Family Planning Decisions, Perceptions and Gender Dynamics among Couples in Mwanza, Tanzania: A Qualitative Study.

Contraceptive use is low in developing countries which are still largely driven by male dominated culture and patriarchal values. This study explored family planning (FP) decisions, perceptions and gender dynamics among couples in Mwanza region of Tanzania. Twelve focus group discussions and six in-depth interviews were used to collect information from married or cohabiting males and females aged 18-49. The participants were purposively selected. Qualitative methods were used to explore family planning decisions, perceptions and gender dynamics among couples. A guide with questions related to family planning perceptions, decisions and gender dynamics was used. The discussions and interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed manually and subjected to content analysis. Four themes emerged during the study. First, "risks and costs" which refer to the side effects of FP methods and the treatment of side -effects as well as the costs inherit in being labeled as an unfaithful spouse. Second, "male involvement" as men showed little interest in participating in family planning issues. However, the same men were mentioned as key decision-makers even on the number of children a couple should have and the child spacing of these children. Third, "gender relations and communication" as participants indicated that few women participated in decision-making on family planning and the number of children to have. Fourth, "urban-rural differences", life in rural favoring having more children than urban areas therefore, the value of children depended on the place of residence. Family Planning programs should adapt the promotion of communication as well as joint decision-making on FP among couples as a strategy aimed at enhancing FP use

Genetic Variation in VEGF Does Not Contribute Significantly to the Risk of Congenital Cardiovascular Malformation

Several previous studies have investigated the role of common promoter variants in the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene in causing congenital cardiovascular malformation (CVM). However, results have been discrepant between studies and no study to date has comprehensively characterised variation throughout the gene. We genotyped 771 CVM cases, of whom 595 had the outflow tract malformation Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), and carried out TDT and case-control analyses using haplotype-tagging SNPs in VEGF. We carried out a meta-analysis of previous case-control or family-based studies that had typed VEGF promoter SNPs, which included an additional 570 CVM cases. To identify rare variants potentially causative of CVM, we carried out mutation screening in all VEGF exons and splice sites in 93 TOF cases. There was no significant effect of any VEGF haplotype-tagging SNP on the risk of CVM in our analyses of 771 probands. When the results of this and all previous studies were combined, there was no significant effect of the VEGF promoter SNPs rs699947 (OR 1.05 [95% CI 0.95–1.17]); rs1570360 (OR 1.17 [95% CI 0.99–1.26]); and rs2010963 (OR 1.04 [95% CI 0.93–1.16]) on the risk of CVM in 1341 cases. Mutation screening of 93 TOF cases revealed no VEGF coding sequence variants and no changes at splice consensus sequences. Genetic variation in VEGF appears to play a small role, if any, in outflow tract CVM susceptibility

Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility

There are four main interconnecting themes around which the contributions in this book are based. This introductory chapter aims to establish the broad context for the chapters that follow by discussing each of the themes. It does so by setting these themes within the overarching demographic challenge of the twenty-first century – demographic ageing. Each chapter is introduced in the context of the specific theme to which it primarily relates and there is a summary of the data sets used by the contributors to illustrate the wide range of cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysed

Genotype at the P554L Variant of the Hexose-6 Phosphate Dehydrogenase Gene Is Associated with Carotid Intima-Medial Thickness

Objective: The combined thickness of the intima and media of the carotid artery (carotid intima-medial thickness, CIMT) is associated with cardiovascular disease and stroke. Previous studies indicate that carotid intima-medial thickness is a significantly heritable phenotype, but the responsible genes are largely unknown. Hexose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PDH) is a microsomal enzyme whose activity regulates corticosteroid metabolism in the liver and adipose tissue; variability in measures of corticosteroid metabolism within the normal range have been associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease. We performed a genetic association study in 854 members of 224 families to assess the relationship between polymorphisms in the gene coding for hexose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PD) and carotid intima-medial thickness. Methods: Families were ascertained via a hypertensive proband. CIMT was measured using B-mode ultrasound. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) tagging common variation in the H6PD gene were genotyped. Association was assessed following adjustment for significant covariates including "classical" cardiovascular risk factors. Functional studies to determine the effect of particular SNPs on H6PDH were performed. Results: There was evidence of association between the single nucleotide polymorphism rs17368528 in exon five of the H6PD gene, which encodes an amino-acid change from proline to leucine in the H6PDH protein, and mean carotid intima-medial thickness (p = 0.00065). Genotype was associated with a 5% (or 0.04 mm) higher mean carotid intima-medial thickness measurement per allele, and determined 2% of the population variability in the phenotype. Conclusions: Our results suggest a novel role for the H6PD gene in atherosclerosis susceptibility

Measurement of the Spectral Shape of the beta-decay of 137Xe to the Ground State of 137Cs in EXO-200 and Comparison with Theory

We report on a comparison between the theoretically predicted and experimentally measured spectra of the first-forbidden non-unique $\beta$-decay transition ^{137}\textrm{Xe}(7/2^-)\to\,^{137}\textrm{Cs}(7/2^+). The experimental data were acquired by the EXO-200 experiment during a deployment of an AmBe neutron source. The ultra-low background environment of EXO-200, together with dedicated source deployment and analysis procedures, allowed for collection of a pure sample of the decays, with an estimated signal-to-background ratio of more than 99-to-1 in the energy range from 1075 to 4175 keV. In addition to providing a rare and accurate measurement of the first-forbidden non-unique $\beta$-decay shape, this work constitutes a novel test of the calculated electron spectral shapes in the context of the reactor antineutrino anomaly and spectral bump.Comment: Version as accepted by PR

