Current drug discovery strategies against arenavirus infections.

Arenaviruses are a large group of emerging viruses including several causative agents of severe hemorrhagic fevers with high mortality in man. Considering the number of people affected and the currently limited therapeutic options, novel efficacious therapeutics against arenaviruses are urgently needed. Over the past decade, significant advances in knowledge about the basic virology of arenaviruses have been accompanied by the development of novel therapeutics targeting different steps of the arenaviral life cycle. High-throughput, small-molecule screens identified potent and broadly active inhibitors of arenavirus entry that were instrumental for the dissection of unique features of arenavirus fusion. Novel inhibitors of arenavirus replication have been successfully tested in animal models and hold promise for application in humans. Late in the arenavirus life cycle, the proteolytic processing of the arenavirus envelope glycoprotein precursor and cellular factors critically involved virion assembly and budding provide further promising 'druggable' targets for novel therapeutics to combat human arenavirus infection.

Cross National Contact Strategies

Using paradata gathered from the 11-nation Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this paper examines the impact of the first contact attempt and the first contact properties, respectively, on contact and response efficiency using logistic multilevel models. We find that despite the different sample frames and interviewer compensation structure between countries, there are no considerable country effects with respect to making contact, once interviewer effects are controlled. Moreover, results point to an increased efficiency associated with evenings especially on Sundays, at least on the very first contact attempt. For attempts that result in initial contact, Saturday afternoons are most likely to eventually lead to completed interviews, followed by initial contact on weekdays during the daytime. We hypothesize that this may be due to the SHARE sample being composed of people aged 50 and over.

Vaccination Strategies against Highly Pathogenic Arenaviruses: The Next Steps toward Clinical Trials.

Vaccination is one of the most valuable weapons against infectious diseases and has led to a significant reduction in mortality and morbidity. However, for most viral hemorrhagic fevers caused by arenaviruses, no prophylactic vaccine is available. This is particularly problematic as these diseases are notoriously difficult to diagnose and treat. Lassa fever is globally the most important of the fevers caused by arenaviruses, potentially affecting millions of people living in endemic areas, particularly in Nigeria. Annually, an estimated 300,000 humans are infected and several thousands succumb to the disease. The successful development of the vaccine "Candid#1" against Junin virus, the causative agent of Argentine hemorrhagic fever, proved that an effective arenavirus vaccine can be developed. Although several promising studies toward the development of a Lassa fever vaccine have been published, no vaccine candidate has been tested in human volunteers or patients. This review summarizes the immunology and other aspects of existing experimental arenavirus vaccine studies, discusses the reasons for the lack of a vaccine, and proposes a plan for overcoming the final hurdles toward clinical trials.

Nine-month-olds' triangular interactive strategies with their parents' couple in low-coordination families: A descriptive study

Observing infants in triadic situations has revealed their triangular competence; namely, their ability to interact with both parents by simultaneously sharing their attention and affects with them. Infants' triangular interaction is linked with the coparenting unit's degree of coordination; in high-coordination (HC) families, parents act as a team in relation to the child, thus drawing clear and flexible boundaries with them; in low-coordination (LC) families, parents either avoid direct interaction with each other and include the child in their unit or join together against the child and exclude him or her, thus drawing inconsistent boundaries with the child. We explored the interactive strategies of LC 9-month-olds (n = 15) with those of their parents, comparing them with HC parents (n = 23) in two conditions: playing with both parents at the same time and witnessing their parents' dialogue. LC infants' affects were less positive; they addressed fewer positive triangular bids to their parents and tended to use a less triangular interactive mode. Thus, LC infants had fewer opportunities than did HC infants to acquire skills necessary for coping with triangular interaction. L'observation de nourrissons dans des situations triadiques a révélé leur compétence triangulaire, c'est-à-dire la capacité à interagir avec les deux parents en partageant simultanément leur attention et leurs affects avec eux. L'interaction triangulaire des nourrissons est liée au degré de coordination de l'unité de coparentage. Dans les familles à coordination élevée (abrégé HC en anglais, CE en français), les parents agissent en relation à l'enfant en tant qu'équipe, et établissent donc des limites claires et flexibles avec les enfants. Dans les familles à coordination faible (abrégé LC en anglais, CF en français), les parents évitent soit l'interaction directe l'un avec l'autre et incluent l'enfant dans leur unité, ou bien ils se liguent contre l'enfant et l'excluent, établissant donc des limites contradictoires avec l'enfant. Nous explorons les stratégies interactives de bébés de 9 mois CF avec celle de leurs parents, en les comparant avec des parents CE (N = 23) dans deux conditions: le jeu avec les deux parents au même moment et l'observation du dialogue des parents. Les affects des bébés CF étaient moins positifs. Les bébés se tournaient moins triangulairement vers leurs parents et avaient tendance à utiliser un mode interactif moins triangulaire. Les bébés CF avaient donc moins de chances que les bébés CE d'acquérir les compétences nécessaires pour faire face avec une interaction triangulaire.

