Prevalence and seasonal variation of severe childhood protein calorie malnutrition in Khartoum : implication for brain function

Protein calorie malnutrition (PCM) is one of the most serious public health problems in the developing world, including Sudan. This condition was investigated through studies which examined three main areas: prevalence and seasonal variation, influencing demographic factors and impact on brain function with use of electroencephalogram (EEG) assessment before and after clinical and nutritional interventions. All 466 children admitted to the Khartoum Teaching Hospital and Ibn Oaf Children Emergency Hospital during July to September 2009 (the wet season) and during February to April 2010 (the dry season) were eligible for the study on the prevalence, seasonal variation and demographic factors influencing which influence the incidence of PCM. Questionnaires were employed to collect pertinent demographic, nutritional and anthropometric data. The impact of PCM on brain function were examined through a case-control study of 48 children admitted to the Ibn oaf Children Hospital in Khartoum between July 2011 to July 2012 (16 underweight, 16 with kwashiorkor, and 16 with marasmus), The data obtained were compared with those of 12 healthy and well-nourished children. EEGs, clinical and neuropsychological assessment were performed on admission and at two time points after discharge (week 4 and 12). The overall prevalence of PCM was 1.15%, and the distribution of marasmus, kwashiorkor and marasmic kwashiorkor 67.0, 23.0 and 10.0% respectively. Analysis of the 24-hour dietary recall revealed that the protein (p= 0.001), fat (p= 0.020), carbohydrates (p= 0.005) and energy (p=0.0028) consumption were statistically significantly lower than the recommended daily allowances. The coefficient of interaction between seasons and cofactors indicated that the wet season influenced significantly (p<0.0001) the incidence of PCM when the length of residence, paternal education, and sugar consumption were taken into consideration individually. In terms of demographic factors, mothers who delivered their first baby before they were 18 years old, mothers with a BMI of less than 18.5 Kg /m2 , a birth interval of less than 2 years, children aged 6-11 months (for marasmus), children aged 12-23 months (for kwashiorkor), children whose mid-upper arm circumference was less than 12.5cm and the number of children in a family were all highly associated with the incidence of PCM (p<0.001). Neuro-cognitive investigation of the children showed that 70.8% had abnormal EEG patterns and 50-70% neuropsychological abnormalities. However, after four weeks treatment, 84.4% of the protein calorie malnourished children exhibited normal EEG patterns. In conclusion, this study has revealed a high prevalence of PCM in Sudanese children with more cases during the wet season than the dry season. In addition, it has identified a number of predisposing demographic factors which must be addressed in order to help reduce the prevalence the disorder. Clinical and nutritional treatment of the children improved considerably clinical, neuropsychological and EEG outcomes. A more promising strategy to improve PCM outcomes may be to tackle the major risk factors for PCM: seasonality and demographic factors. It is envisaged that earlier intervention with the treatments would be beneficial. Future programmes should investigate the long-term impact of PCM on cognitive function including school performance. This study has generated important information about the prevalence of protein calorie malnutrition and pre-disposing socio-economic factors. Nevertheless it has some limitations. The main limitations are: first, there is potential recall bias among respondents answering questions relating to household food consumption, and events happening in the past, such as the child’s history of illness and breastfeeding patterns immediately after birth and then after. Second, information on some important confounding variables such as infection was not collected which could cause problems in interpreting the results. Third, the non-truly statement of the subjects regarding income which may cause bias was another limitation. Lastly, Lack of an address system limited follow-up with some patients. Overall, the findings have important implications for research policy and programme efforts towards improved growth monitoring and designing of interventions to mitigate protein calorie malnutrition and its determinants

Girls\u27 Education: A Behavioral Analysis

Universal education has been an international development goal for a very long time, and gaps still exist in gender parity in developing countries. This project aims to address the fact that while the provision of affordable and accessible education in- stitutions have seen great successes in the past, perhaps the way forward now is to analyze the demand side issues. Due to cultural norms, demand for girls’ education in developing countries is lacking. The first part of the paper explores the psychological constraints of present bias, role model effect and stereotype threat in the context of girls’ educational demands. The second part of the paper analyzes several randomized control trials (RCTs) with the lens of behavioral economics, and then proposes a new RCT to test the role model effect on primary school girls in rural Bangladesh. The proposal calls for the distribution of short stories that portray empowered women to young girls, with the hopes that this will create a virtuous cycle of empowered women acting as role models for younger generations in the long run, while short term effects will be measured on the basis of changes in aspirations

PREVALENCE OF BRCA1 AND BRCA2 MUTATIONS AMONG BREAST AND OVARIAN CANCER PATIENTS IN NORTHERN EMIRATES

Breast Cancer (BC) is the most common cancer and the second most cause of death among women. Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes confer high susceptibility to both breast and ovarian cancer. However, data on the prevalence of the BRCA1/2 mutations among breast and ovarian cancer patients is limited. The genetic component of breast cancer in the UAE is largely unknown and no study has evaluated the BRCA mutations status in breast and ovarian cancer patients in the UAE population. This retrospective study aimed to establish mutation frequencies of the BRCA genes in breast and ovarian cancer patients from the Northern Emirates and sought to examine the potential association of BRCA carriers and Triple- Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC). The study population included patients who underwent BRCA genetic testing at Sheikh Khalifa Specialty Hospital (SKSH) to determine hereditary breast/ovarian cancer. Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 were analyzed by Sanger sequencing or next-generation sequencing (NGS) along with Multiple Ligation Probe Amplification (MLPA). Among 262 patients, 224 (85.5%) had no mutation. BRCA mutations were identified in 38 patients (14.5%). BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations were detected in 6.9% and 7.6% of the patients, respectively. A variant of unknown significance in BRCA1 was found in 0.4% of patients (one patient). TNBC accounted for 22% of all patients with Breast Cancer (BC) who underwent immunohistochemistry (28/127). Importantly, one novel BRCA1 mutation: c. (80+1_81-1) _ (441+1_442-1) dup in exons 3,5,6,7 was observed in one patient with ovarian cancer who showed positive family history and age ≤ 45. Moreover, two novel deletion mutations were identified in the BRCA2 gene. One deletion in exon 5 in ovarian cancer patients who showed positive family history and age ≤ 45. The second was a deletion in exons 10-13 observed in male patients with breast cancer with age ≤ 45. The current study results will help to establish the spectra of BRCA mutations and risks associated with breast and ovarian cancer in UAE patients

Investigating the relationship between self-referencing and visuospatial working memory:can ownership improve working memory?

