Vaccines for Visceral Leishmaniasis: Hopes and Hurdles

The leishmaniases are vector-borne parasitic diseases with multiple disease phenotypes that range from self-healing cutaneous ulcers to disfiguring post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis and fatal visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Infected individuals can develop subclinical infections or overt disease. Current treatments are toxic and expensive. The only successful control measure is case detection and drug treatment. Resistance to anti-leishmanial drugs are increasing with few drugs in the pipeline. The Leishmania parasites are good candidates for vaccine development, with no change in its antigenic coat and extensive cross-reactivity between species. First-generation vaccines are safe, immunogenic with inconclusive efficiency. These vaccines presented the leishmanin skin test (LST) as a potentially good surrogate marker of immunogenicity/protection that can help in future vaccine studies. First-generation vaccines are the only leishmaniasis vaccines that progressed to phase III. Second-generation vaccines are safe and immunogenic, but none progressed to phase III. Third-generation vaccines recently entered human testing. Alternative approaches include in silico prediction of immunogenic Leishmania epitopes with in vitro immunogenicity testing. New adjuvants can help in the quest to develop efficacious leishmaniasis vaccines. Failure of second- and third-generation vaccines to reach phase III, rising drug resistance and continued VL pandemics make it a necessity to revisit first-generation vaccines

Antidotal impact of extra virgin olive oil against genotoxicity, cytotoxicity and immunotoxicity induced by hexavalent chromium in rat

AbstractAn in vivo study was carried out to verify whether extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) has the potential to modulate alterations resulted from exposure to hexavalent chromium (CrVI) as potassium dichromate in rats. For this purpose, CrVI was injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) at a dose of 0.4mg/kg bw/day, EVOO was given orally at a dose of 300μl daily either a lone or co-treated with CrVI at the same doses, routes and duration (26days). At the end of the experiment, blood and spleen samples were collected. Genotoxicity, cytotoxicity and immunotoxicity biomarkers induced by CrVI were evaluated. Also, histopathological and immunohistochemical investigations of spleen tissue were conducted. A significant increase in genotoxicity and cytotoxicity biomarkers (micronucleus frequency, 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine level and lactate dehydrogenase activity) were recorded in CrVI treated rats. In addition, the immunotoxicity biomarkers showed a significant decrease in phagocytic%, stimulated nitric oxide production and decrease in the serum lysozyme activity. Histopathological and immunohistochemical studies support the cytotoxicity study. Oral administration of EVOO can ameliorate those effects but not restored to control level. Thus, authors recommend that regular consumption of this oil in the diet provides a constant supply of potential antioxidants that could reduce these alterations

A proposed java forward slicing approach

Many organization, programmers, and researchers need to debug, test and make maintenance for a segment of their source code to improve their system. Program slicing is one of the best techniques to do so. There are many slicing techniques available to solve such problems such as static slicing, dynamic slicing, and amorphous slicing. In our paper, we decided to develop a tool that supports many slicing techniques. Our proposed tool provides new flexible ways to process simple segments of Java code, and it generates needed slicing according to the user needs, our tool will provide the user with direct and indirect dependencies for each variable in the code segments. This tool can work under various operating systems and does not need particular environments. Thus, our tool is helpful in many aspects such as debugging, testing, education, and many other elements

Diagnostic predictive values of the hain genotype MTBDRsl assay in mycobacterial strains isolated from Sudan

Introduction: hain GenoType MTBDRsl is nucleic acid amplification assay based on reverse hybridization with specific oligonucleotide probes on nitrocellulose strips. MTBDRsl identifies M. tuberculosis complex and detects resistance to fluoroquinolone, second line injectable drugs and ethambutol evident as mutations of gyrA, rrs and embB genes respectively. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the Hain GenoType MTBDRsl Assay using 1% proportion method on LJ medium as gold standard. Methods: a total of 52 rifampicin resistant (RR) isolates were tested for second line drug sensitivity by 1% proportion method and by MTBDRsl assay. Results: two strains were identified as mycobacteria other than tuberculosis MOTT and the rest were Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex MTBC. Five of the MTBC isolates (5/50; 10%) showed resistance to at least one second line drug and one isolate (1/50; 2%) was XDR. XDR strain was concordantly detected by the two methods. One of two Kanamycin-resistant isolates showed discordant result. Ofloxacin showed one false positive and one false negative result. Most discrepancies were detected with Ethambutol. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were respectively as follows: Ethambutol (63.3.4%, 85.7%, 94.4% and 62%): for Kanamycin (67%, 100%, 100% and 97.9%): for Amikacin and Capreomycin (100%, 100%, 100% and 100%): for Ofloxacin (75%, 97.5%, 75% and 97.8%). For XDR isolate the values were (100%, 100%, 100% and 100%) respectively. Conclusion: MTBDRsl showed high specificity and negative predictive values making it acceptable and time-saving for early presumptive detection of resistance to second-line drugs in Sudan

