Knowledge of causes, clinical features and diagnosis of common zoonoses among medical practitioners in Tanzania

Many factors have been mentioned as contributing to under-diagnosis and under-reporting of zoonotic diseases particularly in the sub-Sahara African region. These include poor disease surveillance coverage, poor diagnostic capacity, the geographical distribution of those most affected and lack of clear strategies to address the plight of zoonotic diseases. The current study investigates the knowledge of medical practitioners of zoonotic diseases as a potential contributing factor to their under-diagnosis and hence under-reporting. The study was designed as a cross-sectional survey. Semi-structured open-ended questionnaire was administered to medical practitioners to establish the knowledge of anthrax, rabies, brucellosis, trypanosomiasis, echinococcosis and bovine tuberculosis in selected health facilities within urban and rural settings in Tanzania between April and May 2005. Frequency data were analyzed using likelihood ratio chi-square in Minitab version 14 to compare practitioners' knowledge of transmission, clinical features and diagnosis of the zoonoses in the two settings. For each analysis, likelihood ratio chi-square p-value of less than 0.05 was considered to be significant. Fisher's exact test was used where expected results were less than five. Medical practitioners in rural health facilities had poor knowledge of transmission of sleeping sickness and clinical features of anthrax and rabies in humans compared to their urban counterparts. In both areas the practitioners had poor knowledge of how echinococcosis is transmitted to humans, clinical features of echinococcosis in humans, and diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis in humans. Knowledge of medical practitioners of zoonotic diseases could be a contributing factor to their under-diagnosis and under-reporting in Tanzania. Refresher courses on zoonotic diseases should be conducted particularly to practitioners in rural areas. More emphasis should be put on zoonotic diseases in teaching curricula of medical practitioners' training institutions in Tanzania to improve the diagnosis, reporting and control of zoonotic diseases. Veterinary and medical collaboration should be strengthened to enable more effective control of zoonotic diseases in Tanzania

The RISAP-study: a complex intervention in risk communication and shared decision-making in general practice

General practitioners (GPs) and patients find it difficult to talk about risk of future disease, especially when patients have asymptomatic conditions, and treatment options are unlikely to cause immediate perceptible improvements in well-being. Further studies in risk communication training are needed. Aim:1) to systematically develop, describe and evaluate a complex intervention comprising a training programme for GPs in risk communication and shared decision-making, 2) to evaluate the effect of the training programme on real-life consultations between GPs and patients with high cholesterol levels, and 3) to evaluate patients' reactions during and after the consultations. Methods/Design The effect of the complex intervention, based around a training programme, will be evaluated in a cluster-randomised controlled trial with an intervention group and an active control group with 40 GPs and 280 patients in each group. The GPs will receive a questionnaire at baseline and after 6 months about attitudes towards risk communication and cholesterol-reducing medication. After each consultation with a participating high cholesterol-patient, the GPs will complete a questionnaire about decision satisfaction (Provider Decision Process Assessment Instrument). The patients will receive a questionnaire at baseline and after 3 and 6 months. It includes questions about adherence to chosen treatment (Morisky Compliance Scale), self-rated health (SF-12), enablement (Patient Enablement Instrument), and risk communication and decision-making effectiveness (COMRADE Scale). Prescriptions, contacts to the health services, and cholesterol level will be drawn from the registers. In each group, 12 consultations will be observed and tape-recorded. The patients from these 24 consultations will be interviewed immediately after the consultation and re-interviewed after 6 months. Eight purposefully selected GPs from the intervention group will be interviewed in a focus group 6 months after participation in the training programme. The process and context of the RISAP-study will be investigated in detail using an action research approach, in order to analyse adaptation of the intervention model to the specific context. Discussion This study aims at providing GPs and patients with a firm basis for active deliberation about preventive treatment options, with a view to optimising adherence to chosen treatment. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Protocol Registration System NCT0118705

The effect of primary particle size distribution on aggregation of nanoparticles: a numerical study

The effect of primary particle size distribution (PPSD) on nanoparticles aggregation in colloidal suspensions was investigated numerically by the discrete element model. The aggregate growth and structure in terms of fractal dimension, coordination number and the longest dimension, was examined. Final results show that at small PPSD variances, netlike structure was formed with aggregate branches interconnected in multiple locations, whereas at large variances aggregates with more compact structure and smaller longest dimension were generated. At broader PPSDs, particles assemble faster. The aggregate size distribution inversely appears broader at smaller PPSD variances. The 2D fractal dimension of aggregates increased from 1.46 to 1.55 as PPSD variance increased from 20 to 80, indicating more compact aggregates were formed at broader PPSD. Larger PPSD variance leads to larger coordination number (CN), even though subtle discrepancy has been observed in the evolutional curves of CN. The aggregate size, both mass-equivalent aggregate size and the longest dimension longest dimension, increases as PPSD variances decreases. The predicted result is qualitatively in good agreement with the data published in literature

The influence of inclined plates on expansion behaviour of solid suspensions in a liquid fluidised bed - a computational fluid dynamics study

