Syntheses, Characterization, and Antimicrobial Screening of N-(benzothiazol-2-yl)-2-nitrobenzenesulphonamide and its Cu(I), Ni(II), Mn(II), Co(II) and Zn(II) Complexes

N-(benzothiazol-2-yl)-2-nitrobenzenesulphonamide (NBS2ABT) was synthesized by the condensation of 2-aminobenzothiazole and 2-nitrobenzenesulphonylchloride under reflux. Five metal complexes of Cu(I), Ni(II), Mn(II), Co(II) and Zn(II) of the ligands were synthesized. The compounds were characterized using magnetic susceptibility measurements, mass spectrometry, elemental microanalysis, UV/VIS spectrophotometry, infra red, 1H and 13C nmr spectroscopies. The antimicrobial tests of the ligands and its metal complexes were carried out on both multi-resistant bacterial strains isolated under clinical conditions and cultured species using agar-well diffusion method. The multi-resistant bacterial strains used were E. coli, Proteus species, P. aeroginosa and S. aureus which were isolated from dogs. The culture species were P. aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), E. coli (ATCC 25922), S. aureus (ATCC 25923), and the fungi, C. krusei (ATCC 6258) and C. albicans (ATCC 90028). The tests were both in vitro and in vivo. The antimicrobial activities of the compounds were compared with those of Ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole as antibacterial agents and Fluconazole as an antifungal drug. All the compounds showed varying activities against the cultured typed bacteria and fungi used. The Lethal Concentration (LC50) ranged from 5.00±0.86-618.90±30.8 ppm. These are within the permissible concentrations. Key words: N-(benzothiazol-2-yl)-2-nitrobenzenesulphonamide, Metal complexes, Antimicrobial, Ligan

X-ray crystallographic and structural studies of (benzothiazol-2-yl)ethanesulphonamide, and its antimicrobial properties

N-(benzothiazol-2-yl)ethanesulphonamide (ES2ABT) was synthesized by the condensation of 2-aminobenzothiazole and ethanesulphonylchloride in acetone at 130 °C. The resulting crude precipitates were recrystallized in absolute ethanol. ES2ABT was characterized using X-ray crystallography, mass spectrometry, elemental microanalysis, UV/VIS spectrophotometry, infra red, proton and 13C NMR spectroscopies. The antimicrobial tests of the compound were carried out on both multi-resistant bacterial strains isolated under clinical conditions and cultured species using agar-well diffusion method. The multi-resistant bacterial strains used were Escherichia coli, Proteus species, Pseudomonas aeroginosa and Staphylococcus aureus which were isolated from dogs. The culture species were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), Escherichia Coli (ATCC 25922) Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), and the fungi, Candida krusei (ATCC 6258) and Candida albicans (ATCC 90028). The tests were both in vitro and in vivo. Thus the Inhibition Zone Diameter (IZD), the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), and the Lethal and Effective Concentrations (LC50 and EC50) were determined. The antimicrobial activity of the compound was compared with those of Ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole as antibacterial agents and Fluconazole as an antifungal drug. The compound showed varying activity against the cultured typed bacteria and fungi used. However, ES2ABT was less active than the antibacterial standard drugs used but not Fluconazole which did not show any activity against Candida krusei (ATCC 6258). The Lethal Concentration (LC50) is 338.80 ± 28.6 ppm. This is within the permissible concentrations. Key words: N-(benzothiazol-2-yl)ethanesulphonamide, antimicrobial, in vivo, in vitr

Impact of weld restraint on the development of distortion and stress during the electron beam welding of a low-alloy steel subject to solid state phase transformation

