Sentinel surveillance of HIV-1 transmitted drug resistance, acute infection and recent infection.

BackgroundHIV-1 acute infection, recent infection and transmitted drug resistance screening was integrated into voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT) services to enhance the existing surveillance program in San Francisco. This study describes newly-diagnosed HIV cases and characterizes correlates associated with infection.Methodology/principal findingsA consecutive sample of persons presenting for HIV VCT at the municipal sexually transmitted infections (STI) clinic from 2004 to 2006 (N = 9,868) were evaluated by standard enzyme-linked immunoassays (EIA). HIV antibody-positive specimens were characterized as recent infections using a less-sensitive EIA. HIV-RNA pooled testing was performed on HIV antibody-negative specimens to identify acute infections. HIV antibody-positive and acute infection specimens were evaluated for drug resistance by sequence analysis. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to evaluate associations. The 380 newly-diagnosed HIV cases included 29 acute infections, 128 recent infections, and 47 drug-resistant cases, with no significant increases or decreases in prevalence over the three years studied. HIV-1 transmitted drug resistance prevalence was 11.0% in 2004, 13.4% in 2005 and 14.9% in 2006 (p = 0.36). Resistance to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) was the most common pattern detected, present in 28 cases of resistance (59.6%). Among MSM, recent infection was associated with amphetamine use (AOR = 2.67; p<0.001), unprotected anal intercourse (AOR = 2.27; p<0.001), sex with a known HIV-infected partner (AOR = 1.64; p = 0.02), and history of gonorrhea (AOR = 1.62; p = 0.03).ConclusionsNew HIV diagnoses, recent infections, acute infections and transmitted drug resistance prevalence remained stable between 2004 and 2006. Resistance to NNRTI comprised more than half of the drug-resistant cases, a worrisome finding given its role as the backbone of first-line antiretroviral therapy in San Francisco as well as worldwide. The integration of HIV-1 drug resistance, recent infection, and acute infection testing should be considered for existing HIV/STI surveillance and prevention activities, particularly in an era of enhanced efforts for early diagnosis and treatment

The Astro-WISE approach to quality control for astronomical data

We present a novel approach to quality control during the processing of astronomical data. Quality control in the Astro-WISE Information System is integral to all aspects of data handing and provides transparent access to quality estimators for all stages of data reduction from the raw image to the final catalog. The implementation of quality control mechanisms relies on the core features in this Astro-WISE Environment (AWE): an object-oriented framework, full data lineage, and both forward and backward chaining. Quality control information can be accessed via the command-line awe-prompt and the web-based Quality-WISE service. The quality control system is described and qualified using archive data from the 8-CCD Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument (http://www.eso.org/lasilla/instruments/wfi/) on the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla and (pre-)survey data from the 32-CCD OmegaCAM instrument (http://www.astro-wise.org/~omegacam/) on the VST telescope at Paranal.Comment: Accepted for publication in topical issue of Experimental Astronomy on Astro-WISE information syste

The Educational Adjustment Program Profile: A Queensland Initiative in the identification and Monitoring of Students with a Disability

The effective identification and monitoring of students with a disability is a complex and important aspect of educational service delivery for students with a disability in Queensland. Building on previous initiatives in this domain Education Queensland has piloted the development of the Educational Adjustment Program (EAP) profile. Based on the data from the initial survey sample of more than 1500 school age students with a disability across Queensland, this paper highlights: the design of the Education Adjustment Program Adjustment Profile (EAP); some of its psychometric properties; gender and Indigenous student dimensions within the data; and how the EAP instrument compares with the 1 to 6 ascertainment rating scale

Searching for galaxy clusters in the Kilo-Degree Survey

In this paper, we present the tools used to search for galaxy clusters in the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS), and our first results. The cluster detection is based on an implementation of the optimal filtering technique that enables us to identify clusters as over-densities in the distribution of galaxies using their positions on the sky, magnitudes, and photometric redshifts. The contamination and completeness of the cluster catalog are derived using mock catalogs based on the data themselves. The optimal signal to noise threshold for the cluster detection is obtained by randomizing the galaxy positions and selecting the value that produces a contamination of less than 20%. Starting from a subset of clusters detected with high significance at low redshifts, we shift them to higher redshifts to estimate the completeness as a function of redshift: the average completeness is ~ 85%. An estimate of the mass of the clusters is derived using the richness as a proxy. We obtained 1858 candidate clusters with redshift 0 < z_c < 0.7 and mass 13.5 < log(M500/Msun) < 15 in an area of 114 sq. degrees (KiDS ESO-DR2). A comparison with publicly available Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-based cluster catalogs shows that we match more than 50% of the clusters (77% in the case of the redMaPPer catalog). We also cross-matched our cluster catalog with the Abell clusters, and clusters found by XMM and in the Planck-SZ survey; however, only a small number of them lie inside the KiDS area currently available.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication on Astronomy & Astrophysic

