Patient needs and point-of-care requirements for HIV load testing in resource-limited settings

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is an international, independent medical nongovernmental organization. One way in which MSF acts to improve patient care is to assist in the identification and development of adapted and appropriate tools for use in resource-limited settings. One strategy to achieve this goal is through active collaborations with scientists and developers, to make some of the field needs known and to help define the medical strategy behind the implementation of new diagnostic tests. Tests used in the field need to be effective in often extreme conditions and must also deliver high-quality, reliable results that can be used in the local context. In this article, we discuss some patient and health care provider needs for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) load measurement in resource-limited settings. This is just one of the areas in which effective, quality tools are desperately needed, not only by MSF and other international nongovernmental organizations, but also by many other health service providers. We hope that, by clearly defining the needs of patients in MSF clinics-as well as we can assess this-and by explaining why these tools are needed, how they should perform, and how their results can be integrated into a program, we will encourage the development of such tools and hasten their implementation in areas where they are so urgently needed

DEFINICIÓN DEL PERFIL PRODUCTIVO LOCAL Y REGIONAL A TRAVÉS DEL ESTUDIO DE CADENAS PRODUCTIVAS

La realidad macroeconómica de nuestro país, luego de la crisis de Diciembre del 2001 y la posterior devaluación del peso, provocó el resurgimiento de la industria nacional a través de la generación de oportunidades perdidas durante la convertibilidad. Luego de dos años de recuperación económica, sostenida por el incremento de las exportaciones argentinas, básicamente generada por commodities, los índices de pobreza e indigencia siguen siendo altos (aunque menores al 2001) con un porcentaje importante de empleo informal. Este contexto nacional hace necesario la definición del perfil productivo de nuestro país que permita planificar que tipo de país deseamos para las próximas generaciones. En ese mismo sentido, el Estudio de Cadenas Productivas permitirá vincular a la Universidad Pública con los procesos productivos locales y, a su vez, con los Municipios y / o Gobernaciones involucradas, lo cual traerá como consecuencia definir el perfil productivo de la localidad y elaborar políticas específicas de desarrollo, teniendo certeza de la problemática de las cadenas de valor de la ciudad y / o región. En otras palabras, definir el perfil productivo de la República Argentina a partir de las necesidades y posibilidades locales

Localisation des plateformes Argos du réseau des marégraphes Atlantique de l'Orstom

Depuis juillet 1989 cinq stations d'observation des hauteurs d'eau horaires, avec transmission des mesures dans le système ARGOS ("marégraphes ARGOS"), ont été installées dans l'Atlantique tropical. Ces installations, faites par le "Réseau des Marégraphes Atlantique" de l'ORSTOM dans le cadre du programme international TOGA (Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere), sont décrites et localisées dans le présent document technique. (Résumé d'auteur

Compressibility anomalies in stretched water and their interplay with density anomalies

Water keeps puzzling scientists because of its numerous properties which behave oppositely to usual liquids: for instance, water expands upon cooling, and liquid water is denser than ice. To explain this anomalous behaviour, several theories have been proposed, with different predictions for the properties of supercooled water (liquid at conditions where ice is more stable). However, discriminating between those theories with experiments has remained elusive because of spontaneous ice nucleation. Here we measure the sound velocity in liquid water stretched to negative pressure, and derive an experimental equation of state, which reveals compressibility anomalies. We show by rigorous thermodynamic relations how these anomalies are intricately linked with the density anomaly. Some features we observe are necessary conditions for the validity of two theories of water.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 24 reference

ESA PetriNet: Petri net Based Tool for Reliability Analysis

International audienceThis paper describes the critical (feared) scenarios derivation tool ESA PetriNet (Extraction Scenarios Algorithm from Petri Net) available from : http://www.laas.fr/ESA. ESA PetriNet allows to derive scenarios leading to critical (feared) situation in embedded systems. The system model is given by a Petri net. To derive critical scenarios and to avoid the state space explosion, the solution is to use directly the Petri net model. Linear logic (which does not appears in this paper)offers a theoretical framework to interpret the Petri net model and to extract the scenarios. ESA PetriNet provides all minimal scenarios which contain strictly necessary and sufficient events to reach a specified state. ESA PetriNet can be used with classical Petri net modelling or in its objects oriented version

Patient needs and point-of-care requirements for HIV load testing in resource-limited settings

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is an international, independent medical nongovernmental organization. One way in which MSF acts to improve patient care is to assist in the identification and development of adapted and appropriate tools for use in resource-limited settings. One strategy to achieve this goal is through active collaborations with scientists and developers, to make some of the field needs known and to help define the medical strategy behind the implementation of new diagnostic tests. Tests used in the field need to be effective in often extreme conditions and must also deliver high-quality, reliable results that can be used in the local context. In this article, we discuss some patient and health care provider needs for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) load measurement in resource-limited settings. This is just one of the areas in which effective, quality tools are desperately needed, not only by MSF and other international nongovernmental organizations, but also by many other health service providers. We hope that, by clearly defining the needs of patients in MSF clinics-as well as we can assess this-and by explaining why these tools are needed, how they should perform, and how their results can be integrated into a program, we will encourage the development of such tools and hasten their implementation in areas where they are so urgently neede