Study protocol: addressing evidence and context to facilitate transfer and uptake of consultation recording use in oncology: a knowledge translation implementation study

Background: The time period from diagnosis to the end of treatment is challenging for newly diagnosed cancer patients. Patients have a substantial need for information, decision aids, and psychosocial support. Recordings of initial oncology consultations improve information recall, reduce anxiety, enhance patient satisfaction with communication, and increase patients' perceptions that the essential aspects of their disease and treatment have been addressed during the consultation. Despite the research evidence supporting the provision of consultation recordings, uptake of this intervention into oncology practice has been slow. The primary aim of this project is to conduct an implementation study to explicate the contextual factors, including use of evidence, that facilitate and impede the transfer and uptake of consultation-recording use in a sample of patients newly diagnosed with breast or prostate cancer. Methods: Sixteen oncologists from cancer centres in three Canadian cities will participate in this three-phase study. The preimplementation phase will be used to identify and address those factors that are fundamental to facilitating the smooth adoption and delivery of the intervention during the implementation phase. During the implementation phase, breast and prostate cancer patients will receive a recording of their initial oncology consultation to take home. Patient interviews will be conducted in the days following the consultation to gather feedback on the benefits of the intervention. Patients will complete the Digital Recording Use Semi-Structured Interview (DRUSSI) and be invited to participate in focus groups in which their experiences with the consultation recording will be explored. Oncologists will receive a summary letter detailing the benefits voiced by their patients. The postimplementation phase includes a conceptual framework development meeting and a seven-point dissemination strategy. Discussion: Consultation recording has been used in oncology, family medicine, and other medicine specialties, and despite affirming evidence and probable applications to a large number of diseases and a variety of clinical contexts, clinical adoption of this intervention has been slow. The proposed study findings will advance our conceptual knowledge of the ways to enhance uptake of consultation recordings in oncology

Rotational velocities of A-type stars II. Measurement of vsini in the northern hemisphere

This work is the second part of the set of measurements of vsini for A-type stars, begun by Royer et al. (2002). Spectra of 249 B8 to F2-type stars brighter than V=7 have been collected at Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP). Fourier transforms of several line profiles in the range 4200--4600 A are used to derive vsini from the frequency of the first zero. Statistical analysis of the sample indicates that measurement error mainly depends on vsini and this relative error of the rotational velocity is found to be about 5% on average. The systematic shift with respect to standard values from Slettebak et al. (1975), previously found in the first paper, is here confirmed. Comparisons with data from the literature agree with our findings: vsini values from Slettebak et al. are underestimated and the relation between both scales follows a linear law: vsini(new) = 1.03 vsini(old) + 7.7. Finally, these data are combined with those from the previous paper (Royer et al. 2002), together with the catalogue of Abt & Morrell (1995). The resulting sample includes some 2150 stars with homogenized rotational velocities.Comment: 16 pages, includes 13 figures, accepted in A&

The Next Geminga: Deep Multiwavelength Observations of a Neutron Star Identified with 3EG J1835+5918

We describe Chandra, HST, and radio observations that reveal a radio-quiet but magnetospherically active neutron star in the error circle of the high-energy gamma-ray source 3EG J1835+5918, the brightest of the unidentified EGRET sources at high Galactic latitude. A Chandra ACIS-S spectrum of the ultrasoft X-ray source RX J1836.2+5925, suggested by Mirabal & Halpern as the neutron star counterpart of 3EG J1835+5918, requires two components: a blackbody of T~3x10^5 K and a hard tail that can be parameterized as a power law of photon index Gamma~2. An upper limit of d < 800 pc can be derived from the blackbody fit under an assumption of R = 10 km. Deep optical imaging with the HST STIS CCD failed to detect this source to a limit of V > 28.5, thus f_X/f_V > 6000 and d > 250 pc assuming the X-ray fitted temperature for the full surface. Repeated observations with the 76 m Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank place an upper limit of < 0.1 mJy on the flux density at 1400 MHz for a pulsar with P > 0.1 s, and < 0.25 mJy for a ~10 ms pulsar at the location of RX J1836.2+5925. All of this evidence points to an older, possibly more distant version of the highly efficient gamma-ray pulsar Geminga, as the origin of the gamma-rays from 3EG J1835+5918.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Magnetic and thermodynamic properties of Sr_{2}LaFe_{3}O_{9}

