Perceptions of workers on the benefits of institutional source sorting: A case of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - Institute of Industrial Research (CSIR-IIR), Accra, Ghana

The management of solid wastes at the workplace in Ghana is characterised by mixed wastes pickup delays, dustbin overflows and leakage of plastic bags into the environment. Benefits from the pilot of source sorting as a mitigation measure at the workplace are unavailable in literature. Hence, the study employed descriptive statistical tools to assess the advantages of a piloted source sorting system at the CSIR-IIR. The sampled size was 100 staff with an 80% questionnaire recovery rate. The analysis of data showed that, the implementation of segregation at source transformed the social approach of workers towards waste management. Most workers (97.7%) preferred sorting their wastes at source irrespective of the location of the generation point. A congenial environment was created by the source separation infra­structure, which made staff worked better, (70% responses). The majority of staff (95.2%) confirmed the savings made by the Institute on the cost of landfilling. The sorting at source improved cleanliness of the compound (97.6% responses) and eliminated open-air burning of wastes (95.1% responses). In all, the source segregation was beneficial to the social, economic and environmental well-being of staff and management of the Institution

KLK3 SNP-SNP interactions for prediction of prostate cancer aggressiveness.

Risk classification for prostate cancer (PCa) aggressiveness and underlying mechanisms remain inadequate. Interactions between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may provide a solution to fill these gaps. To identify SNP-SNP interactions in the four pathways (the angiogenesis-, mitochondria-, miRNA-, and androgen metabolism-related pathways) associated with PCa aggressiveness, we tested 8587 SNPs for 20,729 cases from the PCa consortium. We identified 3 KLK3 SNPs, and 1083 (P < 3.5 × 10-9) and 3145 (P < 1 × 10-5) SNP-SNP interaction pairs significantly associated with PCa aggressiveness. These SNP pairs associated with PCa aggressiveness were more significant than each of their constituent SNP individual effects. The majority (98.6%) of the 3145 pairs involved KLK3. The 3 most common gene-gene interactions were KLK3-COL4A1:COL4A2, KLK3-CDH13, and KLK3-TGFBR3. Predictions from the SNP interaction-based polygenic risk score based on 24 SNP pairs are promising. The prevalence of PCa aggressiveness was 49.8%, 21.9%, and 7.0% for the PCa cases from our cohort with the top 1%, middle 50%, and bottom 1% risk profiles. Potential biological functions of the identified KLK3 SNP-SNP interactions were supported by gene expression and protein-protein interaction results. Our findings suggest KLK3 SNP interactions may play an important role in PCa aggressiveness

KLK3 SNP-SNP interactions for prediction of prostate cancer aggressiveness

Risk classification for prostate cancer (PCa) aggressiveness and underlying mechanisms remain inadequate. Interactions between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may provide a solution to fill these gaps. To identify SNP-SNP interactions in the four pathways (the angiogenesis-, mitochondria-, miRNA-, and androgen metabolism-related pathways) associated with PCa aggressiveness, we tested 8587 SNPs for 20,729 cases from the PCa consortium. We identified 3 KLK3 SNPs, and 1083 (P-9) and 3145 (P-5) SNP-SNP interaction pairs significantly associated with PCa aggressiveness. These SNP pairs associated with PCa aggressiveness were more significant than each of their constituent SNP individual effects. The majority (98.6%) of the 3145 pairs involved KLK3. The 3 most common gene-gene interactions were KLK3-COL4A1:COL4A2, KLK3-CDH13, and KLK3-TGFBR3. Predictions from the SNP interaction-based polygenic risk score based on 24 SNP pairs are promising. The prevalence of PCa aggressiveness was 49.8%, 21.9%, and 7.0% for the PCa cases from our cohort with the top 1%, middle 50%, and bottom 1% risk profiles. Potential biological functions of the identified KLK3 SNP-SNP interactions were supported by gene expression and protein-protein interaction results. Our findings suggest KLK3 SNP interactions may play an important role in PCa aggressiveness.</p

Two-year evaluation of Intermittent Preventive Treatment for Children (IPTc) combined with timely home treatment for malaria control in Ghana

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) has recently been accepted as an important component of the malaria control strategy. Intermittent preventive treatment for children (IPTc) combined with timely treatment of malaria related febrile illness at home to reduce parasite prevalence and malaria morbidity in children aged between six and 60 months in a coastal community in Ghana. This paper reports persistence of reduced parasitaemia two years into the intervention. The baseline and year-one-evaluation findings were published earlier. OBJECTIVE: The main objective in the second year was to demonstrate whether the two interventions would further reduce parasite prevalence and malaria-related febrile illness in the study population. METHODS: This was an intervention study designed to compare baseline and evaluation findings without a control group. The study combined home-based delivery of intermittent preventive treatment for children (IPTc) aged 6 - 60 months and home treatment of suspected febrile malaria-related illness within 24 hours. All children aged 6 - 60 months received home-based delivery of intermittent preventive treatment using amodiaquine + artesunate, delivered at home by community assistants every four months (6 times in 24 months). Malaria parasite prevalence surveys were conducted before the first and after the third and sixth IPTc to the children. The evaluation surveys were done four months after the third and sixth IPTc was given. RESULTS: Parasite prevalence which reduced from 25% to 3.0% at year-one evaluation had reduced further from 3% to 1% at year-two-evaluation. At baseline, 13.8% of the children were febrile (axilary temperature of </=37.5 degrees C) compared to 2.2% at year-one-evaluation while 2.1% were febrile at year-two-evaluation. CONCLUSION: The year-two-evaluation result indicates that IPTc given three times in a year (every four months) combined with timely treatment of febrile malaria illness, is effective to reduce malaria parasite prevalence in children aged 6 to 60 months in the study community. This must give hope to malaria control programme managers in sub-Saharan Africa where the burden of the disease is most debilitatin

