Rational dispensing and use of artemether-lumefantrine during pregnancy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Artemether–Lumefantrine (ALu) is widely used for uncomplicated malaria during the second and third trimester of pregnancy. Because of the suspected teratogenic effects of artemether during the first trimester, quinine is used in early pregnancy unless the risks outweigh the benefits. The aim of this study was to assess dispensing practice of ALu in private pharmacies and knowledge of pregnant women regarding the use of ALu. This was a prospective-descriptive study involving visits to 200 private retail pharmacies (using a mystery shopper) and interviewing pregnant women at the municipal public hospitals in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Among the drug dispensers, 60 (30%) were pharmacists, 71(35.5%) nurse assistants, 34 (17%) pharmaceutical technicians and 35 (17.5%) sales persons with no formal education on drug dispensing. Among the dispensers, 14.5% had high knowledge, 38.0% had medium knowledge and 47.5% had low knowledge on the use of ALu during pregnancy. About thirty three percent of the drug dispensers were willing to dispense ALu during the first trimester of pregnancy.  Sixty two percent of the drug dispensers indicated that ALu is the drug of choice for uncomplicated malaria after the first trimester of pregnancy. However, 36% indicated that ALu could not be used during pregnancy.  A total of 200 pregnant women were interviewed. Among them, 16.5% were aware that ALu should not be taken during the first trimester of pregnancy. Only 17% of pregnant women were given information on the importance of taking food when using ALu, but none of them was given information on the importance of fatty meals when using ALu. In conclusion, the results show that most drug dispensers have inadequate knowledge about good dispensing practice of ALu in pregnancy. There is therefore a need for continuing training of drug dispensers regarding antimalarial drugs use in pregnancy

Nanotechnology applications: the future arrived suddenly

There is already a significant time, but it gives the sensation of an extremely short period – nanotechnology has become one of the most promising scientific hopes in innumerable human domains. Now the hope became reality. Countless scientific studies in several areas of knowledge have been made since the nanoscale emergence, carrying their contribution to the nanoscience development. The recent researches in this field allowed the union of interests among several areas, such as physical sciences, molecular engineering, biology, biotechnology, and medicine, contributing to the investigation of biosystems at a nanoscale. This chapter begins by discussing nanotechnology in a general way. Then nanotechnology and its applications in industry, in electronics, and in medicine are presented, and some discussion is proposed in order to define the boundaries for the advances in those areas. In the end, nanotechnology is discussed in terms of ethics and the borders that nanotechnology applications must satisfy, and concluding notes are presented, highlighting the results of the analysis. Important considerations are made about the close connection between ethics and the nanotechnology and the effects over the society and values. Some future directions for the research are suggested.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Global Ethics and Nanotechnology: A Comparison of the Nanoethics Environments of the EU and China

The following article offers a brief overview of current nanotechnology policy, regulation and ethics in Europe and The People’s Republic of China with the intent of noting (dis)similarities in approach, before focusing on the involvement of the public in science and technology policy (i.e. participatory Technology Assessment). The conclusions of this article are, that (a) in terms of nanosafety as expressed through policy and regulation, China PR and the EU have similar approaches towards, and concerns about, nanotoxicity—the official debate on benefits and risks is not markedly different in the two regions; (b) that there is a similar economic drive behind both regions’ approach to nanodevelopment, the difference being the degree of public concern admitted; and (c) participation in decision-making is fundamentally different in the two regions. Thus in China PR, the focus is on the responsibility of the scientist; in the EU, it is about government accountability to the public. The formulation of a Code of Conduct for scientists in both regions (China PR’s predicted for 2012) reveals both similarity and difference in approach to nanotechnology development. This may change, since individual responsibility alone cannot guide S&T development, and as public participation is increasingly seen globally as integral to governmental decision-making

A Map of the Nanoworld: Sizing up the Science, Politics, and Business of the Infinitesimal

