Abstract. Novel malaria monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools are urgently needed to complement the current "gold standard" Malaria Indicator Surveys (MIS). Rapid up scaling of malaria control efforts is resulting in substantial reductions in malaria burden across sub-Saharan Africa. As transmission goes down, timely, accurate, sub-national, and district level burden ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Current Uganda National Malaria treatment guidelines recommend parasitological confirmation either by microscopy or rapid diagnostic test (RDT) before treatment with artemether-lumefantrine (AL). However, the cost-effectiveness of these strategies has not been assessed at rural operational primary care centres. METHODS: Three health centres (HCs) were randomized to three diagnostic ...

Abstract Effectiveness of providing health education solely via mass media and the providers' targeted training in malaria control needs further exploration. During pre-epidemic season, we conducted a qualitative study of 40 providers and community leaders using focus groups, comprehensive semi-structured interviews and consultation observations. Interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed ...

Artemisinin combination treatment is currently the preferred treatment strategy to combat malaria. However, the drug costs are considerably higher than for previously used therapies. This review discusses the cost-effectiveness of current malaria treatment and prophylaxis in endemic and nonendemic countries. For endemic countries, a systematic search for economic evaluations (i.e., ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: At present, large-scale use of two malaria vector control methods, long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) is being scaled up in Africa with substantial funding from donors. A third vector control method, larval source management (LSM), has been historically very successful and is today widely ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The control and elimination of malaria requires expanded coverage of and access to effective malaria control interventions such as insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), indoor residual spraying (IRS), intermittent preventive treatment (IPT), diagnostic testing and appropriate treatment. Decisions on how to scale up the coverage of these interventions need to ...

: Between December 2005 and November 2007, a cluster of 11 tuberculosis (TB) cases emerged in Jackson County, Mississippi. We investigated the potential sources of disease transmission and epidemiologic links in this cluster to prevent future transmission in the community. : Cases of TB reported in Jackson County from December ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate operational aspects of tuberculin skin test (TST) use in tuberculosis control programs and at specialized Brazilian National Sexually Transmitted Diseases/AIDS and Viral Hepatitis Program health care clinics in priority municipalities for tuberculosis control in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. METHODS: This was a descriptive, ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The control of malaria in schools is receiving increasing attention, but there remains currently no consensus as to the optimal intervention strategy. This paper analyses the costs of intermittent screening and treatment (IST) of malaria in schools, implemented as part of a cluster-randomized controlled trial on the Kenyan ...

: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented a national training program for health care workers and surveillance staff to ensure accuracy of data reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Tuberculosis Surveillance System and increase training capacity in tuberculosis surveillance. : To address the changing ...

Background: In resource-limited countries, health policy makers and practitioners need to know whether healthcare workers have sufficient knowledge of tuberculosis and its management. Objectives: We conducted a study to: (1) measure knowledge changes among healthcare workers who participated in a tuberculosis training programme; and (2) make recommendations about future tuberculosis ...

THE PRESENT EVALUATION STUDY HAS BEEN CONDUCTED WITH THE FOLLOWING OBJECTIVES: (i) To assess the treatment outcomes of revised national tuberculosis control program (RNTCP) in five microscopic centers of Kangra district under five tuberculosis units and (ii) To identify gaps and underlying contributing factors. Based upon the findings of (i) ...

BACKGROUND We compare direct and indirect household costs associated with malaria treatment for children <3 years in two provinces of Papua New Guinea. In particular, we explore the role of uncertainty around mean household costs and whether assuming a normal distribution for household costs limits the accuracy of any direct ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: In Tanzania, many people seek malaria treatment from retail drug sellers. The National Malaria Control Program identified the accredited drug dispensing outlet (ADDO) program as a private sector mechanism to supplement the distribution of subsidized artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) from public facilities and increase access to the first-line ...

BACKGROUND: Although multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a major global health problem, there is a gap in programmatic treatment implementation.METHODS: This study describes MDR-TB treatment models in three countries-Peru, Russia and Lesotho-using qualitative data collected over a 13-year period.RESULTS: A program analysis is presented for each country focusing on baseline medical ...

The Mississippi State Department of Health tuberculosis program serves a rural southeastern US state of 2.9 million people in an area of 121 489 km(2) (46 907 square miles). Statewide, directly observed therapy (DOT) began in 1986. To evaluate the program's effectiveness, trends in Centers for Disease Prevention and Control program indicators ...

