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A protocol for an observational cohort study of heat strain and its effect on fetal wellbeing in pregnant farmers in The Gambia
No full textIntroduction: Climate change predictions indicate that global temperatures are likely to exceed those seen in the last 200,000 years, rising by around 4°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 (without effective mitigation of current emission rates). In regions of the world set to experience extreme temperatures, women often work outside in agriculture even during pregnancy. The implications of heat strain in pregnancy on maternal health and pregnancy outcome are not well understood. This protocol describes a study to assess the physiological response of pregnant women to environmental heat stress and the immediate effect this has on fetal wellbeing.
Methods and analysis: The study will be performed in West Kiang district, The Gambia; a semi-arid zone in West Africa with daily maximum temperatures ranging from approximately 32 to 40°C. We will recruit 125 pregnant women of all ages who perform agricultural work during their pregnancy. Participants will be followed every two months until delivery. At each study visit fetal growth will be measured by ultrasound scan. During the course of their working day we will take the following measurements: continuous maternal physiological measurements (heart rate, respiratory rate, chest skin temperature and tri-axis accelerometer data); intermittent maternal tympanic core temperature, four point skin temperature, blood pressure; intermittent fetal heart rate and, if eligible, umbilical artery doppler; intermittent environmental measurements of air temperature, humidity, solar radiation and wind speed. Venous blood and urine will be collected at beginning and end of day for biomarkers of heat strain or fetal distress and hydration status
Inference of multisite phosphorylation rate constants and their modulation by pathogenic mutations
No full textMultisite protein phosphorylation plays a critical role in cell regulation [1-3]. It is widely appreciated that the functional capabilities of multisite phosphorylation depend on the order and kinetics of phosphorylation steps, but kinetic aspects of multisite phosphorylation remain poorly understood [4-6]. Here, we focus on what appears to be the simplest scenario, when a protein is phosphorylated on only two sites in a strict, well-defined order. This scenario describes the activation of ERK, a highly conserved cell-signaling enzyme. We use Bayesian parameter inference in a structurally identifiable kinetic model to dissect dual phosphorylation of ERK by MEK, a kinase that is mutated in a large number of human diseases [7-12]. Our results reveal how enzyme processivity and efficiencies of individual phosphorylation steps are altered by pathogenic mutations. The presented approach, which connects specific mutations to kinetic parameters of multisite phosphorylation mechanisms, provides a systematic framework for closing the gap between studies with purified enzymes and their effects in the living organism
Forest tenure and the Sustainable Development Goals – A critical view
No full textAgenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form an overarching framework to guide development at all scales from local to global. They are intended to holistically address sustainability across its economic, ecological and social dimensions. A core tenant of this holistic approach is that all dimensions of sustainability are interlinked, such that changes in one dimension can have pivotal effects on others. This paper focuses on land and forest resource tenure as one such pivotal issue that importantly shapes the achievement of the SDGs. It considers the current status of forest tenure globally and analyses critically how the different aspects of tenure rights are included and addressed in the SDG targets and indicators. The main conclusions of this analysis are that land and resource tenure, including forest tenure, is explicitly addressed in specific SDGs, but the way these SDGs, targets and corresponding indicators are formulated leads to only partial inclusion of important aspects of tenure rights
Conscientious objection in healthcare: neither a negative nor a positive right
No full textConscientious objection in healthcare is often granted by many legislations regulating morally controversial medical procedures, such as abortion or medical assistance in dying. However, there is virtually no protection of positive claims of conscience, that is, of requests by healthcare professionals to provide certain services that they conscientiously believe ought to be provided, but that are ruled out by institutional policies. Positive claims of conscience have received comparatively little attention in academic debates. Some think that negative and positive claims of conscience deserve equal protection in terms of measures that institutions ought to take to accommodate them. However, in this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics (JCE), Abram Brummett argues against this symmetry thesis. He suggests that the relevant distinction is not between negative and positive claims of conscience, but between negative and positive rights of conscience. He argues that conscientious refusals and positive claims of conscience are both already protected as negative rights of conscience, but that this does not require institutions to accommodate positive claims of conscience. In this article I will argue that both Brummett and the authors he criticizes share a wrong view about the existence of conscience rights in healthcare. I will argue that there is no right to conscientious objection in healthcare, whether positive or negative. Thus, contra Brummett, I argue that the question whether such rights are positive or negative is as irrelevant as the question whether the claims of conscience are positive or negative
Index and composition modulation
No full textIn this paper, we propose a novel modulation concept which we call index and composition modulation (ICM). In
the proposed concept, we use indices of active/deactive codeword elements and compositions of an integer to encode information. In this regard, we first determine the activated codeword elements, then we exploit energy levels of these elements to identify the compositions. We depict a practical scheme for using ICM with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and show that OFDM with ICM (OFDM-ICM) can enhance the spectral efficiency (SE) and error performance of OFDM-IM. We design an efficient low-complexity detector for the proposed technique. Moreover, we analyze the error and SE performance of the OFDM-ICM technique and show that it is capable of outperforming existing OFDM benchmarks in terms of error and SE performance
