The Duration Between Traffic Accidents in the Taxi Sector: An Empirical Inquiry

The taxi, as a supplier of urban passenger transport, is often sidelined in travel demand studies, yet its role in the overall transport task is far from marginal. Taxis are the most intensively used automobile transportation and consequently have a very high exposure rate in respect of potential accident. Very little empirical research has been undertaken into the risks associated with using a taxi. Drivers of taxis are usually assumed to be experienced drivers with a safety history appropriate for the responsibility of transporting the public. Yet this is not always the case. To provide some understanding of the exposure to risk which passengers place themselves in when hiring a taxi, we explore the safety record of drivers over time. Of particular interest is the frequency of accidents over a given time period, and in particular the elapsed time between a taxi drivers initial accident and subsequent accidents. To what extent is the duration between accidents a positive or negative function of experience, personal attributes, temporary impairment, fatigue etc? A set of proportional hazards models are developed to explain the time interval (duration) between traffic accidents of taxi drivers in Amman, Jordan. Three econometric models are developed to predict the duration between the date when a taxi driver begins to drive and the date when the first, second, and third accidents occur respectively. Estimation results show that driving-related capabilities, socioeconomic characteristics, and temporary impairments significantly influence the duration between traffic accidents. The duration to the first traffic accident is lower than the duration between the firs

Necessity and concerns about lipid-lowering medical treatments and risk factors for non-adherence: A cross-sectional study in Palestine

Aims: Strong evidence indicates that drugs reduce blood lipids and improve cardiovascular end-points, leading to their wide usage. However, the success of these drugs can be affected by poor patient's adherence to prescribed medication. This study aimed to evaluate medication adherence in patients with dyslipidaemia in association with patient beliefs about medicines. Methods: The study was conducted from January 2019 to July 2019 at the middle governmental primary healthcare clinics in Ramallah and Bethlehem cities, and used a cross-sectional design. Adherence was determined using the 4-item Morisky medication adherence scale, while beliefs were determined using the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire. Results: Of 220 patients, 185 agreed to participate in the study, resulting in a response rate of 84.1%. Of the participants, 106 (57.3%) were men, and almost half (88, 46.5%) were ≥56 years. Medication non-adherence was high (47.6%), but a majority (65.5%) reported believing their treatment to be necessary for their continued good health. Accordingly, the mean necessity score (17.3, SD 3.7) significantly outweighed (P < .001) the mean concerns score (14.0, SD 3.5). Multivariate regression demonstrated four variables to be significantly correlated with non-adherence: illiterate (OR = 2.52; CI: 0.9-4.3; P = .03), polypharmacy (OR = 3.18; CI: 1.9-5.7; P = .007), having comorbidity (OR = 3.10; CI: 2.2-4.6; P = .005) and having concerns about side effects (OR = 2.89; CI: 1.1-4.6, P = .04). Conclusion: Non-adherence among patients taking lipid-lowering agents was high despite most holding positive beliefs regarding medication necessity. This may be due to concern also being high. Physicians should identify and target high-risk patients and individualise their treatment plans in order to achieve adequate control of dyslipidaemia.We thank all workers at health clinics at Ramallah and Bethlehem who helped in finishing this study and also we thank the participants who willingly accepted to share for the purpose of this study

The Relationships Among Social Capital, HIV Self-Management, and Substance Use in Women.

Women living with HIV (WLHIV) face unique challenges to successfully self-manage HIV including substance use and limited social capital. We conducted a 6-month mixed-methods study to describe how social capital influences HIV self-management and substance use among WLHIV. Participants completed a self-report survey and in-depth interview at baseline, and 3 and 6 months. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to examine quantitative relationships. Qualitative data were analyzed using qualitative description. Current substance users reported lower social capital compared with past substance users (2.63 vs. 2.80; p = .34). Over time, substance use and social capital were associated with HIV self-management (Wald χ2 = 28.43; p &lt; .001). Qualitative data suggest that HIV self-management is influenced by overlapping experiences with social capital, including influential trust, community, and value of self can be complicated by ongoing substance use. Social capital can facilitate improved HIV self-management; however, substance use and trauma can weaken this relationship

