560 research outputs found
Prevalence study of yaws in the Democratic Republic of Congo using the lot quality assurance sampling method.
BACKGROUND: Until the 1970s the prevalence of non-venereal trepanomatosis, including yaws, was greatly reduced after worldwide mass treatment. In 2005, cases were again reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We carried out a survey to estimate the village-level prevalence of yaws in the region of Equator in the north of the country in order to define appropriate strategies to effectively treat the affected population. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We designed a community-based survey using the Lot Quality Assurance Sampling method to classify the prevalence of active yaws in 14 groups of villages (lots). The classification into high, moderate, or low yaws prevalence corresponded to World Health Organization prevalence thresholds for identifying appropriate operational treatment strategies. Active yaws cases were defined by suggestive clinical signs and positive rapid plasma reagin and Treponema pallidum hemagglutination serological tests. The overall prevalence in the study area was 4.7% (95% confidence interval: 3.4-6.0). Two of 14 lots had high prevalence (>10%), three moderate prevalence (5-10%) and nine low prevalence (<5%.). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although yaws is no longer a World Health Organization priority disease, the presence of yaws in a region where it was supposed to be eradicated demonstrates the importance of continued surveillance and control efforts. Yaws should remain a public health priority in countries where previously it was known to be endemic. The integration of sensitive surveillance systems together with free access to effective treatment is recommended. As a consequence of our study results, more than 16,000 people received free treatment against yaws
Sensory Qualities of Oysters Unaltered by a Short Exposure to Combined Elevated pCO2 and Temperature
Role of the cluster structure of Li in the dynamics of fragment capture
Exclusive measurements of prompt -rays from the heavy-residues with
various light charged particles in the Li + Pt system, at an energy
near the Coulomb barrier (E/ 1.6) are reported. Recent dynamic
classical trajectory calculations, constrained by the measured fusion,
and capture cross-sections have been used to explain the excitation energy
dependence of the residue cross-sections. These calculations distinctly
illustrate a two step process, breakup followed by fusion in case of the
capture of and clusters; whereas for He + and He +
configurations, massive transfer is inferred to be the dominant mechanism.
The present work clearly demonstrates the role played by the cluster structures
of Li in understanding the reaction dynamics at energies around the Coulomb
barrier.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Letts.
Grooming-at-a-distance by exchanging calls in non-human primates
International audienceThe 'social bonding hypothesis' predicts that, in large social groups, functions of gestural grooming should be partially transferred to vocal interactions. Hence, vocal exchanges would have evolved in primates to play the role of grooming-at-a-distance in order to facilitate the maintenance of social cohesion. However, there are few empirical studies testing this hypothesis. To address this point, we compared the rate of contact call exchanges between females in two captive groups of Japanese macaques as a function of female age, dominance rank, genetic relatedness and social affinity measured by spatial proximity and grooming interactions. We found a significant positive relationship between the time spent on grooming by two females and the frequency with which they exchanged calls. Our results conform to the predictions of the social bonding hypothesis, i.e. vocal exchanges can be interpreted as grooming-at-a-distanc
Youngsters do not pay attention to conversational rules: is this so for nonhuman primates?
The potentiality to find precursors of human language in nonhuman primates is questioned because of differences related to the genetic determinism of human and nonhuman primate acoustic structures. Limiting the debate to production and acoustic plasticity might have led to underestimating parallels between human and nonhuman primates. Adult-young differences concerning vocal usage have been reported in various primate species. A key feature of language is the ability to converse, respecting turn-taking rules. Turn-taking structures some nonhuman primates' adult vocal exchanges, but the development and the cognitive relevancy of this rule have never been investigated in monkeys. Our observations of Campbell's monkeys' spontaneous vocal utterances revealed that juveniles broke the turn-taking rule more often than did experienced adults. Only adults displayed different levels of interest when hearing playbacks of vocal exchanges respecting or not the turn-taking rule. This study strengthens parallels between human conversations and nonhuman primate vocal exchanges
Campbell's Monkeys Use Affixation to Alter Call Meaning
Human language has evolved on a biological substrate with phylogenetic roots deep in the primate lineage. Here, we describe a functional analogy to a common morphological process in human speech, affixation, in the alarm calls of free-ranging adult Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli campbelli). We found that male alarm calls are composed of an acoustically variable stem, which can be followed by an acoustically invariable suffix. Using long-term observations and predator simulation experiments, we show that suffixation in this species functions to broaden the calls' meaning by transforming a highly specific eagle alarm to a general arboreal disturbance call or by transforming a highly specific leopard alarm call to a general alert call. We concluded that, when referring to specific external events, non-human primates can generate meaningful acoustic variation during call production that is functionally equivalent to suffixation in human language
Mirror Energy Differences at Large Isospin Studied through Direct Two-Nucleon Knockout
The first spectroscopy of excited states in 52Ni (Tz=2) and 51Co (Tz=-3/2)
has been obtained using the highly selective two-neutron knockout reaction.
Mirror energy differences between isobaric analogue states in these nuclei and
their mirror partners are interpreted in terms of isospin nonconserving
effects. A comparison between large scale shell-model calculations and data
provides the most compelling evidence to date that both electromagnetic and an
additional isospin nonconserving interactions for J=2 couplings, of unknown
origin, are required to obtain good agreement.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
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