Mapping out the eight main nodes of nanotechnology discourse that have emerged in the past decade, we explore how various scientific, social, and ethical islands of discussion have developed, been recognized, and are being continually renegotiated. We do so by (1) identifying the ways in which scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs, educators, and environmental groups have drawn boundaries on issues relating to nanotechnology; (2) describing concisely the perspectives from which these boundaries are drawn; and (3) exploring how boundaries on nanotechnology are marked and negotiated by various nodes of nanotechnology discourse.Comment: 25 page

Trust in Nanotechnology? On Trust as Analytical Tool in Social Research on Emerging Technologies

Trust has become an important aspect of evaluating the relationship between lay public and technology implementation. Experiences have shown that a focus on trust provides a richer understanding of reasons for backlashes of technology in society than a mere focus of public understanding of risks and science communication. Therefore, trust is also widely used as a key concept for understanding and predicting trust or distrust in emerging technologies. But whereas trust broadens the scope for understanding established technologies with well-defined questions and controversies, it easily fails to do so with emerging technologies, where there are no shared questions, a lack of public familiarity with the technology in question, and a restricted understanding amongst social researchers as to where distrust is likely to arise and how and under which form the technology will actually be implemented. Rather contrary, ‘trust’ might sometimes even direct social research into fixed structures that makes it even more difficult for social research to provide socially robust knowledge. This article therefore suggests that if trust is to maintain its important role in evaluating emerging technologies, the approach has to be widened and initially focus not on people’s motivations for trust, but rather the object of trust it self, as to predicting how and where distrust might appear, how the object is established as an object of trust, and how it is established in relation with the public

Barriers to the effective treatment and prevention of malaria in Africa: A systematic review of qualitative studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Africa, an estimated 300-500 million cases of malaria occur each year resulting in approximately 1 million deaths. More than 90% of these are in children under 5 years of age. To identify commonly held beliefs about malaria that might present barriers to its successful treatment and prevention, we conducted a systematic review of qualitative studies examining beliefs and practices concerning malaria in sub-Saharan African countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We searched Medline and Scopus (1966-2009) and identified 39 studies that employed qualitative methods (focus groups and interviews) to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of people living in African countries where malaria is endemic. Data were extracted relating to study characteristics, and themes pertaining to barriers to malaria treatment and prevention.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The majority of studies were conducted in rural areas, and focused mostly or entirely on children. Major barriers to prevention reported included a lack of understanding of the cause and transmission of malaria (29/39), the belief that malaria cannot be prevented (7/39), and the use of ineffective prevention measures (12/39). Thirty-seven of 39 articles identified barriers to malaria treatment, including concerns about the safety and efficacy of conventional medicines (15/39), logistical obstacles, and reliance on traditional remedies. Specific barriers to the treatment of childhood malaria identified included the belief that a child with convulsions could die if given an injection or taken to hospital (10/39).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings suggest that large-scale malaria prevention and treatment programs must account for the social and cultural contexts in which they are deployed. Further quantitative research should be undertaken to more precisely measure the impact of the themes uncovered by this exploratory analysis.</p

Integrating science and society in European Framework Programmes: Trends in project-level solicitations

