The Safety, Immunogenicity, and Immunopersistence of Hepatitis A Vaccine in HBs-Ag-Positive Participants: A Retrospective Study

ObjectivesTo compare the safety, immunogenicity, and immune persistence of hepatitis A (HA) vaccines between HBs-Ag-positive and -negative participants.Method9000 participants were enrolled in the phase IV study of live attenuated HA (HA-L) or inactivated HA (HA-I) vaccines. The HBs-Ag-positive subjects were detected and became an independent observation group. Adverse reactions (ARs), geometric mean concentrations (GMCs) and seroconversion rates (SRs) of the vaccines were analyzed at five time points until three years after vaccination. Results: 120 HBs-Ag-positive subjects were screened out, only 1 participant had grade 1 experienced ARs after HA-L injection. Except the time point of two years, the SRs of HBs-Ag-positive group were 100% for both vaccines. The GMCs were not statistically different between HBs-Ag-positive and -negative groups after the HA-L vaccination. The logarithmically transformed GMCs for HBs-Ag-positive and -negative groups were 3.21 mIU/mL (95% CI, 2.03-4.39 mIU/mL) and 2.95 mIU/mL (95% CI, 2.88-3.02 mIU/mL) 28 days after the HA-L vaccination, respectively.ConclusionsBoth HA-L and HA-I vaccines were safe for HBs-Ag-positive participants and may provide an excellent long-term protection against HAV in this study. The results indicated that people positive or negative for HBs-Ag can receive both HA-L and HA-I vaccines (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02601040).

Collapsing electoral integrity in Mozambique

Excessive secrecy has always compromised the integrity of Mozambique’s elections. The National Elections Commission secretly changes results with no records kept nor any public notice that changes have been made. The official final results of the 2019 elections were changed three times by the Constitutional Council with no comment and identical document numbers. The political parties want a politicised electoral machine with party nominees to all electoral bodies, and integrity has steadily declined. By 2018-9 elections had become dominated by the ruling party, Frelimo, which was able to openly change the outcome of municipal elections and create 329 430 ghost voters in the national elections. Civil society observers had become an important check on elections; but in 2019, independent observation was blocked in several provinces and the head of civil society observation in one province was assassinated by a police hit squad. The judiciary, which ordered a rerun in one town in the 2013 municipal elections, has become politicised and will no longer intervene. This paper is an empirical account of those events.

Failed Kinship Politics: Three Cases of the 2020 Regional-Head Election in Jambi

The 2020 Regional Head Election continued to show the presence of Kinship Politics at the regional level, including in Jambi. The incumbents encouraged their family members to run as candidates in the election for Governor and Deputy Governor of Jambi, Regent of Batang Hari, and Mayor of Sungai Penuh. Surprisingly, Kinship politics failed to win in all three locations. This study aimed to analyze the failure of Kinship politics in the 2020 Regional Head Election in Jambi (namely Yuninta Asmara-Muhammad Mahdan in Batang Hari Regency, Cek Endra-Ratu Munawaroh in the election for the Governor of Jambi, and Fikar Azami-Yos Andrino in the election for Mayor of Sungai Penuh) through an independent observation from November 2020 to January 2021, as well as documentation of data and news related to the 2020 Regional Head Election in Jambi. The failure of the three candidate pairs was due to: first, the lack of public trust in the incumbent's family; second, the lack of campaign fund contributions; third, lack of promotions for the candidate pairs on social media; fourth, the lack of political communication between candidates, political parties, and constituents, while the alternative candidates optimally, effectively and efficiently managed the campaign team, campaign logistics, and their constituents; five, the alternative candidates' track records showed better credibility and capability; and six, better electability and acceptability of the alternative candidates. This study concluded that Jambi could be an example of minimizing the dominance of Kinship politics by using an alternative candidate who has a solid team, good online campaign management, and effective logistics management. Jambi can be a barometer of the rise of real democracy.

Improving the process of learning numerals in the 6th grade by applying algorithms. Part 1. The grammatical signs of types of numeral and features of their spelling and declension

The purpose of this article is to present a system for learning numerals in the 6th grade based on the methodology for compiling grammatical algorithms. The author examines the grammatical signs of the numerals’ types and the features of their spelling and declination, as well as the most grammatically difficult cases of numerals and nouns combinations. This article employs the collective and independent observation of students working with the grammatical material, its table systematization, and the algorithm compilation. The use of algorithms at the Russian language lessons creates the necessary linguistic foundation for improving the students’ speech culture; it also forms their algorithmic thinking and improves their spelling literacy.

Stability of non-linear filter for deterministic dynamics

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>This papers shows that nonlinear filter in the case of deterministic dynamics is stable with respect to the initial conditions under the conditions that observations are sufficiently rich, both in the context of continuous and discrete time filters. Earlier works on the stability of the nonlinear filters are in the context of stochastic dynamics and assume conditions like compact state space or time independent observation model, whereas we prove filter stability for deterministic dynamics with more general assumptions on the state space and observation process. We give several examples of systems that satisfy these assumptions. We also show that the asymptotic structure of the filtering distribution is related to the dynamical properties of the signal.</p>

Exploiting the Autozygome to Support Previously Published Mendelian Gene-Disease Associations: An Update

There is a growing interest in standardizing gene-disease associations for the purpose of facilitating the proper classification of variants in the context of Mendelian diseases. One key line of evidence is the independent observation of pathogenic variants in unrelated individuals with similar phenotypes. Here, we expand on our previous effort to exploit the power of autozygosity to produce homozygous pathogenic variants that are otherwise very difficult to encounter in the homozygous state due to their rarity. The identification of such variants in genes with only tentative associations to Mendelian diseases can add to the existing evidence when observed in the context of compatible phenotypes. In this study, we report 20 homozygous variants in 18 genes (ADAMTS18, ARNT2, ASTN1, C3, DMBX1, DUT, GABRB3, GM2A, KIF12, LOXL3, NUP160, PTRHD1, RAP1GDS1, RHOBTB2, SIGMAR1, SPAST, TENM3, and WASHC5) that satisfy the ACMG classification for pathogenic/likely pathogenic if the involved genes had confirmed rather than tentative links to diseases. These variants were selected because they were truncating, founder with compelling segregation or supported by robust functional assays as with the DUT variant that we present its validation using yeast model. Our findings support the previously reported disease associations for these genes and represent a step toward their confirmation.

The problem of implementation of teaching methods in questions-problems of school textbooks on biology

The study for the first time in didactics of biology puts the problem of realization of teaching methods of biology, classification is done by levels of cognitive activity of students in the system of questions and tasks textbooks on biology, as in the structure of the components of methodological textbooks are crucial in learning by students content.It was investigated that the question-tasks are intended to stimulate and direct the cognitive activity of students in the process of assimilating the content of the text of the textbook, thus contributing to the development of their cognitive interests and abilities, as well as the formation of skills and abilities of independent activity with educational material and during independent observation of natural and natural-social phenomena and objects.The classification of task-related questions by the main (dominant) function was presented, which made it possible to distinguish the following three groups (levels) of task questions:- the first level of difficulty - the easiest, performing reproductive function - the consolidation of knowledge, skills and abilities of students. Assist students to recite the studied, pay attention to the characteristic of natural and natural-social phenomena, processes and objects, to work with maps, charts, diagrams, tables, other illustrations of the textbook and contour maps;- the second level of complexity - help to master the methods of logical thinking and knowledge about the experience of creative activity, make it possible to establish interrelations and interdependence of local lore and internal phenomena and processes with the world;- the third level of complexity - help to master the experience of creative activity and form educational and research skills and skills in the process of independent observation and research, especially regional studies.The tracing of the availability of three levels of difficulty in textbooks in the textbooks allows the teacher to organize the training of all students, as well as to promote their self-education. The application of the systematic method of research has allowed to establish a divergence in the development of questions-tasks, the dispersion of numerous false categories, with a numerical predominance of their reproductive nature, which does not contribute to the modern requirements of creative development of students.

On the Cosmic Rotation Axis

Recently, Nodland and Ralston reported to have discovered a cosmic axis. We argue that their axis is supported by an earlier independent observation on the spin axes of galaxies in the Perseus-Pisces supercluster and explainable within the framework of Godel's cosmology.