Update on the current status of onchocerciasis in Cote d’Ivoire following 40 years of intervention: Progress and challenges

Background Onchocerciasis control in Côte d’Ivoire started with aerial insecticide spraying in 1974 and continued with community directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTi) from 1992 to the present. Onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis (LF) are co-endemic in 46 of the 81 health districts in the country. Fourteen and 12 districts are endemic for only LF or onchocerciasis, respectively. This paper aims to review the impact of past interventions on onchocerciasis in Côte d’Ivoire between 1975 and 2013, and review plans for disease elimination. Methods We reviewed microfilaria (MF, skin snip) prevalence and community microfilarial load (CMFL) data from published reports from 53 health districts during two major epidemiological assessment periods. Data from 1975 through 1991 provided information on the impact of vector control, and data from 1992 through 2016 provided information on the impact of CDTi. Results Weekly aerial insecticide spraying in 8 endemic districts between 1975 and 1991 reduced the overall MF prevalence by 68.1% from 43.5% to 13.9%. The CMFL also decreased in 7 out of 8 surveyed communities by 95.2% from 9.24 MF/snip to 0.44 MF/snip. Ivermectin distribution started in 1992. The coverage targets for control (65% of the total population) was reached in most endemic districts, and some areas achieved 80% coverage. Two sets of surveys were conducted to assess the impact of CDTi. Results from the first repeat surveys showed a significant decrease in overall MF prevalence (by 75.7%, from 41.6% to 10.1%). The second follow-up evaluation showed further improvement in most endemic districts and also documented major reductions in CMFL compared to baseline. Conclusions Extensive data collected over many years document the very significant impact of interventions conducted by the National Onchocerciasis and other Eyes Diseases Control Programme during challenging times with periods of civil unrest. The Health Ministry has now integrated efforts to control neglected tropical diseases and adopted the goal of onchocerciasis elimination

Is there a Phase Transition to the Flux Lattice State?

The sharp drops in the resistance and magnetization which are usually attributed to a phase transition from the vortex liquid state to a crystal state are explained instead as a crossover between three and two dimensional behavior, which occurs when the phase coherence length in the liquid becomes comparable to the sample thickness. Estimates of the width of the crossover region and the phase coherence length scales are in agreement with experiment.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe

Modelling of content-aware indicators for effective determination of shot boundaries in compressed MPEG videos

In this paper, a content-aware approach is proposed to design multiple test conditions for shot cut detection, which are organized into a multiple phase decision tree for abrupt cut detection and a finite state machine for dissolve detection. In comparison with existing approaches, our algorithm is characterized with two categories of content difference indicators and testing. While the first category indicates the content changes that are directly used for shot cut detection, the second category indicates the contexts under which the content change occurs. As a result, indications of frame differences are tested with context awareness to make the detection of shot cuts adaptive to both content and context changes. Evaluations announced by TRECVID 2007 indicate that our proposed algorithm achieved comparable performance to those using machine learning approaches, yet using a simpler feature set and straightforward design strategies. This has validated the effectiveness of modelling of content-aware indicators for decision making, which also provides a good alternative to conventional approaches in this topic

Deoxyribonucleic Acid as a Universal Electrolyte for Bio-Friendly Light-Emitting Electrochemical Cells [in press]

In the search for bio and eco‐friendly light sources, light‐emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) are promising candidates for the implementation of biomaterials in their device architecture thanks to their low fabrication complexity and wide range of potential technological applications. In this work, the use of the DNA derivative DNA‐cetyltrimethylammonium (DNA‐CTMA) is introduced as the ion‐solvating component of the solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) in the active layer of solution‐processed LECs. The focus is particularly on the investigation of its electrochemical and ionic conductivity properties demonstrating its suitability for device fabrication and correlation with thin film morphology. Furthermore, upon blending with the commercially available emissive polymer Super Yellow, the structure property relationship between the microstructure and the ionic conductivity is investigated and yields an optimized LEC performance. The large electrochemical stability window of DNA‐CTMA enables a stable device performance for a variety of emitters covering the complete visible spectral range, thus highlighting the universal character of this naturally sourced SPE

Genomic analysis of natural intra-specific hybrids among Ethiopian isolates of Leishmania donovani.

Parasites of the genus Leishmania (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae) cause widespread and devastating human diseases. Visceral leishmaniasis due to Leishmania donovani is endemic in Ethiopia where it has also been responsible for major epidemics. The presence of hybrid genotypes has been widely reported in surveys of natural populations, genetic variation reported in a number of Leishmania species, and the extant capacity for genetic exchange demonstrated in laboratory experiments. However, patterns of recombination and the evolutionary history of admixture that produced these hybrid populations remain unclear. Here, we use whole-genome sequence data to investigate Ethiopian L. donovani isolates previously characterized as hybrids by microsatellite and multi-locus sequencing. To date there is only one previous study on a natural population of Leishmania hybrids based on whole-genome sequences. We propose that these hybrids originate from recombination between two different lineages of Ethiopian L. donovani occurring in the same region. Patterns of inheritance are more complex than previously reported with multiple, apparently independent, origins from similar parents that include backcrossing with parental types. Analysis indicates that hybrids are representative of at least three different histories. Furthermore, isolates were highly polysomic at the level of chromosomes with differences between parasites recovered from a recrudescent infection from a previously treated individual. The results demonstrate that recombination is a significant feature of natural populations and contributes to the growing body of data that shows how recombination, and gene flow, shape natural populations of Leishmania

