Window Screens Research Articles

Wind-driven natural ventilation of greenhouses with vegetation

A large eddy simulation (LES) model was used to examine the wind-driven cross ventilation of gable-roof greenhouses containing vegetation. The obstruction of air flow by vegetation was described by a porous drag model in the numerical model, and the simulation results were validated using wind tunnel experiments. The numerical model was then utilised to inspect the influences of vegetation and greenhouse length (in the wind direction) on the ventilation rate. The results revealed that the diminishing effects of the vegetation, insect screen and internal friction on the ventilation rate can all be quantified by a physical-based resistance model. The driving force (the difference between windward and leeward pressures) of long, multi-span greenhouses was found to be less than that of a short, single-span greenhouse leading to a lower ventilation rate. The resistance factor of the vegetation and the insect screen depends on their porosity, while the resistance factor of the internal friction increased as the greenhouse length increased. In addition, the internal friction of multi-span greenhouses should be considered when the length of the greenhouse was greater than six times the greenhouse height.

Informing new or improved vector control tools for reducing the malaria burden in Tanzania: a qualitative exploration of perceptions of mosquitoes and methods for their control among the residents of Dar es Salaam

BackgroundThe effectiveness of malaria prevention with long-lasting insecticidal nets and indoor residual spraying is limited by emerging insecticide resistance, evasive mosquito behaviours that include outdoor biting, sub-optimal implementation and inappropriate use. New vector control interventions are required and their potential effectiveness will be enhanced if existing household perceptions and practices are integrated into intervention design.MethodsThis qualitative descriptive study used focus groups discussions, in-depth interviews and photovoice methods to explore mosquito control perceptions and practices among residents in four study sites in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.ResultsMosquitoes were perceived as a growing problem, directly attributed to widespread environmental deterioration and lack of effective mosquito control interventions. Malaria and nuisance biting were perceived as the main problem caused by mosquitoes. Breeding sites were clearly distinguished from resting sites but residents did not differentiate between habitats producing malaria vector mosquitoes and others producing mostly nuisance mosquitoes. The most frequently mentioned protection methods in the wealthiest locations were bed nets, aerosol insecticide sprays, window screens, and fumigation, while bed nets were most frequently mentioned and described as ‘part of the culture’ in the least wealthy locations. Mosquito-proofed housing was consistently viewed as desirable, but considered unaffordable outside wealthiest locations. Slapping and covering up with clothing were most commonly used to prevent biting outdoors. Despite their utility outdoors, topical repellents applied to the skin were considered expensive, and viewed with suspicion due to perceived side effects. Improving the local environment was the preferred method for preventing outdoor biting. Affordability, effectiveness, availability, practicality, as well as social influences, such as government recommendations, socialization and internalization (familiarization and habit) were described as key factors influencing uptake.ConclusionsOutdoor transmission is widely accepted as an obstacle to malaria elimination. Larval source management, targeting both malaria vectors and nuisance-biting mosquitoes, is the preferred method for mosquito control among the residents of Dar es Salaam and should be prioritized for development alongside new methods for outdoor personal protection. Even if made available, effective and affordable, these additional interventions may require time and user experience to achieve positive reputations and trustworthiness.

ANALYSIS OF INDOOR LUMINOUS ENVIRONMENT AND POWER GENERATION BY ROLL SCREEN AND VENETIAN BLIND WITH PV MODULES

Venetian blind and roll screen are mainly used as a shading device because of the possibility of automatic control and simplicity of use. Venetian blind, in particular, can control the sunlight using slat rotation as well as up / down control. On the other hand, roll screen can control the direct sunlight inflow through up / down control. Such shading devices can also be used to generate electricity utilizing direct sunlight on them. This study aims to develop an optimal control method for generating electricity in terms of energy production while simultaneously blocking direct sunlight inflow in terms of occupant comfort using a shading device. In this study, we compare and analyze the change of the indoor luminous environment through appropriate control method for each shading device and power generation with attached PV modules. Keywords: Photovoltaic, Luminous environment, Power Generation, Venetian blinds, Roll screens, Shading device

