Discovery and Assessment of New Target Sites for Anti-HIV Therapies

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects cells by endocytosis and takes over parts of the cell’s reaction pathways in order to reproduce itself and spread the infection. One such pathway taken over by HIV becomes the inflammatory pathway which uses Nuclear Factor κB (NF-κB) as the principal transcription factor. Therefore, knocking out the NF-κB pathway would prevent HIV from reproducing itself. In this report, our goal is to produce a simple model for this pathway with which we can identify potential targets for anti-HIV therapies and test out various hypotheses. We present a very simple model with four coupled first-order ODEs and see what happens if we treat IκK concentration as a parameter that can be controlled (by some unspecified means). In Section 3, we augment this model to account for activation and deactivation of IκK, which is controlled (again, by some unspecified means) by TNF

Control of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia: knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and practices in Narok district of Kenya

CBPP is an important transboundary disease in sub-Saharan Africa whose control is urgent. Participatory data collection involving 52 focus group discussions in 37 village clusters and key informant interviews, a cross-sectional study involving 232 households and a post-vaccination follow up involving 203 households was carried out in 2006–2007 in Narok South district of Kenya. This was to investigate knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and practices (KAPP) associated with control of CBPP as well as the adverse post-vaccination reactions in animals in order to advice the control policy. The community perceived trans-boundary CBPP threat to their cattle. They had traditional disease coping mechanisms and were conversant with CBPP prevention and control with 49.8% (95%CI: 42.8–56.7%) giving priority to CBPP control. However, 12.9% (95%CI: 9.0–18.1%) of pastoralists had no knowledge of any prevention method and 10.0% (95%CI: 6.5–14.7%) would not know what to do or would do nothing in the event of an outbreak. Although 43.5% (95%CI: 37.1–50.2%) of pastoralists were treating CBPP cases with antimicrobials, 62.5% (95%CI: 52.1–71.7%) of them doubted the effectiveness of the treatments. Pastoralists perceived vaccination to be the solution to CBPP but vaccination was irregular due to unavailability of the vaccine. Vaccination was mainly to control outbreaks rather than preventive and exhibited adverse post-vaccination reactions among 70.4% (95%CI: 63.6–76.5%) of herds and 3.8% (95%CI: 3.5–4.2%) of animals. Consequently, nearly 25.2% (95%CI: 18.5–33.2%) of pastoralists may resist subsequent vaccinations against CBPP. Pastoralists preferred CBPP vaccination at certain times of the year and that it is combined with other vaccinations. In conclusion, pastoralists were not fully aware of the preventive measures and interventions and post-vaccination reactions may discourage subsequent CBPP vaccinations. Consequently there is need for monitoring and management of post vaccination reactions and awareness creation on CBPP prevention and interventions and their merits and demerits. CBPP vaccine was largely unavailable to the pastoralists and the preference of the pastoralists was for vaccination at specified times and vaccine combinations which makes it necessary to avail the vaccine in conformity with the pastoralists preferences. In addition, planning vaccinations should involve pastoralists and neighbouring countries. As the results cannot be generalized, further studies on CBPP control methods and their effectiveness are recommended

A deterministic evaluation of heat stress mitigation and feed cost under climate change within the smallholder dairy sector

In the global South, dairying is often promoted as a means of poverty alleviation. Yet, under conditions of climate warming, little is known regarding the ability of small-scale dairy producers to maintain production and/or the robustness of possible adaptation options in meeting the challenges presented, particularly heat stress. The authors created a simple, deterministic model to explore the influence of breed and heat stress relief options on smallholder dairy farmers in Odisha, India. Breeds included indigenous Indian (non-descript), low-grade Jersey crossbreed and high-grade Jersey crossbreed. Relief strategies included providing shade, fanning and bathing. The impact of predicted critical global climate parameters, a 2°C and 4°C temperature rise were explored. A feed price scenario was modelled to illustrate the importance of feed in impact estimation. Feed costs were increased by 10% to 30%. Across the simulations, high-grade Jersey crossbreeds maintained higher milk yields, despite being the most sensitive to the negative effects of temperature. Low-capital relief strategies were the most effective at reducing heat stress impacts on household income. However, as feed costs increased the lower-grade Jersey crossbreed became the most profitable breed. The high-grade Jersey crossbreed was only marginally (4.64%) more profitable than the indigenous breed. The results demonstrate the importance of understanding the factors and practical trade-offs that underpin adaptation. The model also highlights the need for hot-climate dairying projects and programmes to consider animal genetic resources alongside environmentally sustainable adaptation measures for greatest poverty impact

