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The African Medicines Agency: historical perspective of its origins, evolution, institutional structure and future prospects
Get PDFBackground: The African continent has long faced fragmented regulatory systems, resulting in delayed access to safe, effective, and quality-assured medical products. To address these challenges, the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (AMRH) Programme was launched in 2009 by the African Union, laying the groundwork for the establishment of the African Medicines Agency (AMA). The AMA represents one of the most significant continental developments to harmonize regulatory practices, improve access to quality-assured medical products, and strengthen public health systems across Africa. Objectives: The objectives of this review were to examine the historical development of AMA, its Treaty and proposed institutional framework, as well as operational pilots such as the Continental Listing of Human Medicinal Products implemented by the AMRH since 2023. Methods: A narrative literature review approach was used, sourcing official African Union documents, peer-reviewed publications, and technical reports from African Union Commission, AUDA-NEPAD, WHO, and AMRH stakeholders published between 2005 and 2025. Results: The AMA was formally established by treaty adopted by the AU heads of states and governments in 2019 and entered into force in November 2021. As of June 2025, 31 AU Member States had ratified the Treaty. The agency’s governance and organizational structure include a Conference of State Parties, Governing Board, Secretariat, and Technical Committees. Pilot projects such as the AMRH Continental Listing demonstrated the feasibility of reliance mechanisms, though challenges remain in national legal harmonization, funding, and capacity disparities. Conclusion: The AMA represents a transformative step toward regulatory convergence in Africa. While challenges persist, the Treaty framework and pilot outcomes provide a strong foundation for its operationalisation and the long-term success in improving medical product regulation and public health across the continent
Fuzzy Superpixel Segmentation with Anisotropic Total Variation Regularization
Get PDFThis paper presents a superpixel segmentation algorithm that integrates anisotropic total variation regularization within a fuzzy clustering framework. While isotropic total variation is well-known for its edge-preserving properties, its non-adaptive nature often leads to over-regularization. In contrast, the anisotropic model formulates superpixel regularity in relation to image contours, thereby preventing the loss of image details in areas of high contour density during optimization. Compared to classical segmentation algorithms that employ non-adaptive regularization, the proposed content-adaptive approach enhances superpixel regularity while maintaining boundary adherence to image contours. Furthermore, to optimize the functional effectively, an alternating direction method of multipliers along with the enhanced Chambolle’s fast duality projection algorithm are employed. Competitive experiments against existing regular segmentation algorithms demonstrate that our proposed methodology achieves superior performance in terms of boundary recall, compactness, and shape regularity criteria, outperforming these methods by an average of at least 3%, 5%, and 3%, respectively. Furthermore, when compared with irregular segmentation algorithms, our approach achieves the best results in terms of compactness, contour density, and shape regularity criteria, with average improvements of at least 56%, 22%, and 45%, respectively
SpectR*: Expander Graph Based Seller Recommender for Mitigating Cold Start Loss in Larger Facebook Market
Get PDFThe enormous growth of the Facebook marketplace is prompting sellers to leverage the network to enhance their business. The pandemic has introduced more cold start sellers on Facebook, and the buyers' pandemic needs have made imperfect observations on seller Item quality. Users' trust in the sellers varies from quality to quality and from point to point, and thereby could lead to a loss from the cold start sellers. The need of the hour is an approach which could walk along the paths of strongly connected graphs to analyse products brought by the users, and thereby, better recommendations can be built. This article presents a new graph based method, the SpectR*, to recommend a seller to other Facebook business groups. Due to the demographic structural differences, larger networks have smaller expansion capabilities, which is why many recommender systems failed on graph networks like Facebook and Twitter, to analyse the reviews from the users. Our proposed work is based on constructing an Expander Graph on Facebook user network, based on calculated Cheegers constant. We used this Graph theory based Cheegers constant as measure for deriving well connected Facebook family of Graphs on which the product reviews can be analysed
Mixed-methods assessment of engagement with a digital intervention: the Wrapped feasibility Randomised Controlled Trial
Get PDFDigital health behaviour change interventions can face the challenge of low participant engagement, which can limit intervention effectiveness. Mixed methods approaches to understanding engagement, which capture the online and offline behaviours of participants, as well as the cognitive and affective aspects of engagement, are infrequently reported. The aim of this study was to explore these aspects of engagement for a digital intervention (Wrapped) to enable its optimisation ahead of testing in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Wrapped is a digital intervention that aims to increase correct and consistent condom use, thereby decreasing the incidence of sexually transmitted infections among young people aged 16-24 years. Analytics data and website user history data were combined with data from surveys and qualitative interviews. Together this data was examined to assess the behavioural, cognitive, and affective aspects of engagement with the intervention. Results showed that participants experienced few barriers during the registration process, but that the tailoring questions used to assign content to individual users may not have been working as intended. Pre-determined intervention goals were as follows: ordering Sample Pack 48 (60.8%), using Condom Ordering Service 37 (52.9%), ordering Condom Carrier 31 (49.2%), watching Condom Demo video 7 (10%), watching Discussing Condoms video 4 (6.8%), and watching Real Life video 9 (13.6%). Participants described their use and enjoyment of the products they ordered; notably the condom carrier was less well liked and used. Participants reported not engaging with the video components, either because they were unaware that they existed or because they expected to find watching them to feel awkward. This study demonstrates that taking a mixed-methods approach to studying engagement provides a more complete understanding of where and how digital interventions need to be optimised than using single methods in isolation; this in turn is likely to lead to more effective interventions. Trial registration: ISRCTN Registry ISRCTN17478654
Autapses enable temporal pattern recognition in spiking neural networks