Abstract IA11: Combinatorial screens in Drosophila cells

Abstract Our laboratory is combining a number of omics approaches (Mass Spec, RNAi, phosphoproteomics, and transcriptomics) to expand our understanding of the structure of signaling networks. Applying these approaches has allowed us to identify additional components of a number of signaling networks including the MAPK/ERK, AKT/PI3K, Hippo, Insulin and autophagy pathways (Friedman et al., 2011; Vinayagam et al., 2013; Neumüller et al., 2013; Kwon et al., 2013; Zirin et al., 2015; Vinayagam et al., 2016). An important finding from large-scale studies is that we could only functionally validate about half of the network components using single-gene loss of function studies, suggesting a high level of functional redundancy within network. For example, using Mass Spec we generated an Insulin pathway interactome of about 560 proteins and only 50% were found to affect pathway output as measured using phospho-specific antibodies (Vinayagam et al., 2016). To interrogate redundancy, we established a robust platform for performing combinatorial screens and used it to identify synthetic lethal (SL) interactions with a number of tumor suppressors such as TSC1 and TSC2 (Housden et al., 2015). Importantly, almost all the SL interactions we discovered in the fly screens turned out to be conserved in mammalian cells (collaboration with Alex Valvezan and Brendan Manning). These studies have led to identification of promising drug targets, and, as some of these are known targets of FDA approved drugs, drug candidates. To expand SL screens in Drosophila cells, we have developed two new powerful screening approaches: 1. Pooled CRISPR and CRISPRa screens, and 2. Variable Dose Analysis, a screening method that exhibits significant reduced noise compared to previous SL screening methods. These approaches allow us to not only identify evolutionary conserved SL interactions that can lead to promising drug targets, but also to build a network of SL interactions that we will be able to compare to yeast SL network in particular. Results from these studies will provide fundamental information on the extent of conservation of SL across organisms, an issue that has not been addressed rigorously yet. References Friedman AA, Tucker G, Singh R, Yan D, Vinayagam A, Hu Y, Binari R, Hong P, Sun X, Porto M, Pacifico S, Murali T, Finley RL Jr, Asara JM, Berger B, Perrimon N. Proteomic and functional genomic landscape of receptor tyrosine kinase and ras to extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling. Sci Signal. 2011 Oct 25;4(196):rs10. PMID: 22028469. Vinayagam A, Hu Y, Kulkarni M, Roesel C, Sopko R, Mohr SE, Perrimon N. Protein complex-based analysis framework for high-throughput data sets. Sci Signal. 2013 Feb 26;6(264):rs5. PMID: 23443684. Neumüller RA, Gross T, Samsonova AA, Vinayagam A, Buckner M, Founk K, Hu Y, Sharifpoor S, Rosebrock AP, Andrews B, Winston F, Perrimon N. Conserved regulators of nucleolar size revealed by global phenotypic analyses. Sci Signal. 2013 Aug 20;6(289):ra70. PMID: 23962978. Kwon Y, Vinayagam A, Sun X, Dephoure N, Gygi SP, Hong P, Perrimon N. The Hippo signaling pathway interactome. Science. 2013 Nov 8;342(6159):737-40. PMID: 24114784. Zirin J, Nieuwenhuis J, Samsonova A, Tao R, Perrimon N. Regulators of autophagosome formation in Drosophila muscles. PLoS Genet. 2015 Feb 18;11(2):e1005006. PMID: 25692684. Housden BE, Valvezan AJ, Kelley C, Sopko R, Hu Y, Roesel C, Lin S, Buckner M, Tao R, Yilmazel B, Mohr SE, Manning BD, Perrimon N. Identification of potential drug targets for tuberous sclerosis complex by synthetic screens combining CRISPR-based knockouts with RNAi. Sci Signal. 2015 Sep 8;8(393):rs9. PMID: 26350902. Vinayagam A, Kulkarni MM, Sopko R, Sun X, Hu Y, Nand A, Villalta C, Moghimi A, Yang X, Mohr SE, Hong P, Asara JM, Perrimon N. An Integrative Analysis of the InR/PI3K/Akt Network Identifies the Dynamic Response to Insulin Signaling. Cell Rep. 2016 Sep 13;16(11):3062-74. PMID: 27626673. Citation Format: Norbert Perrimon. Combinatorial screens in Drosophila cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Precision Medicine Series: Opportunities and Challenges of Exploiting Synthetic Lethality in Cancer; Jan 4-7, 2017; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2017;16(10 Suppl):Abstract nr IA11.

