1,164 research outputs found
Exploring the acceptability of two self-sampling devices for human papillomavirus testing in the cervical screening context: a qualitative study of Muslim women in London
Objectives We explored Muslim women's attitudes to self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) in the context of cervical cancer screening and their responses to two self-sampling devices.Setting A Muslim community centre in north-east London.Methods Following a talk given on the subject of cervical cancer and HPV at the community centre, 28 women were recruited to take part in three focus group discussions. The discussion covered cervical screening, self-sampling and HPV testing. Women were also asked for their responses to a swab self-sampling kit and a cervico-vaginal lavage device. Discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim and the qualitative data were analysed using Framework Analysis.Results Participants were generally positive about cervical screening but acknowledged that some women in their community were reluctant to offend because of embarrassment, language difficulties, fear or because they were unmarried and did not want to communicate implicit messages about being sexually active. Self-sampling met a mixed response - women were concerned about not doing the test correctly, but thought that it might overcome barriers to screening for some women. HPV testing itself was thought to raise potentially difficult issues relating to trust and fidelity within marriages. Although most women said they would prefer to continue to have screening by a health professional, if they were to perform self-sampling, there was overwhelming preference for the swab over the lavage kit.Conclusions There was limited enthusiasm for self-sampling in this group of Muslim women who had mostly attended for cervical screening, but a clear preference for a swab rather than a cervico-vaginal lavage
A deconvolution map-making method for experiments with circular scanning strategies
Aims. To investigate the performance of a deconvolution map-making algorithm
for an experiment with a circular scanning strategy, specifically in this case
for the analysis of Planck data, and to quantify the effects of making maps
using simplified approximations to the true beams. Methods. We present an
implementation of a map-making algorithm which allows the combined treatment of
temperature and polarisation data, and removal of instrumental effects, such as
detector time constants and finite sampling intervals, as well as the
deconvolution of arbitrarily complex beams from the maps. This method may be
applied to any experiment with a circular scanning-strategy. Results.
Low-resolution experiments were used to demonstrate the ability of this method
to remove the effects of arbitrary beams from the maps and to demonstrate the
effects on the maps of ignoring beam asymmetries. Additionally, results are
presented of an analysis of a realistic full-scale simulated data-set for the
Planck LFI 30 GHz channel. Conclusions. Our method successfully removes the
effects of the beams from the maps, and although it is computationally
expensive, the analysis of the Planck LFI data should be feasible with this
approach.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, accepte
An Automated Meeting Assistant: A Tangible Mixed Reality Interface for the AMIDA Automatic Content Linking Device
We describe our approach to support ongoing meetings with an automated meeting assistant. The system based on the AMIDA Content Linking Device aims at providing relevant documents used in previous meetings for the ongoing meeting based on automatic speech recognition. Once the content linking device finds documents linked to a discussion about a similar subject in a previous meeting, it assumes they may be relevant for the current discussion as well. We believe that the way these documents are offered to the meeting participants is equally important as the way they are found. We developed a mixed reality, projection based user interface that lets the documents appear on the table tops in front of the meeting participants. They can hand them over to others or bring them onto the shared projection screen easily if they consider them relevant. Yet, irrelevant documents don't draw too much attention from the discussion. In this paper we describe the concept and implementation of this user interface and provide some preliminary results
Quadratic Lagrangians and Topology in Gauge Theory Gravity
We consider topological contributions to the action integral in a gauge
theory formulation of gravity. Two topological invariants are found and are
shown to arise from the scalar and pseudoscalar parts of a single integral.
Neither of these action integrals contribute to the classical field equations.
An identity is found for the invariants that is valid for non-symmetric Riemann
tensors, generalizing the usual GR expression for the topological invariants.
The link with Yang-Mills instantons in Euclidean gravity is also explored. Ten
independent quadratic terms are constructed from the Riemann tensor, and the
topological invariants reduce these to eight possible independent terms for a
quadratic Lagrangian. The resulting field equations for the parity
non-violating terms are presented. Our derivations of these results are
considerably simpler that those found in the literature
Categorizing Fetal Heart Rate Variability With and Without Visual Aids
Objective This study examined the ability of clinicians to correctly categorize images of fetal heart rate (FHR) variability with and without the use of exemplars.
Study Design A sample of 33 labor and delivery clinicians inspected static FHR images and categorized them into one of four categories defined by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) based on the amount of variability within absent, minimal, moderate, or marked ranges. Participants took part in three conditions: two in which they used exemplars representing FHR variability near the center or near the boundaries of each range, and a third control condition with no exemplars. The data gathered from clinicians were compared with those from a previous study using novices.
Results Clinicians correctly categorized more images when the FHR variability fell near the center rather than the boundaries of each range, F (1,32) = 71.69, p \u3c 0.001, partial η2 = 0.69. They also correctly categorized more images when exemplars were available, F (2,64) = 5.44, p = 0.007, partial η2 = 0.15. Compared with the novices, the clinicians were more accurate and quicker in their category judgments, but this difference was limited to the condition without exemplars.
Conclusion The results suggest that categorizing FHR variability is more difficult when the examples fall near the boundaries of each NICHD-defined range. Thus, clinicians could benefit from training with visual aids to improve judgments about FHR variability and potentially enhance safety in labor and delivery
HPV self-sampling as an alternative strategy in non-attenders for cervical screening – a randomised controlled trial
BACKGROUND: A randomised trial to ascertain whether women who do not attend for cervical screening are more likely to respond to the opportunity to collect a self-sample for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, or to a further invitation to attend for cervical screening.METHODS: The study was carried out in a Primary Care Trust (PCT) in London between June 2009 and December 2009. In total, 3000 women were randomly selected from persistent non-responders (i. e., who had not responded to at least two invitations to attend for screening). The women were randomised on a 1 : 1 basis to either receive an HPV self-sampling kit or a further invitation to attend for cervical cytology. The main outcome measures were (1) percentage of women attending for cervical cytology compared with those returning a self-sample HPV test or attending for cytology subsequent to receiving the kit and (2) percentage of those testing positive for HPV who attended further investigation.RESULTS: The total response in the self-sampling group for screening was 10.2%. Of the 1500 women in the control group sent a further invitation for cervical screening, 4.5% attended for cytology screening. This difference is highly statistically significant (Po0.0001). Of the 8 women who tested positive for HPV, 7 attended for a cervical smear and had a concurrent colposcopy. Three of these (43%) had high-grade disease (defined as CIN 2+), with one found to have an invasive cancer (stage 1b) and one CIN 3.CONCLUSIONS: The value of this intervention relies on the detection of high-grade CIN and early stage cancer with a good prognosis. The relatively high yield of abnormalities found is consistent with that expected among a hard to reach and relatively high-risk group of women. Our study suggests that self-sampling could increase participation among non-responders in England, but further work is needed to ascertain whether the low response rate seen here is likely to be representative of the rest of the country. Other studies are needed to investigate the response to self-sampling in different demographic and geographic settings. British Journal of Cancer (2011) 104, 915-920. doi: 10.1038/ bjc. 2011.48 www. bjcancer. co
Fast and precise map-making for massively multi-detector CMB experiments
Future cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarisation experiments aim to
measure an unprecedentedly small signal - the primordial gravity wave component
of the polarisation field B-mode. To achieve this, they will analyse huge
datasets, involving years worth of time-ordered data (TOD) from massively
multi-detector focal planes. This creates the need for fast and precise methods
to complement the M-L approach in analysis pipelines. In this paper, we
investigate fast map-making methods as applied to long duration, massively
multi-detector, ground-based experiments, in the context of the search for
B-modes. We focus on two alternative map-making approaches: destriping and TOD
filtering, comparing their performance on simulated multi-detector polarisation
data. We have written an optimised, parallel destriping code, the DEStriping
CARTographer DESCART, that is generalised for massive focal planes, including
the potential effect of cross-correlated TOD 1/f noise. We also determine the
scaling of computing time for destriping as applied to a simulated full-season
data-set for a realistic experiment. We find that destriping can out-perform
filtering in estimating both the large-scale E and B-mode angular power
spectra. In particular, filtering can produce significant spurious B-mode power
via EB mixing. Whilst this can be removed, it contributes to the variance of
B-mode bandpower estimates at scales near the primordial B-mode peak. For the
experimental configuration we simulate, this has an effect on the possible
detection significance for primordial B-modes. Destriping is a viable
alternative fast method to the full M-L approach that does not cause the
problems associated with filtering, and is flexible enough to fit into both M-L
and Monte-Carlo pseudo-Cl pipelines.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures. MNRAS accepted. Typos corrected and computing
time/memory requirement orders-of-magnitude numbers in section 4 replaced by
precise number
SANEPIC: A Map-Making Method for Timestream Data From Large Arrays
We describe a map-making method which we have developed for the Balloon-borne
Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) experiment, but which should
have general application to data from other submillimeter arrays. Our method
uses a Maximum Likelihood based approach, with several approximations, which
allows images to be constructed using large amounts of data with fairly modest
computer memory and processing requirements. This new approach, Signal And
Noise Estimation Procedure Including Correlations (SANEPIC), builds upon
several previous methods, but focuses specifically on the regime where there is
a large number of detectors sampling the same map of the sky, and explicitly
allowing for the the possibility of strong correlations between the detector
timestreams. We provide real and simulated examples of how well this method
performs compared with more simplistic map-makers based on filtering. We
discuss two separate implementations of SANEPIC: a brute-force approach, in
which the inverse pixel-pixel covariance matrix is computed; and an iterative
approach, which is much more efficient for large maps. SANEPIC has been
successfully used to produce maps using data from the 2005 BLAST flight.Comment: 27 Pages, 15 figures; Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal; related
results available at http://blastexperiment.info/ [the BLAST Webpage
Attitudes towards cytology and human papillomavirus self-sample collection for cervical screening among Hindu women in London, UK: a mixed methods study
To explore the attitudes, views and understanding of women attending a Hindu temple in London, UK towards cervical screening, human papillomavirus (HPV) testing and two HPV self-sample collection devices: the Dacron swab and Evalyn(®) brush
Barriers to cervical screening in women who have experienced sexual abuse: an exploratory study
This study was supported by a grant from the
Barts CR-UK Centre (BCC) Development Fund and
Cancer Research UK Programme Grants (C569/
A10404 and C8162/A10406)
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