Community Knowledge and Perceptions on National School-Based De-Worming Programme

Objectives: To determine the community level of knowledge, attitude and perception of soil transmitted helminthes and the national school-based de-worming programme in selected villages of Busia County in Kenya. Design: A cross-sectional survey. Setting: Busia and Bunyala districts in Busia County. Subjects: A total of 384 participants were studied. Main outcome measures: Socio-demographic characteristics, then knowledge, causes and effects of Soil Transmitted Infections on health and education, prevention strategies, knowledge of national school-based de-worming programming, implementing strategies of the programme, benefits of the programme, community satisfaction and health seeking behaviour. Results: Eating the uncooked food as a cause for soil transmitted infections constituted 27.16% (63) followed by 16.38% (38) not using latrines, 15.95% (37) eating left over foods, 12.93% (30) eating cold food, 10.78% (25) eating not well cooked pork, 9.48% (22) eating contaminated soil, and 7.33% (17) changing of diet. One head teacher interviewed stated that “One can be able to notice if his/her child has worm infection if the child eats without getting satisfied, eating all the time and yet his belly is big.”Community Health Extension Worker in the FGD stated that: “During floods seasons most of the areas in Budalangi become flooded and all latrines are filled with water and the excreta start overflowing. Most of the residents don’t have shoes especially the children and therefore they are prone to the worm infection.”99.57% of the parents were aware of the national school based de-worming programme of which (92%) learnt about the programme after their children were de-wormed in their various schools. Seventy five percent (174) were satisfied about the programme; 65.1% (151) and 10.3% indicated that the programme improves the children’s health and student’s school performance respectively. Conclusion: Most of the parents do not have adequate knowledge on worms, their causes and signs and symptoms of the intestinal worms. Low educational levels and poverty levels also contribute to the lack of awareness on intestinal worms and putting the prevention measures across the board. The study also found out that the community perception towards the de-worming programme was good because the de-worming programme improved the children’s health and performance in education

Use of rapid diagnostic tests in malaria school surveys in Kenya: does their under-performance matter for planning malaria control?

Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are known to yield false-positive results, and their use in epidemiologic surveys will overestimate infection prevalence and potentially hinder efficient targeting of interventions. To examine the consequences of using RDTs in school surveys, we compared three RDT brands used during a nationwide school survey in Kenya with expert microscopy and investigated the cost implications of using alternative diagnostic approaches in identifying localities with differing levels of infection. Overall, RDT sensitivity was 96.1% and specificity was 70.8%. In terms of classifying districts and schools according to prevalence categories, RDTs were most reliable for the 40% categories and least reliable in the 1-4.9% category. In low-prevalence settings, microscopy was the most expensive approach, and RDT results corrected by either microscopy or polymerase chain reaction were the cheapest. Use of polymerase chain reaction-corrected RDT results is recommended in school malaria surveys, especially in settings with low-to-moderate malaria transmission

Internal Energy of the Potts model on the Triangular Lattice with Two- and Three-body Interactions

We calculate the internal energy of the Potts model on the triangular lattice with two- and three-body interactions at the transition point satisfying certain conditions for coupling constants. The method is a duality transformation. Therefore we have to make assumptions on uniqueness of the transition point and that the transition is of second order. These assumptions have been verified to hold by numerical simulations for q=2, 3 and 4, and our results for the internal energy are expected to be exact in these cases.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Helium, Oxygen, Proton, and Electron (HOPE) Mass Spectrometer for the Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission

The HOPE mass spectrometer of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission (renamed the Van Allen Probes) is designed to measure the in situ plasma ion and electron fluxes over 4π sr at each RBSP spacecraft within the terrestrial radiation belts. The scientific goal is to understand the underlying physical processes that govern the radiation belt structure and dynamics. Spectral measurements for both ions and electrons are acquired over 1 eV to 50 keV in 36 log-spaced steps at an energy resolution ΔE FWHM/E≈15 %. The dominant ion species (H+, He+, and O+) of the magnetosphere are identified using foil-based time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry with channel electron multiplier (CEM) detectors. Angular measurements are derived using five polar pixels coplanar with the spacecraft spin axis, and up to 16 azimuthal bins are acquired for each polar pixel over time as the spacecraft spins. Ion and electron measurements are acquired on alternate spacecraft spins. HOPE incorporates several new methods to minimize and monitor the background induced by penetrating particles in the harsh environment of the radiation belts. The absolute efficiencies of detection are continuously monitored, enabling precise, quantitative measurements of electron and ion fluxes and ion species abundances throughout the mission. We describe the engineering approaches for plasma measurements in the radiation belts and present summaries of HOPE measurement strategy and performance

Scientific Communication: Reporting on Mental Health Illness (MHI) in Kenya: how well are we doing?

No Abstrac

Probing a non-biaxial behavior of infinitely thin hard platelets

We give a criterion to test a non-biaxial behavior of infinitely thin hard platelets of $D_{2h}$ symmetry based upon the components of three order parameter tensors. We investigated the nematic behavior of monodisperse infinitely thin rectangular hard platelet systems by using the criterion. Starting with a square platelet system, and we compared it with rectangular platelet systems of various aspect ratios. For each system, we performed equilibration runs by using isobaric Monte Carlo simulations. Each system did not show a biaxial nematic behavior but a uniaxial nematic one, despite of the shape anisotropy of those platelets. The relationship between effective diameters by simulations and theoretical effective diameters of the above systems was also determined.Comment: Submitted to JPS

Path integral Monte Carlo simulations of silicates

We investigate the thermal expansion of crystalline SiO$_2$ in the $\beta$-- cristobalite and the $\beta$-quartz structure with path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) techniques. This simulation method allows to treat low-temperature quantum effects properly. At temperatures below the Debye temperature, thermal properties obtained with PIMC agree better with experimental results than those obtained with classical Monte Carlo methods.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, Phys. Rev. B (in press

Element-specific field-induced spin reorientation and an unusual tetracritical point in MnCr2S4

The ferrimagnetic spinel MnCr2S4 shows a variety of magnetic-field-induced phase transitions owing to bond frustration and strong spin-lattice coupling. However, the site-resolved magnetic properties at the respective field-induced phases in high magnetic fields remain elusive. Our soft x-ray magnetic circular dichroism studies up to 40 T directly evidence element-selective magnetic-moment reorientations in the field-induced phases. The complex magnetic structures are further supported by entropy changes extracted from magnetocaloric-effect measurements. Moreover, thermodynamic experiments reveal an unusual tetracritical point in the H-T phase diagram of MnCr2S4 due to strong spin-lattice coupling.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

Non-existence of stationary two-black-hole configurations

We resume former discussions of the question, whether the spin-spin repulsion and the gravitational attraction of two aligned black holes can balance each other. To answer the question we formulate a boundary value problem for two separate (Killing-) horizons and apply the inverse (scattering) method to solve it. Making use of results of Manko, Ruiz and Sanabria-G\'omez and a novel black hole criterion, we prove the non-existence of the equilibrium situation in question.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; Contribution to Juergen Ehlers Memorial Issue (GeRG journal