Barriers to healthcare seeking, beliefs about cancer and the role of socio-economic position. A Danish population-based study

AbstractBackgroundCancer-related health behaviours may be affected by barriers to healthcare seeking and beliefs about cancer. The aim was to assess anticipated barriers to healthcare seeking and beliefs about cancer in a sample of the Danish population and to assess the association with socio-economic position.MethodsA population-based telephone interview with 3000 randomly sampled persons aged 30years or older was performed using the Awareness and Beliefs about Cancer measure from 31 May to 4 July 2011. The Awareness and Beliefs about Cancer measure includes statements about four anticipated barriers to healthcare seeking and three positively and three negatively framed beliefs about cancer. For all persons, register-based information on socio-economic position was obtained through Statistics Denmark.ResultsTwo anticipated barriers, worry about what the doctor might find and worry about wasting the doctor's time, were present among 27% and 15% of the respondents, respectively. Overall, a high proportion of respondents concurred with positive beliefs about cancer; fewer concurred with negative beliefs. Having a low educational level and a low household income were strongly associated with having negative beliefs about cancer.ConclusionThe fact that worry about what the doctor might find and worry about wasting the doctor's time were commonly reported barriers call for initiatives in general practice. The association between low educational level and low household income and negative beliefs about cancer might to some degree explain the negative socio-economic gradient in cancer outcome

Comparing superconducting and permanent magnets for magnetic refrigeration

We compare the cost of a high temperature superconducting (SC) tape-based solenoid with a permanent magnet (PM) Halbach cylinder for magnetic refrigeration. Assuming a five liter active magnetic regenerator volume, the price of each type of magnet is determined as a function of aspect ratio of the regenerator and desired internal magnetic field. It is shown that to produce a 1 T internal field in the regenerator a permanent magnet of hundreds of kilograms is needed or an area of superconducting tape of tens of square meters. The cost of cooling the SC solenoid is shown to be a small fraction of the cost of the SC tape. Assuming a cost of the SC tape of 6000 $/m2 and a price of the permanent magnet of 100$/kg, the superconducting solenoid is shown to be a factor of 0.3-3 times more expensive than the permanent magnet, for a desired field from 0.5-1.75 T and the geometrical aspect ratio of the regenerator. This factor decreases for increasing field strength, indicating that the superconducting solenoid could be suitable for high field, large cooling power applications

Comparing superconducting and permanent magnets for magnetic refrigeration

We compare the cost of a high temperature superconducting (SC) tape-based solenoid with a permanent magnet (PM) Halbach cylinder for magnetic refrigeration. Assuming a five liter active magnetic regenerator volume, the price of each type of magnet is determined as a function of aspect ratio of the regenerator and desired internal magnetic field. It is shown that to produce a 1 T internal field in the regenerator a permanent magnet of hundreds of kilograms is needed or an area of superconducting tape of tens of square meters. The cost of cooling the SC solenoid is shown to be a small fraction of the cost of the SC tape. Assuming a cost of the SC tape of 6000 $/m2 and a price of the permanent magnet of 100$/kg, the superconducting solenoid is shown to be a factor of 0.3-3 times more expensive than the permanent magnet, for a desired field from 0.5-1.75 T and the geometrical aspect ratio of the regenerator. This factor decreases for increasing field strength, indicating that the superconducting solenoid could be suitable for high field, large cooling power applications

Negative cancer beliefs, recognition of cancer symptoms and anticipated times to help-seeking: an international cancer benchmarking partnership (ICBP) study

Background: Understanding what influences people to seek help can inform interventions to promote earlier diagnosis of cancer, and ultimately better cancer survival. We aimed to examine relationships between negative cancer beliefs, recognition of cancer symptoms and how long people think they would take to go to the doctor with possible cancer symptoms (anticipated patient intervals). Methods: Telephone interviews of 20,814 individuals (50+) in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were carried out using the Awareness and Beliefs about Cancer Measure (ABC). ABC included items on cancer beliefs, recognition of cancer symptoms and anticipated time to help-seeking for cough and rectal bleeding. The anticipated time to help-seeking was dichotomised as over one month for persistent cough and over one week for rectal bleeding. Results: Not recognising persistent cough/hoarseness and unexplained bleeding as cancer symptoms increased the likelihood of a longer anticipated patient interval for persistent cough (OR=1.66; 95%CI=1.47-1.87) and rectal bleeding (OR=1.90; 95%CI=1.58-2.30), respectively. Endorsing four or more out of six negative beliefs about cancer increased the likelihood of longer anticipated patient intervals for persistent cough and rectal bleeding (OR=2.18; 95%CI=1.71-2.78 and OR=1.97; 95%CI=1.51-2.57). Many negative beliefs about cancer moderated the relationship between not recognising unexplained bleeding as a cancer symptom and longer anticipated patient interval for rectal bleeding (p=0.005). CONCLUSIONS: Intervention studies should address both negative beliefs about cancer and knowledge of symptoms to optimise the effect