Genome-wide association study identifies loci on 12q24 and 13q32 associated with Tetralogy of Fallot

We conducted a genome-wide association study to search for risk alleles associated with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), using a northern European discovery set of 835 cases and 5159 controls. A region on chromosome 12q24 was associated (P = 1.4 × 10−7) and replicated convincingly (P = 3.9 × 10−5) in 798 cases and 2931 controls [per allele odds ratio (OR) = 1.27 in replication cohort, P = 7.7 × 10−11 in combined populations]. Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the glypican 5 gene on chromosome 13q32 were also associated (P = 1.7 × 10−7) and replicated convincingly (P = 1.2 × 10−5) in 789 cases and 2927 controls (per allele OR = 1.31 in replication cohort, P = 3.03 × 10−11 in combined populations). Four additional regions on chromosomes 10, 15 and 16 showed suggestive association accompanied by nominal replication. This study, the first genome-wide association study of a congenital heart malformation phenotype, provides evidence that common genetic variation influences the risk of TO

Generative Adversarial Networks for Scintillation Signal Simulation in EXO-200

Generative Adversarial Networks trained on samples of simulated or actual events have been proposed as a way of generating large simulated datasets at a reduced computational cost. In this work, a novel approach to perform the simulation of photodetector signals from the time projection chamber of the EXO-200 experiment is demonstrated. The method is based on a Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network - a deep learning technique allowing for implicit non-parametric estimation of the population distribution for a given set of objects. Our network is trained on real calibration data using raw scintillation waveforms as input. We find that it is able to produce high-quality simulated waveforms an order of magnitude faster than the traditional simulation approach and, importantly, generalize from the training sample and discern salient high-level features of the data. In particular, the network correctly deduces position dependency of scintillation light response in the detector and correctly recognizes dead photodetector channels. The network output is then integrated into the EXO-200 analysis framework to show that the standard EXO-200 reconstruction routine processes the simulated waveforms to produce energy distributions comparable to that of real waveforms. Finally, the remaining discrepancies and potential ways to improve the approach further are highlighted.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Measurement of the Spectral Shape of the β-Decay of ¹³⁷Xe to the Ground State of ¹³⁷Cs in EXO-200 and Comparison with Theory

We report on a comparison between the theoretically predicted and experimentally measured spectra of the first-forbidden nonunique β-decay transition ¹³⁷Xe(7/2⁻)→¹³⁷Cs(7/2⁺). The experimental data were acquired by the EXO-200 experiment during a deployment of an AmBe neutron source. The ultralow background environment of EXO-200, together with dedicated source deployment and analysis procedures, allowed for collection of a pure sample of the decays, with an estimated signal to background ratio of more than 99 to 1 in the energy range from 1075 to 4175 keV. In addition to providing a rare and accurate measurement of the first-forbidden nonunique β-decay shape, this work constitutes a novel test of the calculated electron spectral shapes in the context of the reactor antineutrino anomaly and spectral bump

Measurement of the Spectral Shape of the β-Decay of ¹³⁷Xe to the Ground State of ¹³⁷Cs in EXO-200 and Comparison with Theory

We report on a comparison between the theoretically predicted and experimentally measured spectra of the first-forbidden nonunique β-decay transition ¹³⁷Xe(7/2⁻)→¹³⁷Cs(7/2⁺). The experimental data were acquired by the EXO-200 experiment during a deployment of an AmBe neutron source. The ultralow background environment of EXO-200, together with dedicated source deployment and analysis procedures, allowed for collection of a pure sample of the decays, with an estimated signal to background ratio of more than 99 to 1 in the energy range from 1075 to 4175 keV. In addition to providing a rare and accurate measurement of the first-forbidden nonunique β-decay shape, this work constitutes a novel test of the calculated electron spectral shapes in the context of the reactor antineutrino anomaly and spectral bump

Search for Two-neutrino Double-Beta Decay of 136Xe^{136}\rm Xe to the 01+0^+_1 excited state of 136Ba^{136}\rm Ba with the Complete EXO-200 Dataset

A new search for two-neutrino double-beta ($2\nu\beta\beta$) decay of $^{136}\rm Xe$ to the $0^+_1$ excited state of $^{136}\rm Ba$ is performed with the full EXO-200 dataset. A deep learning-based convolutional neural network is used to discriminate signal from background events. Signal detection efficiency is increased relative to previous searches by EXO-200 by more than a factor of two. With the addition of the Phase II dataset taken with an upgraded detector, the median 90$\%$ confidence level half-life sensitivity of $2\nu\beta\beta$ decay to the $0^+_1$ state of $^{136}\rm Ba$ is $2.9 \times 10^{24}~\rm yr$ using a total $^{136}\rm Xe$ exposure of $234.1~\rm kg~yr$. No statistically significant evidence for $2\nu\beta\beta$ decay to the $0^+_1$ state is observed, leading to a lower limit of $T^{2\nu}_{1/2}(0^+ \rightarrow 0^+_1) > 1.4\times10^{24}~\rm yr$ at 90$\%$ confidence level, a factor of $1.7$ improvement over the current world's best constraint.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 2 table