Enhancing health literacy through co-design: development of culturally appropriate materials on genetic risk and customary consanguineous marriage

Aim: To develop a simple health literacy intervention aimed at supporting informed reproductive choice among members of UK communities practising customary consanguineous marriage. Background: The contribution of ‘health literacy’ to reducing health inequalities and improving primary healthcare efficiency is increasingly recognised. Enhancing genetic literacy has received particular attention recently. Consanguineous marriage is customarily practised among some UK minority ethnic communities and carries some increased risk of recessive genetic disorders among offspring compared to unions among unrelated partners. The need to enhance genetic literacy on this issue has been highlighted, but no national response has ensued. Instead, a range of undocumented local responses are emerging. Important knowledge gaps remain regarding how the development and implementation of culturally appropriate, effective and sustainable responses can be achieved. Methods: Our co-design approach involved active participation by local people. Initial insight generation employed six focus group discussions and 14 individual interviews to describe current understandings and information needs. Eleven personas (heuristic narrative portraits of community ‘segments’) resulted. Four participatory workshops provided further understanding of: preferred information channels; feasible information conveyance; and responses to existing materials. Prototype information resources were then developed and feedback gathered via two workshops. Following further refinement, final feedback from healthcare professionals and community members ensured accuracy and appropriateness. Findings: The project demonstrated the utility of co-design for addressing an issue often considered complex and sensitive. With careful planning and orchestration, active participation by diverse community members was achieved. Key learning included: the importance of establishing trusting and respectful relationships; responding to diversity within the community; and engendering a creative and enjoyable experience. The resultant materials were heavily shaped by local involvement. Evaluative work is now needed to assess impacts on knowledge and service uptake. Longer term sustainability will depend on whether innovative community-level work is accompanied by broader strategy including investment in services and professional development

A protocol for a systematic literature review: comparing the impact of seasonal and meteorological parameters on acute respiratory infections in Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples

Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally, and are often linked to seasonal and/or meteorological conditions. Globally, Indigenous peoples may experience a different burden of ARI compared to non-Indigenous peoples. This protocol outlines our process for conducting a systematic review to investigate whether associations between ARI and seasonal or meteorological parameters differ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups residing in the same geographical region. Methodology: A search string will be used to search PubMed®, CAB Abstracts/CAB Direct©, and Science Citation Index® aggregator databases. Articles will be screened using inclusion/exclusion criteria applied first at the title and abstract level, and then at the full article level by two independent reviewers. Articles maintained after full article screening will undergo risk of bias assessment and data will be extracted. Heterogeneity tests, meta-analysis, and forest and funnel plots will be used to synthesize the results of eligible studies. Discussion and registration: This protocol paper describes our systematic review methods to identify and analyze relevant ARI, season, and meteorological literature with robust reporting. The results are intended to improve our understanding of potential associations between seasonal and meteorological parameters and ARI and, if identified, whether this association varies by place, population, or other characteristics. The protocol is registered in the PROSPERO database (#38051)

An infinite family of superintegrable systems from higher order ladder operators and supersymmetry

We will discuss how we can obtain new quantum superintegrable Hamiltonians allowing the separation of variables in Cartesian coordinates with higher order integrals of motion from ladder operators. We will discuss also how higher order supersymmetric quantum mechanics can be used to obtain systems with higher order ladder operators and their polynomial Heisenberg algebra. We will present a new family of superintegrable systems involving the fifth Painleve transcendent which possess fourth order ladder operators constructed from second order supersymmetric quantum mechanics. We present the polynomial algebra of this family of superintegrable systems.Comment: 8 pages, presented at ICGTMP 28, accepted for j.conf.serie

Climate-sensitive health priorities in Nunatsiavut, Canada

Background: This exploratory study used participatory methods to identify, characterize, and rank climate-sensitive health priorities in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada. Methods: A mixed method study design was used and involved collecting both qualitative and quantitative data at regional, community, and individual levels. In-depth interviews with regional health representatives were conducted throughout Nunatsiavut (n = 11). In addition, three PhotoVoice workshops were held with Rigolet community members (n = 11), where participants took photos of areas, items, or concepts that expressed how climate change is impacting their health. The workshop groups shared their photographs, discussed the stories and messages behind them, and then grouped photos into re-occurring themes. Two community surveys were administered in Rigolet to capture data on observed climatic and environmental changes in the area, and perceived impacts on health, wellbeing, and lifestyles (n = 187). Results: Climate-sensitive health pathways were described in terms of inter-relationships between environmental and social determinants of Inuit health. The climate-sensitive health priorities for the region included food security, water security, mental health and wellbeing, new hazards and safety concerns, and health services and delivery. Conclusions: The results highlight several climate-sensitive health priorities that are specific to the Nunatsiavut region, and suggest approaching health research and adaptation planning from an EcoHealth perspective

Study of the Very High Energy emission of M87 through its broadband spectral energy distribution

The radio galaxy M87 is the central dominant galaxy of the Virgo Cluster.Very High Energy (VHE,$\gtrsim 0.1$ TeV) emission, from M87 has been detectedby Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs ). Recently, marginal evidence forVHE long-term emission has also been observed by the High Altitude WaterCherenkov (HAWC) Observatory, a gamma ray and cosmic-ray detector array locatedin Puebla, Mexico. The mechanism that produces VHE emission in M87 remainsunclear. This emission is originated in its prominent jet, which has beenspatially resolved from radio to X-rays. In this paper, we constructed aspectral energy distribution from radio to gamma rays that is representative ofthe non-flaring activity of the source, and in order to explain the observedemission, we fit it with a lepto-hadronic emission model. We found that thismodel is able to explain non-flaring VHE emission of M87 as well as an orphanflare reported in 2005.<br

Darboux transformations for linear operators on two dimensional regular lattices

Darboux transformations for linear operators on regular two dimensional lattices are reviewed. The six point scheme is considered as the master linear problem, whose various specifications, reductions, and their sublattice combinations lead to other linear operators together with the corresponding Darboux transformations. The second part of the review deals with multidimensional aspects of (basic reductions of) the four point scheme, as well as the three point scheme.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, presentation improve

High Altitude characterization of the Hunga Pressure Wave with Cosmic Rays by the HAWC Observatory

High-energy cosmic rays that hit the Earth can be used to study large-scale atmospheric perturbations. After a first interaction in the upper parts of the atmosphere, cosmic rays produce a shower of particles that sample the atmosphere down to the detector level. The HAWC (High-Altitude Water Cherenkov) cosmic-ray observatory in Central Mexico at 4,100 m elevation detects air shower particles continuously with 300 water Cherenkov detectors with an active area of 12,500 m$^{2}$. On January 15th, 2022, HAWC detected the passage of the pressure wave created by the explosion of the Hunga volcano in the Tonga islands, 9,000 km away, as an anomaly in the measured rate of shower particles. The HAWC measurements are used to characterize the shape of four pressure wave passages, determine the propagation speed of each one, and correlate the variations of the shower particle rates with the barometric pressure changes, extracting a barometric parameter. The profile of the shower particle rate and atmospheric pressure variations for the first transit of the pressure wave at HAWC is compared to the pressure measurements at Tonga island, near the volcanic explosion. This work opens the possibility of using large particle cosmic-ray air shower detectors to trace large atmospheric transient waves.Comment: Contact about this analysis: A. Sandoval ([email protected]), A. Lara ([email protected]) & H. Le\'on Vargas ([email protected]

Validation of standardized data formats and tools for ground-level particle-based gamma-ray observatories

Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy is still a rather young field of research,with strong historical connections to particle physics. This is why mostobservations are conducted by experiments with proprietary data and analysissoftware, as it is usual in the particle physics field. However in recentyears, this paradigm has been slowly shifting towards the development and useof open-source data formats and tools, driven by upcoming observatories such asthe Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this context, a community-driven,shared data format (the gamma-astro-data-format or GADF) and analysis toolssuch as Gammapy and ctools have been developed. So far these efforts have beenled by the IACT community, leaving out other types of ground-based gamma-rayinstruments.We aim to show that the data from ground particle arrays, such asthe High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, is also compatible withthe GADF and can thus be fully analysed using the related tools, in this caseGammapy. We reproduce several published HAWC results using Gammapy and dataproducts compliant with GADF standard. We also illustrate the capabilities ofthe shared format and tools by producing a joint fit of the Crab spectrumincluding data from six different gamma-ray experiments. We find excellentagreement with the reference results, a powerful check of both the publishedresults and the tools involved. The data from particle detector arrays such asthe HAWC observatory can be adapted to the GADF and thus analysed with Gammapy.A common data format and shared analysis tools allow multi-instrument jointanalysis and effective data sharing. Given the complementary nature of pointingand wide-field instruments, this synergy will be distinctly beneficial for thejoint scientific exploitation of future observatories such as the SouthernWide-field Gamma-ray Observatory and CTA.<br

HAWC Study of Very-High-Energy γ\gamma-ray Spectrum of HAWC J1844-034

Recently, the region surrounding eHWC J1842-035 has been studied extensively by gamma-ray observatories due to its extended emission reaching up to a few hundred TeV and potential as a hadronic accelerator. In this work, we use 1,910 days of cumulative data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory to carry out a dedicated systematic source search of the eHWC J1842-035 region. During the search we have found three sources in the region, namely, HAWC J1844-034, HAWC J1843-032, and HAWC J1846-025. We have identified HAWC J1844-034 as the extended source that emits photons with energies up to 175 TeV. We compute the spectrum for HAWC J1844-034 and by comparing with the observational results from other experiments, we have identified HESS J1843-033, LHAASO J1843-0338, and TASG J1844-038 as very-high-energy gamma-ray sources with a matching origin. Also, we present and use the multi-wavelength data to fit the hadronic and leptonic particle spectra. We have identified four pulsar candidates in the nearby region from which PSR J1844-0346 is found to be the most likely candidate due to its proximity to HAWC J1844-034 and the computed energy budget. We have also found SNR G28.6-0.1 as a potential counterpart source of HAWC J1844-034 for which both leptonic and hadronic scenarios are feasible.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, published in Ap