Characteristics of users of traditional contraceptive methods in Bangladesh

Various national surveys suggest that the % of eligible couples in Bangladesh who are using traditional methods of contraception has been growing. This article presents detailed information on knowledge and use patterns of traditional methods and compares the use patterns of traditional and modern methods of contraception. The data are derived from the 1981 Contraceptive Prevalence Survey and information collected from a nationally representative sample of ever married women aged under 50, by way of field interviews using female interviewers. Quality of data was checked at different phases of the survey. Over 96% of the women reported that they knew at least 1 traditional method of contraception. The safe period was the most well known method (36.5%); about 30% reported knowledge of abstinence and 22% knew about withdrawal. Compared with modern methods, where knowledge declined with increased age, the knowledge of traditional methods shows no systematic pattern by age. Respondents with primary and higher education have higher knowledge of traditional methods than women who have never been to school. A similar pattern exists for employment status; non-Muslim women have consistently higher levels of knowledge than Muslim women. Data on patterns of use suggest that about 36% have used at least 1 contraceptive method, 15% having used traditional methods and 20.4% modern methods. The number of women who have used traditional methods increases from ages 20 to 44 and then declines. Use of traditional methods is relatively higher by the number of living children than by the number of children ever born. A similar pattern of association between background characteristics (education, employment and religion) and contraceptive knowledge is evident regarding level of use. Husband's level of education does not show any significant relationship with the use of traditional methods. The use rate of traditional methods was more than doubled among the women owning land compared to those having no land. The total current use rate of modern methods was higher among women aged 40-44 having relatively higher numbers of living children. As with current use, a positive relationship was observed between the socioeconomic variables and ever use. In general, it is concluded that socioeconomic variables played a dominant role in the decision of couples in choosing various methods of contraception. It is suggested that traditional methods still have an important role in family planning and that this should not be disregarded.     

Use of Recommended Search Strategies in Systematic Reviews and the Impact of Librarian Involvement: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Recent Authors

BackgroundPrevious research looking at published systematic reviews has shown that their search strategies are often suboptimal and that librarian involvement, though recommended, is low. Confidence in the results, however, is limited due to poor reporting of search strategies the published articles.ObjectivesTo more accurately measure the use of recommended search methods in systematic reviews, the levels of librarian involvement, and whether librarian involvement predicts the use of recommended methods.MethodsA survey was sent to all authors of English-language systematic reviews indexed in the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) from January 2012 through January 2014. The survey asked about their use of search methods recommended by the Institute of Medicine, Cochrane Collaboration, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and if and how a librarian was involved in the systematic review. Rates of use of recommended methods and librarian involvement were summarized. The impact of librarian involvement on use of recommended methods was examined using a multivariate logistic regression.Results1560 authors completed the survey. Use of recommended search methods ranged widely from 98% for use of keywords to 9% for registration in PROSPERO and were generally higher than in previous studies. 51% of studies involved a librarian, but only 64% acknowledge their assistance. Librarian involvement was significantly associated with the use of 65% of recommended search methods after controlling for other potential predictors. Odds ratios ranged from 1.36 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.75) for including multiple languages to 3.07 (95% CI 2.06 to 4.58) for using controlled vocabulary.ConclusionsUse of recommended search strategies is higher than previously reported, but many methods are still under-utilized. Librarian involvement predicts the use of most methods, but their involvement is under-reported within the published article.     

Determinants of spacing contraceptive use among couples in Mumbai: a male perspective

This study aimed to determine the factors influencing the use of spacing contraceptive methods in India, particularly from men's perspective. Data were obtained through a semi-structured interview schedule from 2,687 married men aged between 18 and 40 years from central Mumbai City, India, during 1999. Chi-squared tests and binary logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the relationship between various variables and the likelihood of a couple using spacing contraceptive methods. Of the 2,687 couples, 1,395 (51.9%) were using one or other method of spacing contraceptives and 1,292 (48.1%) were not using any method at the time of survey. Male participation in contraceptive use was 23% (condom and withdrawal). The results indicate that the use of spacing contraceptive methods was significantly higher among those couples where the men desired one or two children (OR=4.3), had knowledge of five or more contraceptive methods (OR=1.9) and discussed with their wives obtaining family planning information (OR=3.2), spacing (OR=2.7) and permanent (OR=2) contraceptive methods. Age, income, desired number of children, knowledge of a greater number of contraceptive methods, inter-spouse communication regarding obtaining family planning information, spacing and permanent methods were found to be strong predictors of the use of spacing contraceptive methods. The study underlines the importance of intervention programmes aimed at promoting a small family norm, increasing the number of contraceptive choices available and encouraging inter-spouse communication. Hence, policymakers and programme managers should encourage interventions in this direction, targeting couples to enhance the use of spacing contraceptive methods.     

