Nutrition-friendly Schools Initiative (NFSI): Another brain-storming strategy

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Interests, trust and security in US-Jordanian nuclear relations

This article explores the relationship between Jordan and the United States (US) in the field of nuclear energy cooperation. Since 2010 the Jordanian government has accelerated its plans for a nuclear energy program and has engaged with multiple partners around the world in order to agree terms for cooperation in technology exchange, monitoring, and the construction of infrastructure. Bilateral negotiations between the US and Jordan for a "123" nuclear cooperation agreement were underway by early 2008, but were suspended in 2011 without an agreement being reached. Jordanian nuclear energy policy has been spurred by energy security considerations (as it currently imports 97 percent of its energy needs) and the discovery of up to 120,000 tonnes of uranium ore in Jordan. At the same time, the US is primarily interested in management of nuclear technology proliferation. This work considers the perceptions of self and other in Jordanian and US policymaking in order to understand why bilateral cooperation has not materialized and what this means for nuclear proliferation in Jordan. This study finds that the US–Jordanian negotiations have been impeded by contradictory objectives and perceptions, and a "123" agreement is not likely in the short to medium term, but that development of Jordan’s nuclear energy program will likely continue regardless

Time to First-Line ART Failure and Time to Second-Line ART Switch in the IeDEA Pediatric Cohort

BACKGROUND: Globally, 49% of the estimated 1.8 million children living with HIV are accessing antiretroviral therapy (ART). There are limited data concerning long-term durability of first-line ART regimens and time to transition to second-line. METHODS: Children initiating their first ART regimen between 2 and 14 years of age and enrolled in one of 208 sites in 30 Asia-Pacific and African countries participating in the Pediatric International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS consortium were included in this analysis. Outcomes of interest were: first-line ART failure (clinical, immunologic, or virologic), change to second-line, and attrition (death or loss to program ). Cumulative incidence was computed for first-line failure and second-line initiation, with attrition as a competing event. RESULTS: In 27,031 children, median age at ART initiation was 6.7 years. Median baseline CD4% for children ≤5 years of age was 13.2% and CD4 count for those >5 years was 258 cells per microliter. Almost all (94.4%) initiated a nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor; 5.3% a protease inhibitor, and 0.3% a triple nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based regimen. At 1 year, 7.7% had failed and 14.4% had experienced attrition; by 5 years, the cumulative incidence was 25.9% and 29.4%, respectively. At 1 year after ART failure, 13.7% had transitioned to second-line and 11.2% had experienced attrition; by 5 years, the cumulative incidence was 31.6% and 25.9%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: High rates of first-line failure and attrition were identified in children within 5 years after ART initiation. Of children meeting failure criteria, only one-third were transitioned to second-line ART within 5 years

Current approach in the management of diarrhea in children: from theory and research to practice and pragmatism

Diarrhea is the second leading cause of deaths in children under five - after pneumonia- with 1.5 million deaths per year. Several studies and meta-analysis, show that low osmolarity oral rehydration salts and zinc, significantly reduce morbidity and mortality in children with diarrhea. Since 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recommended their routine use in children with diarrhea alongside existing preventive measures. Since then, these recommendations are still not yet put into practice in many countries. This article highlights current available evidence of the efficacy of low osmolarity oral rehydration salts and zinc in the management of diarrhea in children. It is hoped this will raise awareness in policy makers and health personnel to adopt these recommendations so that morbidity and mortality from diarrhea in children could be curbed.KEY WORDS: Low osmolarity oral rehydration salts – Zinc – Diarrhea – Children

Motivation to Control Prejudice Predicts Categorization of Multiracials

Multiracial individuals often do not easily fit into existing racial categories. Perceivers may adopt a novel racial category to categorize multiracial targets, but their willingness to do so may depend on their motivations. We investigated whether perceivers' levels of internal motivation to control prejudice (IMS) and external motivation to control prejudice (EMS) predicted their likelihood of categorizing Black-White multiracial faces as Multiracial. Across four studies, IMS positively predicted perceivers' categorizations of multiracial faces as Multiracial. The association between IMS and Multiracial categorizations was strongest when faces were most racially ambiguous. Explicit prejudice, implicit prejudice, and interracial contact were ruled out as explanations for the relationship between IMS and Multiracial categorizations. EMS may be negatively associated with the use of the Multiracial category. Therefore, perceivers' motivations to control prejudice have important implications for racial categorization processes