He says, she says: spousal disagreement in survey measures of bargaining power
No full textMeasures of control over assets and participation in household decisions are often used as indicators of bargaining power. Yet spouses do not necessarily provide the same responses to questions about these topics. Using household survey data from Bangladesh, we examine differences in spouses’ answers to questions regarding women’s involvement as asset owners and decision makers and develop a model to understand what these differences tell us about household behavior. Disagreement is substantial and systematic; women are more likely than men to say that women own assets and are involved in decision-making. These patterns suggest the presence of asymmetric information in the household in the form of hidden assets or decisions. Finally, correlational analysis shows that when women claim their involvement but men do not include them, there is positive association with good outcomes for women but to a lesser extent than when husbands agree that their wives are involved
Monotonic value function factorisation for deep multi-agent reinforcement learning
No full textIn many real-world settings, a team of agents must coordinate its behaviour while acting in a decentralised fashion. At the same time, it is often possible to train the agents in a centralised fashion where global state information is available and communication constraints are lifted. Learning joint action-values conditioned on extra state information is an attractive way to exploit centralised learning, but the best strategy for then extracting decentralised policies is unclear. Our solution is QMIX, a novel value-based method that can train decentralised policies in a centralised end-to-end fashion. QMIX employs a mixing network that estimates joint action-values as a monotonic combination of per-agent values. We structurally enforce that the joint-action value is monotonic in the per-agent values, through the use of non-negative weights in the mixing network, which guarantees consistency between the centralised and decentralised policies. To evaluate the performance of QMIX, we propose the StarCraft Multi-Agent Challenge (SMAC) as a new benchmark for deep multi-agent reinforcement learning. We evaluate QMIX on a challenging set of SMAC scenarios and show that it significantly outperforms existing multi-agent reinforcement learning methods
Use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers in context of COVID-19 outbreak: a retrospective analysis
No full textThe possible effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) on COVID-19 disease severity have generated considerable debate. We performed a single-center, retrospective analysis of hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, who had definite clinical outcome (dead or discharged) by February 15, 2020. Patients on anti-hypertensive treatment with or without ACEI/ARB were compared on their clinical characteristics and outcomes. The medical records from 702 patients were screened. Among the 101 patients with a history of hypertension and taking at least one anti-hypertensive medication, 40 patients were receiving ACEI/ARB as part of their regimen, and 61 patients were on antihypertensive medication other than ACEI/ARB. We observed no statistically significant differences in percentages of in-hospital mortality (28% vs. 34%, P = 0.46), ICU admission (20% vs. 28%, P = 0.37) or invasive mechanical ventilation (18% vs. 26%, P = 0.31) between patients with or without ACEI/ARB treatment. Further multivariable adjustment of age and gender did not provide evidence for a significant association between ACEI/ARB treatment and severe COVID-19 outcomes. Our findings confirm the lack of an association between chronic receipt of renin-angiotensin system antagonists and severe outcomes of COVID-19. Patients should continue previous anti-hypertensive therapy until further evidence is available
« Comment peut-on être cochon ? » : darwinisme et conscience chez Darrieussecq
No full textLes liens de plus en plus étroits entre les sciences cognitives et la théorie darwinienne ont permis de faire des découvertes fascinantes au cours des dernières décennies, souvent adoptées par les sciences humaines avec enthousiasme, et on a vu émerger de cette confluence la naissance de nouvelles disciplines comme la psychologie évolutionniste et la neuro-phénoménologie. L’intérêt de Darrieussecq pour la cognition humaine et animale fait de son oeuvre un site d’exploration de plusieurs questions liées à ces domaines de recherche. Ses personnages s’interrogent sur la vie intérieure et l’univers phénoménologique des chiens, des chats et des insectes. La focalisation narrative de son histoire saute brusquement d’une conscience humaine à celle d’un lion de mer ou d’un requin pèlerin. Notamment, dans le premier roman de Darrieussecq, le lecteur suit la subjectivité de la narratrice à travers sa métamorphose entre être humain et truie, y compris un statut incertain entre les deux, en se rendant compte petit à petit que ce n’est pas que la forme physique de la narratrice qui se transforme mais aussi son univers mental. Cet article démontre que l’exploration de la conscience animale et humaine chez Darrieussecq ne sert pas seulement de métaphore de l’intersubjectivité et de la difficulté à comprendre la conscience de l’autre, mais offre aussi une méditation sur ce que c’est que l'humanité et sur sa place dans un spectre darwinien de cerveaux différemment adaptés.
The confluence of cognitive science and Darwinian theory has produced a wealth of fascinating research in recent decades, often enthusiastically embraced by the humanities, and given rise to the new disciplines of evolutionary psychology and neurophenomenology. Darrieussecq’s interest in human and non-human cognition makes her work a site of exploration for several issues related to these fields of research. Her characters speculate on the inner lives and perceptual worlds of dogs, cats and insects. The narrative focalization of her story will leap unexpectedly from a human consciousness into that of a sea-lion or a basking shark. And, most famously, in Darrieussecq’s debut novel we follow the narrator’s subjectivity as she metamorphoses between human and pig form and states undecidably in-between, during which process, we gradually realize, it is not only her physical form that is shifting but her mentality as well. This article examines how Darrieussecq’s exploration of animal consciousness and its relation to the human not only serves as a metaphor for intersubjectivity and the unknowable mind of the other, but also offers a meditation on the nature of humanity and of its place within an evolutionary spectrum of differently adapted minds