BACKGROUND: Assessing the state of country readiness for the introduction of new, child-friendly anti-tuberculosis formulations can highlight potential bottlenecks, facilitate early planning, and ...accelerate access to appropriate treatment for children with tuberculosis (TB).METHODS:
To understand pathways and potential obstacles to the introduction of new pediatric formulations, we performed a desk review of key policy documents and conducted 146 stakeholder interviews in 19 high-burden countries.RESULTS: Issuance of World Health Organization (WHO) guidance serves
as the trigger for considering adoption in most countries; however, the degree of alignment with WHO recommendations and duration of introduction processes vary. Endorsement by experts and availability of local evidence are leading criteria for adoption in upper-middle- and high-income countries.
Ease of administration, decreased pill burden, and reduced treatment costs are prioritized in low- and lower-middle-income settings. Countries report an average of 10 steps on the path to new treatment introduction, with core steps taking between 18 and 71 months.CONCLUSIONS: The process
of new treatment introduction is complicated by diverse country processes, adoption criteria, and evidence requirements. Challenges differ between low- and middle-to-high-income countries. Responsiveness to the unique hurdles faced across settings is important in ensuring a sustainable market
for improved pediatric anti-tuberculosis treatment.
Space debris of millimeter dimensions is almost not detectable by normal methods of observation from Earth. However, particles of such sizes can cause damage to the spacecraft. and even eliminate it. ...Estimating the status of impurity of near-Earth space mainly based on mathematical models, which are confirmed only for large particles. The millimetric fractions of space debris elements remain unexplored. In case of invasion of debris particles into the planet’s atmosphere, they burn down as well as meteoric particles of natural origin. In this work, the observation technique of separation of debris particles and particles of natural origin is described. Also, the results of the detection of particles from space debris received during the TV observations on the wide-angle camera patrol camera FAVOR (Russia, Northern Caucasus).
Altered expression of drug transporters and metabolic enzymes is known to occur in infection-induced inflammation. We hypothesize that in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals, ...further alteration could occur as a result of augmented inflammation. The HIV-1 transgenic (Tg) rat is used to simulate HIV pathologies associated with the presence of HIV viral proteins. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the effect of endotoxin administration on the gene expression of drug transporters in the liver of HIV-Tg rats. Male and female HIV-Tg and wild-type (WT) littermates were injected with 5 mg/kg endotoxin or saline (n= 7-9/group). Eighteen hours later, rats were euthanized and tissues were collected. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis were used to measure hepatic gene and protein expression, respectively, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure serum cytokine levels. Although an augmented inflammatory response was seen in HIV-Tg rats, similar endotoxin- mediated downregulation of Abcb1a, Abcc2, Abcg2, Abcb11, Slco1a1, Slco1a2, Slco1b2, Slc10a1, Slc22a1, Cyp3a2, and Cyp3a9 gene expression was seen in the HIV-Tg and WT groups. A significantly greater endotoxin- mediated downregulation of Ent1/Slc29a1 was seen in female HIV-Tg rats. Basal expression of inflammatory mediators was not altered in the HIV-Tg rat; likewise, the basal expression of most transporters was not significantly different between HIV-Tg and WT rats. Our findings suggest that hepatobiliary clearances of endogenous and exogenous substrates are altered in the HIV-Tg rat after endotoxin exposure. This is of particular importance because HIV-infected individuals frequently present with bacterial or viral infections, which are a potential source for drug-disease interactions.
