Multiple Method Contraception Use among African American Adolescents in Four US Cities

We report on African American adolescents' (N = 850; M age = 15.4) contraceptive practices and type of contraception utilized during their last sexual encounter. Respondents completed measures of demographics, contraceptive use, sexual partner type, and ability to select “safe” sexual partners. 40% endorsed use of dual or multiple contraceptive methods; a total of 35 different contraceptive combinations were reported. Perceived ability to select “safe” partners was associated with not using contraception (OR = 1.25), using less effective contraceptive methods (OR = 1.23), or hormonal birth control (OR = 1.50). Female gender predicted hormonal birth control use (OR = 2.33), use of less effective contraceptive methods (e.g., withdrawal; OR = 2.47), and using no contraception (OR = 2.37). Respondents' age and partner type did not predict contraception use. Adolescents used contraceptive methods with limited ability to prevent both unintended pregnancies and STD/HIV. Adolescents who believed their partners posed low risk were more likely to use contraceptive practices other than condoms or no contraception. Reproductive health practitioners are encouraged to help youth negotiate contraceptive use with partners, regardless of the partner's perceived riskiness

Isolation and purification of a squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck-associated antigen identified by autologous antibody

We have previously shown that detection of autologous antibody activity to squamous cell carninoma of the head and neck many be augmented by dissociation in immune complexes. Western blot analysis with autologous antibody has identified a 60 kDa squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck-associated antigen in spent media and immune complex-dissociated serum ultrafiltrate not recognized by normal human area. Antigen-containing fractions of spent media were eluted from anion exchange columns immediately after serum albumin indicating that the antigen has an acidic PI Triticum vulgaris column. A single 60 kDa band was detected by silver stain and Western blot in antigen-containing fractions eluted following lectin affinity chromotography and SDS-PAGE. Final concentration of the antigen was determined to be 1 [mu]m/ml of protein with relative activity increased 1600 x over unfractionated spent media. We conclude that a squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck-associated antigen, detected by autologous antibody, is an acidic kDa glycoprotein.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30831/1/0000493.pd

Vocal Tract Images Reveal Neural Representations of Sensorimotor Transformation During Speech Imitation

Imitating speech necessitates the transformation from sensory targets to vocal tract motor output, yet little is known about the representational basis of this process in the human brain. Here, we address this question by using real-time MR imaging (rtMRI) of the vocal tract and functional MRI (fMRI) of the brain in a speech imitation paradigm. Participants trained on imitating a native vowel and a similar nonnative vowel that required lip rounding. Later, participants imitated these vowels and an untrained vowel pair during separate fMRI and rtMRI runs. Univariate fMRI analyses revealed that regions including left inferior frontal gyrus were more active during sensorimotor transformation (ST) and production of nonnative vowels, compared with native vowels; further, ST for nonnative vowels activated somatomotor cortex bilaterally, compared with ST of native vowels. Using test representational similarity analysis (RSA) models constructed from participants' vocal tract images and from stimulus formant distances, we found that RSA searchlight analyses of fMRI data showed either type of model could be represented in somatomotor, temporal, cerebellar, and hippocampal neural activation patterns during ST. We thus provide the first evidence of widespread and robust cortical and subcortical neural representation of vocal tract and/or formant parameters, during prearticulatory ST

