Development of a species-specific coproantigen ELISA for human taenia solium taeniasis

Taenia solium causes human neurocysticercosis and is endemic in underdeveloped countries where backyard pig keeping is common. Microscopic fecal diagnostic methods for human T. solium taeniasis are not very sensitive, and Taenia saginata and Taenia solium eggs are indistinguishable under the light microscope. Coproantigen (CoAg) ELISA methods are very sensitive, but currently only genus (Taenia) specific. This paper describes the development of a highly species-specific coproantigen ELISA test to detect T. solium intestinal taeniasis. Sensitivity was maintained using a capture antibody of rabbit IgG against T. solium adult whole worm somatic extract, whereas species specificity was achieved by utilization of an enzyme-conjugated rabbit IgG against T. solium adult excretory-secretory (ES) antigen. A known panel of positive and negative human fecal samples was tested with this hybrid sandwich ELISA. The ELISA test gave 100% specificity and 96.4% sensitivity for T. solium tapeworm carriers (N = 28), with a J index of 0.96. This simple ELISA incorporating anti-adult somatic and anti-adult ES antibodies provides the first potentially species-specific coproantigen test for human T. solium taeniasis

Tourism innovation policy: Implementation and outcomes

The paper opens the “black box” of tourism innovation policy implementation through an analysis of the Spanish Programme of Innovative Business Groups that foster innovation through hybrid top-down bottom-up collaboration embedded in clusters. The focus is on three main issues: process of policy implementation, types of innovation that emerged, and the outcomes and barriers. The findings show the contradictions of this hybrid model of implementation with mixed outcomes of successful collaborations and abandoned trajectories. The Programme has stimulated the ‘propensity’ to innovate resulting in different types of innovation but has revealed the existence of mutually-reinforcing barriers. Some suggestions for future improvements of tourism innovation policies are offered including the importance of polycentricity in effective policy formulation and implementation.The research paper has been supported by the Spanish National R&D&I Plan 2008-2011 (CSO2011-26396). The authors are grateful to the state owned company "Innovation Management and Tourism Technologies, SEGITTUR" for their generous support and data provision. Isabel Rodriguez thanks the University of Alicante who funded her visit to the University of Surrey, facilitating the author’s collaboration

The innovation journey of new-to-tourism entrepreneurs

This study addresses the neglect of an overall analysis of the generative process of innovation in tourism studies. A conceptual framework draws together the fragmented literature on the innovation process which is visualized as a series of non-linear tasks from idea generation to diffusion. The conceptual framework is explored through a systematic analysis of the tourism innovation journey of 24 new-to-tourism entrepreneurs establishing start-ups in Spain. The analysis draws on the innovators’ narrations about their distinctive journeys to provide a more holistic picture of the innovation process. Drilling down into the sub-processes within each major task reveals the complexity of an innovation journey that is highly dynamic, uncertain, experimental and market-driven. A model of the innovation process is proposed based on the findings

"My Children and I Will no Longer Suffer from Malaria": A Qualitative Study of the Acceptance and Rejection of Indoor Residual Spraying to Prevent Malaria in Tanzania.

The objective of this study was to identify attitudes and misconceptions related to acceptance or refusal of indoor residual spraying (IRS) in Tanzania for both the general population and among certain groups (e.g., farmers, fishermen, community leaders, and women). This study was a series of qualitative, semi-structured, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions conducted from October 2010 to March 2011 on Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. Three groups of participants were targeted: acceptors of IRS (those who have already had their homes sprayed), refusers (those whose communities have been sprayed, but refused to have their individual home sprayed), and those whose houses were about to be sprayed as part of IRS scale-up. Interviews were also conducted with farmers, fishermen, women, community leaders and members of non-government organizations responsible for community mobilization around IRS. Results showed refusers are a very small percentage of the population. They tend to be more knowledgeable people such as teachers, drivers, extension workers, and other civil servants who do not simply follow the orders of the local government or the sprayers, but are skeptical about the process until they see true results. Refusal took three forms: 1) refusing partially until thorough explanation is provided; 2) accepting spray to be done in a few rooms only; and 3) refusing outright. In most of the refusal interviews, refusers justified why their houses were not sprayed, often without admitting that they had refused. Reasons for refusal included initial ignorance about the reasons for IRS, uncertainty about its effectiveness, increased prevalence of other insects, potential physical side effects, odour, rumours about the chemical affecting fertility, embarrassment about moving poor quality possessions out of the house, and belief that the spray was politically motivated. To increase IRS acceptance, participants recommended more emphasis on providing thorough public education, ensuring the sprayers themselves are more knowledgeable about IRS, and asking that community leaders encourage participation by their constituents rather than threatening punishment for noncompliance. While there are several rumours and misconceptions concerning IRS in Tanzania, acceptance is very high and continues to increase as positive results become apparent

A cohort study of post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome and PCV2 in 178 pigs from birth to 14 weeks on a single farm in England