Numerical analysis of indoor thermal comfort in a cross-ventilated space with top-hung windows

Abstract: Natural ventilation can be used in residential buildings in several Australian climatic zones and well-designed windows have the potential to facilitate indoor thermal comfort by allowing occupants to control volumetric outdoor airflow and indoor air velocities. Top-hung window is one of the most popular window types in Australia. This paper investigates the effect of the attributes of top-hung windows (i.e. window length, aspect ratio, height above the ground, window opening angle and the fly screen porosity) and outdoor air conditions (i.e. outdoor air temperature, wind speed and direction) on indoor thermal comfort during cross ventilation using CFD simulations. The Taguchi method was used to design the simulation scenarios and analysis of variance was used to determine the most significant factors influencing thermal comfort optimisation so as to reduce the number of CFD simulation cases. For the range of parameters considered and a particular case study building, results show that outdoor air temperature, window height and window opening angle are the most important factors influencing indoor thermal comfort in this room. The optimal window configurations for indoor thermal comfort of the case study building are also identified using a signal-to-noise ratio analysis.

Outbreak of human malaria caused by Plasmodium simium in the Atlantic Forest in Rio de Janeiro: a molecular epidemiological investigation.

Malaria was eliminated from southern and southeastern Brazil over 50 years ago. However, an increasing number of autochthonous episodes attributed to Plasmodium vivax have recently been reported from the Atlantic Forest region of Rio de Janeiro state. As the P vivax-like non-human primate malaria parasite species Plasmodium simium is locally enzootic, we performed a molecular epidemiological investigation to determine whether zoonotic malaria transmission is occurring. We examined blood samples from patients presenting with signs or symptoms suggestive of malaria as well as from local howler monkeys by microscopy and PCR. Samples were included from individuals if they had a history of travel to or resided in areas within the Rio de Janeiro Atlantic Forest, but not if they had malaria prophylaxis, blood transfusion or tissue or organ transplantation, or had travelled to known malaria endemic areas in the preceding year. Additionally, we developed a molecular assay based on sequencing of the parasite mitochondrial genome to distinguish between P vivax and P simium, and applied this assay to 33 cases from outbreaks that occurred in 2015, and 2016. A total of 49 autochthonous malaria cases were reported in 2015-16. Most patients were male, with a mean age of 44 years (SD 14·6), and 82% lived in urban areas of Rio de Janeiro state and had visited the Atlantic Forest for leisure or work-related activities. 33 cases were used for mitochondrial DNA sequencing. The assay was successfully performed for 28 samples, and all were shown to be P simium, indicative of zoonotic transmission of this species to human beings in this region. Sequencing of the whole mitochondrial genome of three of these cases showed that P simium is most closely related to P vivax parasites from South America. The malaria outbreaks in this region were caused by P simium, previously considered to be a monkey-specific malaria parasite, related to but distinct from P vivax, and which has never conclusively been shown to infect people before. This unequivocal demonstration of zoonotic transmission, 50 years after the only previous report of P simium in people, leads to the possibility that this parasite has always infected people in this region, but that it has been consistently misdiagnosed as P vivax because of an absence of molecular typing techniques. Thorough screening of local non-human primates and mosquitoes (Anopheline) is required to evaluate the extent of this newly recognised zoonotic threat to public health and malaria elimination in Brazil. Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Rio de Janeiro, The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), JSPS Grant-in-Aid for scientific research, Secretary for Health Surveillance of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, Global Fund, Fundaçao de amparo à pesquisa do estado de Minas Gerais (Fapemig), and PRONEX Program of the CNPq.

