AeDES: a next-generation monitoring and forecasting system for environmental suitability of Aedes-borne disease transmission

Aedes-borne diseases, such as dengue and chikungunya, are responsible for more than 50 million infections worldwide every year, with an overall increase of 30-fold in the last 50 years, mainly due to city population growth, more frequent travels and ecological changes. In the United States of America, the vast majority of Aedes -borne infections are imported from endemic regions by travelers, who can become new sources of mosquito infection upon their return home if the exposed population is susceptible to the disease, and if suitable environmental conditions for the mosquitoes and the virus are present. Since the susceptibility of the human population can be determined via periodic monitoring campaigns, the environmental suitability for the presence of mosquitoes and viruses becomes one of the most important pieces of information for decision makers in the health sector. We present a next-generation monitoring and forecasting system for $$\underline{\textit{Ae}}{} \textit{des}$$ Ae ̲ des -borne d iseases’ e nvironmental s uitability ( Ae DES) of transmission in the conterminous United States and transboundary regions, using calibrated ento-epidemiological models, climate models and temperature observations. After analyzing the seasonal predictive skill of Ae DES, we briefly consider the recent Zika epidemic, and the compound effects of the current Central American dengue outbreak happening during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, to illustrate how a combination of tailored deterministic and probabilistic forecasts can inform key prevention and control strategies

Human plague: An old scourge that needs new answers

Yersinia pestis, the bacterial causative agent of plague, remains an important threat to human health. Plague is a rodent-borne disease that has historically shown an outstanding ability to colonize and persist across different species, habitats, and environments while provoking sporadic cases, outbreaks, and deadly global epidemics among humans. Between September and November 2017, an outbreak of urban pneumonic plague was declared in Madagascar, which refocused the attention of the scientific community on this ancient human scourge. Given recent trends and plague’s resilience to control in the wild, its high fatality rate in humans without early treatment, and its capacity to disrupt social and healthcare systems, human plague should be considered as a neglected threat. A workshop was held in Paris in July 2018 to review current knowledge about plague and to identify the scientific research priorities to eradicate plague as a human threat. It was concluded that an urgent commitment is needed to develop and fund a strong research agenda aiming to fill the current knowledge gaps structured around 4 main axes: (i) an improved understanding of the ecological interactions among the reservoir, vector, pathogen, and environment; (ii) human and societal responses; (iii) improved diagnostic tools and case management; and (iv) vaccine development. These axes should be cross-cutting, translational, and focused on delivering context-specific strategies. Results of this research should feed a global control and prevention strategy within a “One Health” approach

Decreased tibial nerve movement in patients with failed back surgery syndrome and persistent leg pain

Purpose To measure and compare the total and normalised tibial nerve movements during forward bending in patients with and without failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) and persistent leg pain following anatomically successful lumbar decompression surgery and demonstrated no psychological stress. Nerve pathomechanics may contribute to FBSS with persistent leg pain following anatomically successful lumbar decompression surgery

Docile bodies and imaginary minds : on Schön's reflection in action

The modern debate on reflection in education started in the Anglo-American world at the beginning of the 1980s and spread from there to the Nordic countries. The focus in this debate has been on how professional practitioners, such as teachers and nurses, can use reflection in their professions. At the center of this debate is, and has been since 1983 when it was first published, Schön’s The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. A pivotal concept in Schön’s discussions, as well as in his theory on the reflective practitioner, is reflection-in-action. Schön uses this concept to explain how practitioners develop a certain kind of thinking – thinking incorporated in action – which enables them to accomplish their work. Schön’s reflection-in-action concept is the main focus of this thesis. I analyze the concept as well as the discursive resources on which it relies. In the introductory background section, I first discuss Schön in the modern reflection-field in education and teaching. I then proceed to consider the relevance of Dewey to an outline of Schön’s theory of the reflective practitioner. I complete the background section with an introductory analysis, where I use a Wittgenstein-influenced critique by Newman in order to discuss the epistemological validity of Schön’s concept of reflection-in-action. This discussion about Newman’s critique is also the point of departure for the four articles in section two in which I develop my main theoretical claims in this thesis. I use two kinds of analytical modes. In articles 1 and 2 I mainly use conceptualizations from Merleau- Ponty whereas in articles 3 and 4 I use conceptualizations from Foucault as analytical resources. These two analytical modes serve the overriding purposes of my study and help me to answer the two main questions that structure the analytical efforts in the articles and in the thesis as a whole. The questions are: (i) is Schön’s suggestion “reflection-inaction” valid as an epistemological suggestion for describing and analyzing teacher practice, (ii) how can Schön’s concept of reflection-in-action and its use in education be conceived as matters of discourse? In the first article I claim that Schön’s “reflection-in-action” involves a control-matrix which recognizes the “mind” as controlling and the body as obeying, a claim which, if valid, makes Schön’s concept highly problematic. In the second article I argue that in the modern reflection debate in education there has been a tendency to interpret Dewey as linked to Cartesian ontology, a link from which Dewey needs to be saved. In article three I reframe Schön’s reflection concept and claim that his theory of the reflective practitioner is to be recognized as a concept that is interwoven with a particular historical and political technique for the construction of subjectivity. In the fourth article I argue that the reflection theme may be viewed as a component in a discursive battle about visuality and light

Public and private veterinary services in West and Central Africa: policy failures and opportunities

The livestock sector in most African countries, in particular in the Sahel region, remains underexploited. It is traditionally managed in pastoralist systems that best guarantee the environmental sustainability of the arid and semi-arid grasslands, which can be hardly used for agriculture. However, pastoralists are vulnerable to exclusion to social services because they are remote to educational and political centres. The majority of livestock, however, are kept in mixed crop-livestock systems in which livestock have multiple roles such as producing food, generating income, providing manure, producing power, being financial instruments and enhancing social status. Livestock breeding faces many challenges and constraints including transboundary animal diseases (TADs) and increasing waves of droughts due to climate change as well as politically and economically instable states. Despite that Sahelian livestock owners have robust empirical methods to protect their basis of livelihood-their livestock-they need and appreciate quality medicines, vaccines and veterinary services. Operational veterinary services are at the heart of controlling important livestock diseases to reduce impacts on livelihoods. There are effective control measures such as anthrax vaccination of livestock that also safeguard human health. Veterinary services are equally at the heart of early detection of TADs and surveillance and response to epidemic and zoonotic diseases. But how can the services, composed of public and private veterinarians, veterinary technicians, community animal health workers and outreach services, meat inspectors and monitoring/surveillance professionals, better ensure and satisfy the needs of livestock owners, their families and other stakeholders such as public health and rural development? Which roles do international and national policies play? We review the status of veterinary services in the Sahel over the last 20 years and relate their provided services to overarching policy changes such as the privatisation of veterinary services and external funding schemes and programmes. We conclude on new ways forward such as implementation of intersectoral collaborations of professionals in remote Sahelian zones and needed operational research in optimising services