Modelling the implications of stopping vector control for malaria control and elimination

Increasing coverage of malaria vector control interventions globally has led to significant reductions in disease burden. However due to its high recurrent cost, there is a need to determine if and when vector control can be safely scaled back after transmission has been reduced.; A mathematical model of Plasmodium falciparum malaria epidemiology was simulated to determine the impact of scaling back vector control on transmission and disease. A regression analysis of simulation results was conducted to derive predicted probabilities of resurgence, severity of resurgence and time to resurgence under various settings. Results indicate that, in the absence of secular changes in transmission, there are few scenarios where vector control can be removed without high expectation of resurgence. These, potentially safe, scenarios are characterized by low historic entomological inoculation rates, successful vector control programmes that achieve elimination or near elimination, and effective surveillance systems with high coverage and effective treatment of malaria cases.; Programmes and funding agencies considering scaling back or withdrawing vector control from previously malaria endemic areas need to first carefully consider current receptivity and other available interventions in a risk assessment. Surveillance for resurgence needs to be continuously conducted over a long period of time in order to ensure a rapid response should vector control be withdrawn

Molecular Design Approach Managing Molecular Orbital Superposition for High Efficiency without Color Shift in Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescent Organic Lightâ Emitting Diodes

Molecular design principles of thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) emitters having a high quantum efficiency and a color tuning capability was investigated by synthesizing three TADF emitters with donors at different positions of a benzonitrile acceptor. The position rendering a large overlap between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) enhances the quantum efficiency of the TADF emitter. Regarding the orbital overlap, donor attachments at 2â and 6â positions of the benzonitrile were more beneficial than 3â and 5â substitutions. Moreover, an additional attachment of a weak donor at the 4â position further increased the quantum efficiency without decreasing the emission energy. Therefore, the molecular design strategy of substituting strong donors at the positions allowing a large molecular orbital overlap and an extra weak donor is a good approach to achieve both high quantum efficiency and a slightly increased emission energy.Overlap to emit: The substitution of strong donors at the positions rendering a large HOMOâ LUMO overlap and the addition of a weak donor constitute an effective design approach to realize TADF emitters having high efficiency.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147817/1/chem201805616-sup-0001-misc_information.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147817/2/chem201805616.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147817/3/chem201805616_am.pd

A Comparative Study of Soft Computing Models for Prediction of Permeability Coefficient of Soil

Determination of the permeability coefficient (K) of soil is considered as one of the essential steps to assess infiltration, runoff, groundwater, and drainage in the design process of the construction projects. In this study, three cost-effective algorithms, namely, artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF), which are well-known as advanced machine learning techniques, were used to predict the permeability coefficient (K) of soil (10−9 cm/s), based on a set of simple six input parameters such as natural water content (%), void ratio (e), specific density (g/cm3), liquid limit (LL) (%), plastic limit (PL) (%), and clay content (%). For this, a total of 84 soil samples data collected from the detailed design stage investigations of Da Nang-Quang Ngai national road project in Vietnam was used to generate training (70%) and testing (30%) datasets for building and validating the models. Statistical error indicators such as RMSE and MAE and correlation coefficient (R) were used to evaluate and compare performance of the models. The results show that all the three models performed well (R > 0.8) for the prediction of permeability coefficient of soil, but the RF model (RMSE = 0.0084, MAE = 0.0049, and R = 0.851) is more efficient compared with the other two models, namely, ANN (RMSE = 0.001, MAE = 0.005, and R = 0.845) and SVM (RMSE = 0.0098, MAE = 0.0064, and R = 0.844). Thus, it can be concluded that the RF model can be used for accurate estimation of the permeability coefficient (K) of the soil.publishedVersio