Get PDFMost sensory stimuli are temporal in structure. How action potentials encode the information incoming from sensory stimuli remains one of the central research questions in neuroscience. Precise spike timing is known to represent information in spiking neuronal networks, yet the information processing mechanisms of spiking neuronal networks is poorly understood. One feasible way to understand the processing mechanism of a spiking network is to associate the structural connectivity of the network with the corresponding functional behaviour. This work demonstrates the structure-function mapping of spiking networks evolved (or handcrafted) for a temporal pattern recognition task. The task is to recognise a specific order of the input signals so that the output neuron of the network spikes only for the correct placement and remains silent for all others. The minimal networks obtained for this task revealed two complementary roles of autapses in recognition. First, autapses enable a seamless transition to the next network state when a new input signal arrives. Second, in the absence of the input signal, they allow the network to maintain a network state for an extended period, a form of memory. To show that the recognition task is accomplished by transitions between network states, we map the network states of a functional spiking neural network (SNN) onto the states of a finite-state transducer (FST). Finally, based on our understanding, we define rules for constructing the topology of a network handcrafted for recognising a subsequence of signals in a particular order. The analysis of minimal networks recognising patterns of different lengths revealed a positive correlation between the pattern length and the number of autaptic connections in the network. Furthermore, in agreement with the behaviour of neurons in the network, we were able to associate specific functional roles of ’locking,’ ’switching,’ and ’accepting’ to neurons
An Online Pilates Program for People with Hypermobility: A Pragmatic Clinical Trial Looking at Function, Interoception, Kinesiophobia, and Physical Activity Levels
Get PDFPurpose: This study evaluated whether an independent, online modified Pilates program alters function, interoception (internal body awareness), activity levels, and kinesiophobia (fear of movement) in people with symptomatic joint hypermobility. Patients and Methods: This pragmatic clinical trial included and exercise group that did 8 weeks of modified Pilates and an 8-week waitlist control group. People with symptomatic hypermobility were asked to do an independent, online Pilates program designed specifically for people with hypermobility; each module was about 25 minutes, and participants were asked to do at least 3 days/week. Outcome measures included the Bristol Impact of Hypermobility (BIoH), International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), Revised Body Awareness Questionnaire (BARQ), and Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK). Clinical Trial # NCT07118865. Results: A total of 420 participants completed questionnaires at 8 weeks: 200 completed 8 weeks of Pilates and 220 were on a waitlist. The Pilates group demonstrated statistically significant improvements in BIoH, BARQ, and TSK immediately after the intervention (p< 0.001 for each) and compared to the control group (p< 0.001 for each). Improvements in the Pilates group remained statistically significant at 6 months. IPAQ did not change for any group. Conclusion: This online Pilates program for people with symptomatic hypermobility improved BIoH, BARQ, and TSK, though changes were modest. The exercises did not improve IPAQ. Online exercise may provide a cost-effective way to encourage life-long activity in people with hypermobility. Limitations include the inability to monitor performance of the Pilates, high drop-out rates, and the inability to control for changes in other treatments patients may have received
Fencing and Wheelchair Fencing Research: A Scoping Review Dataset
No full textA scoping review of all experimental studies published on fencing and wheelchair fencing. The data set has all the details of the papers from authors, to year of publication and key findings
The Practice of Authority in Academic leadership/Management
Get PDFThis study sought to advance understanding of authority in higher education academic management/leadership. Although there is rich literature on education management and leadership, the role of authority in this area has received less attention. Drawing on an understanding of authority as social, multiple, changeable and contested, this study had three broad aims: to understand contextualised authority practices; to conceptualise authority in academic leadership/management and to investigate the value of practice-focused constructivist grounded theory methodology in educational research. Data were collected from the Education Departments of two, post 1992, UK universities over a period of eighteen months and analysed using elements of practices as a sensitising framework. The study shows how elements combine in construction of authority. Three practices: overseeing, deciding and challenging, are considered. The study contributes to the discussion on academic leadership and management. Findings demonstrate the complexity of authority practices in this domain. Four ideas in particular stand out: that access to knowledge and material resources confers or restricts authority; that elements and everyday practices combine to create a ‘toolkit’ from which authority practices can be constructed; that grouping multiple authorities into a triad of structuring, relational and knowledge-based authorities can cast light on constructions and contestations of authority; and that knowledge-based authorities in higher education have multiple and conflicting sources that draw on different higher education discourses. Finally, the study suggests the value of practice focused grounded theory methodology in shifting focus from an agentic understanding of academic leadership/management
Numerical investigation on cooling performance of phase change assisted direct ventilation system for data center
No full textTraditional data centers often use mechanical cooling systems, leading to high energy consumption and waste of natural cooling resources. Thus, a novel phase change ventilation device that combines natural cooling with phase change storage has been designed to maintain continuous natural cooling of the data center by storing cold energy from the natural cold air using phase change plates (PCPs), and eliminate the reliance on mechanical refrigeration in traditional data centers and achieving energy savings. In this study, the cooling performance of the proposed device is numerically analyzed and the feasibility of the model is verified by experiments, filling the research gap in data centers for this method. Considering main effectors, i.e., the inlet air velocity (IAV), inlet air temperature (IAT), phase change plate thickness (PCPT), phase change temperature (PCT), and thermal conductivity of encapsulation material (TCEM) on the cooling performance of the device. The results show that: (1) Phase change ventilation device can reduce the IAT of 34 °C by an average of 2.53 °C within 8 h (2) When the IAV increases from 1 m/s to 4 m/s, the average cooling performance of the phase change ventilation device decreases by 62.93 %. (3) In the phase change latent heat stage, the temperature difference (TD) of phase change ventilation device decreases almost linearly over time. (4) The significance analysis of orthogonal experiment shows the impact of various factors on the cooling performance of phase change ventilation device as follows: IAV > IAT > PCPT > PCT > TCEM