The Science of Sungrazers, Sunskirters, and Other Near-Sun Comets

This review addresses our current understanding of comets that venture close to the Sun, and are hence exposed to much more extreme conditions than comets that are typically studied from Earth. The extreme solar heating and plasma environments that these objects encounter change many aspects of their behaviour, thus yielding valuable information on both the comets themselves that complements other data we have on primitive solar system bodies, as well as on the near-solar environment which they traverse. We propose clear definitions for these comets: We use the term near-Sun comets to encompass all objects that pass sunward of the perihelion distance of planet Mercury (0.307 AU). Sunskirters are defined as objects that pass within 33 solar radii of the Sun’s centre, equal to half of Mercury’s perihelion distance, and the commonly-used phrase sungrazers to be objects that reach perihelion within 3.45 solar radii, i.e. the fluid Roche limit. Finally, comets with orbits that intersect the solar photosphere are termed sundivers. We summarize past studies of these objects, as well as the instruments and facilities used to study them, including space-based platforms that have led to a recent revolution in the quantity and quality of relevant observations. Relevant comet populations are described, including the Kreutz, Marsden, Kracht, and Meyer groups, near-Sun asteroids, and a brief discussion of their origins. The importance of light curves and the clues they provide on cometary composition are emphasized, together with what information has been gleaned about nucleus parameters, including the sizes and masses of objects and their families, and their tensile strengths. The physical processes occurring at these objects are considered in some detail, including the disruption of nuclei, sublimation, and ionisation, and we consider the mass, momentum, and energy loss of comets in the corona and those that venture to lower altitudes. The different components of comae and tails are described, including dust, neutral and ionised gases, their chemical reactions, and their contributions to the near-Sun environment. Comet-solar wind interactions are discussed, including the use of comets as probes of solar wind and coronal conditions in their vicinities. We address the relevance of work on comets near the Sun to similar objects orbiting other stars, and conclude with a discussion of future directions for the field and the planned ground- and space-based facilities that will allow us to address those science topics

Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2, Genital Ulcers and HIV-1 Disease Progression in Postpartum Women

Co-infection with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) has been associated with increased HIV-1 RNA levels and immune activation, two predictors of HIV-1 progression. The impact of HSV-2 on clinical outcomes among HIV-1 infected pregnant women is unclear.HIV-1 infected pregnant women in Nairobi were enrolled antenatally and HSV-2 serology was obtained. HIV-1 RNA and CD4 count were serially measured for 12-24 months postpartum. Survival analysis using endpoints of death, opportunistic infection (OI), and CD4<200 cells µL, and linear mixed models estimating rate of change of HIV-1 RNA and CD4, were used to determine associations between HSV-2 serostatus and HIV-1 progression.Among 296 women, 254 (86%) were HSV-2-seropositive. Only 30 (10%) women had prior or current genital ulcer disease (GUD); median baseline CD4 count was 422 cells µL. Adjusting for baseline CD4, women with GUD were significantly more likely to have incident OIs (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 2.79, 95% CI: 1.33-5.85), and there was a trend for association between HSV-2-seropositivity and incident OIs (aHR 3.83, 95% CI: 0.93-15.83). Rate of change in CD4 count and HIV-1 RNA did not differ by HSV-2 status or GUD, despite a trend toward higher baseline HIV-1 RNA in HSV-2-seropositive women (4.73 log10 copies/ml vs. 4.47 log10 copies/ml, P = 0.07).HSV-2 was highly prevalent and pregnant HIV-1 infected women with GUD were significantly more likely to have incident OIs than women without GUD, suggesting that clinically evident HSV-2 is a more important predictor of HIV-1 disease progression than asymptomatic HSV-2

STEPWISE - STructured lifestyle Education for People WIth SchizophrEnia : a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: People with schizophrenia are two to three times more likely to be overweight than the general population. The UK National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends an annual physical health review with signposting to, or provision of, a lifestyle programme to address weight concerns and obesity. The purpose of this randomised controlled trial is to assess whether a group-based structured education programme can help people with schizophrenia to lose weight. METHODS: Design: a randomised controlled trial of a group-based structured education programme. SETTING: 10 UK community mental health trusts. PARTICIPANTS: 396 adults with schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or first-episode psychosis who are prescribed antipsychotic medication will be recruited. Participants will be overweight, obese or be concerned about their weight. INTERVENTION: participants will be randomised to either the intervention or treatment as usual (TAU). The intervention arm will receive TAU plus four 2.5-h weekly sessions of theory-based lifestyle structured group education, with maintenance contact every 2 weeks and 'booster' sessions every 3 months. All participants will receive standardised written information about healthy eating, physical activity, alcohol and smoking. OUTCOMES: the primary outcome is weight (kg) change at 1 year post randomisation. Secondary outcomes, which will be assessed at 3 and 12 months, include: the proportion of participants who maintained or reduced their weight; waist circumference; body mass index; objectively measured physical activity (wrist accelerometer); self-reported diet; blood pressure; fasting plasma glucose, lipid profile and HbA1c (baseline and 1 year only); health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L and RAND SF-36); (adapted) brief illness perception questionnaire; the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale; the Client Service Receipt Inventory; medication use; smoking status; adverse events; depression symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire-9); use of weight-loss programmes; and session feedback (intervention only). Outcome assessors will be blind to trial group allocation. Qualitative interviews with a subsample of facilitators and invention-arm participants will provide data on intervention feasibility and acceptability. Assessment of intervention fidelity will also be performed. DISCUSSION: The STEPWISE trial will provide evidence for the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a tailored intervention, which, if successful, could be implemented rapidly in the NHS. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN19447796 , registered on 20 March 2014

