Flucytosine and cryptococcosis: time to urgently address the worldwide accessibility of a 50-year-old antifungal.

Current, widely accepted guidelines for the management of HIV-associated cryptococcal meningoencephalitis (CM) recommend amphotericin B combined with flucytosine (5-FC) for ≥2 weeks as the initial induction treatment of choice. However, access to flucytosine in Africa and Asia, where disease burden is greatest, is inadequate at present. While research into identifying effective and well-tolerated antifungal combinations that do not contain flucytosine continues, an ever-increasing body of evidence from in vitro, in vivo and clinical studies points to the benefits of flucytosine in the treatment of CM in both intravenous combinations with amphotericin B and oral combinations with high-dose fluconazole. This article provides an up-to-date review of this evidence, and the current issues and challenges regarding increasing access to this key component of combination antifungal therapy for cryptococcosis

The Stability of Polar Oxide Surfaces

The structures of the polar surfaces of ZnO are studied using ab initio calculations and surface x-ray diffraction. The experimental and theoretical relaxations are in good agreement. The polar surfaces are shown to be very stable; the cleavage energy for the (0001)-Zn and (0001̅ )-O surfaces is 4.0J/m2 comparable to 2.32J/m2 for the most stable nonpolar (1010) surface. The surfaces are stabilized by an electronic mechanism involving the transfer of 0.17 electrons between them. This leads to 2D metallic surface states, which has implications for the use of the material in gas sensing and catalytic applications

The golden hello and political transitions

© 2017. We analyze the influence of IMF and World Bank programs on political regime transitions. We develop an extended version of Acemoglu and Robinson's [American Economic Review 91, 2001] model of political transitions to show how the anticipation of new loans from international financial institutions can trigger political transitions which would not otherwise have taken place. We test this unexplored implication of the theory empirically. We find that the anticipation of receiving new loan programs immediately af ter a political regime transition increases the probability of a transition from autocracy to democracy and reduces the probability of democratic survival

Foreign influence and domestic policy

In an interconnected world, economic and political interests inevitably reach beyond national borders. Since policy choices generate external economic and political costs, foreign state and non-state actors have an interest in influencing policy actions in other sovereign countries to their advantage. Foreign influence is a strategic choice aimed at internalizing these externalities and takes three principal forms: (i) voluntary agreements, (ii) policy interventions based on rewarding or sanctioning the target country to obtain a specific change in policy, and (iii) institution interventions aimed at influencing the political institutions in the target country. We propose a unifying theoretical framework to study when foreign influence is chosen and in which form, and use it to organize and evaluate the new political economics literature on foreign influence along with work in cognate disciplines (JEL D72, D74, F51, F53, P26, P33).</jats:p

Novel therapeutic targets in epilepsy: oxidative stress and iron metabolism

Malformations of Cortical Development (MCD) are one of the most frequent causes of multidrug‐resistant focal epilepsy, of which focal cortical dysplasia type IIb (FCDIIb) and Tuberous Sclerosis

Testing Identifiable Kernel P Systems Using an X-machine Approach

This paper presents a testing approach for kernel P systems (kP systems), based on the X-machine testing framework and the concept of cover automaton. The testing methodology ensures that the implementation conforms the speci cations, under certain conditions, such as the identi ably concept in the context of kernel P systems

Limited open reduction and Ilizarov external fixation in the treatment of distal tibial fractures

The authors reviewed 31 distal tibial fractures (16 involving the tibial plafond) treated with Ilizarov external fixation. The study population was composed of 19 males and 12 females, with an average age of 54. The fractures were classified according to the AO classification: A1 (3), A2 (6), A3 (6), C1 (2), C2 (8), C3 (6). There were six open injuries. In 14 pilon cases, open reduction of the intra-articular fragments and bone grafting via a limited incision was performed. Clinical follow-up averaged 28 months (range 18-42). All but one fracture united with an average healing time of 13.9 weeks. Nearly all patients with AO type A fracture had excellent or good functional scores. The 14 cases of AO C2 and C3 group had five (38%) good results, five (38%) fair results and three (24%) poor results. This method yielded results comparable with previous studies using open reduction and internal fixation. Twenty-nine percent of the patients had pin track infection, which remained the most important complication of this method. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin