Assessment of Longitudinal Efficacy of Community Based Intervention for Schistosomiasis in Mara District, Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania

Program/Project Purpose: An estimated 200 million people are infected with schistosomiasis, making the disease one of the top neglected tropical diseases and a major global health concern. In Tanzania, with a population just over 42 million, about 33 million are in need of treatment or preventative chemotherapy. The disease is of particular concern in the Lake Victoria region, due to daily use of lake water. In conjunction with the Shirati district hospital, Touro University-CA has led control programs carried out in mobile clinics at local villages by providing screening, treatment, and education. Recently there has been a push for use of static dispensary locations for diagnosis and treatment. The aim of this study is to assess the longitudinal efficacy of community based interventions for schistosomiasis carried out from 2009-2014 and compares the utilization of static health dispensary clinics to the community based mobile clinics in reaching out to the population. Structure/Method/Design: Villagers were alerted to the screening, treatment, and education program through local leaders, announcements over the radio, and posters. Effectiveness will be measured by analyzing trends in the number of people visiting the clinics, prevalence of infection, the number treated, given positive infection status, and change in prevalence patterns with treatment. The number of people screened at dispensaries versus mobile clinics will be compared. We hypothesize that mobile clinics are effective in reducing prevalence of schistosomiasis in community based interventions and that health dispensaries provide no additional value towards increasing number of individuals screened. Outcomes & Evaluation: Univariate analysis and 2-tailed t-tests will be performed to assess if the use of services has significantly increased or not at mobile clinics from 2009-2014, and to compare utilization of health dispensaries versus mobile clinics. Prevalence of those who test positive will also be determined and analyzed to assess for a downward trend. Preliminary analysis reveals that from 2012 to 2014, prevalence of infection has decreased and that utilization of health dispensaries provides no additional value over mobile clinics. Our study supports the use of mobile clinics to carry out community-based health education, screening, and treatment programs over the use of dispensaries in rural Tanzania. Going Forward: During this study mobile clinics reported decreased prevalence and are able to capture a larger population of people interested in being screened for infection. Since use of dispensaries is favored by the Mara district, it will be important to point out the efficiency of mobile clinics or improve the efficacy of dispensaries by increasing the frequency of screenings or widening the area of promotion to other nearby villages

Laser-annealing Josephson junctions for yielding scaled-up superconducting quantum processors

As superconducting quantum circuits scale to larger sizes, the problem of frequency crowding proves a formidable task. Here we present a solution for this problem in fixed-frequency qubit architectures. By systematically adjusting qubit frequencies post-fabrication, we show a nearly ten-fold improvement in the precision of setting qubit frequencies. To assess scalability, we identify the types of 'frequency collisions' that will impair a transmon qubit and cross-resonance gate architecture. Using statistical modeling, we compute the probability of evading all such conditions, as a function of qubit frequency precision. We find that without post-fabrication tuning, the probability of finding a workable lattice quickly approaches 0. However with the demonstrated precisions it is possible to find collision-free lattices with favorable yield. These techniques and models are currently employed in available quantum systems and will be indispensable as systems continue to scale to larger sizes.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, Supplementary Information. Update to correct typo in author name and in text. Updated acknowledgements and corrected typo in acknowledgement

Death and Science: The Existential Underpinnings of Belief in Intelligent Design and Discomfort with Evolution

The present research examined the psychological motives underlying widespread support for intelligent design theory (IDT), a purportedly scientific theory that lacks any scientific evidence; and antagonism toward evolutionary theory (ET), a theory supported by a large body of scientific evidence. We tested whether these attitudes are influenced by IDT's provision of an explanation of life's origins that better addresses existential concerns than ET. In four studies, existential threat (induced via reminders of participants' own mortality) increased acceptance of IDT and/or rejection of ET, regardless of participants' religion, religiosity, educational background, or preexisting attitude toward evolution. Effects were reversed by teaching participants that naturalism can be a source of existential meaning (Study 4), and among natural-science students for whom ET may already provide existential meaning (Study 5). These reversals suggest that the effect of heightened mortality awareness on attitudes toward ET and IDT is due to a desire to find greater meaning and purpose in science when existential threats are activated