Remarks of Justice Alito: The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law Commencement

The text appears substantially as it was delivered on May 23, 2008. The Catholic University of America bestowed the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws upon Justice Alito before his remarks

Adherence to Prophylactic Ferrous Sulphate and Associated Factors Among Pregnant Women Attending ANC Service in Public Health Facilities of Arba-Minch Town, Southern Ethiopia

Background: Ante natal care is a care given for pregnant   mothers to ensure the safe progress of the pregnancy. According to the standard of the World health organization, a woman is expected to have at least four ante natal visits before the end of her pregnancy. The purpose of ante natal follow-up is for early identification and treatment of pregnancy related problems that can cost the life of both the mother and the growing fetus. Many health problems affecting varied communities in the world are directly related with deficiency of one or more nutrients. Anemia is a worldwide health problem even though its prevalence is much higher in third world countries especially among women who face an increase in iron demands targeted at satisfying iron requirements of the mother and the fetus. As primary prevention, pregnant women are advised to increase the intake of diets rich in iron such as meat, cereals and varied fruits. Anemia will end  in   multitudes  of  effects  and  complications unless  early  detection  and  treatment  is  there.  The effect doubles when it coincides with pregnancy.  Currently, there is no sufficient information on the magnitude of adherence to prophylactic ferrous sulphate supplementation among pregnant women attending Ante natal care in most public health facilities of Ethiopia and the study area in particular. Therefore, the purpose of this study was  to assess the  adherence  to  prophylactic  ferrous  sulphate  among  pregnant  women  attending  Ante natal care  in  Public  health  facilities  of   Arba-Minch  town, southern Ethiopia .The general objective of this study was to  assess    adherence  to  prophylactic  ferrous  sulphate among  pregnant  women  attending  ante natal  service  in  Public  health  facilities  of  Arba-Minch  town,2016. In the method section, a health institution   based   cross-sectional   study was conducted   in Public health facilities of Arba-Minch Town among 350 pregnant women who have visited public health facilities of Arba Minch town during   the   study   period .Primary data was collected by using structured interviewer administered Amharic version questionnaire. After the data were fully entered to Epi-info version 3.5.1, the analysis was made by using SPSS version 20.0. A bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with adherence. According to this study, iron intake for a minimum of three months during the whole course of pregnancy was 83(24.06%). In the multivariable analysis, obstetric characteristics were associated with adherence to prophylactic ferrous sulphate supplementation .There was significant association between adherence and gestational age (AOR=8.363 and CI=2.509-27.877).The odds of adherence was 8.363 times higher in the third trimester compared to the respondents in the second trimester. There was also significant association between adherence and the number of ante natal follow-ups (AOR= 2.321 and CI=1.087-4.955). The odds of adherence among the respondents with more than four antenatal follow -ups was 2.321 times higher compared to the respondents with less than or equal to four ante natal follow- ups. As the adherence rate to prophylactic ferrous sulphate among women attending public health facilities in Arba Minch Town was only 24.06%, all health professionals should continuously inform and encourage the pregnant women to increase Ante natal visits

WASH services in former Internally Displaced People's camps (IDPs) in Northern Uganda

The Lord Resistance Army lead a rebellion in Northern Uganda that resulted into displacement of 2.2 million people into Internally Displaced Peoples Camps. The insurgency which span for two decades created a serious humanitarian crisis, people lived in camps without adequate water and sanitation facilities. Hand pump boreholes as source of water was not sufficient and as an emergency response, Government and International Relief Agencies motorized the boreholes and water supplied through piped systems. With peace, people returned to their original homes leaving behind the piped water infrastructures. Government with support from Development Partners initiated Water and Sanitation Development Facility programme as a mechanism for funding water and sanitation investments in all small towns. Through this programme, the emergence systems in the former IDP camps are being resized, rehabilitated and constructed to match the current population and development process, people are sensitised and so far changes are being registered

Quality of Perioperative Informations Provided and its Associated Factors Among Adult Patients Who Undergone Surgery in Public Hospitals of Gamo &Gofa Zones: A Mixed Design Study, Southern Ethiopia, 2019

