Relationship between the entomologic inoculation rate and the force of infection for Plasmodium falciparum malaria.

We propose a stochastic model for the relationship between the entomologic inoculation rate (EIR) for Plasmodium falciparum malaria and the force of infection in endemic areas. The model incorporates effects of increased exposure to mosquito bites as a result of the growth in body surface area with the age of the host, naturally acquired pre-erythrocytic immunity, and the reduction in the proportion of entomologically assessed inoculations leading to infection, as the EIR increases. It is fitted to multiple datasets from field studies of the relationship between malaria infection and the EIR. We propose that this model can account for non-monotonic relationships between the age of the host and the parasite prevalence and incidence of disease. It provides a parsimonious explanation for the faster acquisition of natural immunity in adults than in children exposed to high EIRs. This forms one component of a new stochastic model for the entire transmission cycle of P. falciparum that we have derived to estimate the potential epidemiologic impact of malaria vaccines and other malaria control interventions

Autonomic Cloud Computing: Open Challenges and Architectural Elements

As Clouds are complex, large-scale, and heterogeneous distributed systems, management of their resources is a challenging task. They need automated and integrated intelligent strategies for provisioning of resources to offer services that are secure, reliable, and cost-efficient. Hence, effective management of services becomes fundamental in software platforms that constitute the fabric of computing Clouds. In this direction, this paper identifies open issues in autonomic resource provisioning and presents innovative management techniques for supporting SaaS applications hosted on Clouds. We present a conceptual architecture and early results evidencing the benefits of autonomic management of Clouds.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, conference keynote pape

A Systematic Review of Mosquito Coils and Passive Emanators: Defining Recommendations for Spatial Repellency Testing Methodologies.

Mosquito coils, vaporizer mats and emanators confer protection against mosquito bites through the spatial action of emanated vapor or airborne pyrethroid particles. These products dominate the pest control market; therefore, it is vital to characterize mosquito responses elicited by the chemical actives and their potential for disease prevention. The aim of this review was to determine effects of mosquito coils and emanators on mosquito responses that reduce human-vector contact and to propose scientific consensus on terminologies and methodologies used for evaluation of product formats that could contain spatial chemical actives, including indoor residual spraying (IRS), long lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) and insecticide treated materials (ITMs). PubMed, (National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), U.S. National Library of Medicine, NIH), MEDLINE, LILAC, Cochrane library, IBECS and Armed Forces Pest Management Board Literature Retrieval System search engines were used to identify studies of pyrethroid based coils and emanators with key-words "Mosquito coils" "Mosquito emanators" and "Spatial repellents". It was concluded that there is need to improve statistical reporting of studies, and reach consensus in the methodologies and terminologies used through standardized testing guidelines. Despite differing evaluation methodologies, data showed that coils and emanators induce mortality, deterrence, repellency as well as reduce the ability of mosquitoes to feed on humans. Available data on efficacy outdoors, dose-response relationships and effective distance of coils and emanators is inadequate for developing a target product profile (TPP), which will be required for such chemicals before optimized implementation can occur for maximum benefits in disease control

Deep RNA-Seq profile reveals biodiversity, plant-microbe interactions and a large family of NBS-LRR resistance genes in walnut (Juglans regia) tissues.

Deep RNA-Seq profiling, a revolutionary method used for quantifying transcriptional levels, often includes non-specific transcripts from other co-existing organisms in spite of stringent protocols. Using the recently published walnut genome sequence as a filter, we present a broad analysis of the RNA-Seq derived transcriptome profiles obtained from twenty different tissues to extract the biodiversity and possible plant-microbe interactions in the walnut ecosystem in California. Since the residual nature of the transcripts being analyzed does not provide sufficient information to identify the exact strain, inferences made are constrained to the genus level. The presence of the pathogenic oomycete Phytophthora was detected in the root through the presence of a glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. Cryptococcus, the causal agent of cryptococcosis, was found in the catkins and vegetative buds, corroborating previous work indicating that the plant surface supported the sexual cycle of this human pathogen. The RNA-Seq profile revealed several species of the endophytic nitrogen fixing Actinobacteria. Another bacterial species implicated in aerobic biodegradation of methyl tert-butyl ether (Methylibium petroleiphilum) is also found in the root. RNA encoding proteins from the pea aphid were found in the leaves and vegetative buds, while a serine protease from mosquito with significant homology to a female reproductive tract protease from Drosophila mojavensis in the vegetative bud suggests egg-laying activities. The comprehensive analysis of RNA-seq data present also unraveled detailed, tissue-specific information of ~400 transcripts encoded by the largest family of resistance (R) genes (NBS-LRR), which possibly rationalizes the resistance of the specific walnut plant to the pathogens detected. Thus, we elucidate the biodiversity and possible plant-microbe interactions in several walnut (Juglans regia) tissues in California using deep RNA-Seq profiling

An improved mosquito electrocuting trap that safely reproduces epidemiologically relevant metrics of mosquito human-feeding behaviours as determined by human landing catch

Background: Reliable quantification of mosquito host—seeking behaviours is required to determine the efficacy of vector control methods. For malaria, the gold standard approach remains the risky human landing catch (HLC). Here compare the performance of an improved prototype of the mosquito electrocuting grid trap (MET) as a safer alternative with HLC for measuring malaria vector behaviour in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Methods: Mosquito trapping was conducted at three sites within Dar es Salaam representing a range of urbanicity over a 7-month period (December 2012–July 2013, 168 sampling nights). At each site, sampling was conducted in a block of four houses, with two houses being allocated to HLC and the other to MET on each night of study. Sampling was conducted both indoors and outdoors (from 19:00 to 06:00 each night) at all houses, with trapping method (HLC and MET) being exchanged between pairs of houses at each site using a crossover design. Results: The MET caught significantly more Anopheles gambiae sensu lato than the HLC, both indoors (RR [95 % confidence interval (CI)]) = 1.47 [1.23–1.76], P < 0.0001 and outdoors = 1.38 [1.14–1.67], P < 0.0001). The sensitivity of MET compared with HLC did not detectably change over the course of night for either An. gambiae s.l. (OR [CI]) = 1.01 [0.94–1.02], P = 0.27) or Culex spp. (OR [CI]) = 0.99 [0.99–1.0], P = 0.17) indoors and declined only slightly outdoors: An. gambiae s.l. (OR [CI]) = 0.92 [0.86–0.99], P = 0.04), and Culex spp. (OR [CI]) = 0.99 [0.98–0.99], P = 0.03). MET-based estimates of the proportions of mosquitoes caught indoors (P i ) or during sleeping hours (P fl ), as well as the proportion of human exposure to bites that would otherwise occurs indoors (π i ), were statistically indistinguishable from those based on HLC for An. gambiae s.l. (P = 0.43, 0.07 and 0.48, respectively) and Culex spp. (P = 0.76, 0.24 and 0.55, respectively). Conclusions: This improved MET prototype is highly sensitive tool that accurately quantifies epidemiologically-relevant metrics of mosquito biting densities, behaviours and human exposure distribution

Transmission Potential of Chikungunya Virus and Control Measures: The Case of Italy

During summer 2007 Italy has experienced an epidemic caused by Chikungunya virus – the first large outbreak documented in a temperate climate country – with approximately 161 laboratory confirmed cases concentrated in two bordering villages in North–Eastern Italy comprising 3,968 inhabitants. The seroprevalence was recently estimated to be 10.2%. In this work we provide estimates of the transmission potential of the virus and we assess the efficacy of the measures undertaken by public health authorities to control the epidemic spread. To such aim, we developed a model describing the temporal dynamics of the competent vector, known as Aedes albopictus, explicitly depending on climatic factors, coupled to an epidemic transmission model describing the spread of the epidemic in both humans and mosquitoes. The cumulative number of notified cases predicted by the model was 185 on average (95% CI 117–278), in good agreement with observed data. The probability of observing a major outbreak after the introduction of an infective human case was estimated to be in the range of 32%–76%. We found that the basic reproduction number was in the range of 1.8–6 but it could have been even larger, depending on the density of mosquitoes, which in turn depends on seasonal meteorological effects, besides other local abiotic factors. These results confirm the increasing risk of tropical vector–borne diseases in temperate climate countries, as a consequence of globalization. However, our results show that an epidemic can be controlled by performing a timely intervention, even if the transmission potential of Chikungunya virus is sensibly high

