The impact of a school-based water supply and treatment, hygiene, and sanitation programme on pupil diarrhoea: a cluster-randomized trial.

The impact of improved water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) access on mitigating illness is well documented, although impact of school-based WASH on school-aged children has not been rigorously explored. We conducted a cluster-randomized trial in Nyanza Province, Kenya to assess the impact of a school-based WASH intervention on diarrhoeal disease in primary-school pupils. Two study populations were used: schools with a nearby dry season water source and those without. Pupils attending 'water-available' schools that received hygiene promotion and water treatment (HP&WT) and sanitation improvements showed no difference in period prevalence or duration of illness compared to pupils attending control schools. Those pupils in schools that received only the HP&WT showed similar results. Pupils in 'water-scarce' schools that received a water-supply improvement, HP&WT and sanitation showed a reduction in diarrhoea incidence and days of illness. Our study revealed mixed results on the impact of improvements to school WASH improvements on pupil diarrhoea

Evaluation of Artificial Neural Network for determining distribution pattern of ascid family (Acari: Mesostigmata) in Damghan

In this study, the artificial neural network methods were used to estimate the distribution of ascid family (Acari: Mesostigmata). For this aim, latitude, longitude and elevation from the sea level of 137 points were defined as inputs and output of method was number of species of this family on those points and Perceptron with propagation algorithm was evaluated in artificial neural network method. To evaluate the ability of neural networks used to predict dispersion, statistical comparison of parameters such as variance, statistical distribution and mean of spatial predicted values by neural network and their actual values were used. The results showed that there was no significant difference (p> 0.4) in the training and test phases between the values of the statistical characteristics of variance, the statistical distribution and the mean of real and predicted spatial data of this family by the neural network. It can be concluded that the artificial neural network method was able to predict the dispersion of this family with proper precision by integrating three factors of latitude and longitude and elevation from the sea level. ;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"B Lotus";mso-bidi-language:FA'>p> 0.4). در مجموع می­توان چنین نتیجه گرفت که روش شبکه عصبی مصنوعی با تلفیق سه عامل طول و عرض جغرافیایی و ارتفاع از سطح دریا، قادر به پیش­بینی پراکندگی این خانواده با دقت مناسب بود

An investigation on resistance of 19 common bean genotypes to two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae), in three regions of Iran

Two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, is one of the important pests of common bean that causes serious damage to agricultural crops. In this study, nineteen common bean genotypes were evaluated for resistance to the two-spotted spider mite. The trial was carried out at field conditions of Karaj, Brojerd and Khomein. One week after mite infestation, the total number of female and eggs were counted for two times. Also, mite damage feeding was evaluated with a 1-6 scale. Khomein had the fewest infested mean and relative resistance of many genotypes was failed in comparison to susceptible standard genotype (Akhtar) at Khomein. So they should be eliminated in alternative breeding programs. Nevertheless, only Ks41128 that had good relative resistance at other regions had the most relative resistance at Khomein. Subsequently, we propose Ks41128 as the most resistance and also the most stable genotypes

Fault-tolerant Cooperative Tasking for Multi-agent Systems

A natural way for cooperative tasking in multi-agent systems is through a top-down design by decomposing a global task into sub-tasks for each individual agent such that the accomplishments of these sub-tasks will guarantee the achievement of the global task. In our previous works [1], [2] we presented necessary and sufficient conditions on the decomposability of a global task automaton between cooperative agents. As a follow-up work, this paper deals with the robustness issues of the proposed top-down design approach with respect to event failures in the multi-agent systems. The main concern under event failure is whether a previously decomposable task can still be achieved collectively by the agents, and if not, we would like to investigate that under what conditions the global task could be robustly accomplished. This is actually the fault-tolerance issue of the top-down design, and the results provide designers with hints on which events are fragile with respect to failures, and whether redundancies are needed. The main objective of this paper is to identify necessary and sufficient conditions on failed events under which a decomposable global task can still be achieved successfully. For such a purpose, a notion called passivity is introduced to characterize the type of event failures. The passivity is found to reflect the redundancy of communication links over shared events, based on which necessary and sufficient conditions for the reliability of cooperative tasking under event failures are derived, followed by illustrative examples and remarks for the derived conditions.Comment: Preprint, Submitted for publicatio