Design of Drug-Induced Diseases Elective Utilizing Active Learning

Objectives To describe active learning utilized in a drug-induced diseases (DID) elective and determine inter-rater reliability of the assessment rubric for oral case-based presentations. Methods The design of this DID elective focuses on problem-based learning to enhance students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills pertaining to the treatment of inducible diseases and general medicine. Each class incorporates active learning, utilization of drug information resources, and group work. The primary course assessment is student developed oral case-based presentations evaluated with a standard rubric. Results The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated amongst evaluators to assess the inter-rater reliability of the DID rubric for 21 case-based presentations during the Fall 2013 semester. Composite scores for the case-based presentations demonstrated good inter-rater reliability with an ICC of 0.628. Conclusions Teaching methods utilizing active learning are described for this DID elective. The rubric for the student developed oral case-based presentations demonstrated good inter-rater reliability amongst evaluators and could be modified for use in other professional courses

Arkansas\u27 Incendiary Wildfire Record: 1983-1987

All wildfire reports from lands protected by the Arkansas Forestry Commission for the calendar years 1983 through 1987 were studied. The number of wildfires steadily increased from 2,185 in 1983 to 4,150 in 1987, burning a total of 27,146 hectares in 1987. Incendiarism on forested lands in 1987 comprised 77% of the total fires and 84% of the area burned. Incendiarism was responsible for 40% of all fires and 60% of the area burned in 1983, but increased to 54% of all fires and 69% of the area burned in 1987. In 1987, 80% of all incendiary fires on industry lands were started by local residents. Most incendiary fires occurred on Class 3 (52%) and Class-2 (27%) fire-danger class-days. More incendiary fires (64%) occurred during the spring fire season (January through June). The general public reported 66% the non-incendiary fires, but only 56% of the incendiary-caused fires. Implications of these findings for wildfire prevention programs are discussed

Nonlinear MDOF system characterization and identi cation using the Hilbert-Huang transform

The Hilbert transform is one of the most successful approaches to tracking the varying nature of vibration of a large class of nonlinear systems thanks to the extraction of backbone curves from experimental data. Because signals with multiple frequency components do not admit a well-behaved Hilbert transform, it is inherently limited to the analysis of single-degree-of-freedom systems. In this study, the joint application of the complexification-averaging method and the empirical mode decomposition enables us to develop a new technique, the slow-flow model identification method. Through numerical and experimental applications, we demonstrate that the proposed method is adequate for characterizing and identifying multi-degree-offreedom nonlinear systems

Target and (Astro-)WISE technologies - Data federations and its applications

After its first implementation in 2003 the Astro-WISE technology has been rolled out in several European countries and is used for the production of the KiDS survey data. In the multi-disciplinary Target initiative this technology, nicknamed WISE technology, has been further applied to a large number of projects. Here, we highlight the data handling of other astronomical applications, such as VLT-MUSE and LOFAR, together with some non-astronomical applications such as the medical projects Lifelines and GLIMPS, the MONK handwritten text recognition system, and business applications, by amongst others, the Target Holding. We describe some of the most important lessons learned and describe the application of the data-centric WISE type of approach to the Science Ground Segment of the Euclid satellite.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, Proceedngs IAU Symposium No 325 Astroinformatics 201

A Review of Target Mass Corrections

With recent advances in the precision of inclusive lepton--nuclear scattering experiments, it has become apparent that comparable improvements are needed in the accuracy of the theoretical analysis tools. In particular, when extracting parton distribution functions in the large-x region, it is crucial to correct the data for effects associated with the nonzero mass of the target. We present here a comprehensive review of these target mass corrections (TMC) to structure functions data, summarizing the relevant formulas for TMCs in electromagnetic and weak processes. We include a full analysis of both hadronic and partonic masses, and trace how these effects appear in the operator product expansion and the factorized parton model formalism, as well as their limitations when applied to data in the x->1 limit. We evaluate the numerical effects of TMCs on various structure functions, and compare fits to data with and without these corrections.Comment: 41 pages, 13 figures; minor updates to match published versio