Levels of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among fully vaccinated individuals with Delta or Omicron variant breakthrough infections

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern have continuously evolved and may erode vaccine induced immunity. In this observational cohort study, we determine the risk of breakthrough infection in a fully vaccinated cohort. SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike IgG levels were measured before first SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and at day 21–28, 90 and 180, as well as after booster vaccination. Breakthrough infections were captured through the Danish National Microbiology database. incidence rate ratio (IRR) for breakthrough infection at time-updated anti-spike IgG levels was determined using Poisson regression. Among 6076 participants, 127 and 364 breakthrough infections due to Delta and Omicron variants were observed. IRR was 0.29 (95% CI 0.15–0.56) for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant, comparing the highest and lowest quintiles of anti-spike IgG. For Omicron, no significant differences in IRR were observed. These results suggest that quantitative level of anti-spike IgG have limited impact on the risk of breakthrough infection with Omicron

Characteristics Associated with Serological Covid-19 Vaccine Response and Durability in an Older Population with Significant Comorbidity:The Danish Nationwide ENFORCE Study

OBJECTIVES: To identify individual characteristics associated with serological COVID-19 vaccine responsiveness and durability of vaccine-induced antibodies. METHODS: Adults without history of SARS-CoV-2 infection from the Danish population scheduled for SARS-CoV-2 vaccination were enrolled in this parallel group, phase IV study. SARS-CoV-2 Spike IgG and Spike-ACE2-receptor-blocking antibodies were measured at days 0, 21, 90 and 180. Vaccine responsiveness was categorized according to Spike IgG and Spike-ACE2-receptor-blocking levels at day 90 post-1(st) vaccination. Non-durable vaccine-response was defined as day 90 responders that no longer had significant responses by day 180. RESULTS: Of 6544 participants completing two vaccine doses (median age 64, interquartile range:54–75), 3654 (55.8%) received BTN162b2, 2472 (37.8%) mRNA-1273, and 418 (6.4%) ChAdOx1 followed by a mRNA vaccine. Levels of both types of antibodies increased from baseline to day 90 and then decreased to day 180. The decrease was more pronounced for levels of Spike-ACE2-receptor-blocking antibodies than for Spike IgG. Proportions with vaccine hypo-responsiveness and lack of durable response were 5.0% and 12.1% for Spike IgG; 12.7% and 39.6% for Spike-ACE2-receptor-blocking antibody levels, respectively. Male sex, vaccine type and number of co-morbidities were associated with all four outcomes. Additionally, age >=75y was associated with hypo-responsiveness for Spike-ACE2-receptor-blocking antibodies (adjusted odds-ratio:1.59, 95% confidence interval:1.25–2.01) but not for Spike IgG. CONCLUSIONS: Comorbidity, male sex and vaccine type were risk factors for hypo-responsiveness and non-durable response to COVID-19 vaccination. The functional activity of vaccine-induced antibodies declined with increasing age and had waned to pre-2(nd) vaccination levels for most individuals after 6 months

Approximating Steiner trees

We give a presentation of Robins and Zelikovsky’s 1.55 approximation algorithm to the Steiner Tree Problem and a thorough proof of its approximation ratio. Furthermore we sketch a proof by Thimm bounding the approximability of the Steiner Tree Problem.

Decremental APSP in unweighted digraphs versus an adaptive adversary

Given an unweighted digraph G = (V,E), undergoing a sequence of edge deletions, with m = |E|, n = |V |, we consider the problem of maintaining all-pairs shortest paths (APSP). Whilst this problem has been studied in a long line of research [ACM'81, FOCS'99, FOCS'01, STOC'02, STOC'03, SWAT'04, STOC'13] and the problem of (1 + ∈)-approximate, weighted APSP was solved to near-optimal update time Õ(mn) by Bernstein [STOC'13], the problem has mainly been studied in the context of an oblivious adversary which fixes the update sequence before the algorithm is started. In this paper, we make significant progress on the problem for an adaptive adversary which can perform updates based on answers to previous queries: ▪ We first present a deterministic data structure that maintains the exact distances with total update time Õ(n3)1. ▪ We also present a deterministic data structure that maintains (1 + ∈)-approximate distance estimates with total update time Õ(√mn2/∈) which for sparse graphs is Õ(n2+1/2/∈). ▪ Finally, we present a randomized (1 + ∈)-approximate data structure which works against an adaptive adversary; its total update time is Õ(m2/3n5/3+n8/3/(m1/3∈2)) which for sparse graphs is Õ(n2+1/3/∈2). Our exact data structure matches the total update time of the best randomized data structure by Baswana et al. [STOC'02] and maintains the distance matrix in near-optimal time. Our approximate data structures improve upon the best data structures against an adaptive adversary which have Õ(mn2) total update time [JACM'81, STOC'03].ISSN:1868-896