Risk factors for severe acute malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months admitted at Lubango Pediatric Hospital, Angola

Background: The 4th Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to reduce the mortality rates among underfives by two thirds between 1990 and 2015. Efforts to prevent child deaths need to be stepped up in order to meet that target but the challenge is how to reduce morbidity and mortality among children with SAM. In SSA, the nutritional and health situation is worsening. The hospital case fatality rates(CFR) for SAM remain high due to faulty case management in resource-poor settings. Despite the improved understanding of the clinical management of SAM, the CFR among admitted children in SSA has remained between 20- 30%. This study sought to determine the social demographic and clinical risk factors associated with severe acute malnutrition among children admitted at Lubango Pediatric Hospital. Methods: This was a case-control design where cases were compared with age and sex -matched controls with weight for height. Data was collected using an interviewer administered structured questionnaire, with caregivers as respondents: Clinical history and examination was conducted by a trained clinician eliciting duration of illness and categorizing symptoms such as fever and cough among others. The Nutritional status of the child was determined using anthropometric measurement. A pre- HIV test counselling was done to the care takers and the ones who gave consent, an HIVantibody test was conducted to the child using Determine and unigold HIV rapid test followed by a post-test counselling for both the HIV positive and negative children. For children who had been admitted the same year, the files were found for confirmation of the diagnosis of the previous admission(s).Results: The significant predictors of severe malnutrition were family order, HIV test results, previous history of admission with diarrhea and malnutrition, duration of breast feeding and number of previous admissionsConclusion: The burden of severe malnutrition is still high among children admitted in hospital. There is need to strengthen breast feeding campaigns and family planning strategies. Further clinicians need to be proactive in assessing the risk of malnutrition in HIV positive children and children with recurrent admissions especially with malnutrition and diarrhea

Testing the effect of site selection and parameter setting on REVEALS-model estimates of plant abundance using th Czech Quaternary Palynological database

International audiencetypes, PFTs) is used in the LANDCLIM project to assess the effect of human-induced land-cover change on past climate in NW Europe. Using the Czech Quaternary Pollen Database, this case study evaluates the extent to which selection of data and input parameters for the REVEALS model applications would affect reconstruction outcomes. The REVEALS estimates of PFTs (grid-cell based REVEALS PFT estimates, GB REVEALS PFT-s) are calculated for five time windows of the Holocene using fossil pollen records available in each 1°×1°grid cell of the Czech Republic. The input data and parameters selected for testing are: basin type and size, number of 14C dates used to establish the chronology of the pollen records, number of taxa, and pollen productivity estimates (PPE). We used the Spearman correlation coefficient to test the hypothesis that there is no association between GB REVEALS PFT-s using different data and parameter inputs. The results show that differences in the basin size and type, number of dates, number and type of taxa (entomophilous included or not), and PPE dataset do not affect the rank orders of the GB REVEALS PFT-s significantly, except for the cases when entomophilous taxa are included. It implies that, given careful selection of data and parameter and interpretation of results, REVEALS applications can use pollen records from lakes and bogs of different sizes together for reconstruction of past land cover at the regional to sub-continental spatial scales for purposes such as the study of past land cover-climate interactions. Our study also provides useful criteria to set up protocols for data compilation REVEALS applications of this kind

PENINGKATAN KUALITAS PRODUKSI DAN PEMASARAN ROSELLA PADA KELOMPOK TANI TOGA MANDIRI

Produksi Rosella dilakukan salah satunya oleh kelompok petani Toga Mandiri yang berlokasi di Desa Bringin Kec. Sambikerep, Surabaya Jawa Timur. Toga Mandiri telah mengembangkan berbagai produk olahan dari rosella, seperti minuman rosella, selai rosella dan rosella kering. Proses produksi rosella kering sebagian sudah menggunakan sollar dryer tetapi belum keseluruhan dikarenakan kapasitas dari sollar dryer saat ini yang masih terbatas. Dalam hal pemasaran, Toga Mandiri mengalami kesulitan dikarenakan pandemi Covid-19. Untuk mengatasi permasalah tersebut, kegiatan pengabdian masyarakat dilakukan dengan tujuan untuk menambah kapasitas dan kecepatan pengeringan sehingga dicapai peningkatan kualitas dari produk rosella kering yang dihasilkan dan meningkatkan jangkauan pemasaran dari kelompok tani Toga Mandiri. Aktivitas pengabdian masyarakat adalah membantu permasalahan produksi dalam bentuk penerapan solar dryer untuk meningkatkan kualitas produksi dan permasalahan pemasaran dalam bentuk event untuk peningkatan jangkauan pemasaran. Hasil kegiatan pengabdian ini berdampak pada peningkatan kualitas produksi rosella Toga Mandiri dan peningkatan jangkauan pemasaran tetapi belum efektif meningkatkan pemasarannya. Kata kunci: Rosella, produksi, solar dryer, pemasaran, event. ABSTRACT One of community that produce Roselle is Toga Mandiri, which is located in Bringin Village, Sambikerep Regency, Surabaya, East Java. Toga Mandiri has developed many variation of roselle products, such as beverage, jam and dried roselle. Dried roselle has been produced using solar dryer, but only some of it because of limited capacity of solar dryer. To solve the problem, community service was done with objective to add capacity and velocity of drying so it will enhance quality of the product and to expand the marketing of Toga Mandiri. Community service activity was done by adding solar dryer to enhance the quality of product and and by expand marketing through event to expand the market. The result of this community service gave better quality of product and enhanced the market but not effectively enough to raise selling quantity. Keywords: Roselle, production, solar dryer, marketing, event

