3,367 research outputs found
Beyond health: connecting art, COVID-19 and the Sustainable Development Goals in the rural plains of Nepal
Art and the SDGs is a public engagement project between artisans from the Janakpur Women’s Development Centre (a centre of Mithila art and culture) in the southern plains of Nepal, researchers at UCL Institute for Global Health and the United Nations in Nepal to promote dialogue between students and artisans about local meanings of the SDGs. The project was paused due to COVID-19 and we spoke to artisans over the phone to explore how the pandemic was affecting them
Understanding how children and young people with disabilities experience COVID-19 and humanitarian emergencies in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol
Introduction: People with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and
there is a need to understand the diversity of experience globally to plan and implement
responses. The experience of children and young people with disabilities is often overlooked as
research focuses on younger children or adults, and they are not often engaged in the design of
research methods to capture their experience. As part of a research project to develop
participatory methods with children and young people with disabilities in rural Nepal to research
their experience of COVID-19 (PARDAN), we sought to map the literature about experiences of
children and young people with disabilities in emergency and COVID-19 contexts, and describe
the methods used. This review will inform the development of our methods and will help identify
gaps in the literature. /
Methods: We will use Arksey and O’Malley’s (1) and Levac et al’s (2) framework to search for grey and
published literature. We will search Scopus, Web of Science, ASSIA, Jstor, Source, Google Scholar,
Academia.edu, Researchgate, and Google. We will also search websites of organisations working
in emergencies such as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Health
Organisation (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Humanity and Inclusion (HI), CBM
International, International Disability Alliance (IDA), Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), and
National Federation of the Disabled Nepal (NFDN). We will approach our advisory committee and
personal contacts in disabled persons organisations in the global south to help us locate
additional relevant grey literature. Predetermined inclusion
and exclusion criteria will be applied by five reviewers to determine study eligibility. Studies
published in English and Nepali and between May 2011 and May 2021 will be reviewed. Methods
and findings from literature will be extracted and a descriptive summary will be presented to an
advisory committee of disabled persons organisations in Nepal. /
Discussion: Through this review we will identify research gaps and develop implications of our findings which
will be presented in a webinar and in publications. The review will be an important resource for those seeking to conduct research about children and young people with disabilities and will
inform a global inclusive response to the pandemic which includes the perspectives of children
and young people
Inhibition of IFN-γ Signaling by an Epstein-Barr Virus Immediate-Early Protein
AbstractViruses have evolved elaborate mechanisms to target many aspects of the host's immune response. The cytokine IFN-γ plays a central role in resistance of the host to infection via direct antiviral effects as well as modulation of the immune response. In this study, we demonstrate that the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) immediate-early protein, BZLF1, inhibits the IFN-γ signaling pathway. BZLF1 decreases the ability of IFN-γ to activate a variety of important downstream target genes, such as IRF-1, p48, and CIITA, and prevents IFN-γ-induced class II MHC surface expression. Additionally, BZLF1 inhibits IFN-γ-induced STAT1 tyrosine phosphorylation and nuclear translocation. Finally, we demonstrate that BZLF1 decreases expression of the IFN-γ receptor, suggesting a mechanism by which EBV may escape antiviral immune responses during primary infection
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The genetic structure of Aedes aegypti populations is driven by boat traffic in the Peruvian Amazon.
