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The use of radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPTs) in the treatment of cancers is growing rapidly, with more agents becoming available for clinical use in last few years and many new RPTs being in development. Dosimetry assessment is critical for personalized RPT, insofar as administered activity should be assessed and optimized in order to maximize tumor-absorbed dose while keeping normal organs within defined safe dosages. However, many current clinical RPTs do not require patient-specific dosimetry based on current Food and Drug Administration-labeled approvals, and overall, dosimetry for RPT in clinical practice and trials is highly varied and underutilized. Several factors impede rigorous use of dosimetry, as compared with the more convenient and less resource-intensive practice of empiric dosing. We review various approaches to applying dosimetry for the assessment of activity in RPT and key clinical trials, the extent of dosimetry use, the relative pros and cons of dosimetry-based versus fixed activity, and practical limiting factors pertaining to current clinical practice.

The systemic nature of SARS-CoV-2 infection is highly recognized, but poorly characterized. A non-invasive and unbiased method is needed to clarify whole body spatiotemporal dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection after transmission. We recently developed a probe based on the anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike antibody CR3022 to study SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis in vivo. Herein, we describe its use in immunoPET to investigate SARS-CoV-2 infection of three rhesus macaques. Using PET/CT imaging of macaques at different times post-SARS-CoV-2 inoculation, we track the 64Cu-labelled CR3022-F(ab’)2 probe targeting the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to study the dynamics of infection within the respiratory tract and uncover novel sites of infection. Using this method, we uncovered differences in lung pathology between infection with the WA1 isolate and the delta variant, which were readily corroborated through computed tomography scans. The 64Cu-CR3022-probe also demonstrated dynamic changes occurring between 1- and 2-weeks post-infection. Remarkably, a robust signal was seen in the male genital tract (MGT) of all three animals studied. Infection of the MGT was validated by immunofluorescence imaging of infected cells in the testicular and penile tissue and severe pathology was observed in the testes of one animal at 2-weeks post-infection. The results presented here underscore the utility of using immunoPET to study the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection to understand its pathogenicity and discover new anatomical sites of viral replication. We provide direct evidence for SARS-CoV-2 infection of the MGT in rhesus macaques revealing the possible pathologic outcomes of viral replication at these sites.Graphic AbstractPET/CT detected SARS-CoV-2 infection of 4 different tissues in the male genital tract illuminates the cause of COVID-19 clinical sequalae of male sexual health and fertility Figure 1.Diagram shows schematic illustration of the male genital tract of the rhesus macaque. Virus icon shows sites of SARS-CoV-2 PET signal. Text highlighting the clinical sequalae associated with each sight of infection is shown in text adjacent to each infection site.

Small-scale food enterprises occupy a critical space in the food system of Kingston, Jamaica. While they serve the entire population, poor urban households are disproportionately reliant on small-scale food retailers. The nodes and networks of retailers play an important role in the value and commodity chain by providing access to comparatively cheap food but are often impacted by economic vagaries and state-level regulation amongst other factors which potentially challenge the sustainability of the trade. These issues are potentially offset by a highly dynamic system where entry into the trade is maintained by the high levels of unemployment and limited alternatives, even in the informal sector. While the challenges are the likely result of state-level deficiencies, it is possible that these problems are both alleviated and exacerbated by various strategies used to claim space and negotiate food-based livelihoods in the city. This research attempts to fill a conspicuous gap in the literature by examining the pathology of the urban food system as it relates to the characterisation, challenges and experiences of small-scale food retailers. The results are based on a combination of questionnaire surveys and interviews with small-scale food retailers in the city. They reveal the existence of gender- and age-based differences in education, profits earned and motivations for entry. Additionally, these vendors face a range of challenges including deficiencies in state support. While many of their challenges are partly compensated by reliance on inwardly focussed networks, statistical characterisation may provide vital insight into opportunities for policy interventions which specifically target this marginalised group.

