Factors influencing young men's decision to undergo health screening in Malaysia: a qualitative study

Objectives: Uptake of health screening is low in men, particularly among those aged <40 years. This study aimed to explore factors that influence health screening behaviour in younger men. Design: This qualitative study employed an interpretive descriptive approach. Two trained researchers conducted in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) using a semi-structured topic guide, which was developed based on literature review and behavioural theories. All IDIs and FGDs were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Two researchers analysed the data independently using a thematic approach. Participants and setting: Men working in a banking institution in Kuala Lumpur were recruited to the study. They were purposively sampled according to their ethnicity, job position, age and screening status in order to achieve maximal variation. Results: Eight IDIs and five FGDs were conducted (n=31) and six themes emerged from the analysis. (1) Young men did not consider screening as part of prevention and had low risk perception. (2) The younger generation was more receptive to health screening due to their exposure to health information through the internet. (3) Health screening was not a priority in young men except for those who were married. (4) Young men had limited income and would rather invest in health insurance than screening. (5) Young men tended to follow doctors' advice when it comes to screening and preferred doctors of the same gender and ethnicity. (6) Medical overuse was also raised where young men wanted more screening tests while doctors tended to promote unnecessary screening tests to them. Conclusions: This study identified important factors that influenced young men's screening behaviour. Health authorities should address young men's misperceptions, promote the importance of early detection and develop a reasonable health screening strategy for them. Appropriate measures must be put in place to reduce low value screening practices

Barriers and facilitators to health screening in men: A systematic review.

RATIONALE: Men have poorer health status and are less likely to attend health screening compared to women. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review presents current evidence on the barriers and facilitators to engaging men in health screening. METHODS: We included qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method studies identified through five electronic databases, contact with experts and reference mining. Two researchers selected and appraised the studies independently. Data extraction and synthesis were conducted using the 'best fit' framework synthesis method. RESULTS: 53 qualitative, 44 quantitative and 6 mixed-method studies were included. Factors influencing health screening uptake in men can be categorized into five domains: individual, social, health system, healthcare professional and screening procedure. The most commonly reported barriers are fear of getting the disease and low risk perception; for facilitators, they are perceived risk and benefits of screening. Male-dominant barriers include heterosexual -self-presentation, avoidance of femininity and lack of time. The partner's role is the most common male-dominant facilitator to screening. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review provides a comprehensive overview of barriers and facilitators to health screening in men including the male-dominant factors. The findings are particularly useful for clinicians, researchers and policy makers who are developing interventions and policies to increase screening uptake in men

Multiferroicity in the generic easy-plane triangular lattice antiferromagnet RbFe(MoO4)2

RbFe(MoO4)2 is a quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) triangular lattice antiferromagnet (TLA) that displays a zero-field magnetically-driven multiferroic phase with a chiral spin structure. By inelastic neutron scattering, we determine quantitatively the spin Hamiltonian. We show that the easy-plane anisotropy is nearly 1/3 of the dominant spin exchange, making RbFe(MoO4)2 an excellent system for studying the physics of the model 2D easy-plane TLA. Our measurements demonstrate magnetic-field induced fluctuations in this material to stabilize the generic finite-field phases of the 2D XY TLA. We further explain how Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions can generate ferroelectricity only in the zero field phase. Our conclusion is that multiferroicity in RbFe(MoO4)2, and its absence at high fields, results from the generic properties of the 2D XY TLA.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted in PRB as a Rapid Communicatio

Stripe structure, spectral feature and soliton gap in high Tc cuprates

We show that the lightly doped La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} can be described in terms of a stripe magnetic structure or soliton picture. The internal relationship between the recent neutron observation of the diagonal (x=0.05) to vertical (x >= 0.06) stripe transition, which was predicted, and the concomitant metal-insulator transition is clarified by this solitonic physics. The phase diagram with the unidentified transition lines between antiferromagnetic to stripe phases, the doping dependence of the modulation period, the origin of the mid-infrared optical absorption are investigated comparatively with other single layer systems: La_{2-x}Sr_{x}NiO_{4} and (La,Nd)_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4}. The novel type of quasi-particles and holes is fully responsible for metallic conduction and ultimately superconductivity.Comment: 4 pages RevTex, 5 figure

Phase separation and the segregation principle in the infinite-U spinless Falicov-Kimball model

The simplest statistical-mechanical model of crystalline formation (or alloy formation) that includes electronic degrees of freedom is solved exactly in the limit of large spatial dimensions and infinite interaction strength. The solutions contain both second-order phase transitions and first-order phase transitions (that involve phase-separation or segregation) which are likely to illustrate the basic physics behind the static charge-stripe ordering in cuprate systems. In addition, we find the spinodal-decomposition temperature satisfies an approximate scaling law.Comment: 19 pages and 10 figure