The global burden of tuberculosis: results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background: An understanding of the trends in tuberculosis incidence, prevalence, and mortality is crucial to tracking of the success of tuberculosis control programmes and identification of remaining challenges. We assessed trends in the fatal and non-fatal burden of tuberculosis over the past 25 years for 195 countries and territories. Methods: We analysed 10 691 site-years of vital registration data, 768 site-years of verbal autopsy data, and 361 site-years of mortality surveillance data using the Cause of Death Ensemble model to estimate tuberculosis mortality rates. We analysed all available age-specific and sex-specific data sources, including annual case notifications, prevalence surveys, and estimated cause-specific mortality, to generate internally consistent estimates of incidence, prevalence, and mortality using DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool. We assessed how observed tuberculosis incidence, prevalence, and mortality differed from expected trends as predicted by the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator based on income per capita, average years of schooling, and total fertility rate. We also estimated tuberculosis mortality and disability-adjusted life-years attributable to the independent effects of risk factors including smoking, alcohol use, and diabetes. Findings: Globally, in 2015, the number of tuberculosis incident cases (including new and relapse cases) was 10·2 million (95% uncertainty interval 9·2 million to 11·5 million), the number of prevalent cases was 10·1 million (9·2 million to 11·1 million), and the number of deaths was 1·3 million (1·1 million to 1·6 million). Among individuals who were HIV negative, the number of incident cases was 8·8 million (8·0 million to 9·9 million), the number of prevalent cases was 8·9 million (8·1 million to 9·7 million), and the number of deaths was 1·1 million (0·9 million to 1·4 million). Annualised rates of change from 2005 to 2015 showed a faster decline in mortality (–4·1% [–5·0 to –3·4]) than in incidence (–1·6% [–1·9 to –1·2]) and prevalence (–0·7% [–1·0 to –0·5]) among HIV-negative individuals. The SDI was inversely associated with HIV-negative mortality rates but did not show a clear gradient for incidence and prevalence. Most of Asia, eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa had higher rates of HIV-negative tuberculosis burden than expected given their SDI. Alcohol use accounted for 11·4% (9·3–13·0) of global tuberculosis deaths among HIV-negative individuals in 2015, diabetes accounted for 10·6% (6·8–14·8), and smoking accounted for 7·8% (3·8–12·0). Interpretation: Despite a concerted global effort to reduce the burden of tuberculosis, it still causes a large disease burden globally. Strengthening of health systems for early detection of tuberculosis and improvement of the quality of tuberculosis care, including prompt and accurate diagnosis, early initiation of treatment, and regular follow-up, are priorities. Countries with higher than expected tuberculosis rates for their level of sociodemographic development should investigate the reasons for lagging behind and take remedial action. Efforts to prevent smoking, alcohol use, and diabetes could also substantially reduce the burden of tuberculosis

Is the meiofauna a good indicator for climate change and anthropogenic impacts?

Our planet is changing, and one of the most pressing challenges facing the scientific community revolves around understanding how ecological communities respond to global changes. From coastal to deep-sea ecosystems, ecologists are exploring new areas of research to find model organisms that help predict the future of life on our planet. Among the different categories of organisms, meiofauna offer several advantages for the study of marine benthic ecosystems. This paper reviews the advances in the study of meiofauna with regard to climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Four taxonomic groups are valuable for predicting global changes: foraminifers (especially calcareous forms), nematodes, copepods and ostracods. Environmental variables are fundamental in the interpretation of meiofaunal patterns and multistressor experiments are more informative than single stressor ones, revealing complex ecological and biological interactions. Global change has a general negative effect on meiofauna, with important consequences on benthic food webs. However, some meiofaunal species can be favoured by the extreme conditions induced by global change, as they can exhibit remarkable physiological adaptations. This review highlights the need to incorporate studies on taxonomy, genetics and function of meiofaunal taxa into global change impact research

Diagnosis and severity criteria for sinusoidal obstruction syndrome/veno-occlusive disease in pediatric patients : a new classification from the European society for blood and marrow transplantation

The advances in hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) over the last decade have led to a transplant-related mortality below 15%. Hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome/veno-occlusive disease (SOS/VOD) is a life-threatening complication of HCT that belongs to a group of diseases increasingly identified as transplant-related, systemic endothelial diseases. In most cases, SOS/VOD resolves within weeks; however, severe SOS/VOD results in multi-organ dysfunction/failure with a mortality rate > 80%. A timely diagnosis of SOS/VOD is of critical importance, given the availability of therapeutic options with favorable tolerability. Current diagnostic criteria are used for adults and children. However, over the last decade it has become clear that SOS/VOD is significantly different between the age groups in terms of incidence, genetic predisposition, clinical presentation, prevention, treatment and outcome. Improved understanding of SOS/VOD and the availability of effective treatment questions the use of the Baltimore and Seattle criteria for diagnosing SOS/VOD in children. The aim of this position paper is to propose new diagnostic and severity criteria for SOS/VOD in children on behalf of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.Peer reviewe

