Efficacy and effectiveness of the combination of sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine and a 3-day course of artesunate for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria in a refugee settlement in Zambia.

In the Maheba Refugee Settlement, in the clinics supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres, all children aged up to 5 years with a confirmed diagnosis of uncomplicated falciparum malaria are treated with the combination of sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine (SP) and artesunate (AS). We compared the treatment's efficacy and effectiveness. Patients were randomized in order to receive the treatment supervised (efficacy) or unsupervised (effectiveness). Therapeutic response was determined after 28 days of follow up. The difference between recrudescence and re-infection was ascertained by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We also assessed genetic markers associated to SP resistance (dhfr and dhps). Eighty-five patients received treatment under supervision and 84 received it unsupervised. On day 28, and after PCR adjustment, efficacy was found to be 83.5% (95% CI: 74.1-90.5), and effectiveness 63.4% (95% CI: 52.6-73.3) (P < 0.01). Point mutations on dhfr (108) and dhps (437) were found for 92.0% and 44.2% respectively of the PCR samples analysed. The significant difference in therapeutic response after supervised and unsupervised treatment intake can only be explained by insufficient patient adherence. When implementing new malaria treatment policies, serious investment in ensuring patient adherence is essential to ascertain the effectiveness of the new treatment schedules

A Transformational Approach to Resource Analysis with Typed-Norms

In order to automatically infer the resource consumption of programs, analyzers track how data sizes change along a program s execution. Typically, analyzers measure the sizes of data by applying norms which are mappings from data to natural numbers that represent the sizes of the corresponding data. When norms are defined by taking type information into account, they are named typed-norms. The main contribution of this paper is a transformational approach to resource analysis with typed-norms. The analysis is based on a transformation of the program into an intermediate abstract program in which each variable is abstracted with respect to all considered norms which are valid for its type. We also sketch a simple analysis that can be used to automatically infer the required, useful, typed-norms from programs.This work was funded partially by the EU project FP7-ICT-610582 ENVISAGE: Engineering Virtualized Services (http://www.envisage-project.eu) and by the Spanish projects TIN2008-05624 and TIN2012-38137. Raúl Gutiérrez is also partially supported by a Juan de la Cierva Fellowship from the Spanish MINECO, ref. JCI-2012-13528.Albert Albiol, EM.; Genaim, S.; Gutiérrez Gil, R. (2014). A Transformational Approach to Resource Analysis with Typed-Norms. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 8901:38-53. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14125-1_3S38538901Albert, E., Arenas, P., Genaim, S., Gómez-Zamalloa, M., Puebla, G.: Cost Analysis of Concurrent OO Programs. In: Yang, H. (ed.) APLAS 2011. LNCS, vol. 7078, pp. 238–254. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)Albert, E., Arenas, P., Genaim, S., Puebla, G., Zanardini, D.: Cost Analysis of Java Bytecode. In: De Nicola, R. (ed.) ESOP 2007. LNCS, vol. 4421, pp. 157–172. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)Albert, E., Arenas, P., Genaim, S., Puebla, G., Zanardini, D.: Removing Useless Variables in Cost Analysis of Java Bytecode. In: Proc. of SAC 2008, pp. 368–375. ACM (2008)Alonso, D., Arenas, P., Genaim, S.: Handling Non-linear Operations in the Value Analysis of COSTA. In: Proc. of BYTECODE 2011. ENTCS, vol. 279, pp. 3–17. Elsevier (2011)Bossi, A., Cocco, N., Fabris, M.: Proving Termination of Logic Programs by Exploiting Term Properties. In: Proc. of TAPSOFT 1991. LNCS, vol. 494, pp. 153–180. Springer (1991)Bruynooghe, M., Codish, M., Gallagher, J., Genaim, S., Vanhoof, W.: Termination Analysis of Logic Programs through Combination of Type-Based norms. TOPLAS 29(2), Art. 10 (2007)Claessen, K., Hughes, J.: QuickCheck: A Lightweight Tool for Random Testing of Haskell Programs. In: Proc. of ICFP 2000, pp. 268–279. ACM (2000)Fähndrich, M.: Static Verification for Code Contracts. In: Cousot, R., Martel, M. (eds.) SAS 2010. LNCS, vol. 6337, pp. 2–5. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Genaim, S., Codish, M., Gallagher, J.P., Lagoon, V.: Combining Norms to Prove Termination. In: Cortesi, A. (ed.) VMCAI 2002. LNCS, vol. 2294, pp. 123–138. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)Johnsen, E.B., Hähnle, R., Schäfer, J., Schlatte, R., Steffen, M.: ABS: A Core Language for Abstract Behavioral Specification. In: Aichernig, B.K., de Boer, F.S., Bonsangue, M.M. (eds.) Formal Methods for Components and Objects. LNCS, vol. 6957, pp. 142–164. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)King, A., Shen, K., Benoy, F.: Lower-bound Time-complexity Analysis of Logic Programs. In: Proc. of ILPS 1997, pp. 261–275. MIT Press (1997)Serrano, A., Lopez-Garcia, P., Bueno, F., Hermenegildo, M.: Sized Type Analysis for Logic Programs. In: Tech. Comms. of ICLP 2013. Cambridge U. Press (2013) (to appear)Spoto, F., Mesnard, F., Payet, É.: A Termination Analyser for Java Bytecode based on Path-Length. TOPLAS 32(3), Art. 8 (2010)Vallée-Rai, R., Hendren, L., Sundaresan, V., Lam, P., Gagnon, E., Co, P.: Soot - a Java Optimization Framework. In: Proc. of CASCON 1999. pp. 125–135. IBM (1999)Vasconcelos, P.: Space Cost Analysis using Sized Types. Ph.D. thesis, School of CS, University of St. Andrews (2008)Vasconcelos, P.B., Hammond, K.: Inferring Cost Equations for Recursive, Polymorphic and Higher-Order Functional Programs. In: Trinder, P., Michaelson, G.J., Peña, R. (eds.) IFL 2003. LNCS, vol. 3145, pp. 86–101. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Wegbreit, B.: Mechanical Program Analysis. Commun. ACM 18(9), 528–539 (1975