On Flux Compactification and Moduli Stabilization

We study the effect of adding charged matter fields to both D3 and D7 branes in type IIB string theory compactification with fluxes. Generically, charged matter fields induce additional terms to the Kahler form, the superpotential and the D-terms. These terms allow for minima with positive or zero cosmological constants, even in the absence of non-perturbative effects. We show this result first by decoupling the dilaton field along the lines of the KKLT, and second by reincorporating it in the action with the Kahler moduli.Comment: 9 page

Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment and mu -> e gamma in B-L Model with Inverse Seesaw

We study the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, a_\mu, and lepton flavor violating decay \mu -> e \gamma in TeV scale B-L extension of the Standard Model (SM) with inverse seesaw mechanism. We show that the B-L contributions to a_\mu are severely constrained, therefore the SM contribution remains intact. We also emphasize that the current experimental limit of BR(\mu -> e \gamma) can be satisfied for a wide range of parameter space and it can be within the reach of MEG experiment.Comment: 10 pages, 4 Figure

Microbial and Sensory Assessment of Sand Smelt Fish Burger and Finger during Frozen Storage

The current study aimed to assess the microbiological safety and sensory quality of fish burger and finger made from sand smelt fish (Atherinahepsetus) which was found unacceptable from consumers. The substitution material (soybean flour (SF) and minced boiled potatoes (MBP)) were used by different levels in this investigation to improve the sensory evaluation of produced fish products. Total bacterial count (TBC) values for burger and finger samples gradually declined till the day 45th then increased in the later period of frozen storage. Yeast and Molds growth were not detected during the frozen storage over the entire period of 90 days storage, except for zero time the score values of the quality attributes: color, taste, odor and texture, as well as overall acceptability of sand smelt fish burgers and fingers, slightly declined during frozen storage. The filling materials SF and MBP used in the production of fish products showed an observed effect in maintaining the sensory qualities of the products for 90 days of frozen storage. It can be concluded that sand smelt fish products maintained good microbial and sensory quality at the end of 90 storage period in the freezer, opening an opportunity for this good nutritious protein source to be used as a daily food

Individbaserad trygghetsskapande och språkutveckling genom odling – en fallstudie om arbetslösa utlandsföddas väg i samhället

Sverige har under senare år tagit emot flera hundra tusen assylsökande. Att integrera dessa i samhället är en stor utmaning. De behöver känna trygghet och tillhörighet i samhället genom olika integrationsaktiviteter. Samtidigt kan de bidra med kompetens och kunskap om de lyckas etablera sig på arbetsmarknaden. Etablering på arbetsmarknaden är av stor betydelse för att förebygga utanförskap och arbetslöshet samt öka trygghet och tillhörighet hos utlandsfödda personer. Dock är integrations- och etableringsprocesser kantade av hinder och barriärer som är relaterade till bland annat språkkunskaper, ålder, utbildning och kulturen. Projektet övergripande syfte var att använda odling som ett verktyg för att öka möjligheten för utlandsfödda personer att integrera i samhället och bygga upp trygghet samt språk- och kommunikationsförmåga. Odling förespråker för matproduktion och konsumtion, utveckling av sociala nätverk, utveckling och förstärkning av språk och kommunikationsförmåga samt för hälsa och välmående. Deltagare i studien rekryterades via företaget Xenofilia i Malmö och dess projekt ”Växtplats Rosengård”, som stödjer utlandsfödda som står långt ifrån arbetsmarknad att närmas sig arbetsmarknaden i genom bland annat odlingsaktiviteter. Genom Växtplats Rosengårds odlingsspår rekryterades tre grupper med åtta deltagare i varje grupp vid tre olika tillfällen under 2018. Deltagarna i varje grupp deltog i intervjuer kring trygghet och platsanknytning, språkundervisning samt i studiebesök till olika odlingsföretag och till SLU Alnarp. Projektet omfattade också undersökningar kring utveckling av produktionsunderlag av nya grödor som ingår i utlandsföddas matkultur. Studier i projektet identifierade plats och kontext, scenariobaserat lärande, läran om odling av svenska grödor och egna grödor från hemlandet som trygghetsskapande faktorer och grundläggande förutsättningar för att kunna känna trygghet, engagemang i arbetet, öppenhet att ta in nya saker och för att skapa nya kontakter. Att känna tillhörighet till en plats med hjälp av platsanknytning och kontext såsom odling skapar trygghet genom upplevelse av tillhörighet och att lyckas och utvecklas. Scenariobaserad svenskundervisning kan hjälpa utlandsfödda att utveckla sin kommunikativa förmåga genom att delta i klassrumsinteraktioner baserade på scenarier, dialoger, och interaktiv pedagogik. Studiebesöken vidgar utöver kunskapen om odling och odlingsteknik, också den geografiska horisonten i Sverige och känslan att komma utanför hemkommunen. Tillgång till grönsaker bekanta från hemlandets matkultur på den svenska marknaden gynnar också trygghet hos utlandsfödda svenskar, grossister och konsumenter

Peer Reproductive Health Education Trial in Eritrea

Reproductive health is a state of physical, mental and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system at all stages of life. In East Africa including Eritrea, adolescents comprise more than a quarter of the population