A review of external assistance and aid effectiveness for maternal and child health: Challenges and opportunities

This paper primarily focuses on how global funding has supported interventions that have proven to be successful in reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality around the world. The growth rate of development assistance targeted towards these specific interventions has varied greatly over the past years, and we highlight the channels through which funds reach their target recipients. An important conclusion to note is the need for donors to align their programmes with government-defined priorities in order to ensure the achievement of national development objectives, long-term sustainability, and success

History of Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean

The paper describes a brief history of the Arab navigation based on the original Arabic sources from the 9th century onwards. The old literature indicates that the Arabs had a good knowledge of the wind-directions, currents and tides. They also knew the most favourable seasons for sailing from the different ports. The Arabs described the reversing currents in the North Indian Ocean and made several interesting observations on bioluminescence, discoloration of sea water, etc. They also made references on the light houses at the entrance of Persian Gulf and on the eddies, ascending currents and cyclonic winds. Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean had deep connections with the Indian and Persian nautical traditions. These probably dates back to the first century when the Sanskrit " Jataka Mala " ( maritime code ) was written. The highly cultivated knowledge of the Arabs on nautical matters could be attributed to their knowledge of the stars, their eagerness to undertake extensive voyages and their desire to translate the relevant works in other languages into Arabic. The impact of nautical traditions of the Arabs on the Portuguese and Turkish navigations has been of considerable value

A filter design approach to maximize ampacity of cables in nonsinusoidal power systems

This paper presents an optimal design of the C-type passive filters for the effective utilization of the power cables under nonsinusoidal conditions based on maximization of the harmonic derating factor (HDF) of a power cable, where maintaining the load true power factor at an acceptable range is desired. According to IEEE Standard 519, the total harmonic distortions of the voltage and current measured at the point of common coupling are taken into account as main constraints of the proposed approach. The presented numerical results show that the proposed approach provides higher current carrying capacity, or ampacity of the cables under nonsinusoidal conditions when compared to the traditional approaches based on minimization of the current total harmonic distortion and maximization of the true load power factor. A numerical case study is presented to demonstrate the proposed approach

USE OF PROSTAGLANDIN (PGF2α) TO INDUCE OESTRUS IN POSTPARTUM SAHIWAL COWS

Twenty-four postpartum Sahiwal cows that did not show oestrus upto 85 days postpartum were randomly divided into two equal groups, A and B. Group A cows were injected 2 ml Prostavet injection containing 5 mg Etiproston, a synthetic analogue of PGF2α (Virbac, France) intramuscularly at day 85 postpartum on chronological basis of calving dates without palpation. A second injection was given 11 days later to those cows that did not respond to first injection. A third injection was given at 118 days postpartum to those cows that had not responded to 1st and 2nd injection of PGF2α and did not show oestrus. The cows in group B were not given any treatment and served as control. The cows found in oestrus were artificially inseminated 12 hours after the detection of oestrus. The cumulative oestrus response was higher (66.66%) in group A than in group B (25%). Similarly, in group A the behavioral symptoms and physical changes were more pronounced as compared to group B. Mean (± SE) interval from treatment to onset of oestrus in group A was 96 ± 15.08 hours whereas, mean interval to oestrus from beginning of experiment was 25.0 ± 1.0 days in group B. Statistically non significant difference was observed in the mean duration of oestrus (23.25 ± 1.99 vs. 20.33 ± 1.45 hours) between animals of the two groups. However, a significant (P<0.05) difference was observed for the mean calving to first oestrus interval (89 ± 0.62 vs. 110 ± 0.19 days) in groups A and B. From the results, it is concluded that PGF2α is useful for treatment of unobserved oestrus in postpartum Sahiwal cows

Genomes of <i>Helicobacter pylori</i> from native Peruvians suggest admixture of ancestral and modern lineages and reveal a western type cag-pathogenicity island

