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Background: Despite the investments made in veterinary diagnostic laboratory service delivery in Uganda, the scope and level of utilization remains low. This study aimed to determine the priority livestock diseases for which farmers and animal health professionals require veterinary diagnostic laboratory services, document the perceptions and opinions of key stakeholders on veterinary diagnostic laboratory services, and determine the factors that influence the delivery and utilization of animal disease diagnostic services in Uganda.Methods: A qualitative study approach involving a survey and key informant interviews was used to collect relevant data from four stakeholder groups: animal health workers, laboratory technologists and technicians, farmers, and key informants. The survey data were exported to excel, and descriptive statistics performed. The key informant interview recordings were transcribed, and thematic analysis performed.Results: The most reported diseases and conditions for which diagnostic services were needed were hemoparasites (including East Coast fever, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and trypanosomosis), viral (including Foot and mouth disease, lumpy skin disease, rift valley fever, and papillomatosis), bacteria (including brucellosis, colibacillosis, anthrax, leptospirosis, and paratuberculosis) and protozoa diseases (coccidiosis), endoparasites (helminths), and mastitis. The most common diagnostic laboratory tests requested by clients, but laboratories were unable to provide included: rapid tests for contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, Foot and mouth disease, Newcastle disease, acaricide analysis, culture and antimicrobial sensitivity test, serology, and complete blood count. The most frequently reported challenges to providing diagnostic laboratory services were poor or lack of relevant equipment, insufficient or lack of supplies and reagents, high cost of reagents, inadequate or lack of laboratory staff to perform tests, and inadequate training of laboratory staff.Conclusions: This study highlighted the need to improve provision of laboratory diagnostic services to meet the prioritized diagnostic needs of farmers and animal health professionals. Increased intersectoral engagement and funding support from the private, industry, and government sectors is necessary to help address the observed challenges to provision of diagnostic laboratory services, including equipping of the laboratories, provision of supplies, and hiring and training of laboratory staff. Finally, the findings also suggest that the education of farmers and animal health workers on the value and benefits of laboratory diagnostic services may contribute to increase in sample submission and subsequent demand for diagnostic laboratory services.

Six research reports dealing with the roles and proper relationships between professional administrators and boards of trustees are summarized in this review. The following topics are highlighted: the professional's theoretical basis for operation and its justification, roles and internal and external functions of the board, effects of vague or misunderstood roles, positive influences on role understanding, and the use of teachers and students as sources for policy formulation. A bibliography of published and unpublished materials covering these and related areas is summarized. (JO)

Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) are subjected to a public perceived risk of adverse effects, and results from many epidemiology studies were largely inconclusive. Results of EMF measurements vary among researchers due to co-varieties of factors among which are temporal variations. This study assessed temporal variation of exposure from radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from some selected MCBSs in Kuje Area Council, in Nigeria. The Mobile phone frequencies band considered in the study area are GSM 900 MHz, GSM 1800 MHz, and Wi-Fi 2400 MHz. Using a selective radiation spectral analyzer HF- 2025E, measurements of peak power densities and their corresponding time of occurrence were made. The result shows that the RF fields vary with time in different locations for various power densities. When the aggregate of maximum exposures was compared with the international commission on Non – ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNRP) guidelines, they were found to be below the recommended limit.

The aim of this study was to describe the antibiotic use practices of veterinarians and para-veterinarians in Nigeria. An online survey was distributed during November through December 2018 via email and phone to veterinarians and para-veterinarians to collect information on antibiotic use practices. Data were downloaded into Excel and descriptive statistics were presented and analysed. The survey was completed by 390 respondents. Almost all respondents (98.5%, 384/390) recommended the use of antibiotics to treat animal patients, and of these, 93.2% (358/384) were veterinarians and 6.8% (26/384) were para-veterinarians. Most respondents reported commonly recommending the use of oxytetracycline (82.6%, 317/384), tylosin (44.5%, 171/384) and gentamycin (43.8%, 168/384). A third (32.0%, 122/384) of respondents did not undertake antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) prior to antibiotic treatment. At least 60% of the respondents recommended the use of antibiotics for the treatment of non-bacterial pathogens, including viral, helminth and fungal pathogens. Over 55% (217/390) were not aware of government-issued guidelines on antibiotic use in animals, although of those aware, 69% (74/107) utilised the guidelines. Across all respondents, the majority believed legislation or regulation by government can influence the use of antibiotics by animal health professionals. The study highlights areas that can be targeted as part of intervention strategies to promote antimicrobial stewardship by animal health professionals in Nigeria, including the need for increased use of AST as a tool for supporting disease management, increased awareness of appropriate antibiotic use and greater dissemination of antibiotic use guidelines and enforcement of relevant regulation by government authorities.

Background Urinary (UI) and fecal (FI) incontinence occur in up to 7.5% and 32% of dogs, respectively, after thoracolumbar acute noncompressive nucleus pulposus extrusion (ANNPE). Hypotheses/Objectives To investigate clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic predictors of UI and FI in dogs with ANNPE affecting the T3‐L3 spinal cord segments. Animals Hundred and eighty‐seven dogs with T3‐L3 ANNPE diagnosed based on clinical and MRI findings. Methods Multicenter retrospective study. Data were obtained from medical records and telephone questionnaires and analyzed by logistic regression. Results UI and FI were reported in 17 (9.1%) and 44 (23.5%) dogs, respectively. Paraplegic dogs were 3 times (95% CI = 1.25, 10.87) more likely to develop UI (P = .018) and 4 times (95% CI = 1.94, 12.56) more likely to develop FI (P = .001) compared to nonparaplegic dogs. Dogs with an intramedullary hyperintensity greater than 40% of the cross‐sectional area of the spinal cord at the same level on transverse T2‐weighted MRI images were 4 times more likely to develop UI (95% CI = 1.04, 21.72; P = .045) and FI (95% CI = 1.56, 10.39; P = .004) compared to dogs with smaller lesions. FI was 3 times (95% CI = 1.41, 7.93) more likely in dogs that were not treated with nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) after diagnosis compared to dogs administered NSAIDs (P = .006) and 2 times (95% CI = 1.12, 5.98) more likely in dogs presented with clinical signs compatible with spinal shock compared to dogs without (P = .026). Conclusion and Clinical Importance The identification of clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic predictors of UI and FI in dogs with T3‐L3 ANNPE can help to approach these autonomic dysfunctions occurring after spinal cord injury.

I argue that our everyday evaluations of architecture are primarily evaluations of spaces and, in particular, of their inhabitability— that is, whether they serve or can serve to the realization of our individual ideal of life. Inhabitability is not only a functional criterion but an aesthetic one as well. It is aesthetic insofar as the evaluations about inhabitability include evaluations about the quality of the experience of actually doing something in —or simply occupying—a particular space. This aesthetic aspect of our everyday evaluations explains, on one hand, the distinctive features of our everyday preferences for some architectonic spaces over others—namely, (a) their very personal nature; (b) their noticeable value in our daily lives; (c) their inseparability from the activities we plan to realize in those spaces; and (d) the importance of the spaces which are contiguous to the one we are evaluating. And on the other, it both reveals architecture’s significance for the quality of our daily life and serves as a guide for us to choose spaces that improve that quality.

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly contagious viral disease of sheep and goats with high mortality. The disease is of considerable economic importance in countries such as Tanzania, where small ruminant products are important for sustainable livelihoods. This review assesses current knowledge regarding the epidemiology of PPRV in Tanzania, highlighting the challenges with respect to control and suggesting possible interventions. Thirty-three articles were identified after literature searches using Google Scholar and PubMed. Studies revealed that PPRV is endemic in sheep and goats in Tanzania, although seropositivity has also been reported in cattle, camels, buffalo, Grant's gazelle, wildebeest and impala, but with no clinical manifestation. Three lineages (lineage II to IV) of PPRV have been identified in Tanzania, implying at least two separate introductions of the virus. Diagnosis of PPR in Tanzania is mostly by observation of clinical signs and lesions at post mortem. Risk factors in Tanzania include age, sex, species, and close contact of animals from different farms/localities. Although there is an efficacious vaccine available for PPR, poor disease surveillance, low vaccine coverage, and uncontrolled animal movements have been the bane of control efforts for PPR in Tanzania. There is need for collaborative efforts to develop interventions to control and eradicate the disease. The establishment of a national reference laboratory for PPR, conduct of surveillance, the development of high-quality DIVA vaccines, as well as execution of a carefully planned national vaccination campaign may be key to the control and subsequent eradication of PPR in Tanzania and achieving the global goal of eradicating PPR by 2030.

