Malaria rapid diagnostic test performance : results of WHO product testing of malaria RDTs : round 5 (2013)

WHO estimates that half the world’s population is at risk of malaria. In 2012, there were an estimated 207 million cases (with an uncertainty range of 135 million to 287 million) and an estimated 627 000 deaths (with an uncertainty range of 473 000 to 789 000). Approximately 90% of all malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and 77% occur in children under 5 years. Malaria remains endemic in 104 countries, and, while parasite-based diagnosis is increasing, most suspected cases of malaria are still not properly confirmed, resulting in over-use of antimalarial drugs and poor disease monitoring (1)...

Responsible reconstruction : The architect's role

This paper investigates the role of the architect in post-disaster reconstruction and questions their ability to facilitate per- manent building solutions. There is an ever-increasing population of refugees and internally displaced persons due to disasters and conflicts who have a basic need for shelter. To date, housing solutions for such people has tended to focus on short-term, temporary shelter solutions that have been largely unsuccessful. This increasing demand for shelter has led to an emerging group of architects skilled in post-disaster reconstruction. These architects acknowledge that shelter is critical to survival, but believe architects should focus on rebuilding in a manner that is quick, durable but permanent. They believe that an architect skilled in post-disaster reconstruction can produce solutions that meet the requirement of the emergency phase, through to semi-permanent and even permanent homes, without wasting time and money on interim shelters. Case Study Research was used to examine and evaluate the assistance provided by Emergency Architects Australia (EAA) to the Kei Gold community in the Solomon Islands after the 2007 earthquake and tsunami. The results indicate that an architect’s response to a disaster must go beyond providing temporary shelter; they must create permanent building solutions that respond to the site and the culture while servicing the needs of the communi- ty. The vernacular reconstruction methods implemented by EAA in Kei Gold Village have been successful in develop- ing permanent housing solutions. Further research and development is required to gain a broader understanding of the role of the architect in disasters of varying scales and typologies.

Improved nutritional status is related to improved quality of life in Parkinson’s disease

Background: Quality of life is poorer in Parkinson’s disease than in other conditions and in the general population without Parkinson’s disease. Malnutrition also results in poorer quality of life. This study aimed at determining the relationship between quality of life and nutritional status. Methods: Community-dwelling people with Parkinson’s disease >18 years old were recruited. The Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) assessed nutritional status. The Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire 39 (PDQ-39) measured quality of life. Phase I was cross-sectional. The malnourished in Phase I were eligible for a nutrition intervention phase, randomised into 2 groups: standard care (SC) with provision of nutrition education materials only and intervention (INT) with individualised dietetic advice and regular weekly follow-up. Data were collected at baseline, 6 weeks, and 12 weeks. Results: Phase I consisted of 120 people who completed the PDQ-39. Phase II consisted of 9 in the SC group and 10 in the INT group. In Phase I, quality of life was poorer in the malnourished, particularly for mobility and activities of daily living domains. There was a significant correlation between PG-SGA and PDQ-39 scores (Phase I, rs = 0.445, p = .000; Phase II, rs = .426, p = .002). In Phase II, no significant difference in the PDQ-39 total or sub-scores was observed between the INT and SC groups; however, there was significant improvement in the emotional well-being domain for the entire group, X2(2) = 8.84, p = .012. Conclusions: Malnourished people with Parkinson’s disease had poorer quality of life than the well-nourished, and improvements in nutritional status resulted in quality of life improvements. Attention to nutritional status is an important component of quality of life and therefore the total care of people with Parkinson’s disease.