Chaotic maps and pattern recognition - the XOR problem

In this report, we describe a novel application of the Baker's map. We demonstrate that the chaotic properties of this map can be used to implement basic operations in Boolean logic. This observation leads naturally to the possibility of new computational models and implementations for conventional computational systems. Here we show that by considering the variation of the fractal dimension of its attractor, and using varying parameter values as inputs, the generalised Baker's map can be used as a natural exclusive OR (XOR) gate. Further, this map can also be used to create other logical functions such as the AND gate. The efficacy of our results are demonstrated by means of a concrete application; namely by designing, to the best of our knowledge, for the frst time, a half-adder that is constructed entirely by utilising chaotic dynamics

Recent Advances in Multimodal Educational Data Mining in K-12 Education

Recently we have seen a rapid rise in the amount of education data available through the digitization of education. This huge amount of education data usually exhibits in a mixture form of images, videos, speech, texts, etc. It is crucial to consider data from different modalities to build successful applications in AI in education (AIED). This tutorial targets AI researchers and practitioners who are interested in applying state-of-the-art multimodal machine learning techniques to tackle some of the hard-core AIED tasks. These include tasks such as automatic short answer grading, student assessment, class quality assurance, knowledge tracing, etc. In this tutorial, we will comprehensively review recent developments of applying multimodal learning approaches in AIED, with a focus on those classroom multimodal data. Beyond introducing the recent advances of computer vision, speech, natural language processing in education respectively, we will discuss how to combine data from different modalities and build AI driven educational applications on top of these data. More specifically, we will talk about (1) representation learning; (2) algorithmic assessment & evaluation; and (3) personalized feedback. Participants will learn about recent trends and emerging challenges in this topic, representative tools and learning resources to obtain ready-to-use models, and how related models and techniques benefit real-world AIED applications

Exploring teachers' perceptions on physical activity engagement for children and young people with intellectual disabilities

Aim: To explore teacher’s perceptions of barriers and facilitators to physical activity, including enabling, reinforcing and predisposing factors amongst children and young people (CYP) with intellectual disabilities (ID). Method and procedures: The Youth Physical Activity Promotion (YPAP) model was used to inform semi-structured focus groups to explore physical activity of CYP with ID. Participants were 23 (9 male) teachers and teaching assistants, from 3 special educational needs (SEN) schools (1 = Primary, 2 = Secondary) within North West England. Three focus groups were held with between 6 and 8 participants, audio and video recorded and data transcribed. Data were inductively and deductively analysed using Nvivo and represented through pen profiles. Results: Three pen profiles were developed and structured around YPAP model to display themes within the data. Enabling factors (facilities (n=23) and activity type (n=39)); reinforcing factors (influences of peers (n=23), family (n=10) and teachers (n=19) to physical activity engagement); predisposing factors (healthy lifestyle (n=15), enjoyment of physical activity (n=14), adaptations for physical activity (n=10), structured play (n=10), effects of disability on physical activity (n=8) and the CYPs attitudes towards physical activity (n=8)). Conclusion: CYP with ID enjoy engaging in physical activity, particularly activities that are of a fun and unstructured nature which allow for progression of skills and promote independence. Participants recognised that they, as teachers, had an influence on the CYP’s physical activity engagement, however suggested that parents have the most influential role. Similar to previous research, participants noted that CYP with ID had a lack of understanding as regards the importance of physical activity engagement and its benefits to health. It is suggested a strong home-school link for CYP within SEN schools could prove to be a key facilitator for active and healthy lifestyles education and choices

Physical Function, Cognitive Function, and Aortic Stiffness in Older Adults

Please view abstract in the attached PDF file

Success Factors of European Syndromic Surveillance Systems: A Worked Example of Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Introduction: Syndromic surveillance aims at augmenting traditional public health surveillance with timely information. To gain a head start, it mainly analyses existing data such as from web searches or patient records. Despite the setup of many syndromic surveillance systems, there is still much doubt about the benefit of the approach. There are diverse interactions between performance indicators such as timeliness and various system characteristics. This makes the performance assessment of syndromic surveillance systems a complex endeavour. We assessed if the comparison of several syndromic surveillance systems through Qualitative Comparative Analysis helps to evaluate performance and identify key success factors. Materials and Methods: We compiled case-based, mixed data on performance and characteristics of 19 syndromic surveillance systems in Europe from scientific and grey literature and from site visits. We identified success factors by applying crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. We focused on two main areas of syndromic surveillance application: seasonal influenza surveillance and situational awareness during different types of potentially health threatening events. Results: We found that syndromic surveillance systems might detect the onset or peak of seasonal influenza earlier if they analyse non-clinical data sources. Timely situational awareness during different types of events is supported by an automated syndromic surveillance system capable of analysing multiple syndromes. To our surprise, the analysis of multiple data sources was no key success factor for situational awareness. Conclusions: We suggest to consider these key success factors when designing or further developing syndromic surveillance systems. Qualitative Comparative Analysis helped interpreting complex, mixed data on small-N cases and resulted in concrete and practically relevant findings