conventional compute node by one to two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, PIUMA continues to scale across multiple nodes, which is a challenge in conventional multinode setups.