Disability Legislation: An Empirical Analysis of Employer Cost

As U.S. civil rights legislation, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was created to eliminate workplace discrimination on the basis of disability. Using the United States as an example, this research analyzes the potential for disability legislation to laden employers with excessive cost burdens, specifically expenses from additional workplace injuries and illnesses. In addition, this study looks at the likelihood that employers compensate for these costs by cutting workplace sick leave benefits. Prior to the ADA’s implementation, U.S. employers had the fear of incurring excessive cost. The paper successfully counters this fear by looking first at whether the legislation spawned significant increases in the incident rates of occupational injuries and illnesses, and second, whether employers compensated for soaring compliance costs by decreasing paid sick leave benefits

Improvement of Grassland Through Community Participation in the Middle AwashValley of Ethiopia

The natural resources of the grassland in the middle Awash valley of Ethiopia are subjected to competing claims: development to generate revenue for the state, conservation of wildlife and wilderness areas, as well as use for local production. The combination of climatic conditions causing drought and the over use of the natural resource can be cited as the primary cause of grassland deterioration in the area. Since the problems of the grasslands are complex and multi-dimensional, they are not amenable to quick and easy fixes. Hence, if sustainable progress is to be achieved, the responsibility for change must be in the hands of the communities and household themselves. Pastoral communities, in collaboration with CARE-Ethiopia, local government and other partner NGOs embarked on grassland improvement activities that were based on traditional activities. The objective of this study was to assess the condition of the traditionally-improved grazing lands

Magnitude and associated factors of virological failure among children on ART in Bahir Dar Town public health facilities, Northwest Ethiopia: a facility based cross-sectional study

Background Despite the rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy, virologic failure has become global public health concern and challenge, especially in developing countries. Viral load monitoring is an important approach to identify treatment failure and develop public health interventions in children receiving antiretroviral therapy. Thus, this study aims to assess the magnitude and associated factors of virological failure among children on antiretroviral therapy. Methods A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 399 HIV-positive children on antiretroviral therapy from 2016 to 2019 in Bahir Dar Town public health facilities. Data were extracted from children’s charts using a standardized data extraction tool, adapted from ART intake and follow-up forms. Data were entered using Epi-Data Version 3.1, and analyzed using SPSS Version 25. Bivariable and multivariable binary logistic regression models were done to identify factors associated with virological failure. Variables with p-values < 0.25 were fitted into the multivariable analysis. Finally, variables with p-values <0.05 were considered as statistically significant factors. Results The period prevalence of virological failure was found to be 14.8% (95% CI: 11.5–19.3%). Opportunistic infections (AOR = 2.19, CI: 1.13–4.25), history of treatment interruption and restart (AOR = 2.21, CI: 1.09–4.54), younger age (AOR = 2.42, CI: 1.02–5.74), poor/fair ART adherence (AOR = 2.19, CI: 1.05–4.57), and advanced baseline WHO clinical staging (AOR = 2.32, CI: 1.14–4.74) were found to be factors significantly associated with virological failure. Conclusion The magnitude of virological failure among HIV-infected children remained high. Children with poor/fair ART adherence, history of treatment interruption, advanced baseline WHO clinical staging, younger age, and opportunistic infections were significantly associated with virologic failure. Thus, special attention should be given to children who had poor/fair ART adherence and presenting with opportunistic infections

Hydrologic Terrain Processing Using Parallel Computing

Abstract: Topography in the form of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), is widely used to derive information for the modeling of hydrologic processes. Hydrologic terrain analysis augments the information content of digital elevation data by removing spurious pits, deriving a structured flow field, and calculating surfaces of hydrologic information derived from the flow field. The increasing availability of large terrain datasets with very small ground sample distance (GSD) poses a challenge for existing algorithms that process terrain data to extract this hydrologic information. This paper will describe a parallel algorithm that has been developed to enhance hydrologic terrain pre-processing so that larger datasets can be more efficiently computed. This paper describes a Message Passing Interface (MPI) parallel implementation for Pit Removal. This key functionality is used within the Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models (TauDEM) package to remove spurious elevation depressions that are an artifact of the raster representation of the terrain. The parallel algorithm works by decomposing the domain into stripes or tiles where each tile is processed by a separate processor. This method also reduces the memory requirements of each processor so that larger size grids can be processed. The parallel pit removal algorithm is adapted from the method of Planchon and Darboux that starts from a large elevation then iteratively scans the grid, lowering each grid cell to the maximum of the original elevation or the lowest neighbor. The MPI implementation reconcile