Genomic surveillance enables the identification of co-infections with multiple SARS-CoV-2 lineages in equatorial Guinea

COVID-19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 represents an ongoing global public health emergency. Rapid identification of emergence, evolution, and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC) would enable timely and tailored responses by public health decision-making bodies. Yet, global disparities in current SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance activities reveal serious geographical gaps. Here, we discuss the experiences and lessons learned from the SARS-CoV-2 monitoring and surveillance program at the Public Health Laboratory on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea that was implemented as part of the national COVID-19 response and monitoring activities. We report how three distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants have dominated the epidemiological situation in Equatorial Guinea since March 2020. In addition, a case of co-infection of two SARS-CoV-2 VOC, Beta and Delta, in a clinically asymptomatic and fully COVID-19 vaccinated man living in Equatorial Guinea is presented. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a person co-infected with Beta and Delta VOC globally. Rapid identification of co-infections is relevant since these might provide an opportunity for genetic recombination resulting in emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 lineages with enhanced transmission or immune evasion potential

'A foundation-hatched black elite’: Obama, the US establishment and foreign policy

US foreign policy has a largely unacknowledged racial dimension due to the racial characteristics of the US foreign policy establishment, and in shared mindsets in a soon-to-be ‘majority-minority’ nation. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) racial-ethnic and class factors produce managed change through socialisation in an attenuated meritocratic order, adapting to challenges to elite dominance by incorporating rising talent, without altering broader patterns of power. The greatest success of such a system would be the assimilation of the most elite minority individuals, even as the bulk of those groups’ members continue to experience discrimination. Such success would be compounded by election to the highest office of a minority US president extolling the virtues of post-racial politics. President Barack Obama represents a ‘Wasp-ified’ black elite, assimilated into the extant structures of power that remain wedded to a more secular, non-biologically-racial, version of Anglo-Saxonism or, more broadly, liberal internationalism. Hence, it should occasion little surprise that there has been so little change in US foreign policies during Obama’s two-term presidency

Microrna-9-5p-CDX2 axis: A useful prognostic biomarker for patients with stage II/III colorectal cancer

A lack of caudal-type homeobox transcription factor 2 (CDX2) protein expression has been proposed as a prognostic biomarker for colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the relationship between CDX2 levels and the survival of patients with stage II/III CRC along with the relationship between microRNAs (miRs) and CDX2 expression are unclear. Tissue samples were collected from patients with stage II/III CRC surgically treated at Kyoto University Hospital. CDX2 expression was semi-quantitatively evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The prognostic impacts of CDX2 expression on overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) were evaluated by multivariable statistical analysis. The expression of miRs regulating CDX2 expression and their prognostic impacts were analyzed using The Cancer Genome Atlas Program for CRC (TCGA-CRC). Eleven of 174 CRC tissues lacked CDX2 expression. The five-year OS and RFS rates of patients with CDX2-negative CRC were significantly lower than those of CDX2-positive patients. Multivariate analysis of clinicopathological features revealed that CDX2-negative status is an independent marker of poor prognosis in stage II/III CRC. miR-9-5p was shown to regulate CDX2 expression. TCGA-CRC analysis showed that high miR-9-5p expression was significantly associated with poor patient prognosis in stage II/III CRC. In conclusion, CDX2, the post-transcriptional target of microRNA-9-5p, is a useful prognostic biomarker in patients with stage II/III CRC

Doing more with less: Teacher professional learning communities in resource-constrained primary schools in rural China.

Teacher professional learning communities provide environments in which teachers engage in regular research and collaboration. They have been found effective as a means for connecting professional learning to the day-to-day realities faced by teachers in the classroom. In this article, the authors draw on survey data collected in primary schools serving 71 villages in rural Gansu Province as well as transcripts from in-depth interviews with 30 teachers. Findings indicate that professional learning communities penetrate to some of China’s most resource-constrained schools but that their nature and development are shaped by institutional supports, principal leadership, and teachers’ own initiative