B-11 プッシュプル型ペリメータ熱処理システムに関する実験的研究 : その1 水平ブラインドとロールスクリーンの揺れについて

B-11 プッシュプル型ペリメータ熱処理システムに関する実験的研究 : その1 水平ブラインドとロールスクリーンの揺れについて

Effects of Insect Screen Net on Insect Pest Control for Jujube

Effects of Insect Screen Net on Insect Pest Control for Jujube

3D mosquito screens to create window double screen traps for mosquito control

BackgroundMosquitoes are vectors for many diseases such as malaria. Insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying of insecticides are the principal malaria vector control tools used to prevent malaria in the tropics. Other interventions aim at reducing man-vector contact. For example, house screening provides additive or synergistic effects to other implemented measures. We used commercial screen materials made of polyester, polyethylene or polypropylene to design novel mosquito screens that provide remarkable additional benefits to those commonly used in house screening. The novel design is based on a double screen setup made of a screen with 3D geometric structures parallel to a commercial mosquito screen creating a trap between the two screens. Owing to the design of the 3D screen, mosquitoes can penetrate the 3D screen from one side but cannot return through the other side, making it a unidirectional mosquito screen. Therefore, the mosquitoes are trapped inside the double screen system. The permissiveness of both sides of the 3D screens for mosquitoes to pass through was tested in a wind tunnel using the insectary strain of Anopheles stephensi.ResultsAmong twenty-five tested 3D screen designs, three designs from the cone, prism, or cylinder design groups were the most efficient in acting as unidirectional mosquito screens. The three cone-, prism-, and cylinder-based screens allowed, on average, 92, 75 and 64% of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes released into the wind tunnel to penetrate the permissive side and 0, 0 and 6% of mosquitoes to escape through the non-permissive side, respectively.ConclusionsA cone-based 3D screen fulfilled the study objective. It allowed capturing 92% of mosquitoes within the double screen setup inside the wind tunnel and blocked 100% from escaping. Thus, the cone-based screen effectively acted as a unidirectional mosquito screen. This 3D screen-based trap design could therefore be used in house screening as a means of avoiding infective bites and reducing mosquito population size.

West Nile Virus lineage-2 in Culex specimens from Iran.

Screening of mosquitoes for viruses is an important forecasting tool for emerging and re-emerging arboviruses. Iran has been known to harbour medically important arboviruses such as West Nile virus (WNV) and dengue virus (DENV) based on seroepidemiological data. However, there are no data about the potential mosquito vectors for arboviruses in Iran. This study was performed to provide mosquito and arbovirus data from Iran. A total of 32317 mosquitos were collected at 16 sites in five provinces of Iran in 2015 and 2016. RT-PCR for detection of flaviviruses was performed. The PCR amplicons were sequenced, and 109 WNV sequences, including one obtained in this study, were used for phylogenetic analyses. The 32317 mosquito specimens belonging to 25 species were morphologically distinguished and distributed into 1222 pools. Culex pipiens s.l. comprised 56.429%. One mosquito pool (0.08%), containing 46 unfed Cx. pipiens pipiens form pipiens (Cpp) captured in August 2015, was positive for flavivirus RNA. Subsequent sequencing and phylogenetic analyses revealed that the detected Iranian WNV strain belongs to lineage 2 and clusters with a strain recently detected in humans. No flaviviruses other than WNV were detected in the mosquito pools. Cpp could be a vector for WNV in Iran. Our findings indicate recent circulation of WNV lineage-2 strain in Iran and provide a solid base for more targeted arbovirus surveillance programs.