Electron beam (EB) welding has a low tolerance to inter-part gapping distortion and can generate complicated stresses, which pose challenges to weld quality and integrity. This study investigates welding distortion and stresses in an EB welded plate made from SA508 Grade 4N low-alloy steel. A thermal-metallurgical-mechanical model was developed to predict the temperature, micro-constituents, hardness, distortion and stresses in the EB weldment; the predictions are in good agreement with experimental results. Different restraint conditions on the weld plane were modelled to examine their effects on distortion and stresses. If welding is performed with no restraint, inter-part gapping develops ahead of the beam position that could exceed the tolerance for a sound weld. In contrast, tack welds at the plate ends significantly reduce this gapping, but induce additional tensile stress at the stop-end tack weld. This stress is particularly high as the beam approaches the tack weld. Increasing the extent of the tack weld reduces the tensile stress, while increasing number of distantly distributed narrow tack welds does not help. A full through-length restraint eliminates the opening gap and minimises the development of tensile stresses ahead of the beam that could potentially break the restraint. The applied restraint on the weld plane has little effect on the final residual stress field, since this field mostly develops during cooling after the EB weld is complete. The weld-induced martensitic transformation suppressed tension or promoted compression in the EB weld and heat affected zone (HAZ). A steep gradient of residual stress exists, with high tensile stress concentrated in a narrow region immediately outside the HAZ

The UK's Global Health Respiratory Network: Improving respiratory health of the world's poorest through research collaborations.

Respiratory disorders are responsible for considerable morbidity, health care utilisation, societal costs and approximately one in five deaths worldwide [1-4]. Yet, despite this substantial health and societal burden – which particularly affects the world’s poorest populations and as such is a major contributor to global health inequalities – respiratory disorders have historically not received the policy priority they warrant. For example, despite causing an estimated 1000 deaths per day, less than half of the world’s countries collect data on asthma prevalence (http://www.globalasthmareport.org/). This is true for both communicable and non-communicable respiratory disorders, many of which are either amenable to treatment or preventable

Partnering to proceed: scaling up adolescent sexual reproductive health programmes in Tanzania. Operational research into the factors that influenced local government uptake and implementation

BACKGROUND: Little is known about how to implement promising small-scale projects to reduce reproductive ill health and HIV vulnerability in young people on a large scale. This evaluation documents and explains how a partnership between a non-governmental organization (NGO) and local government authorities (LGAs) influenced the LGA-led scale-up of an innovative NGO programme in the wider context of a new national multisectoral AIDS strategy. METHODS: Four rounds of semi-structured interviews with 82 key informants, 8 group discussions with 49 district trainers and supervisors (DTS), 8 participatory workshops involving 52 DTS, and participant observations of 80% of LGA-led and 100% of NGO-led meetings were conducted, to ascertain views on project components, flow of communication and decision-making and amount of time DTS utilized undertaking project activities. RESULTS: Despite a successful ten-fold scale-up of intervention activities in three years, full integration into LGA systems did not materialize. LGAs contributed significant human resources but limited finances; the NGO retained control over finances and decision-making and LGAs largely continued to view activities as NGO driven. Embedding of technical assistants (TAs) in the LGAs contributed to capacity building among district implementers, but may paradoxically have hindered project integration, because TAs were unable to effectively transition from an implementing to a facilitating role. Operation of NGO administration and financial mechanisms also hindered integration into district systems. CONCLUSIONS: Sustainable intervention scale-up requires operational, financial and psychological integration into local government mechanisms. This must include substantial time for district systems to try out implementation with only minimal NGO support and modest output targets. It must therefore go beyond the typical three- to four-year project cycles. Scale-up of NGO pilot projects of this nature also need NGOs to be flexible enough to adapt to local government planning cycles and ongoing evaluation is needed to ensure strategies employed to do so really do achieve full intervention integration

Long-term biological and behavioural impact of an adolescent sexual health intervention in Tanzania: follow-up survey of the community-based MEMA kwa Vijana Trial.