Genetic and morphological variation of the lanternfish lampanyctodes hectoris (myctophiformes: myctophidae) off Southern Africa

Genetic and morphological variation within the southern African population of Lampanyctodes hectoris was analysed. A total of 15 enzymes, encoding 22 isozyme loci, was examined (n = 327); seven were polymorphic. The percentage of polymorphic loci ranged from 13.6 to 27.3%. The mean heterozygosity was generally low and ranged from 0.003 to 0.005. Genetic divergences between specimens from four areas along the west coast of southern Africa were negligible, genetic distance values (D) ranging from 0 to 0.00011. The results showed the population of L. hectoris to be genetically invariant. Principal Component Analysis was performed separately on ratios of 13 morphometric and 6 meristic variables (n = 446), and there was evidence of extensive overlap between fish from all areas. However, discriminant analysis suggested some morphological variability within this population. Although genetically the population of L. hectoris seems to be homogenous, morphologically it appears to be variable. A combination of these results suggests that there is no clear genetic basis for the slight morphological differentiation within the population

How effective are face coverings in reducing transmission of COVID-19?

In the COVID-19 pandemic, among the more controversial issues is the use of face coverings. To address this we show that the underlying physics ensures particles with diameters & 1 $\mu$m are efficiently filtered out by a simple cotton or surgical mask. For particles in the submicron range the efficiency depends on the material properties of the masks, though generally the filtration efficiency in this regime varies between 30 to 60 % and multi-layered cotton masks are expected to be comparable to surgical masks. Respiratory droplets are conventionally divided into coarse droplets (> 5-10 $\mu$m) responsible for droplet transmission and aerosols (< 5-10 $\mu$m) responsible for airborne transmission. Masks are thus expected to be highly effective at preventing droplet transmission, with their effectiveness limited only by the mask fit, compliance and appropriate usage. By contrast, knowledge of the size distribution of bioaerosols and the likelihood that they contain virus is essential to understanding their effectiveness in preventing airborne transmission. We argue from literature data on SARS-CoV-2 viral loads that the finest aerosols (< 1 $\mu$m) are unlikely to contain even a single virion in the majority of cases; we thus expect masks to be effective at reducing the risk of airborne transmission in most settings.Comment: 5 pages + references, 3 figure

Forces exerted by a correlated fluid on embedded inclusions

We investigate the forces exerted on embedded inclusions by a fluid medium with long-range correlations, described by an effective scalar field theory. Such forces are the basis for the medium-mediated Casimir-like force. To study these forces beyond thermal average, it is necessary to define them in each microstate of the medium. Two different definitions of these forces are currently used in the literature. We study the assumptions underlying them. We show that only the definition that uses the stress tensor of the medium gives the sought-after force exerted by the medium on an embedded inclusion. If a second inclusion is embedded in the medium, the thermal average of this force gives the usual Casimir-like force between the two inclusions. The other definition can be used in the different physical case of an object that interacts with the medium without being embedded in it. We show in a simple example that the two definitions yield different results for the variance of the Casimir-like force.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Characterizing, modelling and understanding the climate variability of the deep water formation in the North-Western Mediterranean Sea

Observing, modelling and understanding the climate-scale variability of the deep water formation (DWF) in the North-Western Mediterranean Sea remains today very challenging. In this study, we first characterize the interannual variability of this phenomenon by a thorough reanalysis of observations in order to establish reference time series. These quantitative indicators include 31 observed years for the yearly maximum mixed layer depth over the period 1980–2013 and a detailed multi-indicator description of the period 2007–2013. Then a 1980–2013 hindcast simulation is performed with a fully-coupled regional climate system model including the high-resolution representation of the regional atmosphere, ocean, land-surface and rivers. The simulation reproduces quantitatively well the mean behaviour and the large interannual variability of the DWF phenomenon. The model shows convection deeper than 1000 m in 2/3 of the modelled winters, a mean DWF rate equal to 0.35 Sv with maximum values of 1.7 (resp. 1.6) Sv in 2013 (resp. 2005). Using the model results, the winter-integrated buoyancy loss over the Gulf of Lions is identified as the primary driving factor of the DWF interannual variability and explains, alone, around 50 % of its variance. It is itself explained by the occurrence of few stormy days during winter. At daily scale, the Atlantic ridge weather regime is identified as favourable to strong buoyancy losses and therefore DWF, whereas the positive phase of the North Atlantic oscillation is unfavourable. The driving role of the vertical stratification in autumn, a measure of the water column inhibition to mixing, has also been analyzed. Combining both driving factors allows to explain more than 70 % of the interannual variance of the phenomenon and in particular the occurrence of the five strongest convective years of the model (1981, 1999, 2005, 2009, 2013). The model simulates qualitatively well the trends in the deep waters (warming, saltening, increase in the dense water volume, increase in the bottom water density) despite an underestimation of the salinity and density trends. These deep trends come from a heat and salt accumulation during the 1980s and the 1990s in the surface and intermediate layers of the Gulf of Lions before being transferred stepwise towards the deep layers when very convective years occur in 1999 and later. The salinity increase in the near Atlantic Ocean surface layers seems to be the external forcing that finally leads to these deep trends. In the future, our results may allow to better understand the behaviour of the DWF phenomenon in Mediterranean Sea simulations in hindcast, forecast, reanalysis or future climate change scenario modes. The robustness of the obtained results must be however confirmed in multi-model studies