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Background: The unprecedented demands on health-care systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic made countries including India to switch toward alternative modes of health-care delivery. Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the various COVID-related services delivered through 104 health information helpline (HIHL), located in Jharkhand during the pandemic. Methods: The de-identified secondary data from February 2020 to December 2021 related to COVID services delivered through HIHL were analyzed. Results: There was a significant increase in the COVID call volume during the first as well as the second wave. The HIHL has been able to guide the callers on testing, home isolation and follow-up, home-based teleconsultation, vaccination, timely referral, and support with logistic-related information. Conclusion: The 104 HIHL has played a critical role in sustaining health-care delivery during the pandemic, combating the \"infodemic\" and guiding the general public by providing authentic information.

Background Conceptualizations of personality disorders (PD) are increasingly moving towards dimensional approaches. The definition and assessment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in regard to changes in nosology are of great importance to theory and practice as well as consumers. We studied empirical connections between the traditional DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for BPD and Criteria A and B of the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD). Method Raters of varied professional backgrounds possessing substantial knowledge of PDs ( N  = 20) characterized BPD criteria with the four domains of the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS) and 25 pathological personality trait facets. Mean AMPD values of each BPD criterion were used to support a nosological cross-walk of the individual BPD criteria and study various combinations of BPD criteria in their AMPD translation. The grand mean AMPD profile generated from the experts was compared to published BPD prototypes that used AMPD trait ratings and the DSM-5-III hybrid categorical-dimensional algorithm for BPD. Divergent comparisons with DSM-5-III algorithms for other PDs and other published PD prototypes were also examined. Results Inter-rater reliability analyses showed generally robust agreement. The AMPD profile for BPD criteria rated by individual BPD criteria was not isomorphic with whole-person ratings of BPD, although they were highly correlated. Various AMPD profiles for BPD were generated from theoretically relevant but differing configurations of BPD criteria. These AMPD profiles were highly correlated and showed meaningful divergence from non-BPD DSM-5-III algorithms and other PD prototypes. Conclusions Results show that traditional DSM BPD diagnosis reflects a common core of PD severity, largely composed of LPFS and the pathological traits of anxiousness, depressively, emotional lability, and impulsivity. Results confirm the traditional DSM criterion-based BPD diagnosis can be reliably cross-walked with the full AMPD scheme, and both approaches share substantial construct overlap. This relative equivalence suggests the vast clinical and research literatures associated with BPD may be brought forward with DSM-5-III diagnosis of BPD.

BackgroundResearch on the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) in DSM-5's Section-III has demonstrated acceptable interrater reliability, a largely consistent latent structure, substantial correlations with theoretically and clinically relevant measures, and evidence for incremental concurrent and predictive validity after controlling for DSM-5's Section II categorical personality disorders (PDs). However, the AMPD is not yet widely used clinically. One clinician concern may be caseness – that the new model will diagnose a different set of PD patients from that with which they are familiar. The primary aim of this study is to determine whether this concern is valid, by testing how well the two models converge in terms of prevalence and coverage.MethodParticipants were 305 psychiatric outpatients and 302 community residents not currently in mental-health treatment who scored above threshold on the Iowa Personality Disorder Screen (Langbehn et al., 1999). Participants were administered a semi-structured interview for DSM-5 PD, which was scored for both Section II and III PDs.ResultsConvergence across the two PD models was variable for specific PDs, Good when specific PDs were aggregated, and Very Good for ‘any PD.’ConclusionsResults provide strong evidence that the AMPD yields the same overall prevalence of PD as the current model and, further, identifies largely the same overall population. It also addresses well-known problems of the current model, is more consistent with the ICD-11 PD model, and provides more complete, individualized characterizations of persons with PD, thereby offering multiple reasons for its implementation in clinical settings.

To discover new molecules or review the biological activity and toxicity of therapeutic substances, drug development, and research relies on robust biological systems to obtain reliable results. Phenotype-based screenings can transpose the organism’s compensatory pathways by adopting multi-target strategies for treating complex diseases, and zebrafish emerged as an important model for biomedical research and drug screenings. Zebrafish’s clear correlation between neuro-anatomical and physiological features and behavior is very similar to that verified in mammals, enabling the construction of reliable and relevant experimental models for neurological disorders research. Zebrafish presents highly conserved physiological pathways that are found in higher vertebrates, including mammals, along with a robust behavioral repertoire. Moreover, it is very sensitive to pharmacological/environmental manipulations, and these behavioral phenotypes are detected in both larvae and adults. These advantages align with the 3Rs concept and qualify the zebrafish as a powerful tool for drug screenings and pre-clinical trials. This review highlights important behavioral domains studied in zebrafish larvae and their neurotransmitter systems and summarizes currently used techniques to evaluate and quantify zebrafish larvae behavior in laboratory studies.

