PubMed · 10135935
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D Aquilina. 1994. Data tools: the promise and the problems.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10135935/
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INTRODUCTION: Sustainable control of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa is jeopardized by dwindling public health resources resulting from competing health priorities that include an overwhelming acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. In Mpumalanga province, South Africa, rational planning has historically been hampered by a case surveillance system for malaria that only provided estimates of risk at the magisterial district level (a subdivision of a province). METHODS: To better map control programme activities to their geographical location, the malaria notification system was overhauled and a geographical information system implemented. The introduction of a simplified notification form used only for malaria and a carefully monitored notification system provided the good quality data necessary to support an effective geographical information system. RESULTS: The geographical information system displays data on malaria cases at a village or town level and has proved valuable in stratifying malaria risk within those magisterial districts at highest risk, Barberton and Nkomazi. The conspicuous west-to-east gradient, in which the risk rises sharply towards the Mozambican border (relative risk = 4.12, 95% confidence interval = 3.88-4.46 when the malaria risk within 5 km of the border was compared with the remaining areas in these two districts), allowed development of a targeted approach to control. DISCUSSION: The geographical information system for malaria was enormously valuable in enabling malaria risk at town and village level to be shown. Matching malaria control measures to specific strata of endemic malaria has provided the opportunity for more efficient malaria control in Mpumalanga province.
The Swedish Family-Cancer Database was used to analyze concordant (same site) and discordant (different site) second primary neoplasms in 633,964 cancer patients diagnosed from 1958 to 1996. Cases of second malignant neoplasms were extracted from the Database if the diagnosis date of the first and second cancer differed by at least 1 month. The expected numbers of cancers were obtained by applying site-, sex-, age-, period-, residence- and socioeconomic level-specific rates in the corresponding population in the Database to the appropriate person-years at risk. The standardized incidence ratio (SIRs) of a second cancer was taken to be the ratio of observed to expected numbers of second cancers. Of all cancers, 8.5% were subsequent neoplasms (8.4% for males and 8.7% for females). SIRs for both concordant and discordant subsequent cancer were elevated in patients with cancer of the upper aerodigestive tract, colon, nose, breast, other female genitals, testis, kidney, urinary, bladder, skin, nervous system, endocrine, bone, connective tissue, melanoma, lymphoma and leukemia. The risks at some concordant sites, such as nose, squamous cell skin, bone and connective tissue in both sexes, breast in males and upper aerodigestive tract and leukemia in females, were very high (>10). At discordant sites, SIRs were less than 2 but significantly increased after all but gastric and prostatic cancer. Compared with the general population, cancer patients were at a modestly increased risk for new primary cancer after cancers at many sites, calling for attention in treatment, management and prevention.
Scaling of folding times in Go models of proteins and of decoy structures with the Lennard-Jones potentials in the native contacts reveal power law trends when studied under optimal folding conditions. The power law exponent depends on the type of native geometry. Its value indicates lack of kinetic optimality in the model proteins. In proteins, mechanical and thermodynamic stabilities are correlated.