Introduzione. Minatori nelle Alpi: prospettive storico-antropologiche

The first objective of this book is to shed light on the cultural side of an activity such as mining which in the Alps, not unlike in the rest of the world, has mainly been studied from an economic or technological point of view. Bringing out the distinctive characteristics and the many facets of mining culture is also necessary in order to establish a valid comparison, with explanatory paradigms of the economy that make it possible to assess what in the Alpine area has been the "weight" of cultural factors in guiding the choices and the lives of the miners. A second objective is to verify to what extent the mining cultures of the Alps are historically defined, or have persisted in the long term, if certain cultural traits are locally specific or if they have a wider spread throughout the Alps; or, indeed, if they are related to cultural models that are even more diffused and established for mining populations from other parts of the world, including the more distant ones

Prevalence and outcome of bacterial meningitis among children of less than 10 years along the Kilombero valley in Morogoro, Tanzania

INTRODUCTION: Bacterial meningitis is among the febrile, lethal and life-threatening diseases in neonates and children under 10 years, especially in low-income countries. The study determined the prevalence and outcome of the disease among neonates, infants and children less than 10 years admitted at St. Francis Referral Hospital.METHODS: A hospital-based study was carried out among 856 children less than ten years, with or without fever for 10 months; clinical and laboratory records were reviewed. Data analysis was done using Chi-square and independent t-test to establish the odds ratio of acquiring the disease.RESULTS: Out of 856 records of children with fever 656 had signs of meningitis, 71 children underwent lumbar puncture where 49.3% and 50.7% were female and male respectively; Aged 0 - 2 years (47.9%), 3 – 5 years (19.7%) and 6 – 10 years (32.4%). 62% of the patients had neurological signs, 56.3% had >45mmol/dl CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) glucose concentration and 85.9% had >50mg/dl of the CSF protein concentration. Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae and Neisseria meningitides were mostly isolated from the CSF samples at the hospital. Location (OR) = 3.1; p = 0.0017), parity of the mother (OR = 3.8; p = 0.008), Neurological signs (OR = 4.5; p = 0.001) and elevated CSF protein (OR = 4.5; p = 0.001) were the factors associated with bacterial meningitis infection among children.CONCLUSION: Meningitis is a life-threatening infection in children under 10 years. Thus, microbial isolation should be established in most hospitals to improve early case identification and reporting at health facilities and the national level.&nbsp

Silicosis and silicotuberculosis among respiratory hospital admissions: A cross-sectional survey in northern Tanzania

Background. There is little evidence describing respiratory disease among 40.5 million small-scale miners worldwide. Objectives. To describe the prevalence and clinical characteristics of adult respiratory inpatients with silicosis and silicotuberculosis in a tertiary hospital in Tanzania that serves a small-scale mining region. Methods. In this retrospective, cross-sectional survey, patient files from admissions between 2010 and 2020 were opportunistically selected and included if a respiratory diagnosis had been made. Results. Of 223 patients with respiratory conditions, 32 (14.3%; 95% confidence interval (CI) 10.0 - 19.6) were diagnosed with silicosis and 17 (7.6%; 95% CI 4.5 - 11.9) with silicotuberculosis. Mining was the most frequent occupation in those with silicosis (n=15/32; 46.9%) and silicotuberculosis (n=15/17; 88.2%). Of those with silicosis or silicotuberculosis, 26/49 (53.1%) were aged <45 years. Conclusion. Our study suggests that silicosis and silicotuberculosis are common among male and female respiratory inpatients with occupational exposure. The study highlights the role of occupational exposures in respiratory disease in developing economies

Impacts of Climate Change on Maize and Beans Production and Compatibility of Adaptation Strategies in Pangani River Basin, Tanzania

Climate change present new development challenges particularly in Sub-Saharan countries where the majority of the population depend on climate-sensitive activities such as rain-fed agriculture. This necessitates for a need to focus on impacts of climate change and compatibility of adaptation as a way of providing sustainable solutions to reduce the vulnerability of the majority of poor Sub-Saharan communities. This study employed Ricardian approach to assess the impacts of temperature and rainfall variability on the net revenue from two main food crops (maize and beans) from Pangani River Basin produced primarily under rain fed agriculture. The study also employed the gross margin to assess the compatibility of irrigation adaptation strategy. The results indicate that increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall has decreased the net revenue from maize and beans production and raised rent for irrigated farms particularly in the middle and low altitudes of the basin. Increase in temperature has increased the net revenue from maize and beans production in the upper altitudes of basin. The results clearly demonstrate that climate change have affected the livelihood of the majority of the poor small scale farmers found in the middle and lower altitudes and improved that of farmers living in the upper. They also demonstrate that irrigation is a significant technique for adaptation to climate change in the basin

Defining malaria burden from morbidity and mortality records, self treatment practices and serological data in Magugu, Babati District, northern Tanzania