CO2 activation and dissociation on the low miller index surfaces of pure and Ni-coated iron metal : a DFT study

We have used spin polarized density functional theory calculations to perform extensive mechanistic studies of CO2 dissociation into CO and O on the clean Fe(100), (110) and (111) surfaces and on the same surfaces coated by a monolayer of nickel. CO2 chemisorbs on all three bare facets and binds more strongly to the stepped (111) surface than on the open flat (100) and close-packed (110) surfaces, with adsorption energies of −88.7 kJ mol−1, −70.8 kJ mol−1 and −116.8 kJ mol−1 on the (100), (110) and (111) facets, respectively. Compared to the bare Fe surfaces, we found weaker binding of the CO2 molecules on the Ni-deposited surfaces, where the adsorption energies are calculated at +47.2 kJ mol−1, −29.5 kJ mol−1 and −65.0 kJ mol−1 on the Ni-deposited (100), (110) and (111) facets respectively. We have also investigated the thermodynamics and activation energies for CO2 dissociation into CO and O on the bare and Ni-deposited surfaces. Generally, we found that the dissociative adsorption states are thermodynamically preferred over molecular adsorption, with the dissociation most favoured thermodynamically on the close-packed (110) facet. The trends in activation energy barriers were observed to follow that of the trends in surface work functions; consequently, the increased surface work functions observed on the Ni-deposited surfaces resulted in increased dissociation barriers and vice versa. These results suggest that measures to lower the surface work function will kinetically promote the dissociation of CO2 into CO and O, although the instability of the activated CO2 on the Ni-covered surfaces will probably result in CO2 desorption from the nickel-doped iron surfaces, as is also seen on the Fe(110) surface

KLK3 SNP–SNP interactions for prediction of prostate cancer aggressiveness

Abstract: Risk classification for prostate cancer (PCa) aggressiveness and underlying mechanisms remain inadequate. Interactions between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may provide a solution to fill these gaps. To identify SNP–SNP interactions in the four pathways (the angiogenesis-, mitochondria-, miRNA-, and androgen metabolism-related pathways) associated with PCa aggressiveness, we tested 8587 SNPs for 20,729 cases from the PCa consortium. We identified 3 KLK3 SNPs, and 1083 (P < 3.5 × 10–9) and 3145 (P < 1 × 10–5) SNP–SNP interaction pairs significantly associated with PCa aggressiveness. These SNP pairs associated with PCa aggressiveness were more significant than each of their constituent SNP individual effects. The majority (98.6%) of the 3145 pairs involved KLK3. The 3 most common gene–gene interactions were KLK3-COL4A1:COL4A2, KLK3-CDH13, and KLK3-TGFBR3. Predictions from the SNP interaction-based polygenic risk score based on 24 SNP pairs are promising. The prevalence of PCa aggressiveness was 49.8%, 21.9%, and 7.0% for the PCa cases from our cohort with the top 1%, middle 50%, and bottom 1% risk profiles. Potential biological functions of the identified KLK3 SNP–SNP interactions were supported by gene expression and protein–protein interaction results. Our findings suggest KLK3 SNP interactions may play an important role in PCa aggressiveness

KLK3 SNP-SNP interactions for prediction of prostate cancer aggressiveness.

Risk classification for prostate cancer (PCa) aggressiveness and underlying mechanisms remain inadequate. Interactions between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may provide a solution to fill these gaps. To identify SNP-SNP interactions in the four pathways (the angiogenesis-, mitochondria-, miRNA-, and androgen metabolism-related pathways) associated with PCa aggressiveness, we tested 8587 SNPs for 20,729 cases from the PCa consortium. We identified 3 KLK3 SNPs, and 1083 (P < 3.5 × 10-9) and 3145 (P < 1 × 10-5) SNP-SNP interaction pairs significantly associated with PCa aggressiveness. These SNP pairs associated with PCa aggressiveness were more significant than each of their constituent SNP individual effects. The majority (98.6%) of the 3145 pairs involved KLK3. The 3 most common gene-gene interactions were KLK3-COL4A1:COL4A2, KLK3-CDH13, and KLK3-TGFBR3. Predictions from the SNP interaction-based polygenic risk score based on 24 SNP pairs are promising. The prevalence of PCa aggressiveness was 49.8%, 21.9%, and 7.0% for the PCa cases from our cohort with the top 1%, middle 50%, and bottom 1% risk profiles. Potential biological functions of the identified KLK3 SNP-SNP interactions were supported by gene expression and protein-protein interaction results. Our findings suggest KLK3 SNP interactions may play an important role in PCa aggressiveness