Optic disc (OD) detection is a main step while developing automated screening systems for diabetic retinopathy. We present in this paper a method to automatically detect the position of the OD in ...digital retinal fundus images. The method starts by normalizing luminosity and contrast through out the image using illumination equalization and adaptive histogram equalization methods respectively. The OD detection algorithm is based on matching the expected directional pattern of the retinal blood vessels. Hence, a simple matched filter is proposed to roughly match the direction of the vessels at the OD vicinity. The retinal vessels are segmented using a simple and standard 2-D Gaussian matched filter. Consequently, a vessels direction map of the segmented retinal vessels is obtained using the same segmentation algorithm. The segmented vessels are then thinned, and filtered using local intensity, to represent finally the OD-center candidates. The difference between the proposed matched filter resized into four different sizes, and the vessels' directions at the surrounding area of each of the OD-center candidates is measured. The minimum difference provides an estimate of the OD-center coordinates. The proposed method was evaluated using a subset of the STARE project's dataset, containing 81 fundus images of both normal and diseased retinas, and initially used by literature OD detection methods. The OD-center was detected correctly in 80 out of the 81 images (98.77%). In addition, the OD-center was detected correctly in all of the 40 images (100%) using the publicly available DRIVE dataset.
Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is a major factor influencing mortality in neonatal sepsis.(1) Clinical trials have supported the use of antithrombin and activated protein C ...supplementation in DIC associated with sepsis.
This paper is generally concerned with star formation in the Galaxy, especially blue stars. Blue stars are the most luminous, massive and the largest in radius. A simple mathematical model of the ...formation of the stars is established and put in computational algorithm. This algorithm enables us to know more about the formation of the star. Some real and artificial examples had been used to justify this model.
Assessing the state of country readiness for the introduction of new, child-friendly anti-tuberculosis formulations can highlight potential bottlenecks, facilitate early planning, and accelerate ...access to appropriate treatment for children with tuberculosis (TB).
To understand pathways and potential obstacles to the introduction of new pediatric formulations, we performed a desk review of key policy documents and conducted 146 stakeholder interviews in 19 high-burden countries.
Issuance of World Health Organization (WHO) guidance serves as the trigger for considering adoption in most countries; however, the degree of alignment with WHO recommendations and duration of introduction processes vary. Endorsement by experts and availability of local evidence are leading criteria for adoption in upper-middle- and high-income countries. Ease of administration, decreased pill burden, and reduced treatment costs are prioritized in low- and lower-middle-income settings. Countries report an average of 10 steps on the path to new treatment introduction, with core steps taking between 18 and 71 months.
The process of new treatment introduction is complicated by diverse country processes, adoption criteria, and evidence requirements. Challenges differ between low- and middle-to-high-income countries. Responsiveness to the unique hurdles faced across settings is important in ensuring a sustainable market for improved pediatric anti-tuberculosis treatment.
To study mechanisms of destructive geodynamic phenomena including determination of places of possible severe earthquakes, volcano eruptions and some other natural hazards, it is important to have ...means to evolve areas where maximum changes of the displacement velocities and the terrestrial crust vertical movements are possible. The previous experience has shown that the satellite geodesy techniques including global navigation systems and satellite laser ranging are the most effective for research activities in this field. Permanent control of secular movement of GPS-stations of the international geodynamic network, located in Russia, has allowed improving the reference coordinate frame for North Eurasia since Russian network stations provide representative covering of the largest stable areas (the Siberian and the East European) of the Eurasian plate. Along its southern border, there is a zone consisting of a great number of microplates surrounding the South-Eurasian stable plate. Interaction of these small plates and blocks influences distribution of seismic stresses in internal parts of the continent that is confirmed by the highest seismic activity of the triangle bordered by thrusts of the Himalayas and faults of the Pamirs, the Tien-Shan, the Baikal and the North-Eastern China.
One of the active tectonic zones of Egypt located in Aswan, is characterized by regional basement rock uplift and regional faulting. In 1997, the African Regional Geodynamic Network was developed around the northern part of Lake Nasser, consists of 11 points, on both sides of the Lake. Its main goal is to study the geodynamical behavior around the northern part of the lake. The collected data were processed using the Bernese software version 5.0. From the velocity results, including also the African plate motion, it can be noticed that all stations of this network are moved to the northeast direction and it is typically the direction of the African plate motion.
In this paper, general analytical and computational technique for satellite-to-satellite visibility will be established firstly under the keplerian force, secondary under the effect of earth’s ...gravitational field (oblateness). The development is generally in the sense that the visibility conditions can be used whatever the types of the satellite orbits may be. Many data are taken to illustrate our technique.
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