Issues in comparing poverty trends over time in Cote de'Ivoire

Cote d'Ivoire conducted household surveys between 1985 and 1995, making it possible to trace changes in urban and rural poverty and changes in poverty among different socioeconomic groups. During the decade surveyed, the country experienced a major recession. Poverty increased substantially and continued unabated in the year after devaluation, in part because much of the increase in export crop prices, especially for cocoa, was taxed away. Between 1988 and 1993, urban poverty increased faster than rural poverty did, though mean expenditures in urban areas remained substantially above mean expenditures in rural areas. Food crop farmers apparently suffered more than export crop farmers. All in all these trends persisted after devaluation. However, the authors found that exploring poverty trends across regions and socioeconomic groups raised questions about the patterns of change and the reliability of the data and the methods used to derive poverty estimates. Secondary data cast some doubt on certain survey findings, suggesting that they may not have truly reflected real economic trends. The authors emphasized the need to draw reliable conclusions from time-series data in order to understand how policy reform affects poverty. They urged that far more attention be paid to comparability issues in designing and analyzing data and to developing better regional and temporal priceindices, if reliable time-series data are to be generated for Sub-Saharan Africa.Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Reduction Strategies,Economic Theory&Research,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Earth Sciences&GIS,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Poverty Assessment,Achieving Shared Growth

Solving the Non-Crossing MAPF with CP

We introduce a new Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) problem which is motivated by an industrial application. Given a fleet of robots that move on a workspace that may contain static obstacles, we must find paths from their current positions to a set of destinations, and the goal is to minimise the length of the longest path. The originality of our problem comes from the fact that each robot is attached with a cable to an anchor point, and that robots are not able to cross these cables. We formally define the Non-Crossing MAPF (NC-MAPF) problem and show how to compute lower and upper bounds by solving well known assignment problems. We introduce a Variable Neighbourhood Search (VNS) approach for improving the upper bound, and a Constraint Programming (CP) model for solving the problem to optimality. We experimentally evaluate these approaches on randomly generated instances

Acute effects of elevated NEFA on vascular function: a comparison of SFA and MUFA

There is emerging evidence to show that high levels of NEFA contribute to endothelial dysfunction and impaired insulin sensitivity. However, the impact of NEFA composition remains unclear. A total of ten healthy men consumed test drinks containing 50 g of palm stearin (rich in SFA) or high-oleic sunflower oil (rich in MUFA) on separate occasions; a third day included no fat as a control. The fats were emulsified into chocolate drinks and given as a bolus (approximately 10 g fat) at baseline followed by smaller amounts (approximately 3 g fat) every 30 min throughout the 6 h study day. An intravenous heparin infusion was initiated 2 h after the bolus, which resulted in a three- to fourfold increase in circulating NEFA level from baseline. Mean arterial stiffness as measured by digital volume pulse was higher during the consumption of SFA (P,0·001) but not MUFA (P¼0·089) compared with the control. Overall insulin and gastric inhibitory peptide response was greater during the consumption of both fats compared with the control (P,0·001); there was a second insulin peak in response to MUFA unlike SFA. Consumption of SFA resulted in higher levels of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sI-CAM) at 330 min than that of MUFA or control (P#0·048). There was no effect of the test drinks on glucose, total nitrite, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 or endothelin-1 concentrations. The present study indicates a potential negative impact of elevated NEFA derived from the consumption of SFA on arterial stiffness and sI-CAM levels. More studies are needed to fully investigate the impact of NEFA composition on risk factors for CVD

Contextual Optimizer through Neighborhood Estimation for prescriptive analysis

We address the challenges posed by heteroscedastic noise in contextual decision-making. We propose a consistent Shrinking Neighborhood Estimation (SNE) technique that successfully estimates contextual performance under unpredictable variances. Furthermore, we propose a Rate-Efficient Sampling rule designed to enhance the performance of the SNE. The effectiveness of the combined solution ``Contextual Optimizer through Neighborhood Estimation"(CONE) is validated through theorems and numerical benchmarking. The methodologies have been further deployed to address a staffing challenge in a hospital call center, exemplifying their substantial impact and practical utility in real-world scenarios

Nuclear-localized focal adhesion kinase regulates inflammatory VCAM-1 expression.

Vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) plays important roles in development and inflammation. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) are key regulators of inflammatory and integrin-matrix signaling, respectively. Integrin costimulatory signals modulate inflammatory gene expression, but the important control points between these pathways remain unresolved. We report that pharmacological FAK inhibition prevented TNF-α-induced VCAM-1 expression within heart vessel-associated endothelial cells in vivo, and genetic or pharmacological FAK inhibition blocked VCAM-1 expression during development. FAK signaling facilitated TNF-α-induced, mitogen-activated protein kinase activation, and, surprisingly, FAK inhibition resulted in the loss of the GATA4 transcription factor required for TNF-α-induced VCAM-1 production. FAK inhibition also triggered FAK nuclear localization. In the nucleus, the FAK-FERM (band 4.1, ezrin, radixin, moesin homology) domain bound directly to GATA4 and enhanced its CHIP (C terminus of Hsp70-interacting protein) E3 ligase-dependent polyubiquitination and degradation. These studies reveal new developmental and anti-inflammatory roles for kinase-inhibited FAK in limiting VCAM-1 production via nuclear localization and promotion of GATA4 turnover

Comparing machine learning clustering with latent class analysis on cancer symptoms' data

Symptom Cluster Research is a major topic in Cancer Symptom Science. In spite of the several statistical and clinical approaches in this domain, there is not a consensus on which method performs better. Identifying a generally accepted analytical method is important in order to be able to utilize and process all the available data. In this paper we report a secondary analysis on cancer symptom data, comparing the performance of five Machine Learning (ML) clustering algorithms in doing so. Based on how well they separate specific subsets of symptom measurements we select the best of them and proceed to compare its performance with the Latent Class Analysis (LCA) method. This analysis is a part of an ongoing study for identifying suitable Machine Learning algorithms to analyse and predict cancer symptoms in cancer treatment

Tubular gelatinase A (MMP-2) and its tissue inhibitors in polycystic kidney disease in the Han:SPRD rat

Tubular gelatinase A (MMP-2) and its tissue inhibitors in polycystic kidney disease in the Han:SPRD rat. Thickening of the tubular basement membrane is one of the hallmarks of polycystic kidney disease (PKD). The present study was conducted to investigate the potential role of the matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and its specific tissue inhibitors (TIMP-1 and TIMP-2) in the accumulation of matrix components in PKD. As a model of PKD, two-month-old heterozygous Han:SPRD rats, which are at an early stage of cystogenesis, were used. MMP-2, but not MMP-9 (gelatinase B) nor MMP-3 (stromelysin) could be detected in proximal tubules of the normal rat kidney. The presence of the inhibitors TIMP-1 and TIMP-2 was confirmed on the mRNA level. In tubules from PKD rats MMP-2 activity was lower (31 ± 8 vs. 58 ± 7 U/prep., N = 9, P < 0.05), mRNA of MMP-2 was reduced 4.2 ± 0.6-fold (N = 4, P < 0.05) and enzyme protein was depressed 3.8 ± 0.8-fold (N = 4, P < 0.05). By contrast, TIMP-1 mRNA was 9.0 ± 1.1-fold and TIMP-2 mRNA 3.8 ± 0.7-fold (N = 4, P < 0.05) elevated over controls. Cyst fluid from homozygous rats contained MMP-2 protein and activity. These findings indicate that tubular MMP-2 activity is reduced in PKD, due to down-regulation of MMP-2, up-regulation of TIMP-1 and TIMP-2, and luminal secretion of the enzyme. It is conceivable that these alterations relate to the enhanced matrix accumulation observed in the evolution of PKD

Dark adaptation in relation to choroidal thickness in healthy young subjects:A cross-sectional, observational study

BACKGROUND: Dark adaptation is an energy-requiring process in the outer retina nourished by the profusely perfused choroid. We hypothesized that variations in choroidal thickness might affect the rate of dark adaptation. METHOD: Cross-sectional, observational study of 42 healthy university students (mean age 25 ± 2.0 years, 29 % men) who were examined using an abbreviated automated dark adaptometry protocol with a 2° diameter stimulus centered 5° above the point of fixation. The early, linear part of the rod-mediated dark adaptation curve was analyzed to extract the time required to reach a sensitivity of 5.0 × 10(−3) cd/m2 (time to rod intercept) and the slope (rod adaptation rate). The choroid was imaged using enhanced-depth imaging spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT). RESULTS: The time to the rod intercept was 7.3 ± 0.94 (range 5.1 - 10.2) min. Choroidal thickness 2.5° above the fovea was 348 ± 104 (range 153–534) μm. There was no significant correlation between any of the two measures of rod-mediated dark adaptation and choroidal thickness (time to rod intercept versus choroidal thickness 0.072 (CI(95) -0.23 to 0.38) min/100 μm, P = 0.64, adjusted for age and sex). There was no association between the time-to–rod-intercept or the dark adaptation rate and axial length, refraction, gender or age. CONCLUSION: Choroidal thickness, refraction and ocular axial length had no detectable effect on rod-mediated dark adaptation in healthy young subjects. Our results do not support that variations in dark adaptation can be attributed to variations in choroidal thickness. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12886-016-0273-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users