Background: Surgery is one of biggest health related decisions done in one’s life with an outcome ranging in both extremes. It do have three phases. Preoperative, Intraoperative and Postoperative  phases. All the phases are interlinked and affect one another. Surgical outcomes are   found to be    affected by range of factors. Some of the factors could be social, financial, medical, immunological, and etc. Surgery as a professional procedure, is bound with multiples of concerns including clinical, professional, moral, Ethical and legal aspects. Appropriate health informations are an indispensable component of health care as well as surgery. Noting is known about the quality of perioperative informations provided in Public Hospitals of Gamo and Gofa Zones. Therefore, the purpose of this study will be to assess the quality of perioperative informations provided and its associated factors among adult patients who undergone surgery in public hospitals of Gamo and Gofa Zones. Method and materials: A facility based mixed design study was conducted from March-April 2019 in Arba minch, Chencha and Sawla Hospitals, Southern Ethiopia. A simple random sampling technique was employed to select 410 study participants among admitted adult patients who undergone surgery. Bivariate logistic regression analysis was done to identify candidates for multivariable logistic regression analysis. Explanatory variables with a p-value of less than 0.25 in the bivariate logistic regression analysis were included in the initial logistic model of multivariable logistic regression. Finally, statistically significant associations of variables were determined based on an Adjusted Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval and p-value <0.05. Result: the proportion of patients who received good quality perioperative informations are only 36.6%. In the multivariable analysis; Frequency of Hospital Visit  [AOR=2.604, 95% CI: 1.669-4.063],  Reasons for Hospital Visit [AOR = 2.370; 95% CI: 1.356-4.144], Previous Surgery [AOR = 2.370; 95% CI: 1.449-3.876], number of Previous Surgery [AOR = 1.808; 95% CI: 1.097-2.981], Place of Surgery[AOR =0.333; 95% CI:0.152-0.726], Surgical Professional [AOR =2.007; 95% CI:1.096-3.677] and Consenter [AOR =7.408; 95% CI:4.453-12.325] were significantly associated with the provision of good quality perioperative informations. Conclusion: According to this study, the proportion of patients who received good quality perioperative informations are only 36.6%.Therefore, all the concerned bodies must strive to improve the quality of informations to adult surgical patients

Statistical Analysis of the TSAD Interactome in Multiple Sclerosis: Multiple Testing, High Dimensional Regression and Interactions

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the Central Nervous System (CNS). The presence of Oligoclonal Band (OCB) in Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) is an important diagnostic tool in MS. The main aim of this study was to determine SNPs and SNPs-SNPs interactions in the genomic TSAD (T-Cell Specific Adaptor Proteins) region which explain the difference between two MS conditions: OCB positive vs. OCB negative in sampled Norwegian patients. The data to this study was obtained from the MS Registry Ulleval University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. Of 899 patients, 802 were OCB positive and 97 OCB negative, each has 923 SNPs at specific position in their chromosome measure. The study incorporated two different statistical methods to our data analysis. First, we apply variable selection based on Lasso method, here we discuss Lasso for Logistic Regression Analysis and see interaction effect for the Lasso selected SNPs. In the second section, we analyze variable selection based on test of association. Here, we used Chi-Square and Fisher’s exact test of association to see association between the statuses of OCB to each SNP. We found out that the Chi-Square test of association selected 34 significant SNPs and the association test for Fisher’s exact test selected 38 significant SNPs at significance level of 0.05. Then we used Boferroni and False Discovery Rate to statistically significant SNPs for the multiple testing corrections. Finally, we looked for interaction effects to some selected SNPs from test of association and we have determined SNPs and SNP-SNP interactions which appear to have significant associated to the OCB subpopulation of MS patients, based on our study of the Norwegian cohort. These are selected SNPs which have been selected by any of the methods that we used (various hypothesis testing and regressions). This is the SNPs that we think should be studied further and validated on a new dataset. Of particular importance are the seven SNP-SNP interactions which we found. It is the first time a SNP-SNP study has been performed on these data, and the finding will be communicated to the Norwegian molecular biologists to be followed up. Keywords: Multiple Sclerosis, OCB, TSAD, Multiple Testing, High Dimensional Regressions, LASSO DOI: 10.7176/JMPB/61-01 Publication date: November 30th 201