Child-Abuse-Related-Deaths, Child Mortality (0-4) & Income Inequality in America and Other Developed Nations 1989-91 v 2012-14: Speaking Truth to Power.

The major concern for social work, namely child abuse‐related deaths (CARD), involves parental neglect. Societal neglect, when measured by child mortality rates (CMR), is considered by bodies such as UNICEF to be indicative of how a nation meets the needs of its children. This population‐based study analyses CARD and CMR for children aged from newborn to four years old between 1989–91 and 2013–15 to identify any relative child neglect in the USA and 20 other developed nations (ODN). World Health Organization data were used for CARD, CMR and undetermined deaths (UnD), a possible source of unreported CARD, juxtaposed against World Bank income inequality data. The USA had the highest number of CARD, the highest CMR and the worst income inequality. Five countries reduced their CARD significantly more than the USA, and 14 countries reduced their CMR more than the USA. Income inequality and CMR were correlated. Had the USA matched the CMR of Japan, where income inequality was narrowest, there would have been on average 16 745 fewer child deaths annually. CARD and UnD correlated, suggesting that UnD may contain unreported CARD. US CMR data indicate that services in the USA are less effective than those in ODN, possibly due to income inequality. These results will be unwelcome but child protection services must dare to speak truth to power. ‘This population‐based study analyses CARD and CMR for children aged from newborn to four years old between 1989–91 and 2013–15 to identify any relative child neglect in the USA and 20 other developed nations’ Key Practitioner Messages The richest country in the world, the USA, has the highest rates of child abuse and total child mortality in the Western world. The USA has the highest income inequality in the West, highlighting the statistical link between child mortality and poverty. Children's services should lead the call for the necessary changes and ‘speak truth to power’

Engineered hydrogen-bonded glycopolymer capsules and their interactions with antigen presenting cells

Hollow glycopolymer microcapsules were fabricated by hydrogen-bonded layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly, and their interactions with a set of antigen presenting cells (APCs), including dendritic cells (DCs), macrophages (MACs), and myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), were investigated. The glycopolymers were obtained by cascade postpolymerization modifications of poly(oligo(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline methacrylate)-stat-glycidyl methacrylate) involving the modification of the glycidyl groups with propargylamine and the subsequent attachment of mannose azide by copper(I)-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC). Multilayer assembly of the hydrogen-bonding pair (glycopolymer/poly(methacrylic acid) (PMA)) onto planar and particulate supports (SiO2 particles, d = 1.16 μm) yielded stable glycopolymer films upon cross-linking by CuAAC. The silica (SiO2) particle templates were removed yielding hollow monodisperse capsules, as demonstrated by fluorescence and scanning electron microscopy. Cellular uptake studies using flow cytometry revealed the preferential uptake of the capsules by DCs when compared to MACs or MDSCs. Mannosylated capsules showed a cytokine independent cis-upregulation of CD80 specifically on DCs and a trans-downregulation of PDL-1 on MDSCs. Thus, the glycopolymer capsules may have potential as vaccine carriers, as they are able to upregulate costimulatory molecules for immune cell stimulation on DCs and at the same time downregulate immune inhibitory receptors on suppressor APC such as MDSCs

Solving Quantum Ground-State Problems with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Quantum ground-state problems are computationally hard problems; for general many-body Hamiltonians, there is no classical or quantum algorithm known to be able to solve them efficiently. Nevertheless, if a trial wavefunction approximating the ground state is available, as often happens for many problems in physics and chemistry, a quantum computer could employ this trial wavefunction to project the ground state by means of the phase estimation algorithm (PEA). We performed an experimental realization of this idea by implementing a variational-wavefunction approach to solve the ground-state problem of the Heisenberg spin model with an NMR quantum simulator. Our iterative phase estimation procedure yields a high accuracy for the eigenenergies (to the 10^-5 decimal digit). The ground-state fidelity was distilled to be more than 80%, and the singlet-to-triplet switching near the critical field is reliably captured. This result shows that quantum simulators can better leverage classical trial wavefunctions than classical computers.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure

A Survey on Continuous Time Computations

We provide an overview of theories of continuous time computation. These theories allow us to understand both the hardness of questions related to continuous time dynamical systems and the computational power of continuous time analog models. We survey the existing models, summarizing results, and point to relevant references in the literature

Child health insurance coverage: a survey among temporary and permanent residents in Shanghai

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Under the current healthcare system in China, there is no government-sponsored health insurance program for children. Children from families who move from rural and interior regions to large urban centres without a valid residency permit might be at higher risk of being uninsured due to their low socioeconomic status. We conducted a survey in Shanghai to describe children's health insurance coverage according to their migration status.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>Between 2005 and 2006, we conducted an in-person health survey of the adult care-givers of children aged 7 and under, residing in five districts of Shanghai. We compared uninsurance rates between temporary and permanent child residents, and investigated factors associated with child health uninsurance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Even though cooperative insurance eligibility has been extended to temporary residents of Shanghai, the uninsurance rate was significantly higher among temporary (65.6%) than permanent child residents (21.1%, adjusted odds ratio (OR): 5.85, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 4.62–7.41). For both groups, family income was associated with having child health insurance; children in lower income families were more likely to be uninsured (OR: 1.96, 95% CI: 1.40–2.96).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Children must rely on their parents to make the insurance purchase decision, which is constrained by their income and the perceived benefits of the insurance program. Children from migrant families are at even higher risk for uninsurance due to their lower socioeconomic status. Government initiatives specifically targeting temporary residents and providing health insurance benefits for their children are urgently needed.</p

Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Community Structure in Field and Cultured Microbialites from the Alkaline Lake Alchichica (Mexico)

The geomicrobiology of crater lake microbialites remains largely unknown despite their evolutionary interest due to their resemblance to some Archaean analogs in the dominance of in situ carbonate precipitation over accretion. Here, we studied the diversity of archaea, bacteria and protists in microbialites of the alkaline Lake Alchichica from both field samples collected along a depth gradient (0–14 m depth) and long-term-maintained laboratory aquaria. Using small subunit (SSU) rRNA gene libraries and fingerprinting methods, we detected a wide diversity of bacteria and protists contrasting with a minor fraction of archaea. Oxygenic photosynthesizers were dominated by cyanobacteria, green algae and diatoms. Cyanobacterial diversity varied with depth, Oscillatoriales dominating shallow and intermediate microbialites and Pleurocapsales the deepest samples. The early-branching Gloeobacterales represented significant proportions in aquaria microbialites. Anoxygenic photosynthesizers were also diverse, comprising members of Alphaproteobacteria and Chloroflexi. Although photosynthetic microorganisms dominated in biomass, heterotrophic lineages were more diverse. We detected members of up to 21 bacterial phyla or candidate divisions, including lineages possibly involved in microbialite formation, such as sulfate-reducing Deltaproteobacteria but also Firmicutes and very diverse taxa likely able to degrade complex polymeric substances, such as Planctomycetales, Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia. Heterotrophic eukaryotes were dominated by Fungi (including members of the basal Rozellida or Cryptomycota), Choanoflagellida, Nucleariida, Amoebozoa, Alveolata and Stramenopiles. The diversity and relative abundance of many eukaryotic lineages suggest an unforeseen role for protists in microbialite ecology. Many lineages from lake microbialites were successfully maintained in aquaria. Interestingly, the diversity detected in aquarium microbialites was higher than in field samples, possibly due to more stable and favorable laboratory conditions. The maintenance of highly diverse natural microbialites in laboratory aquaria holds promise to study the role of different metabolisms in the formation of these structures under controlled conditions

Resistance of a Rodent Malaria Parasite to a Thymidylate Synthase Inhibitor Induces an Apoptotic Parasite Death and Imposes a Huge Cost of Fitness

BACKGROUND: The greatest impediment to effective malaria control is drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum, and thus understanding how resistance impacts on the parasite's fitness and pathogenicity may aid in malaria control strategy. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To generate resistance, P. berghei NK65 was subjected to 5-fluoroorotate (FOA, an inhibitor of thymidylate synthase, TS) pressure in mice. After 15 generations of drug pressure, the 2% DT (the delay time for proliferation of parasites to 2% parasitaemia, relative to untreated wild-type controls) reduced from 8 days to 4, equalling the controls. Drug sensitivity studies confirmed that FOA-resistance was stable. During serial passaging in the absence of drug, resistant parasite maintained low growth rates (parasitaemia, 15.5%±2.9, 7 dpi) relative to the wild-type (45.6%±8.4), translating into resistance cost of fitness of 66.0%. The resistant parasite showed an apoptosis-like death, as confirmed by light and transmission electron microscopy and corroborated by oligonucleosomal DNA fragmentation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The resistant parasite was less fit than the wild-type, which implies that in the absence of drug pressure in the field, the wild-type alleles may expand and allow drugs withdrawn due to resistance to be reintroduced. FOA resistance led to depleted dTTP pools, causing thymineless parasite death via apoptosis. This supports the tenet that unicellular eukaryotes, like metazoans, also undergo apoptosis. This is the first report where resistance to a chemical stimulus and not the stimulus itself is shown to induce apoptosis in a unicellular parasite. This finding is relevant in cancer therapy, since thymineless cell death induced by resistance to TS-inhibitors can further be optimized via inhibition of pyrimidine salvage enzymes, thus providing a synergistic impact. We conclude that since apoptosis is a process that can be pharmacologically modulated, the parasite's apoptotic machinery may be exploited as a novel drug target in malaria and other protozoan diseases of medical importance

Influence of handaxe size and shape on cutting efficiency: a large-scale experiment and morphometric analysis

Handaxes represent one of the most temporally enduring and geographically widespread of Palaeolithic artifacts and thus comprised a key technological strategy of many hominin populations. Archaeologically observable variation in the size (i.e., mass) and shape properties of handaxes has been frequently noted. It is logical to ask whether some of this variability may have had functional implications. Here, we report the results of a large-scale (n = 500 handaxes) experiment designed to examine the influence of variation in handaxe size and shape on cutting efficiency rates during a laboratory task. We used a comprehensive dataset of morphometric (size-adjusted) shape variables and statistical methods (including multivariate methods) to address this issue. Our first set of analyses focused on handaxe mass/size variability. This analysis demonstrated that, at a broad-scale level of variation, handaxe mass may have been free to vary independently of functional (cutting) efficiency. Our analysis also, however, identified that there will be a task-specific threshold in terms of functional effectiveness at the lower end of handaxe mass variation. This implies that hominins may have targeted design forms to meet minimal (task-specific) thresholds, and may also have managed handaxe reduction and discard in respect to such factors. Our second set of analyses focused on handaxe shape variability. This analysis also indicated that considerable variation in handaxe shape may occur independently of any strong effect on cutting efficiency. We discuss how these results have several implications for considerations of handaxe variation in the archaeological record. At a general level, our results demonstrate that variability within and between handaxe assemblages in terms of their size and shape properties will not necessarily have had immediate or strong impact on their effectiveness when used for cutting, and that such variability may have been related to factors other than functional issues