Nutritional care to people living with HIV/AIDS in Bunda Township

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come. According to the estimates projected in the UNAIDS 2000 and 2003 AIDS Update December; forty million people were living with HIV/AIDS as of December 2003, of whom 2.5 million are children below fifteen years of age. During year 2003, 44.9 million people were already infected with HIV and three million died of AIDS. Also in year 2004 HIV/AIDS killed more than three million people and nearly five million people became infected (UNAIDS/WHO2004). More than twenty five million of these live in Sub-Sahara Africa, where Tanzania alone had 157,173 people living with HIV/AIDS; Mara Region had 3216 and Bunda district had 1057 as of December 2003. Recognizing this situation; several practitioners, Institutions, groups of persons and individuals are joining into the efforts of limiting or minimizing the speed of the sick to progress from HIV to AIDS disease. These efforts are being done through application of the antiretroviral drugs and utilization of good diet combined with recommended herbs that are immune stimulant and/or antioxidant in nature. Bunda Women Savings and Credit Cooperative Society has also opted joining an hand by establishing a nutritional care project to serve people living with HIV/AIDS in Bunda Township who according to the current statistics are now amounting to 482. The purpose of this document therefore is to justify the relevance and validity of establishing a project of this kind in the area and also to see whether the project is addressing the needs of the targeted community. In conducting the research to testify the above; several sources of information have been contacted; including literature reviews, various respondents in the area who involved -society members themselves; government officials; partner NGOS which are already working with the affected, as well as the society committee members. Several trial questions have been developed and used either to lead focus groups discussions or mailed to respondents; the answers of which, after the detailed analysis have enabled the research team to come up with findings and recommendations that appear in chapter four of the document. Several findings have been learned out of the study as they appear in the document; but briefly the research confirmed to have NGOS in Bunda District engaged in provision of various HIV/AIDS related services to the affected community, but none of the same was engaged in nutritional case services. This immediately indicates a need of having an organ, established to take care of nutritional care services so as to assist in filling the vacuum. The research also noted the high commitment of the society members have in preparing themselves to establish a nutritional care project. This was evidenced by contributions raised by the members, where as of now; more than Ten million Tanzanian Shillings have been set aside to assist the take off of the project - and lastly The findings predict good marketability of the products that will be produced by the project. This was evidenced by responses of the NGOS, where 77.8% of the total respondents confirmed the market. Basing on the above findings; the study confirms the establishment of a nutritional care project and recommends a proposal on nutritional care (which appears in chapter five) be developed to aid the Society in securing some of the items (like machineries) that are expensive for the society to afford. Instruments used in conducting the research appear at the end. (Author abstract)Lugira, S. S. Z. (2005). Nutritional care to people living with HIV/AIDS in Bunda Township. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

Influence of clamp-widening on the quality factor of nanomechanical silicon nitride resonators

Nanomechanical resonators based on strained silicon nitride (Si$_3$N$_4$) have received a large amount of attention in fields such as sensing and quantum optomechanics due to their exceptionally high quality factors ($Q$s). Room-temperature $Q$s approaching 1 billion are now in reach by means of phononic crystals (soft-clamping) and strain engineering. Despite great progress in enhancing $Q$s, difficulties in fabrication of soft-clamped samples limits their implementation into actual devices. An alternative means of achieving ultra-high $Q$s was shown using trampoline resonators with engineered clamps, which serves to localize the stress to the center of the resonator, while minimizing stress at the clamping. The effectiveness of this approach has since come into question from recent studies employing string resonators with clamp-tapering. Here, we investigate this idea using nanomechanical string resonators with engineered clampings similar to those presented for trampolines. Importantly, the effect of orienting the strings diagonally or perpendicularly with respect to the silicon frame is investigated. It is found that increasing the clamp width for diagonal strings slightly increases the $Q$s of the fundamental out-of-plane mode at small radii, while perpendicular strings only deteriorate with increasing clamp width. Measured $Q$s agree well with finite element method simulations even for higher-order resonances. The small increase cannot account for previously reported $Q$s of trampoline resonators. Instead, we propose the effect to be intrinsic and related to surface and radiation losses.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Proapoptotic, anti-cell proliferative, anti-inflammatory and antiangiogenic potential of carnosic acid during 7,12 dimethylbenz[a]anthracene-induced hamster buccal pouch carcinogenesis

ERRATUMRajasekaran et al., Afr., J. Tradit Complement Altern Med. 2013; 10(1): 102–112Published online 2012 Oct 1.doi: 10.4314/ajtcam.v10i1.1

Proapoptotic, Anti-Cell Proliferative, Anti-Inflammatory And Antiangiogenic Potential Of Carnosic Acid During 7,12 Dimethylbenz[A]Anthracene-Induced Hamster Buccal Pouch Carcinogenesis

