Large amounts of new data on the natural history and treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection have become available since 2005. These include long-term follow-up studies in large community-based cohorts or asymptomatic subjects with chronic HBV infection, further studies on the role of HBV genotype/naturally occurring HBV mutations, treatment of drug resistance and new therapies. In addition, Pegylated interferon α2a, entecavir and telbivudine have been approved globally. To update HBV management guidelines, relevant new data were reviewed and assessed by experts from the region, and the significance of the reported findings were discussed and debated. The earlier “Asian-Pacific consensus statement on the management of chronic hepatitis B” was revised accordingly. The key terms used in the statement were also defined. The new guidelines include general management, special indications for liver biopsy in patients with persistently normal alanine aminotransferase, time to start or stop drug therapy, choice of drug to initiate therapy, when and how to monitor the patients during and after stopping drug therapy. Recommendations on the therapy of patients in special circumstances, including women in childbearing age, patients with antiviral drug resistance, concurrent viral infection, hepatic decompensation, patients receiving immune-suppressive medications or chemotherapy and patients in the setting of liver transplantation, are also included.
Introduction: Cervical cancer rates vary across the world, being highest in Eastern Africa (including Zimbabwe) and lowest in Western Asia. It is the second most common type of cancer in women in the South East Asia region and a major cause of cancer deaths among women of low and middle income countries (LMICs) like Nepal. This review is an attempt to make a comprehensive report of prevalence, incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in LMICs. Methods: The review was conducted applying a computerized search with the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) major topics “Cervical Cancer”, “Cervical neoplasm” “Epidemiology”, (“prevalence” OR “incidence” OR “mortality”) and “HPV” OR “Human papillomavirus” as MeSH subheading. The search limits were: language (“English”), LMICs, dates (articles published from “1st January 2000 to 31st December 2015”), and species (“Humans”). The search was supplemented by cross-referencing. Publications that met the inclusion criteria were included in the synthesis. Results: Among the 20 studies reviewed; seven were from Africa, seven from Asia, three from South America, and one each from North America, Europe and Oceania. The review found the highest reported age standardized incidence rate as 17.9/100,000/year in Zimbabwe in 2000 and the lowest as 0.11/100,000/year in China in 2006. One study of Nigeria revealed a cervical cancer prevalence of 5.0 per 1,000 in 2012 in the 25-64 year age group. Further, the highest reported age standardized mortality rate was 16/100,000/year in India in 2015 and the lowest 1.8/100,000/year in Colombia in 2013. In addition, coitarche, tobacco smoking, number of sexual partners and family history of cervical cancer were reported as significant risk factors. Conclusion: The study provides a review of reported prevalence, incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in LMICs from 1st January 2000 to 31st December 2015. The scarcity of information reveals a substantial need for further studies on cervical cancer prevalence, incidence and mortality with associated risk factors in LMICs.
Stellar halos of galaxies retain crucial clues to their mass assembly history. It is in these galactic components that the remains of cannibalised galactic building blocks are deposited. For the case of the Milky Way, the opportunity to analyse the stellar halo's structure on a star-by-star basis in a multi-faceted approach provides a basis from which to infer its past and assembly history in unrivalled detail. Moreover, the insights that can be gained about the formation of the Galaxy not only help constrain the evolution of our Milky Way, but may also help place constraints on the formation of other disc galaxies in the Universe. This paper includes a summary of work undertaken during a PhD thesis aiming to make progress toward answering the most fundamental question in the field of Galactic archaeology: "How did the Milky Way form?" Through the effort to answer this question, we summarise new insights into aspects of the history of assembly and evolution of our Galaxy and measurements of the structure of various of its Galactic components.
We develop and apply a new framework for reconstructing the ionization history during the epoch of recombination with combinations of cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) and supernova data. We find a wide range of ionization histories that are consistent with current CMB data, and also that cosmological parameter constraints are significantly weakened once freedom in recombination is introduced. BAO data partially break the degeneracy between cosmological parameters and the recombination model, and are therefore important in these reconstructions. The 95% confidence upper limits on H0 are 80.1 (70.7) km/s/Mpc given CMB (CMB+BAO) data, assuming no other changes are made to the standard cosmological model. Including Cepheid-calibrated supernova data in the analysis drives a preference for non-standard recombination histories with visibility functions that peak early and exhibit appreciable skewness. Forthcoming measurements from SPT-3G will reduce the uncertainties in our reconstructions by about a factor of two.
