Relationship of socio-economic status and childhood cancer: an in-hospital cross-sectional study in a developing country

Background: Socioeconomic factors are known to affect health quality, disease occurrence as well as health-seeking behaviors in several ways.Objectives: To determine the influence of socio-economic factors on awareness of cancer, healthseeking behaviors among parents of children with cancer in a developing country and occurrence of cancer using Burkitt lymphoma as index malignancy.Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that involved children with cancer seen over a 2-year period in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. Information was obtained by interview through administration of a questionnaire and retrieval of clinical data from patients’ case notes.Results: The caregivers of 91 children (46 boys, 45 girls) were interviewed including 86 biological parents. Majority (84.6%) of the children belonged to the low socio -economic classes 3-5; 45 of 86 parents (52.3%), more likely in parents from higher socioeconomic classes, were aware of cancer but only 7 (8.1%) knew it could occur in children. There was no association between Burkitt lymphoma and socio-economic class. Twenty-eight (30.8%) parents of the 91 children visited alternate sources of health care, most commonly traditional healers, followed by religious centers. There was no association between visits to such centers and the parents’ socio-economic status or with presentation with metastatic disease.Conclusions: Awareness of childhood cancer is low among this cohort of parents; their socioeconomic status seems to impact on this level of awareness but not on their health-seeking behaviors for their affected children. Focused health education is needed to increase childhood cancer awareness and appropriate healthseeking behavior among the population studied.Key words: socio-economic; childhood; cancer; health-seeking; behaviour; awarenes

Clades and clans: a comparison study of two evolutionary models

The Yule-Harding-Kingman (YHK) model and the proportional to distinguishable arrangements (PDA) model are two binary tree generating models that are widely used in evolutionary biology. Understanding the distributions of clade sizes under these two models provides valuable insights into macro-evolutionary processes, and is important in hypothesis testing and Bayesian analyses in phylogenetics. Here we show that these distributions are log-convex, which implies that very large clades or very small clades are more likely to occur under these two models. Moreover, we prove that there exists a critical value $\kappa(n)$ for each $n\geqslant 4$ such that for a given clade with size $k$, the probability that this clade is contained in a random tree with $n$ leaves generated under the YHK model is higher than that under the PDA model if $1<k<\kappa(n)$, and lower if $\kappa(n)<k<n$. Finally, we extend our results to binary unrooted trees, and obtain similar results for the distributions of clan sizes.Comment: 21page

The gravitationally lensed, luminous infrared galaxy IRAS F10214+4724 observed with XMM-Newton

We report on a short XMM-Newton observation of the gravitationally-lensed, luminous infrared galaxy IRAS F10214+4724 at z=2.3. A faint X-ray source is detected at 4 sigma. The observed 0.5-2 keV (1.7-6.6 keV in the rest-frame) flux is 1.3e-15 erg/s/cm2 and the spectral slope in the rest-frame 1-10 keV band is Gamma~2. These results agree with those obtained from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, given the large uncertainties in both measurements. While possible evidence for excess emission above 5 keV is seen, we suspect this excess might be either spurious or not related to the infrared galaxy.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, New Astronomy in pres

Reptile volatilome profiling optimisation: A pathway towards forensic applications

Reptiles are the most trafficked live taxa in the illegal wildlife trade, in part due to their popularity as an exotic pet. Current methods used to detect these illegally trafficked animals are limited. This study optimised the collection and analysis parameters associated with volatilome collection that will set the foundation for targeted odourant detection methods. This study determined that the dual sorbent type (Tenax® TA and Carbograph 5DT) in combination with 20-min sampling times and 15-min sampling intervals collected the most reproducible reptile volatilome profiles. It was also determined that desorption methods with mid-range desorption flows (20 ml/min), trap temperatures (-15 °C), and mid-range trap desorption (25 ml/min) were most effective in retrieving collected reptile volatilomes. Two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used for analysis, where combined Rxi-624 Sil MS (mid-polar) first dimension and Stabilwax® (polar) second dimension column sets were selected as the most effective columns for analysing reptile volatilomes. The resultant data collected and analysed using these parameters demonstrated that individual volatilomes from three reptile species were distinct using principal component analysis. In addition, this work highlighted the need for more rigorous statistical methods to determine reptile biomarkers and which compounds most significantly influence volatilome profiles between species

Universal Quantum Computation using Exchange Interactions and Teleportation of Single-Qubit Operations