In the Americas, as in much of the rest of the world, the dengue virus vector Aedes aegypti is found in close association with human habitations, often leading to high population densities of mosquitoes in urban settings. In the Peruvian Amazon, this vector has been expanding to rural communities over the last 10-15 years, but to date, the population genetic structure of Ae. aegypti in this region has not been characterized. To investigate the relationship between Ae. aegypti gene flow and human transportation networks, we characterized mosquito population structure using a panel of 8 microsatellite markers and linked results to various potential mechanisms for long-distance dispersal. Adult and immature Ae. aegypti (>20 individuals per site) were collected from Iquitos city and from six neighboring riverine communities, i.e., Nauta, Indiana, Mazan, Barrio Florida, Tamshiaco, and Aucayo. FST statistics indicate significant, but low to moderate differentiation for the majority of study site pairs. Population structure of Ae. aegypti is not correlated with the geographic distance between towns, suggesting that human transportation networks provide a reasonable explanation for the high levels of population mixing. Our results indicate that Ae. aegypti gene flow among sub-populations is greatest between locations with heavy boat traffic, such as Iquitos-Tamshiaco and Iquitos-Indiana-Mazan, and lowest between locations with little or no boat/road traffic between them such as Barrio Florida-Iquitos. Bayesian clustering analysis showed ancestral admixture among three genetic clusters; no single cluster was exclusive to any site. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that human transportation networks, particularly riverways, are responsible for the geographic spread of Ae. aegypti in the Peruvian Amazon. Our findings are applicable to other regions of the world characterized by networks of urban islands connected by fluvial transport routes
Asymptotic Expansions for the Conditional Sojourn Time Distribution in the -PS Queue
We consider the queue with processor sharing. We study the
conditional sojourn time distribution, conditioned on the customer's service
requirement, in various asymptotic limits. These include large time and/or
large service request, and heavy traffic, where the arrival rate is only
slightly less than the service rate. The asymptotic formulas relate to, and
extend, some results of Morrison \cite{MO} and Flatto \cite{FL}.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures and 1 tabl
XMM-Newton view of galaxy pairs: activation of quiescent black holes?
We report on XMM-Newton observations of three nearby galaxy pairs,
AM0707-273, AM1211-465, and AM2040-674. All six galaxies were previously
classified as HII galaxies based on optical and IR spectroscopic analysis. All
galaxies were detected with XMM-Newton and each member was isolated and
analyzed independently. The X-ray spectra reveal strong evidence of AGN
activity in the NE member of AM1211-465 pair. We measured a luminosity of
1.94(+0.11/-0.15)x10^42 erg/s in the 2-10 keV band and the presence of a
neutral FeK_alpha line with a confidence level of 98.8%. The high nH value,
2.2+/-0.2x10^22 cm^-2, would explain the misclassification of the source.
Marginal evidence of AGN nature was found in the X-ray spectra of AM1211-465SW
and AM0707-273E. The X-ray emission of the three remaining galaxies can be
explained by starburst activity.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
A past capture event at Sagittarius A* inferred from the fluorescent X-ray emission of Sagittarius B clouds
The fluorescent X-ray emission from neutral iron in the molecular clouds (Sgr
B) indicates that the clouds are being irradiated by an external X-ray source.
The source is probably associated with the Galactic central black hole (Sgr
A*), which triggered a bright outburst one hundred years ago. We suggest that
such an outburst could be due to a partial capture of a star by Sgr A*, during
which a jet was generated. By constraining the observed flux and the time
variability ( 10 years) of the Sgr B's fluorescent emission, we find that
the shock produced by the interaction of the jet with the dense interstellar
medium represents a plausible candidate for the X-ray source emission.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in MNRA
Some remarks on defects and T-duality
The equations of motion for a conformal field theory in the presence of
defect lines can be derived from an action that includes contributions from
bibranes. For T-dual toroidal compactifications, they imply a direct relation
between Poincare line bundles and the action of T-duality on boundary
conditions. We also exhibit a class of diagonal defects that induce a shift of
the B-field. We finally study T-dualities for S^1-fibrations in the example of
the Wess-Zumino-Witten model on SU(2) and lens spaces. Using standard
techniques from D-branes, we derive from algebraic data in rational conformal
field theories geometric structures familiar from Fourier-Mukai
transformations.Comment: 19 page
Direct Photon Production in Heavy Ion Reactions at SPS and RHIC
A review on experimental results for direct photon production in heavy ion
reactions is given. A brief survey of early direct photon limits from SPS
experiments is presented. The first measurement of direct photons in heavy ion
reactions from the WA98 collaboration is discussed and compared to theoretical
calculations. An outlook on the perspective of photon measurements at RHIC is
given.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, invited talk at ICPA-QGP 2001, Jaipur, India, to
be published in PRAMAN
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