There are about 6000 stars, that can be seen with the naked eye and have been observed for centuries for various purposes. More modern investigations using advanced telescopes show that our Milky Way, a quite common galaxy, consists of about 100 -- 400 billion stars. And, it is estimated that there are between 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe -- all of them consist mostly of stars, and sending observable signals which also represents nothing more than a superposition of the light of individual stars. So we can conclude that the most common observable objects in the Universe are $\textit{stars}$. In this chapter, we focus on the long history of the observation of stars (compared to studies in other fields of science) to find out more about the nature of these objects.
A strong and extensively developed system of education existed in Punjab before the onset of colonialism in India. Delhi was one of the districts of Punjab Province under the British rule. With the change of power, there came change in all aspects of administration and the system of education was no exception. The focus here is on the changes that were brought about in educational policies and their manifestations within the institutional domains after the Revolt of 1857 until the 1880s. This was also the time when nationalist sentiments were on the rise and organisations like Arya Samaj and Sanatan Dharma played a very important role in spreading education in Delhi.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that there is still an opinion, at least among the masses, that in pre-revolutionary times literacy was poorly developed among the Kalmyks. It was believed that representatives of the clergy and noble classes ― Noyons and Zaisangs — were literate. The clergy accounted for the largest percentage of literates, which was due to their type of activity. Nevertheless, there was an opinion that even among them the bulk was mired in drunkenness and deception of the ignorant masses of the people. The purpose of the proposed work is, as far as possible, to answer some of the above questions, although the study and coverage of the content of the problem as a whole is not a matter of one article. Materials and methods. To solve these problems, archival material, which is being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, is mainly involved. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to approach the resolution of certain emerging problems, abandoning the recent habit of approaching the analysis of a diverse historical panorama with a single pre-regulating theoretical attitude. Descriptive, historical-comparative, historical-genetic and analytical methods were used in the study. Results. In Kalmyk society, representatives of the Noyono-Zaisang environment were primarily literate. The Noyons were almost all literate, including their wives. The Zaisangs had a fairly high literacy rate; there were also women among the literate, but their number was small. There are no specific data on commoners, but it can be assumed that the number of literate among them was small. In the XVIII century. literacy education in general in the Kalmyk Khanate went in two directions. Russian Russian was taught to the representatives of the Kalmyks, and the Russians — Kalmyk. This training was initiated by the Russian government (translators, interpreters, etc. were needed) and spontaneously, in the process of everyday communication between representatives of neighboring peoples.
History of Asia, Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
Introduction. The article deals with some key stages and patterns of administrative governance sequentially adopted for Kalmyk Steppe of Astrakhan Governorate in the early-to-mid nineteenth century. This very period was witnessing the integration and incorporation of Kalmyk Steppe into Russia’s administrative system, though some ethnos-specific governance elements would still be retained. The related historiography contains no explicit data as to certain governance stages (and patterns) characterized by corresponding qualitative changes. Results. The paper examines the publication titled ‘Ministry of State Property over the Fifty Years, 1837–1887: A Historical Review’ (Pt. 2: Protectorship. Land Affairs) for provisions pertaining to the governance system in Kalmyk Steppe. According to the document, efforts of the Russian Government across Kalmyk Steppe in the early-to-mid nineteenth century were primarily aimed at: 1) interacting with ethnic elites, endowing the latter with certain rights and privileges, involving them into the imperial power hierarchy at regional and local levels; 2) introducing (step by step) imperial legislative and court practices (common-law norms remain in force at lower levels for civil circulation); 3) laying foundations of imperial financial and tax policies (given that local elites would retain their original privileges). Conclusions. Our insights into opinions and viewpoints of contemporary researchers have identified a number of distinct features inherent to the shaping and functioning of the administrative governance system in early-to-mid nineteenth century Kalmyk Steppe. So, the early nineteenth century namestnichestvo was essentially rather that of the late eighteenth century. At the same time, pristavstvo should be viewed only as a milestone towards popechitelstvo. In general, the three can still be considered as individual governance patterns — with differing governance objects. However, the basis was compiled from supervision and wardship, and preservation of some ethnic governance traditions.
