A sustainable model for ICT capacity building in developing countries

System administrators are often asked to apply their professional expertise in unusual situations, or under tight resource constraints. What happens, though, when the “situation” is a foreign country with only basic technical infrastructure, and the task is to bauild systems which are able to survive and grow in these over-constrained environments? In this paper we report on our experiences in two very different countries – Cuba and Ethiopia – where we ran a number of ICT projects. In those projects we assisted local universities to upgrade their ICT infrastructure and services. This included skills and process building for local system administrators. Based on our experiences we formulate a model for sustainable ICT capacity building. We hope this model will be useful for other organizations doing similar projects

Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins in airway diseases

Staphylococcus aureus is a frequent germ in the upper airways, and, under appropriate conditions, may produce enterotoxins with superantigenic activities. The classical enterotoxins SEA-E and TSST-l activate B- and T cells, eosinophils, epithelial and other cells, and are able to induce a polyclonal immune response including IgE synthesis and eosinophilic inflammation. We have shown that nasal polyps frequently are colonized with Staphylococcus aureus, inducing a local immune reaction, which aggravates the eosinophilic inflammatory response. IgE antibodies in nasal polyp tissue may be used as diagnostic means for this immune reaction. We consider it probable that enterotoxines from Staphylococcus aureus are crucially contributing to this often difficult to treat disease of the upper airways. Furthermore, recent studies in severe, steroid-dependent asthmatics have shown that IgE-antibodies to enterotoxins are also found in the sera of these patients and similar pathomechanisms as in polyps may apply for the lower airways. To summarize, enterotoxins from Staphylococcus aureus most probably play an at least modulating role in severe upper and lower airway disease