Local phase quantization plus: A principled method for embedding local phase quantization into Fisher vector for blurred image recognition

Advances in computer vision and image processing technology have led to great success in image recognition when the images are clear. However, in real-world applications, images are often blurred due to factors such as atmospheric turbulence, object-camera relative motion, and focus. This imposes a great challenge on practical image recognition tasks. To improve the performance of burred image recognition, one main approach is to extract blur-insensitive visual descriptors. A well-established blur-insensitive texture feature, local phase quantization (LPQ), can achieve promising results, with a trade-off between effectiveness and efficiency. However, for complicated visual recognition tasks, its performance is still not satisfactory. To leverage the discriminative power of LPQ, we propose local phase quantization plus (LPQ+), which embeds LPQ into Fisher vector (FV) to acquire mid-level blurred image representation under the bag-of-words (BoW) model. To better fit FV, instead of using real and imaginary parts, as in LPQ, LPQ+ directly quantizes the local phases of the short-term Fourier transform (STFT) directly. This results in lower-dimensionality features, but stronger local pattern characterization power. LPQ+ is densely sampled for blurred image representation; a sliding window screens the image with vertical and horizontal strides. LPQ+s are then acquired from all resulting local regions. To better maintain spatial structure characteristics, the sliding window is divided into finer cells. After being FV-encoded, local LPQ+s are aggregated through sum-pooling to generate the image signature. A wide range of experiments on 5 challenging datasets of different types (textures, faces, scenes, clouds, and flower) demonstrate that LPQ+ significantly outperforms LPQ and other well-established visual features in discriminative power.

Assessing the use of artificial substrates to monitor Gambierdiscus populations in the Florida Keys

Four distinct coastal locations were sampled on a monthly basis near Long Key (Florida Keys, USA) over a 13-month period to study Gambierdiscus population dynamics on different substrates, including four macrophyte species (Dictyota spp., Halimeda spp., Laurencia spp., and Thalassia testudinum) and three artificial substrates (polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tiles, burlap, and fiberglass window screen). Cell densities of Gambierdiscus were generally lower on Dictyota versus Halimeda and Laurencia. Cell densities of Gambierdiscus were significantly correlated among macrophyte hosts in 54% of the comparisons, and between macrophyte hosts and artificial substrates in 72% of the comparisons. Predictive slopes determined from regression analyses between cell densities on artificial substrates and macrophyte hosts indicated that, on an areal basis, fewer cells were present on macrophytes versus artificial substrates (cells cm−2) and that slope variation (error) among the different macrophytes and sites ranged from 5% to 200%, averaging 61% overall. As the data required log-transformation prior to analyses, this level of error translates into two-orders of magnitude in range of estimation of the overall average abundance of Gambierdiscus cells on macrophytes (135 cells g−1 wet weight); 20–2690 cells g−1 ww. The lack of consistent correlation among Gambierdiscus cell densities on macrophytes versus artificial substrates, coupled with the high level of error associated with the predictive slope estimations, indicates that extreme caution should be taken when interpreting the data garnered from artificial substrate deployments, and that such deployments should be thoroughly vetted prior to routine use for monitoring purposes.

Plasmodium berghei PIMMS2 Promotes Ookinete Invasion of the Anopheles gambiae Mosquito Midgut.

ABSTRACTMosquito midgut stages of the malaria parasite present an attractive biological system to study host-parasite interactions and develop interventions to block disease transmission. Mosquito infection ensues upon oocyst development that follows ookinete invasion and traversal of the mosquito midgut epithelium. Here, we report the characterization of PIMMS2 (Plasmodium invasion of mosquito midgut screen candidate 2), a Plasmodium berghei protein with structural similarities to subtilisin-like proteins. PIMMS2 orthologs are present in the genomes of all plasmodia and are mapped between the subtilisin-encoding genes SUB1 and SUB3. P. berghei PIMMS2 is specifically expressed in zygotes and ookinetes and is localized on the ookinete surface. Loss of PIMMS2 function through gene disruption by homologous recombination leads to normal development of motile ookinetes that exhibit a severely impaired capacity to traverse the mosquito midgut and transform to oocysts. Genetic complementation of the disrupted locus with a mutated PIMMS2 allele reveals that amino acid residues corresponding to the putative subtilisin-like catalytic triad are important but not essential for protein function. Our data demonstrate that PIMMS2 is a novel ookinete-specific protein that promotes parasite traversal of the mosquito midgut epithelium and establishment of mosquito infection.