Training on Scaling of Climate-Smart Washera and Wollo Sheep Breed Improvement Program

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), The Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI), the Accelerating the Impact of CGIAR Climate Research in Africa (AICCRA), and the Amhara Livestock and Fisheries Resource Development Office organized a workshop that took place on May 29, 2023, in Bahir Dar Ethiopia. The main goals of the workshop were assessing the advancements of already running community-based breeding programs (CBBPs) and recently formed production Units (PUs) and training livestock development agents and extension workers on managing and establishing production unit sites. The training course was attended by livestock from 16 districts in the Wollo and Gojjam areas, universities, ARARI, and regional and district-level livestock offices. Dr. Likawent Yeheyis, Deputy Director General of ARARI, gave a welcome and opening address to kick off the session. Mulatu Dagnew from the Regional Livestock Office, Asemu Tesfa from the Andassa Research Center, and Tesfaye Getachew from ICARDA each gave a presentation following that. Presentations helped to understand the development and status of CBBPs and PUs, as well as helped to understand how to create and maintain PU sites and breeding tram utilization modality. In the WaWo scaling project, 4280 households in CBBPs and Pu sites have access to the climate-smart breeding program. The training was attended by 67 people in total, 17 of them were women

Higher educational and economic status are key factors for the timely initiation of breastfeeding in Ethiopia:A review and meta-analysis

Aim: To investigate the association between initiation of breastfeeding within 1 hour after birth (TIBF) and maternal educational status, paternal educational status, household income, marital status, media exposure and parity in Ethiopia. Methods: We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, SCOPUS, CINAHL and WHO Global health library databases. All studies were conducted in Ethiopia and published from 2000 to 2019 were included. To obtain the pooled odds ratio (OR), data were fitted in random-effects meta-analysis model. Statistical heterogeneity was quantified using Cochran's Q test, τ2 and I2 statistics. This meta-analytic review was reported in compliance with the PRISMA statement. Results: Out of 553 studies retrieved, 25 fulfilled our inclusion criteria. High maternal educational status (P <.001), paternal educational status (P =.001) and household income (P =.002), being married (P =.001) and multiparity (P =.01) were significantly associated with TIBF. There was no significant publication bias. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis showed that TIBF was associated with high educational and economic status, being married and multiparity. This suggests that the meta-analysis detected small associations that many previous studies in Ethiopia have not been able to show. Our findings can be useful for comparisons with other countries

Loss of Receptor on Tuberculin-Reactive T-Cells Marks Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis

BACKGROUND: Tuberculin-specific T-cell responses have low diagnostic specificity in BCG vaccinated populations. While subunit-antigen (e.g. ESAT-6, CFP-10) based tests are useful for diagnosing latent tuberculosis infection, there is no reliable immunological test for active pulmonary tuberculosis. Notably, all existing immunological tuberculosis-tests are based on T-cell response size, whereas the diagnostic potential of T-cell response quality has never been explored. This includes surface marker expression and functionality of mycobacterial antigen specific T-cells. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Flow-cytometry was used to examine over-night antigen-stimulated T-cells from tuberculosis patients and controls. Tuberculin and/or the relatively M. tuberculosis specific ESAT-6 protein were used as stimulants. A set of classic surface markers of T-cell naive/memory differentiation was selected and IFN-gamma production was used to identify T-cells recognizing these antigens. The percentage of tuberculin-specific T-helper-cells lacking the surface receptor CD27, a state associated with advanced differentiation, varied considerably between individuals (from less than 5% to more than 95%). Healthy BCG vaccinated individuals had significantly fewer CD27-negative tuberculin-reactive CD4 T-cells than patients with smear and/or culture positive pulmonary tuberculosis, discriminating these groups with high sensitivity and specificity, whereas individuals with latent tuberculosis infection exhibited levels in between. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Smear and/or culture positive pulmonary tuberculosis can be diagnosed by a rapid and reliable immunological test based on the distribution of CD27 expression on peripheral blood tuberculin specific T-cells. This test works very well even in a BCG vaccinated population. It is simple and will be of great utility in situations where sputum specimens are difficult to obtain or sputum-smear is negative. It will also help avoid unnecessary hospitalization and patient isolation