High dose multiple micronutrient supplementation improves villous morphology in environmental enteropathy without HIV enteropathy: results from a double-blind randomised placebo controlled trial in Zambian adults

PMCID: PMC3897937This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated

Language policy and orthographic harmonization across linguistic, ethnic and national boundaries in Southern Africa

Drawing on online and daily newspapers, speakers' language and writing practices, official government documents and prescribed spelling systems in Southern Africa, the paper explores the challenges and possibilities of orthographic reforms allowing for mobility across language clusters, ethnicity, regional and national borders. I argue that this entails a different theorisation of language, and for orthographies that account for the translocations and diasporic nature of late modern African identities and lifestyles. I suggest an ideological shift from prescriptivism to practice-orientated approaches to harmonisation in which orthographies are based on descriptions of observable writing practices in the mobile linguistic universe. The argument for orthographic reforms is counterbalanced with an expose on current language policies which appear designed for an increasing rare monoglot 'standard' speaker, who speaks only a 'tribal' language. The implications of the philosophical challenges this poses for linguists, language planners and policy makers are thereafter discussed.IS

Implementing Groundness Analysis with Definite Boolean Functions

The domain of definite Boolean functions, Def, can be used to express the groundness of, and trace grounding dependencies between, program variables in (constraint) logic programs. In this paper, previously unexploited computational properties of Def are utilised to develop an efficient and succinct groundness analyser that can be coded in Prolog. In particular, entailment checking is used to prevent unnecessary least upper bound calculations. It is also demonstrated that join can be defined in terms of other operations, thereby eliminating code and removing the need for preprocessing formulae to a normal form. This saves space and time. Furthermore, the join can be adapted to straightforwardly implement the downward closure operator that arises in set sharing analyses. Experimental results indicate that the new Def implementation gives favourable results in comparison with BDD-based groundness analyses

Prevalence of clinical, immunological and irological failure among children on Haart at the university teaching hospital, Lusaka, Zambia

Background: There is increasing evidence that the current clinical and immunological monitoring tools are not sufficient to identify early enough patients who are failing on treatment. Development of resistance to the limited treatment options for children and premature switching are the dangers. The objective of this study was to review patient records to see how well WHO staging, CD4 profiles and viral load estimations relate in children on treatment at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH).Methods: A retrospective chart review of all children aged between 0-19 years that started treatment between January 2004 and Dec 2010 was carried out at the UTH. Systematic sampling was done of every second child who received HAART for more than 24 weeks, with at least one viral load (VL) reading beyond 24 weeks of treatment. Six-monthly clinical (WHO staging) immunological (age- related CD4 count/%) and virological data were collected until last follow-up review or five years on treatment. The 2010 Zambian Pediatric Guidelines were used to gauge age-related clinical, immunological and virological failure (VL> 1,000).Results: A total of 517 patient records were reviewed (table 1). Mean age at ART initiation was 7 years ((SD 4.7yrs). Mean time after ART initiation when first viral load test was done was 2.7 years (SD 1.5yrs). Of all the viral loads done, 64% (328) had a routine indication for patients on treatment nearing the 3 year mark (mean 2.7 years). In 40% of children the first viral load test result was above 1,000 after 24 weeks or more of treatment. A total of 482 patients had WHO staging done at the time first VL test was done. Of the 359 patients (table 2) with a clinical stage I/II (not severely immunosuppressed), 41% were failing virologically. On the other hand, 63% of the patients with clinical stage III/IV had a VL below 1,000. Table 3 shows that there were 509 patients who had an immunological staging done at the time first VL was done. Of the 106 patients who were failing immunologically, 28% were virologically well suppressed. On the other hand of the 403 who were immunologically doing fine, 32% were failing virologically.Conclusions: Clinical staging and Immunological monitoring in children on ART does not accurately identify those that are failing. A push for routine, affordable virological testing is needed to identify treatment failures early to prevent development of ART resistance and to avoid premature switches to second line in those who are actually well suppressed

Fighting HIV/AIDS through popular Zambian music

This paper explores how HIV/AIDS education messages are transmitted through popular Zambian music lyrics. The focus is on the recontextualisation of lived experiences and Zambian cultural practices in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Using multimodal discourse analysis, the paper uses Zambian popular music lyrics to show how Zambian musicians deliberately blend languages, socio-cultural artefacts and knowledge into a hybrid of 'infotainment' in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The paper concludes that although male dominance is still prevalent, choices regarding sex and discussions on sexual matters are no longer a preserve for the men, and that musicians are able to use language to reframe dominant cultural practices and taboos in the process of disseminating HIV/AIDS messages. This has produced altered social conditions, which sometimes distort the intended messages, but allow musicians to operate without fear of government censorship boards or running foul of cultural taboos.DHE