Synthesis and characterization of hypoxia-mimicking bioactive glasses for skeletal regeneration

The cellular response to hypoxia (low oxygen pressure) is vital for skeletal tissue development and regeneration. Numerous processes, including progenitor cell recruitment, differentiation and angiogenesis, are activated via the hypoxia pathway. Novel materials-based strategies designed to activate the hypoxia pathway are therefore of great interest for orthopaedic tissue engineering. Resorbable bioactive glasses (BGs) were developed to activate the hypoxia pathway by the controlled release of cobalt ions (at physiological relevant concentrations) whilst controlling BG apatite-forming ability. Two series of soda-lime-phosphosilicate glasses were synthesised with increasing concentrations of cobalt. Compositions were calculated to maintain constant network connectivity (2.13) by considering that cobalt is taking part in the network in the first series, and is acting as a network modifier in the second series. Mg2+ and Zn2+ were added to one of the Co2+-containing glasses to inhibit HCA formation. The presence of HCA formation is undesirable for the use of BG in soft tissues e. g. cartilage. Cobalt was present in both the silicate and phosphate phases of the BG. In addition, evidence was found that it plays a dual role in the silicate phase, entering the network as well as disrupting it as a network modifying oxide. Consistent with this dual role, the presence of cobalt in the BG was shown to decrease ion release. HCA formation was delayed with cobalt addition as well as incorporation of Mg2+ and Zn2+ into the BGs. Importantly, cobalt release was found to be proportional to cobalt content of the BGs enabling the controlled delivery of cobalt in therapeutically active doses

Aquaporins: relevance to cerebrospinal fluid physiology and therapeutic potential in hydrocephalus

The discovery of a family of membrane water channel proteins called aquaporins, and the finding that aquaporin 1 was located in the choroid plexus, has prompted interest in the role of aquaporins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) production and consequently hydrocephalus. While the role of aquaporin 1 in choroidal CSF production has been demonstrated, the relevance of aquaporin 1 to the pathophysiology of hydrocephalus remains debated. This has been further hampered by the lack of a non-toxic specific pharmacological blocking agent for aquaporin 1. In recent times aquaporin 4, the most abundant aquaporin within the brain itself, which has also been shown to have a role in brain water physiology and relevance to brain oedema in trauma and tumours, has become an alternative focus of attention for hydrocephalus research. This review summarises current knowledge and concepts in relation to aquaporins, specifically aquaporin 1 and 4, and hydrocephalus. It also examines the relevance of aquaporins as potential therapeutic targets in hydrocephalus and other CSF circulation disorders

Effect of second-phase particles evolution and lattice transformations while ultrafine graining and annealing on the corrosion resistance and electrical conductivity of Al-Mn-Si alloy

Al–Mn–Si specimens were subjected to constrained groove pressing, cold-rolling and annealing, respectively. Microstructure characterizations indicated that second-phase particles were arranged along the material flow direction and did not orient at grain boundaries. Analysis of x-ray diffraction patterns exhibited that severe straining led to dynamic restoration and lattice swelling. Since findings for annealed specimens did not follow a linear trend; however, they were in good agreement with corrosion characteristics and electrical conductivity results. Outputs of electrochemical polarization test revealed that corrosion rate has direct correlation with lattice distortion and dislocation density measurements. As most of the particles have not remarkable open circuit potential with aluminum matrix along with other existent particles and also did not contain required size to act as origin of pitting corrosion, they would capable of forming the passive layer porous and subsequently could prevent encouraging uniform passive layer. In the case, they let the aggressive ions to penetrate beneath the passive layer and react with talented sites like dislocations and grain boundaries. Scrutiny of lattice d-spacing proved that by imposing deformation, electrical conductivity alters by change in d-spacing since by annealing at elevated temperature conductivity follows the winner of competition between d-spacing, lattice distortion and particles transformations