Exploring the Time to Intervene with a Reactive Mass Vaccination Campaign in Measles Epidemics.

The current WHO policy during measles outbreaks focuses on case management rather than reactive vaccination campaigns in urban areas of resource-poor countries having low vaccine coverage. Vaccination campaigns may be costly, or not timely enough to impact significantly on morbidity and mortality. We explored the time available for intervention during two recent epidemics. Our analysis suggests that the spread of measles in African urban settings may not be as fast as expected. Examining measles epidemic spread in Kinshasa (DRC), and Niamey (Niger) reveals a progression of smaller epidemics. Intervening with a mass campaign or in areas where cases have not yet been reported could slow the epidemic spread. The results of this preliminary analysis illustrate the importance of revisiting outbreak response plans

Nuclei with Tetrahedral Symmetry

We discuss a point-group-theory based method of searching for new regions of nuclear stability. We illustrate the related strategy with realistic calculations employing the tetrahedral and the octahedral point groups. In particular, several nuclei in the Rare Earth region appear as excellent candidates to study the new mechanism.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, submitted to International Journal of Modern Physics

Towards a microscopic description of the fission process

One major issue in nuclear physics is to develop a consistent model able to describe on the same footing the different aspects of the fission process, i.e. properties of the fissioning system, fission dynamics and fragment distributions. Microscopic fission studies based on the mean-field approximation are here presented

Structure properties of 226{}^{226}Th and 256,258,260{}^{256,258,260}Fm fission fragments: mean field analysis with the Gogny force

The constrained Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov method is used with the Gogny interaction D1S to calculate potential energy surfaces of fissioning nuclei ${}^{226}$Th and ${}^{256,258,260}$Fm up to very large deformations. The constraints employed are the mass quadrupole and octupole moments. In this subspace of collective coordinates, many scission configurations are identified ranging from symmetric to highly asymmetric fragmentations. Corresponding fragment properties at scission are derived yielding fragment deformations, deformation energies, energy partitioning, neutron binding energies at scission, neutron multiplicities, charge polarization and total fragment kinetic energies.Comment: 15 pages, 23 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C (2007

Microscopic Transport Theory of Nuclear Processes

We formulate a microscopic theory of the decay of a compound nucleus through fission which generalizes earlier microscopic approaches of fission dynamics performed in the framework of the adiabatic hypothesis. It is based on the constrained Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov procedure and the Generator Coordinate Method, and requires an effective nucleon-nucleon interaction as the only input quantity. The basic assumption is that the slow evolution of the nuclear shape must be treated explicitely, whereas the rapidly time-dependent intrinsic excitations can be treated by statistical approximations. More precisely, we introduce a reference density which represents the slow evolution of the nuclear shape by a reduced density matrix and the state of intrinsic excitations by a canonical distribution at each given shape of the nucleus. The shape of the nuclear density distribution is described by parameters ("generator coordinates"), not by "superabundant" degrees of freedom introduced in addition to the complete set of nucleonic degrees of freedom. We first derive a rigorous equation of motion for the reference density and, subsequently, simplify this equation on the basis of the Markov approximation. The temperature which appears in the canonical distribution is determined by the requirement that, at each time t, the reference density should correctly reproduce the mean excitation energy at given values of the shape parameters. The resulting equation for the "local" temperature must be solved together with the equations of motion obtained for the reduced density matrix.Comment: 33 pages, accepted in Nucl. Phys.

Dosing pole recommendations for lymphatic filariasis elimination: A height-weight quantile regression modeling approach

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends height or age-based dosing as alternatives to weight-based dosing for mass drug administration lymphatic filariasis (LF) elimination programs. The goals of our study were to compare these alternative dosing strategies to weight-based dosing and to develop and evaluate new height-based dosing pole scenarios. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Age, height and weight data were collected from \u3e26,000 individuals in five countries during a cluster randomized LF clinical trial. Weight-based dosing for diethylcarbamazine (DEC; 6 mg/kg) and ivermectin (IVM; 200 ug/kg) with tablet numbers derived from a table of weight intervals was treated as the gold standard for this study. Following WHO recommended age-based dosing of DEC and height-based dosing of IVM would have resulted in 32% and 27% of individuals receiving treatment doses below those recommended by weight-based dosing for DEC and IVM, respectively. Underdosing would have been especially common in adult males, who tend to have the highest LF prevalence in many endemic areas. We used a 3-step modeling approach to develop and evaluate new dosing pole cutoffs. First, we analyzed the clinical trial data using quantile regression to predict weight from height. We then used weight predictions to develop new dosing pole cutoff values. Finally, we compared different dosing pole cutoffs and age and height-based WHO dosing recommendations to weight-based dosing. We considered hundreds of scenarios including country- and sex-specific dosing poles. A simple dosing pole with a 6-tablet maximum for both DEC and IVM reduced the underdosing rate by 30% and 21%, respectively, and was nearly as effective as more complex pole combinations for reducing underdosing. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Using a novel modeling approach, we developed a simple dosing pole that would markedly reduce underdosing for DEC and IVM in MDA programs compared to current WHO recommended height or age-based dosing

