1,721,191 research outputs found
Signet ring cell carcinoma in a Schistosoma-infested bladder: case report and histochemical study.
No full textA case of signet ring cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder with concomitant Schistosoma haematobium infection is reported with a histochemical study of mucous secretion. This rare kind of tumor differentiation in Schistosoma-related neoplasms may suggest that the tumor-promoting stimuli, acting on reserve cells of bladder epithelium, do not determine the tumor differentiation pattern as strictly as currently thought
Study and implementation of urogenital schistosomiasis elimination in Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba islands) using an integrated multidisciplinary approach
Get PDFABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Schistosomiasis is a parasitic infection that continues to be a major public health problem in many developing countries being responsible for an estimated burden of at least 1.4 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in Africa alone. However, morbidity due to schistosomiasis has been greatly reduced in some parts of the world, including Zanzibar. The Zanzibar government is now committed to eliminate urogenital schistosomiasis. Over the next 3--5 years, the whole at-risk population will be administered praziquantel (40 mg/kg) biannually. Additionally, snail control and behaviour change interventions will be implemented in selected communities and the impact measured in a randomized intervention trial. METHODS: In this 5-year research study, on both Unguja and Pemba islands, urogenital schistosomiasis will be assessed in 45 communities with urine filtration and reagent strips in 4,500 schoolchildren aged 9--12 years annually, and in 4,500 first-year schoolchildren and 2,250 adults in years 1 and 5. Additionally, from first-year schoolchildren, a finger-prick blood sample will be collected and examined for Schistosoma haematobium infection biomarkers. Changes in prevalence and infection intensity will be assessed annually. Among the 45 communities, 15 were randomized for biannual snail control with niclosamide, in concordance with preventive chemotherapy campaigns. The reduction of Bulinus globosus snail populations and S. haematobium-infected snails will be investigated. In 15 other communities, interventions triggering behaviour change have been designed and will be implemented in collaboration with the community. A change in knowledge, attitudes and practices will be assessed annually through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with schoolchildren, teachers, parents and community leaders. In all 45 communities, changes in the health system, water and sanitation infrastructure will be annually tracked by standardized questionnaire-interviews with community leaders. Additional issues potentially impacting on study outcomes and all incurring costs will be monitored and recorded. DISCUSSION: Elimination of schistosomiasis has become a priority on the agenda of the Zanzibar government and the international community. Our study will contribute to identifying what, in addition to preventive chemotherapy, needs to be done to prevent, control, and ultimately eliminate schistosomiasis, and to draw lessons for current and future schistosomiasis elimination programmes in Africa and elsewhere.Trial registrationISRCTN4883768
Dynamic behavior of a semi-androgynous small satellite docking interface
No full textSince the first mating manoeuvre performed in 1966 between the Gemini VIII and the Agena Target Vehicle, many different docking mechanisms were developed, although the few systems dedicated to small satellites have never been verified in space nor scaled to CubeSat size. In the near future, small spacecraft docking procedures could acquire great importance, since the significant cut in the cost of development and access to space due to current advancements on miniature satellites technology, that is creating a new market, dedicated to commercial low risk application, low budget scientific missions and educational purposes. In this context, this paper presents a novel docking system to provide small spacecraft with the ability to join and separate in space, to realize multi-body platforms able to rearrange, be repaired or updated, thus overcoming the actual on board resources limitations of single small-scale satellites. Possible implementations include many different examples, from small and low cost space tugs to segmented mirror telescopes, making nano-satellite market competitive with respect to traditional vehicles. As for now, proposed docking ports present (1) simple probe-drogue interfaces or (2) androgynous geometries, with complex and non-axis-symmetric latches, but with the ability to dock with same-gender ports. The proposed solution overcomes the aforementioned drawbacks, using a semi-androgynous shape-shifting mechanism that actuating one interface changes the port into a “drogue" configuration, letting the other port penetrate it and closing around to create a solid joint. Main advantages of this solution lie in the possibility to conjugate the shape shifting actuation and the solid joint creation, thanks to a cam mechanism able to preload the structure. The mechanism design through the requirement definition and a trade-off between different concepts is presented in this paper, followed by the dynamic behaviour of the selected solution, numerically analysed with particular attention to two aspects, i.e. the loads transmitted between the mating ports and the alignment tolerances requested to perform successful docking manoeuvres. Such analysis led to the definition of instrumented prototypes to verify the solution through simple validation tests
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
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