513 research outputs found
Human ascariasis: diagnostics update
Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) infect over one billion people worldwide. Ascariasis may mimic a number of conditions, and individual clinical diagnosis often requires a thorough work-up. Kato-Katz thick smears are the standard detection method for Ascaris and, despite low sensitivity, are often used for mapping and monitoring and evaluation of national control programmes. Although increased sampling (number of stools) and diagnostic (number of examinations per stool) efforts can improve sensitivity, Kato-Katz is less sensitive than other microscopy methods such as FLOTAC®. Antibody-based diagnostics may be a sensitive diagnostic tool; however, their usefulness is limited to assessing transmission in areas aiming for elimination. Molecular diagnostics are highly sensitive and specific, but high costs limit their use to individual diagnosis, drug - efficacy studies and identification of Ascaris suum. Increased investments in research on Ascaris and other STHs are urgently required for the development of diagnostic assays to support efforts to reduce human suffering caused by these infections
South Dakota Grain Production: Yesterday and Tomorrow
This bulletin provides an analysis of past and future grain production in the state of South Dakota, and examines trends between the years of 1963 and 1978
Reduced efficacy of praziquantel against Schistosoma mansoni associated with multiple-rounds of mass drug administration
The efficacy of praziquantel against Schistosoma mansoni was significantly lower in Ugandan schools that had received more prior rounds of mass drug administration, as determined by fitting a statistical model to parasite egg counts before and after treatment
Phenotypic and genotypic monitoring of Schistosoma mansoni in Tanzanian schoolchildren five years into a preventative chemotherapy national control programme
We conducted combined in vitro PZQ efficacy testing with population genetic analyses of S. mansoni collected from children from two schools in 2010, five years after the introduction of a National Control Programme. Children at one school had received four annual PZQ treatments and the other school had received two mass treatments in total. We compared genetic differentiation, indices of genetic diversity, and estimated adult worm burden from parasites collected in 2010 with samples collected in 2005 (before the control programme began) and in 2006 (six months after the first PZQ treatment). Using 2010 larval samples, we also compared the genetic similarity of those with high and low in vitro sensitivity to PZQ
Time-Changed Fast Mean-Reverting Stochastic Volatility Models
We introduce a class of randomly time-changed fast mean-reverting stochastic
volatility models and, using spectral theory and singular perturbation
techniques, we derive an approximation for the prices of European options in
this setting. Three examples of random time-changes are provided and the
implied volatility surfaces induced by these time-changes are examined as a
function of the model parameters. Three key features of our framework are that
we are able to incorporate jumps into the price process of the underlying
asset, allow for the leverage effect, and accommodate multiple factors of
volatility, which operate on different time-scales
Multiple indices of diffusion identifies white matter damage in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease
The study of multiple indices of diffusion, including axial (DA), radial (DR) and mean diffusion (MD), as well as fractional anisotropy (FA), enables WM damage in Alzheimer's disease (AD) to be assessed in detail. Here, tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) were performed on scans of 40 healthy elders, 19 non-amnestic MCI (MCIna) subjects, 14 amnestic MCI (MCIa) subjects and 9 AD patients. Significantly higher DA was found in MCIna subjects compared to healthy elders in the right posterior cingulum/precuneus. Significantly higher DA was also found in MCIa subjects compared to healthy elders in the left prefrontal cortex, particularly in the forceps minor and uncinate fasciculus. In the MCIa versus MCIna comparison, significantly higher DA was found in large areas of the left prefrontal cortex. For AD patients, the overlap of FA and DR changes and the overlap of FA and MD changes were seen in temporal, parietal and frontal lobes, as well as the corpus callosum and fornix. Analysis of differences between the AD versus MCIna, and AD versus MCIa contrasts, highlighted regions that are increasingly compromised in more severe disease stages. Microstructural damage independent of gross tissue loss was widespread in later disease stages. Our findings suggest a scheme where WM damage begins in the core memory network of the temporal lobe, cingulum and prefrontal regions, and spreads beyond these regions in later stages. DA and MD indices were most sensitive at detecting early changes in MCIa
The Sanctions on Environmental Performances: An Assessment of Indonesia and Brazilia Practice
This study aims to offer an overview of the effect of
environmental law sanctions, particularly criminal sanctions for
restoring environmental functions for firms, on restoring
environmental functions in Indonesia and Brazil. Using
conceptual techniques, statutory methodologies, and
comparative legal approaches with Brazil, this study examines
how norms emerge in the law. The research shows that criminal
sanctions for environmental function restoration in Indonesia
have not had their full intended effect and often lead to confusion
over their implementation since they do not specify a means of
gauging whether or not their goals have been met. This discovery
also suggests that criminal consequences for environmental
function restoration have not been utilized to their full potential.
This is because criminal sanctions do not offer a mechanism for
gauging the degree to which ecological restoration efforts have
been fruitful. Brazil, which is more likely to apply administrative
sanctions and has a better impact, conducts a wide range of
things, including imposing fines, canceling company licenses,
and other preventative steps used to anticipate excessive
environmental exploitation. Brazil has taken these precautions to
avoid the negative effects of environmental overexploitation. The
actions are in effect to ensure that environmental exploitation
does not reach unsustainable levels
Local regularity for fractional heat equations
We prove the maximal local regularity of weak solutions to the parabolic
problem associated with the fractional Laplacian with homogeneous Dirichlet
boundary conditions on an arbitrary bounded open set
. Proofs combine classical abstract regularity
results for parabolic equations with some new local regularity results for the
associated elliptic problems.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1704.0756
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