Assessment of the short-term success of a translocation of lesser short-tailed bats Mystacina tuberculata

Translocation is a powerful tool that has been used in the conservation of a wide range of taxa. However, few translocations of bats have been attempted and we know of no successes. The few translocations which have been attempted have either failed due to dispersal from the release site or have not been monitored sufficiently to determine the cause of failure. We assessed the short-term success of a translocation of lesser short-tailed bats Mystacina tuberculata by the New Zealand Department of Conservation, where 3 release methods were used to minimise dispersal or mortality: bats were juveniles, were maintained in captivity at the release site, and were provided with supplementary food and roosts following release. Success was assessed by determining if founders remained at the release site and maintained condition (weight). Recapture showed that at least 9 of the 20 bats remained at the release site 232 d after release. There was weak evidence that bats lost weight, although final weights were comparable to those of bats from a natural population. However, all bats caputred 8 mo after release had damaged, infected ears and some were balding. The problem was treated but recurred, and bats were returned to captivity. Our results are th first to demonstrate that translocated bats can remain at their release site and survive. However, disease may be an issue in future translocations.

Translocation of bats as a conservation strategy : previous attempts and potential problems

Translocation is an increasingly popular conservation tool from which a wide range of taxa have benefited. However, to our knowledge, bats have not been translocated successfully. Bats differ behaviourally, morphologically and physiologically from the taxa for which translocation the- ory has been developed, so existing guidelines may not be directly transferable. We review previous translocations of bats and discuss characteristics of bats that may require special consideration dur- ing translocation. Their vagility and homing ability, coloniality, roost requirements, potential ability to transmit diseases, susceptibility to anthropomorphic impacts, and cryptic nature have implications for establishing populations, effects of these populations on the release site, and ability to monitor translocation success following release. We hope that our discussion of potential problems will be able to supplement the existing, more generic guidelines to provide a starting point for the planning of bat translocations.

An RFID-based traceability system

Traceability system in the food supply chain is becoming more necessary. RFID and EPCglobal Network Standards are emerging technologies that bring new opportunities to develop the high performance traceability system. This research proposes the analysis, design, and development of the RFID and EPCglobal Network Standards based traceability system that adheres to the requirements of global food traceability in terms of completeness of traceability information. The additional components, including lot management system and electronic transaction management system, encourage the traditional system in order to fulfill the missing information. The proposed system was developed and applied in a rice supply chain. Results from experimentation showed that the additional components can significantly improve the completeness of traceability information. The collaboration between EPCglobal Network Standards and electronic transaction management system can improve the performances in RFID operations.

Phobos and deimos on Mars - two autonomous robots for the DLR SpaceBot Cup

In 2013, ten teams from German universities and research institutes participated in a national robot competition called SpaceBot Cup organized by the DLR Space Administration. The robots had one hour to autonomously explore and map a challenging Mars-like environment, find, transport, and manipulate two objects, and navigate back to the landing site. Localization without GPS in an unstructured environment was a major issue as was mobile manipulation and very restricted communication. This paper describes our system of two rovers operating on the ground plus a quadrotor UAV simulating an observing orbiting satellite. We relied on ROS (robot operating system) as the software infrastructure and describe the main ROS components utilized in performing the tasks. Despite (or because of) faults, communication loss and breakdowns, it was a valuable experience with many lessons learned.

Teleoperation of a 7 DOF humanoid robot arm using human arm accelerations and EMG signals

We present our work on tele-operating a complex humanoid robot with the help of bio-signals collected from the operator. The frameworks (for robot vision, collision avoidance and machine learning), developed in our lab, allow for a safe interaction with the environment, when combined. This even works with noisy control signals, such as, the operator’s hand acceleration and their electromyography (EMG) signals. These bio-signals are used to execute equivalent actions (such as, reaching and grasping of objects) on the 7 DOF arm.

Hand, foot and mouth disease in China: Evaluating an automated system for the detection of outbreaks

Objective To evaluate the performance of China’s infectious disease automated alert and response system in the detection of outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth (HFM) disease. Methods We estimated size, duration and delay in reporting HFM disease outbreaks from cases notified between 1 May 2008 and 30 April 2010 and between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2012, before and after automatic alert and response included HFM disease. Sensitivity, specificity and timeliness of detection of aberrations in the incidence of HFM disease outbreaks were estimated by comparing automated detections to observations of public health staff. Findings The alert and response system recorded 106 005 aberrations in the incidence of HFM disease between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2012 – a mean of 5.6 aberrations per 100 days in each county that reported HFM disease. The response system had a sensitivity of 92.7% and a specificity of 95.0%. The mean delay between the reporting of the first case of an outbreak and detection of that outbreak by the response system was 2.1 days. Between the first and second study periods, the mean size of an HFM disease outbreak decreased from 19.4 to 15.8 cases and the mean interval between the onset and initial reporting of such an outbreak to the public health emergency reporting system decreased from 10.0 to 9.1 days. Conclusion The automated alert and response system shows good sensitivity in the detection of HFM disease outbreaks and appears to be relatively rapid. Continued use of this system should allow more effective prevention and limitation of such outbreaks in China.