Guest room safety management of resort hotels as destination in Thailand (A case study of Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province)

The purpose of this study is to study the satisfaction level of guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province. A researcher adopted a quantitative methodology used a questionnaire with the accidentally-met Thai 387 tourists travelling to Khao Kor District during winter season which is considered as a high season in the area. The data from the questionnaire then is analyzed as descriptive statistics. Some interviews are conducted with the tourists to have more fruitful information. General information is analyzed by using descriptive statistics describing percentages. Information on satisfactions of in-room safety management of hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province is analyzed by using mean (X) and standard deviation (S.D.). The results revealed that the tourists are satisfied with the good condition and secured-lock guestroom door at most (X = 4.88), followed by the safe from outside danger of guestroom balcony (X = 4.84), the good condition and safe from danger of mosquito wire screens and curved steels (X = 4.74) respectively. Although the least satisfaction of the tourists about in-room safety management is light and well-ventilated guestroom toilets and clean sanitary ware (X=4.05), it is still in high level. Some useful suggestions from the tourists about the in-room safety management of hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province are the hotels should have a safety instruction in English and Chinese version because it will be useful for international tourists in case of emergency, a floor plan and fire exit way should be clear both picture and wordings so it will be easy to evacuate safely. In the meantime, next researcher should conduct other kinds of hotels in Khao Kor District such as guesthouses that are quite popular among the tourists to be aware of safety management may have.

Assessment of the impact of window screens on indoor thermal comfort and energy efficiency in a naturally ventilated courtyard house

ABSTRACTThe present paper assesses the contribution of window screens to the indoor thermal comfort in a vernacular courtyard house. The adaptive thermal comfort standard EN 15251 was adopted to carry out the evaluation of the case study which achieved accepted operative temperatures along the summer. The maximum indoor temperatures were reduced, in average of 5.5°C and 4.2°C below ambient for two different spaces. The window screens were then removed in the simulation model in TRNSYS, which resulted in increase of the indoor temperatures with an average of 2.4°C. The window screens were found to be efficient in reducing the cooling demand of 50% and 40% in two different spaces. However, considering the winter sun solstice, the absence of the window screens contributes to a slight increase of indoor temperature and hence decrease of the energy demand required for heating during winter time.

A method for assessing the performance of nanofiber films coated on window screens in reducing residential exposures to PM2.5 of outdoor origin in Beijing.

Recently, many nanofiber films have been developed for air filtration applications. These films exhibit high PM2.5 (particles with aerodynamic diameters less than 2.5μm) removal efficiency and relatively low air resistance. Thus, coating window screens with nanofiber films may be able to mitigate residential exposure to PM2.5 of outdoor origin. This study developed a method for assessing the performance of nanofiber window screens in reducing residential exposure to PM2.5 of outdoor origin in Beijing. The results show that the use of selected nanofiber window screens all the time throughout the year can reduce the mean value of the annual average indoor PM2.5 of outdoor origin by 64%-66% for Beijing residences. However, the mean value of annual harmonic average air exchange rate when the windows are open was also reduced from 2.34h-1 to 0.27-0.35h-1 , which is far below the national standard. If the nanofiber window screens were used only when the outdoor PM2.5 pollution was severe, the screens had less of an impact on residential natural ventilation, but the national standard still could not be met. Hence, more efforts are needed to further reduce the air resistance of nanofiber window screens in order to ensure proper residential ventilation.