Masonry components

Masonry is a non-homogeneous material, composed of units and mortar, which can be of different types, with distinct mechanical properties. The design of both masonry units and mortar is based on the role of the walls in the building. Load-bearing walls relate to structural elements that bear mainly vertical loads, but can serve also to resist to horizontal loads. When a structural masonry building is submitted to in-plane and out-of-plane loadings induced by an earthquake for example, the masonry walls are the structural elements that ensure the global stability of the building. This means that the walls should have adequate mechanical properties that enable them to resist to different combinations of compressive, shear and tensile stresses.The boundary conditions influence the resisting mechanisms of the structural walls under in-plane loading and in a buildings the connection at the intersection walls are of paramount importance for the out-of-plane resisting mechanism. However, it is well established that the masonry mechanical properties are also relevant for the global mechanical performance of the structural masonry walls. Masonry units for load-bearing walls are usually laid so that their perforations are vertically oriented, whereas for partition walls, brick units with horizontal perforation are mostly adopted

Strengthening of three-leaf stone masonry walls: an experimental research

The paper summarizes the results of an experimental research carried out on three-leaf masonry walls of typical granite stone constructions from the North of Portugal. The research aimed at studying the behaviour under compression of this wall typology, as well as the improvements introduced by common strengthening techniques applied for the structural rehabilitation of masonry heritage buildings. Ten masonry specimens were tested, plain or strengthened by transversal tying of the external leaves, with GFRP bars, or/and by injection of the inner leaf, with a lime-based grout. The results obtained showed that these strengthening techniques were successful in increasing the compressive strength of the walls and in improving their behaviour under compressive loads.The authors would like to thank the technical staff of the Structural Laboratory of University of Minho for the help provided. Acknowledgements are also due to the companies Fradical, Mapei and Augusto de Oliveira Ferreira for providing raw materials and workmanship. Finally, the funding provided by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation, through the POCI/ECM/58987/2004 project, is gratefully acknowledged

Amazonian trees have limited capacity to acclimate plant hydraulic properties in response to long‐term drought

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThe fate of tropical forests under future climate change is dependent on the capacity of their trees to adjust to drier conditions. The capacity of trees to withstand drought is likely to be determined by traits associated with their hydraulic systems. However, data on whether tropical trees can adjust hydraulic traits when experiencing drought remain rare. We measured plant hydraulic traits (e.g. hydraulic conductivity and embolism resistance) and plant hydraulic system status (e.g. leaf water potential, native embolism and safety margin) on >150 trees from 12 genera (36 species) and spanning a stem size range from 14 to 68 cm diameter at breast height (DBH) at the world's only long‐running tropical forest drought experiment. Hydraulic traits showed no adjustment following 15 years of experimentally imposed moisture deficit. This failure to adjust resulted in these drought‐stressed trees experiencing significantly lower leaf water potentials, and higher, but variable, levels of native embolism in the branches. This result suggests that hydraulic damage caused by elevated levels of embolism is likely to be one of the key drivers of drought‐induced mortality following long‐term soil moisture deficit. We demonstrate that some hydraulic traits changed with tree size, however, the direction and magnitude of the change was controlled by taxonomic identity. Our results suggest that Amazonian trees, both small and large, have limited capacity to acclimate their hydraulic systems to future droughts, potentially making them more at risk of drought‐induced mortality.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)Brazilian Higher Education Coordination Agency (CAPES)Royal SocietyEuropean Union FP7ARCFAPESP/Microsof

Increased Litterfall in Tropical Forests Boosts the Transfer of Soil CO2 to the Atmosphere

Aboveground litter production in forests is likely to increase as a consequence of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, rising temperatures, and shifting rainfall patterns. As litterfall represents a major flux of carbon from vegetation to soil, changes in litter inputs are likely to have wide-reaching consequences for soil carbon dynamics. Such disturbances to the carbon balance may be particularly important in the tropics because tropical forests store almost 30% of the global soil carbon, making them a critical component of the global carbon cycle; nevertheless, the effects of increasing aboveground litter production on belowground carbon dynamics are poorly understood. We used long-term, large-scale monthly litter removal and addition treatments in a lowland tropical forest to assess the consequences of increased litterfall on belowground CO2 production. Over the second to the fifth year of treatments, litter addition increased soil respiration more than litter removal decreased it; soil respiration was on average 20% lower in the litter removal and 43% higher in the litter addition treatment compared to the controls but litter addition did not change microbial biomass. We predicted a 9% increase in soil respiration in the litter addition plots, based on the 20% decrease in the litter removal plots and an 11% reduction due to lower fine root biomass in the litter addition plots. The 43% measured increase in soil respiration was therefore 34% higher than predicted and it is possible that this ‘extra’ CO2 was a result of priming effects, i.e. stimulation of the decomposition of older soil organic matter by the addition of fresh organic matter. Our results show that increases in aboveground litter production as a result of global change have the potential to cause considerable losses of soil carbon to the atmosphere in tropical forests