Kronika

Report from the Alice Through the Ages conference held in Cambridge, UK in September 2015. Report from the Alice 150 conference held in New York, USA in October 2015.Izvještaj s konferencije "Alice Through the Ages: Revisiting a Classic at 150" održane u Cambridgeu Velikoj Britaniji u rujnu 2015. godine. Izvještaj s konferencije "Alice 150" održane u New Yorku, Sjedinjenim Američkim državama u listopadu 2015. godine

La novela inglesa más traducida

Este texto esboza las dificultades suscitadas por la pregunta de cuál es la obra inglesa más traducida. Se publicó como apéndice en el primero de los tres volúmenes de Alice in a World of Wonderlands (Oak Knoll, 2015). Dicho proyecto, dirigido por Jon Lindseth y Alan Tannenbaum y publicado con ocasión del sesquicentenario de la primera edición de Alicia en el país de las maravillas, analiza la difusión mundial de las Alicias de Lewis Carroll y, con más de 2.500 páginas, es el estudio más extenso realizado sobre las traducciones de una obra literaria inglesa. El presente texto analiza la cuestión planteada con datos relativos a los años 2012-2014, momento de su redacción original. La traducción incluye notas que actualizan (a julio del 2019) algunos contenidos

World religions: seeing with, not looking at

The traditional World Religions construct instantiates a nineteenth-century, Christian, male, Western worldview. Despite its apparent objectivity, it catalogues the peoples of the world according to extrinsic values and descriptors, and parades them in a pageant for the gaze of students. The valorization of historical origins, texts, and doctrines leads students to frame religions as static, logical, and intellectual, leaving them none the wiser as to the lives and feelings and motivations of those around them. This dissertation will situate World Religions in its historical background and critique the worldview it promotes as both misrepresenting contemporary religious experience and simultaneously privileging and repressing students. I will propose instead a World Religions course based on cosmopolitanism, care, and postmodern pedagogy that embeds the students in lived experiences, honors their humanity, and engages them in the worldwide human enterprise

Perspectives on Linkage Involving Indigenous data

Topic: Perspectives on Linkage Involving Indigenous data Indigenous populations across the globe are reaffirming their sovereignty rights in the collection and use of Indigenous data. The Indigenous data sovereignty movement has been widely influential and can be unsettling for those who routinely use population-level linked data that include Indigenous identifiers. Ethical policies that stipulate community engagement for access, interpretation and dissemination of Indigenous data create an enabling environment through the critical process of negotiating and navigating data access in partnership with communities. This session will be designed to create space for leading Indigenous voices to set the tone for the discussion around Indigenous population data linkage. Objectives: • To provide participants with an opportunity to build on the themes of Indigenous Data Sovereignty presented in the keynote session as they apply to diverse Indigenous populations. • To explore approaches to the linkage of Indigenous-identified population data across four countries, including First Nations in three Canadian regions. • To share practical applications of Indigenous data sovereignty on data linkage and analysis and discussion. • To center Indigenous-driven data linkage and research. Facilitator: Jennifer Walker. Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health, Laurentian University and Indigenous Lead, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Collaborators: • Alberta: Bonnie Healy, Tina Apsassin, Chyloe Healy and William Wadsworth (Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre) • Ontario: Carmen R. Jones (Chiefs of Ontario) and Jennifer Walker (Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences) • British Columbia: Jeff Reading (Providence Health Centre) and Laurel Lemchuk-Favel (First Nations Health Authority) • Australia: Raymond Lovett (Australian National University) • Aotearoa / New Zealand: Donna Cormack (University of Otago) • United States: Stephanie Rainie and Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear (University of Arizona) Session format: 90 minutes Collaborators will participate in a round-table introduction to the work they are doing. Collaborators will discuss the principles underlying their approaches to Indigenous data linkage as well as practical and concrete solutions to challenges. Questions to guide the discussion will be pre-determined by consensus among the collaborators and the themes will include: data governance, community engagement, Indigenous-led linkage and analysis of data, and decision-making regarding access to linked data. Other participants attending the session will be encouraged to listen and will have an opportunity to engage in the discussion and ask questions. Intended output or outcome: The key outcome of the session will be twofold. First, those actively working with Indigenous linked data will have an opportunity for an in-depth and meaningful dialogue about their work, which will promote international collaboration and sharing of ideas. Second, those with less experience and knowledge of the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty and their practical application will have an opportunity to listen to Indigenous people who are advancing the integration of Indigenous ways of knowing into data linkage and analysis. The output of the session will be a summary paper highlighting both the diversity and commonalities of approaches to Indigenous data linkage internationally. Areas where consensus exists, opportunities for collaboration, and challenges will be highlighted