Malaria morbidity and mortality data from clinical records provide essential information towards defining disease burden in the area and for planning control strategies, but should be augmented with data on transmission intensity and serological data as measures for exposure to malaria. The objective of this study was to estimate the malaria burden based on serological data and prevalence of malaria, and compare it with existing self-treatment practices in Magugu in Babati District of northern Tanzania. Prospectively, 470 individuals were selected for the study. Both microscopy and Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) were used for malaria diagnosis. Seroprevalence of antibodies to merozoite surface proteins (MSP-119) and apical membrane antigen (AMA-1) was performed and the entomological inoculation rate (EIR) was estimated. To complement this information, retrospective data on treatment history, prescriptions by physicians and use of bed nets were collected. Malaria prevalence in the area was 6.8% (32/470). Of 130 individuals treated with artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), 22.3 % (29/130) were slide confirmed while 75.3% (98/130) of them were blood smear negative. Three of the slides confirmed individuals were not treated with ACT. Fever was reported in 38.2% of individuals, of whom 48.8 % (88/180) were given ACT. Forty-two (32.3%) of those who received ACT had no history of fever. About half (51.1%) of those treated with ACT were childre

A new ghost cell/level set method for moving boundary problems:application to tumor growth

In this paper, we present a ghost cell/level set method for the evolution of interfaces whose normal velocity depend upon the solutions of linear and nonlinear quasi-steady reaction-diffusion equations with curvature-dependent boundary conditions. Our technique includes a ghost cell method that accurately discretizes normal derivative jump boundary conditions without smearing jumps in the tangential derivative; a new iterative method for solving linear and nonlinear quasi-steady reaction-diffusion equations; an adaptive discretization to compute the curvature and normal vectors; and a new discrete approximation to the Heaviside function. We present numerical examples that demonstrate better than 1.5-order convergence for problems where traditional ghost cell methods either fail to converge or attain at best sub-linear accuracy. We apply our techniques to a model of tumor growth in complex, heterogeneous tissues that consists of a nonlinear nutrient equation and a pressure equation with geometry-dependent jump boundary conditions. We simulate the growth of glioblastoma (an aggressive brain tumor) into a large, 1 cm square of brain tissue that includes heterogeneous nutrient delivery and varied biomechanical characteristics (white matter, gray matter, cerebrospinal fluid, and bone), and we observe growth morphologies that are highly dependent upon the variations of the tissue characteristics—an effect observed in real tumor growth

The Freedoms and Capabilities of Farm Animals: How Can Organic Husbandry Fulfill Them?

Organic farming promotes animal husbandry practices that consider the welfare of the animals on the farm. The concept of animal welfare and the standards that should encompass this concept have in many cases been largely generalised in practice, which leaves relevant aspects of animal freedom or capabilities insufficiently addressed. This chapter puts forth the prospect that the capabilities approach offers an appropriate practical platform by which to improve welfare in farm animals by meeting a wider range of their natural needs and abilities. The capabilities approach coupled with effective health planning could foster organic husbandry towards a more acceptable production system for farmers and consumers alike

Predicting drug pharmacokinetics and effect in vascularized tumors using computer simulation

In this paper, we investigate the pharmacokinetics and effect of doxorubicin and cisplatin in vascularized tumors through two-dimensional simulations. We take into account especially vascular and morphological heterogeneity as well as cellular and lesion-level pharmacokinetic determinants like P-glycoprotein (Pgp) efflux and cell density. To do this we construct a multi-compartment PKPD model calibrated from published experimental data and simulate 2-h bolus administrations followed by 18-h drug washout. Our results show that lesion-scale drug and nutrient distribution may significantly impact therapeutic efficacy and should be considered as carefully as genetic determinants modulating, for example, the production of multidrug-resistance protein or topoisomerase II. We visualize and rigorously quantify distributions of nutrient, drug, and resulting cell inhibition. A main result is the existence of significant heterogeneity in all three, yielding poor inhibition in a large fraction of the lesion, and commensurately increased serum drug concentration necessary for an average 50% inhibition throughout the lesion (the IC50 concentration). For doxorubicin the effect of hypoxia and hypoglycemia (“nutrient effect”) is isolated and shown to further increase cell inhibition heterogeneity and double the IC50, both undesirable. We also show how the therapeutic effectiveness of doxorubicin penetration therapy depends upon other determinants affecting drug distribution, such as cellular efflux and density, offering some insight into the conditions under which otherwise promising therapies may fail and, more importantly, when they will succeed. Cisplatin is used as a contrast to doxorubicin since both published experimental data and our simulations indicate its lesion distribution is more uniform than that of doxorubicin. Because of this some of the complexity in predicting its therapeutic efficacy is mitigated. Using this advantage, we show results suggesting that in vitro monolayer assays using this drug may more accurately predict in vivo performance than for drugs like doxorubicin. The nonlinear interaction among various determinants representing cell and lesion phenotype as well as therapeutic strategies is a unifying theme of our results. Throughout it can be appreciated that macroscopic environmental conditions, notably drug and nutrient distributions, give rise to considerable variation in lesion response, hence clinical resistance. Moreover, the synergy or antagonism of combined therapeutic strategies depends heavily upon this environment