1,969 research outputs found
Occurrence of bovine hydatidosis and evaluation of its risk to humans in traditional communities of Southern Region of Ethiopia
Background: Cystic Echinococcosis/ Hydatid Disease, is an infection caused by the larval stage of the tapeworm Echinococcus granulosus, one of the most widespread parasitic zoonoses.Objective: To determine the occurrence, localization and fertility/sterility rates of hydatid cyst in cattle, to determine the prevalence of adult E. granulosus in dogs and asses the risk for human infection in traditional communities.Methods: Postmortem examination, hydatid cyst characterization, questionnaire survey and dog stool sample examination were carried out.Results: Of the total 320 ruminants examined at backyard slaughtering, 151 (47.2%) were found harboring hydatid cysts. The liver and lungs were the two main infected organs, 34.4% and 52.3%, respectively. The majority of the cysts found were small, 54.3%, and medium, 37.7%. From the total number of cysts found, 70.2% were sterile, while 29.8% were fertile. A questionnaire survey revealed that local people were unaware of the life cycle of E. granulosus and the perpetuation of its life cycle by their cultural and traditional practices. Dogs have intimate contact with humansand other domestic animals, share the same house and also dogs do not have access for veterinary care. Stool samples of 62 dogs were collected and analyzed with a 30% prevalence of taenia infection confirmed to be E. granulosus.Conclusion: Because of the high prevalence of E. granulosus infection in dogs and hydatidosis in cattle as well as common practice of backyard slaughtering, the risk of human infection in traditional communities is suspected to be high and requires immediate attention to study the status of cystic ehinococcosis in the human population of the study area.[Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2012;26(1):43-48
A Novel Use of Light Guides and Wavelength Shifting Plates for the Detection of Scintillation Photons in Large Liquid Argon Detectors
Scintillation light generated as charged particles traverse large liquid
argon detectors adds valuable information to studies of weakly-interacting
particles. This paper uses both laboratory measurements and cosmic ray data
from the Blanche dewar facility at Fermilab to characterize the efficiency of
the photon detector technology developed at Indiana University for the single
phase far detector of DUNE. The efficiency of this technology was found to be
0.48% at the readout end when the detector components were characterized with
laboratory measurements. A second determination of the efficiency using cosmic
ray tracks is in reasonable agreement with the laboratory determination. The
agreement of these two efficiency determinations supports the result that
minimum ionizing muons generate photons/MeV as
they cross the LAr volume.Comment: Accepted version (without final editorial corrections
A high-resolution hydrodynamic-biogeochemical coupled model of the Gulf of Cadiz – Alboran Sea region.
The southern Iberia regional seas comprise the Gulf of Cadiz and the Alboran Sea sub-basins connected by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. Both basins are very different in their hydrological and biological characteristics but are, also, tightly connected to each other. Integrative studies of the whole regional oceanic system are scarce and difficult to perform due to the relative large area to cover and the different relevant time-scales of the main forcings in each sub-basin. Here we propose, for the first time, a fully coupled, 3D, hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model that covers, in a single domain (~2km resolution) both marine basins for a 20 years simulation (1989-2008). Model performance is assessed against available data in terms of spatial and temporal distributions of biological variables. In general, the proposed model is able to represent the climatological distributions of primary and secondary producers and also the main seasonality of primary production in the different sub-regions of the analyzed basins. Potential causes of the observed mismatches between model and data are identified and some solutions are proposed for future model development. We conclude that most of these mismatches could be attributed to the missing tidal forcing in the actual model configuration. This model is a first step to obtain a meaningful tool to study past and future oceanographic conditions in this important marine region constituting the unique connection of the Mediterranean Sea with the open world’s ocean
Isomorphism between Non-Riemannian gravity and Einstein-Proca-Weyl theories extended to a class of Scalar gravity theories
We extend the recently proved relation between certain models of
Non-Riemannian gravitation and Einstein- Proca-Weyl theories to a class of
Scalar gravity theories. This is used to present a Black-Hole Dilaton solution
with non-Riemannian connection.Comment: 13 pages, tex file, accepted in Class. Quant. Gra
Tinea Capitis in Adults. A Diagnosis to Consider?
A tinea capitis, uma infecção por fungos dermatófitos do couro cabeludo, é uma patologia rara no adulto, mesmo em áreas geográficas onde a doença é prevalente. Nestes casos está muitas vezes, mas não exclusivamente, associada a imunodepressão e habitualmente surge por exposição ao agente infeccioso em contactantes próximos.
