Refugees' views of the effectiveness of support provided by their host countries.

BACKGROUND: The war in former Yugoslavia, which commenced in 1990, caused the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. There are numerous research investigations into the trauma and associated problems. However, there is no available publication concerning refugees' own perception of the provided support in host countries. AIMS: To investigate how refugees evaluated support received (helpful or detrimental) and what kinds of support they wish to receive in the future. METHOD: The study participants were 854 refugees from former Yugoslavia settled in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. Alongside demographic data, they were assessed using International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), Life Stressor Checklist-Revised (LSC-R), Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life (MANSA), Matrix for Recording Health Care, Social Interventions (MACSI), and an open questions interview. RESULTS: Data revealed that 99.3% of refugees received some kind of support. The most frequent support (98.7%) was primary health care and the least frequent (34.7%) was support in employment and further training. The most helpful (27.5%) was primary health care, and the most detrimental (11.6%) was legal support. The most desired types of support were help in employment (31.8%) and further education/training (20.5%). The educational level of refugees affected their perceptions of support as detrimental or desired. CONCLUSIONS: There are different levels of received and desired support among host countries. There are also differences in the perception of received and desired support with regard to the refugees' educational levels

WISDOM-II: Screening against multiple targets implicated in malaria using computational grid infrastructures

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite continuous efforts of the international community to reduce the impact of malaria on developing countries, no significant progress has been made in the recent years and the discovery of new drugs is more than ever needed. Out of the many proteins involved in the metabolic activities of the <it>Plasmodium </it>parasite, some are promising targets to carry out rational drug discovery.</p> <p>Motivation</p> <p>Recent years have witnessed the emergence of grids, which are highly distributed computing infrastructures particularly well fitted for embarrassingly parallel computations like docking. In 2005, a first attempt at using grids for large-scale virtual screening focused on plasmepsins and ended up in the identification of previously unknown scaffolds, which were confirmed in vitro to be active plasmepsin inhibitors. Following this success, a second deployment took place in the fall of 2006 focussing on one well known target, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), and on a new promising one, glutathione-S-transferase.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In silico drug design, especially vHTS is a widely and well-accepted technology in lead identification and lead optimization. This approach, therefore builds, upon the progress made in computational chemistry to achieve more accurate <it>in silico </it>docking and in information technology to design and operate large scale grid infrastructures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>On the computational side, a sustained infrastructure has been developed: docking at large scale, using different strategies in result analysis, storing of the results on the fly into MySQL databases and application of molecular dynamics refinement are MM-PBSA and MM-GBSA rescoring. The modeling results obtained are very promising. Based on the modeling results, <it>In vitro </it>results are underway for all the targets against which screening is performed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The current paper describes the rational drug discovery activity at large scale, especially molecular docking using FlexX software on computational grids in finding hits against three different targets (PfGST, PfDHFR, PvDHFR (wild type and mutant forms) implicated in malaria. Grid-enabled virtual screening approach is proposed to produce focus compound libraries for other biological targets relevant to fight the infectious diseases of the developing world.</p

Environmental risk assessments for transgenic crops producing output trait enzymes

The environmental risks from cultivating crops producing output trait enzymes can be rigorously assessed by testing conservative risk hypotheses of no harm to endpoints such as the abundance of wildlife, crop yield and the rate of degradation of crop residues in soil. These hypotheses can be tested with data from many sources, including evaluations of the agronomic performance and nutritional quality of the crop made during product development, and information from the scientific literature on the mode-of-action, taxonomic distribution and environmental fate of the enzyme. Few, if any, specific ecotoxicology or environmental fate studies are needed. The effective use of existing data means that regulatory decision-making, to which an environmental risk assessment provides essential information, is not unnecessarily complicated by evaluation of large amounts of new data that provide negligible improvement in the characterization of risk, and that may delay environmental benefits offered by transgenic crops containing output trait enzymes

ConectCat : aplicación web : fiestas locales y otros servicios y puntos de interés en Cataluña

Aplicación web basada en mapas interactivos y timeline. Permite visualizar las fiestas locales así como otros servicios y puntos de interés de Cataluña

The clinical and cost-effectiveness of bone anchored hearing aids (BAHAs) for people who are bilaterally deaf

Most people with hearing loss can benefit from conventional air-conduction hearing aids, however some people cannot wear these or do not benefit fully from them. A BAHA delivers sound through the skull by vibrations, missing out the outer and middle ears. Hearing loss can occur in both ears (bilateral). In these cases, BAHAs are usually fitted on just one side (unilaterally), but it has been suggested there may be benefits of bilateral BAHAs. The benefits and costs of bilateral compared with unilateral BAHAs and of BAHAs compared with conventional aids or surgery is not known.A systematic review and economic evaluation will be undertaken. Literature will be identified from several sources including electronic databases. Studies will be selected for inclusion using pre-defined and explicit criteria by two reviewers independently. Data will be extracted by two reviewers and the methodological quality of all studies will be assessed using recognised criteria. Data will be synthesised through a narrative review with tabulation of results of included studies. Where possible results will be synthesised through meta-analysis.We will develop an economic model either through adapting an existing model or developing our own new economic model to examine the costs and benefits of BAHAs within the UK. This will use data from our review of studies, advice from clinicians and patient representatives and data from recognised sources