Metastable Dynamics above the Glass Transition

The element of metastability is incorporated in the fluctuating nonlinear hydrodynamic description of the mode coupling theory (MCT) of the liquid-glass transition. This is achieved through the introduction of the defect density variable $n$ into the set of slow variables with the mass density $\rho$ and the momentum density ${\bf g}$. As a first approximation, we consider the case where motions associated with $n$ are much slower than those associated with $\rho$. Self-consistently, assuming one is near a critical surface in the MCT sense, we find that the observed slowing down of the dynamics corresponds to a certain limit of a very shallow metastable well and a weak coupling between $\rho$ and $n$. The metastability parameters as well as the exponents describing the observed sequence of time relaxations are given as smooth functions of the temperature without any evidence for a special temperature. We then investigate the case where the defect dynamics is included. We find that the slowing down of the dynamics corresponds to the system arranging itself such that the kinetic coefficient $\gamma_v$ governing the diffusion of the defects approaches from above a small temperature-dependent value $\gamma^c_v$.Comment: 38 pages, 14 figures (6 figs. are included as a uuencoded tar- compressed file. The rest is available upon request.), RevTEX3.0+eps

Improved perturbation theory in the vortex liquids state of type II superconductors

We develop an optimized perturbation theory for the Ginzburg - Landau description of thermal fluctuations effects in the vortex liquids. Unlike the high temperature expansion which is asymptotic, the optimized expansion is convergent. Radius of convergence on the lowest Landau level is $a_{T}=-3$ in 2D and $a_{T}=-5$ in 3D. It allows a systematic calculation of magnetization and specific heat contributions due to thermal fluctuations of vortices in strongly type II superconductors to a very high precision. The results are in good agreement with existing Monte Carlo simulations and experiments. Limitations of various nonperturbative and phenomenological approaches are noted. In particular we show that there is no exact intersection point of the magnetization curves both in 2D and 3D.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Shared and unique brain network features predict cognitive, personality, and mental health scores in the ABCD study

How individual differences in brain network organization track behavioral variability is a fundamental question in systems neuroscience. Recent work suggests that resting-state and task-state functional connectivity can predict specific traits at the individual level. However, most studies focus on single behavioral traits, thus not capturing broader relationships across behaviors. In a large sample of 1858 typically developing children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, we show that predictive network features are distinct across the domains of cognitive performance, personality scores and mental health assessments. On the other hand, traits within each behavioral domain are predicted by similar network features. Predictive network features and models generalize to other behavioral measures within the same behavioral domain. Although tasks are known to modulate the functional connectome, predictive network features are similar between resting and task states. Overall, our findings reveal shared brain network features that account for individual variation within broad domains of behavior in childhood

Graphene Overcoats for Ultra-High Storage Density Magnetic Media

Hard disk drives (HDDs) are used as secondary storage in a number of digital electronic devices owing to low cost ($<$0.1\$/GB at 2016 prices) and large data storage capacity (10TB with a 3.5 inch HDD). Due to the exponentially increasing amount of data, there is a need to increase areal storage densities beyond$\sim$1Tb/in$^2$. This requires the thickness of carbon overcoats (COCs) to be$<$2nm. Friction, wear, corrosion, and thermal stability are critical concerns$<$2nm, where most of the protective properties of current COCs are lost. This limits current technology and restricts COC integration with heat assisted magnetic recording technology (HAMR), since this also requires laser irradiation stability. Here we show that graphene-based overcoats can overcome all these limitations. 2-4 layers of graphene enable two-fold reduction in friction and provide better corrosion and wear than state-of-the-art COCs. A single graphene layer is enough to reduce corrosion$\sim$2.5 times. We also show that graphene can withstand HAMR conditions. Thus, graphene-based overcoats can enable ultrahigh areal density HDDs$>$10Tb/in$^2$

Numerical studies of the phase diagram of layered type II superconductors in a magnetic field

We report on simulations of layered superconductors using the Lawrence-Doniach model in the framework of the lowest Landau level approximation. We find a first order phase transition with a $B(T)$ dependence which agrees very well with the experimental ``melting'' line in YBaCuO. The transition is not associated with vortex lattice melting, but separates two vortex liquid states characterised by different degrees of short-range crystalline order and different length scales of correlations between vortices in different layers. The transition line ends at a critical end-point at low fields. We find the magnetization discontinuity and the location of the lower critical magnetic field to be in good agreement with experiments in YBaCuO. Length scales of order parameter correlations parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field increase exponentially as 1/T at low temperatures. The dominant relaxation time scales grow roughly exponentially with these correlation lengths. We find that the first order phase transition persists in the presence of weak random point disorder but can be suppressed entirely by strong disorder. No vortex glass or Bragg glass state is found in the presence of disorder. The consistency of our numerical results with various experimental features in YBaCuO, including the dependence on anisotropy, and the temperature dependence of the structure factor at the Bragg peaks in neutron scattering experiments is demonstrated.Comment: 25 pages (revtex), 19 figures included, submitted to PR