Cryptosporidiosis: From Prevention to Treatment, a Narrative Review

Cryptosporidiosis is a water- and food-borne zoonotic disease caused by the protozoon parasite of the genus Cryptosporidium. C. hominis and C. parvum are the main two species causing infections in humans and animals. The disease can be transmitted by the fecal–oral route as well as the respiratory route. The infective stage (sporulated oocysts) is resistant to different disinfectants including chlorine. Currently, no effective therapeutic drugs or vaccines are available to treat and control Cryptosporidium infection. To prevent cryptosporidiosis in humans and animals, we need to understand better how the disease is spread and transmitted, and how to interrupt its transmission cycle. This review focuses on understanding cryptosporidiosis, including its infective stage, pathogenesis, life cycle, genomics, epidemiology, previous outbreaks, source of the infection, transmission dynamics, host spectrum, risk factors and high-risk groups, the disease in animals and humans, diagnosis, treatment and control, and the prospect of an effective anti-Cryptosporidium vaccine. It also focuses on the role of the One Health approach in managing cryptosporidiosis at the animal–human–environmental interface. The summarized data in this review will help to tackle future Cryptosporidium infections in humans and animals and reduce the disease occurrence

An Improved Polynomial Chaos Expansion Based Response Surface Method And Its Applications On Frame And Spring Engineering Based Structures

In engineering fields, computational models provide a tool that can simulate a real world response and enhance our understanding of physical phenomenas. However, such models are often computationally expensive with multiple sources of uncertainty related to the model’s input/assumptions. For example, the literature indicates that ligament’s material properties and its insertion site locations have a significant effect on the performance of knee joint models, which makes addressing uncertainty related to them a crucial step to make the computational model more representative of reality. However, previous sensitivity studies were limited due to the computational expense of the models. The high computational expense of sensitivity analysis can be addressed by performing the analysis with a reduced number of model runs or by creating an inexpensive surrogate model. Both approaches are addressed in this work by the use of Polynomial chaos expansion (PCE)-based surrogate models and design of experiments (DoE). Therefore, the objectives of this dissertation were: 1- provide guidelines for the use of PCE-based models and investigate their efficiency in case of non-linear problems. 2- utilize PCE and DoE-based tools to introduce efficient sensitivity analysis approaches to the field of knee mechanics. To achieve these objectives, a frame structure was used for the first aim, and a rigid body computational model for two knee specimens was used for the second aim. Our results showed that, for PCE-based surrogate models, once the recommended number of samples is used, increasing the PCE order produced more accurate surrogate models. This conclusion was reflected in the R2 values realized for three highly non-linear functions ( 0.9998, 0.9996 and 0.9125, respectively). Our results also showed that the use of PCE and DoE-based sensitivity analyses resulted in practically identical results with significant savings in the computational cost of sensitivity analysis when compared to a traditional quasi-Monte Carlo (MC) approach (95% and 98% reductions in model evaluations for analyses with 10 and 6 uncertain variables, respectively). Finally, the use of D-optimal DoE resulted in a reduction in the number of samples required to perform sensitivity analysis by 64.4%, which reduced the computational burden by 1018 hours

Irregular Egyptian migration of unaccompanied minors to Italy: a journey of death or salvation?

The irregular migration of Egyptian unaccompanied minors to Italy is a recent development within the migration flow between the two countries. The alarming rate of increase since 2007 of Egyptian boys under the age of 18 arriving in Italy unaccompanied and the lack of information explaining this phenomenon necessitated research in the field. The study reviews the reasons behind this type of migration, recent policy developments in both countries, the problems experienced by the social workers and managers of the boys in Italy, and the dilemmas facing the boys because of this migration. The study relied mainly on primary sources for its findings. Literature on unaccompanied minors in other parts of the world and studies on irregular Egyptian migration to Italy provided the background context. The main objective was to provide an analysis of this recent and largely undocumented phenomenon. The study reviews the official policies on both sides of the Mediterranean from the perspectives of both policy makers and implementers. In addition, the study looks into push/pull factors that encourage the irregular migration of both adults and minors alike. In relation to the Egyptian minors themselves, the study focuses on how they perceive their circumstances; why and how they ended up in their circumstances in Italy; what hurdles they faced and how they managed to overcome them; and last, what both the Egyptian and Italian governments have been doing to manage this phenomenon

Heated Conflict: Investor-Owned Utility Liability for California Wildfires Under the Doctrine of Inverse Condemnation

This Article addresses California Investor-Owned Utilities’ liability for wildfire damage due to equipment failure and mismanagement. Part II highlights the doctrine of inverse condemnation and how California Courts apply the doctrine to cases involving investor-owned utilities. Part III provides an overview of the statutory and regulatory provisions that govern how a utility may recover costs through customer rates. Part IV addresses the apparent conflict between these frameworks and how utilities and regulators have sought to reconcile this conflict. Part V concludes with an overview and discussion of SB 901 which seeks to maintain utility financial stability while holding the entities accountable for their actions that gave rise to catastrophic wildfires

Rethinking the concept of social construction from a complexity perspective

This paper is an explicitly interdisciplinary critique of the limits of the concept of social construction and the analytic implications of breaking those limits. The proposition rests on the rejection of social phenomena as sui generic, in Durkheim’s sense and the proposition that they are ecologically emergent outcomes of complex, multi-dimensional processes. The consequence is an epistemic commitment to Fuzzy Logic, deep ecology, a more biosemiotic approach to human understanding, including the prioritisation of survival and the emotions. It draws on Complexity Theory, Biosemiotics, Affect Theory, and a more biologically and emotionally rooted concept of the social

Photo-physiological variability in phytoplankton chlorophyll fluorescence and assessment of chlorophyll concentration

Photo-physiological variability of in vivo chlorophyll fluorescence (CF) per unit of chlorophyll concentration (CC) is analyzed using a biophysical model to improve the accuracy of CC assessments. Field measurements of CF and photosystem II (PSII) photochemical yield (PY) with the Advanced Laser Fluorometer (ALF) in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays are analyzed vs. high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) CC retrievals. It is shown that isolation from ambient light, PSII saturating excitation, optimized phytoplankton exposure to excitation, and phytoplankton dark adaptation may provide accurate in vivo CC fluorescence measurements (R2 = 0.90-0.95 vs. HPLC retrievals). For in situ or flow-through measurements that do not allow for dark adaptation, concurrent PY measurements can be used to adjust for CF non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) and improve the accuracy of CC fluorescence assessments. Field evaluation has shown the NPQ-invariance of CF/PY and CF(PY-1-1) parameters and their high correlation with HPLC CC retrievals (R2 = 0.74-0.96), while the NPQ-affected CF measurements correlated poorly with CC (R2 = -0.22)