BACKGROUND: The ability of specific behaviour-change interventions to reduce HIV infection in young people remains questionable. Since January 1999, an adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) intervention has been implemented in ten randomly chosen intervention communities in rural Tanzania, within a community randomised trial (see below; NCT00248469). The intervention consisted of teacher-led, peer-assisted in-school education, youth-friendly health services, community activities, and youth condom promotion and distribution. Process evaluation in 1999-2002 showed high intervention quality and coverage. A 2001/2 intervention impact evaluation showed no impact on the primary outcomes of HIV seroincidence and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) seroprevalence but found substantial improvements in SRH knowledge, reported attitudes, and some reported sexual behaviours. It was postulated that the impact on "upstream" knowledge, attitude, and reported behaviour outcomes seen at the 3-year follow-up would, in the longer term, lead to a reduction in HIV and HSV-2 infection rates and other biological outcomes. A further impact evaluation survey in 2007/8 ( approximately 9 years post-intervention) tested this hypothesis. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This is a cross-sectional survey (June 2007 through July 2008) of 13,814 young people aged 15-30 y who had attended trial schools during the first phase of the MEMA kwa Vijana intervention trial (1999-2002). Prevalences of the primary outcomes HIV and HSV-2 were 1.8% and 25.9% in males and 4.0% and 41.4% in females, respectively. The intervention did not significantly reduce risk of HIV (males adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] 0.91, 95%CI 0.50-1.65; females aPR 1.07, 95%CI 0.68-1.67) or HSV-2 (males aPR 0.94, 95%CI 0.77-1.15; females aPR 0.96, 95%CI 0.87-1.06). The intervention was associated with a reduction in the proportion of males reporting more than four sexual partners in their lifetime (aPR 0.87, 95%CI 0.78-0.97) and an increase in reported condom use at last sex with a non-regular partner among females (aPR 1.34, 95%CI 1.07-1.69). There was a clear and consistent beneficial impact on knowledge, but no significant impact on reported attitudes to sexual risk, reported pregnancies, or other reported sexual behaviours. The study population was likely to have been, on average, at lower risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections compared to other rural populations, as only youth who had reached year five of primary school were eligible. CONCLUSIONS: SRH knowledge can be improved and retained long-term, but this intervention had only a limited effect on reported behaviour and no significant effect on HIV/STI prevalence. Youth interventions integrated within intensive, community-wide risk reduction programmes may be more successful and should be evaluated. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT0024846

Consensus statement on measures to promote equitable authorship in the publication of research from international partnerships

Despite the acknowledged injustice and widespread existence of parachute research studies conducted in low- or middle-income countries by researchers from institutions in high-income countries, there is currently no pragmatic guidance for how academic journals should evaluate manuscript submissions and challenge this practice. We assembled a multidisciplinary group of editors and researchers with expertise in international health research to develop this consensus statement. We reviewed relevant existing literature and held three workshops to present research data and holistically discuss the concept of equitable authorship and the role of academic journals in the context of international health research partnerships. We subsequently developed statements to guide prospective authors and journal editors as to how they should address this issue. We recommend that for manuscripts that report research conducted in low- or middle-income countries by collaborations including partners from one or more high-income countries, authors should submit accompanying structured reflexivity statements. We provide specific questions that these statements should address and suggest that journals should transparently publish reflexivity statements with accepted manuscripts. We also provide guidance to journal editors about how they should assess the structured statements when making decisions on whether to accept or reject submitted manuscripts. We urge journals across disciplines to adopt these recommendations to accelerate the changes needed to halt the practice of parachute research

The need to promote behaviour change at the cultural level: one factor explaining the limited impact of the MEMA kwa Vijana adolescent sexual health intervention in rural Tanzania. A process evaluation

Background - Few of the many behavioral sexual health interventions in Africa have been rigorously evaluated. Where biological outcomes have been measured, improvements have rarely been found. One of the most rigorous trials was of the multi-component MEMA kwa Vijana adolescent sexual health programme, which showed improvements in knowledge and reported attitudes and behaviour, but none in biological outcomes. This paper attempts to explain these outcomes by reviewing the process evaluation findings, particularly in terms of contextual factors. Methods - A large-scale, primarily qualitative process evaluation based mainly on participant observation identified the principal contextual barriers and facilitators of behavioural change. Results - The contextual barriers involved four interrelated socio-structural factors: culture (i.e. shared practices and systems of belief), economic circumstances, social status, and gender. At an individual level they appeared to operate through the constructs of the theories underlying MEMA kwa Vijana - Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Reasoned Action – but the intervention was unable to substantially modify these individual-level constructs, apart from knowledge. Conclusion - The process evaluation suggests that one important reason for this failure is that the intervention did not operate sufficiently at a structural level, particularly in regard to culture. Recently most structural interventions have focused on gender or/and economics. Complementing these with a cultural approach could address the belief systems that justify and perpetuate gender and economic inequalities, as well as other barriers to behaviour change