ABSTRACT The larva of the greater wax moth Galleria mellonella is an increasingly popular model for assessing the virulence of bacterial pathogens and the effectiveness of antimicrobial agents. In this review, we discuss details of the components of the G. mellonella larval immune system that underpin its use as an alternative infection model, and provide an updated overview of the state of the art of research with G. mellonella infection models to study bacterial virulence, and in the evaluation of antimicrobial efficacy. Emphasis is given to virulence studies with relevant human and veterinary pathogens, especially Escherichia coli and bacteria of the ESKAPE group. In addition, we make practical recommendations for larval rearing and testing, and overcoming potential limitations of the use of the model, which facilitate intra- and interlaboratory reproducibility.

Mammalian models have served as a basis for R&D over the past decades. Nevertheless, these models are expensive, laborious, may yield results that cannot always be translated into the human in vivo situation and, more recently, have reverberated great social and ethical dilemmas. Hence, the prospect of changes in the global scientific scenario and the Three Rs principle ( R eduction, R eplacement and R efinement) have encouraged the development of alternative methods to the use of mammals. Despite the efforts, suitable alternative tests are not available in all areas of biomedical research, as regulatory acceptance requires time, prior validation and robust financial and scientific investment. In this perspective, we aim to shed light on the concepts, challenges and perspectives for implementation of innovative alternative animal and non-animal methods in scientific research. The applicability and meaningfulness of invertebrate animal models, in silico analysis and reverse pharmacology are discussed, among other aspects of relevance in today’s scenario. Overall, the use of alternative models, including Artemia salina (brine shrimp), Caenorhabditis elegans (roundworm), Danio rerio (zebra fish), Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), Galleria mellonella (greater waxmoth) and in silico modelling, increased 909% from 1990 to 2015, as compared to 154% of conventional mammals in the same period. Thus, technological and scientific advancements in the fields of toxicology and drug development seem to have diminished the need for mammalian models. Today, however, mammals still remain critically indispensable to provide – in most cases –reliable data subsidizing and validating translation into the clinical setting.

The process of evaluating the efficacy and toxicity of drugs is important in the production of new drugs to treat diseases. Testing in humans is the most accurate method, but there are technical and ethical limitations. To overcome these limitations, various models have been developed in which responses to various external stimuli can be observed to help guide future trials. In particular, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture has a great advantage in simulating the physical and biological functions of tissues in the human body. This article reviews the biomaterials currently used to improve cellular functions in 3D culture and the contributions of 3D culture to cancer research, stem cell culture and drug and toxicity screening.

The categorical diagnosis of personality disorders (PDs) has been criticized for various reasons, among which are overlapping of symptoms between different disorders, their high comorbidity, and the dichotomous nature of their diagnosis. These criticisms have led to the development of a dimensional approach in the latest versions of the classification systems, DSM-5/DSM-5-TR and ICD-11, considering two substantial aspects for its new diagnosis: personality functioning, and a series of pathological features. Despite the large amount of literature that has been published since the beginning of this century on this dimensional proposal, it is not clear, to date, that this approach enhances clinical utility. The vague, abstract, and inoperative exposition of what constitutes personality functioning and the complex and forced designation of major and minor traits (facets) in the DSM-5/DSM-5-TR, and only major and optional traits in the ICD-11, complicate, in an unusual way, the dimensional diagnosis of PDs. This paper discusses all of these issues in an attempt to shed some light on the potentially dark future of the current PDs panorama.

Triadimefon is a widely used triazole fungicide known to cause severe developmental defects in several model organisms and in humans. The present study evaluated in detail the developmental effects seen in zebrafish embryos exposed to triadimefon, confirmed and expanded upon previous phenotypic findings and compared them to those observed in other traditional animal models. In order to do this, we exposed embryos to 2 and 4 µg/mL triadimefon and evaluated growth until 120 h post-fertilization (hpf) through gross morphology examination. Our analysis revealed significant developmental defects at the highest tested concentration including somite deformities, severe craniofacial defects, a cleft phenotype along the three primary neural divisions, a rigorously hypoplastic or even absent mandible and a hypoplastic morphology of the pharyngeal arches. Interestingly, massive pericardial edemas, abnormal shaped hearts, brachycardia and inhibited or absent blood circulation were also observed. Our results revealed that the presented zebrafish phenotypes are comparable to those seen in other organism models and those derived from human observations as a result of triadimefon exposure. We therefore demonstrated that zebrafish provide an excellent system for study of compounds with toxic significance and can be used as an alternative model for developmental toxicity studies to predict effects in mammals.

A review is given of a priori predictions made for the dynamics of rotating galaxies. One theory—MOND—has had many predictions corroborated by subsequent observations. While it is sometimes possible to offer post hoc explanations for these observations in terms of dark matter, it is seldom possible to use dark matter to predict the same phenomena.