Objectives: The self has been implicated in reducing working memory load in tasks, but till date this has not been measured systematically. The present study is the first to test this assumption, by investigating the impact of ownership, a form of self-referencing, on visuospatial working memory (VSWM). Design: The experiment was a within-subjects design, measuring the effect of ownership (self-owned vs. experimenter-owned) on VSWM span. Method: 94 children (45 female, 49 male) aged 7 to 9 participated in the study. Participants firstly completed a digital sorting task, which was used to elicit self and other ownership. The task involved viewing objects, and based on a coloured cue, sorting the object into the participant’s or experimenter’s box. Following this, a Corsi-Block-Tapping Test (CBTT) was administered. This is a commonly used measure of VSWM which involves repeating a presented sequence of up to 9 blocks. An adapted version of the CBTT was created, in which to-be-remembered sequences involved the presentation of self-owned, experimenter-owned and control images to test whether a VSWM span bias would occur under the owned objects condition. Results: Although VSWM increased across ages, there was no significant difference between participant’s VSWM memory across the conditions. Conclusions: The findings contradict previous proposed explanations of the influence of self on information processing. The effect, however, could be explained by a weak ownership link. As this is the first study to explore the relationship, the next step is to replicate the study with adaptations to the ownership paradigm methodology before further investigation

Analysis of the Reliability of Complex Systems by Using Fuzzy Fault Tree

المعولية هي احتمال أداء وظيفة المكون على مدى فترة معينة من الزمن تحت ظروف محددة للتشغيل . ويستخدم تحليل شجرة الخطأ كأداة لتخمين معولية النظم الهندسية المعقدة . طريقة التحليل الكلاسيكية لشجرة الفشل تحتوي على ابواب منطقية مثل ( و , او )ويمكن من خلالها تمثيل العناصر التي تسببت في فشل النظام , في هذا البحث نقوم بتحليل شجرة الخطأ الضبابية الى تحليل نوعي وتحليل كمي لغرض التعرف على اصغر المجموعات القاطعة والتي تسبب&nbsp;&nbsp; فشل النظام من خلال امثلة توضيحية لانظمة معقده ( تحوي على ربط متوالي&nbsp; وربط متوازي).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Reliability is the probability of performing the function of an item&nbsp;&nbsp; over a given period of time under the operating conditions encountered . &nbsp;A Fault tree analysis (FTA) is &nbsp;exceedingly used reliability guess tool for &nbsp;complex engineering systems. The classic fault tree analysis method, which contains (AND, OR) &nbsp;gates can efficacious build an analytical model to represent combinations of component failures that cause the failure of a system. In this paper, we analyze the fuzzy fault tree (FFT) to the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis for the purpose of identifying the a minimal cut set&nbsp; and the statement of system failure through &nbsp;examples of complex systems (containing linking sequent and parallel). This paper includes reliability analysis as one of its basic tasks

An Adapted Approach for User Profiling in a Recommendation System: Application to Industrial Diagnosis

In this paper, we propose a global architecture of a recommender tool, which represents a part of an existing collaborative platform. This tool provides diagnostic documents for industrial operators. The recommendation process considered here is composed of three steps: Collecting and filtering information; Prediction or recommendation step; evaluating and improvement. In this work, we focus on collecting and filtering step. We mainly use information result from collaborative sessions and documents describing solutions that are attributed to the complex diagnostic problems. The developed tool is based on collaborative filtering that operates on users' preferences and similar responses

A large deformation model for quasi-static to high strain rate response of rate-stiffening soft polymers

Soft polymers and polymer gels that contain dynamic, reversible crosslinks are rate-dependent materials used in applications ranging from biomedical to structural protection. Their highly rate-dependent response, especially for impact-mitigating structures, is important. Currently, there are no physics-motivated constitutive models that can predict the large-deformation elastic-viscoplastic response of these polymers at high loading rates (strain rates $\sim$10$^{\text{3}}$ s$^{\text{-1}}$). To address this gap, we have developed a constitutive model for rate-stiffening soft polymers with dynamic crosslinks to predict their large strain, non-linear, loading-unloading, and substantial rate-dependent response. We have conducted compression experiments on polyborosiloxane (PBS), an important rate-stiffening soft polymer with dynamic crosslinks, up to true strains of $\sim$125$\%$, over a wide strain rate range of 10$^{\text{-3}}$ s$^{\text{-1}}$ to 10$^{\text{3}}$ s$^{\text{-1}}$. The model reasonably accurately captures the response of PBS over six decades of strain rates. We propose boron-oxygen coordinate-bond dynamic crosslinks with relaxation time constant $\tau \approx$ 3 s and entanglements acting as dynamic crosslinks with $\tau \approx$ 0.001 s as the two main types of crosslink mechanisms in PBS. We have outlined a numerical update procedure to evaluate the convolution-like time integrals arising from dynamic crosslink kinetics. The predictive capabilities of our model and its finite element implementation are validated using experiments involving three-dimensional inhomogeneous deformations.Comment: Submitted for review in the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (JMPS