Seroprevalence and risk factors of herpes simplex virus type-2 infection among pregnant women in Northeast India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Herpes simplex virus type-2 (HSV-2) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections that facilitate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition by over two fold or more. The development of HSV-2 control methods as a measure to control HIV epidemic in high HSV-2/HIV areas has become a priority. Two out of the six high HIV prevalent states of India are located in the Northeastern region of India. Due to lack of documented HSV-2 studies from this part of the country; there was a need for estimating the seroprevalence and risk factors of HSV-2 infection in this defined population.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Pregnant women (n = 1640) aged18 years and above attending antenatal clinics of tertiary referral hospitals in five Northeastern states of India were screened for type specific HSV-2 IgG antibodies. Blood samples were collected from all the participants after conducting interviews. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the risk factors associated with HSV-2 seropositivity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall seroprevalence of HSV-2 infection was 8.7% (142/1640; 95% CI 7.3-10.0) with a highest prevalence of 15.0% (46/307; 95% CI 11.0-19.0) in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Higher seroprevalence was observed with increasing age (Adj. Odds Ratio [AOR] 1.9 for 22-25 years old, AOR 2.29 for > 29 years old). The risk factors associated with HSV-2 seropositives were multiple sex partners (AOR 2.5, <it>p </it>= 0.04), condom non-user's (AOR 4.7, p <it><</it>0.001), early coitarchal age (age of first intercourse) 'less than 18 years' (AOR 9.6, <it>p = </it>0.04), middle income group (AOR 2.1, <it>p = </it>0.001) compared to low income group and low level of education (AOR 3.7, <it>p = </it>0.02) compared to higher education. HSV-2 seropositivity was higher among Christians (12.6%) compared to Muslims (3.8%). The most frequent clinical symptoms among HSV-2 seropositives were excess vaginal discharge in last one year (53.5%, 76/142) and pelvic pain (26.1%, 37/142). While among subjects with genital ulcers, HSV-2 seroprevalence was 36.8% (7/19).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Overall seroprevalence of HSV-2 infection among pregnant women of Northeast India is relatively low. The generation of awareness among high risk groups may have played key role to limit the infection. The role of vaccination against HSV-2 in near future and elimination of HSV-2 viral shedding along with genital tract inflammation in high HIV/HSV-2 areas may be an option for initiating successful intervention strategies to reduce the transmission and acquisition of HIV infection in Northeast India.</p

The VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea eXtended (VVVX) ESO public survey: Completion of the observations and legacy

© 2024 ESO. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202450584The ESO public survey VISTA Variables in the V\'ia L\'actea (VVV) surveyed the inner Galactic bulge and the adjacent southern Galactic disk from $2009-2015$. Upon its conclusion, the complementary VVV eXtended (VVVX) survey has expanded both the temporal as well as spatial coverage of the original VVV area, widening it from $562$ to $1700$ sq. deg., as well as providing additional epochs in $JHK_{\rm s}$ filters from $2016-2023$. With the completion of VVVX observations during the first semester of 2023, we present here the observing strategy, a description of data quality and access, and the legacy of VVVX. VVVX took $\sim 2000$ hours, covering about 4% of the sky in the bulge and southern disk. VVVX covered most of the gaps left between the VVV and the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) areas and extended the VVV time baseline in the obscured regions affected by high extinction and hence hidden from optical observations. VVVX provides a deep $JHK_{\rm s}$ catalogue of $\gtrsim 1.5\times10^9$ point sources, as well as a $K_{\rm s}$ band catalogue of $\sim 10^7$ variable sources. Within the existing VVV area, we produced a $5D$ map of the surveyed region by combining positions, distances, and proper motions of well-understood distance indicators such as red clump stars, RR Lyrae, and Cepheid variables. In March 2023 we successfully finished the VVVX survey observations that started in 2016, an accomplishment for ESO Paranal Observatory upon 4200 hours of observations for VVV+VVVX. The VVV+VVVX catalogues complement those from the Gaia mission at low Galactic latitudes and provide spectroscopic targets for the forthcoming ESO high-multiplex spectrographs MOONS and 4MOST.Peer reviewe