The Kulhavy model for text learning using organized spatial displays proposes that learning will be increased when participants view visual images prior to related text. In contrast to previous studies, this study also included students who exhibited symptoms of ADHD. Participants were presented with either a map-text or text-map condition. ...

Background: Concept maps can assist learning by integrating new information with existing cognitive structure to facilitate meaningful understanding. The benefits of testable concept maps to illustrate cause-and-effect sequences in the pathogenesis of disease have not yet been determined. Purpose: A controlled trial was employed to evaluate the learning benefits of ...

Until the late 1980s, gastroenterology (GE) was considered a subspecialty of Internal Medicine. Today, GE also incorporates Hepatology. However, Digestive Oncology training is poorly defined in the Hepatogastroenterology (HGE)-curriculum. Therefore, a Digestive Oncology curriculum should be developed and this document might be a starting point for such a curriculum. HGE-specialists ...

SUMMARY: We report on a major update (version 2) of the original SHort Read Mapping Program (SHRiMP). SHRiMP2 primarily targets mapping sensitivity, and is able to achieve high accuracy at a very reasonable speed. SHRiMP2 supports both letter space and color space (AB/SOLiD) reads, enables for direct alignment of paired ...

The significance of the identification of Mycobacterium bovis as a zoonotic pathogen in 1882 was not initially recognized. After years of research by veterinarians, and other scientists, the importance of M. bovis as a pathogen and the public health ramifications, were appreciated. Veterinarians played pivotal roles in the creation of ...

Sustaining elimination of malaria in areas with high receptivity and vulnerability will require effective strategies to prevent reestablishment of local transmission, yet there is a dearth of evidence about this phase. Mauritius offers a uniquely informative history, with elimination of local transmission in 1969, re-emergence in 1975, and second elimination ...

Background. Severe malaria is prevalent globally, yet it is an uncommon disease posing a challenge to education in nonendemic countries. High-fidelity simulation (sim) may be well suited to teaching its management. Objective. To develop and evaluate a teaching tool for severe malaria, using sim. Methods. A severe malaria sim scenario ...

Cochlear implant users still experience severe limitations regarding sound quality, music appreciation, and speech perception in adverse listening situation. To improve hearing in noisy environments, the incorporation of signal enhancement algorithms was initiated. The study group consisted of 13 postlingually deafened adults using HiRes 120. Participants were fitted with 2 ...

To examine the household possession and willingness to pay for the retreatment of ITNs with insecticides among local residences in a malaria endemic area of Ethiopia. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted between October 2008 and December 2008 using a pre-tested questionnaire in Azendabo town, Ethiopia. 246 household members were ...

The germline of multicellular animals is segregated from somatic tissues, which is an essential developmental process for the next generation. Although certain ecdysozoans and chordates segregate their germline during embryogenesis, animals from other taxa segregate their germline after embryogenesis from multipotent progenitor cells. An overlapping set of genes, including vasa, ...

Debate on the values that underpin conservation science is rarely based on empirical analysis of the values conservation professionals actually hold. We used Q methodology to investigate the values held by international conservation professionals who attended the annual Student Conference in Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) in ...

A questionnaire on bullying and cyberbullying was administered to 30 secondary students (Grades 7-12) in a charter school for the Deaf and hard of hearing and a matched group of 22 hearing students in a charter secondary school on the same campus. Because the sample size was small and distributions ...

The current shortfall in effectiveness within conservation biology is illustrated by increasing interest in "evidence-based conservation," whose proponents have identified the need to benchmark conservation initiatives against actions that lead to proven positive effects. The effectiveness of conservation policies, approaches, and evaluation is under increasing scrutiny, and in these areas ...

Four experiments, each building on the results of the previous ones, explored the effects of several manipulations on learning and the accuracy of metacognitive judgments among deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. Experiment 1 examined learning and metacognitive accuracy from classroom lectures with or without prior scaffolding in the form of ...

In 1993 and 1999, with the assistance of a Nicaraguan family, we founded La Suerte Biological Research Station in northeastern Costa Rica and Ometepe Biological Research Station in southern Nicaragua as a privately owned conservation-oriented business. Our goal was to develop a program of sustainable community ecology focused on education, ...

This study evaluated the potential risk to hearing associated with the use of portable digital audio players. Twenty-eight university students (12 males, 16 females; aged 17-23) completed a 49-item questionnaire assessing user listening habits and subjective measures of hearing health. Sound level measurements of participants' self-identified typical and 'worst case' ...

During the last 20 years, the number of infants evaluated for permanent hearing loss at birth has increased dramatically with universal newborn hearing screening and intervention (UNHSI) programs operating in all US states and many territories. One of the most urgent challenges of UNHSI programs involves loss to follow-up among ...