In endemic African areas, such as Tanzania, Brucella spp. cause human febrile illnesses, which often go unrecognized and misdiagnosed, resulting in delayed diagnosis, underdiagnosis, and underreporting. Although rapid and affordable point-of-care tests, such as the Rose Bengal test (RBT), are available, acceptance and adoption of these tests at the national level are hindered by a lack of local diagnostic performance data. To address this need, evidence on the diagnostic performance of RBT as a human brucellosis point-of-care test was reviewed. The review was initially focused on studies conducted in Tanzania but was later extended to worldwide because few relevant studies from Tanzania were identified. Databases including Web of Science, Embase, MEDLINE, and World Health Organization Global Index Medicus were searched for studies assessing the diagnostic performance of RBT (sensitivity and specificity) for detection of human brucellosis, in comparison to the reference standard culture. Sixteen eligible studies were identified and reviewed following screening. The diagnostic sensitivity (DSe) and specificity (DSp) of RBT compared to culture as the gold standard were 87.5% and 100%, respectively, in studies that used suitable “true positive” and “true negative” patient comparison groups and were considered to be of high scientific quality. Diagnostic DSe and DSp of RBT compared to culture in studies that also used suitable “true positive” and “true negative” patient comparison groups but were considered to be of moderate scientific quality varied from 92.5% to 100% and 94.3 to 99.9%, respectively. The good diagnostic performance of RBT combined with its simplicity, quickness, and affordability makes RBT an ideal (or close to) stand-alone point-of-care test for early clinical diagnosis and management of human brucellosis and nonmalarial fevers in small and understaffed health facilities and laboratories in endemic areas in Africa and elsewhere.

Background Many ecologically important plants are pollinated or have their seeds dispersed by fruit bats, including the widely distributed African straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum). Their ability to fly long distances makes them essential for connecting plant populations across fragmented landscapes. While bats have been implicated as a reservoir of infectious diseases, their role in disease transmission to humans is not well understood. In this pilot study, we tracked E. helvum to shed light on their movement patterns in Tanzania and possible contact with other species. Methods Tracking devices were deployed on 25 bats captured in the Morogoro Municipal and Kilombero District area near the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. Nightly flight patterns, areas corresponding to foraging bouts and feeding roosts, and new day roosts were determined from bat movement data and characterized according to their proximity to urban built-up and protected areas. Sites for additional environmental surveillance using camera traps were identified via tracking data to determine species coming in contact with fruits discarded by bats. Results Tracking data revealed variability between individual bat movements and a fidelity to foraging areas. Bats were tracked from one to six nights, with a mean cumulative nightly flight distance of 26.14 km (min: 0.33, max: 97.57) based on data from high-resolution GPS tags. While the majority of their foraging locations were in or near urban areas, bats also foraged in protected areas, of which the Udzungwa Mountains National Park was the most frequented. Camera traps in fruit orchards frequented by tracked bats showed the presence of multiple species of wildlife, with vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) observed as directly handling and eating fruit discarded by bats. Conclusions Because we observed multiple interactions of animals with fruits discarded by bats, specifically with vervet monkeys, the possibility of disease spillover risk exists via this indirect pathway. With flight distances of up to 97 km, however, the role of E. helvum in the seed dispersal of plants across both protected and urban built-up areas in Tanzania may be even more important, especially by helping connect increasingly fragmented landscapes during this Anthropocene epoch.