Our hypothesis was that pigs that develop post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) are detectable from an early age with signs of weight loss and other clinical and serological abnormalities. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the temporally varying and fixed events linked with the clinical incidence of PMWS by comparing affected and unaffected pigs in a cohort of 178 male piglets. Piglets were enrolled at birth and examined each week. Samples of blood were collected at regular intervals. The exposures measured were porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) antibody titres in all 178 and PCV2 antigen in a subset of 75 piglets. We also observed piglet health and measured their weight, and a post-mortem examination was performed by an external laboratory on all pigs between 6 and 14 weeks of age that died. From the cohort, 14 (8%) pigs died from PMWS and 4% from other causes. A further 37 pigs between 6 and 14 weeks of age died from PMWS (30) and ileitis and other causes (7). PMWS was only apparent in pigs from 1 to 2 weeks before death when they wasted rapidly. There were no other characteristic clinical signs and no obvious gross clinical lesions post-mortem. There was no strong link with PCV2 antibody throughout life but PCV2 antigen level was higher from 4 to 6 weeks of age in pigs that died from PMWS compared with pigs that died from other causes

Supporting collaborative improvement of resources in the Khresmoi health information system

Since medical knowledge relies on both scientific knowledge and real-life experience, the importance of user contributions to improve resources in health systems cannot be underestimated. We present work from the Khresmoi project which aims to develop a multilingual multimodal search and access system for biomedical information and documents. Khresmoi targets three distinct user classes with differing levels of medical knowledge and information requirements, namely: general public, general practitioners, and, as an example of an area of clinical expertise, radiologists. The Khresmoi system will provide these users with valuable (whose quality has been evaluated and approved) and enriched (meta information from biomedical knowledge bases is added) medical information, selected to fit their medical knowledge and their preferred language. The system will include novel collaborative components of the system are designed to provide means for users to contribute to the system’s knowledge by adding or correcting annotations to the documents, as well as a collaborative platform where they will be able to share their own files and both annotate and discuss them

Evaluation of TypeSeq, a Novel High-Throughput, Low-Cost, Next-Generation Sequencing-Based Assay for Detection of 51 Human Papillomavirus Genotypes.

BackgroundHuman papillomaviruses (HPV) cause over 500 000 cervical cancers each year, most of which occur in low-resource settings. Human papillomavirus genotyping is important to study natural history and vaccine efficacy. We evaluated TypeSeq, a novel, next-generation, sequencing-based assay that detects 51 HPV genotypes, in 2 large international epidemiologic studies.MethodsTypeSeq was evaluated in 2804 cervical specimens from the Study to Understand Cervical Cancer Endpoints and Early Determinants (SUCCEED) and in 2357 specimens from the Costa Rica Vaccine Trial (CVT). Positive agreement and risks of precancer for individual genotypes were calculated for TypeSeq in comparison to Linear Array (SUCCEED). In CVT, positive agreement and vaccine efficacy were calculated for TypeSeq and SPF10-LiPA.ResultsWe observed high overall and positive agreement for most genotypes between TypeSeq and Linear Array in SUCCEED and SPF10-LiPA in CVT. There was no significant difference in risk of precancer between TypeSeq and Linear Array in SUCCEED or in estimates of vaccine efficacy between TypeSeq and SPF10-LiPA in CVT.ConclusionsThe agreement of TypeSeq with Linear Array and SPF10-LiPA, 2 well established standards for HPV genotyping, demonstrates its high accuracy. TypeSeq provides high-throughput, affordable HPV genotyping for world-wide studies of cervical precancer risk and of HPV vaccine efficacy

Modeling long-term persistence in hydroclimatic time series using a hidden state Markov model

A hidden state Markov (HSM) model is developed as a new approach for generating hydroclimatic time series with long-term persistence. The two-state HSM model is motivated by the fact that the interaction of global climatic mechanisms produces alternating wet and dry regimes in Australian hydroclimatic time series. The HSM model provides an explicit mechanism to stochastically simulate these quasi-cyclic wet and dry periods. This is conceptually sounder than the current stochastic models used for hydroclimatic time series simulation. Models such as the lag-one autoregressive (AR(1)) model have no explicit mechanism for simulating the wet and dry regimes. In this study the HSM model was calibrated to four long-term Australian hydroclimatic data sets. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo method known as the Gibbs sampler was used for model calibration. The results showed that the locations significantly influenced by tropical weather systems supported the assumptions of the HSM modeling framework and indicated a strong persistence structure. In contrast, the calibration of the AR(1) model to these data sets produced no statistically significant evidence of persistence.Mark Thyer and George Kucze

CENP-F stabilizes kinetochore-microtubule attachments and limits dynein stripping of corona cargoes

Accurate chromosome segregation demands efficient capture of microtubules by kinetochores and their conversion to stable bioriented attachments that can congress and then segregate chromosomes. An early event is the shedding of the outermost fibrous corona layer of the kinetochore following microtubule attachment. Centromere protein F (CENP-F) is part of the corona, contains two microtubule-binding domains, and physically associates with dynein motor regulators. Here, we have combined CRISPR gene editing and engineered separation-of-function mutants to define how CENP-F contributes to kinetochore function. We show that the two microtubule-binding domains make distinct contributions to attachment stability and force transduction but are dispensable for chromosome congression. We further identify a specialized domain that functions to limit the dynein-mediated stripping of corona cargoes through a direct interaction with Nde1. This antagonistic activity is crucial for maintaining the required corona composition and ensuring efficient kinetochore biorientation