History of Asia, Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
Uplift of the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau (HTP) and its linkage with the evolution of the Asian monsoon has been regarded as a typical example of a tectonic–climate linkage. Although this linkage remains unproven because of insufficient data, our understanding has greatly advanced in the past decade. It is thus timely to summarize our knowledge of the uplift history of the HTP, the results of relevant climate simulations, and spatiotemporal changes in the Indian and East Asian monsoons since the late Eocene. Three major pulses of the HTP uplift have become evident: (1) uplift of the southern and central Tibetan Plateau (TP) at ca. 40–35 Ma, (2) uplift of the northern TP at ca. 25–20 Ma, and (3) uplift of the northeastern to eastern TP at ca. 15–10 Ma. Modeling predictions suggest that (i) uplift of the southern and central TP should have intensified the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) and the Somali Jet at 40–35 Ma; (ii) uplift of the northern TP should have intensified the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM), as well as the desertification of inland Asia at 25–20 Ma; and (iii) uplift of the northeastern and eastern TP should have further intensified the EASM and EAWM at 15–10 Ma. We tested these predictions by comparing them with paleoclimate data for the time intervals of interest. There are insufficient paleoclimate data to test whether the ISM and Somali Jet intensified with the uplift of the southern and central TP at 40–35 Ma, but it is possible that such uplift enhanced erosion and weathering that drew down atmospheric CO2 and resulted in global cooling. There is good evidence that the EASM and EAWM intensified, and desertification started in inland Asia at 25–20 Ma in association with the uplift of the northern TP. The impact of the uplift of the northeastern and eastern TP on the Asian monsoon at 15–10 Ma is difficult to evaluate because that interval was also a time of global cooling and Antarctic glaciation that might also have influenced the intensity of the Asian monsoon.
The article seeks to explore the dimensions of ‘otherness’ in the attitudes of the Memsahibs, that is, how these women who accompanied British men to India perceived the ‘other’ in terms of the physical, cultural and moral attributes of the Indians and more significantly how they negotiate the ‘other’ in terms of language, climate, food, and so on. Do these women strive hard to bridge the gap between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ or continue to isolate themselves in their white enclaves? Did they try to reach out to the Indians or they deliberately tried to limit the contact zones with Indians? Whether their construction of Indians and Indian society is disparaging, sympathetic or appreciative? The three narratives have been perused to provide insights into these issues. The objective of the article is to deny the meta-narrative and instead present mini-narratives that reflect their plural and diverse experiences.
The article analyzes the role of the All-Union Society for Cultural Ties with Abroad in the development of Soviet-Japanese cultural relations. The author focuses on the main stages of the evolution of Soviet-Japanese relations from 1925 to 1939. Cultural activities contributed to the development of friendly bilateral relations. Notions about each other, familiarity with each nation’s traditions and customs have been formed through various exhibitions and film screenings. Tours of “Kabuki” in the USSR and visiting B. Pilnyak of Japan played an important role in the cultural convergence of the two countries.
Melioidosis is a severe systemic infectious disease caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, a gram-negative bacillus with bipolar staining. It is an environmental saprophyte endemic to Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. The disease can have varying manifestations. This is a retrospective study of the clinical and microbiological profile of culture-proven cases of melioidosis who presented to a tertiary care hospital in Coastal Karnataka between January 2018 and December 2020. The epidemiological, demographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics were studied and analyzed. A total of 27 cases were seen during the study period. All patients were from the western coastal areas of India. Fever was the most common presenting complaint. Analysis of the clinical manifestations showed 11 (40.74%) with bacteremia. Pneumonia was the most common primary clinical presentation with 11 cases (40.74%). 9 (33.3%) patients had an abscess in some part of the body on presentation. Secondary foci were seen in 5 (18.5%) patients. The prominent risk factors seen were history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, age >40 years, alcoholism and smoking. 13 (48.15%) were started with the treatment regimen for melioidosis. Only 8 (29.63%) were prescribed the eradication treatment regimen. One case which was inadequately treated came back with reactivation of melioidosis. Varied clinical presentation of melioidosis makes the specific clinical diagnosis difficult. Due to the high mortality and morbidity rate, early diagnosis and prompt management is warranted, this requires clinical vigilance and an intensive microbiological workup. Lack of adherence to the treatment protocol can lead to reactivation.
As the core technique of online recruitment platforms, person-job fit can improve hiring efficiency by accurately matching job positions with qualified candidates. However, existing studies mainly focus on the recommendation scenario, while neglecting another important channel for linking positions with job seekers, i.e. search. Intuitively, search history contains rich user behavior in job seeking, reflecting important evidence for job intention of users. In this paper, we present a novel Search History enhanced Person-Job Fit model, named as SHPJF. To utilize both text content from jobs/resumes and search histories from users, we propose two components with different purposes. For text matching component, we design a BERT-based text encoder for capturing the semantic interaction between resumes and job descriptions. For intention modeling component, we design two kinds of intention modeling approaches based on the Transformer architecture, either based on the click sequence or query text sequence. To capture underlying job intentions, we further propose an intention clustering technique to identify and summarize the major intentions from search logs. Extensive experiments on a large real-world recruitment dataset have demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach.