Hepatitis C virus (HCV): prevalence in a gynecological urgent care clinic population.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) among women seeking urgent gynecological care. METHODS: Women were asked to complete a short self-assessment screening of HCV risk. Those answering yes to any of the screening questions were offered HCV testing and were asked to complete a more detailed questionnaire. RESULTS: Among the 125 women who completed the screening questionnaire, 80% (100) answered yes to one or more of the screening questions. Of the 99 women who underwent testing, six (6.1%) were HCV seropositive; a history of injection drug use was the only finding associated with HCV seropositivity (R.R 9.7: 95% CI 1.90-49.40). CONCLUSIONS: Women seeking urgent outpatient gynecological care, particularly those who are injection drug users, are at a substantial risk of HCV infection. A careful risk assessment should be completed in order to identify women who should be offered HCV testing

Prospects for Sustainable Housing in Northern Ghana with the use of Local Walling Materials

In 2006 the World Bank described Ghana as a third World country having only 1 out of 3 persons sheltered. Suggestions were made that locally available materials instead of imported materials be used in building so as to cut down on costs and subsequently increase supply of housing units. In response, this study, focusing on Northern Ghana, conducted a cross-sectional survey of seventy respondents with a structured questionnaire to identify the major locally available walling material in use as well as find benefits and challenges associated with it. Unburnt earth bricks were identified as the major locally available walling material in use in Northern Ghana. Benefits found to be promoting its use were the thermal comforts it provided, the manner housing became cheaper, the cultural heritage that it promoted and the fact that only simple tools and methods were employed in its use as a building component. Challenges associated with the unburnt earth brick wall were, lack of recognition by Statutory Authorities, lack of strength and durability, challenges in satisfying new needs in building forms and functions, invasion by termites and rodents as well as its weakness in withstanding vagaries of the weather. Recommendations were made to overcome challenges associated with the use of the material with the aim of enhancing prospects of adopting it for sustainable housing. The study concluded that the Locally available walling material in the form of unburnt earth brick had a huge potential for sustainable housing in Northern Ghana if only government would, through competitive tenders among building technologists utilise existing research findings to get the material stabilised to the required strengths and characteristics so as to pave the way for its recognition by statutory authorities and subsequent packaging for commercial use in the building industry. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in the areas of Environment, Architecture, Construction Management and Building Materials in a middle income country setting. Keywords: Local, Walling materials, Housing, Northern Ghana, Sustainability, Middle income countr

Role of Area-Level Access to Primary Care on the Geographic Variation of Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Distribution: A Multilevel Analysis of the Adult Residents in the Illawarra—Shoalhaven Region of NSW, Australia

Background: Access to primary care is important for the identification, control and management of cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs). This study investigated whether differences in geographic access to primary care explained area-level variation in CMRFs. Methods: Multilevel logistic regression models were used to derive the association between area-level access to primary care and seven discrete CMRFs after adjusting for individual and area-level co-variates. Two-step floating catchment area method was used to calculate the geographic access to primary care for the small areas within the study region. Results: Geographic access to primary care was inversely associated with low high density lipoprotein (OR 0.94, CI 0.91–0.96) and obesity (OR 0.91, CI 0.88–0.93), after adjusting for age, sex and area-level disadvantage. The intra-cluster correlation coefficient (ICCs) of all the fully adjusted models ranged between 0.4–1.8%, indicating low general contextual effects of the areas on CMRF distribution. The area-level variation in CMRFs explained by primary care access was ≤10.5%. Conclusion: The findings of the study support proportionate universal interventions for the prevention and control of CMRFs, rather than any area specific interventions based on their primary care access, as the contextual influence of areas on all the analysed CMRFs were found to be minimal. The findings also call for future research that includes other aspects of primary care access, such as road-network access, financial affordability and individual-level acceptance of the services in order to gain an overall picture of the area-level contributing role of primary care on CMRFs in the study region

Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire

This paper reports on a 4-year research and development case study about the design of citizen science tools for inquiry learning. It details the process of iterative pedagogy-led design and evaluation of the nQuire toolkit, a set of web-based and mobile tools scaffolding the creation of online citizen science investigations. The design involved an expert review of inquiry learning and citizen science, combined with user experience studies involving more than 200 users. These have informed a concept that we have termed ‘citizen inquiry’, which engages members of the public alongside scientists in setting up, running, managing or contributing to citizen science projects with a main aim of learning about the scientific method through doing science by interaction with others. A design-based research (DBR) methodology was adopted for the iterative design and evaluation of citizen science tools. DBR was focused on the refinement of a central concept, ‘citizen inquiry’, by exploring how it can be instantiated in educational technologies and interventions. The empirical evaluation and iteration of technologies involved three design experiments with end users, user interviews, and insights from pedagogy and user experience experts. Evidence from the iterative development of nQuire led to the production of a set of interaction design principles that aim to guide the development of online, learning-centred, citizen science projects. Eight design guidelines are proposed: users as producers of knowledge, topics before tools, mobile affordances, scaffolds to the process of scientific inquiry, learning by doing as key message, being part of a community as key message, every visit brings a reward, and value users and their time

Serious Mental Illness, Neighborhood Disadvantage, and Type 2 Diabetes Risk: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Aim of the Study: This review aims to systematically synthesize the body of literature examining the association between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and serious mental illness (SMI)-type 2 diabetes (T2D) co-occurrence. Methods: We conducted an electronic search of four databases: PubMed, Scopus, Medline, and Web of Science. Studies were considered eligible if they were published in English, peer reviewed, quantitative, and focused on the association between neighborhood disadvantage and SMI-T2D comorbidity. Study conduct and reporting complied with PRISMA guidelines, and the protocol is made available at PROSPERO (CRD42017083483). Results: The one eligible study identified reported a higher burden of T2D in persons with SMI but provided only a tentative support for the association between neighborhood disadvantage and SMI-T2D co-occurrence. Conclusion: Research into neighborhood effects on SMI-T2D comorbidity is still in its infancy and the available evidence inconclusive. This points to an urgent need for attention to the knowledge gap in this important area of public health. Further research is needed to understand the health resource implications of the association between neighborhood deprivation and SMI-T2D comorbidity and the casual pathways linking them

Core pinning by intragranular nanoprecipitates in polycrystalline MgCNi_3

The nanostructure and magnetic properties of polycrystalline MgCNi_3 were studied by x-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry. While the bulk flux-pinning force curve F_p(H) indicates the expected grain-boundary pinning mechanism just below T_c = 7.2 K, a systematic change to pinning by a nanometer-scale distribution of core pinning sites is indicated by a shift of F_p(H) with decreasing temperature. The lack of scaling of F_p(H) suggests the presence of 10 to 20% of nonsuperconducting regions inside the grains, which are smaller than the diameter of fluxon cores 2xi at high temperature and become effective with decreasing temperature when xi(T) approaches the nanostructural scale. Transmission electron microscopy revealed cubic and graphite nanoprecipitates with 2 to 5 nm size, consistent with the above hypothesis since xi(0) = 6 nm. High critical current densities, more than 10^6 A/cm^2 at 1 T and 4.2 K, were obtained for grain colonies separated by carbon. Dirty-limit behavior seen in previous studies may be tied to electron scattering by the precipitates, indicating the possibility that strong core pinning might be combined with a technologically useful upper critical field if versions of MgCNi_3 with higher T_c can be found.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR

Political Regimes and Sovereign Credit Risk in Europe, 1750-1913

This article uses a new panel data set to perform a statistical analysis of political regimes and sovereign credit risk in Europe from 1750 to 1913. Old Regime polities typically suffered from fiscal fragmentation and absolutist rule. By the start of World War I, however, many such countries had centralized institutions and limited government. Panel regressions indicate that centralized and?or limited regimes were associated with significant improvements in credit risk relative to fragmented and absolutist ones. Structural break tests also reveal close relationships between major turning points in yield series and political transformations

'This is what democracy looks like' : New Labour's blind spot and peripheral vision

New Labour in government since 1997 has been roundly criticized for not possessing a clear, coherent and consistent democratic vision. The absence of such a grand vision has resulted, from this critical perspective, in an absence of 'joined-up' thinking about democracy in an evolving multi-level state. Tensions have been all too apparent between the government's desire to exert central direction - manifested in its most pathological form as 'control freakery' - and its democratising initiatives derived from 'third-way' obsessions with 'decentralising', 'empowering' and 'enabling'. The purpose of this article is to examine why New Labour displayed such apparently impaired democratic vision and why it appeared incapable of conceiving of democratic reform 'in the round'. This article seeks to explain these apparent paradoxes, however, through utilising the notion of 'macular degeneration'. In this analysis, the perceived democratic blind spot of New Labour at Westminster is connected to a democratic peripheral vision, which has envisaged innovative participatory and decentred initiatives in governance beyond Westminster