Strategic Plan Iowa Workforce Development October, 2004

For the 2004 strategic planning process at Iowa Workforce Development, Director Richard Running asked for as much input from all staff as possible. As a result, planning staff designed an extensive process to gather input over about a three month period during the late spring and summer: • A Guide to Staff Involvement was drafted and distributed to staff in offices throughout the state. This guide provided a brief explanation of the planning process and quoted extensively from the Vilsack/Pederson Leadership Agenda and the 2003 IWD strategic plan to illustrate each step and to show examples of alignment. The guide also provided suggestions for staff in various locations and work units to conduct their own planning sessions. The structure was designed to solicit feedback regarding elements (vision, mission, guiding principles, goals and strategies) of the existing 2003 plan. Particular attention was devoted to securing non-management staff’s perspective during the internal and external assessment exercises. • Several local offices did conduct their own structured input sessions following the suggested guidelines and sent the results to planning staff in the central administrative offices. • Other work units in many locations opted to ask planning staff to facilitate planning sessions for them. The results of these sessions were also gathered by planning staff. In all, dozens of input sessions were held and hundreds of IWD staff participated directly in the process. Because all the sessions followed similar guidelines, it was relatively easy to combine all of the input received and spot common themes that surfaced from the many sessions. A composite of all the flip chart notes was compiled into one large document (for those who like lots of detail) and another document summarized the key themes that emerged. This information was used in a day-long planning retreat on August 20. Management staff members from throughout the department were invited and each work unit and sub-state region also brought a non-management staff person as well. This group reviewed the themes from the earlier sessions and then addressed each element of the 2003 plan, proposing refinements for almost all sections. Subsequently, senior management reviewed the results of the retreat and made the final decisions for the new 2004 plan. This thorough approach, with its special emphasis on input from line staff, did result in some significant changes to IWD’s plan. Local office staff, for example, consistently expressed the need to step up our marketing efforts, especially with employers. Another need that was expressed clearly and often was the need to beef up staff training efforts, much of the capacity for which had been lost in budget and staff reductions a few years ago. Neither of these issues is new, but the degree of concern expressed by IWD staff has caused us to elevate their importance in this year’s plan.

Improving Transition Outcomes-An Innovative State Alignment Grant for Improving Transition Outcome for Youth with Disabilities Through the Use of Intermediaries, 2004

Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services, a Division of the State of Iowa Department of Education, in partnership with six other state agencies, applied for and was awarded funding for “Improving Transition Outcomes for Youth with Disabilities Through the Use of intermediaries.” This Innovative State Alignment Grant is funded by the Department of Labor, Office of Disability Employment Policy. For clarity and brevity, the Iowa team chose to use “Improving Transition Outcomes” as the project name, thus providing the acronym ITO. Grant funding began October 1, 2003 with the possibility of renewal for five years.

Réduction de la consommation de sel: opportunité, impact et stratégies. [Population reduction of salt consumption: opportunities, impact and strategies].

A national survey showed that Swiss people eat high quantity of salt (9.1 g per day on average). The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has launched a strategy to reduce salt intake in the population in order to decrease cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, mainly via blood pressure reduction. The most effective public health measures are to reduce the salt content of processed food rich in salt because they do not need to change consumers' eating behaviours. The FOPH has chosen to collaborate with the food industry on a voluntary basis. Regular population-based surveys will be needed to monitor the impact of current measures on salt consumption, hypertension prevalence as well as cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the years to come.