São fundamentais uma história clínica e um exame objectivo minuciosos que permitam equacionar a tinha do couro cabeludo como hipótese diagnóstica e proceder à colheita de amostras para exame micológico. Esta metodologia pode evitar a realização de exames complementares exaustivos ou a prescrição de tratamentos inadequados.
Os autores descrevem três casos de tinea capitis em mulheres adultas – dois casos de infecção por Microsporum audouinii e um caso por Trichophyton soudanense. É apresentado o registo iconográfico dos casos e é efectuada breve revisão da literatura
Space--time fluctuations and the spreading of wavepackets
Using a density matrix description in space we study the evolution of
wavepackets in a fluctuating space-time background. We assume that space-time
fluctuations manifest as classical fluctuations of the metric. From the
non-relativistic limit of a non-minimally coupled Klein-Gordon equation we
derive a Schr\"odinger equation with an additive gaussian random potential.
This is transformed into an effective master equation for the density matrix.
The solutions of this master equation allow to study the dynamics of
wavepackets in a fluctuating space-time, depending on the fluctuation scenario.
We show how different scenarios alter the diffusion properties of wavepackets.Comment: 11 page
Qualités psychométriques du Consumer satisfaction questionnaire (CSQ-8) et du Helping alliance questionnaire (HAQ) [Psychometric properties of the Consumer Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8) and the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ)].
BACKGROUND: This study was based on data from a quality of care assessment survey conducted in 2011 in outpatient polyclinics of the Vaud Canton in Switzerland, comprising questionnaires completed by 568 children over the age often and 672 parents of children of all ages. The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric qualities of the eight-item French versions for children of the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ) and the Consumer Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8) to allow formal validation and clinical application of these tools in the context of French-speaking child psychiatry.
METHODOLOGY: Responses from children over the age often to the HAQ and CSQ-8 questionnaires were submitted to confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) for ordinal data to verify their good fit with the original long versions. Construct validity (correspondence between scores on the scales and other external criteria considered to evaluate similar concepts) of the child questionnaires was tested by Spearman's correlation with the parents' responses and their feeling of being reassured or in agreement with respect to the first visit, and with the perception of the help provided by individual and family interviews.
RESULTS: CFA showed an acceptable fit with the one-dimensional model of the original scales, both for the HAQ and the CSQ-8. Significant positive correlations of the scales with the parents' responses and with other convergent external criteria confirmed the good construct validity.
CONCLUSIONS: These psychometric analyses provide a basis for the validation and clinical application of the abridged French versions of the HAQ and CSQ-8 in quality of care assessment in child psychiatry
Measuring Cosmological Parameters with the JVAS and CLASS Gravitational Lens Surveys
The JVAS (Jodrell Bank-VLA Astrometric Survey) and CLASS (Cosmic Lens All-Sky
Survey) are well-defined surveys containing about ten thousand flat-spectrum
radio sources. For many reasons, flat-spectrum radio sources are particularly
well-suited as a population from which one can obtain unbiased samples of
gravitational lenses. These are by far the largest gravitational (macro)lens
surveys, and particular attention was paid to constructing a cleanly-defined
sample for the survey itself and for the underlying luminosity function. Here
we present the constraints on cosmological parameters, particularly the
cosmological constant, derived from JVAS and combine them with constraints from
optical gravitational lens surveys, `direct' measurements of ,
and the age of the universe, and constraints derived from CMB
anisotropies, before putting this final result into the context of the latest
results from other, independent cosmological tests.Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, 6 PostScript figures, uses texas.sty. To appear in
the Proceedings of the 19th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics and
Cosmology (CD-ROM). Paper version available on request. Actual poster (A0 and
A4 versions) available from
http://multivac.jb.man.ac.uk:8000/helbig/research/publications/info/
texas98.htm
Period-doubling bifurcation in strongly anisotropic Bianchi I quantum cosmology
We solve the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for the minisuperspace of a cosmological
model of Bianchi type I with a minimally coupled massive scalar field as
source by generalizing the calculation of Lukash and Schmidt [1]. Contrarily to
other approaches we allow strong anisotropy. Combining analytical and numerical
methods, we apply an adiabatic approximation for , and as new feature we
find a period-doubling bifurcation. This bifurcation takes place near the
cosmological quantum boundary, i.e., the boundary of the quasiclassical region
with oscillating -function where the WKB-approximation is good. The
numerical calculations suggest that such a notion of a ``cosmological quantum
boundary'' is well-defined, because sharply beyond that boundary, the
WKB-approximation is no more applicable at all. This result confirms the
adequateness of the introduction of a cosmological quantum boundary in quantum
cosmology.Comment: Latest update of the paper at
http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~mbach/publics.html#
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