Background: Helicobacter pylori is presumed to be co-evolved with its human host and is a highly diverse gastric pathogen at genetic levels. Ancient origins of H. pylori in the New World are still debatable. It is not clear how different waves of human migrations in South America contributed to the evolution of strain diversity of H. pylori. The objective of our 'phylogeographic' study was to gain fresh insights into these issues through mapping genetic origins of H. pylori of native Peruvians (of Amerindian ancestry) and their genomic comparison with isolates from Spain, and Japan. Results: For this purpose, we attempted to dissect genetic identity of strains by fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (FAFLP) analysis, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of the 7 housekeeping genes (atpA, efp, ureI, ppa, mutY, trpC, yphC) and the sequence analyses of the babB adhesin and oipA genes. The whole cag pathogenicity-island (cagPAI) from these strains was analyzed using PCR and the geographic type of cagA phosphorylation motif EPIYA was determined by gene sequencing. We observed that while European genotype (hp-Europe) predominates in native Peruvian strains, approximately 20% of these strains represent a sub-population with an Amerindian ancestry (hsp-Amerind). All of these strains however, irrespective of their ancestral affiliation harbored a complete, 'western' type cagPAI and the motifs surrounding it. This indicates a possible acquisition of cagPAI by the hsp-Amerind strains from the European strains, during decades of co-colonization. Conclusion: Our observations suggest presence of ancestral H. pylori (hsp-Amerind) in Peruvian Amerindians which possibly managed to survive and compete against the Spanish strains that arrived to the New World about 500 years ago. We suggest that this might have happened after native Peruvian H. pylori strains acquired cagPAI sequences, either by new acquisition in cagnegative strains or by recombination in cag positive Amerindian strains

Comparative genomics of <i>Helicobacter pylori</i> isolates recovered from ulcer disease patients in England

Background. Genomic diversity of H. pylori from many different human populations is largely unknown. We compared genomes of 65 H. pylori strains from Nottingham, England. Molecular analysis was carried out to identify rearrangements within and outside the cag-pathogenicity-island (cag PAI) and DNA sequence divergence in candidate genes. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out based on various high-resolution genotyping techniques. Results. Analyses of virulence genes (cagT, cagE, cagA, vacA, iceA, oipA and babB) revealed that H. pylori strains from England are genetically distinct from strains obtained from other countries. The toxigenic vacA s1m1 genotype was found to be less common and the plasticity region cluster was found to be disrupted in all the isolates. English isolates showed a predominance of iceA1 alleles and a functional proinflammatory oipA gene. The English H. pylori gene pool revealed several Asian/oriental features. This included the predominance of cagA – glr (cagA right junction) motif types III and II (up to 42%), presence of vacA m1c alleles and phylogenetic affinity towards East Asian / Amerindian gene pools based on fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (FAFLP) analysis and glmM sequence analysis. Conclusion. Overall, our results demonstrated genetic affinities of H. pylori in England with both European and the Asian gene pools and some distinctive genetic features of virulence genes that may have evolved in this important European population

The history and evolution of the clinical effectiveness of haemophilia type a treatment: a systematic review.

First evidence of cases of haemophilia dates from ancient Egypt, but it was when Queen Victoria from England in the 19th century transmitted this illness to her descendants, when it became known as the "royal disease". Last decades of the 20th century account for major discoveries that improved the life expectancy and quality of life of these patients. The history and evolution of haemophilia healthcare counts ups and downs. The introduction of prophylactic schemes during the 1970s have proved to be more effective that the classic on-demand replacement of clotting factors, nevertheless many patients managed with frequent plasma transfusions or derived products became infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C virus during the 1980s and 1990s. Recombinant factor VIII inception has decreased the risk of blood borne infections and restored back longer life expectancies. Main concerns for haemophilia healthcare are shifting from the pure clinical aspects to the economic considerations of long-term replacement therapy. Nowadays researchers' attention has been placed on the future costs and cost-effectiveness of costly long-term treatment. Equity considerations are relevant as well, and alternative options for less affluent countries are under the scope of further research. The aim of this review was to assess the evidence of different treatment options for haemophilia type A over the past four decades, focusing on the most important technological advances that have influenced the natural course of this "royal disease"