Conséquences démographiques du sida en Abidjan : 1986-1992

Les statistiques de l'état civil et des formations sanitaires sont notoirement peu utilisées en Afrique pour étudier les tendances de la mortalité. L'étude d'Abidjan montre que c'est une situation très regrettable, car ces statistiques peuvent fournir de précieux renseignements sur l'état sanitaire de la population. Dans le cas présent, l'analyse fine des tendances de la mortalité, couplée avec l'analyse des causes de décès dans les hôpitaux, révèle assez précisément les conséquences démographiques du sida dans la capitale de la Côte d'Ivoire, malgré l'imperfection des données. Les estimations indiquent que près de 25 000 personnes seraient décédées du sida entre 1986 et 1992, les sept premières années de l'épidémie, ce qui confirme qu'Abidjan est une des villes les plus touchées au monde par cette troublante épidémie. Ce sont surtout les jeunes de sexe masculin qui ont été les plus touchés, dans toutes les couches de la société. Un modèle a permis de reconstruire la dynamique de l'épidémie, qui montre que le premier pic des infections se serait produit vers 1987. On peut s'attendre à une moyenne d'environ 7 000 cas de sida par an dans la ville jusqu'à l'an 2000, ce qui aura des conséquences importantes sur l'utilisation des infrastructures hospitalières. L'importance numérique de ces estimations souligne l'urgence de renforcer la lutte contre l'épidémie de sida en Côte d'Ivoire et dans le monde. (Résumé d'auteur

Overview of the CLEF 2005 Interactive Track.

The CLEF Interactive Track (iCLEF) is devoted to the comparative study of user-inclusive cross-language search strategies. In 2005, we have studied two cross-language search tasks: retrieval of answers and retrieval of annotated images. In both tasks, no further translation or post-processing is needed after performing the tasks to fulfill the information need. In the interactive Question Answering task, users are asked to find the answer to a number of questions in a foreign-language document collection, and write the answers in their own native language. In the interactive image retrieval task, a picture is shown to the user, and then the user is asked to find the picture in the collection. This paper summarizes the task design, experimental methodology, and the results obtained by the research groups participating in the track

how useful are the causes of death when extrapolating mortality trends an update

Old age and adult mortality have over the last decades enjoyed a remarkable decline throughout the western world, posing the researcher with new challenges and opening up fresh horizons in life expectancy trends. The recent drop in mortality may be largely traced to the unexpected decline in cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers. Thus it could be hoped that in the future these trends would continue and extend to include other causes where, for the moment, little change has occurred. Such a hypothesis is all the more realistic in view of the fact that recent changes are linked, not just to advances in more efficacious medical treatment, but also to a growing awareness on the part of the general public regarding questions of health and the crucial role played by life style and behaviour. These include improved dietary habits, for example, a better attitude to risk factors, particularly to smoking, alcohol abuse, dangerous driving, etc. This awareness, which prevails among more recent, well-informed and better educated cohorts, not only produces immediate results, but maybe even more so in the future, should this spare coming generations the accumulation of risks which were and continue to be the burden particularly of older cohorts

The Great Famine: Population Losses in Ukraine

У статті представлено нові розрахунки втрат внаслідок голодомору 1932–1933 рр. напідставі даних переписів 1926 та 1939 рр. і даних поточної статистики природного руху населення. Застосовано метод перспективного розрахунку від перепису 1926 року на базі коефіцієнтів народжуваності, смертності й міграції, які мали б місце за відсутності кризи та порівняння отриманого результату з даними перепису 1939 року.В статье представлен новый расчет потерь вследствие катастрофического голода 1932–1933 гг. на основании данных переписей населения 1926 и 1939 гг. Применен метод перспективного расчета от переписи 1926 года на основе коэффициентов рождаемости, смертности и миграции, которые имели бы место в отсутствие кризиса и сравнения полученного результата с данными переписи 1939 года.The new estimates for the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932–33 “Holodomor” losses are given on the basis of census data 1926 and 1939 and vital statistics. The approach of projecting the 1926 population until 1939 on the basis of fertility, mortality and migration rates that would have prevailed without crisis, and comparing it to the observed 1939 population was implemented

Long-term trends in the longevity of scientific elites: evidence from the British and the Russian academies of science.

National science academies represent intellectual elites and vanguard groups in the achievement of longevity. We estimated life expectancy (LE) at age 50 of members of the British Royal Society (RS) for the years 1670-2007 and of members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) for the years 1750-2006. The longevity of academicians was higher than that of their corresponding national populations, with the gap widening from the 1950s. Since the 1980s, LE in the RS has been higher than the maximum LE among all high-income countries. In each period, LE in the RS was greater than in the RAS, although since the 1950s it has risen in parallel in the two academies. This steep increase shared by academicians in Britain and Russia suggests that general populations have the potential for a substantial increase in survival to high ages

Marginal Eyespots on Butterfly Wings Deflect Bird Attacks Under Low Light Intensities with UV Wavelengths

Predators preferentially attack vital body parts to avoid prey escape. Consequently, prey adaptations that make predators attack less crucial body parts are expected to evolve. Marginal eyespots on butterfly wings have long been thought to have this deflective, but hitherto undemonstrated function.Here we report that a butterfly, Lopinga achine, with broad-spectrum reflective white scales in its marginal eyespot pupils deceives a generalist avian predator, the blue tit, to attack the marginal eyespots, but only under particular conditions-in our experiments, low light intensities with a prominent UV component. Under high light intensity conditions with a similar UV component, and at low light intensities without UV, blue tits directed attacks towards the butterfly head.In nature, birds typically forage intensively at early dawn, when the light environment shifts to shorter wavelengths, and the contrast between the eyespot pupils and the background increases. Among butterflies, deflecting attacks is likely to be particularly important at dawn when low ambient temperatures make escape by flight impossible, and when insectivorous birds typically initiate another day's search for food. Our finding that the deflective function of eyespots is highly dependent on the ambient light environment helps explain why previous attempts have provided little support for the deflective role of marginal eyespots, and we hypothesize that the mechanism that we have discovered in our experiments in a laboratory setting may function also in nature when birds forage on resting butterflies under low light intensities

Characterisation of the microbiome along the gastrointestinal tract of growing turkeys

The turkey microbiome is largely understudied, despite its relationship with bird health and growth, and the prevalence of human pathogens such as Campylobacter spp. In this study we investigated the microbiome within the small intestine (SI), caeca (C), large intestine (LI) and cloaca (CL) of turkeys at 6, 10 and 16 weeks of age. Eight turkeys were dissected within each age category and the contents of the SI, C, LI and CL were harvested. 16S rDNA based QPCR was performed on all samples and samples for the 4 locations within 3 birds/age group were sequenced using ion torrent-based sequencing of the 16S rDNA. Sequencing data showed on a genus level, an abundance of Lactobacillus, Streptococcus and Clostridium XI (38.2, 28.1 and 13.0% respectively) irrespective of location and age. The caeca exhibited the greatest microbiome diversity throughout the development of the turkey. PICRUSt data predicted an array of bacterial function, with most differences being apparent in the caeca of the turkeys as they matured. QPCR revealed that the caeca within 10 week old birds, contained the most Campylobacter spp. Understanding the microbial ecology of the turkey gastrointestinal tract is essential in terms of understanding production efficiency and in order to develop novel strategies for targeting Campylobacter spppublishersversionPeer reviewe