On the multiplicity in Pillai\u27s problem with Fibonacci numbers and powers of a fixed prime

Let ( {F_n}_{ngeq 0} ) be the sequence of Fibonacci numbers and let (p) be a prime. For an integer (c) we write (m_{F,p}(c)) for the number of distinct representations of (c) as (F_k-p^ell) with (kge 2) and (ellge 0). We prove that (m_{F,p}(c)le 4)

A study on visual, audio and tactile reaction time among medical students at Kampala International University in Uganda

Background: Reaction time (RT) is an indicator of neural activity, however, its variation due to visual (VRT), audio (ART) and tactile (TRT) in African medical students has not been investigated. The aim of the study was to determine relationships between VRT, ART and TRT amongst medical students in Uganda.Materials and methods: This was a cross sectional study, the body mass index (BMI) and RT (i.e. VRT, ART and TRT) were determined using weighing scale with standiometer and the catch a ruler experiment respectively. A questionnaire was administered to collect information on participant’s lifestyle patterns and analysis was done using SPSS Version 20.Results: The mean (± SEM) VRT, ART and TRT in the study were found to be 0.148 ± 0.002s, 0.141 ± 0.002s and 0.139 ± 0.003s respectively. A strong correlation between TRT and ART was found to exist in the youthful Ugandan medical student’s population. Furthermore, significant differences in ART and VRT were observed with sex, although these were absent amongst preclinical and clinical students, showing the importance of sex in RT.Conclusion: The low VRT and ART in Ugandan medical students is indicative of a healthy somatosensory connectivity, thus of academic importance.Keywords: Reaction time, cognitive performance, neural health, medical education

A study on visual, audio and tactile reaction time among medical students at Kampala International University in Uganda

Background: Reaction time (RT) is an indicator of neural activity, however, its variation due to visual (VRT), audio (ART) and tactile (TRT) in African medical students has not been investigated. The aim of the study was to determine relationships between VRT, ART and TRT amongst medical students in Uganda. Materials and methods: This was a cross sectional study, the body mass index (BMI) and RT (i.e. VRT, ART and TRT) were determined using weighing scale with standiometer and the catch a ruler experiment respectively. A questionnaire was administered to collect information on participant\u2019s lifestyle patterns and analysis was done using SPSS Version 20. Results: The mean (\ub1 SEM) VRT, ART and TRT in the study were found to be 0.148 \ub1 0.002s, 0.141 \ub1 0.002s and 0.139 \ub1 0.003s respectively. A strong correlation between TRT and ART was found to exist in the youthful Ugandan medical student\u2019s population. Furthermore, significant differences in ART and VRT were observed with sex, although these were absent amongst preclinical and clinical students, showing the importance of sex in RT. Conclusion: The low VRT and ART in Ugandan medical students is indicative of a healthy somatosensory connectivity, thus of academic importance

Dolutegravir twice-daily dosing in children with HIV-associated tuberculosis: a pharmacokinetic and safety study within the open-label, multicentre, randomised, non-inferiority ODYSSEY trial