Abstract verification and debugging of constraint logic programs

The technique of Abstract Interpretation [13] has allowed the development of sophisticated program analyses which are provably correct and practical. The semantic approximations produced by such analyses have been traditionally applied to optimization during program compilation. However, recently, novel and promising applications of semantic approximations have been proposed in the more general context of program verification and debugging [3],[10],[7]

An assertion language for constraint logic programs

In an advanced program development environment, such as that discussed in the introduction of this book, several tools may coexist which handle both the program and information on the program in different ways. Also, these tools may interact among themselves and with the user. Thus, the different tools and the user need some way to communicate. It is our design principie that such communication be performed in terms of assertions. Assertions are syntactic objects which allow expressing properties of programs. Several assertion languages have been used in the past in different contexts, mainly related to program debugging. In this chapter we propose a general language of assertions which is used in different tools for validation and debugging of constraint logic programs in the context of the DiSCiPl project. The assertion language proposed is parametric w.r.t. the particular constraint domain and properties of interest being used in each different tool. The language proposed is quite general in that it poses few restrictions on the kind of properties which may be expressed. We believe the assertion language we propose is of practical relevance and appropriate for the different uses required in the tools considered

Evaluation of bone mineral with dexa in youth soccer players

El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la densidad mineral ósea (DMO) y el contenido mineral óseo (CMO) de los segmentos corporales durante un periodo de entrenamiento de seis meses. Se evaluaron a 41 futbolistas juveniles profesionales en dos momentos, una al comienzo (TI) y otra al final (TF) de la intervención con el equipo de absorciometría dual de rayos X (DEXA). Se lograron aumentos significativos en la DMO en los segmentos corporales de la cadera, columna lumbar, triangulo de Ward, tronco y del cuerpo total (p<0.05). También se obtuvo un incremento significativo del CMO en la cadera, columna lumbar, pierna, tronco y costillas (p<0.05). El entrenamiento de futbol fortaleció el CMO y la DMO del hueso de la extremidad inferior y de la caja torácica, con lo cual el fútbol podría ser una actividad útil para la mejorar la mineralización y fortalecimiento del hueso, para prevenir lesiones y fracturasThe objective of this study was to assess bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) of body segments for a six months training period. 41 professional youth players were evaluated in two moments, one at the beginning (TI) and another at the end (TF) of the intervention with the dual energy x-ray absorptiometry equipment (DEXA). Significant increases in BMD were achieved in the body segments of the hip, lumbar spine, ward triangle, trunk and total body (p <0.05). There was also a significant increase in BMC in the hip, lumbar spine, leg, trunk and ribs (p <0.05). Soccer training strengthened the BMC and BMD of the lower limb bone and the rib cage, which could be a useful activity to improve bone mineralization and strengthening, to prevent injuries and fracture

Associations between low HDL, sex and cardiovascular risk markers are substantially different in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK: analysis of four population studies

Introduction: Low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) is widely used as a marker of cardiovascular disease risk, although this relationship is not causal and is likely mediated through associations with other risk factors. Low HDL is extremely common in sub-Saharan African populations, and this has often been interpreted to indicate that these populations will have increased cardiovascular risk. We aimed to determine whether the association between HDL and other cardiovascular risk factors differed between populations in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK. // Methods: We compared data from adults living in Uganda and Malawi (n=26 216) and in the UK (n=8747). We examined unadjusted and adjusted levels of HDL and applied the WHO recommended cut-offs for prevalence estimates. We used spline and linear regression to assess the relationship between HDL and other cardiovascular risk factors. // Results: HDL was substantially lower in the African than in the European studies (geometric mean 0.9–1.2 mmol/L vs 1.3–1.8 mmol/L), with African prevalence of low HDL as high as 77%. Total cholesterol was also substantially lower (geometric mean 3.3–3.9 mmol/L vs 4.6–5.4 mmol/L). In comparison with European studies the relationship between HDL and adiposity (body mass index, waist to hip ratio) was greatly attenuated in African studies and the relationship with non-HDL cholesterol reversed: in African studies low HDL was associated with lower non-HDL cholesterol. The association between sex and HDL was also different; using the WHO sex-specific definitions, low HDL was substantially more common among women (69%–77%) than men (41%–59%) in Uganda/Malawi. // Conclusion: The relationship between HDL and sex, adiposity and non-HDL cholesterol in sub-Saharan Africa is different from European populations. In sub-Saharan Africans low HDL is a marker of low overall cholesterol and sex differences are markedly attenuated. Therefore low HDL in isolation is unlikely to indicate raised cardiovascular risk and the WHO sex-based cut-offs are inappropriate