Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium africanum in Ghana

BACKGROUND: Mycobacterium africanum comprises two phylogenetic lineages within the M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC) and is an important cause of human tuberculosis (TB) in West Africa. The reasons for this geographic restriction of M. africanum remain unclear. Here, we performed a prospective study to explore associations between the characteristics of TB patients and the MTBC lineages circulating in Ghana. METHOD: We genotyped 1,211 MTBC isolates recovered from pulmonary TB patients recruited between 2012 and 2014 using single nucleotide polymorphism typing and spoligotyping. Associations between patient and pathogen variables were assessed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Of the 1,211 MTBC isolates analysed, 71.9 % (871) belonged to Lineage 4; 12.6 % (152) to Lineage 5 (also known as M. africanum West-Africa 1), 9.2 % (112) to Lineage 6 (also known as M. africanum West-Africa 2) and 0.6 % (7) to Mycobacterium bovis. Univariate analysis revealed that Lineage 6 strains were less likely to be isoniazid resistant compared to other strains (odds ratio = 0.25, 95 % confidence interval (CI): 0.05-0.77, P < 0.01). Multivariate analysis showed that Lineage 5 was significantly more common in patients from the Ewe ethnic group (adjusted odds ratio (adjOR): 2.79; 95 % CI: 1.47-5.29, P < 0.001) and Lineage 6 more likely to be found among HIV-co-infected TB patients (adjOR = 2.2; 95 % confidence interval (CI: 1.32-3.7, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Our findings confirm the importance of M. africanum in Ghana and highlight the need to differentiate between Lineage 5 and Lineage 6, as these lineages differ in associated patient variables

The Role of Information Overload on Consumers’ Online Shopping Behavior

In today's market, there exists a variety of products and brands for creating various items based on the needs and demands of customers. As technology advances, more companies are emerging, and it is evident that multiple businesses have developed products that are comparable to one another. To expose the products to the market and attract customers, each of these businesses adopts unique description techniques. This sometimes results in information overload. The study sought to investigate the role of information overload on consumers’ online shopping behavior. Based on reviews of relevant theories and principles of the consumer decision-making process, questionnaires were used to gather data from 201 respondents. The findings revealed that as a textual description of product attributes increases, so do the perceptions of information overload, and customers become overwhelmed while trying to process the information. The findings indicated that information overload significantly causes consumers to experience stress, frustration, and perceived risk. Following the study findings, it recommended that managers realize that excessive information can potentially decrease consumers' ability to analyze attributes of products and to compare alternatives; hence, they should analyze the scope to which the amount of provided information can be processed by their target consumers without difficulty

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium africanum in Ghana

Interpretation of MTBDRplus results with specific mutations. (DOC 43 kb

Additional file 2: Table S2. of Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium africanum in Ghana

Genotyping profile of 1211 MTBC isolates from Ghana. (DOC 577 kb