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 comparative risk assessment (CRA) is a comprehensive approach to risk factor quantification that offers a useful tool for synthesising evidence on risks and risk outcome associations. With each annual GBD study, we update the GBD CRA to incorporate improved methods, new risks and risk outcome pairs, and new data on risk exposure levels and risk outcome associations. Methods: We used the CRA framework developed for previous iterations of GBD to estimate levels and trends in exposure, attributable deaths, and attributable disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), by age group, sex, year, and location for 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or groups of risks from 1990 to 2017. This study included 476 risk outcome pairs that met the GBD study criteria for convincing or probable evidence of causation. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from 46 749 randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL), we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We explored the relationship between development and risk exposure by modelling the relationship between the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and risk-weighted exposure prevalence and estimated expected levels of exposure and risk-attributable burden by SDI. Finally, we explored temporal changes in risk-attributable DALYs by decomposing those changes into six main component drivers of change as follows: (1) population growth; (2) changes in population age structures; (3) changes in exposure to environmental and occupational risks; (4) changes in exposure to behavioural risks; (5) changes in exposure to metabolic risks; and (6) changes due to all other factors, approximated as the risk-deleted death and DALY rates, where the risk-deleted rate is the rate that would be observed had we reduced the exposure levels to the TMREL for all risk factors included in GBD 2017. Findings: In 2017,34.1 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 33.3-35.0) deaths and 121 billion (144-1.28) DALYs were attributable to GBD risk factors. Globally, 61.0% (59.6-62.4) of deaths and 48.3% (46.3-50.2) of DALYs were attributed to the GBD 2017 risk factors. When ranked by risk-attributable DALYs, high systolic blood pressure (SBP) was the leading risk factor, accounting for 10.4 million (9.39-11.5) deaths and 218 million (198-237) DALYs, followed by smoking (7.10 million [6.83-7.37] deaths and 182 million [173-193] DALYs), high fasting plasma glucose (6.53 million [5.23-8.23] deaths and 171 million [144-201] DALYs), high body-mass index (BMI; 4.72 million [2.99-6.70] deaths and 148 million [98.6-202] DALYs), and short gestation for birthweight (1.43 million [1.36-1.51] deaths and 139 million [131-147] DALYs). In total, risk-attributable DALYs declined by 4.9% (3.3-6.5) between 2007 and 2017. In the absence of demographic changes (ie, population growth and ageing), changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs would have led to a 23.5% decline in DALYs during that period. Conversely, in the absence of changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs, demographic changes would have led to an 18.6% increase in DALYs during that period. The ratios of observed risk exposure levels to exposure levels expected based on SDI (O/E ratios) increased globally for unsafe drinking water and household air pollution between 1990 and 2017. This result suggests that development is occurring more rapidly than are changes in the underlying risk structure in a population. Conversely, nearly universal declines in O/E ratios for smoking and alcohol use indicate that, for a given SDI, exposure to these risks is declining. In 2017, the leading Level 4 risk factor for age-standardised DALY rates was high SBP in four super-regions: central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia; north Africa and Middle East; south Asia; and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania. The leading risk factor in the high-income super-region was smoking, in Latin America and Caribbean was high BMI, and in sub-Saharan Africa was unsafe sex. O/E ratios for unsafe sex in sub-Saharan Africa were notably high, and those for alcohol use in north Africa and the Middle East were notably low. Interpretation: By quantifying levels and trends in exposures to risk factors and the resulting disease burden, this assessment offers insight into where past policy and programme efforts might have been successful and highlights current priorities for public health action. Decreases in behavioural, environmental, and occupational risks have largely offset the effects of population growth and ageing, in relation to trends in absolute burden. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will probably continue to drive the increasing trends in non-communicable diseases at the global level, which presents both a public health challenge and opportunity. We see considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in levels of risk exposure and risk-attributable burden. Although levels of development underlie some of this heterogeneity, O/E ratios show risks for which countries are overperforming or underperforming relative to their level of development. As such, these ratios provide a benchmarking tool to help to focus local decision making. Our findings reinforce the importance of both risk exposure monitoring and epidemiological research to assess causal connections between risks and health outcomes, and they highlight the usefulness of the GBD study in synthesising data to draw comprehensive and robust conclusions that help to inform good policy and strategic health planning

Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders during 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background Comparable data on the global and country-specific burden of neurological disorders and their trends are crucial for health-care planning and resource allocation. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) Study provides such information but does not routinely aggregate results that are of interest to clinicians specialising in neurological conditions. In this systematic analysis, we quantified the global disease burden due to neurological disorders in 2015 and its relationship with country development level. Methods We estimated global and country-specific prevalence, mortality, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), years of life lost (YLLs), and years lived with disability (YLDs) for various neurological disorders that in the GBD classification have been previously spread across multiple disease groupings. The more inclusive grouping of neurological disorders included stroke, meningitis, encephalitis, tetanus, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease, migraine, tension-type headache, medication overuse headache, brain and nervous system cancers, and a residual category of other neurological disorders. We also analysed results based on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a compound measure of income per capita, education, and fertility, to identify patterns associated with development and how countries fare against expected outcomes relative to their level of development. Findings Neurological disorders ranked as the leading cause group of DALYs in 2015 (250·7 [95% uncertainty interval (UI) 229·1 to 274·7] million, comprising 10·2% of global DALYs) and the second-leading cause group of deaths (9·4 [9·1 to 9·7] million], comprising 16·8% of global deaths). The most prevalent neurological disorders were tension-type headache (1505·9 [UI 1337·3 to 1681·6 million cases]), migraine (958·8 [872·1 to 1055·6] million), medication overuse headache (58·5 [50·8 to 67·4 million]), and Alzheimer's disease and other dementias (46·0 [40·2 to 52·7 million]). Between 1990 and 2015, the number of deaths from neurological disorders increased by 36·7%, and the number of DALYs by 7·4%. These increases occurred despite decreases in age-standardised rates of death and DALYs of 26·1% and 29·7%, respectively; stroke and communicable neurological disorders were responsible for most of these decreases. Communicable neurological disorders were the largest cause of DALYs in countries with low SDI. Stroke rates were highest at middle levels of SDI and lowest at the highest SDI. Most of the changes in DALY rates of neurological disorders with development were driven by changes in YLLs. Interpretation Neurological disorders are an important cause of disability and death worldwide. Globally, the burden of neurological disorders has increased substantially over the past 25 years because of expanding population numbers and ageing, despite substantial decreases in mortality rates from stroke and communicable neurological disorders. The number of patients who will need care by clinicians with expertise in neurological conditions will continue to grow in coming decades. Policy makers and health-care providers should be aware of these trends to provide adequate services

Integrated system for traction and battery charging of electric vehicles with universal interface to the power grid

This paper proposes an integrated system for traction and battery charging of electric vehicles (EVs) with universal interface to the power grid. In the proposed system, the power electronics converters comprising the traction drive system are also used for the battery charging system, reducing the required hardware, meaning the integrated characteristic of the system. Besides, this interface is universal, since it can be performed with the three main types of power grids, namely: (1) Single-phase AC power grids; (2) Three-phase AC power grids; (3) DC power grids. In these three types of interfaces with the power grid, as well as in the traction drive operation mode, bidirectional operation is possible, framing the integration of this system into an EV in the context of smart grids. Moreover, the proposed system endows an EV with an on-board fast battery charger, whose operation allows either fast or slow battery charging. The main contributes of the proposed system are detailed in the paper, and simulation results are presented in order to attain the feasibility of the proposed system.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. This work has been supported by FCT within the Project Scope DAIPESEV - Development of Advanced Integrated Power Electronic Systems for Electric Vehicles: PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017. Mr. Tiago Sousa is supported by the doctoral scholarship SFRH/BD/134353/2017 granted by the Portuguese FCT agency. This work is part of the FCT project 0302836 NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-030283

