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Bacground. Psoriasis is an erythematosquamous dermatosis of chronic development. In sub-Saharan Africa, few studies have been focused on complicated forms of psoriasis. Objective. The aim is to describe epidemiological, clinical, and histological features of severe skin forms of psoriasis in Cote d'Ivoire. Material and Methods. The study was both cross-sectional and descriptive, that focused on patient admitted to the dermatology unit for complicated psoriasis, from January 1st, 1986, to December 31th, 2007. Results. Fifty-six patients admitted to hospital for severe skin forms of psoriasis were recorded and included in our study over 7.503 patients hospitalized during the study period.They represented 0.75% of cases. The average age was 39.6 ± 3.3 years.There were 49 male (87.5%) and 7 female patients (12.5%) with a sex ratio of 7. At socioprofessional level, 48 patients (87.5%) were fromcategory 1. Patients' history was dominated by the psoriasis vulgaris. Physical and general signs were dominated by itching (58.9%).The three severe skin forms were observed with predominant erythrodermic psoriasis (60.7%). Fifteen patients (34.9%) were HIV positive. Conclusion. Severe skin forms of psoriasis are rare in our setting. But in the quarter of HIV-positive patients, they are dominated by the erythrodermic psoriasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in most disciplines of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM), gender disparity is prevalent in the ranking of Earth Sciences faculties at senior and advanced levels. (i.e., Associate and Full Professors). In this study, a robust database was mined, created, and analyzed to assess the faculty compositions of 142 Earth Science departments in 39 countries across Africa. The data were collected from verifiable online resources focusing on ranks and gender ratios within each department. The studied earth science departments cut across universities in northern, southern, central, eastern, and western Africa. Our data revealed that female faculty members are predominantly underrepresented in most of the departments documented and are markedly uncommon in senior positions such as Professors, associate Professors, and senior researchers compared to their male counterparts. On the contrary, female faculty members are predominant in the lower cadres, such as lecturers, teaching, and graduate assistants. The observed male to female ratio is 4:1. At the base of this gender gap is the lower enrolment of female students in Earth Science courses from undergraudate to graduate studies. To achieve gender equality in Earth Science faculty composition in Africa, we recommend increasing female students' enrollment, mentoring, awareness, timely promotion of accomplished female researchers, and formulation of enabling government policies. More work-related policies that guarantee work-life balance for female earth science academic professionals should be formulated to attract and retain more women into Earth Sciences careers. • A marked disparity in gender ratio across the investigated Earth Sciences department is observed. • Estimated ratio of male to female Earth Science faculty members on the average is 4:1. • Women are far less present in top academic ranks such as Professors and Associate Associates. • Most female faculty members are PhDs and Researchers with teaching responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the preponderance of stereotyping of Earth Sciences as a male-oriented science in Africa, we perform a robust analysis of two electronic surveys. The current perception of female students' activities and performances was evaluated through a primary survey (N = 151; 28% female), which consisted of responses from academic professionals working in Universities and other Earth Science-related organizations. The second survey (N = 795; 38% female) investigated the ratio of male to female students currently enrolled in, or those that have graduated from Earth Science programs across Africa. Our approach for analyzing the collected data was based on descriptive statistics such as skewness, kurtosis, and Pearson correlation coefficients. Importantly, our data and analyses revealed under-representation of female student respondents, perhaps due to lower female students' enrolment among the sampled respondents. The responses to the main research questions are largely normally distributed and platykurtic. Thus, there is an overall lack of preference for female over male students across different ages, years of teaching, and cognate experience brackets in most countries represented. Many female academic professionals also slightly perceive male students are not more active than their female counterparts during laboratory and field activities. Majority of these female respondents think that geosciences are meant for female students also, but do not expressively consider it as a female profession. Respondents within the age bracket of 25–35 years and with cognate experience of >10 years do not consider male students to be better than their female counterparts. Significantly, our work shows that the gender of the respondents has no positive impact on their preference for male or female students albeit there were more male than female respondents. • The perception of the respondents is not influenced by their gender. • Majority of the respondents perceive Earth Sciences as a male and female science. • Older respondents and those with more years of teaching and cognate experience are outrightly not gender biased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]