生态用水及其核算方法

生态用水研究是近年来国内外关注的热点。在综合分析国内外生态用水研究进展情况的基础上,针对河流、植被、湿地以及城市4种生态用水类型,对其核算方法进行了分析,比较了不同方法的优缺点及适用范围。提出目前生态用水研究还存在如下问题：(1)生态用水核算中采用的不同方法都有其各自的局限性,但又都是针对具体的研究区域、特定的生态系统的较实用方法。因此在生态用水的核算方法上关键是方法的选择和结合具体案例对核算方法在深度、精度上的进一步探讨;(2)生态用水的机理研究不够深入。以往研究直接以植被生长用水量、鱼类等需保护动物用水量等作为替代生态用水量,难以反映生态系统需水的真实状况;(3)在研究尺度上往往都显得过于宽泛,对研究区域的基本情况、生态条件及水资源现状很难有详细明确的认识,因此数据的真实性及结果的可应用性也必然降低。文章最后认为,今后生态用水研究应点面结合,加强机理研究,增强研究结果的实践意义。     

Profile-profile methods provide improved fold-recognition: a study of different profile-profile alignment methods

To improve the detection of related proteins, it is often useful to include evolutionary information for both the query and target proteins. One method to include this information is by the use of profile-profile alignments, where a profile from the query protein is compared with the profiles from the target proteins. Profile-profile alignments can be implemented in several fundamentally different ways. The similarity between two positions can be calculated using a dot-product, a probabilistic model, or an information theoretical measure. Here, we present a large-scale comparison of different profile-profile alignment methods. We show that the profile-profile methods perform at least 30% better than standard sequence-profile methods both in their ability to recognize superfamily-related proteins and in the quality of the obtained alignments. Although the performance of all methods is quite similar, profile-profile methods that use a probabilistic scoring function have an advantage as they can create good alignments and show a good fold recognition capacity using the same gap-penalties, while the other methods need to use different parameters to obtain comparable performances.     

Determinants of current contraceptive use and method choice in Mongolia

This study examines the determinants of current contraceptive use and method choice in Mongolia using data from the 1998 Mongolian Reproductive Health Survey and 2000 Mongolian Population and Housing Census. Since 1976, access to modern contraceptives has been liberalized and all restrictions on the use, distribution and import of contraceptives were removed in 1989. There were some increases in the use of modern contraceptives among married women in the 1990s; however, at the start of the twenty-first century the IUD and periodic abstinence remain the most widely used methods. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to be current users of contraception, and if they are current users, they are more likely to choose the IUD and traditional methods. Women living in rural areas have a higher probability of using contraception and are more likely to choose the IUD and traditional methods. Significant variations exist between primary sampling units in current contraceptive use and in the choice of modern methods. Community-level variables were important predictors in reducing variation between primary sampling unit, when other modern methods were compared with traditional methods.     

Cofactor Regeneration in Biocatalysis in Organic Media

Methods used for the regeneration of cofactors in organic media are reviewed. Substratedriven regeneration methods include the use of a second substrate of the same enzyme and the use of a second enzyme and its substrate. The use of mediators in oxidoreductions is described and examples of photochemical and electrochemical regeneration methods are presented. General problems and possibilities of cofactor regeneration in organic media are discussed.     

Imaging proteins inside cells with fluorescent tags

Watching biological molecules provides clues to their function and regulation. Some of the most powerful methods of labeling proteins for imaging use genetically encoded fluorescent fusion tags. There are four standard genetic methods of covalently tagging a protein with a fluorescent probe for cellular imaging. These use (i) autofluorescent proteins, (ii) self-labeling enzymes, (iii) enzymes that catalyze the attachment of a probe to a target sequence, and (iv) biarsenical dyes that target tetracysteine motifs. Each of these techniques has advantages and disadvantages. In this review, we cover new developments in these methods and discuss practical considerations for their use in imaging proteins inside living cells.     