Production of biodegradable nano and micro particles via ultrasonic atomization for biopharmaceutical delivery

Biopharmaceuticals have been shown to have low delivery and transformation efficiencies. To over come this, larger doses are administered in order to obtain the desired response which may lead to toxicity and drug resistance. This paper reports upon a continuous particle production method utilizing surface acoustic wave atomization to reliably produce micro and nanoparticles with physical characteristics to facilitate the cellular uptake of biopharmaceuticals. By producing particles of an optimal size for cellular uptake, the efficacy and specificity of drug loaded nanoparticles will be increased. Better delivery methods will result in dosage reduction (hence lower costs per dose), reduced toxicity, and reduced problems associated with multidrug resistance due to over dosing.

The history, content and evolution of The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education

The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education (Int J FYHE) began in 2010 with a specific FYHE focus and has published two issues per year with one issue linked to The International First Year in Higher Education Conference (FYHE Conference). This issue—Volume 6, Issue 1—is the last under this title. In 2015 the Journal will align to a new conference that has a broader focus on Students, Transitions, Achievement, Retention and Success (STARS). At this significant point and before we move on to the new journal, the journal team felt it was appropriate that the Feature in this final issue of the Int J FYHE should summarise the Journal’s activity over the years from 2010 to 2014.

Fuzzy-DL perception for multi-robot systems

For future planetary robot missions, multi-robot-systems can be considered as a suitable platform to perform space mission faster and more reliable. In heterogeneous robot teams, each robot can have different abilities and sensor equipment. In this paper we describe a lunar demonstration scenario where a team of mobile robots explores an unknown area and identifies a set of objects belonging to a lunar infrastructure. Our robot team consists of two exploring scout robots and a mobile manipulator. The mission goal is to locate the objects within a certain area, to identify the objects, and to transport the objects to a base station. The robots have a different sensor setup and different capabilities. In order to classify parts of the lunar infrastructure, the robots have to share the knowledge about the objects. Based on the different sensing capabilities, several information modalities have to be shared and combined by the robots. In this work we propose an approach using spatial features and a fuzzy logic based reasoning for distributed object classification.

An autonomous mobile manipulator for collecting sample containers

In this work we present an autonomous mobile ma- nipulator that is used to collect sample containers in an unknown environment. The manipulator is part of a team of heterogeneous mobile robots that are to search and identify sample containers in an unknown environment. A map of the environment along with possible positions of sample containers are shared between the robots in the team by using a cloud-based communication interface. To grasp a container with its manipulator arm the robot has to place itself in a position suitable for the manipulation task. This optimal base placement pose is selected by querying a precomputed inverse reachability database.

Microscopy for the detection, identification and quantification of malaria parasites on stained thick and thin blood films in research settings

Summary This manual was developed to guide a move towards common standards for undertaking and reporting research microscopy for malaria parasite detection, identification and quantification. It contains procedures based on agreed quality assurance standards for research malaria microscopy defined at a consultation of: TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases; the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), United Kingdom; the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), Switzerland; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA; the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and later expanded to include Amref Health Africa (Kenya); the Eijkman-Oxford Clinical Research Unit (EOCRU), Indonesia; Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (IPC); Institut de recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Senegal; the Global Good and Intellectual Ventures Laboratory (GG-IVL), USA; the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Thailand; Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, and the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), Thailand. These collaborating institutions commit to adhering to these standards in published research studies. It is hoped that they will form a solid basis for the wider adoption of standardized reference microscopy protocols for malaria research.