Functional brain outcomes of L2 speech learning emerge during sensorimotor transformation

Sensorimotor transformation (ST) may be a critical process in mapping perceived speech input onto non-native (L2) phonemes, in support of subsequent speech production. Yet, little is known concerning the role of ST with respect to L2 speech, particularly where learned L2 phones (e.g., vowels) must be produced in more complex lexical contexts (e.g., multi-syllabic words). Here, we charted the behavioral and neural outcomes of producing trained L2 vowels at word level, using a speech imitation paradigm and functional MRI. We asked whether participants would be able to faithfully imitate trained L2 vowels when they occurred in non-words of varying complexity (one or three syllables). Moreover, we related individual differences in imitation success during training to BOLD activation during ST (i.e., pre-imitation listening), and during later imitation. We predicted that superior temporal and peri-Sylvian speech regions would show increased activation as a function of item complexity and non-nativeness of vowels, during ST. We further anticipated that pre-scan acoustic learning performance would predict BOLD activation for non-native (vs. native) speech during ST and imitation. We found individual differences in imitation success for training on the non-native vowel tokens in isolation; these were preserved in a subsequent task, during imitation of mono- and trisyllabic words containing those vowels. fMRI data revealed a widespread network involved in ST, modulated by both vowel nativeness and utterance complexity: superior temporal activation increased monotonically with complexity, showing greater activation for non-native than native vowels when presented in isolation and in trisyllables, but not in monosyllables. Individual differences analyses showed that learning versus lack of improvement on the non-native vowel during pre-scan training predicted increased ST activation for non-native compared with native items, at insular cortex, pre-SMA/SMA, and cerebellum. Our results hold implications for the importance of ST as a process underlying successful imitation of non-native speech

Recombination and Population Structure in Salmonella enterica

Salmonella enterica is a bacterial pathogen that causes enteric fever and gastroenteritis in humans and animals. Although its population structure was long described as clonal, based on high linkage disequilibrium between loci typed by enzyme electrophoresis, recent examination of gene sequences has revealed that recombination plays an important evolutionary role. We sequenced around 10% of the core genome of 114 isolates of enterica using a resequencing microarray. Application of two different analysis methods (Structure and ClonalFrame) to our genomic data allowed us to define five clear lineages within S. enterica subspecies enterica, one of which is five times older than the other four and two thirds of the age of the whole subspecies. We show that some of these lineages display more evidence of recombination than others. We also demonstrate that some level of sexual isolation exists between the lineages, so that recombination has occurred predominantly between members of the same lineage. This pattern of recombination is compatible with expectations from the previously described ecological structuring of the enterica population as well as mechanistic barriers to recombination observed in laboratory experiments. In spite of their relatively low level of genetic differentiation, these lineages might therefore represent incipient species

The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We describe the design, construction, and performance of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Telescope located at Apache Point Observatory. The telescope is a modified two-corrector Ritchey-Chretien design which has a 2.5-m, f/2.25 primary, a 1.08-m secondary, a Gascoigne astigmatism corrector, and one of a pair of interchangeable highly aspheric correctors near the focal focal plane, one for imaging and the other for spectroscopy. The final focal ratio is f/5. The telescope is instrumented by a wide-area, multiband CCD camera and a pair of fiber-fed double spectrographs. Novel features of the telescope include: (1) A 3 degree diameter (0.65 m) focal plane that has excellent image quality and small geometrical distortions over a wide wavelength range (3000 to 10,600 Angstroms) in the imaging mode, and good image quality combined with very small lateral and longitudinal color errors in the spectroscopic mode. The unusual requirement of very low distortion is set by the demands of time-delay-and-integrate (TDI) imaging; (2) Very high precision motion to support open loop TDI observations; and (3) A unique wind baffle/enclosure construction to maximize image quality and minimize construction costs. The telescope had first light in May 1998 and began regular survey operations in 2000.Comment: 87 pages, 27 figures. AJ (in press, April 2006