Experimentally realizable characterizations of continuous variable Gaussian states

Measures of entanglement, fidelity and purity are basic yardsticks in quantum information processing. We propose how to implement these measures using linear devices and homodyne detectors for continuous variable Gaussian states. In particular, the test of entanglement becomes simple with some prior knowledge which is relevant to current experiments.Comment: 4 pages, This paper supersedes quant-ph/020315

Observational Constraints on the Formation and Evolution of Binary Stars

We present a high spatial resolution UV to NIR survey of 44 young binary stars in Taurus with separations of 10-1000 AU. The primary results include: (1) The relative ages of binary star components are more similar than the relative ages of randomly paired single stars, supporting coeval formation. (2) Only one of the companion masses is substellar, and hence the apparent overabundance of T Tauri star companions relative to main-sequence star companions can not be explained by a wealth of substellar secondaries that would have been missed in main-sequence surveys. (3) Roughly 10% of T Tauri binary star components have very red NIR colors (K-L > 1.4) and unusually high mass accretion rates. This phenomenon does not appear to be restricted to binary systems, however, since a comparable fraction of single T Tauri stars exhibit the same properties. (4) Although the disk lifetimes of single stars are roughly equal to their stellar ages, the disk lifetimes of binary stars are an order of magnitude less than their ages. (5) The accretion rates for both single and binary T Tauri stars appear to be moderately mass dependent. (6) Although most classical T Tauri star binaries retain both a circumprimary and a circumsecondary disk, there are several systems with only a circumprimary disk. Together with the relative accretion rates, this suggests that circumprimary disks survive longer, on average, than circumsecondary disks. (7) The disk lifetimes, mass ratios, and relative accretion signatures of the closest binaries (10-100 AU) suggest that they are being replenished from a circumbinary reservoir with low angular momentum. Overall, these results support fragmentation as the dominant binary star formation mechanism.Comment: 67 pages including 11 figures, LaTeX2e, accepted for publication in Ap

Magnetization curve of the kagome-strip-lattice antiferromagnet

We study the magnetization curve of the Heisenberg model on the quasi-one-dimensional kagome-strip lattice that shares the same lattice structure in the inner part with the two-dimensional kagome lattice. Our numerical calculations based on the density matrix renormalization group method reveal that the system shows several magnetization plateaus between zero magnetization and the saturated one; we find the presence of the magnetic plateaus with the n=7 height of the saturation for n =1,2,3,4,5 and 6 in the S =1/2 case, whereas we detect only the magnetic plateaus of n =1,3,5 and 6 in the S =1 case. In the cases of n =2,4 and 6 for the S=1/2 system, the Oshikawa-Yamanaka-Affleck condition suggests the occurrence of the translational symmetry breaking (TSB). We numerically confirm this non-trivial TSB in our results of local magnetizations. We have also found that the macroscopic jump appears near the saturation field irrespective of the spin amplitude as well as the two-dimensional kagome model.Comment: 6pages, 3figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Low Temperature Physic

Evidence for a Positive Cosmological Constant from Flows of Galaxies and Distant Supernovae

Recent observations of high-redshift supernovae seem to suggest that the global geometry of the Universe may be affected by a `cosmological constant', which acts to accelerate the expansion rate with time. But these data by themselves still permit an open universe of low mass density and no cosmological constant. Here we derive an independent constraint on the lower bound to the mass density, based on deviations of galaxy velocities from a smooth universal expansion. This constraint rules out a low-density open universe with a vanishing cosmological constant, and together the two favour a nearly flat universe in which the contributions from mass density and the cosmological constant are comparable. This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with `common wisdom'.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. Slightly revised version. Letter to Natur

Ferrimagnetism of the Heisenberg Models on the Quasi-One-Dimensional Kagome Strip Lattices

We study the ground-state properties of the S=1/2 Heisenberg models on the quasi-onedimensional kagome strip lattices by the exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group methods. The models with two different strip widths share the same lattice structure in their inner part with the spatially anisotropic two-dimensional kagome lattice. When there is no magnetic frustration, the well-known Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic state is realized in both models. When the strength of magnetic frustration is increased, on the other hand, the Lieb-Mattis-type ferrimagnetism is collapsed. We find that there exists a non-Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic state between the Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic state and the nonmagnetic ground state. The local magnetization clearly shows an incommensurate modulation with long-distance periodicity in the non-Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic state. The intermediate non-Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic state occurs irrespective of strip width, which suggests that the intermediate phase of the two-dimensional kagome lattice is also the non-Lieb-Mattis-type ferrimagnetism.Comment: 9pages, 11figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. Soc. Jp