BACKGROUND: Anomia, or difficulty naming common objects, is the most common, acquired impairment of language. Effective therapeutic interventions for anomia typically involve massed practice at high doses, requiring significant investment from patients and therapists. Aphasia researchers have increasingly looked to neurostimulation to accelerate these treatment effects, but the evidence behind this intervention is sparse and inconsistent.AIM: Here, we hypothesised that group-level neurostimulation effects might belie more systematic structure at the individual level. We sought to test the hypothesis by attempting to predict the immediate (online), individual-level behavioural effect of neurostimulation in patients with anomia.METHODS: 36 stroke patients, each with anomia at least 6 months post-onset, were asked to perform naming and judgement tasks both with concurrent neurostimulation and with sham stimulation. Using clinical, (pre-stimulation) behavioural and MRI data, and Partial Least Squares regression, we attempted to predict the effect of neurostimulation on accuracies and reaction times in both tasks. Model performance was assessed via cross-validation, and performances compared to that of a null model, which predicted the mean neurostimulation effects for all patients.RESULTS: Models derived from pre-stimulation data consistently out-performed the null model when predicting neurostimulation effects on accuracies and reaction times in both judgement and naming. Notably, we could predict declines in performance just as well as improvements.CONCLUSIONS: Inter-patient variation in online responses to neurostimulation is to some extent systematic and predictable. That declines in performance were just as predictable as improvements, implies that the effect of neurostimulation on performance in patients with anomia is unlikely to be a placebo. However, the online effect of the intervention appears to be just as likely to interfere with task performance, as it is to improve performance.

Long-term and short-term (seasonal) migrations from Caribbean countries have been strategies for enhancing the livelihoods and assets of individuals and families for many decades. The greatest challenges to food security are felt by the populations below the poverty level, most of whom are rural dwellers. Taking two Caribbean countries – Jamaica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, this article assesses whether in rural, characteristically small-farming areas, the financial and social remittances resulting from migration are used to improve food security, through either supporting agricultural production or providing money to purchase food. The findings show the contrast between Jamaica and St. Vincent. Whereas migration generally benefits small-scale farming and domestic food production, increasing food accessibility in Jamaica, migration has been variously used by the rural poor in St. Vincent to replace farming. Food security in St. Vincent is heavily dependent on purchasing food and, in this regard, migrant remittances play an important role.

Jean Besson, Transformations of Freedom in the Land of the Maroons: Creolization in the Cockpits, Jamaica. Kingston: Ian Randle, 2016. 367 pp.REVIEWED BY ELIZABETH THOMAS-HOPETHIS DETAILED COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CREOLISATION IN MAROON and non-Maroon communities of Jamaica is intended by the author to rectify a hitherto neglected aspect of studies of Afro-Caribbean culture. Here, the comparison focuses upon three communities at the Maroon/non-Maroon interface in the Jamaican Cockpit Country: Accompong, Maroon Town and Aberdeen. In Accompong, the identity of the villagers is associated with the land fought for and won by their ancestors in the Maroon Wars. Maroon Town, on the other hand, although located on the main site of the First Maroon War, thereby becoming an independent Maroon enclave, lost its original status as part of the Maroon polity following its betrayal and subsequent defeat in the Second Maroon War. Thereafter, the people became part of the surrounding peasant community, claiming descent from early planters and slaves as well as Maroons. Aberdeen did not exist until after Emancipation, when it was founded as a village of freed slaves close to Accompong.Following an initial discussion of creolisation, Besson outlines the major historical themes that impacted the communities under study. Emphasis is placed on the Maroon Wars of the 1700s which led to the establishment of the Leeward Maroon polity, and a summary is provided of the major slave rebellion of 1831-32, the abolition of slavery (1807) and finally the emancipation (1834) and full freedom (1838) of slaves. The historical experiences of marronage, slavery and the plantation laid the foundations for the development of Maroon identity that has been variously represented and commemorated in these villages. The author explores the nature of creolisation as processes of indigenisation, and the emergence of the meaning of belonging and purpose that has continued throughout the changing wider national and international events associated with globalisation. These have included the migration of many of the villagers to the UK and USA, as well as the communities' engagement with tourism. In tracing the processes of creolisation in these three settlements that have variously emerged, Besson identified what she interpreted to be the essential elements in the process of creolisation: the tripartite structure of separation or rupture, transition or bridging of disjuncture, and incorporation or reparation. The result was variations in creolisation, argued by Besson to be based on adaptation, negotiation and forming social alliances, culture-building and place-making. These elements are demonstrated most forcibly in the creolisation of the Accompong commons.In Accompong, identification with the Maroon polity and early Maroons involved the symbolic relocating of the main site of the Maroon Wars to Accompong. There is strong connection with the land, involving the incorporation of the forest first as provision grounds, then as commons, and with the sacred burial places of successive generations of Maroons. The Maroon identity is further preserved in the rituals that connect the living with the spirits of the ancestors; the living gaining protection and spiritual power through spirit possession (Myal). …