Mean ergodicity and spectrum of the Cesàro operator on weighted c0 spaces

[EN] A detailed investigation is made of the continuity, the compactness and the spectrum of the Cesàro operator C acting on the weighted Banach sequence space c0(w) for a bounded, strictly positive weight w. New features arise in the weighted setting (e.g. existence of eigenvalues, compactness, mean ergodicity) which are not present in the classical setting of c0.The research of the first two authors was partially supported by the Projects MTM2013-43540-P, GVA Prometeo II/2013/013 and ACOMP/2015/186 (Spain).Albanese, AA.; Bonet Solves, JA.; Ricker, WJ. (2016). Mean ergodicity and spectrum of the Cesàro operator on weighted c0 spaces. Positivity. 20:761-803. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11117-015-0385-xS76180320Akhmedov, A.M., Başar, F.: On the fine spectrum of the Cesàro operator in $$c_0$$ c 0 . Math. J. Ibaraki Univ. 36, 25–32 (2004)Akhmedov, A.M., Başar, F.: The fine spectrum of the Cesàro operator $$C_1$$ C 1 over the sequence space $$bv_p, (1 \le p < \infty )$$ b v p , ( 1 ≤ p < ∞ ) . Math. J. Okayama Univ. 50, 135–147 (2008)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: Convergence of arithmetic means of operators in Fréchet spaces. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 401, 160–173 (2013)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: Spectrum and compactness of the Cesàro operator on weighted $$\ell _p$$ ℓ p spaces. J. Aust. Math. Soc. 99, 287–314 (2015)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: The Cesàro operator in the Fréchet spaces $$\ell ^{p+}$$ ℓ p + and $$L ^{p-}$$ L p - . Glasg. Math. J (to appear)Ansari, S.I., Bourdon, P.S.: Some properties of cyclic operators. Acta Sci. Math. Szeged 63, 195–207 (1997)Brown, A., Halmos, P.R., Shields, A.L.: Cesàro operators. Acta Sci. Math. Szeged 26, 125–137 (1965)Curbera, G.P., Ricker, W.J.: Spectrum of the Cesàro operator in $$\ell ^p$$ ℓ p . Arch. Math. 100, 267–271 (2013)Curbera, G.P., Ricker, W.J.: Solid extensions of the Cesàro operator on $$\ell ^p$$ ℓ p and $$c_0$$ c 0 . Integr. Equ. Oper. Theory 80, 61–77 (2014)Curbera, G.P., Ricker, W.J.: The Cesàro operator and unconditional Taylor series in Hardy spaces. Integr. Equ. Oper. Theory 83, 179–195 (2015)Diestel, J.: Sequences and Series in Banach Spaces. Springer, New York (1984)Dowson, H.R.: Spectral Theory of Linear Operators. Academic Press, London (1978)Dunford, N., Schwartz, J.T.: Linear Operators I: General Theory, 2nd Printing. Wiley Interscience Publ, New York (1964)Emilion, R.: Mean-bounded operators and mean ergodic theorems. J. Funct. Anal. 61, 1–14 (1985)Goldberg, S.: Unbounded Linear Operators: Theory and Applications. Dover Publ, New York (1985)Hille, E.: Remarks on ergodic theorems. Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 57, 246–269 (1945)Jarchow, H.: Locally Convex Spaces. Teubner, Stuttgart (1981)Krengel, U.: Ergodic Theorems. de Gruyter, Berlin (1985)Leibowitz, G.: Spectra of discrete Cesàro operators. Tamkang J. Math. 3, 123–132 (1972)Lin, M.: On the uniform ergodic theorem. Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 43, 337–340 (1974)Megginson, R.E.: An Introduction to Banach Space Theory. Springer, New York (1998)Mureşan, M.: A Concrete Approach to Classical Analysis. Springer, Berlin (2008)Okutoyi, J.I.: On the spectrum of $$C_1$$ C 1 as an operator on $$bv_0$$ b v 0 . J. Aust. Math. Soc. Ser. A 48, 79–86 (1990)Radjavi, H., Tam, P.-W., Tan, K.-K.: Mean ergodicity for compact operators. Studia Math. 158, 207–217 (2003)Reade, J.B.: On the spectrum of the Cesàro operator. Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 17, 263–267 (1985)Rhoades, B.E., Yildirim, M.: The spectra and fine spectra of factorable matrices on $$c_0$$ c 0 . Math. Commun. 16, 265–270 (2011)Taylor, A.E.: Introduction to Functional Analysis. Wiley, New York (1958