Defending Against Local Adversarial Attacks through Empirical Gradient Optimization

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are susceptible to adversarial attacks, including the recently introduced locally visible adversarial patch attack, which achieves a success rate exceeding 96%. These attacks pose significant challenges to DNN security. Various defense methods, such as adversarial training, robust attention modules, watermarking, and gradient smoothing, have been proposed to enhance empirical robustness against patch attacks. However, these methods often have limitations concerning patch location requirements, randomness, and their impact on recognition accuracy for clean images.To address these challenges, we propose a novel defense algorithm called Local Adversarial Attack Empirical Defense using Gradient Optimization (LAAGO). The algorithm incorporates a low-pass filter before noise suppression to effectively mitigate the interference of high-frequency noise on the classifier while preserving the low-frequency areas of the images. Additionally, it emphasizes the original target features by enhancing the image gradients. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves defense performance by 3.69% for 80 × 80 noise patches (representing approximately 4% of the images), while experiencing only a negligible 0.3% accuracy drop on clean images. The LAAGO algorithm provides a robust defense mechanism against local adversarial attacks, overcoming the limitations of previous methods. Our approach leverages gradient optimization, noise suppression, and feature enhancement, resulting in significant improvements in defense performance while maintaining high accuracy for clean images. This work contributes to the advancement of defense strategies against emerging adversarial attacks, thereby enhancing the security and reliability of deep neural networks

Comparative Field Evaluation of Combinations of Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets and Indoor Residual Spraying, Relative to Either Method Alone, for Malaria Prevention in an Area where the main Vector is Anopheles Arabiensis.

Long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) are commonly used together in the same households to improve malaria control despite inconsistent evidence on whether such combinations actually offer better protection than nets alone or IRS alone. Comparative tests were conducted using experimental huts fitted with LLINs, untreated nets, IRS plus untreated nets, or combinations of LLINs and IRS, in an area where Anopheles arabiensis is the predominant malaria vector species. Three LLIN types, Olyset®, PermaNet 2.0® and Icon Life® nets and three IRS treatments, pirimiphos-methyl, DDT, and lambda cyhalothrin, were used singly or in combinations. We compared, number of mosquitoes entering huts, proportion and number killed, proportions prevented from blood-feeding, time when mosquitoes exited the huts, and proportions caught exiting. The tests were done for four months in dry season and another six months in wet season, each time using new intact nets. All the net types, used with or without IRS, prevented >99% of indoor mosquito bites. Adding PermaNet 2.0® and Icon Life®, but not Olyset® nets into huts with any IRS increased mortality of malaria vectors relative to IRS alone. However, of all IRS treatments, only pirimiphos-methyl significantly increased vector mortality relative to LLINs alone, though this increase was modest. Overall, median mortality of An. arabiensis caught in huts with any of the treatments did not exceed 29%. No treatment reduced entry of the vectors into huts, except for marginal reductions due to PermaNet 2.0® nets and DDT. More than 95% of all mosquitoes were caught in exit traps rather than inside huts. Where the main malaria vector is An. arabiensis, adding IRS into houses with intact pyrethroid LLINs does not enhance house-hold level protection except where the IRS employs non-pyrethroid insecticides such as pirimiphos-methyl, which can confer modest enhancements. In contrast, adding intact bednets onto IRS enhances protection by preventing mosquito blood-feeding (even if the nets are non-insecticidal) and by slightly increasing mosquito mortality (in case of LLINs). The primary mode of action of intact LLINs against An. arabiensis is clearly bite prevention rather than insecticidal activity. Therefore, where resources are limited, priority should be to ensure that everyone at risk consistently uses LLINs and that the nets are regularly replaced before being excessively torn. Measures that maximize bite prevention (e.g. proper net sizes to effectively cover sleeping spaces, stronger net fibres that resist tears and burns and net use practices that preserve net longevity), should be emphasized