A Retrospective Study on Pathologic Features and Racial Disparities in Prostate Cancer

We reviewed more than 3,000 pathology reports on prostate cancer-related surgical specimens and analyzed racial disparities in histological and clinical features at the time of initial biopsy, diagnosis of prostate cancer, and prostatectomy, as well as in characteristics of tumor evolution between African American and Caucasian patients. As compared to Caucasians, African American patients had younger age, higher cancer detection rate, higher Gleason score of prostate cancer, and more bilateral involvement of the prostate. African Americans also had larger prostates, greater volume of tumor, and more positive margins. The diagnosis of HGPIN or ASAP in prostate biopsies and African American race conferred an increased risk of diagnosis of prostate cancer. The interval between prior noncancerous biopsy and the subsequent biopsy with diagnosis of prostate cancer was shorter in men with HGPIN, with ASAP, or of African American race

What is best practice in sex and relationship education? A synthesis of evidence, including stakeholders' views.

OBJECTIVES: Sex and relationship education (SRE) is regarded as vital to improving young people's sexual health, but a third of schools in England lacks good SRE and government guidance is outdated. We aimed to identify what makes SRE programmes effective, acceptable, sustainable and capable of faithful implementation. DESIGN: This is a synthesis of findings from five research packages that we conducted (practitioner interviews, case study investigation, National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, review of reviews and qualitative synthesis). We also gained feedback on our research from stakeholder consultations. SETTINGS: Primary research and stakeholder consultations were conducted in the UK. Secondary research draws on studies worldwide. RESULTS: Our findings indicate that school-based SRE and school-linked sexual health services can be effective at improving sexual health. We found professional consensus that good programmes start in primary school. Professionals and young people agreed that good programmes are age-appropriate, interactive and take place in a safe environment. Some young women reported preferring single-sex classes, but young men appeared to want mixed classes. Young people and professionals agreed that SRE should take a 'life skills' approach and not focus on abstinence. Young people advocated a 'sex-positive' approach but reported this was lacking. Young people and professionals agreed that SRE should discuss risks, but young people indicated that approaches to risk need revising. Professionals felt teachers should be involved in SRE delivery, but many young people reported disliking having their teachers deliver SRE and we found that key messages could become lost when interpreted by teachers. The divergence between young people and professionals was echoed by stakeholders. We developed criteria for best practice based on the evidence. CONCLUSIONS: We identified key features of effective and acceptable SRE. Our best practice criteria can be used to evaluate existing programmes, contribute to the development of new programmes and inform consultations around statutory SRE

English in Wartime: A Symposium by College Teachers

After the declaration of war upon us by the Axis nations, it seemed the editors of College English that the members of the College should, as soon as possible, co-operate in determining how best to fulfil our special responsibility throughout World War II. As a first step, we invited twenty-five teachers of English in colleges and universities to suggest how we should meet this professional emergency. The Planning Commission of the N.C.T.E., at their meeting in Chicago during the Christmas holidays, and the College Section, at their meeting in Indianapolis with the M.L.A., considered general and basic wartime policies for the National Council. The result of these deliberations will be presented in the March College English. To assemble a preliminary survey of opinion on the teaching of English in World War II, we had to act quickly in order to meet the deadline for the February issue. Nine letters from college men and women came back in time to be included in the symposium. The weakness of the small number, however, is overcome by the strength of the unified and obviously representative character of the responses. Teachers of English believe in the permanent value of the work they are doing. In peace or in war the discipline of the humanities is a way to decency in human relations. Those who have written for the symposium agree that our time of emergency requires of us, as teachers of English, a more vigorous concentration than ever upon clear expression and broad, permanently vital reading. We will need to make curriculum changes, and individually we will perform special wartime duties; but the initial message from outstanding college teachers is that we must do the job for which we are trained: help others to realize the power which emanates from great literature to live humanely in the midst of conflict

TADPOL: A 1.3 mm Survey of Dust Polarization in Star-forming Cores and Regions

We present {\lambda}1.3 mm CARMA observations of dust polarization toward 30 star-forming cores and 8 star-forming regions from the TADPOL survey. We show maps of all sources, and compare the ~2.5" resolution TADPOL maps with ~20" resolution polarization maps from single-dish submillimeter telescopes. Here we do not attempt to interpret the detailed B-field morphology of each object. Rather, we use average B-field orientations to derive conclusions in a statistical sense from the ensemble of sources, bearing in mind that these average orientations can be quite uncertain. We discuss three main findings: (1) A subset of the sources have consistent magnetic field (B-field) orientations between large (~20") and small (~2.5") scales. Those same sources also tend to have higher fractional polarizations than the sources with inconsistent large-to-small-scale fields. We interpret this to mean that in at least some cases B-fields play a role in regulating the infall of material all the way down to the ~1000 AU scales of protostellar envelopes. (2) Outflows appear to be randomly aligned with B-fields; although, in sources with low polarization fractions there is a hint that outflows are preferentially perpendicular to small-scale B-fields, which suggests that in these sources the fields have been wrapped up by envelope rotation. (3) Finally, even at ~2.5" resolution we see the so-called "polarization hole" effect, where the fractional polarization drops significantly near the total intensity peak. All data are publicly available in the electronic edition of this article.Comment: 53 pages, 37 figures -- main body (13 pp., 3 figures), source maps (32 pp., 34 figures), source descriptions (8 pp.). Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Supplemen