An intramedullary alignment guide lodging within the femoral canal during total knee arthroplasty: a case report.

The usual complications of total knee arthroplasty include thrombo-embolism, infection, and loosening. We report an unusual and potentially serious complication of an intramedullary guide lodging within the femoral canal during the procedure. Considering the risk of fracture and additional exposure, the guide was not removed and was cut in situ. The rest of the operation was completed successfully and the patient made an uneventfully recovery.

Communication Strategies Of The Nursing Team In The Aphasia After Cerebrovascular Accident

This is an exploratory, cross-sectional study of quantitative design that aimed to identify the communication strategies used and reported by the nursing staff in the care of aphasic patients after a stroke. The techniques used were the participant observation and interviews with 27 subjects of the nursing staff of neurological units in a general hospital. The most frequently mentioned strategies were gestures (100%), verbal communication (33.3%), written communication (29.6%) and the touch (18.5 %). Among the observed strategies, the gestures reached 40.7% and the touch was present in all situations, given its instrumental character essential to care. The findings show lack of knowledge of nonverbal, proxemics , kinesics and tacesics communication. No significant differences were observed among the professional categories depending on the length of experience with respect to the strategies reported by members of the nursing staff in the care for aphasic patients.


On Consumer Decision Strategies: New Approaches for Studying and Aiding Preferential Choices

This dissertation focuses on the strategies consumers use when making purchase decisions. It is organized in two main parts, one centering on descriptive and the other on applied decision making research. In the first part, a new process tracing tool called InterActive Process Tracing (IAPT) is pre- sented, which I developed to investigate the nature of consumers' decision strategies. This tool is a combination of several process tracing techniques, namely Active Information Search, Mouselab, and retrospective verbal protocol. To validate IAPT, two experiments on mobile phone purchase de- cisions were conducted where participants first repeatedly chose a mobile phone and then were asked to formalize their decision strategy so that it could be used to make choices for them. The choices made by the identified strategies correctly predicted the observed choices in 73% (Experiment 1) and 67% (Experiment 2) of the cases. Moreover, in Experiment 2, Mouselab and eye tracking were directly compared with respect to their impact on information search and strategy description. Only minor differences were found between these two methods. I conclude that IAPT is a useful research tool to identify choice strategies, and that using eye tracking technology did not increase its validity beyond that gained with Mouselab. In the second part, a prototype of a decision aid is introduced that was developed building in particular on the knowledge about consumers' decision strategies gained in Part I. This decision aid, which is called the InterActive Choice Aid (IACA), systematically assists consumers in their purchase decisions. To evaluate the prototype regarding its perceived utility, an experiment was conducted where IACA was compared to two other prototypes that were based on real-world consumer decision aids. All three prototypes differed in the number and type of tools they provided to facilitate the process of choosing, ranging from low (Amazon) to medium (Sunrise/dpreview) to high functionality (IACA). Overall, participants slightly preferred the prototype of medium functionality and this prototype was also rated best on the dimensions of understandability and ease of use. IACA was rated best regarding the two dimensions of ease of elimination and ease of comparison of alternatives. Moreover, participants choices were more in line with the normatively oriented weighted additive strategy when they used IACA than when they used the medium functionality prototype. The low functionality prototype was the least preferred overall. It is concluded that consumers can and will benefit from highly functional decision aids like IACA, but only when these systems are easy to understand and to use.

Pheomelanin-based colouration is correlated with indices of flying strategies in the barn owl

Resource polymorphism refers to individuals from the same population foraging in alternative habitats or on alternative food. Food specialization can be associated with adaptations such as colour polymorphism, with pale and dark colours conferring differential camouflage in different habitats. Pale and dark-reddish pheomelanic Barn Owls (Tyto alba) forage on different prey species in closed and open habitats, respectively. We show here that darker-reddish owls have heavier stomach content when found dead, and their 5th secondary wing feather is more deeply anchored inside the integument. These correlations suggest that their feathers bend less when flying, and that darker-reddish Barn Owls are able sustain more intense flying than their paler conspecifics.