A natural little hierarchy for RS from accidental SUSY

We use supersymmetry to address the little hierarchy problem in Randall-Sundrum models by naturally generating a hierarchy between the IR scale and the electroweak scale. Supersymmetry is broken on the UV brane which triggers the stabilization of the warped extra dimension at an IR scale of order 10 TeV. The Higgs and top quark live near the IR brane whereas light fermion generations are localized towards the UV brane. Supersymmetry breaking causes the first two sparticle generations to decouple, thereby avoiding the supersymmetric flavour and CP problems, while an accidental R-symmetry protects the gaugino mass. The resulting low-energy sparticle spectrum consists of stops, gauginos and Higgsinos which are sufficient to stabilize the little hierarchy between the IR scale and the electroweak scale. Finally, the supersymmetric little hierarchy problem is ameliorated by introducing a singlet Higgs field on the IR brane.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor corrections, version published in JHE

Functional modelling of a novel mutation in BBS5.

BACKGROUND: Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is an autosomal recessive ciliopathy disorder with 18 known causative genes (BBS1-18). The primary clinical features are renal abnormalities, rod-cone dystrophy, post-axial polydactyly, learning difficulties, obesity and male hypogonadism. RESULTS: We describe the clinical phenotype in three Saudi siblings in whom we have identified a novel mutation in exon 12 of BBS5 (c.966dupT; p.Ala323CysfsX57). This single nucleotide duplication creates a frame shift results in a predicted elongated peptide. Translation blocking Morpholino oligonucleotides were used to create zebrafish bbs5 morphants. Morphants displayed retinal layering defects, abnormal cardiac looping and dilated, cystic pronephric ducts with reduced cilia expression. Morphants also displayed significantly reduced dextran clearance via the pronephros compared to wildtype embryos, suggesting reduced renal function in morphants. The eye, kidney and heart defects reported in morphant zebrafish resemble the human phenotype of BBS5 mutations. The pathogenicity of the novel BBS5 mutation was determined. Mutant mRNA was unable to rescue pleiotropic phenotypes of bbs5 morphant zebrafish and in cell culture we demonstrate a mislocalisation of mutant BBS5 protein which fails to localise discretely with the basal body. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that this novel BBS5 mutation has a deleterious function that accounts for the multisystem ciliopathy phenotype seen in affected human patients

Functional modelling of a novel mutation in <em>BBS5</em>

Background: Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is an autosomal recessive ciliopathy disorder with 18 known causative genes (BBS1-18). The primary clinical features are renal abnormalities, rod-cone dystrophy, post-axial polydactyly, learning difficulties, obesity and male hypogonadism.Results: We describe the clinical phenotype in three Saudi siblings in whom we have identified a novel mutation in exon 12 of BBS5 (c.966dupT; p.Ala323CysfsX57). This single nucleotide duplication creates a frame shift results in a predicted elongated peptide. Translation blocking Morpholino oligonucleotides were used to create zebrafish bbs5 morphants. Morphants displayed retinal layering defects, abnormal cardiac looping and dilated, cystic pronephric ducts with reduced cilia expression. Morphants also displayed significantly reduced dextran clearance via the pronephros compared to wildtype embryos, suggesting reduced renal function in morphants. The eye, kidney and heart defects reported in morphant zebrafish resemble the human phenotype of BBS5 mutations. The pathogenicity of the novel BBS5 mutation was determined. Mutant mRNA was unable to rescue pleiotropic phenotypes of bbs5 morphant zebrafish and in cell culture we demonstrate a mislocalisation of mutant BBS5 protein which fails to localise discretely with the basal body.Conclusions: We conclude that this novel BBS5 mutation has a deleterious function that accounts for the multisystem ciliopathy phenotype seen in affected human patients. \ua9 2014 Al-Hamed et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Seroepidemiološko istraživanje infekcije virusom srednjoistočnog respiratornog sindroma (MERS) u iračkih jednogrbih deva

The main aim of this study was to investigate the presence of MERS-CoV antibodies in Iraqi camels, to assess the prevalence and interpret the results according to the epidemiological information. A total of 180 dromedary camel plasma samples from healthy animals of different sexes and ages were collected from the provinces Najaf, Muthanna and Basrah. All the camels appeared healthy on clinical examination. Blood plasma was analysed using the ELISA technique. A large proportion (153/180, 85%) of the dromedary camels sampled had antibodies to MERS-CoV. There was no significant differenece in seropositivity to MERS-CoV according to the location and sex of the camels. The prevalence of antibodies was higher in camels less than 2 years old (39/44, 88.6%) than in camels aged 2-4 years; (47/58, 81%). In addition, the percentage of camels with antibodies was 85.9% (67 of 78) in camels older than four years. These results suggest that MERS-CoV is widespread in the camel populations throughout Iraq.Istraživanje je poduzeto s ciljem da se iračke jednogrbe deve pretraže na prisutnost protutijela specifičnih za virus srednjoistočnog respiratornog sindroma (MERS-CoV) kako bi se na temelju rezultata mogla donijeti epidemiološka procjena o širenju infekcije. Ukupno je pretraženo 180 uzoraka krvne plazme klinički zdravih jednogrbih deva različita spola i dobi na područjima Najaf, Muthanna i Basrah. Za pretragu plazme rabljen je komercijalni ELISA komplet. U većine pretraženih deva (153/180, 85 %) dokazana su protutijela za MERS-CoV. U serološki pozitivnih deva nije ustanovljena značajna razlika s obzirom na lokaciju i spol. Prevalencija je bila veća u deva starosti do dvije godine (39/44, 88,6 %) nego u onih u dobi od 2 do 4 godine (47/58, 81 %). U deva starijih od četiri godine postotak pozitivnih iznosio je 85,9 % (67 od 78). Rezultati pokazuju da je MERS-CoV proširen u populaciji deva diljem Iraka

Chronic ulcerative Cutaneous Vasculitis of the legs Clinical and histopathological study

Background: Cutaneous small vessel vasculitis characterized by necrosis and inflammation of upper dermal blood vessels. It presents with ulcers and systemic manifestations after extensive acute onset. Many patients have a form of cutaneous vasculitis that presents with chronic painful ulcerations & purpuras involving the ankles without systemic manifestations, with some similarity in clinical presentation to livedoid vasculopathy. Patients and Methods: Thirteen patients were seen in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology, Baghdad Teaching Hospital, for a period extending from January 2004 to March 2005. They were evaluated clinically, histopathologically and other laboratory studies. In addition, evaluation of the clinical response to prednisolone 0.5mg/kg/day and azathioprine150mg/day was done. Results: Thirteen patients were included in this study; eight females and five males, with male to female ratio of 1:1.6. Their ages ranged between 26-66 years with a mean ±SD of 42 ± 13.8 years. The duration of the disease ranged from 0.5 – 18 years with a mean ±SD of 38 ± 59.2 months.The clinical examination revealed multiple oval punched out ulcers, with an indurated base, and surrounded by a zone of erythema; affecting mainly the ankles and dorsa of feet. Histopathological evaluation showed upper dermal vessels' wall necrosis, fibrinoid deposition, obliteration of the lumen, extravasation of red blood cells, endothelial cells swelling with perivascular and vascular wall infiltration mainly by mononuclear cells.The treatment was started with prednisolone & azathioprine. The ulcers healed completely with residual hyperpigmentation - hypopigmentation, atrophy and scars within 10-15 weeks  Conclusions: Chronic ulcerative cutaneous vasculitis is often a neglected and misdiagnosed variant of vasulitis. Histologically it has vascuiltic features, and clinically looks like livedoid vasculopathy