Effects of intervention with the SAFE strategy on trachoma across Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The impact of the SAFE strategy (surgery, antibiotics, face washing, environmental hygiene), recommended to eliminate blinding trachoma, is not well explored. We determined the operational effectiveness of the whole SAFE intervention package. METHODS: Analytical cross-sectional trachoma surveys were conducted in four program areas across Ethiopia before and after 3 years of intervention with the SAFE strategy. A total of 8358 children 1-9 years, 4684 people above 14 and 3572 households were assessed in the follow-up evaluations using methodologies recommended by the WHO. Effects were measured by comparing follow-up proportions with baseline estimates of four key indicators. RESULTS: Coverage was 36% for trichiasis surgery, 59% for antibiotic and 57% for health-promotion services. Prevalence of trachoma trichiasis (TT) decreased from 4.6% (95% CI: 3.6% to 5.8%) down to 2.9% (CI: 2.1% to 3.9%). Prevalence of trachoma inflammation-follicular (TF) dropped from 36.7% (33.9% to 39.6%) to 18.4% (CI: 15.4% to 21.8%). The proportion of unclean faces and households not using latrines fell from 72.8% (68.9% to 76.4%) and 74.5% (69.9% to 78.7%) down to 47.0% (CI: 43% to 51%) and 51.7% (47.2% to 56.2%), respectively. All the reductions related with antibiotic (TF), face washing (clean face) and environmental (latrine) components were statistically significant except for Surgery (TT). CONCLUSIONS: Considerable decline in the magnitude of trachoma and its risk factors was observed in areas where the SAFE strategy was implemented. The coverage of services should be maintained or improved in order to eliminate blinding trachoma by the year 2020

Omvorming van neerslag tot rioolinvoer bij een bepaald type "inlet area"

De mogelijkheid tot het uitvoeren van een reeks beregeningsproeven op het dak van het eigen gebouw werd begin 1974 geopperd door prof. Kraijenhoff van de Leur. Vervolgens is na enige voorbereiding in de tweede helft van 1974 door de schrijvers een reeks beregeningsproeven uitgevoerd op een deel van het dak van de hydraulica hal van de afdeling Hydraulica en Afvoerhydrologie. Doel van de experimenten was de transformatie van neerslag tot rioolinvoer door een bepaald type "inlet area" bij verschillende neerslagintensiteiten te onderzoeken en met een rekenmodel te beschrijven. Onder ee

Population balances combined with computational fluid dynamics : a modeling approach for dispersive mixing in a high pressure homogenizer

High pressure homogenization is at the heart of many emulsification processes in the food, personal care and pharmaceutical industry. The droplet size distribution is an important property for product quality and is aimed to be controlled in the process. Therefore a population balance model was built in order to predict the droplet size distribution subject to various hydrodynamic conditions found in a high pressure homogenizer. The hydrodynamics were simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics and the turbulence was modeled with a RANS k–e model. The high energy zone in the high pressure homogenizer was divided into four compartments. The compartments had to be small enough to secure nearly homogeneous turbulent dissipation rates but large enough to hold a population of droplets. A population balance equation describing breakage and coalescence of oil droplets in turbulent flow was solved for every compartment. One set of parameters was found which could describe the development of the droplet size distribution in the high pressure homogenizer with varying pressure drop. An improvement of 65% was found compared to the same model containing just one compartment. The compartment approach may provide an alternative to direct coupling of CFD and population balances

Two-nucleon knockout contributions to the 12^{12}C(e,e′p)(e,e'p) reaction in the dip and {Δ\Delta}(1232) regions

The contributions from $^{12}$C$(e,e'pn)$ and $^{12}$C$(e,e'pp)$ to the semi-exclusive $^{12}$C$(e,e'p)$ cross section have been calculated in an unfactorized model for two-nucleon emission. We assume direct two-nucleon knockout after virtual photon coupling with the two-body pion-exchange currents in the target nucleus. Results are presented at several kinematical conditions in the dip and $\Delta$(1232) regions. The calculated two-nucleon knockout strength is observed to account for a large fraction of the measured $(e,e'p)$ strength above the two-nucleon emission threshold.Comment: 12 Revtex pages, 4 postscript figures (available upon request), University of Gent preprint SSF94-02-0