Background: Children with HIV-associated tuberculosis (TB) have few antiretroviral therapy (ART) options. We aimed to evaluate the safety and pharmacokinetics of dolutegravir twice-daily dosing in children receiving rifampicin for HIV-associated TB. Methods: We nested a two-period, fixed-order pharmacokinetic substudy within the open-label, multicentre, randomised, controlled, non-inferiority ODYSSEY trial at research centres in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Children (aged 4 weeks to <18 years) with HIV-associated TB who were receiving rifampicin and twice-daily dolutegravir were eligible for inclusion. We did a 12-h pharmacokinetic profile on rifampicin and twice-daily dolutegravir and a 24-h profile on once-daily dolutegravir. Geometric mean ratios for trough plasma concentration (Ctrough), area under the plasma concentration time curve from 0 h to 24 h after dosing (AUC0–24 h), and maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) were used to compare dolutegravir concentrations between substudy days. We assessed rifampicin Cmax on the first substudy day. All children within ODYSSEY with HIV-associated TB who received rifampicin and twice-daily dolutegravir were included in the safety analysis. We described adverse events reported from starting twice-daily dolutegravir to 30 days after returning to once-daily dolutegravir. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02259127), EudraCT (2014–002632-14), and the ISRCTN registry (ISRCTN91737921). Findings: Between Sept 20, 2016, and June 28, 2021, 37 children with HIV-associated TB (median age 11·9 years [range 0·4–17·6], 19 [51%] were female and 18 [49%] were male, 36 [97%] in Africa and one [3%] in Thailand) received rifampicin with twice-daily dolutegravir and were included in the safety analysis. 20 (54%) of 37 children enrolled in the pharmacokinetic substudy, 14 of whom contributed at least one evaluable pharmacokinetic curve for dolutegravir, including 12 who had within-participant comparisons. Geometric mean ratios for rifampicin and twice-daily dolutegravir versus once-daily dolutegravir were 1·51 (90% CI 1·08–2·11) for Ctrough, 1·23 (0·99–1·53) for AUC0–24 h, and 0·94 (0·76–1·16) for Cmax. Individual dolutegravir Ctrough concentrations were higher than the 90% effective concentration (ie, 0·32 mg/L) in all children receiving rifampicin and twice-daily dolutegravir. Of 18 children with evaluable rifampicin concentrations, 15 (83%) had a Cmax of less than the optimal target concentration of 8 mg/L. Rifampicin geometric mean Cmax was 5·1 mg/L (coefficient of variation 71%). During a median follow-up of 31 weeks (IQR 30–40), 15 grade 3 or higher adverse events occurred among 11 (30%) of 37 children, ten serious adverse events occurred among eight (22%) children, including two deaths (one tuberculosis-related death, one death due to traumatic injury); no adverse events, including deaths, were considered related to dolutegravir. Interpretation: Twice-daily dolutegravir was shown to be safe and sufficient to overcome the rifampicin enzyme-inducing effect in children, and could provide a practical ART option for children with HIV-associated TB

Neuropsychiatric manifestations and sleep disturbances with dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapy versus standard of care in children and adolescents: a secondary analysis of the ODYSSEY trial

BACKGROUND: Cohort studies in adults with HIV showed that dolutegravir was associated with neuropsychiatric adverse events and sleep problems, yet data are scarce in children and adolescents. We aimed to evaluate neuropsychiatric manifestations in children and adolescents treated with dolutegravir-based treatment versus alternative antiretroviral therapy. METHODS: This is a secondary analysis of ODYSSEY, an open-label, multicentre, randomised, non-inferiority trial, in which adolescents and children initiating first-line or second-line antiretroviral therapy were randomly assigned 1:1 to dolutegravir-based treatment or standard-of-care treatment. We assessed neuropsychiatric adverse events (reported by clinicians) and responses to the mood and sleep questionnaires (reported by the participant or their carer) in both groups. We compared the proportions of patients with neuropsychiatric adverse events (neurological, psychiatric, and total), time to first neuropsychiatric adverse event, and participant-reported responses to questionnaires capturing issues with mood, suicidal thoughts, and sleep problems. FINDINGS: Between Sept 20, 2016, and June 22, 2018, 707 participants were enrolled, of whom 345 (49%) were female and 362 (51%) were male, and 623 (88%) were Black-African. Of 707 participants, 350 (50%) were randomly assigned to dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapy and 357 (50%) to non-dolutegravir-based standard-of-care. 311 (44%) of 707 participants started first-line antiretroviral therapy (ODYSSEY-A; 145 [92%] of 157 participants had efavirenz-based therapy in the standard-of-care group), and 396 (56%) of 707 started second-line therapy (ODYSSEY-B; 195 [98%] of 200 had protease inhibitor-based therapy in the standard-of-care group). During follow-up (median 142 weeks, IQR 124–159), 23 participants had 31 neuropsychiatric adverse events (15 in the dolutegravir group and eight in the standard-of-care group; difference in proportion of participants with ≥1 event p=0·13). 11 participants had one or more neurological events (six and five; p=0·74) and 14 participants had one or more psychiatric events (ten and four; p=0·097). Among 14 participants with psychiatric events, eight participants in the dolutegravir group and four in standard-of-care group had suicidal ideation or behaviour. More participants in the dolutegravir group than the standard-of-care group reported symptoms of self-harm (eight vs one; p=0·025), life not worth living (17 vs five; p=0·0091), or suicidal thoughts (13 vs none; p=0·0006) at one or more follow-up visits. Most reports were transient. There were no differences by treatment group in low mood or feeling sad, problems concentrating, feeling worried or feeling angry or aggressive, sleep problems, or sleep quality. INTERPRETATION: The numbers of neuropsychiatric adverse events and reported neuropsychiatric symptoms were low. However, numerically more participants had psychiatric events and reported suicidality ideation in the dolutegravir group than the standard-of-care group. These differences should be interpreted with caution in an open-label trial. Clinicians and policy makers should consider including suicidality screening of children or adolescents receiving dolutegravir

