The Impact of Flooding on Malarial Transmission within Roadway Communities in the Peruvian Amazon

<p>Severe flooding inundated the lowlands of Peru between 2011 and 2012. The rainfall and ensuing elevation in river levels coincided with a marked increase in human malaria. This study analyzes sampled Anopheles mosquitoes in twenty communities located on a new roadway system within the lowland Peruvian Amazon over a period of twelve months. 3,913 mosquitoes were captured and tested for Plasmodium sporozoite proteins via laboratory ELISA. Over eighty five percent (85%) of the samples were Anopheles darlingi. Half of the sampled communities reported at least one positive mosquito during the four rounds of collection. Transmission intensity was highly variable between communities, including the observation of spatial clustering of mosquito infectivity between communities near block sixteen (16). A negative binomial regression demonstrated smaller communities, closer to a river, were subject to higher mosquito densities. These same geographic sites did not exhibit statistically significant predicted rates of mosquito infectivity. Therefore, no additional conclusions can be made with regards to river distance on malaria burden. However, the observed heterogeneous patterns of malaria in collection sites could be driven by farm-to-market travel, previously explored in other investigations.</p>Thesi

Planning with Information-Processing Constraints and Model Uncertainty in Markov Decision Processes

Information-theoretic principles for learning and acting have been proposed to solve particular classes of Markov Decision Problems. Mathematically, such approaches are governed by a variational free energy principle and allow solving MDP planning problems with information-processing constraints expressed in terms of a Kullback-Leibler divergence with respect to a reference distribution. Here we consider a generalization of such MDP planners by taking model uncertainty into account. As model uncertainty can also be formalized as an information-processing constraint, we can derive a unified solution from a single generalized variational principle. We provide a generalized value iteration scheme together with a convergence proof. As limit cases, this generalized scheme includes standard value iteration with a known model, Bayesian MDP planning, and robust planning. We demonstrate the benefits of this approach in a grid world simulation.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Predicting the substrate specificity of a glycosyltransferase implicated in the production of phenolic volatiles in tomato fruit

The volatile compounds that constitute the fruit aroma of ripe tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) are often sequestered in glycosylated form. A homology-based screen was used to identify the gene SlUGT5, which is a member of UDP-glycosyltransferase 72 family and shows specificity towards a range of substrates, including flavonoid, flavanols, hydroquinone, xenobiotics and chlorinated pollutants. SlUGT5 was shown to be expressed primarily in ripening fruit and flowers, and mapped to chromosome I in a region containing a QTL that affected the content of guaiacol and eugenol in tomato crosses. Recombinant SlUGT5 protein demonstrated significant activity towards guaiacol and eugenol, as well as benzyl alcohol and methyl salicylate; however, the highest in vitro activity and affinity was shown for hydroquinone and salicyl alcohol. NMR analysis identified isosalicin as the only product of salicyl alcohol glycosylation. Protein modelling and substrate docking analysis were used to assess the basis for the substrate specificity of SlUGT5. The analysis correctly predicted the interactions with SlUGT5 substrates, and also indicated that increased hydrogen bonding, due to the presence of a second hydrophilic group in methyl salicylate, guaiacol and hydroquinone, appeared to more favourably anchor these acceptors within the glycosylation site, leading to increased stability, higher activities and higher substrate affinities

Naturalness and Focus Points with Non-Universal Gaugino Masses

Relations between the gaugino masses have been shown to alleviate the degree of fine-tuning in the MSSM. In this paper we consider specific models of supersymmetry breaking with gravity mediation and demonstrate that within both GUT and string constructions it is possible to generate these relations in a natural way. We have numerically studied the degree of fine-tuning in these models, including one-loop corrections, and have found regions of parameter space that can satisfy all known collider constraints with fine-tunings less than 20%. We discuss some of the phenomenological features of these models within the regions of reduced fine-tuning.Comment: 31 pages, 21 figures. Version accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics

Threshold criterion for wetting at the triple point

Grand canonical simulations are used to calculate adsorption isotherms of various classical gases on alkali metal and Mg surfaces. Ab initio adsorption potentials and Lennard-Jones gas-gas interactions are used. Depending on the system, the resulting behavior can be nonwetting for all temperatures studied, complete wetting, or (in the intermediate case) exhibit a wetting transition. An unusual variety of wetting transitions at the triple point is found in the case of a specific adsorption potential of intermediate strength. The general threshold for wetting near the triple point is found to be close to that predicted with a heuristic model of Cheng et al. This same conclusion was drawn in a recent experimental and simulation study of Ar on CO_2 by Mistura et al. These results imply that a dimensionless wetting parameter w is useful for predicting whether wetting behavior is present at and above the triple temperature. The nonwetting/wetting crossover value found here is w circa 3.3.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Optimal experience and personal growth. Flow and the consolidation of place identity

This study examined the relationship between flow experience and place identity, based on eudaimonistic identity theory (EIT) which prioritizes self-defining activities as important for an individual's identification of his/her goals, values, beliefs, and interests corresponding to one's own identity development or enhancement. This study focuses on place identity, the identity's features relating to a person's relation with her/his place. The study is also based on flow theory, according to which some salient features of an activity experience are important for happiness and well-being. Questionnaire surveys on Italian and Greek residents focused on their perceived flow and place identity in relation to their own specific local place experiences. The overall findings revealed that flow experience occurring in one's own preferred place is widely reported as resulting from a range of self-defining activities, irrespective of gender or age, and it is positively and significantly associated with one's own place identity. Such findings provide the first quantitative evidence about the link between flow experienced during meaningfully located self-defining activities and identity experienced at the place level, similarly to the corresponding personal and social levels that had been previously already empirically tested. Results are also discussed in terms of their implications for EIT's understanding and enrichment, especially by its generalization from the traditional, personal identity level up to that of place identity. More generally, this study has implications for maintaining or enhancing one's own place identity, and therefore people place relations, by means of facilitating a person's flow experience within psychologically meaningful place

Patients report improvements in continuity of care when quality of life assessments are used routinely in oncology practice: Secondary outcomes of a randomised controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: In a randomised trial investigating the effects of regular use of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in oncology practice, we previously reported an improvement in communication (objective analysis of recorded encounters) and patient well-being. The secondary aims of the trial were to measure any impact on patient satisfaction and patients' perspectives on continuity and coordination of their care. METHODS: In a prospective trial involving 28 oncologists, 286 cancer patients were randomised to: (1) intervention arm: regular touch-screen completion of HRQOL with feedback to physicians; (2) attention-control arm: completion of HRQOL without feedback; and (3) control arm: no HRQOL assessment. Secondary outcomes were patients' experience of continuity of care (Medical Care Questionnaire, MCQ) including 'Communication', 'Coordination' and 'Preferences to see usual doctor' subscales, patients' satisfaction, and patients' and physicians' evaluation of the intervention. Analysis employed mixed-effects modelling, multiple regression and descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Patients in the intervention arm rated their continuity of care as better than the control group for 'Communication' subscale (p=0.03). No significant effects were found for 'Coordination' or 'Preferences to see usual doctor'. Patients' evaluation of the intervention was positive. More patients in the intervention group rated the HRQOL assessment as useful compared to the attention-control group (86% versus 29%), and reported their doctors considered daily activities, emotions and quality of life. CONCLUSION: Regular use of HRQOL measures in oncology practice brought changes to doctor-patient communication of sufficient magnitude and importance to be reported by patients. HRQOL data may improve care through facilitating rapport and building inter-personal relationships

A survey of music books for the high school library.

Thesis (M.M.)--Boston Universit