Barriers to the use of modern contraceptives and implications for woman-controlled prevention of sexually transmitted infections in Madagascar

Globally, unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) persist as significant threats to women's reproductive health. Barriers to the use of modern contraceptives by women might inhibit uptake of novel woman-controlled methods for preventing STIs/HIV. Use of modern contraceptives and perceptions and attitudes towards contraceptive use were investigated among women in Antananarivo, Madagascar, using qualitative research. The hypothetical acceptability of the diaphragm--a woman-controlled barrier contraceptive device that also holds promise of protecting against STIs/HIV--was assessed. Women consecutively seeking care for vaginal discharge at a public health clinic were recruited for participation in a semi-structured interview (SSI) or focus group discussion (FGD). Audiotaped SSIs and FGDs were transcribed, translated and coded for predetermined and emerging themes. Of 46 participating women, 70% reported occasional use of male condoms, mostly for preventing pregnancy during their fertile days. Although women could name effective contraceptive methods, only 14% reported using hormonal contraception. Three barriers to use of modern contraceptives emerged: gaps in knowledge about the range of available contraceptive methods; misinformation and negative perceptions about some methods; and concern about social opposition to contraceptive use, mainly from male partners. These results demonstrate the need for programmes in both family planning and STI prevention to improve women's knowledge of modern contraceptives and methods to prevent STI and to dispel misinformation and negative perceptions of methods. In addition, involvement of men will probably be a critical component of increased uptake of woman-controlled pregnancy and STI/HIV prevention methods and improved health.     

Dynamic metabolomic data analysis: a tutorial review

In metabolomics, time-resolved, dynamic or temporal data is more and more collected. The number of methods to analyze such data, however, is very limited and in most cases the dynamic nature of the data is not even taken into account. This paper reviews current methods in use for analyzing dynamic metabolomic data. Moreover, some methods from other fields of science that may be of use to analyze such dynamic metabolomics data are described in some detail. The methods are put in a general framework after providing a formal definition on what constitutes a ‘dynamic’ method. Some of the methods are illustrated with real-life metabolomics examples.     

SPdel: A pipeline to compare and visualize species delimitation methods for single-locus datasets

An accurate species delimitation is critical for biological studies. In this context, the use of molecular techniques along with species delimitation methods would help to a rapid and accurate biodiversity assessment. The species delimitation methods cluster data sets of orthologous sequences in molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTU). In particular, the methods based on a single gene are easily integrated with the widely used DNA barcoding approach. We developed SPdel a user-friendly pipeline to integrate different single-gene species delimitation methods. SPdel is designed to calculate and compare MOTUs obtained by different species delimitation approaches. SPdel also outputs diverse ready-to-publish quality figures, that facilitate the interpretation of results. SPdel aims to help researchers use species delimitation methods that would improve biodiversity studies.     

Automated manipulation of systems biology models using libSBML within Taverna workflows

Many data manipulation processes involve the use of programming libraries. These processes may beneficially be automated due to their repeated use. A convenient type of automation is in the form of workflows that also allow such processes to be shared amongst the community. The Taverna workflow system has been extended to enable it to use and invoke Java classes and methods as tasks within Taverna workflows. These classes and methods are selected for use during workflow construction by a Java Doclet application called the API Consumer. This selection is stored as an XML file which enables Taverna to present the subset of the API for use in the composition of workflows. The ability of Taverna to invoke Java classes and methods is demonstrated by a workflow in which we use libSBML to map gene expression data onto a metabolic pathway represented as a SBML model. AVAILABILITY: Taverna and the API Consumer application can be freely downloaded from http://taverna.sourceforge.net     

An Evaluation of Measures of Synonymous Codon Usage Bias

Synonymous codons are not generally used at equal frequencies, and this trend is observed for most genes and organisms. Several methods have been proposed and used to estimate the degree of the nonrandom use of the different synonymous codons. The estimates obtained by these methods, however, show different levels of both precision and dispersion when coding regions of a finite number of codons are under analysis. Here, we present a study, based on computer simulation, of how the different methods proposed to evaluate the nonrandom use of synonymous codons are affected by the length of the coding region analyzed. The results show that some of these methods are heavily influenced by the number of codons and that the comparison of codon usage bias between coding regions of different lengths shows a methodological bias under different conditions of nonrandom use of synonymous codons. The study of the dispersion of the estimates obtained by the different methods gives, on the other hand, an indication of the methods to be applied to compare values of codon usage bias among coding regions of equivalent length. Received: 10 September 1997 / Accepted: 23 March 1998     