We are amending our rules to state that our agency is responsible for setting the time and place for a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). This change creates a 3-year pilot program that will allow us to test this new authority. Our use of this authority, consistent with ...

Several rehabilitation interventions yielding comparable outcomes are available to adults with acquired hearing impairment. However, the reasons why people choose particular interventions and not others have not been systematically investigated. This study explored the factors influencing the rehabilitation decisions of adults with acquired hearing impairment. Four options (hearing aids, group ...

Self-assessment of classroom assistive listening devices (ALDs) based on induction loop systems was carried out in Swedish classes for hearing-impaired students. A questionnaire was developed and completed by 25 students (bilateral hearing aid users, 10-20 years old). Responses for hearing aid microphone mode (M) and telecoil mode (T) were collected. ...

This article describes the initial development of a novel approach for training hearing-impaired listeners to improve their ability to understand speech in the presence of background noise and to also improve their ability to localize sounds. Most people with hearing loss, even those well fit with hearing devices, still experience ...

BACKGROUND: Since the psychosocial effects of hearing loss are different in the spouse (SP) than in the person with hearing loss (PHL), it seems reasonable that rehabilitation programs designed for PHLs may need to be adapted to benefit SPs. PURPOSE: To evaluate the effectiveness of training in communication strategies and ...

Conservation education goals generally include influencing people's conservation awareness, attitudes, and behaviors. Effective programs can help foster sustainable behavior, improve public support for conservation, reduce vandalism and poaching in protected areas, improve compliance with conservation regulations, increase recreation carrying capacities, and influence policies and decisions that affect the environment. Primate ...

Developing effective conservation programs that positively impact the survival of a species while considering the needs of local communities is challenging. Here we present an overview of the conservation program developed by Proyecto Tití to integrate local communities in the conservation of Colombia's critically endangered primate, the cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus ...

Identifying and treating children with congenital hearing loss during the first few months of life is a relatively new concept. To assist states in the development of statewide Early Hearing Detection and Intervention programs, the federal government provides grants and/or cooperative agreements to almost all states and has established "National ...

This study describes the prevalence and characteristics of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) in student musicians (N = 329) aged 18-25 years. Students completed a questionnaire regarding exposures before a hearing assessment. NIHL was defined by the presence of a notch 15 dB in depth at 4000 or 6000 Hz relative ...

The monetary assessment of biodiversity measures the welfare damages brought by biodiversity losses and the cost-benefit analysis of conservation projects in a socio-economic context. The contingent valuation method could include motivational factors to strengthen economic analysis of nature conservation. This study analyzed Guangzhou residents' motivations and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for an ...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study is to investigate the results of the newborn hearing screening program carried out in a Public Hospital in Brazil, in the first 3 years regarding: (1) the prevalence of hearing impairment; (2) the influence of the universal hearing screening program on the age at ...

The NASA Glenn Research Center Auditory Demonstration Laboratory (ADL) is a dual purpose facility, constructed in 2007 to support hearing conservation programs across the agency. Configured as a reverberant room, the ADL is an appropriate space for evaluating the performance of personal hearing protectors, using either human subjects or a ...

Design strategies for music education rooms in elementary, middle, and high schools based on an impulse response-based theory are presented through a series of case studies of existing, renovated, and designed rooms. The strategies include providing sound reflections to allow the instructor to hear individual groups of students as well ...

The northernmost known breeding population of jaguars occurs in the municipality of Nácori Chico, Sonora, Mexico about 270 km from the United States-Mexico border and may be the source from which jaguars sighted in the United States dispersed. Since 1999 at least 11 jaguars (Panthera onca) had been illegally killed ...

In order to better understand academic achievement among deaf and hard-of-hearing students in different educational placements, an exploratory study examined the experiences of postsecondary students enrolled in mainstream programs (with hearing students) versus separate programs (without hearing students) at the same institution. The Course Experience Questionnaire, the Revised Approaches to ...

BACKGROUND: Hearing loss (HL) and deafness are global issues that affect at least 278 million people worldwide. Two thirds of the people who have HL worldwide live in developing countries. Importantly, it is estimated that 50% of this HL can be prevented. In developing countries, funding for prevention, early detection, ...

The work of biochemists and molecular biologists often is dependent or extremely favored by a preliminary computer analysis. Thus, the development of an efficient and friendly computational tool is very important. In this work, we developed a package of programs in Javascript language which can be used online or locally. ...