Experimental validation and model development for thermal transmittances of porous window screens and horizontal louvred blind systems

Virtually every home in the US has some form of shades, blinds, drapes, or other window attachment, but few have been designed for energy savings. In order to provide a common basis of comparison for thermal performance it is important to have validated simulation tools. This paper outlines a review and validation of the ISO 15099 centre-of-glass thermal transmittance correlations for naturally ventilated cavities through measurement and detailed simulations. The focus is on the impacts of room-side ventilated cavities, such as those found with solar screens and horizontal louvred blinds. The thermal transmittance of these systems is measured experimentally, simulated using computational fluid dynamics analysis, and simulated utilizing simplified correlations from ISO 15099. Correlation coefficients are proposed for the ISO 15099 algorithm that reduces the mean error between measured and simulated heat flux for typical solar screens from 16% to 3.5% and from 13% to 1% for horizontal blinds.

ASQ-3 scores are sensitive to small differences in age in a Peruvian infant population.

The Ages and Stages Questionnaires Edition 3 (ASQ-3) are a well-validated international screen for developmental delays in young children. However, previous studies demonstrate variable scores between children eligible to take the same ASQ-3 interval. This study aimed to determine a relationship between age and ASQ-3 score for each screening interval. This was a baseline exploratory cross-sectional study of infants under 2years old evaluated for the Peruvian social programme Cuna Más. Participants were included in Cuna Más if they lived in districts with fewer than 2000 inhabitants or 400 homes, indicating a predominantly rural population. The appropriate ASQ-3 screening interval was administered to each subject. Subjects were divided into four 2-week chronological subgroups based on age within each 2-month screening window and aggregated across all 12 screening intervals. Fisher's exact test, analysis of variance and Bonferonni post hoc test were used to compare differences between age subgroups. Linear regression was performed to assess the relationship between ASQ-3 score and both aggregated and disaggregated age subgroup. A total of 5850 Peruvian infants were evaluated in 2013. Mean age was 13±6.6months, 50.7% were male and mean maternal education was 6.6±4.0years; 34.8% infants were stunted, 7.8% were underweight, 0.9% were wasted and 2% had age adjusted greater than 35days for prematurity for ASQ-3 interval assignment. Mean total ASQ-3 was 42.2±8.2. The ASQ-3 allocated 49.6% with suspected delay in one or more developmental areas. Before and after adjusting for wealth quintile, maternal education level, infant nutritional status and prematurity adjustment, age subgroup remained significantly associated with total ASQ-3 score (β=1.8, CI: 1.7-2.0, P<0.001), sectional ASQ-3 score (all P<0.001) and inversely associated with one or more scores indicating suspected developmental delay (P<0.001). The ASQ-3 may underestimate the sensitivity of child development to small differences in age in this population.

Community Based Survey of lower Urinary Tract Symptoms among Men with Cataract in North-Eastern Nigeria: A Window for Screening.

Community Based Survey of lower Urinary Tract Symptoms among Men with Cataract in North-Eastern Nigeria: A Window for Screening.

Control of Malaria Vector Mosquitoes by Insecticide-Treated Combinations of Window Screens and Eave Baffles.

We assessed window screens and eave baffles (WSEBs), which enable mosquitoes to enter but not exit houses, as an alternative to indoor residual spraying (IRS) for malaria vector control. WSEBs treated with water, the pyrethroid lambda-cyhalothrin, or the organophosphate pirimiphos-methyl, with and without a binding agent for increasing insecticide persistence on netting, were compared with IRS in experimental huts. Compared with IRS containing the same insecticide, WSEBs killed similar proportions of Anopheles funestus mosquitoes that were resistant to pyrethroids, carbamates and organochlorines and greater proportions of pyrethroid-resistant, early exiting An. arabiensis mosquitoes. WSEBs with pirimiphos-methyl killed greater proportions of both vectors than lambda-cyhalothrin or lambda-cyhalothrin plus pirimiphos-methyl and were equally efficacious when combined with binding agent. WSEBs required far less insecticide than IRS, and binding agents might enhance durability. WSEBs might enable affordable deployment of insecticide combinations to mitigate against physiologic insecticide resistance and improve control of behaviorally resistant, early exiting vectors.