Traditional Beliefs, Practices, and Migration: A Risk to Malaria Transmission in Rural Nepal

The study aimed to explore sociocultural factors influencing the risk of malaria and practices and beliefs towards malaria prevention, transmission and treatment in a remote village in Khatyad Rural Municipality (KRM) of Nepal. A sequential exploratory mixed methods approach was used. Qualitative data were collected through 25 one-on-one, in-depth interviews followed by a face-to-face household survey (n = 218) among people from a village in KRM believed to have a high risk of malaria. Traditional practices such as Chhaupadi requiring the seclusion of women during menstruation and post-partum, transhumance, and reliance on traditional healers for the management of malaria were common practices in the village. The household survey found 98.1% of women faced menstrual exile either inside the house or in a separate hut, with 64.2% not having access to Long-lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs). Hardships and economic constraints compelled villagers to migrate seasonally for work to malaria-endemic areas in India, thereby exposing themselves to the risk of malaria. Persistent traditional beliefs and seasonal migration could threaten the elimination goals set by the national malaria program

Machine-Part cell formation through visual decipherable clustering of Self Organizing Map

Machine-part cell formation is used in cellular manufacturing in order to process a large variety, quality, lower work in process levels, reducing manufacturing lead-time and customer response time while retaining flexibility for new products. This paper presents a new and novel approach for obtaining machine cells and part families. In the cellular manufacturing the fundamental problem is the formation of part families and machine cells. The present paper deals with the Self Organising Map (SOM) method an unsupervised learning algorithm in Artificial Intelligence, and has been used as a visually decipherable clustering tool of machine-part cell formation. The objective of the paper is to cluster the binary machine-part matrix through visually decipherable cluster of SOM color-coding and labelling via the SOM map nodes in such a way that the part families are processed in that machine cells. The Umatrix, component plane, principal component projection, scatter plot and histogram of SOM have been reported in the present work for the successful visualization of the machine-part cell formation. Computational result with the proposed algorithm on a set of group technology problems available in the literature is also presented. The proposed SOM approach produced solutions with a grouping efficacy that is at least as good as any results earlier reported in the literature and improved the grouping efficacy for 70% of the problems and found immensely useful to both industry practitioners and researchers.Comment: 18 pages,3 table, 4 figure

The bed nucleus of stria terminalis and the amygdala as targets of antenatal glucocorticoids: implications for fear and anxiety responses

Rationale: Several human and experimental studies have shown that early life adverse events can shape physical and mental health in adulthood. Stress or elevated levels of glucocorticoids (GCs) during critical periods of development seem to contribute for the appearance of neurospyschiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression, albeit the underlying mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to determine the long-term effect of prenatal erxposure to dexamethasone- DEX (synthetic GC widely used in clinics) in fear and anxious behavior and identify the neurochemical, morphological and molecular correlates. Results: Prenatal exposure to DEX triggers a hyperanxious phenotype and altered fear behavior in adulthood. These behavioral traits were correlated with increased volume of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), particularly the anteromedial subivision which presented increased dendritic length; in parallel, we found an increased expression of synapsin and NCAM in the BNST of these animals. Remarkably, DEX effects were opposite in the amygdala, as this region presented reduced volume due to significant dendritic atrophy. Albeit no differences were found in dopamine and its metabolite levels in the BNST, this neurotransmitter was substantially reduced in the amygdala, which also presented an up-regulation of dopamine receptor 2. Conclusions: Altogether our results show that in utero DEX exposure can modulate anxiety and fear behavior in parallel with significant morphological, neurochemical and molecular changes; importantly, GCs seem to differentially affect distinct brain regions involved in this type of behaviors.This study was supported by a grant from the Institute for the Study of Affective Neuroscience (ISAN). AJR is supported by a Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) grant

An SK3 Channel/nWASP/Abi-1 Complex Is Involved in Early Neurogenesis

BACKGROUND: The stabilization or regulated reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton is essential for cellular structure and function. Recently, we could show that the activation of the SK3-channel that represents the predominant SK-channel in neural stem cells, leads to a rapid local outgrowth of long filopodial processes. This observation indicates that the rearrangement of the actin based cytoskeleton via membrane bound SK3-channels might selectively be controlled in defined micro compartments of the cell. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found two important proteins for cytoskeletal rearrangement, the Abelson interacting protein 1, Abi-1 and the neural Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome Protein, nWASP, to be in complex with SK3- channels in neural stem cells (NSCs). Moreover, this interaction is also found in spines and postsynaptic compartments of developing primary hippocampal neurons and regulates neurite outgrowth during early phases of differentiation. Overexpression of the proteins or pharmacological activation of SK3 channels induces obvious structural changes in NSCs and hippocampal neurons. In both neuronal cell systems SK3 channels and nWASP act synergistic by strongly inducing filopodial outgrowth while Abi-1 behaves antagonistic to its interaction partners. CONCLUSIONS: Our results give good evidence for a functional interplay of a trimeric complex that transforms incoming signals via SK3-channel activation into the local rearrangement of the cytoskeleton in early steps of neuronal differentiation involving nWASP and Abi-1 actin binding proteins

Bayesian inference supports the host selection hypothesis in explaining adaptive host specificity by European bitterling

Generalist parasites have the capacity to infect multiple hosts. The temporal pattern of host specificity by generalist parasites is rarely studied, but is critical to understanding what variables underpin infection and thereby the impact of parasites on host species and the way they impose selection on hosts. Here, the temporal dynamics of infection of four species of freshwater mussel by European bitterling fish (Rhodeus amarus) was investigated over three spawning seasons. Bitterling lay their eggs in the gills of freshwater mussels, which suffer reduced growth, oxygen stress, gill damage and elevated mortality as a result of parasitism. The temporal pattern of infection of mussels by European bitterling in multiple populations was examined. Using a Bernoulli Generalized Additive Mixed Model with Bayesian inference it was demonstrated that one mussel species, Unio pictorum, was exploited over the entire bitterling spawning season. As the season progressed, bitterling showed a preference for other mussel species, which were inferior hosts. Temporal changes in host use reflected elevated density-dependent mortality in preferred hosts that were already infected. Plasticity in host specificity by bitterling conformed with the predictions of the host selection hypothesis. The relationship between bitterling and their host mussels differs qualitatively from that of avian brood parasites