Interpretation, translation and intercultural communication in refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France

This article explores the interplay between language and intercultural communication within refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France, using material taken from ethnographic research that involved a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis in both countries over a two-year period (2007–2009). It is concerned, in particular, to examine the role played by interpreters in facilitating intercultural communication between asylum applicants and the different administrative and legal actors responsible for assessing or defending their claims. The first section provides an overview of refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France, introducing the main administrative and legal contexts of the asylum process within which interpreters operate in the two countries. The second section compares the organisation of interpreting services, codes of conduct for interpreters and institutional expectations about the nature of interpreters’ activity on the part of the relevant UK and French authorities. The third section then explores some of the practical dilemmas for interpreters and barriers to communication that exist in refugee status determination procedures in the two countries. The article concludes by emphasising the complex and active nature of the interpreter's role in UK and French refugee status determination procedures

What lies beneath? Interdisciplinary outcomes of the ANDRILL Coulman High Project site surveys on the Ross Ice Shelf

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 25, no. 3 (2012): 84-89, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2012.79.Extensive field operations were conducted on the northwestern Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica from November 2010 through January 2011. A significant amount of equipment, supplies, and people safely traversed from McMurdo Station to establish a series of combined United States–New Zealand field camps at locations northeast of Ross Island. The ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) hot water drill system was used to melt multiple access holes through the ice shelf at each site to deploy a variety of sediment coring tools, cameras, and oceanographic instruments, as well as a remotely operated vehicle to characterize the ice shelf and sub-ice environment. These studies will contribute to future proposed geological drilling as part of the ANDRILL Coulman High Project.This work is funded by US NSF-OPP Grant ANT-0838914 and by the NZ Foundation for Research, Science and Technology

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 12

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University’s main alumni publication

Lower diagnostic accuracy of hs-cTnI in patients with prior coronary artery bypass grafting

High-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) and the ESC 0/1h-hs-cTnT-algorithm have worse performance in the early diagnosis of myocardial infarction (MI) in patients with prior coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). It is unknown, whether this concern applies also to hs-cTnI, the most widely used analyte worldwide.; In an international multicenter diagnostic study, two cardiologists centrally adjudicated the final diagnosis in patients presenting to the emergency department with symptoms suggestive of MI according to the Third Universal Definition of MI. The objective was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of hs-cTnI assays and their performance within the ESC hs-cTnI 0/1h-algorithms in patients with versus without prior CABG. Findings were externally validated in an U.S. multicenter diagnostic study.; A total of 392/5'200 patients (8%) had prior coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Diagnostic accuracy of hs-cTnI as quantified by the area under the receiver-operating characteristics-curve (AUC) in these patients was high, but lower versus patients without prior CABG (e.g. hs-cTnI-Architect 0.91 versus 0.95; p = 0.016). Sensitivity/specificity of rule-out/in by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 0/1h-hs-cTnI-algorithms remained very high [e.g. hs-cTnI-Architect 100% and 93.5%], but efficacy was lower (52% versus 74%, p < 0.01). External validation (n = 2113) confirmed these findings in 192 patients with prior CABG using hs-cTnI-Atellica, with 52% versus 36% (p < 0.001) remaining in the observe zone.; Diagnostic accuracy of hs-cTnI and efficacy of the ESC 0/1h-hs-cTnI-algorithms are lower in patients with prior CABG, but sensitivity/specificity remain very high.; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00470587, number NCT00470587

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters at 148 GHz in the 2008 Survey

We report on twenty-three clusters detected blindly as Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) decrements in a 148 GHz, 455 square-degree map of the southern sky made with data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope 2008 observing season. All SZ detections announced in this work have confirmed optical counterparts. Ten of the clusters are new discoveries. One newly discovered cluster, ACT-CL J0102-4915, with a redshift of 0.75 (photometric), has an SZ decrement comparable to the most massive systems at lower redshifts. Simulations of the cluster recovery method reproduce the sample purity measured by optical follow-up. In particular, for clusters detected with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than six, simulations are consistent with optical follow-up that demonstrated this subsample is 100% pure. The simulations further imply that the total sample is 80% complete for clusters with mass in excess of 6x10^14 solar masses referenced to the cluster volume characterized by five hundred times the critical density. The Compton y -- X-ray luminosity mass comparison for the eleven best detected clusters visually agrees with both self-similar and non-adiabatic, simulation-derived scaling laws.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Physical Properties and Purity of a Galaxy Cluster Sample Selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

We present optical and X-ray properties for the first confirmed galaxy cluster sample selected by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect from 148 GHz maps over 455 square degrees of sky made with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. These maps, coupled with multi-band imaging on 4-meter-class optical telescopes, have yielded a sample of 23 galaxy clusters with redshifts between 0.118 and 1.066. Of these 23 clusters, 10 are newly discovered. The selection of this sample is approximately mass limited and essentially independent of redshift. We provide optical positions, images, redshifts and X-ray fluxes and luminosities for the full sample, and X-ray temperatures of an important subset. The mass limit of the full sample is around 8e14 Msun, with a number distribution that peaks around a redshift of 0.4. For the 10 highest significance SZE-selected cluster candidates, all of which are optically confirmed, the mass threshold is 1e15 Msun and the redshift range is 0.167 to 1.066. Archival observations from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and ROSAT provide X-ray luminosities and temperatures that are broadly consistent with this mass threshold. Our optical follow-up procedure also allowed us to assess the purity of the ACT cluster sample. Eighty (one hundred) percent of the 148 GHz candidates with signal-to-noise ratios greater than 5.1 (5.7) are confirmed as massive clusters. The reported sample represents one of the largest SZE-selected sample of massive clusters over all redshifts within a cosmologically-significant survey volume, which will enable cosmological studies as well as future studies on the evolution, morphology, and stellar populations in the most massive clusters in the Universe.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Higher resolution figures available at: http://peumo.rutgers.edu/~felipe/e-prints

Stillbirths: recall to action in high-income countries.

