1,720,971 research outputs found
Treatment-seeking behavior and practices among caregivers of children <5 years with presumed malaria in rural Uganda
No full textBackgroundWe aimed to determine the rate of herbal medicine usage and the treatment-seeking behaviour of caregivers of children under 5 years of age with presumed or confirmed malaria in in an endemic area of Uganda. MethodsWe interviewed parents/ guardians of 722 children aged 6 months to 5 years, who had experienced an episode of presumed malaria in the previous 3 months, about treatments taken and the associated outcomes. ResultsAlthough 36.1% of patients initially took herbal medicine, most then sought modern medical care. Overall, 79.2% received Artemether-Lumefantrine (AL), but only 45.7% had a diagnostic test to confirm the diagnosis and 42.7% received the correct dose of AL. Of the 36.6% of patients treated in drug shops, few had a diagnostic test (9.8%) or received the correct dose of AL (30.2%). Co-trimoxazole (CTX ) was taken by 38%, in most cases together with AL. At day 7, only 74% of patients who had taken AL felt “cured”. However, there were no significant differences in the self-reported outcomes associated with different treatments.ConclusionAlmost all patients who took herbal medicine also took modern antimalarials, so further research is needed to explore potential interactions between these. . Although formal health facilities provide correct diagnosis and dose of AL to a majority of children with malaria, many children still received inappropriate antibiotics. Quality of care was worse in drug shops than in formal health facilities
Ethnopharmacology, cytotoxicity, antiviral and immunomodulatory profiles of medicinal plant species used by herbalists in treating people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda
No full textA thesis submitted to the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training for the award of the Degree Of Doctor of Philosophy of Makerere UniversityOpportunistic infections (OI) are the single most important cause of mortality and morbidity among PLHIV in poor countries. There is widespread use of medicinal plants among PLHIV. However, there is no scientific information and validation on their toxicity, safety and efficacy. The aim of this study was to document and evaluate the cytotoxicity, anti-HIV-1 and immunomodulatory activities of medicinal plant species used by herbalists in treating PLHIV in Uganda. An ethnopharmacological survey was conducted in Arua, Dokolo, Mbale, Bushenyi, Iganga, Rakai, Luwero and Kaabong districts. Ninety herbalists were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires. The in vitro cytotoxicity of 11 plant species was determined with the AlamarBlue cell viability assay on the human glioblastoma cell line: U87.CD4.CXCR4. Warburgia ugandensis, Erythrina abyssinica, Cryptolepsis sanguinolenta, Albizia coriaria, Psorospermum febrifugum, Maytenus senegalensis (Sny: Gymnosporia senegalensis), Zanthoxylum chalybeum, Securidaca longipendunculata, Acacia hockii, Gardenia ternifolia Subsp. jovis-tonantis and Bridelia micrantha were screened. Two hundred and thirty-six medicinal plant species from 70 families were documented. There is a high degree of consensus among the TMP on which plant species they use. The herbalists encourage the concomitant use of herbs and ARV and relied on laboratory diagnoses for confirmation of ones sero-status even though they were familiar with the signs and symptoms of HIV/AIDS. The half maximal cytotoxic concentration (CC50) of the extracts was determined. Each plant species had two extracts, DMSO ethanol. The crude plant extracts were tested for antiviral activity against HIV-1 Pseudovirions (PV), HXB2 (IIIB) strain using U87.CD4.CXCR4 cells transfected with the luciferase firefly reporter gene and measured using a luminometer. The selective inhibition of HIV-1 PV was determined using the Selectivity Index (SI). The immunomodulatory effects of the plant extracts were examined using Flow cytometry. The plant extracts were screened for cytotoxicity using the live/dead assay with Peripheral Mononuclear Blood Cells (PMBCs) and for their cytokine inducing activity on IL-2, IL-4, IFN-γ and TNF-α. The plant extracts were also investigated for their cell-proliferation activity. Using regression analysis, exponential curves of fit were drawn in Microsoft Excel 2011. The 50% cytotoxicity values (CC50) of the plant extracts and the coefficient of determination, R2 were calculated. Both the ethanol and DMSO extracts of W. ugandensis (CC50 = 7.6 and 1.5 µg/ml) and A. coriria (CC50 = 6.4 and < 4 µg/ml) were highly cytotoxic. Most of the plant extracts (15/22) were moderately cytotoxic (CC50 = 21-200 µg/ml). The ethanol extracts were generally less toxic than the DMSO extracts. The ethanol extract of P. febrifugum exhibited the highest selective antiviral activity against HIV-1 (SI = 165.8, CC50 = 99.45 µg/ml) with no cytotoxicity at 8 µg/ml. Both the ethanol and DMSO extracts of A. coriaria (CC50 of 6.4 and < 4 µg/ml) and W. ugandensis (7.6 and 1.5 µg/ml) were highly cytotoxic. The flow cytometry results were presented using dot plots. Non-toxic concentrations of the extracts from the live/dead assay ranged from 0.1 µg/ml for W. ugandensis to 30 µg/ml for A. hockii, A. coriaria, B. micrantha, C. sanguinolenta and Z. chalybeaum. The ethanol extract of P. febrifugum stimulated TNF-α and Z. chalybeaum and W. ugandensis stimulated IL-4. None of the extracts showed an effect on T-cell proliferation. In Conclusion, there is wide spread use of medicinal plant species to manage OI and boost immunity in PLHIV in Uganda.This research was supported by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA). CARTA is jointly led by the African Population and Health Research Centre and the University of the Witwatersrand and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant No--B 8606.R02), Sida (Grant No: 54100029), the DELTAS Africa Initiative (Grant No: 107768/Z/15/Z). The DELTAS Africa Initiative is an independent funding scheme of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS)’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) and supported by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) with funding from the Wellcome Trust (UK) (Grant No: 107768/Z/15/Z) and the UK governmen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
- …