[EN]As part of a larger trend across industrialized nations, European research policy discourse has placed increasing emphasis on socio-technical integration: the explicit incorporation of activities devoted to broader social aspects into scientific activities. In order to compare these high-level integration discourses against patterns at the level of resource allocation, we analyze nearly 2500 research solicitations from the three European Framework Programmes for R&D during the period 1998–2010. We identify four distinct types of integration (socio-ethical, stakeholder, socio-economic and industrial) that occur either as core or parallel components of R&D solicitations. Quantitative analysis reveals an overall trend towards increasing integration, with requests integrating industrial and socio-economic aspects substantially outnumbering those integrating socio-ethical and stakeholder aspects—by a 2 to 1 margin. Meanwhile, calls for socio-technical integration have become slightly more extensive (ranging across a broader range of research areas addressed), significantly more pervasive (shifting from the periphery to the core of R&D practices), and arguably less diverse (involving a wider variety of integration types) over time. The relative lack of attention to socio-ethical aspects and stakeholder participation in European research is particularly notable given that we focus on potentially controversial areas (life sciences, energy, and nanotechnology), which likely overemphasizes the prevalence of integration throughout the Framework Programmes.Hannot Rodríguez's contribution is based on research supported by the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government under a Postdoctoral Fellowship for the Improvement of Research Personnel in a Foreign Country (Ref. No.: BFI08.183; 2009–2010 2-year period). This research was primarily conducted at the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO), and the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS), both at Arizona State University. Erik Fisher's contribution is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award #0849101 and cooperative agreement #0531194. The authors would like to thank David Guston, participants at the “Science and Governance: Global and Comparative Perspectives” workshop at Arizona State University (April 2010) and the Science and Technology Policy Gordon Research Conference (August 2010), and an anonymous reviewer for helpful feedback and constructive criticism of earlier versions of this work. Any limitations and shortcomings of the work remain the responsibility of the authors

Grasp quality measures for dexterous manipulation with multifingered robotic hands

Le travail présenté s'intéresse à la problématique générale de la mise en oeuvre de mains robotiques à haut niveau de dextérité. Dans ce contexte, nous nous intéressons à la synthèse de prise d'objets en prenant en compte les contraintes propres à la tâche de manipulation visée. La manière dont l'objet est saisi a une importance capitale sur le bon déroulement d'une tâche.Le développement d'algorithmes capables de générer automatiquement des prises optimales implique avant tout la nécessité de définir la notion de prise optimale au regard de la tâche cible. Pour répondre à ce problème, la communauté scientifique propose dans la littérature de nombreux critères de qualité et continue à en développer de nouveaux. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons une extension des travaux proposés avec une étude approfondie de ces critères dans le cadre de la manipulation dextre. Ces critères sont évalués avec une main robotique entièrement actionnée à quatre doigts et seize articulations.Nous quantifions l'efficacité de ces critères dans le cadre de la réalisation de tâches de manipulation fine avec trois types d'objets spécifiques. Deux groupes de critères sont étudiés : d'une part des critères s'appuyant uniquement sur la position des points de contact, et, d'autre part, des critères prenant en compte la cinématique du préhenseur. Cette étude nous a permis de sélectionner un ensemble de critères pertinents pour résoudre le problème de synthèse de prise que nous avons mis en oeuvre dans un processus basé sur une approche évolutionnaire. Cette approche a été validée dans l'environnement de simulation OpenRAVE, puis expérimentalement avec la nouvelle main RoBioSS.The work presented in this thesis concerns object grasping with dexterous robotic hands. In this work, we are going to focus on the grasp synthesis problem by taking into account the in-hand manipulation task. The initial grasp has a capital role for the successful completion of a given task.In order to develop algorithms which are able to generate automatically correct grasps for a manipulation task, we need to define suitable grasp quality metrics to assess the validity of a grasp. Throughout the years, a large variety of quality measures have been proposed in the literature and researchers keep on developing new ones. However those quality measures are generally developed for simple grippers and for grasping tasks. In this thesis, we will extend the study of selected interesting grasp quality measures for in-hand manipulation tasks. These quality measures will be evaluated on a four finger robotic hand with sixteen fully actuated degrees of freedom.We will assess the chosen quality measures for in-hand manipulation tasks with three different carefully selected type of objects. The quality metrics are classified in two groups, first one focuses exclusively on the location of contact points and the second one considers the kinematics of the robotic hand. The review of these quality measures led us to select the ones meaningful for solving the grasp synthesis problem for in-hand manipulation. The grasping pipeline implemented to generate the correct grasps is based on an evolutionary approach using a mix of the selected quality measures. The proposed approach was tested in the OpenRAVE robotic simulator and also validated experimentally with the new RoBioSS hand