Mitigation of Impact of HIV/AIDS in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

The goal of the "Mitigation of Impact of HIV/AIDS in Kinshasa" project is to preserve the human dignity and quality of life of individuals affected by HIV/AIDS, their families and their communities. The project, which began in 2001, is implemented by Femme Plus, a Congolese non-governmental organization, with the support of Trocaire and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). More specifically, the objectives of the project are to reduce the risk of HIV transmission through information and counseling of at least 5,000 People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and their families and to alleviate the socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS. The project is implemented through five centers and community networks. Centers provide psychosocial support, income-generating activities, medical care and payment of school fees for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC). HIV awareness sessions are organized in markets and health centers, while two Femme Plus centers provide Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT). The purpose of this evaluation has been to assess the effectiveness of the project in meeting its goal and objectives. The evaluation also looks at the operation and management of the project, its relevance in view of community needs and national policy and its sustainability. The evaluator conducted interviews and focus group discussions with Femme Plus management, staff, volunteers and partner organizations and conducted home visits to Femme Plus-selected beneficiaries. A total of 53 persons participated in the evaluation.Master of Public Healt

Optimal combination of signals from co-located gravitational wave interferometers for use in searches for a stochastic background

This article derives an optimal (i.e., unbiased, minimum variance) estimator for the pseudo-detector strain for a pair of co-located gravitational wave interferometers (such as the pair of LIGO interferometers at its Hanford Observatory), allowing for possible instrumental correlations between the two detectors. The technique is robust and does not involve any assumptions or approximations regarding the relative strength of gravitational wave signals in the detector pair with respect to other sources of correlated instrumental or environmental noise. An expression is given for the effective power spectral density of the combined noise in the pseudo-detector. This can then be introduced into the standard optimal Wiener filter used to cross-correlate detector data streams in order to obtain an optimal estimate of the stochastic gravitational wave background. In addition, a dual to the optimal estimate of strain is derived. This dual is constructed to contain no gravitational wave signature and can thus be used as on "off-source" measurement to test algorithms used in the "on-source" observation.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review D Resubmitted after editing paper in response to referee comments. Removed appendices A, B and edited text accordingly. Improved legibility of figures. Corrected several references. Corrected reference to science run number (S1 vs. S2) in text and figure caption

5-(Phenyl­diazen­yl)tropolone

The title compound [systematic name: (E)-2-hy­droxy-5-(phenyl­diazen­yl)cyclo­hepta-2,4,6-trien-1-one], C13H10N2O2, is essentially planar with an r.m.s. deviation of 0.036 (2) Å and a dihedral angle of 1.57 (8)° between the phenyl and tropolone rings. In the crystal, mol­ecules are linked by pairs of O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds into inversion dimers. The dimers are further connected by C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking inter­actions, with centroid–centroid distances of 3.6934 (9) and 3.6282 (9) Å

Building a Culture of Critical and Creative Thinking. Creating and Sustaining Higher-Order Thinking as part of a Quality Enhancement Plan

[EN] Creating and Sustaining Higher-Order Thinking as part of a Quality Enhancement Plan at a US UniversityThe TH!NK initiative at North Carolina State University seeks to bridge the gap between evidence-based research on teaching and actual teaching practices in the classroom. Through this work, the culture of teaching and learning on our campus is being transformed from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction that promotes higher-order thinking across a diverse array of disciplines. Participating faculty engage in intensive faculty development; create discipline-specific classroom activities and assignments; become adept at providing students feedback on their thinking skills; and engage in a learning community to share and provide peer feedback on pedagogical innovations. The primary student learning outcome (SLO) is for students to apply critical and creative thinking skills and behaviors in the process of solving problems and addressing questions. Methods to achieve the institutional transformation include implementation of a comprehensive faculty development focused on the use of evidence-based pedagogy that promotes higher-order thinking, and rigorous outcomes assessment to provide means for continual improvement. The program has expanded into multiple phases, and involves strategies to create a more sustainable culture of critical and creative thinking through formal and informal learning and scholarship.Allen, T.; Queen, S.; Gallardo-Williams, M.; Parks, L.; Auten, A.; Carson, S. (2019). Building a Culture of Critical and Creative Thinking. Creating and Sustaining Higher-Order Thinking as part of a Quality Enhancement Plan. En HEAD'19. 5th International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1391-1398. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD19.2019.9536OCS1391139

Detection regimes of the cosmological gravitational wave background from astrophysical sources

Key targets for gravitational wave (GW) observatories, such as LIGO and the next generation interferometric detector, Advanced LIGO, include core-collapse of massive stars and the final stage of coalescence of compact stellar remnants. The combined GW signal from such events occurring throughout the Universe will produce an astrophysical GW background (AGB), one that is fundamentally different from the GW background by very early Universe processes. One can classify contributions to the AGB for different classes of sources based on the strength of the GW emissions from the individual sources, their peak emission frequency, emission duration and their event rate density distribution. This article provides an overview of the detectability regimes of the AGB in the context of current and planned gravitational wave observatories. We show that there are two important AGB signal detection regimes, which we define as `continuous' and `popcorn noise'. We describe how the `popcorn noise' AGB regime evolves with observation time and we discuss how this feature distinguishes it from the GW background produced from very early Universe processes.Comment: accepted for publication in New Astronomy Reviews; 23 pages and 2 figure