We show how to construct a universal set of quantum logic gates using control over exchange interactions and single- and two-spin measurements only. Single-spin unitary operations are teleported instead of being executed directly, thus eliminating a major difficulty in the construction of several of the most promising proposals for solid-state quantum computation, such as spin-coupled quantum dots, donor-atom nuclear spins in silicon, and electrons on helium. Contrary to previous proposals dealing with this difficulty, our scheme requires no encoding redundancy. We also discuss an application to superconducting phase qubits.Comment: 4.5 pages, including 2 figure

Randomised pragmatic waitlist trial with process evaluation investigating the effectiveness of peer support after brain injury: protocol.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an important global health problem. Formal service provision fails to address the ongoing needs of people with TBI and their family in the context of a social and relational process of learning to live with and adapt to life after TBI. Our feasibility study reported peer support after TBI is acceptable to both mentors and mentees with reported benefits indicating a high potential for effectiveness and likelihood of improving outcomes for both mentees and their mentors. To (a) test the effectiveness of a peer support intervention for improving participation, health and well-being outcomes after TBI and (b) determine key process variables relating to intervention, context and implementation to underpin an evidence-based framework for ongoing service provision. A randomised pragmatic waitlist trial with process evaluation. Mentee participants (n=46) will be included if they have moderate or severe TBI and are no more than 18 months post-injury. Mentor participants (n=18) will be people with TBI up to 6 years after injury, who were discharged from inpatient rehabilitation at least 1 year prior. The primary outcome will be mentee participation, measured using the Impact on Participation and Autonomy questionnaire after 22 weeks. Primary analysis of the continuous variables will be analysis of covariance with baseline measurement as a covariate and randomised treatment as the main explanatory predictor variable at 22 weeks. Process evaluation will include analysis of intervention-related data and qualitative data collected from mentors and service coordinators. Data synthesis will inform the development of a service framework for future implementation. Ethics approval has been obtained from the New Zealand Health and Disability Ethics Committee (19/NTB/82) and Auckland University of Technology Ethics Committee (19/345). Dissemination of findings will be via traditional academic routes including publication in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals. ACTRN12619001002178. [Abstract copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Matrix remodelling in Dupuytren's disease - the cause for progressive contracture

It is uncertain whether Dupuytren’s contracture is purely a result of matrix deposition or whether cellular contractility also plays a role. We determined the relative contributions made by cells and matrix remodeling in an in-vitro model

ALMA reveals a chemically evolved submillimeter galaxy at z=4.76

The chemical properties of high-z galaxies provide important information to constrain galaxy evolutionary scenarios. However, widely-used metallicity diagnostics based on rest-frame optical emission lines are not usable for heavily dust-enshrouded galaxies (such as Sub-Millimeter Galaxies; SMGs), especially at z>3. Here we focus on the flux ratio of the far-infrared fine-structure emission lines [NII]205um and [CII]158um to assess the metallicity of high-z SMGs. Through ALMA cycle 0 observations, we have detected the [NII]205um emission in a strongly [CII]-emitting SMG, LESS J033229.4-275619 at z=4.76. The velocity-integrated [NII]/[CII] flux ratio is 0.043 +/- 0.008. This is the first measurement of the [NII]/[CII] flux ratio in high-z galaxies, and the inferred flux ratio is similar to the ratio observed in the nearby universe (~0.02-0.07). The velocity-integrated flux ratio and photoionization models suggest that the metallicity in this SMG is consistent with solar, implying the chemical evolution has progressed very rapidly in this system at z=4.76. We also obtain a tight upper limit on the CO(12-11) transition, which translates into CO(12-11)/CO(2-1) <3.8 (3 sigma). This suggests that the molecular gas clouds in LESS J033229.4-275619 are not affected significantly by the radiation field emitted by the AGN in this system.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letter

Chromosomal evolution in the South American nymphalidae

We give the chromosome numbers of about 80 species or subspecies of Biblidinae as well as of numbers of neotropical Libytheinae (one species), Cyrestinae (4) Apaturinae (7), Nymphalinae (about 40), Limenitidinae (16) and Heliconiinae (11). Libytheana has about n=32, the Biblidinae, Apaturinae and Nymphalinae have in general n=31, the Limenitidinae have n=30, the few Argynnini n=31 and the few species of Acraeni studied have also mostly n=31. The results agree with earlier data from the Afrotropical species of these taxa. We supplement these data with our earlier observations on Heliconiini, Danainae and the Neotropical Satyroid taxa. The lepidopteran modal n=29-31 represents clearly the ancestral condition among the Nymphalidae, from which taxa with various chromosome numbers have differentiated. The overall results show that Neotropical taxa have a tendency to evolve karyotype instability, which is in stark contrast to the otherwise stable chromosome numbers that characterize both Lepidoptera and Trichoptera.144413714