Phylogeny reconstruction: increasing the accuracy of pairwise distance estimation using Bayesian inference of evolutionary rates

Distance-based methods for phylogeny reconstruction are the fastest and easiest to use, and their popularity is accordingly high. They are also the only known methods that can cope with huge datasets of thousands of sequences. These methods rely on evolutionary distance estimation and are sensitive to errors in such estimations. In this study, a novel Bayesian method for estimation of evolutionary distances is developed. The proposed method enables the use of a sophisticated evolutionary model that better accounts for among-site rate variation (ASRV), thereby improving the accuracy of distance estimation. Rate variations are estimated within a Bayesian framework by extracting information from the entire dataset of sequences, unlike standard methods that can only use one pair of sequences at a time. We compare the accuracy of a cascade of distance estimation methods, starting from commonly used methods and moving towards the more sophisticated novel method. Simulation studies show significant improvements in the accuracy of distance estimation by the novel method over the commonly used ones. We demonstrate the effect of the improved accuracy on tree reconstruction using both real and simulated protein sequence alignments. An implementation of this method is available as part of the SEMPHY package.     

Bayesian data analysis in population ecology: motivations,methods, and benefits

During the 20th century ecologists largely relied on the frequentist system of inference for the analysis of their data. However, in the past few decades ecologists have become increasingly interested in the use of Bayesian methods of data analysis. In this article I provide guidance to ecologists who would like to decide whether Bayesian methods can be used to improve their conclusions and predictions. I begin by providing a concise summary of Bayesian methods of analysis, including a comparison of differences between Bayesian and frequentist approaches to inference when using hierarchical models. Next I provide a list of problems where Bayesian methods of analysis may arguably be preferred over frequentist methods. These problems are usually encountered in analyses based on hierarchical models of data. I describe the essentials required for applying modern methods of Bayesian computation, and I use real-world examples to illustrate these methods. I conclude by summarizing what I perceive to be the main strengths and weaknesses of using Bayesian methods to solve ecological inference problems.     

Ab initio protein folding

Ab initio protein folding methods have been developing rapidly over the past few years and, at the last Critical assessment of methods of protein structure prediction (CASP) meeting, it was shown that important progress has been made in generating structure from sequence. Both methods based on statistical potentials and methods using physics-based potentials have shown improvements. Most current methods use statistics-based potentials and the development of these is ongoing. Additionally, the inclusion of multiple sequence data in the algorithms in order to aid in finding the native structure is a common theme. The use of physics-based potentials is less developed, which means that less progress has been made in understanding why a sequence forms a structure.     

Tannic Acid in Histology: An Historical Perspective

The development of tannic add as a reagent in histological methods is traced against a background of widespread use in science and technology from times of antiquity. Numerous light microscopic methods involving tannic add, particularly in conjunction with iron and silver, have been described for a variety of tissue components. In most applications, tannic add functions as a mordant. Current use is generally restricted to methods based on its affinity for collagen. The most significant histological use of tannic add in contemporary times is as an adjunct to conventional glutaraldehyde-osmimn-heavy metal fixation and staining for ultrastructural studies of tissue structures not normally clearly demonstrated. Tannic add reacts with various components by mechanisms which are often not fully understood.     

Tannic acid in histology: an historical perspective

The development of tannic acid as a reagent in histological methods is traced against a background of widespread use in science and technology from times of antiquity. Numerous light microscopic methods involving tannic acid, particularly in conjunction with iron and silver, have been described for a variety of tissue components. In most applications, tannic acid functions as a mordant. Current use is generally restricted to methods based on its affinity for collagen. The most significant histological use of tannic acid in contemporary times is as an adjunct to conventional glutaraldehyde-osmium-heavy metal fixation and staining for ultrastructural studies of tissue structures not normally clearly demonstrated. Tannic acid reacts with various components by mechanisms which are often not fully understood.