Prevalence and outcomes of HIV-1 diagnostic challenges during universal birth testing – an urban South African observational cohort

IINTRODUCTION : HIV-1 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing at birth aims to facilitate earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV-infected neonates. Data from two years of universal birth testing implementation in a high-burden South African urban setting are presented to demonstrate the prevalence and outcomes of diagnostic challenges in this context. METHODS : HIV-exposed neonates born at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital between 5 June 2014 and 31 August 2016 were routinely screened at birth for HIV-1 on whole blood samples using the COBAS® AmpliPrep/COBAS® TaqMan (CAP/CTM) HIV-1 Qualitative Test, version 2.0 (Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., Branchburg, NJ, USA). Virological results were interpreted according to standard operating procedures with the South African National Health Laboratory Service. All neonates with non-negative results were actively followed-up and categorized according to HIV infection status as positive, negative, uncertain and lost to follow-up (LTFU). RESULTS : 104 (1.8%) of 5743 HIV-exposed neonates received a non-negative birth PCR result, for which laboratory data were available for 102 (98%) cases – 78 (76%) tested positive and 24 (24%) indeterminate. HIV infection status was confirmed positive in 83 (81%) infants, negative in 8 (8%), uncertain in 5 (5%) and LTFU in 6 (6%) cases. The positive predictive value (excluding cases of uncertain diagnosis and inadequate testing) following a non-negative HIV-1 PCR screening test at birth was 0.91 (83/91; 95% confidence interval: 0.85–0.96). Neonates testing positive at birth had significantly higher viral load (VL) results than those testing indeterminate at birth of 4.5 and 3.0 log copies/ml (p = 0.0007), respectively. Similarly, mothers of neonates with positive as compared to indeterminate birth test results had higher VLs of 4.5 and 2.7 log copies/ml (p = 0.0013), respectively. Half of neonates with an indeterminate birth test were shown to be HIV-infected on subsequent confirmatory testing, with time to final diagnosis 30 days longer for these neonates (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION : Indeterminate HIV-1 PCR results accounted for a quarter of non-negative results at birth and were associated with a high risk of infection in comparison to the risk of in utero transmission. Indeterminate birth results with positive HIV PCR results on repeat testing were associated with later final diagnosis. The HIV-1 status remains uncertain in a minority of cases because of repeatedly indeterminate results, highlighting the need for more sensitive and specific virological tests.The National Institutes of Health U01 HD080441, PEPfAR/USAID and UNICEF.http://www.jiasociety.orgam2017Medical Virolog

Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the United States

Short-term probabilistic forecasts of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have served as a visible and important communication channel between the scientific modeling community and both the general public and decision-makers. Forecasting models provide specific, quantitative, and evaluable predictions that inform short-term decisions such as healthcare staffing needs, school closures, and allocation of medical supplies. Starting in April 2020, the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.org/) collected, disseminated, and synthesized tens of millions of specific predictions from more than 90 different academic, industry, and independent research groups. A multimodel ensemble forecast that combined predictions from dozens of groups every week provided the most consistently accurate probabilistic forecasts of incident deaths due to COVID-19 at the state and national level from April 2020 through October 2021. The performance of 27 individual models that submitted complete forecasts of COVID-19 deaths consistently throughout this year showed high variability in forecast skill across time, geospatial units, and forecast horizons. Two-thirds of the models evaluated showed better accuracy than a naïve baseline model. Forecast accuracy degraded as models made predictions further into the future, with probabilistic error at a 20-wk horizon three to five times larger than when predicting at a 1-wk horizon. This project underscores the role that collaboration and active coordination between governmental public-health agencies, academic modeling teams, and industry partners can play in developing modern modeling capabilities to support local, state, and federal response to outbreaks

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead