The unacknowledged impact of urinary schistosomiasis in children: 5 cases from Kumasi, Ghana

Urinary schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease caused by Shistosoma haematobium. It is prevalent in several parts of Africa particularly in areas where there are large water bodies. In most affected communities, the condition is often accepted as normal since to them, all growing children pass blood in their urine and “grow out of it”. Mass treatment of school children has been a regular exercise often undertaken by stake holders to decrease the disease burden and reduce transmission in selected communities

An improvement of stochastic gradient descent approach for mean-variance portfolio optimization problem

In this paper, the current variant technique of the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) approach, namely, the adaptive moment estimation (Adam) approach, is improved by adding the standard error in the updating rule. ,e aim is to fasten the convergence rate of the Adam algorithm. ,is improvement is termed as Adam with standard error (AdamSE) algorithm. On the other hand, the mean-variance portfolio optimization model is formulated from the historical data of the rate of return of the S&P 500 stock, 10-year Treasury bond, and money market. ,e application of SGD, Adam, adaptive moment estimation with maximum (AdaMax), Nesterov-accelerated adaptive moment estimation (Nadam), AMSGrad, and AdamSE algorithms to solve the meanvariance portfolio optimization problem is further investigated. During the calculation procedure, the iterative solution converges to the optimal portfolio solution. It is noticed that the AdamSE algorithm has the smallest iteration number. ,e results show that the rate of convergence of the Adam algorithm is significantly enhanced by using the AdamSE algorithm. In conclusion, the efficiency of the improved Adam algorithm using the standard error has been expressed. Furthermore, the applicability of SGD, Adam, AdaMax, Nadam, AMSGrad, and AdamSE algorithms in solving the mean-variance portfolio optimization problem is validated

Higgs signals and hard photons at the Next Linear Collider: the ZZZZ-fusion channel in the Standard Model

In this paper, we extend the analyses carried out in a previous article for $WW$-fusion to the case of Higgs production via $ZZ$-fusion within the Standard Model at the Next Linear Collider, in presence of electromagnetic radiation due real photon emission. Calculations are carried out at tree-level and rates of the leading order (LO) processes e^+e^-\rightarrow e^+e^- H \ar e^+e^- b\bar b and e^+e^-\rightarrow e^+e^- H \ar e^+e^- WW \ar e^+e^- \mathrm{jjjj} are compared to those of the next-to-leading order (NLO) reactions e^+e^-\rightarrow e^+e^- H (\gamma)\ar e^+e^- b\bar b \gamma and e^+e^-\rightarrow e^+e^- H (\gamma)\ar e^+e^- WW (\gamma) \ar e^+e^- \mathrm{jjjj}\gamma, in the case of energetic and isolated photons.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 5 PostScript figures embedded using epsfig and bitmapped at 100dpi, complete paper including high definition figures available at ftp://axpa.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/stefano/cavendish_9611.ps or at http://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/theory/papers

In vitro antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of the extracts of Muntingia calabura leaves.

The in vitro antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of the aqueous, chloroform and methanol extracts of Muntingia calabura leaves were determined in the present study. Assessed using the 3,(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) (MTT) assay, the aqueous and methanol extracts of M. calabura inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7, HeLa, HT-29, HL-60 and K-562 cancer cells while the chloroform extract only inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7, HeLa, HL-60 and K-562 cancer cells. Interestingly, all extracts of M. calabura, which failed to inhibit the MDA-MB-231 cells proliferation, did not inhibit the proliferation of 3T3 (normal) cells, indicating its safety. All extracts (20, 100 and 500 μg/ml) were found to possess antioxidant activity when tested using the DPPH radical scavenging and superoxide scavenging assays with the methanol, followed by the aqueous and chloroform, extract exhibiting the highest antioxidant activity in both assays. The total phenolic content for the aqueous, methanol and chloroform extracts were 2970.4 ± 6.6, 1279.9 ± 6.1 and 2978.1 ± 4.3 mg/100 g gallic acid, respectively. In conclusion, the M. calabura leaves possess potential antiproliferative and antioxidant activities that could be attributed to its high content of phenolic compounds, and thus, needs to be further explored

First β-beating measurement and optics analysis for the CERN Large Hadron Collider

Proton beams were successfully steered through the entire ring of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on September the 10th of 2008. A reasonable lifetime was achieved for the counterclockwise beam, namely beam 2, after the radiofrequency capture of the particle bunch was established. This provided the unique opportunity of acquiring turn-by-turn betatron oscillations for a maximum of 90 turns right at injection. Transverse coupling was not corrected and chromaticity was estimated to be large. Despite this largely constrained scenario, reliable optics measurements have been accomplished. These measurements together with the application of new algorithms for the reconstruction of optics errors have led to the identification of a dominant error source

INTRODUCTION OF MODERN SUBSYSTEMS AT THE KEK INJECTOR-LINAC

Abstract As an accelerator control system survives over several years, it is often the case that new subsystems are introduced into the original control system. The control system for the KEK electron/positron injector-linac has been using Unix workstations and VME computers since 1993. During the eight-year operation, we extended the system by introducing a) Windows PCs, b) PLC controllers with a network interface, and c) web servers based on modern information technology. Although such new subsystems are essential to improve control functionalities, they often cause communication problems with the original control system. We discuss the experienced problems, and present our solutions for them

A systematic review of the adverse effects of tacrolimus in organ transplant patients .

Tacrolimus has been the drug of choice for prevention of graft rejection following organ transplantations. This systematic review and meta-analysis [UiTM1] was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of tacrolimus in organ transplantation. Publication in English of randomized clinical trials, which used tacrolimus to prevent graft rejection in adult patients were included in this analysis. Articles were searched from PubMed, Science Direct, Blackwell and Ovid Gateway, which were published since 1980 to 2007. The outcomes measured were biopsy-proven acute rejection at three months; graft survival at one year; post-transplant diabetes mellitus; hypertension and neurotoxicity. Seven reports, which involved 2415 participants showed that tacrolimus was associated with reduced odds of biopsy-proven acute rejections three months of post-transplantation (pooled odds ratio of 0.69; 95% CI 0.49 to 0.96) and improved graft survival at one year (pooled odds ratio of 1.11 and 95% confidence interval 0.72 to 1.71). In terms of adverse effects, tacrolimus-treated patients were significantly at high odds of developing post-transplant diabetes mellitus (pooled odds ratio of 1.90; 95% CI 1.09 to 3.30) and neurotoxicity (pooled odds ratio of 1.61; 95% CI 1.15 to 2.25) but reduced odds of developing hypertension (pooled odds ratio of 0.80; 95% CI 0.65 to 0.98). Low to moderate heterogeneity between trials existed for the incidences of biopsy-proven acute rejections, graft survival, post-transplant diabetes mellitus and incidence of hypertension; but the analysis showed a significant increment of neurotoxicity by tacrolimus