The present study has investigated the modulating effect of carnosic acid on the expression pattern of cell proliferative (proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) cyclin D1 and a transcription factor c-fos), apoptotic (p53, Bcl-2, Bax caspase -3 and 9), inflammatory (Nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX- 2) and angiogenic (vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) markers during 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA)-induced hamster buccal pouch carcinogenesis. Oral tumors were developed in the hamsters buccal pouches by painting with 0.5% DMBA in liquid paraffin three times a week for 14 weeks. Hundred per cent tumour formation (well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma) accompanied by deregulation in the above mentioned molecular markers was noticed in hamsters treated with DMBA alone (tumour bearing hamsters). Oral administration of carnosic acid at dose of 10mg/kg bw to hamsters treated with DMBA not only completely prevented the tumour formation, but also corrected the abnormalities in the expression pattern of molecular markers. The present study suggests that carnosic acid might have inhibited the tumour formation by exerting anti-cell-proliferative, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic and apoptotic potential during DMBA-induced hamster buccal pouch carcinogenesis

ML Models of Vibrating H2_2CO: Comparing Reproducing Kernels, FCHL and PhysNet

Machine Learning (ML) has become a promising tool for improving the quality of atomistic simulations. Using formaldehyde as a benchmark system for intramolecular interactions, a comparative assessment of ML models based on state-of-the-art variants of deep neural networks (NN), reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS+F), and kernel ridge regression (KRR) is presented. Learning curves for energies and atomic forces indicate rapid convergence towards excellent predictions for B3LYP, MP2, and CCSD(T)-F12 reference results for modestly sized (in the hundreds) training sets. Typically, learning curve off-sets decay as one goes from NN (PhysNet) to RKHS+F to KRR (FCHL). Conversely, the predictive power for extrapolation of energies towards new geometries increases in the same order with RKHS+F and FCHL performing almost equally. For harmonic vibrational frequencies, the picture is less clear, with PhysNet and FCHL yielding respectively flat learning at $\sim$ 1 and $\sim$ 0.2 cm$^{-1}$ no matter which reference method, while RKHS+F models level off for B3LYP, and exhibit continued improvements for MP2 and CCSD(T)-F12. Finite-temperature molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with the same initial conditions yield indistinguishable infrared spectra with good performance compared with experiment except for the high-frequency modes involving hydrogen stretch motion which is a known limitation of MD for vibrational spectroscopy. For sufficiently large training set sizes all three models can detect insufficient convergence (``noise'') of the reference electronic structure calculations in that the learning curves level off. Transfer learning (TL) from B3LYP to CCSD(T)-F12 with PhysNet indicates that additional improvements in data efficiency can be achieved

Seasonality of cognitive function in the general population:the Rotterdam Study

Seasonal variation in cognitive function and underlying cerebral hemodynamics in humans has been suggested, but not consistently shown in previous studies. We assessed cognitive function in 10,276 participants from the population-based Rotterdam Study, aged 45 years and older without dementia, at baseline and at subsequent visits between 1999 and 2016. Seasonality of five cognitive test scores and of a summary measure of global cognition were determined, as well as of brain perfusion. Using linkage with medical records, we also examined whether a seasonal variation was present in clinical diagnoses of dementia. We found a seasonal variation of global cognition (0.05 standard deviations [95% confidence interval: 0.02–0.08]), the Stroop reading task, the Purdue Pegboard test, and of the delayed world learning test, with the best performance in summer months. In line with these findings, there were fewer dementia diagnoses of dementia in spring and summer than in winter and fall. We found no seasonal variation in brain perfusion. These findings support seasonality of cognition, albeit not explained by brain perfusion. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11357-021-00485-0

Should aortic arch replacement be performed during initial surgery for aortic root aneurysm in patients with Marfan syndrome?†

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate whether total arch replacement (TAR) during initial surgery for root aneurysm should be routinely performed in patients with Marfan syndrome (MFS). METHODS Retrospective analysis of 94 consecutive MFS patients fulfilling Ghent criteria who underwent 148 aortic surgeries and were followed at this institution during the past 16 years. RESULTS The mean follow-up interval was 8.8 ± 7 years. Initial presentation was acute aortic dissection (AAD) in 35% of patients (76% Type A and 24% Type B) and aneurismal disease in 65%. TAR was performed in 8% of patients during initial surgery for AAD (otherwise a hemi-arch replacement was performed) and 1.6% in elective root repair. Secondary TAR had to be performed in only 3% of patients without, but in 33% following AAD (33% Type A and 33% Type B; P = 0.0001). Thirty-day, 6-month, 1-year and overall mortalities were 3.2, 5.3, 6.4 and 11.7%, respectively. Operative and 30-day mortalities in secondary aortic arch replacement were zero. Secondary TAR after AAD did not increase the need for the replacement of the entire thoracoabdominal aorta during follow-up compared with patients without secondary TAR (37 vs 40%, P = 1.0). CONCLUSIONS MFS patients undergoing elective root repair have small risk of reinterventions on the aortic arch, and primary prophylactic replacement does not seem to be justified. In patients with AAD, the need for reinterventions is precipitated by the dissection itself and not by limiting the procedure to the hemi-arch replacement in the emergency setting. Limiting surgery to the aortic root, ascending aorta and proximal aortic arch is associated with low mortality in MFS patients presenting with AA