Variation in stillbirth rates across high-income countries and large equity gaps within high-income countries persist. If all high-income countries achieved stillbirth rates equal to the best performing countries, 19,439 late gestation (28 weeks or more) stillbirths could have been avoided in 2015. The proportion of unexplained stillbirths is high and can be addressed through improvements in data collection, investigation, and classification, and with a better understanding of causal pathways. Substandard care contributes to 20-30% of all stillbirths and the contribution is even higher for late gestation intrapartum stillbirths. National perinatal mortality audit programmes need to be implemented in all high-income countries. The need to reduce stigma and fatalism related to stillbirth and to improve bereavement care are also clear, persisting priorities for action. In high-income countries, a woman living under adverse socioeconomic circumstances has twice the risk of having a stillborn child when compared to her more advantaged counterparts. Programmes at community and country level need to improve health in disadvantaged families to address these inequities.Mater Research Institute – The University of Queensland provided infrastructure and funding for the research team to enable this work to be undertaken. The Canadian Research Chair in Psychosocial Family Health provided funding for revision of the translation of the French web-based survey of care providers.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)01020-

Disassembly and reassembly of human papillomavirus virus-like particles produces more virion-like antibody reactivity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines based on major capsid protein L1 are licensed in over 100 countries to prevent HPV infections. The yeast-derived recombinant quadrivalent HPV L1 vaccine, GARDASIL(R), has played an important role in reducing cancer and genital warts since its introduction in 2006. The L1 proteins self-assemble into virus-like particles (VLPs).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>VLPs were subjected to post-purification disassembly and reassembly (D/R) treatment during bioprocessing to improve VLP immunoreactivity and stability. The post-D/R HPV16 VLPs and their complex with H16.V5 neutralizing antibody Fab fragments were visualized by cryo electron microscopy, showing VLPs densely decorated with antibody. Along with structural improvements, post-D/R VLPs showed markedly higher antigenicity to conformational and neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) H16.V5, H16.E70 and H263.A2, whereas binding to mAbs recognizing linear epitopes (H16.J4, H16.O7, and H16.H5) was greatly reduced.</p> <p>Strikingly, post-D/R VLPs showed no detectable binding to H16.H5, indicating that the H16.H5 epitope is not accessible in fully assembled VLPs. An atomic homology model of the entire</p> <p>HPV16 VLP was generated based on previously determined high-resolution structures of bovine papillomavirus and HPV16 L1 pentameric capsomeres.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>D/R treatment of HPV16 L1 VLPs produces more homogeneous VLPs with more virion-like antibody reactivity. These effects can be attributed to a combination of more complete and regular assembly of the VLPs, better folding of L1, reduced non-specific disulfide-mediated aggregation and increased stability of the VLPs. Markedly different antigenicity of HPV16 VLPs was observed upon D/R treatment with a panel of monoclonal antibodies targeting neutralization sensitive epitopes. Multiple epitope-specific assays with a panel of mAbs with different properties and epitopes are required to gain a better understanding of the immunochemical properties of VLPs and to correlate the observed changes at the molecular level. Mapping of known antibody epitopes to the homology model explains the changes in antibody reactivity upon D/R. In particular, the H16.H5 epitope is partially occluded by intercapsomeric interactions involving the L1 C-terminal arm. The homology model allows a more precise mapping of antibody epitopes. This work provides a better understanding of VLPs in current vaccines and could guide the design of improved vaccines or therapeutics.</p

Awareness, Accuracy, and Predictive Validity of Self-Reported Cholesterol in Women

BACKGROUND: Although current guidelines emphasize the importance of cholesterol knowledge, little is known about accuracy of this knowledge, factors affecting accuracy, and the relationship of self-reported cholesterol with cardiovascular disease (CVD). METHODS: The 39,876 female health professionals with no prior CVD in the Women’s Health Study were asked to provide self-reported and measured levels of total and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. Demographic and cardiovascular risk factors were considered as determinants of awareness and accuracy. Accuracy was evaluated by the difference between reported and measured cholesterol. In addition, we examined the relationship of self-reported cholesterol with incident CVD over 10 years. RESULTS: Compared with women who were unaware of their cholesterol levels, aware women (84%) had higher levels of income, education, and exercise and were more likely to be married, normal in weight, treated for hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, nonsmokers, moderate drinkers, and users of hormone therapy. Women underestimated their total cholesterol by 9.7 mg/dL (95% CI: 9.2–10.2); covariates explained little of this difference (R(2) < .01). Higher levels of self-reported cholesterol were strongly associated with increased risk of CVD, which occurred in 741 women (hazard ratio 1.23/40 mg/dL cholesterol, 95% CI: 1.15–1.33). Women with elevated cholesterol who were unaware of their level had particularly increased risk (HR=1.88, P <. 001) relative to aware women with normal measured cholesterol. CONCLUSION: Women with obesity, smoking, untreated hypertension, or sedentary lifestyle have decreased awareness of their cholesterol levels. Self-reported cholesterol underestimates measured values, but is strongly related to CVD. Lack of awareness of elevated cholesterol is associated with increased risk of CVD