Long term projection of the demographic and financial evolution of the parliamentary pension scheme of Uganda

We study the Parliamentary Pension Scheme of Uganda, a hybrid cash balance scheme which is contributory. It has two categories of members, the staff of the Parliamentary Commission and the Members of Parliament. A long term projection of the schemes demographic and financial evolution is done to asses its sustainability and fairness with respect to the two categories of members. The projection of the schemes future members is done using non-linear regression. The distribution of future members by age states is done by Markov model using frequencies of state transition of the scheme members. We project the future contributions, accumulated funds, benefits, asset and liability values together with associated funding ratios. The results show that the fund is neither sustainable nor fair with respect to the two categories of members.Funding Agencies|Makerere University [316]</p

Asset liability management for the Bank of Uganda defined benefits scheme by stochastic programming

We develop a model for asset liability management of pension funds, which is solved by stochastic programming techniques. Using data provided by the Bank of Uganda Defined Benefits Scheme, which is closed to new members, we obtain the optimal investment policies. Randomly sampled scenario trees using the mean and covariance structure of the return distribution are used for generating the coefficients of the stochastic program. Liabilities are modelled by remaining years of life expectancy and guaranteed period for monthly pension. We obtain the funding situation of the scheme at each stage, and the terminal cash injection by the sponsor required to meet all future benefit payments, in absence of contributing members

Long Term Projection of the Demographic and Financial Evolution of the Parliamentary Pension Scheme of Uganda

We study the Parliamentary Pension Scheme of Uganda, a hybrid cash balance scheme which is contributory. It has two categories of members, the staff of the Parliamentary Commission and the Members of Parliament. A long term projection of the scheme's demographic and financial evolution is done to asses its sustainability and fairness with respect to the two categories of members. The projection of the scheme's future members is done using non-linear regression. The distribution of future members by age states is done by Markov model using frequencies of state transition of the scheme members. We project the future contributions, accumulated funds, benefits, asset and liability values together with associated funding ratios. The results show that the fund is neither sustainable nor fair with respect to the two categories of members. (original abstract

Evaluating the prevalence and spatial distribution of giraffes injured by non-target poaching

Illegal harvest (poaching) is a geographically widespread threat to animal populations. Wire snares are a common poaching technique used in the Global South and are indiscriminate with respect to species, age, and sex of individual animals that they capture. When caught, relatively large mammals frequently break free from the snares, suffering injuries in the process. The prevalence of snaring injuries as well as the ecological and conservation implications of such patterns have not been widely investigated for many animal populations. We evaluated the prevalence and spatial distribution of giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) with snaring injuries in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, a system experiencing high rates of wire snare poaching. We conducted photographic spatial encounter surveys along five fixed road transects. We photographed detected giraffes, recorded whether a snaring injury was present, and identified individuals via autonomous image processing of pelage patterns. We fitted a spatial capture-recapture (SCR) model to the encounter history data to estimate abundance and predict the spatial distribution of injured giraffes. We detected 1306 (sub) adult giraffes from the surveys and predicted 1939 (±80) via the SCR model. We encountered 26 giraffes with snaring injuries, corresponding to a population-level snaring rate of 1.4%. Individuals with higher movement scales were more at risk of being snared. Though not fatal across the three-month duration of this study, the injuries likely lead to secondary infections, disability, and potentially death in the long term. We explore the implications of bearing snaring injuries for ecology, behavior, and conservation of affected species

Integrating social justice into higher education conservation science

Because biodiversity loss has largely been attributed to human actions, people, particularly those in the Global South, are regularly depicted as threats to conservation. This context has facilitated rapid growth in green militarization, with fierce crackdowns against real or perceived environmental offenders. We designed an undergraduate course to assess student perspectives on biodiversity conservation and social justice and positioned those students to contribute to a human heritage-centered conservation (HHCC) initiative situated in Uganda. We evaluated changes in perspectives using pre- and postcourse surveys and reflection instruments. Although the students started the course prioritizing biodiversity conservation, even when it was costly to human well-being, by the end of the course, they were recognizing and remarking on the central importance of social justice within conservation. We present a framework for further integration of HHCC approaches into higher education courses so as to conserve the integrity of coupled human and natural systems globally