GDR Feeding of the Highly-Deformed Band in 42Ca

The gamma-ray spectra from the decay of the GDR in the compound nucleus reaction 18O+28Si at bombarding energy of 105 MeV have been measured in an experiment using the EUROBALL IV and HECTOR arrays. The obtained experimental GDR strength function is highly fragmented, with a low energy (10 MeV) component, indicating a presence of a large deformation and Coriolis effects. In addition, the preferential feeding of the highly-deformed band in 42Ca by this GDR low energy component is observed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the Zakopane2004 Symposium, to be published in Acta Phys. Pol. B36 (2005

A multi-center, open-labeled, cluster-randomized study of the safety of double and triple drug community mass drug administration for lymphatic filariasis

BackgroundThe Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) provides antifilarial medications to hundreds of millions of people annually to treat filarial infections and prevent elephantiasis. Recent trials have shown that a single-dose, triple-drug treatment (ivermectin with diethylcarbamazine and albendazole [IDA]) is superior to a two-drug combination (diethylcarbamazine plus albendazole [DA]) that is widely used in LF elimination programs. This study was performed to assess the safety of IDA and DA in a variety of endemic settings.Methods and findingsLarge community studies were conducted in five countries between October 2016 and November 2017. Two studies were performed in areas with no prior mass drug administration (MDA) for filariasis (Papua New Guinea and Indonesia), and three studies were performed in areas with persistent LF despite extensive prior MDA (India, Haiti, and Fiji). Participants were treated with a single oral dose of IDA (ivermectin, 200 μg/kg; diethylcarbamazine, 6 mg/kg; plus albendazole, a fixed dose of 400 mg) or with DA alone. Treatment assignment in each study site was randomized by locality of residence. Treatment was offered to residents who were ≥5 years of age and not pregnant. Adverse events (AEs) were assessed by medical teams with active follow-up for 2 days and passive follow-up for an additional 5 days. A total of 26,836 persons were enrolled (13,535 females and 13,300 males). A total of 12,280 participants were treated with DA, and 14,556 were treated with IDA. On day 1 or 2 after treatment, 97.4% of participants were assessed for AEs. The frequency of all AEs was similar after IDA and DA treatment (12% versus 12.1%, adjusted odds ratio for IDA versus DA 1.15, 95% CI 0.87-1.52, P = 0.316); 10.9% of participants experienced mild (grade 1) AEs, 1% experienced moderate (grade 2) AEs, and 0.1% experienced severe (grade 3) AEs. Rates of serious AEs after DA and IDA treatment were 0.04% (95% CI 0.01%-0.1%) and 0.01% (95% CI 0.00%-0.04%), respectively. Severity of AEs was not significantly different after IDA or DA. Five of six serious AEs reported occurred after DA treatment. The most common AEs reported were headache, dizziness, abdominal pain, fever, nausea, and fatigue. AE frequencies varied by country and were higher in adults and in females. AEs were more common in study participants with microfilaremia (33.4% versus 11.1%, P ConclusionsIn this study, we observed that IDA was well tolerated in LF-endemic populations. Posttreatment AE rates and severity did not differ significantly after IDA or DA treatment. Thus, results of this study suggest that IDA should be as safe as DA for use as a MDA regimen for LF elimination in areas that currently receive DA.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov registration number: NCT02899936

Evidence for the Jacobi shape transition in hot 46Ti

The gamma-rays from the decay of the GDR in 46Ti compound nucleus formed in the 18O+28Si reaction at bombarding energy 105 MeV have been measured in an experiment using a setup consisting of the combined EUROBALL IV, HECTOR and EUCLIDES arrays. A comparison of the extracted GDR lineshape data with the predictions of the thermal shape fluctuation model shows evidence for the Jacobi shape transition in hot 46Ti. In addition to the previously found broad structure in the GDR lineshape region at 18-27 MeV caused by large deformations, the presence of a low energy component (around 10 MeV), due to the Coriolis splitting in prolate well deformed shape, has been identified for the first time.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, proceedings of the COMEX1 conference, June 2003, Paris; to be published in Nucl. Phys.