Using a Dirac-Heisenberg Hamiltonian with biquadratic exchange interactions, we study the effect of iron disproportionation on the magnetic ordering, and describe the first-order magnetic transition occurring in the perovskite Sr_{2}LaFe_{3}O_{9}. Upon fitting the experimental data, we give an estimate of the exchange integrals for the antiferromagntic and ferromagnetic interactions, in agreement with previous works on kindered compounds. Spin-wave theory yields a magnon spectrum with a gapless antiferromagnetic mode together with two gapped ferromagnetic ones.Comment: 8 pages of RevTex, 5 figures (available upon request), submitted to J. Mag. Mag. Ma

Normal State Magnetic Properties of Ni and Zn Substituted in YBa_{2}Cu_{3} O_{6+x}: Hole-Doping Dependence

We present SQUID susceptibility data on Zn and Ni substituted YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{6+x}. Cross-checks with NMR yield an unprecedented accuracy in the estimate of the magnetic susceptibility associated with the substituants, from the underdoped to the lightly overdoped case. This allows us to determine the Weiss temperature \theta for YBCO: its value is very small for all hole dopings n_h. Since in conventional metals, the Kondo temperature, $T_{K}<\theta$, magnetic screening effects would not be expected for $T\gg \theta$; in contrast, increasing n_h produces a reduction of the small moment induced by Zn^{2+} and a nearly constant effective moment for Ni^{2+} corresponding to a spin 1/2 rather than to a spin 1.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Europhysics Letter

Absolute magnitudes and kinematics of CP stars from Hipparcos data

The position in the HR diagram and the kinematic characteristics of different kinds of CP stars of the upper main sequence are obtained using the LM method (Luri et al., 1996). Most of the CP stars are main sequence stars occupying the whole width of the sequence. From a kinematic point of view, they belong to the young disk population (ages < 1.5 Gyr). It has also been found that, on kinematic grounds, the behaviour of lambda Bootis stars is similar to the one observed for normal stars of the same spectral range. On the other hand, roAp and noAp stars show the same kinematic characteristics. The peculiar velocity distribution function has been decomposed into a sum of three dimensional gaussians and the presence of Pleiades, Sirius and Hyades moving groups has been clearly established. Finally, a small number of CP stars are found to be high-velocity objects.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to appear in: Proc. of the 26th workshop of the European Working Group on CP stars, eds. P. North, A. Schnell and J. Ziznovsky, Contrib. Astr. Obs. Skalnate Pleso Vol. 27, No

Surface effects on the orbital order in the single layered manganite La0.5Sr1.5MnO4

We report the first observation of `orbital truncation rods' -- the scattering arising from the termination of bulk orbital order at the surface of a crystal. The x-ray measurements, performed on a cleaved, single-layered perovskite, La0.5Sr1.5MnO4, reveal that while the crystallographic surface is atomically smooth, the orbital `surface' is much rougher, with an r.m.s. deviation from the average `surface' of ~0.7nm. The temperature dependence of this scattering shows evidence of a surface-induced second order transition.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

A luminosity constraint on the origin of unidentified high energy sources

The identification of point sources poses a great challenge for the high energy community. We present a new approach to evaluate the likelihood of a set of sources being a Galactic population based on the simple assumption that galaxies similar to the Milky Way host comparable populations of gamma-ray emitters. We propose a luminosity constraint on Galactic source populations which complements existing approaches by constraining the abundance and spatial distribution of any objects of Galactic origin, rather than focusing on the properties of a specific candidate emitter. We use M31 as a proxy for the Milky Way, and demonstrate this technique by applying it to the unidentified EGRET sources. We find that it is highly improbable that the majority of the unidentified EGRET sources are members of a Galactic halo population (e.g., dark matter subhalos), but that current observations do not provide any constraints on all of these sources being Galactic objects if they reside entirely in the disk and bulge. Applying this method to upcoming observations by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has the potential to exclude association of an even larger number of unidentified sources with any Galactic source class.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, to appear in JPhys