We define Schatten classes of adjointable operators on Hilbert modules over abelian $C^*$-algebras. Many key features carry over from the Hilbert space case. In particular, the Schatten classes form two-sided ideals of compact operators and are equipped with a Banach norm and a $C^*$-valued trace with the expected properties. For trivial Hilbert bundles, we show that our Schatten-class operators can be identified bijectively with Schatten-norm-continuous maps from the base space into the Schatten classes on the Hilbert space fiber, with the fiberwise trace. As applications, we introduce the $C^*$-valued Fredholm determinant and operator zeta functions, and propose a notion of $p$-summable unbounded Kasparov cycles in the commutative setting., Comment: 28 pages

To mimic native insulin activity, materials have been developed that encapsulate insulin, glucose oxidase, and catalase for glucose-responsive insulin delivery. A major challenge, however, has been achieving the desired kinetics of both rapid and extended release. Here, we tune insulin release profiles from polymeric nanoparticles by altering the degree of modification of acid-degradable, acetalated-dextran polymers. Nanoparticles synthesized from dextran with a high acyclic acetal content (94% of residues) show rapid release kinetics, while nanoparticles from dextran with a high cyclic acetal content (71% of residues) release insulin more slowly. Thus, coformulation of these two materials affords both rapid and extended glucose-responsive insulin delivery. In vivo analyses using both streptozotocin-induced type 1 diabetic and healthy mouse models indicate that this delivery system has the ability to respond to glucose on a therapeutically relevant time scale. Importantly, the concentration of human insulin in mouse serum is enhanced more than 3-fold with elevated glucose levels, providing direct evidence of glucose-responsiveness in animals. We further show that a single subcutaneous injection provides 16 h of glycemic control in diabetic mice. We believe the nanoparticle formulations developed here may provide a generalized strategy for the development of glucose-responsive insulin delivery systems.

In endemic African areas, such as Tanzania, Brucella spp. cause human febrile illnesses, which often go unrecognized and misdiagnosed, resulting in delayed diagnosis, underdiagnosis, and underreporting. Although rapid and affordable point-of-care tests, such as the Rose Bengal test (RBT), are available, acceptance and adoption of these tests at the national level are hindered by a lack of local diagnostic performance data. To address this need, evidence on the diagnostic performance of RBT as a human brucellosis point-of-care test was reviewed. The review was initially focused on studies conducted in Tanzania but was later extended to worldwide because few relevant studies from Tanzania were identified. Databases including Web of Science, Embase, MEDLINE, and World Health Organization Global Index Medicus were searched for studies assessing the diagnostic performance of RBT (sensitivity and specificity) for detection of human brucellosis, in comparison to the reference standard culture. Sixteen eligible studies were identified and reviewed following screening. The diagnostic sensitivity (DSe) and specificity (DSp) of RBT compared to culture as the gold standard were 87.5% and 100%, respectively, in studies that used suitable “true positive” and “true negative” patient comparison groups and were considered to be of high scientific quality. Diagnostic DSe and DSp of RBT compared to culture in studies that also used suitable “true positive” and “true negative” patient comparison groups but were considered to be of moderate scientific quality varied from 92.5% to 100% and 94.3 to 99.9%, respectively. The good diagnostic performance of RBT combined with its simplicity, quickness, and affordability makes RBT an ideal (or close to) stand-alone point-of-care test for early clinical diagnosis and management of human brucellosis and nonmalarial fevers in small and understaffed health facilities and laboratories in endemic areas in Africa and elsewhere.

We explore the geometric implications of introducing a spectral cut-off on compact Riemannian manifolds. This is naturally phrased in the framework of non-commutative geometry, where we work with spectral triples that are truncated by spectral projections of Dirac-type operators. We associate a metric space of ‘localized’ states to each truncation. The Gromov–Hausdorff limit of these spaces is then shown to equal the underlying manifold one started with. This leads us to propose a computational algorithm that allows us to approximate these metric spaces from the finite-dimensional truncated spectral data. We subsequently develop a technique for embedding the resulting metric graphs in Euclidean space to asymptotically recover an isometric embedding of the limit. We test these algorithms on the truncation of sphere and a recently investigated perturbation thereof.