The astrophysical gravitational wave stochastic background

A gravitational wave stochastic background of astrophysical origin may have resulted from the superposition of a large number of unresolved sources since the beginning of stellar activity. Its detection would put very strong constrains on the physical properties of compact objects, the initial mass function or the star formation history. On the other hand, it could be a 'noise' that would mask the stochastic background of cosmological origin. We review the main astrophysical processes able to produce a stochastic background and discuss how it may differ from the primordial contribution by its statistical properties. Current detection methods are also presented.Comment: appeared in Research in Astronomy & Astrophysics (RAA), vol 11 (2011) as Invited paper ; 20 pages and 7 figures; version corrected after we found an error in equation (5

Avaliação do uso da vacinação para a prevenção da doença do edema em suínos

A colibacilose enterotoxêmica (doença do edema) ocorre com muita freqüência nas criações de suínos do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Vários procedimentos têm sido adotados para o seu controle, como correções de manejo e ambiente, além de melhorias na formulação de rações, uso de antimicrobianos, de probióticos e reforços na área de higiene e de desinfecção ambiental, os quais nem sempre têm mostrado resultados satisfatórios. Também têm sido utilizadas vacinas inativadas contendo cepas patogênicas ou subunidades de Escherichia coli como uma alternativa, visando a prevenir e controlar a infecção. O presente trabalho avaliou o uso de uma bacterina autógena na prevenção da doença do edema em uma granja de suínos que apresentava elevada mortalidade após o desmame, com diagnóstico de infecção por Escherichia coli enterotoxêmica. A vacina foi preparada com uma amostra de Escherichia coli isolada em cultura pura de materiais coletados no surto. O programa de vacinação consistiu no uso de duas vacinações nas matrizes (aos 80 e 100 dias de gestação) e duas doses para os leitões (entre 15/17 e 35/38 dias de idade). Observou-se uma diminuição significativa da taxa de mortalidade nas fases de pré-creche e creche, mas não houve melhoria no ganho de peso diário

A Glimpse of the Stellar Populations and Elemental Abundances of Gravitationally Lensed, Quiescent Galaxies at z≳1z\gtrsim 1 with Keck Deep Spectroscopy

Gravitational lenses can magnify distant galaxies, allowing us to discover and characterize the stellar populations of intrinsically faint, quiescent galaxies that are otherwise extremely difficult to directly observe at high redshift from ground-based telescopes. Here, we present the spectral analysis of two lensed, quiescent galaxies at $z\gtrsim 1$ discovered by the ASTRO 3D Galaxy Evolution with Lenses survey: AGEL1323 ($M_*\sim 10^{11.1}M_{\odot}$, $z=1.016$, $\mu \sim 14.6$) and AGEL0014 ($M_*\sim 10^{11.3}M_{\odot}$, $z=1.374$, $\mu \sim 4.3$). We measured the age, [Fe/H], and [Mg/Fe] of the two lensed galaxies using deep, rest-frame-optical spectra (S/N $\gtrsim$ 40\AA$^{-1}$) obtained on the Keck I telescope. The ages of AGEL1323 and AGEL0014 are $5.6^{+0.8}_{-0.8}$ Gyr and $3.1^{+0.8}_{-0.3}$ Gyr, respectively, indicating that most of the stars in the galaxies were formed less than 2 Gyr after the Big Bang. Compared to nearby quiescent galaxies of similar masses, the lensed galaxies have lower [Fe/H] and [Mg/H]. Surprisingly, the two galaxies have comparable [Mg/Fe] to similar-mass galaxies at lower redshifts, despite their old ages. Using a simple analytic chemical evolution model connecting the instantaneously recycled element Mg with the mass-loading factors of outflows averaged over the entire star formation history, we found that the lensed galaxies may have experienced enhanced outflows during their star formation compared to lower-redshift galaxies, which may explain why they quenched early.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, submitted to ApJ; comments welcom

Estudo sorológico de isolados de Brachyspira pilosicoli de suínos da região sul do Brasil

A colite espiroquetal, doença infecciosa causada pela Brachyspira pilosicoli, foi recentemente descrita no Brasil e causa significativas perdas à produção suinícola por diarréia, perda de peso e piora da conversão alimentar. O agente é anaeróbico, fastidioso e a infecção causada pelo mesmo de difícil diagnóstico laboratorial. Dessa forma, o desenvolvimento de técnicas de diagnóstico nessa área apresenta particular relevância. No presente trabalho buscou-se analisar isolados da bactéria através da técnica sorológica da microaglutinação. Foram produzidos em coelhos soros hiperimunes contra duas amostras de referência de B. pilosicoli, 20 amostras da bactéria isoladas no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul e uma cepa de referência de outra espiroqueta patogênica (B. hyodysenteriae). Reagindo todas as cepas contra todos os soros, foram detectados vários padrões de reatividade cruzado. Pela grande variabilidade dos títulos, não houve possibilidade estabelecer um padrão sorológico capaz de permitir um agrupamento das bactérias analisadas em sorotipos. A existência dessa discrepância nas aglutinações realizadas com soros homólogos e heterólogos sugere compartilhamento de antígenos (cadeias laterais de açúcares) entre as amostras ou diferenças de quantidade dos açúcares na membrana celular externa. Por reagir contra todas as cepas de B. pilosicoli com título superiores a 1:1120, o antissoro produzido contra a amostra SIPV14 poderia ser utilizado em provas de diagnóstico, como a imuno-histoquímica e ELISA. Por reagir com todos os soros com títulos superiores a 1:2880, a cepa SIPV42 seria a mais indicada para ser utilizada para a produção de vacina para a prevenção da infecção intestinal contra a B. pilosicoli (colite espiroquetal)