A significant increase in the particle sedimentation rate can be achieved by introducing inclined plates into conventional fluidised beds. In turn, high suspension densities are possible at fluidisation velocities in excess of the particle terminal velocity. The installation of the inclined plates, however, alters the dynamic characteristics of the fluidised bed, in particular, impacting upon the expansion behaviour of the suspension. In the present work a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach was employed to investigate the influence of inclined plates on the expansion behaviour of solids suspensions in liquid fluidised beds. The model is based on the solution of the Eulerian multiphase equations for up to two different particle sizes with a continuous phase of water. The momentum equations treat hindered settling behaviour via the inclusion of a volume fraction dependent drag law. The computational model was validated against our experimental data and compared with the predictions of a kinematic model developed in one of our earlier works. In general the predictions made by both the CFD and the kinematic models were found to be in good agreement with the experimental results

Corrigendum to “Interactions in droplet and particle system of near unity size ratio” [Chem. Eng. Sci. 170 (2017) 154–175] (S0009250917302415) (10.1016/j.ces.2017.03.059))

The authors regret that in the above referenced article, there is an error in the Fig. 4b from Section 3.1 titled Transient interaction of droplet on particle at cold state that occurred unintentionally. Fig. 4b presents temporal variation in spread diameter ratio for a low Weber number [Formula presented] case (We ~ 0.9) corresponding to the high-speed visualizations of spreading and recoiling motions of a water droplet shown in Fig. 4a, wherein droplet density ?d= 998.2 kg/m3, droplet impingement velocity at the instant of impact (t = 0) vd,0~ 0.16 m/s, and initial droplet diameter dd,0~ 2.54 mm. The spread diameter ratio, ß is defined as the droplet spread on particle surface normalised by the initial droplet diameter where the time varying droplet spread is determined as the wetted arc length dson particle surface (see Fig. 1 below) which can be written as [Formula presented]where rpis particle radius and f is the arc angle subtended at particle centre, O. In the calculations of Fig. 4b in the article, however, instead of particle radius, diameter was used erroneously which caused the reported spread diameter ratio [Formula presented] to be twice of the actual numbers. After incorporating necessary correction based on particle radius, the revised Fig. 4b (Fig. 2) is presented as follows. Based on this revised figure, the following changes (in bold font) in the description of Fig. 4b in Section 3.1 are intended. This behaviour is quantified in Fig. 4b which presents temporal variations in the spread diameter ratio ds/dd,0where dsdenotes spread diameter of the impacting droplet along the curved periphery of the particle. The average value of the peaks in the experimental trend is ~ 1.0 which remains almost undamped in the first 50 ms of post-impact duration shown in Fig. 4b and reflects the reduced friction arising from hydrophobic nature of the applied coating. This reported anomaly was recently communicated to the authors by Evan Milacic at the Multi-scale Modelling of Multiphase Flows research group, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, in an expression of interest to use data of this article for his research work. For both general readership and more specific use of the reported research data, authors would like to request the appropriate journal editor to kindly include the revised figure as a corrigendum to this article. The intended change in the figure does not have any impact on rest of the scientific content of the article. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused in this regard

Influence of inclined plates on the expansion behaviour of particulate suspensions in a liquid fluidised bed

The installation of inclined plates into fluidised beds yields signi1cant increases in segregation rates, and hence new opportunities for achieving process intensi1cation. The expansion behaviour of suspensions in such a system was investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The present paper builds upon the work of Galvin and Nguyentranlam (2002), incorporating improvements into the general theoretical framework, and extending the description of the system to cover binary suspensions. The paper provides a de1nitive assessment of the model, using an idealised experimental system that matches the arrangement used to de1ne the model. The validation of the model is far more thorough than in the previous study, covering both the suspension concentrations, and the suspension lengths within the inclined channel. The theoretical description is likely to prove useful when applying the new system to adsorption, crystallization, and particle separations. In general, there is good agreement between the theoretical model and the experimental data, thus indicating the essential elements of this new fluidised bed system have been captured

Performance of the reflux classifier for gravity separation at full scale

The Reflux Classifier (RC) is a fluidized bed separator capable of operating at high hydraulic loadings due to the presence of parallel inclined plates within the system. When the fluidized suspension passes up through the inclined channels formed by the plates, faster settling particles segregate onto the inclined surfaces, and slide back down to the zone below, while slower settling particles pass on through. The parallel inclined plates provide for a much higher sedimentation area. This arrangement is suitable for both hydrosizing and gravity separation. At MEGS01, the results obtained for a pilot-scale study of the RC were reported [Galvin, K.P., Doroodchi, E., Callen, A.M., Lambert, N., Pratten, S.J., 2002. Pilot plant trial of the reflux classifier. Minerals Engineering, 15, 19–25]. Since then Ludowici MPE, in association with the University of Newcastle have developed the technology at the full-scale. The purpose of this paper is to provide details on the performance of the full-scale RC in the gravity separation of a coal and mineral matter feed in the size range of 0.25–2.0 mm. Historically, this feed has been processed using spirals, however, there is a strong trend now in Australia to employ fluidized bed devices, thus allowing significant changes to be made to the cut-point. The performance of the full-scale RC is described in terms of the partition curves for individual size fractions, and in terms of the yield–ash condition on the feed washability curve. It is concluded that the separation performance is equivalent to that obtained at the pilot scale

A novel hybrid chemical-looping oxy combustor process for the combustion of solid and gaseous fuels: Thermodynamic analysis

Abstract not availabl