Identification of plasma lipid biomarkers for prostate cancer by lipidomics and bioinformatics

Background: Lipids have critical functions in cellular energy storage, structure and signaling. Many individual lipid molecules have been associated with the evolution of prostate cancer; however, none of them has been approved to be used as a biomarker. The aim of this study is to identify lipid molecules from hundreds plasma apparent lipid species as biomarkers for diagnosis of prostate cancer. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using lipidomics, lipid profiling of 390 individual apparent lipid species was performed on 141 plasma samples from 105 patients with prostate cancer and 36 male controls. High throughput data generated from lipidomics were analyzed using bioinformatic and statistical methods. From 390 apparent lipid species, 35 species were demonstrated to have potential in differentiation of prostate cancer. Within the 35 species, 12 were identified as individual plasma lipid biomarkers for diagnosis of prostate cancer with a sensitivity above 80%, specificity above 50% and accuracy above 80%. Using top 15 of 35 potential biomarkers together increased predictive power dramatically in diagnosis of prostate cancer with a sensitivity of 93.6%, specificity of 90.1% and accuracy of 97.3%. Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) demonstrated that patient and control populations were visually separated by identified lipid biomarkers. RandomForest and 10-fold cross validation analyses demonstrated that the identified lipid biomarkers were able to predict unknown populations accurately, and this was not influenced by patient's age and race. Three out of 13 lipid classes, phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), ether-linked phosphatidylethanolamine (ePE) and ether-linked phosphatidylcholine (ePC) could be considered as biomarkers in diagnosis of prostate cancer. Conclusions/Significance: Using lipidomics and bioinformatic and statistical methods, we have identified a few out of hundreds plasma apparent lipid molecular species as biomarkers for diagnosis of prostate cancer with a high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy

CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey: Structure and Kinematics of Dense Gas in Serpens Main

We present observations of N2H+(1-0), HCO+(1-0), and HCN(1-0) toward the Serpens Main molecular cloud from the CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey (CLASSy). We mapped 150 square arcminutes of Serpens Main with an angular resolution of 7 arcsecs. The gas emission is concentrated in two subclusters (the NW and SE subclusters). The SE subcluster has more prominent filamentary structures and more complicated kinematics compared to the NW subcluster. The majority of gas in the two subclusters has subsonic to sonic velocity dispersions. We applied a dendrogram technique with N2H+(1-0) to study the gas structures; the SE subcluster has a higher degree of hierarchy than the NW subcluster. Combining the dendrogram and line fitting analyses reveals two distinct relations: a flat relation between nonthermal velocity dispersion and size, and a positive correlation between variation in velocity centroids and size. The two relations imply a characteristic depth of 0.15 pc for the cloud. Furthermore, we have identified six filaments in the SE subcluster. These filaments have lengths of 0.2 pc and widths of 0.03 pc, which is smaller than a characteristic width of 0.1 pc suggested by Herschel observations. The filaments can be classified into two types based on their properties. The first type, located in the northeast of the SE subcluster, has larger velocity gradients, smaller masses, and nearly critical mass-per-unit-length ratios. The other type, located in the southwest of the SE subcluster, has the opposite properties. Several YSOs are formed along two filaments which have supercritical mass per unit length ratios, while filaments with nearly critical mass-per-unit-length ratios are not associated with YSOs, suggesting that stars are formed on gravitationally unstable filaments.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 38 pages, 16 figures, 5 table

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Patient and general practitioner attitudes to taking medication to prevent cardiovascular disease after receiving detailed information on risks and benefits of treatment: a qualitative study

Abstract Background There are now effective drugs to prevent cardiovascular disease and guidelines recommend their use. Patients do not always choose to accept preventive medication at levels of risk reduction recommended in guidelines. The purpose of the study was to identify and explore the attitudes of patients and general practitioners towards preventative medication for cardiovascular disease (CVD) after they have received information about it; to identify implications for practice and prescribing. Methods Qualitative interviews with GPs and patients following presentation of in depth information about CVD risks and the absolute effects of medication. Setting: GP practices in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Results In both populations: wide variation on attitudes to preventative medication; concerns about unnecessary drug taking & side effects; preferring to consider lifestyle changes first. In patient population: whatever their attitudes to medication were, the vast majority explained that they would ultimately do what their GP recommended; there was some misunderstanding of the distinction between curative and preventative medication. A common theme was the degree of trust in their doctors' judgement and recommendations, which contrasted with scepticism of the role of pharmaceutical companies and academics. Scepticism in guidelines was also common among doctors although many nevertheless recommended treatment for their patients Conclusions A guideline approach to prescribing preventative medication could be against the interests and preferences of the patient. GPs must take extra care to explain what preventative medication is and why it is recommended, attempt to discern preferences and make recommendations balancing these potentially conflicting concerns.</p