Genetic variants underlying risk of endometriosis: insights from meta-analysis of eight genome-wide association and replication datasets

BACKGROUND Endometriosis is a heritable common gynaecological condition influenced by multiple genetic and environmental factors. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have proved successful in identifying common genetic variants of moderate effects for various complex diseases. To date, eight GWAS and replication studies from multiple populations have been published on endometriosis. In this review, we investigate the consistency and heterogeneity of the results across all the studies and their implications for an improved understanding of the aetiology of the condition. METHODS Meta-analyses were conducted on four GWASs and four replication studies including a total of 11 506 cases and 32 678 controls, and on the subset of studies that investigated associations for revised American Fertility Society (rAFS) Stage III/IV including 2859 cases. The datasets included 9039 cases and 27 343 controls of European (Australia, Belgium, Italy, UK, USA) and 2467 cases and 5335 controls of Japanese ancestry. Fixed and Han and Elkin random-effects models, and heterogeneity statistics (Cochran's Q test), were used to investigate the evidence of the nine reported genome-wide significant loci across datasets and populations. RESULTS Meta-analysis showed that seven out of nine loci had consistent directions of effect across studies and populations, and six out of nine remained genome-wide significant (P < 5 × 10−8), including rs12700667 on 7p15.2 (P = 1.6 × 10−9), rs7521902 near WNT4 (P = 1.8 × 10−15), rs10859871 near VEZT (P = 4.7 × 10−15), rs1537377 near CDKN2B-AS1 (P = 1.5 × 10−8), rs7739264 near ID4 (P = 6.2 × 10−10) and rs13394619 in GREB1 (P = 4.5 × 10−8). In addition to the six loci, two showed borderline genome-wide significant associations with Stage III/IV endometriosis, including rs1250248 in FN1 (P = 8 × 10−8) and rs4141819 on 2p14 (P = 9.2 × 10−8). Two independent inter-genic loci, rs4141819 and rs6734792 on chromosome 2, showed significant evidence of heterogeneity across datasets (P < 0.005). Eight of the nine loci had stronger effect sizes among Stage III/IV cases, implying that they are likely to be implicated in the development of moderate to severe, or ovarian, disease. While three out of nine loci were inter-genic, the remaining were in or near genes with known functions of biological relevance to endometriosis, varying from roles in developmental pathways to cellular growth/carcinogenesis. CONCLUSIONS Our meta-analysis shows remarkable consistency in endometriosis GWAS results across studies, with little evidence of population-based heterogeneity. They also show that the phenotypic classifications used in GWAS to date have been limited. Stronger associations with Stage III/IV disease observed for most loci emphasize the importance for future studies to include detailed sub-phenotype information. Functional studies in relevant tissues are needed to understand the effect of the variants on downstream biological pathways

Inclusive (e,e′N)(e,e^\prime N), (e,e′NN)(e,e^\prime NN), (e,e′π)(e,e^\prime \pi) ... reactions in nuclei

We study the inclusive $(e,e^\prime N)$, $(e,e^\prime NN)$, $(e,e^\prime \pi)$, $(e,e^\prime \pi N)$ reactions in nuclei using a Monte Carlo simulation method to treat the multichannel problem of the final state. The input consists of reaction probabilities for the different steps evaluated using microscopical many body methods. We obtain a good agreement with experiment in some channels where there is data and make predictions for other channels which are presently under investigation in several electron laboratories. The comparison of the theoretical results with experiment for several kinematical conditions and diverse channels can serve to learn about different physical processes ocurring in the reaction. The potential of this theoretical tool to make prospections for possible experiments, aiming at pinning down certain reaction probabilities, is also emphasized.Comment: 21 pages (LaTeX + figure files